Winners and Losers

After a weekend considering how to improve herself, Veronica woke Monday morning with some ideas about how to improve the rest of the world. The Three-Day Weekend was at the top of her list.

Ever since she got Cadbury, Mondays were awful. How could anyone expect her to leave a new dog at home and go to school? A dog who smelled like warm toast and corn chips. A dog who was so loving. Cadbury was just as excited to see Veronica when she returned from the bathroom as he was when she returned from a whole day at Randolf. Come to think of it, there should be some kind of Puppy Leave for children who got new dogs. Three-day weekends would be a good start.

She might as well also cancel gym. Veronica Louise Morgan stank at gym. Human beings preferred winning to losing and she was too slow, too clumsy, too timid, and ultimately too embarrassed to get in there and steal balls or score goals. She never helped her team win anything.

Plus her Randolf gym shorts came to her knees, and her gym shirt was big enough to fit two more girls inside. She dawdled in the locker room trying to be the last one out.

“How do you undo this thing?” Athena asked, trying to get out of her brand-new bra and into her sports bra. Everyone knew she and Sarah-Lisa had gone bra shopping that weekend.

“God. Haven’t you ever seen a bra before?” Sarah-Lisa said to Veronica.

“God. I wasn’t even looking,” Veronica said, and left the locker room way before she wanted to. Sometimes she hated Sarah-Lisa.

*   *   *

In the gymnasium, her rubber soles squeaked against the shiny floor. Liv O’Malley stood in the center of the room impatiently holding a volleyball. She was always the first one out of the locker room—she’d probably been standing there for fifteen minutes already. Liv O’Malley was the kind of girl Veronica’s mother would describe as awkward when what she really meant was unattractive. She was at least six inches taller than every other girl in their grade, she bit her nails down to the quick, and she had really bushy eyebrows. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Liv O’Malley didn’t exist. But Mondays and Thursdays, during gym, she was a star. Liv O’Malley was really good at sports.

What was the point of knowing how to play volleyball unless you lived on a beach? But no one in the phys-ed department had bothered to consult her about the curriculum, so Veronica gloomily took her place against the wall. Sarah-Lisa and Athena came in from the locker room holding their shoulder bags and each other’s hands. When the coach made the teams, he split them up. Sarah-Lisa and Athena tried to negotiate—all the other teachers let them stay together, it wasn’t fair, and on and on—but the coach wasn’t biting. He blew his whistle until they gave up. It practically punctured Veronica’s eardrum, but she adored him for it.

Sylvie was across the net from Veronica. Their eyes met. Sylvie rolled hers. She was the only girl who wouldn’t be afraid to do that. Everyone else was so desperate to be in Sarah-Lisa’s good graces. Even Veronica. She had no idea why, but she was.

Liv O’Malley balanced the volleyball in her left hand. Her right foot tapped maniacally against the floorboards. She looked at the coach, eager for his signal to serve the ball. In another life, they would probably be married with lots of athletic and bushy-eyebrowed children.

He gave her the nod and Liv’s wrist thwacked leather. Game on. Twenty-four eyes followed the ball as it sailed high over the net. It took two girls to volley it into position before Becky Shickler could pop it back over. Veronica’s main objective in gym was to do as little damage as possible to her own team. She watched the ball, praying for it to stay far away from her. It flew toward Athena, who was adjusting her shorts. She didn’t notice it until it bounced off her foot.

“Ow!” Athena said. “My bad.”

“Rotate!” the coach yelled. His voice echoed through the air.

He tossed the ball right to Veronica, who wasn’t prepared, of course, and fumbled it in front of everyone. It was her turn to serve. She tried to ignore the pressure of all those eyes and after lofting the ball in the air, thwacked it with all her might. Please go over please go over please go over.

It did! There was a first time for everything. Her teammates cheered and Veronica felt great, like a regular girl, like a popular girl, like a girl who was good at volleyball.

She was still celebrating her newfound athleticism when her beautiful serve came right back at full speed. Veronica knew what she wanted her body to do. She knew what her body was supposed to do. But it wouldn’t. She was frozen and about to get pummeled when out of nowhere, Liv O’Malley dove in, like a volleyball superhero, and saved the day.

Athena laughed, grabbed Veronica, and said, “We’re such losers!” Athena Mindendorfer could call herself a loser because she wasn’t one. She was popular. And nice. Everyone liked her. She even wore a bra.

Veronica wished she knew how to laugh at herself. Maybe not taking herself so seriously would fill up her half-empty glass.