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The sophomore class was huge. Twelve students took up every desk she had in the room. She wheeled her own chair over and perched slightly outside the circle.
This bunch was talkative, and she didn’t even get through the introductions before the bell rang.
“That’s OK,” she said as they all got up and noisily gathered their things, completely ignoring her, “we’ll finish this tomorrow.” Some of them were out the door before she finished her sentence. Feeling a smidge scorned, she pushed her chair back to her desk. When she turned around to sit, she saw a pretty young woman standing meekly in front of her desk.
“Hi, I’m Chloe,” the girl said and held out her hand.
Emily shook it. “Nice to meet you, Chloe. Thanks for introducing yourself.”
“You’re welcome. And welcome to the island.”
As Chloe turned to go, Emily noticed her T-shirt. “TobyMac?”
Chloe turned back toward her, wearing a huge smile. “Yeah! You a fan?”
“Indeed I am. Chloe, can I ask you an odd question?”
Chloe nodded and took a step toward her desk.
Emily leaned across it and softly asked, “Is there really only one church on the island?”
Chloe giggled and rolled her eyes. “Yes. But we meet for house church on Baker Street, if you want to come to that.”
Emily was skeptical. “Is it at your house?”
“No, it’s at Noah’s house actually— ”
“Noah?”
“Yeah, he’s a junior. Wicked nice. He’s in your next class, I think. Anyway, we meet in the basement of his house. But I know you’d be welcome to come. We invite everyone. I could draw you a map?”
“That would be great, but right now, you’d better get to your next class.”
Chloe gave her another huge smile. “This is my next class. I’m in your creative writing class too! I’ll go get started on your map.” And with much resolve, she whirled away from Emily and returned to her desk.
Emily, knowing that teachers are never supposed to have favorites, thought maybe she’d just found hers.
There were only five students in creative writing, all upperclassmen except for Chloe, who did get to introduce herself this time, when she shared that she too was a basketball player.
“Wow!” Emily said. “It seems every female student I’ve had today has been a basketball player. How many girls are on the team?”
“All of them,” Thomas said, and everyone laughed.
“There were twelve of us last year,” Chloe explained. “There will probably be thirteen this year, as we only lost one senior and we’ve got two seventh graders moving up.”
“I can’t believe that seventh graders play against seniors,” Emily said. “Don’t they get trampled?”
“Well, they’re on the team,” Duke said. “That doesn’t mean they actually play.” Duke was the closest thing to a hippie that Emily had seen on the island. His long, unkempt, thick, black hair was parted so that one of his eyes was completely covered.
“At least they’re on a team, dipwad,” Thomas said, and everyone laughed again.
“Oh yeah, what team are you on?” Duke sneered.
“The stud-muffin team,” Thomas said, which, much to Emily’s surprise, everyone found funny.
In an attempt to redirect, Emily asked, “Is that why we don’t have soccer teams? Because we don’t have enough kids?”
Duke made a hissing sound. “We don’t have soccer teams because everybody’s too busy playing basketball.”
An alarm sounded so deafeningly it took Emily’s breath away. The kids acted as though such a thing was commonplace and stood up.
“It’s just a fire drill,” Chloe yelled over the noise. “Happens every first day!” She hooked her arm through Emily’s and led her to the door.
Once outside in the brilliant sunshine, Emily was able to see just how tiny the school was. The entire student body took up one small corner of the parking lot. She tried to do a quick headcount, but the young ones wouldn’t hold still.
“Not very many of us, are there?” Chloe asked, apparently reading Emily’s mind.
“No. Do you know how many students there are?”
“I don’t, but we’re usually around 130.”
“One hundred and thirty for the whole school?”
“Yeah, and it stays pretty steady from year to year, at least that’s what they say. I don’t really pay attention.”
“Understandable. It’s just so hard to believe that you have such a good basketball team with so few girls.”
“Those few girls play together a lot.” Chloe sounded defensive.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you—”
“No, you didn’t. It’s just that, people don’t understand. We start playing as soon as we can dribble, so by the time we’re in high school, it’s like telepathy. And we all have the same goal. We’re all very motivated.”
“That goal being?”
Chloe looked at her, and Emily was taken aback by the sheer innocent beauty of those eyes. “The gold ball, of course.”
