The doors to the gym opened, and Choate Brinsley, captain of the Pelt Varsity Stare-Eyes Team came out, dressed in a clean white shirt and khakis. He looked around and checked his watch.
“There’s Choate,” said Katie. “He must be waiting to meet the Delaware team and show them their locker room and stuff.” She sighed. “Or he just wanted to come out and have the wind play with his hair more.”
“You really should forget about him,” said Lily gently.
“Omigosh. He’s coming this way.”
“This is the sidewalk,” Lily said softly. “He has to come this way. There’s grass everywhere else.”
“He’s still coming this way.”
Katie had tried to talk to Choate several times. The first time she said hello, he looked at her like she was crazy and walked away. The second time she said hello, a few weeks later, he frowned and said, “ Huh? Who are you?” and then turned around and put books in his locker.
The night he had spoken to her like that, with such scorn and italics, Katie had actually cried at home. Lily had talked to her about it for an hour on the phone. “He doesn’t know how great you are,” Lily had said. Katie had wept, “And he never will!” Lily felt awful that her friend cared so much about the opinion of this one, kind of stuck-up, boy. She wished she could convince Katie to forget about him.
Now Choate stood waiting on the sidewalk, right next to Katie and Lily, looking around for his opponents. As kids walked past him toward the gym, he gave them high fives.
The van doors remained closed and locked. No one got out. There was no sign of movement behind the dark glass.
Katie slid a quick glance toward Choate, and then exclaimed loudly to Lily, “Stare-Eyes is the best sport, isn’t it?”
“It’s fun,” said Lily. “I’m glad Jasper is making friends on the team.”
Katie rolled her eyes at Lily. “I mean,” said Katie, “that I really, really like Stare-Eyes.”
“Oh, good,” said Lily. She caught on that Choate was overhearing their conversation.
“Yup, I just love Stare-Eyes,” said Katie. “I always read all the, you know, statistics and everything.”
“Sure.”
“I get those magazines.”
“Right.”
“I love it. You know who my favorite professional Stare-Eyes player is?”
“I didn’t know anyone played it professionally.”
Suddenly Katie realized she didn’t know the names of any professional Stare-Eyes players. So she said, “Ralph…”—decided that was stupid, and corrected herself—“John. Ralph. I mean, Ralph… John… ston… ly… ton…”
Lily nodded. “Oh… yeah. Ralph… Johnstonlyton.” She rocked on her heels.
“Have you heard of him?”
“No,” said Lily, “but then again, you know so much more about professional Stare-Eyes than I do.”
Katie could tell, miserably, that Choate was still listening in, but that things weren’t going too well. “Yeah,” she said nervously. “Ralph, um, Johnslyunton… ston… He’s the best.”
“Oh,” said Lily.
“I just love Stare-Eyes,” said Katie. “You know how I love to stare at things.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Lily. “You can just stare for hours sometimes.”
“Um,” whispered Katie, leaning close to her friend. “Now I’m maybe starting to sound a little brain-dead. Let’s go back to Ralph Johnslyuntonston.”
“I don’t think Choate’s listening anymore,” Lily whispered back. “And maybe next time you should make up a name that you can remember.”
Katie made a sour, sassy face at Lily. Lily made a sassy, sour face back. They glared at each other. They both tried not to smile. That didn’t last long. They started to laugh. Katie laughed so hard that she hit her shin on a railing and had to say, “Ow ow ow ow ow.”
At that point, some of Choate’s friends came along, wearing sweats, punching each other on the arm. They were yelling at each other, “Don’t kill my fresh, dude! You’re totally killing my fresh!”
“Choate, dude! What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” said Choate. “I’m just standing here waiting for the Delaware team. You think that’s their van?”
“Did you see those bugs?” said one of the boys. “Dude, that was sick.”
“I have this weird, bad feeling,” said another boy. “In my feeling parts. Like something bad is going to happen.”
Choate was still squinting into the parking lot. “That van has Delaware plates,” he said. “It must be them.”
The boys just had a chance to look over at the van before, with a crack, its door shot back. Eight pairs of white, boiled-onion eyes stared out from within.
It was already a cold day, but with a glimpse of those eyes, everyone standing there on the sidewalk felt an extra chill.
Slowly, one after another, the Delaware Champion Stare-Eyes Team crawled out of their van.
Their tracksuits flapped in the breeze.