Chapter 01 - Fair or Foul

2477 Words
Codi was in her element. With adrenaline pumping through her veins she sprinted flat out, desperate to put just a sliver of daylight between her and her marker. The hulking boy kept pace though, tracking her step by step down the sideline of the tackle-ball court. As they closed in on the other team's semi-circle, she saw opposite her that the ball carrier was looking for an open runner.  A quick glance around the court confirmed what she already knew. Out of the five other team members she was the only one with a realistic chance of breaking open and making a line for the goal. With that in mind she made a feint to the inside. When her marker moved to follow, she planted one foot and darted back the other way. Then a hand closed around her right arm.  Anger surged through her. She'd wrong-footed and beaten her marker, so the twerp had resorted to cheating in order to reign her in. Not today, she thought to herself. Not breaking stride, she wrenched her right arm away from his grip. The savage yank freed her and Codi felt her elbow collide with something hard as momentum carried it backwards. Ignoring the collision she pressed on, looping into the marked semi-circular scoring area and putting her hands in the air.  "Open, open!" she yelled. The boy on her team twisted toward the sound of her voice and let fly with the heavy rubber ball, just as a member of the other team tackled him to the floor. Taken in haste, the throw was a touch high but Codi had dealt with worse. Leaping up to meet it, she brought both fists together and clubbed the ball hard into the bottom left corner of the net.  She hit the ground with a whoop, rolling to her feet and punching the air in triumph. A ragged cheer went up from her team mates but it was overpowered by the shriek of the gym teacher's whistle.  "Afraid not, Codi!" the man barked.  "What?" She rounded in disbelief. Sweeping her dishevelled black hair out of her face she appealed to the referee. "Mr. Schroeder, that was a clean score!"  "The score was, but not the break." Her teacher gestured with his whistle towards the burly kid who'd been marking her. Only when she saw the red welt on the boy's jaw did Codi realise what her elbow had connected with moments ago.  "What the hell is your problem, Codi?" the boy demanded, walking over till he stood just a couple of feet away.  "Oh, belt up, Jackson," she returned. "You held me."  "No I didn't."  The barefaced lie set the anger bubbling in her stomach. "Really? Nobody else saw that?" Looking around at a sea of blank faces she seethed inwardly. Of course, there was no reason for the other players to be watching them at that exact moment. The sneak had timed his transgression well.  "I don't care who did what," Mr. Schroeder said, moving up alongside the pair, his grey moustache twitching. "Even if there was a hold you can't just go around decking people."  "It was an accident!"  "Enough, Codi. No goal."  "Oh, c'mon," she persisted. "Jackson just doesn't like that he bust his coverage and I completely burned him."  "Is this how every Coaster acts when they break the rules?" Jackson sneered back. Codi bristled. That was one way to put oil on the fire. Jackson was older and bigger, in the sixth form, but she took a step forward anyway, glaring at him.  "What did you say?" she asked, her voice calm.  Jackson smirked. "I guess you can't learn any manners in an orphanage."  She'd been waiting for that. She wanted him to go there, and he had. So, before the teacher could react, she grabbed Jackson by his top and slammed a head-butt into his nose.  The satisfying crunch of impact echoed around the gymnasium, closely followed by a shocked intake of breath from the other students. Jackson let out a screech of pain and tumbled backwards to the floor, blood gushing from his nose. She spun to face the other students, daring any of them to come to their classmate's defence. None did. There were plenty of glares and subdued mutterings, but not a single one of them took a step towards her.  "Damn it, Codi!" The teacher dropped to his knees at Jackson's side. Cradling the teenager's head in one hand he pointed at another student. "You, go get the nurse and call an ambulance." As the girl disappeared Mr. Schroeder turned his blazing eyes on Codi. "And you-,"  "I know, I know, the disciplinarian's office." Codi turned her back on him and stormed away to the girl's locker room. As far as she was concerned, Jackson had gotten exactly what he deserved.  "You've done it now, Coaster," a male student called after her, presumably one of Jackson's cronies. She didn't turn around, instead contenting herself with raising a middle finger and gesturing behind her back. She shouldered her way through the swinging door of the locker room, acutely aware that every single student was staring at her.  Codi didn't bother getting changed. She'd been to the disciplinarian's office so many times that it really no longer mattered. So she sat down in her shorts and tank top, still wearing the knee and elbow guards from gym class, and started twiddling her thumbs. She was there for at least half an hour before footsteps from down the hall made her look up.  Her friend, Becca, virtually bounced down the empty hallway, her short red her flicking and dancing under the motion. She twirled to a halt and sat down on the chair beside Codi. The crimson flush to the girl's cheeks indicated that she'd come straight from the gym hall – presumably the game had continued on despite Codi's altercation.  "Well," she began, a knowing smile on her face. "That's one way not to make new friends."  "I'm not interested in being friends with him," Codi returned.  "Hey, me neither. As far as I'm concerned the i***t got what he deserved."  "Did you see the foul?"  Becca shook her head, her smile broadening into a grin. "No, but I know you. You're a lot of things but a liar isn't one of them. And besides, he was batting out of order with that c***k about…you know-,"  "About me being and orphan."  "Yeah, that." Becca looked sheepishly at the floor.  "It's fine," Codi said. "It's the truth."  "You think you'll be able to get out of this one?" her friend asked, an edge of concern now creeping into her voice.  Codi shrugged. "I dunno. I've had more than one final warning."  "You know, Codi, I know Jackson had that coming but…" She paused searching for the right words. "But the world doesn't always work that way. If you do manage to dodge this one, do me a favour."  "What might that be?"  "Stop trying to get yourself kicked out of school."  Codi looked at her friend for a moment. Becca held the gaze but failed to contain herself, letting a small laugh slip out. Codi laughed too, but their brief moment of content was shattered by what was becoming an all too familiar sound.  "Miss James, you can come in now," barked a voice from behind the door. She took a steadying breath. Time to see what her latest punishment would be; hopefully not an expulsion as she'd already managed to accumulate her fair share of those.  "Good luck," Becca said as she stood. "I'll beam you later."  "It's fine," Codi replied with more confidence than she felt. "We're practically friends now." She winked then turned away. Her hand closed around the small metal locket that hung around her neck and she braced herself for the confrontation to come.  Opening the door, she stepped sheepishly into the white-washed office of Mr. Barrow, the school's head disciplinarian for the last ten years. Codi had been around for maybe six months of that time and was practically on first name terms with the man. He sat at the meticulously organised desk, giving her an exasperated look from behind his spectacles.  "Take a seat." Barrow gestured to the empty chair opposite him with a pen. As she sat down he ran a hand through his short grey hair and sighed. "Codi, what am I going to do with you?"  She didn't answer. After so many meetings she was starting to get into a bit of a routine. The first step was not to rise to the rhetoric – that only dug her in deeper. So instead she looked at the desk, lips pressed together.  "Of all the pointless things to blow up into a fight – a foul in a game."  "Well it's not my-,"  "Enough," he cut her off. "I've heard it all before. ‘He started it' – ‘she said this,' – ‘he said that' – I get it. You've got a hair-trigger temper that you don't even try and control."  Codi frowned and lowered her gaze to the floor.  "And now you've sent a pupil to the hospital. Pranks, names, a cut or a bruise: that I can deal with, but this really is the last straw." Barrow tossed his pen onto the desk, leaning forward and examining the screen of his computer. "In the last three years you've been shifted to eight different schools on the continent for one reason or another. What is it about education that you hate so much?"  "It's not that," she exclaimed. "I just…I don't know. I don't like liars and bullies."  "And it never occurs to you that by going around clobbering anyone who looks at you funny you're a bigger bully than all the rest?"  "I don't pick on people!"  "So it's everyone else that has the problem, not you?"  He was twisting her words again. She glared at him. "That's not what I meant."  "Well what did you mean?" He put his hands on the desk and looked her in the eye. "You have to understand, there's nothing I can do for you this time. If the headmaster decides you've caused enough havoc and wants to expel you, then that's exactly what he'll do!"  "Well so what?!" she shouted back. "If he's going to expel me for decking that rivet-head then let him! Jackson's a cheat and a liar. It's about time somebody rattled him one."  Barrow turned his eyes skyward and leaned back in his seat. She ground her teeth together and looked at the floor again. Every school was the same; a bunch of self-entitled jack-offs looking down on her for a situation she didn't ask for and couldn't control. In ten years not a single foster family had even given her a second look. The orphanage workers told her to be patient, but she'd been patient for far too long.  "Codi," Mr. Barrow began. "I know you've not had it easy."  "Oh, you do?"  "I do. And because of that I've done my best to try and cut you some slack. I've been running interference between you and the rest of the faculty since you arrived here."  "Well I didn't ask for that." It came out all wrong; too sharp, too harsh. She didn't look him in the eye.  His tone softened. "Why do you think you have trouble fitting in? I just want an honest answer. For once don't just go with your knee-jerk, snap reaction. Actually think about it."  Her hands fidgeted with frayed hem of her hoody. She tried to do as he asked. Why was it that she never managed to keep a steady life together? She'd managed to make the odd friend here and there but always something else got in the way. Sometimes the people she found as friends were just as mischevious and delinquent as she wanted to be. But she dismissed that thought. She was worse than them. Nobody else had managed to be expelled from three schools in a single year.  People always brought up her parents, but she dismissed that too. Lots of kids were orphans and they struggled along somehow. What was it that made her so utterly incompatible with the world she lived in? The only constant she had was a temperament that rivalled an active volcano.  "I just…can't help it," she said eventually.  "You're not stupid, Codi," Barrow replied. "I've seen what happens when you bother to apply yourself. And all this mischief aside, I don't think you're a bad kid, but something is holding you back, and until you figure out what that is it's going to be an anchor on your life."  "I just don't care. Maths, history, all this bullshit just makes my head spin. I want something that'll make me stand out. I want to do something important." Now she met his gaze and found him looking back, head c****d quizzically to one side.  "Really?"  She shrugged. "I guess."  "People don't just leapfrog into greatness, Codi. You've got to work for it."  "I know that! But there's got to be something better than trawling through a million textbooks, throwing it all back up in some exam then jumping into some dead-end job in the factories. I can't do that. I won't! All they do on this dead end hunk of rock is offload more damned rocks to the colonies. There's got to be something I can do that's better than that."  "So what do you enjoy about school?" he asked.  "Well…I guess I like sports."  "Which sports?"  "I dunno, I like tackle-ball."  "You're good at that?"  She couldn't hold back a smirk. "Jackson would probably disagree."  "Anything else?"  "Well I've always been good at contact sports," she said, and a thought struck her as she formed the sentence. "I guess it gives me somewhere to let off steam. I can get all the…I guess the frustration out of my system. I always feel better after."  "Is that a fact?" Barrow drummed his fingers on his desk thoughtfully and nodded. "Alright, Codi, you'd best head home for the day. I'll see what I can do about pacifying the headmaster. Until they reach a verdict on your conduct I'm afraid I'll have to put you on suspension."  Codi felt a lump in the base of her throat. This had all the tell-tale signs of another expulsion. As much as Barrow tried to portray himself as some crusader standing up for her, the other disciplinarians had been the same, each of them saying they would try to help her, all of them failing. And this would be no different. Standing up, she nodded and wordlessly left the room, slamming the door behind her.
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