Let's play a game

"What did you say? Who's stupid enough to do something like that?"  Anja shrugged her shoulders. No, no, no, no, no, no… The director would spend as little time on that threatening letter as to my new nail polish. It was almost embarrassing that someone would try something like that. How old were they? "Isn't that right? But maybe it’s the Black Puppies… It’s not like they haven’t done anything like that before..." The students of Black Downey High, or as we called them, the Black Puppies, hated us. They did everything they could to annoy us. The worst thing about it, the boys at BDH were so much hotter than those at our school. They knew it too, and used their goof looks to break girls' hearts for sports. Or hobby. Or whatever you wanted to call it. Only Anja, Dany, Lin, Rosa and I were still a virgin from our year, because of course the play would only be successful if the boy had gotten the girl into bed. I'd always found it terrible, but what could I do about it? How did they manage to do it every time, though? Every girl had to be on their guard, didn't they? How could they keep falling for those stupid, and easy to see through, plays? "Probably... How do you even know that? Found a new heart to break?" Anja, my best friend, was one of the most popular girls in the school alongside with me. Although we were both pretty beautiful, she always managed to show up for school as if she had taken hours to get ready. It was hard to believe she was still single. Every boy almost hung on her lips to put it that way. Therefore it was only natural that Anja occasionally made use of het good looks to get some information loose from the guys. "That's mean, Liz, that was just one time! I just happened to walk by the director's door when he suddenly cursed. I just listened for a little while.  I rolled with my eyes. Of course. That was typical of Anja. Looking up danger and getting herself in trouble was typical of her. And that's why I loved her. A mischievous look slipped over her face as she repeated to me the exact words of director. "He seems to actually give a crap. Not even kidding. He was talking like if it had importance to it, but then again... That man is so... I can't even explain it." Anja nodded. Both of us hated the man. For some reason, the man always reminded us of a stupidity that we did like one time a long time ago. Why didn't he just leave us alone? We took revenge one time, one god damned time, and that was the only thing he remembered us from? If you speak of the devil... "Ah... The skunk girls... Like things aren’t going amazing enough already... Go to the refectory. Right now!" Quickly we did what the man said, even though I was still annoyed by the skunk-girls stuff. In defense we were 16 and we had a good reason to throw the skunk into the showers with Mackenzie. That b***h hid my clothes when I was showering! Luckily Anja had found them before Mackenzie had managed to get the boys into the dressing room. Her face when she realized her plan had failed... I still have to laugh about it sometimes. Everyone knew that she had been trying to get my popularity for a long time, so Anja and I decided to put an end to it. Her plan was ten times worse than mine, so I thought it was fair. Especially since I didn't invite the boys to take pictures of her. What did she think? That if everyone had seen me naked, I'd suddenly lose all my friends and popularity? The boys had come to offer their apologies afterwards too. Afterwards Mackenzie actually was the one to lose a big part of her friends… Damien was the only one to have brought me a towel back then, but fortunately that was no longer necessary. From then on, he sat at the table with us. I knew he was a real friend to me. When I saw him sitting, I hugged him back and slid into the spot next to him. Anja sat down in front of me. Luckily the dining room was a free mobile phone zone so it was pretty calm. No one yelled or threw food. Apparently, there was someone on the school board who wasn't an idiot. Since the mobile phone ban was lifted, it had been much quieter in the canteen. And the students and teachers also seemed to be better at dealing with each other. It had been Anja's idea to address the school board about this, but in the end I had taken the burden of presenting our case since Anja was fairly rude in nature. Not in a bad way! I loved her sometimes raw words that gave her insights strength, but we both knew that the school board wouldn't appreciate it the same way I did. The teachers were also impressed by our dedication and also the compromise we dared to conclude. In other words, the teachers and the director, although he did not admit it immediately, were deeply impressed. Apparently, no one, besides me and Anja, knew anything about the threatening letter. So Anja actually kept a secret. Not that she couldn't, because she knew almost all my secrets, but sometimes she was really a glossip. She always knew everything to the seam and told me everything to the deepest details... "So... Soon P.E...." Right away, my courage collapsed. Although I was a good student and quite sporty, I hated P.E.. The lessons weren't something I'd call sport. I apologize for that, but it’s true. However, the teacher was a very cool man. He was always nice and immediately let you stop if you couldn't have hurt yourself anymore. "I know... What are we doing today?" Although I didn't really want to know the answer, I couldn't do anything else. Everything but... "Baseball!" A sigh escaped my lips. The problem wasn't that I was bad in baseball, but I was amazing at it. That's why I was always put in the group with the worst players to make the game more fair. The most annoying thing was that we almost always won, so my teammates didn't bother enough to make any effort. I was hoping it would be different this year and I could put together my group as a team captain. Anja had always been my opponent. She was almost as good as me, which is not impossible to believe as we played baseball together ever since we were 5. The only difference was the power of my hits. Anja didn't hit as hard as me, so sometimes she couldn't make it to the last base. Last year, the teacher had made a new bet with the whole school. Whoever got the ball on the roof of the school got a 24 pack of beer. The problem was that the school was a fat 35 yards from first base. Plus the building was 3 floors high. I was so close last year. It was almost on the roof. But I had practiced for this. I had to and would get that ball on that roof and win that beer. As soon as the bell rang, a grin spread over my face. Anja also grinned. Both of us knew I'd get that ball on the roof. Only... No one else knew, so when I would succeed... We tried to behave as normal as possible. If no one noticed that we were as excited as we were, no one would suspect anything. When everyone was finally dressed and ready, the teacher decided to show his good side again. Anja and I were allowed to choose teams. Finally, the teams were divided proportionally. Maybe it was because there were other baseball players on the team this year besides me and Anja. The two teams started to warm up while Anja and I discussed the placement with our teams. Secretly, we threw each other a few conspiring looks. My team was allowed to bat first. I was going to be ready to throw the balls. It slowly advanced, which was nerve-racking to me. They were as usual moderate strokes. A lot of points were lost just because they almost refused it to see where they had to hit the ball to and if they could run further. Or they didn't bother. Of course, they thought I'd make the points for everyone. Eventually Skylar managed to run to third base and Clarissa could get her to home base, she also came on third. Lara managed to reach the second base and both managed to run to home base because of Damien, who also managed to hit a homerun. Tommy and Tobias were both tapped out. And Ronny and Danielle were on third and second base. Finally, it was my turn. I went crazy with my team after Damien. I was calling clear instructions, but no one listened a little. Right away, my team started cheering as I got ready. Because Anja and I were formidable baseball players, the teacher had decided that we had to throw for each other and make it extra hard for each other. So now I was excited that Anja would throw for me because I would get enough force to get him on the roof. I leaned a bit back and curled the bat as far as possible behind me. A few times I had to breathe deep in and out. I could do it. When Anja asked me if I was ready, I nodded convinced. The ball flew at me in a sizzling speed. With all the power I had in my body, I rammed the bat into a perfect corner against the ball. I looked at the ball going insanely high to a point that I almost didn’t see it anymore. It had to work. The class was mouse-quiet. Anja stared at me with big eyes and turned around and also looked for the ball. "That’s impossible..." I heard Damien mumble behind me. Suddenly there was an immense cheer. The entire class jumped up and ran towards me like I was some famous player and started doing joy dances. Slowly I started to make my way across the field. Of course I didn't walk. At a slow jog-pace I made my way across the terrain. The teacher looked at me with big eyes when I was standing back in my place. "So sir, about the beer..."