“You need to cut your toenails!” I complained.
“You’re one to talk, bigfoot!” We slapped at each other for another few seconds before it was time to get up and reconvene with our teammates.
After another few exhausting rounds, my team won. Everyone had picked up on my and Cassidy’s high-fiving; they were happening everywhere I turned, including among the spectators. Mom and Dad were wooting on the sideline.
I found McKale watching from the end of a table where he leaned back with a wooden cup in his hand. He was just about the only person not standing. He watched me with an expression I couldn’t discern, but I wanted to figure out. Once I zoned in on him, everything else faded and my feet brought me to his side. I sat down, keeping a little distance between us in case I stank. He sipped his drink.
“Water,” he said. “Ye thirsty?” I smiled at how he pronounced it as “tirsty.” I liked that he was offering to share a cup.
“Please,” I said. He handed me the cup and I sipped, trying not to drink all of it.
“Go on then, finish it,” he told me.
“Thanks.” I drank it and set the cup down.
He opened his mouth to speak again just as a hot sizzle of magic blasted us from the nearby long grasses. A collective gasp rose up, followed by silence while we all stared at the field. All the water I’d just drank threatened to come back up. McKale had gone still and pale as he eyed the air with apparent fascination and dread.
A full minute passed and the portal didn’t open. Two of the little men from the game ran out into the field to check it over. Nobody moved or spoke until the guys shook their heads and shrugged, coming back to the clearing.
“What was that?” I whispered.
McKale turned back around, stiff. “It happens sometimes. False alarms. Perhaps the Fae guard of the realm got too close to the portal.”
“Oh,” I breathed. My heart rate was still too fast.
We sat in awkward silence and I wondered if he was thinking of Khalistah like I was. Hoping she’d never return even though she’d been so “nice” to him growing up. McKale, more relaxed now, pointed to where we’d played the game and said, “Ye’re good.”
My nerves finally began to settle as I trusted that nobody was coming out of that portal. “Thanks. I played a similar game at home. Do you ever play?”
“On occasion. With the Clour lads.”
Ah. Maybe Cassidy had been right with her “reindeer games” analogy.
“We should play sometime. You, the Clour, Cass, and me. It’d be fun.”
A sudden glint lit up in his eyes. “Aye. If yer up for it. Tho’ the lads are rough.”
“You’d be surprised what we can handle,” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and I wondered if he’d been turned off watching his future mate fight for the ball like a boy. I hoped not, because I wasn’t willing to change that particular part of myself.
“This evening,” he stated.
I must have looked confused, because he clarified.
“After supper, if ye’d still like to play we can go to Clour land.” His voice was questioning and hesitant. Nervous.
“Sure.” I tried tone down my overly-eager grin. “That’d be great.”
Cassidy would be beyond thrilled.
McKale peered down at his feet and smiled to himself.
CASSIDY HAD BROUGHT HER pink soccer ball from home. She tossed it from one hand to the other as McKale led us through the shallow part of the stream and into the patch of trees on the other side. Cass sent me an excited glance. We were entering Clour land.
As soon as we cleared the trees I could hear them. We walked into an open glade that slanted downward at the edge. A rundown cottage was barely visible through the trees below. Then I saw them—all twelve of them—at the bottom of the hill, on their knees watching something in the grass and cheering.
“Hopper racing,” McKale said.
As we got closer I could make out the barrier of rocks lining the “racetracks” and a dozen frogs hopping every which way inside. Rock reached in to nudge his frog and one of the other guys bopped the back of his head.
“Hands off, ya cheatin’ bugger!”
Rock grimaced at his dormant green racer and mumbled, “Bollocks.” His frown turned to a giant smile when he looked up and saw the three of us standing there.
He threw his hands out. “’Ey!”