I stepped past Bryn Mawr into the fog.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over and through me.
My eyes adjusted as I walked into the wall of fog, enough to see that the sides of the clearing had been walled off with the same kind of blue tarps that formed the roof of the tree house full of contraband. At knee level there was a series of hula hoops half-buried in the soil, forming a long, worming trail. In front of them was a blond girl with a surgical mask over her mouth and a stopwatch in her hand. It took a moment for me to recognize her as Ben’s cocaptain, Faulkner.
“We’ll pay for your laundry,” she said, her voice muffled through the surgical mask. “I’ll time you once you’re down.”
There was no point in mulling it over. I dropped to the ground. The dirt scraped at the skin on my elbows and knees as I crawled under the first hoop, dragging my legs behind me. I could almost hear Sid’s voice in my ear, telling me to go faster, to wear my Lawrence on the outside. Getting gassed was a BMT staple—facing tear gas with riot gear on and then peeling back the mask to report to the superior officer.
You’ll watch grown-ass men sob and puke, Sid had told me. But you’ll be smart and you’ll listen when they tell you that having milk with your breakfast ups your chances of vomiting. You’ll let your eyes cry and not make a sound.
This wasn’t tear gas. This was stank-ass CO2. I could handle dry ice. I could handle anything. Fear was the goddamn mind killer.
I got to the end of the hula hoops and ran to the edge of the field, past the double fog machines churning out clouds and into crisp, fresh air. The spectators were sitting farther ahead, interspersed with the pine trees. Directly in front of me were Cornell, Ben, and a girl with purple streaks in her hair, who I vaguely recognized from the dining hall. She was holding a fake, blue foam sword that was slightly longer than her arm.
Cornell clapped at me like an enthusiastic coach. “You made great time, Ever!”
Ben handed me a red foam sword. There was blue and red dust in his beard. “The foam is covered in chalk that will track any shots made. Faces and bathing suit areas are out of bounds. First to make contact wins the round.”
The sword was unevenly balanced in my hands. It had a short, almost useless guard at the top of the hilt. I would have been better off with an actual plastic lightsaber. Still, I’d helped Beth learn enough stage combat over the years to be vaguely competent with a fake blade. I gave it a practice roll around my wrist.
Show-offy? Yes. But I could taste blue ribbon and I wanted everyone else to know it.
Cornell blew a whistle and Purple Hair stepped to me, her sword raised. She swiped hard at a diagonal, wanting the clink of swords together, like we were playing Peter Pan versus Captain Hook. I went low. A red chalk dust appeared in a neat line across her shin. Cornell’s whistle blew again.
Waiting for the next person to come down the hula hoop crawl, I bounced on the balls of my feet to keep alert. Ben reapplied chalk to both swords.
I hesitated when Leigh came scurrying into the clearing. I didn’t love the idea of attacking my own roommate. But she beamed at me as she took the blue sword and said, “When are you ever going to get to attack someone with a sword again?”
I caught her across the stomach within the first three strikes, because she leaped toward me when she should have retreated.
Kate let out a battle cry before she threw herself at me with the sword held high over her head, leaving her entire torso open.
There was a tall Korean boy whose elbow I clipped while he tried to spin away.
A light-skinned girl with pressed, glossy black hair, who tripped and fell into my foam blade.
The girl who won the Breakfast Club challenge, who didn’t even take the lightsaber from Ben because she had a mouth full of dirt from crawling through the fog.
Sweat was stinging my eyes and dripping at the nape of my neck. My shoulders were starting to ache. My mouth was painfully parched, the remnants of dry ice taint, and pine dust seared into the inside of my cheeks. I looked out into the crowd as I waited for the next competitor and spotted my team waving and cheering. Meg was beside herself, hopping up and down with Leigh.
Ben and Cornell gasped in unison. I turned back in time to see Isaiah lurching out of the fog, his shoulders hunched so hard that Grandmother Lawrence would have stuck a yardstick in his shirt to straighten him out.
Ben whistled, handing me back the red sword. “Twins are an important part of the Star Wars universe.”
I gripped the hilt until my knuckles cracked. “I’m aware.”
Cornell elbowed Ben. “We should have hooked up the speakers out here. Can you imagine ‘Duel of the Fates’ dropping in here?”
Ben’s eyes glazed with joy. “Chills, dude. Chills.”
At least now I knew whose bright idea this challenge was.
Isaiah sized me up as the fanboys tore themselves away long enough to hand him a sword and explain the rules. I could feel him taking an inventory of my sweat-drenched forehead, the scrape on my knee leaking blood.
His smile unrolled slowly.
Cornell’s whistle blew. Ben hummed something atonal and staccato under his breath. I heard someone shout “Beast Mode!” And then, shockingly, someone else called “Zay!”
Bolstered by the recognition, Isaiah flew at me, and for a moment I was transported to the backyard of Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Marcus’s house on base at Travis. Isaiah and I were little, and we had both received lightsabers that year, although I couldn’t remember which of us had actually asked for one. Bobbie and my mom didn’t think that one lightsaber would be fun. Then one kid would be attacked and the other would be the attacker. Two lightsabers was basically a party!
Except it wasn’t. Two lightsabers meant there was a winner and a loser. The only way to end a lightsaber fight was to end it past the point of bouncing back. You couldn’t just win. You had to salt the earth behind you, because otherwise someone was going to think it was a good idea to attack while you were coming out of the bathroom or when you were taking a sip of juice. Isaiah liked to strike the second both of your hands were full. He always aimed for the neck, like a tiny psychopath.
It was no different now. I watched as the blue foam sword soared toward me, and I jumped backwards, spinning to catch his back. Our blades connected, sending a poof of chalk dust into the air.
“Why don’t you let me win this one, Sis?” he asked, the smile wearing thin in his eyes. “You’ve already got two.”
I spat in the dirt, rinsing some of the chalk residue off of my tongue. “Why don’t you actually win? Instead of wanting someone to give you a prize just for showing up.”