Meanwhile the skaters were skating.
“Yeah!” you shouted at one point.
“Um,” I said. “What happened?”
“They scored.”
“Really? How?”
Paris turned to me. “You really don’t know anything?”
“Uh, no.”
“The jammer scores by lapping the pack,” you said. “The blockers from the opposing team try to stop them.”
I looked at you blankly.
“The one with the stars on her helmet has to pass the other ones,” said Paris. “Then she scores.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?” I asked you.
You rolled your eyes.
I watched them play. Now that I had a vague idea of the rules it was easier to understand and I was less bored. There was one more two-minute jam (see, I am all over this stuff now) where Julie sat out, and then she joined the team again. Almost straightaway the jammer shot past the pack and I jumped up and whooped. Okay, I got into it for a bit. I don’t like sports usually, but it was exciting.
Paris and you stared at me.
“What?” I said. “They scored. Right? Right?”
“Yeah,” you said.
“But you whooped,” said Paris. “You, whooping.”
“What? I whoop.”
“You’re not a whooper.”
“Hey!” I said. “I can whoop.”
“You don’t strike me as a natural whooper,” you said.
“Stop saying whooper, both of you!” I said.
“Maybe you could ask Julie if you could be a cheerleader,” said Paris. “You could follow the team around and—”
“Shut up.”
She smiled. It’s a picture I have pinned on the inside of my mind, to look at.
Then the jammer seemed to lock skates with one of the blocker girls from the Wild Kittens, and went spinning on her back. The play stopped and she hobbled off, and various people talked to one another, and then Julie took off the helmet with the stripe on it and put on one with stars all over it instead.
“Julie’s the jammer now,” you said.
“Yeah, I got that, thanks,” I said.
The previous jammer seemed to be okay. She sat on the ground cross-legged, rubbing her ankle, but didn’t appear to be badly injured. There was a scoreboard up on the wall of the gym, an electronic one. It said: BEES 42 KITTENS 50
So I could see that the other team was winning. But as we watched, even in the first two-minute jam, it was clear that Julie was making a difference. She flew past the Kittens’ blockers a couple of times, and there was a big cheer when she did and Paris cheered too, so I joined in; I mean, I wasn’t going to be the first to whoop. Not after the last time.
Soon after that it was 50–52 to the Kittens. Really close. There was like one more jam and then it all stopped for some reason; the skaters all went into the middle and huddled, the two teams standing far apart so as not to hear each other. Paris turned to me. “Seriously,” she said, under her breath. “Are you okay? With …” She gave a meaningful look, knowing that you were sitting there too.
I nodded. “Surviving. Just about.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s really good. Let’s talk. Not here though.”
“Okay,” I said.
(We didn’t. We didn’t get a chance.) Anyway, then the announcer, who was standing in the middle of the gym with a corded microphone, the track running in an oval around him, said it was time for the second period.
The skaters set off, the blockers first, Julie and the Kittens’ jammer behind. Some stuff happened. It’s not like I was registering every detail for later transcription. The score stayed pretty even. Julie scored some. The other blocker too. She was called Patricia Pornwell, I remember that because it was kind of a book name, and I liked that.
Even a sports illiterate like me could see that the time was running down. There were eight minutes of play left, and that’s when stuff got kind of exciting.
74–75 to the Kittens.
Julie was trying desperately to get past the pack. The Kittens’ blockers were all mixed up with the Bees, and then one of her team reached behind her and caught Julie’s hand, linked up with another girl, and kind of pivoted and slingshotted Julie past them all.
Slingshot?
Slingshooted?
Who knows.
Instantly, I was on my feet, screaming.
“She scores!” shouted the announcer. “75–75!”
Julie looked right over at us as she cruised past, and she fired a salute off the side of her forehead at us. It was like the coolest thing ever.
“**** YEAH!” screamed Paris. “**** YEAH!”
Now it got kind of rough. The blockers were jostling one another, pushing. Not violent but close. It was messy. The red jammer got past the pack and scored for the other team.
“No,” said Paris. “No no no.”