Free The Dance by Christopher Pike

worn-out sneakers; he’d had only one pair of shoes in the past three years. “The Rock and a couple of his football buddies are on the team.” he said. “What kind of welcome are they going to give me?”
    “Oh, they’ll try to make you feel like dirt. Especially when you start bouncing the ball off the top of their heads every time you slam-dunk. But I can’t believe you’d let them stop you?”
    “It’s not just them. It’s—something else.”
    “What?”
    “Somebody’s out to get me, Mike.”
    “Who?”
    Nick grabbed hold of the ball, squeezed it tight, feeling the strength in his hands, and the anger, deeper inside, that seemed to give fuel to his strength. Except for brief moments it was as if he had been angry all his life—or alone and unwanted. It was often hard for him to tell the feelings apart. “There’s this guy who goes to school here—his name’s Randy. I don’t know his last name.”
    “What’s he look like?”
    “He’s ugly. He’s got dark hair, bushy red sideburns, and a beer gut. He looks older. You know who I’m talking about?”
    “I’ve seen him. What’s he doing to you?”
    “He’s trying to sell me drugs. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but he keeps on me, even after I’ve told him a half-dozen times I’m not interested. I think he’s trying to set me up.”
    “That serious?”
    “Yeah. This afternoon, when I went to my locker, I found a Baggie sitting on top of my books, and a note that said 'On the House.’ The Baggie had a couple of grams of coke in it.”
    “What did you do with it?” Michael asked.
    “I gave it to Bubba.”
    “What did you do that for?”
    “He was with me when I found it. He wanted it.”
    “But Bubba doesn’t do drugs.”
    “Maybe he wanted to sell it, I don’t know.”
    Michael considered a bit. “The fact that he looks older could be important. It might be possible to use the computer to check on—Hey, what is it?”
    She was coming out of the girls’ shower room, her long black hair tied in a ponytail as it had been the day they first met. Although small and far away, for a second, she was all he could see. “It’s Maria,” Nick said.
    Michael was not impressed. He thought Maria was a phony for dumping Nick simply because the police had detained him at the station after Alice McCoy’s death. Michael didn’t know about her overriding fear of calling attention to herself, of being found out for what she was—an illegal alien. But maybe the knowledge wouldn’t have made any difference to Michael. Often it seemed a poor excuse to Nick, too. Yet there wasn’t an hour that went by when Nick didn’t think of her.
    “She must be feeling like hot stuff being elected to the homecoming court and all,” Michael said.
    “Not Maria.”
    Michael glanced at him, then at Maria. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
    Nick rolled the ball in his hands. He would pop it next; he knew he could make it explode. “It’s driving me nuts.”
    “What do you want to do?”
    “Talk to her. But she doesn’t want to talk to me.”
    “Have you asked her why?”
    “I’ve tried.”
    “Try again. Try now.”
    “No. No, I can’t.”
    “You have a perfect excuse to approach her. You want to congratulate her on making the court. Here, give me the ball. I’ll wait for you.”
    “Mike…”
    “Go, before she’s gone.”
    He went; he only needed a shove. She saw him coming and turned to wait. He took that as a positive sign.
    It wasn’t.
    “Hi,” he said. “How are you?”
    She appeared so calm, he thought she must surely be able to see how he was trembling inside. Yet a closer look showed her calmness to be no deeper than the welcome in her expression. She had waited for him out of politeness, not because she wanted to.
    “Good,” she said. “And you?”
    “Oh, I’m all sweaty.” He nodded toward Michael, and the courts. “We’re playing some basketball.”
    She nodded, solemn as the day they’d met. only more