Free On the Loose by Jenny B Jones Page A

other alone can be hard, though. Especially when you’re in PE together.
    “All right, you sissies. Line up for drills!” Tweeeeet! Tweeeeet!
    Line drills. What a great way to start a class. I love to begin the period with an activity that can induce puking.
    I swipe my arm across my forehead, pulling off as much sweat as I can.
    “Go!”
    My legs propel my body down the court, stopping long enough to touch the floor and hustle back for more. My side throbs after five minutes of this, but I continue the sprints like I’m a Kardashian being chased by the paparazzi. At the seven-minute mark, girls begin dropping to the ground moaning in pain, grabbing their stomachs or some other injured body part. Ten minutes into the drill, and my guts are on fire. My legs scream for surrender. Three more girls quit, leaving only two of us.
    Angel. And me.
    Our eyes connect.
    Her expression is clear. I’m gonna run you into the ground.
    I grunt in her general direction. You gotta catch me first.
    I take the lead, smelling victory (or is it just my b.o.?) and hoping Coach Nelson will blow the whistle to end this. Soon. While I’m still ahead.
    I catch sight of Angel’s spiky purple hair in my peripheral vision, and I will my legs to push harder. My lungs constrict painfully as I drag in air. Angel’s arm shoots out and latches onto mine, then with a jerk, I’m propelled backwards. My nemesis darts in front and touches the floor. Just as the whistle sounds.
    I glare at Angel, letting her know without words (like I could speak now anyway) what I think of her cheater tactics. Coming to a stop, I lean over, grabbing my knees. My breathing is ragged and harsh. The little kid in me wants to point my sweaty finger at Angel and ask Coach Nelson if she needs new glasses. Because she would have to be blind to not see her daughter’s manhandling of me.
    But I shake it off. Like line drills, starting trouble with Angel is pointless.
    “Hit the floor, ladies. Time for abs.” Coach Nelson forgoes her whistle and opts for yelling instead. “Move it!” It’s a nice variation.
    I grab a mat and settle in next to Hannah. She and I have gotten closer, sharing in the pain and agony of PE. Initially Hannah was too goody-goody for me. Too sweet and syrupy. And, honestly, too dense. But she’s grown on me a lot. And she leaves her overly kind nature in the locker room in PE. Nobody—not even Hannah—can endure this class and still come out smiling.
    “Give me one hundred crunches, and I want to hear you count!”
    I scoot closer to Hannah. “Wow, Coach Nelson’s new mullet is making her nicer. Normally it’s a hundred and fifty crunches.”
    “My stomach is already killing me,” she groans.
    Hannah is a little on the plump side. Just one of the many reasons I’ve grown to like her. A lot of the girls around here are into the Hollywood anorexic look, but I know I can depend on Hannah to share a pint of Ben and Jerry’s with me.
    At the coach’s next bark, we turn over onto all fours and do planks, which basically means you hold the push-up position until your arms start shaking and your shoulders and abs burn like someone’s holding a blowtorch to them.
    “Now I want to see tricep dips from the floor. As soon as you get to one hundred, you can hit the showers. Count it!”
    My body hurts so bad I could cry. This class should be illegal. I push through the pain, though, and set my mind on hurrying. The first one to the locker room gets the shower with the curtain that doesn’t have black mold and peep holes.
    “Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.” I heave myself up one . . . last . . . time. “One hundred.” And collapse onto the floor, my body quivering.
    I drag myself up, throwing my mat into a stack and shuffle into the locker room.
    The rough spray of the shower is a welcome rest, and I take a moment to just let the water work its magic.
    The sweat washes away as I stand there, lost in thought.
    Last night Millie acted weird. When I