Free Winger by Andrew Smith Page B

fifteen.
    “Everyone was looking for you,” JP said. “You missed dinner.”
    Yeah. I bet Casey Palmer was looking for me too.
    “I wasn’t hungry.” But now that they mentioned it, I felt like I was starving.
    “Well,” Seanie kind of whispered, glancing around, “we smuggled you some food, just in case you were.”
    Taking food from the mess hall was a definite violation. But as far as rule breaking was concerned, having visitors from the regular dorms in O-Hall was probably just as bad.
    Seanie placed a wadded napkin and a paper coffee cup on top of the Calculus book next to my pillow. “It’s a ham sandwich and some tomato soup.”
    Now, that was awesome . It sounded so good.
    “Thanks, Seanie,” I said. “And thanks for not wrapping it up in your printout from Casey’s MySite.”
    JP laughed.
    “Have you ever seen Casey’s MySite, Joey?” I asked.
    Seanie had a sick and pissed-off expression on his face.
    “No. Why?”
    “Well, when you go home this weekend, look it up,” I said.
    “Okay.”
    Joey’s parents were ultrarich. They lived in San Mateo and flew him home every Friday after school. I saw how Seanie was looking at me, so I just fired him back a Ha-Ha-I-just-got-Joey-to-look-at-your-balls-so-write-a-haiku-about-that, fucker expression, if there is such a thing.
    But whether or not there actually is such a look, Seanie and I just had an intense and wordless conversation about Japanese poetry, his balls, and our gay friend, Joey Cosentino.
    “I got you something to drink,” Joey said.
    I looked at him. Maybe I still had the balls/haiku expression on my face, so I guess Joey thought I didn’t trust his evening beverage selection.
    “ Not beer,” he added, and smiled. He pulled a bottle of water and another of Gatorade from his school pack.
    Now, that was a miracle. I was so thirsty, I opened the Gatorade and emptied the bottle without even taking a breath.
    “Joey told everyone what happened,” JP said.
    “Dude, you’re like a superhero, laying out Casey Palmer, sticking up for your fly half,” Seanie said.
    “I wasn’t sticking up for Joey,” I said. “I was sticking up for me. I have to walk up and down that hill every day too. We can’t let them start off with crap like that on the first day of practice. So I just kind of closed my eyes and took him out. I was so pissed off about everything anyway, so I did something really stupid that I’m lucky didn’t end up with me being killed. Like we said in the locker room, I wanted to hit someone, and a game of touch rugby didn’t quite do it for me today.”
    “How’s your nose?” Joey asked.
    I hadn’t even thought about it since seeing that blood in the bottom of the shower stall. I took a bite of the sandwich—it tasted better than anything I could possibly imagine—then touched my nose.
    “It’s not broken or nothing,” I said, inhaling. “I think. Just stuffed up. Man, thanks so much for the food. I think I actually feel normal again.”
    But feeling normal meant I immediately thought about Annie, too.
    “Did any of you guys see Annie tonight?”
    “I talked to her,” JP said. “She is really pissed off at you, Ryan Dean.”
    Maybe my head was still a little off, but I kind of got the feeling that JP was glad about Annie feeling that way.
    “Dude, her being pissed just shows how much she cares about you,” Seanie said.
    That sounded like something you’d tell your kid before giving him a spanking.
    “I think she feels like you didn’t tell her the truth,” JP explained.
    “I never had the chance to. I never had a minute to talk to her about it.” I guess I sounded pretty whiney.
    Then the door pushed open. I expected it would be Chas coming in, and that he’d tell my friends to get the hell out, but it was Mr. Farrow. And he looked pissed, too, because he was going to be the one to tell them that.
    “What are you two boys doing here?” he said. He fired a displeased look at me as I sat on my bunk,