Free High and Dry by Sarah Skilton Page B

didn’t care that I was a senior waiting for the goddamn yellow-and-black. The two clogged pores were playing Guttersnipes Versus Woodpeckers, but then one of them looked up and saw me.
    â€œCharlie Dixon?” he nudged his friend. “That’s—are you Charlie Dixon?”
    Since they’d initiated the conversation, it was okay to reply. “I also answer to Dix, Chazz, or Chuckles. Actually, I don’t. What do you want?”
    â€œYou’re on the soccer team.”
    The second clogged pore looked up now. “No way.”
    The first guy went into a frenzy of elbow nudges. “I told you he lived on our block.” He turned back to me. “I saw you wipe out that guy from Agua Dulce last fall. Red card in the fourth minute. Suhweet.”
    It was disconcerting that what they remembered from the game was me fouling Steve, not me scoring or assisting or defending the box, but hey—I happened to be the player who slid cleats-first into opponents to steal the ball. Someone had to be, right?
    â€œWho are you with?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
    â€œOrchestra. Are you gonna nail him like that again on Friday?” the second frosh asked.
    â€œHaven’t decided,” I said. Maybe I’d rather be remembered for something else. It was a little too much philosophizing for 7:15 in the morning. “You guys play?”
    â€œHellz yeah. We have a game in the street every Thursday night,” the first guy said. “You should come.”
    His buddy shoved him. “He has
real
practice every night, ’tard.”
    â€œIt’s cool,” I said. “Hey, is that today’s issue?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHow’d you get a copy already?” I asked.
    The
Palm Valley High Recorder
came out on Tuesdays, with issues appearing in stacks outside the principal’s office, cafeteria, and journalism room. They shouldn’t be available outside school yet, but this one had today’s date on it.
    â€œMy sister’s the coeditor. She brought one home last night.”
    â€œCan I take a look at it?” I said.
    He was delighted, practically threw it at me. “Yeah, here, keep it.”
    The bus pulled up and I motioned for the little dudes to go ahead in front of me. It was friggin’ embarrassing climbing up the steps inside the bus, like I was returning to childhood. I half expected Mom to appear on the sidewalk outside the house, waving goodbye in exaggerated motions or racing after the bus to hand me my brown-bag lunch with a smiley face drawn on it.
    I strolled to the back of the bus, doing my best to ignore the rows of curious eyes and excited murmurs following me. The cloggedpores had already spread the word that Charlie Dixon, local soccer antihero, was inexplicably gracing them with his presence this morning.
    â€œI saved a spot for you,” one of them chimed from the very last seat.
    â€œMove,” I said, pointing to a spot in front. I wanted the back seat to myself, so I could have privacy while reading the school paper.
    I settled in and flipped straight to the last page—the classifieds and gossip section. Not everyone’s parents let them use Facebook, so if you wanted to get a message out schoolwide, establish an introduction to an underclassman, or make romantic intentions known, the newspaper was still the best way to do it.
    A little over a year ago, Ellie had signaled her interest in these pages. I still had the scrap, faded and yellowing, in my shoe box of Ellie stuff. It read, “Which East Coast transplant doesn’t want to be too Forward about her crush?” At the time, junior year, I was center forward, and everyone knew it.
    I still found it strange that she’d aligned herself with girls’ choir when she moved here. A lot of groups in school wanted to claim her, but she belonged nowhere—and everywhere. The chekhovs came closest, at first, until she explained she