Page 25 of Finding Her
“Or maybe Coach can get you excused,” Mako suggested. He had possession of the ball again, though Tino was trying to get it from him. “It will interfere with hockey practices, won’t it? He can’t be happy about that.”
“Only one,” I mumbled miserably. I pressed my fingertips to my temples. All of this was giving me a migraine. “And I don’t think he’d get me excused. You’ve seen howhelpfulhe’s been so far.”
As in, he’s done absolutely nothing to help me. It was obvious he was angry that I’d somehow managed to be the one student in history to fail gym. But how was I supposed to know any of the gym teachers gave a crap about participation?
“I guess there’s only one solution,” Crossy said. He stole the basketball from Mako, who let out a strangled yell, then threw it, easily landing it in the hoop. Mako had tried to recruit him to the basketball team multiple times but Crossy always said no, claiming being on one sports team was enough for him.
“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” I asked. I was getting a little annoyed that this game of basketball was getting in the way of us coming up with a solution for me to not have to go on this stupid camping trip with a bunch of girls.
“We have to get you out of the class,” he said, like it was obvious.
“Great,” I muttered. “That’s all I’ve been trying to do for the past week and a half.”
He smiled devilishly. “Yeah, but you didn’t have my plan then.”
I frowned. “And what plan is that?”
“Simple,” he said. “You make Poppy hate you.”
CHAPTER 17
bear
Crossy’s planwas insane but strangely, also made sense: make Poppy hate me so much that she complained about having to be my partner. If Mrs. Dixon complained about having me in the class again, then there was no chance they would keep me in the class. And, we hoped, then the teachers would realize that they couldn’t put me in any gym class and just take one of my ideas of either extra credit or letting hockey act as my second gym credit. Because technically, I wasn’t doing anything bad enough to get me kicked out of the class, which meant it wouldn’t be fair of the school to make me retake the class next semester or in the summer. If they tried, I was sure my father would be fighting on my behalf. He wouldn’t let anything slow down my progress to become a professional hockey player, especially not something as pesky asgym.
The first chance I had to try out our plan was in the middle of the week, when Mrs. Dixon announced we would be running the mile. Poppy already looked like she was dreading this and I couldn’t blame her—and unfortunately for her, I was going to be making it even worse.
“Want to run it together?” I asked, hating the words as they came out of my mouth. It would have been so easy not to sayanything and put off this ridiculous plan for the next time we were actually doing something with our partners, but if I wanted out of this gym class, I needed to get on this as soon as possible. The camping trip was only two weeks away.
Poppy’s eyes immediately brightened in a way that made me unsure about this plan all over again. “Sure!”
Before we could do the run, though, Mrs. Dixon made us all stretch. Of course, Poppy stuck to my side like velcro as I found an isolated enough spot on the field. I was glad to notice none of the freshmen tried to follow us over. Dealing with Poppy on her own was tiring enough without adding a bunch of fourteen-year-old girls trying to get my attention into the mix.
“You know,” Poppy said brightly as we both began to stretch, “I think if we’re going to be partners all year, then we should get to know each other a little.”
I bit back my retort that we weren’t going to be partners all year, because I didn’t need to let her in on what I was planning. But I also really did not want to play a get-to-know-you game, so I just continued to stretch in silence.
“I’ll start,” Poppy continued, totally undeterred. “My name is Poppy Wade.”
“I knew that already,” I said flatly. I had a feeling that would be my response to a lot of facts she shared about herself, because she had told me pretty much everything there was to know about her on that first day we became partners. I wasn’t sure there was anything she could say that would surprise me at this point.
“Well, I have to start somewhere, don’t I?” she asked rhetorically. Then, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, she sank into the splits. I stared at her in bewilderment.
“How the heck do you know how to do that?” I asked. Truthfully, the very concept of the splits freaked me out. There was no reason anybody’s body needed to be able contort like that. It was unnatural.
She smiled. “I’ve always taken dance classes. And I was on the cheer squad at my last school. It’s too bad Hartwell doesn’t have one or we could cheer on the hockey team.”
And then she did something crazier by leaning forward to stretch over her front leg. She turned her head to the side so she could look at me.
“Now tell me something about you, Bear.”
Yeah, I wasn’t playing this game. “I’ve got nothing to share.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. I hated that I thought she looked cute like that. “Fine. Tell me about your name.”
I frowned. “My name?”
“Yeah, like, why do they call you Bear?”
