It's what a Big Brother Does.

Plan Six: Post Game Loser

The whole school seemed silenced, caught in a collective, soundless gasp. The ball bounced off into who knows where; everyone’s eyes were on the girl. The freak show that just showed me up again. Even I was stunned into silence.

She turned to me, her face calm yet still a bit angry. The gorilla came up to me and looked me straight in the eyes though she had to step up on her toes. Her glare was completely menacing, but a unthreatening at the same time. It was either too complicated to explain or I was too butt hurt to figure her out.

“Remember your side of the deal. And tell your other friends, too, Jer,” she growled as she began walking off. Then she turned around with a large smile as she called out, “Aud!” separating my name into two words as usual; her smile back to life almost as if it had simply risen from the grave.

She turned back to the majority of the class with her beaming smile. Even Torres’s sunglasses her slightly hanging down his nose. I heard her give an embarrass giggle at the crowd and asked the boy who was whining earlier how she did.

Still, the world seemed silent. Even students from other P.E. classes who were watching the game were awed. Not only did she make a swish from across the court--something that was practically unheard of in freshman P.E.--but she had beaten me, Jeraud Fray: athlete scholar of the year since I was in pull ups. My seemingly unbreakable record was shattered into tiny pieces as if it were absolutely nothing at all.

All of a sudden, the quiet and stillness was erupted into hungry and eager recruiters flocking towards the beast. Athletes from every sport you could ever imagine rushed to the freak show, begging her to join their club or their team. They promised her the position of captain or even the MVP award at the end of the year. They told her she had the potential to become something amazing if she joins their team.

Soccer teams, cheerleading squads, softball and baseball teams, wrestling, tennis, volleyball, even football varsity members pushed their way up front, suffocating the mutant from my view as I was pushed farther and farther to the edges of the crowd.

Screw this; I wasn’t going to look for her anymore. She singlehandedly ruined my career. No one would be asking me to be on their teams anymore. Not with this perfect screw up around…

“I’m sorry; I just can’t join any of your clubs…” I heard her rejection over all of the combined awes and sighs of total anguish. Some students really wanted her on the team, it seemed. Even chess club members crowded around her.

“Why not, Rose?! I thought we were friends!” Melanie fake-pouted. She just wanted in on the action so she could hog the title of ‘Orphan girl’s BFF.’

Other teens joined Melanie’s started riot for the mutant’s new found athletic powers. They formed a tight circle around her and completely blocked her from view. I wondered why she didn’t want to join any of the teams. Varsity football, cheer, and baseball were sports any normal student would never turn down. Then again, she wasn’t a normal student. She’s hardly normal at all.

Suddenly, it hit me like a burning hot frying pan. Maybe she thought she was too good for any of these sports. Maybe she looks down on us because she’s more athletically blessed and stronger than possibly anyone in this whole dang school. The thought of being treated as a second class student ate me up inside and almost made me want to bite her head off as soon as I got to see it. There’s nothing she can do that I will not strive to beat. I will make it my duty to surpass her in every sense of the word from now on!

The crowd around the girl slowly but surely dissipated into just a few lingering and  determined students. She must have given her--obviously complete BS--excuse to why she won't join any team. I mean, who in their right minds would tell you that their varsity sport isn’t challenging enough for them? That their sport team sucks and that they don’t want to be a part of it? The freak probably would. She seemed to be the type of person who’d say anything before she gave it any thought at all.

I grabbed hold of a kid who was walking away from the disappearing group, his head held low in disappointment. “Why won’t she join any teams?” I asked him.

“She said that she’d rather spend time with her new family after school than making new friends.” He answered right away.

It hit me hard. She’d rather…spend time with us?

I let the kid go and stood there, gawking at the weirdo who was my new sister. She’d rather spend time with us…? With my family…

How can someone be so smart yet so incredibly stupid?