Battle of the Captains

foul

"Well, you better hope that you don't fail. If you get a grade lower than a C in any of your projects together, I'm going to have to ask you both to step down from your positions as captains." Austin and I both looked at each other and for once, we could agree fully on something: we could not fail. I knew that his position in football meant as much to him as my position meant to me.

"But–"

"You two are extraordinary students and great athletes. I think you have potential to be great leaders, but if you keep causing trouble like this, I don't think any of you would be fit to be captains of your teams."

I knew the rules. It was school before sports all the time so whatever the principal told us to do for our grades, we had to do it and keep our grades up if we wanted to continue doing what we loved.

"This isn't fair," I said.

"I think it is," he replied. "Do you know how many times I've let you two off the hook? This is more than fair. Another thing, Austin needs a math tutor."

"You're failing math?" I bit back my laugh.

"Shut up, Taylor," Austin snapped at me.

"Language. And I didn't say that," Principal Harrison said. "I was saying that he isn't doing too well in math and since you're one of our best students in that subject, I would like to kindly ask you to be his tutor."

I nodded and thought about it. "Can I decline?"

"Can I pull you out of varsity cheerleading?"

"Wait, what?" Austin said, cutting in. "She'll make me fail on purpose. We all know that." He was one hundred percent correct. I probably would've made him fail.

"If you fail, then you'll both get into trouble." Kill me now.

I bit my bottom lip and played with the loose string of the pillow on the chair I was sitting on. There was nothing I could do. The punishment was worse than I could ever imagine.

"Okay," Austin and I both said.

"Not yet," the principal said, when we gave a small look of relief and reluctantly stood. "The janitors are having a very difficult time cleaning up the mess that you made in the cafeteria so I would say that I'm letting you off easy." I'd never felt so guilty about getting into a fight with Austin in my life.

"There's more," I sighed. It wasn't a question.

"After school, I want you to spend your detention cleaning up the mess you made," he said. That didn't sound to bad until I realized that we would be helping the janitors, who probably hated us because of the problems we'd set on their shoulders.

"Yes, sir."

"You both represent the school," he said. "You're in the same team. You need to learn how to act like it."

Austin looked at me desperately. He had never done that before. He wasn't the desperate type but I could tell that he really wanted to get out there just as much as I did.

"Okay," I agreed.

"Good, yes, you get to class now. Remember, detention after school."

"Yes, sir."

With that, we scampered out of the principal's office. I tried to walk faster so that I could lose him but he managed to pace himself with me. I turned around and pointed a finger at him. "This is all your fault."

"How is this my fault?" he asked. "You started it with the soda."

"You asked for it," I said, punching him with the same hand but not hard enough to hurt him.

A lot of people had told me that I couldn't hurt a fly, which was totally not true because I killed a lot of mosquito's when I had to and when they were bugging me. I actually could hurt Austin if I had the guts but I didn't like to hurt people at all, no matter how much I hated them.

"Ouch," he said sarcastically.

"Now I have to make sure that you don't fail so that I can keep my position!" I said. "Do you know how terrible that is? You're going to make me do all the work and we're going to fail."

"I'm not that stupid that I have to make you do all the work and I won't make you do all the work. And what kind of person do you think I am?" he said. "And I'm not failing math. I'm just not getting higher than a C so stop freaking out, would you?"

I raised my eyebrows.

"My position is on the line too, you know. I can't risk having you make us fail." Now, I remembered some of the many reasons why I hated him so much.

"Right."

Jerky Austin was back and I didn't mind. I was so used to it.

"Wait, are you calling me stupid?"

"You said that, not me," Austin said, raising his hands with a smirk.

"I can perfect a project without you just fine, thank you," I said.

Sometimes, he reminded me of my brothers so much that it was uncanny. It only reminded me of how all the boys in my life loved to pick on me since I was a little girl.

I was the only girl out of four siblings in the family, which was probably the reason why my parents named me Kody. It was a very unusual name for a girl but at least I didn't feel left out with my brothers when it came to names. Though I loved the name my parents chose, it became tiring whenever I had to repeat my name twice to new people since they weren't sure if they heard it right.

"Okay, so you don't mind doing it all?" he joked.

I rolled my eyes. "Idiot."

"No, you're just jealous," he said.

"Of what?" I asked. "You're amazing math skills?" There were those rare times that I realized that I was comfortable with Austin Collins and this time was one of them. I was so comfortable that manners had become non-existent. I realized that I could say anything to him because he was the only person whose opinion of me didn't matter to me. He probably already had a terrible opinion of me anyway.

For a while, we just stood there. He didn't say anything and neither did I before I realized that I still hadn't gone to the bathroom to clean myself up. I managed to wipe some of the food off before entering the principal's office but I hadn't gotten everything off and I was beginning to feel sticky. I hated feeling sticky.

"Okay," I said, breaking the silence. "I'm going to go now." I spun on my heel to go toward the bathroom. I stared at the floor now, finding small traces of food from people's shoes. I felt bad instantly, knowing that I had started a food mess around the whole school.

"Wait," Austin said, grabbing my upper arm.

"What on earth do you want now?" I asked with attitude.

"I just wanted to be nice and tell you that you have spaghetti on your hair," he said, pointing at my head.

I raised my hand to brush it through my hair until I felt something long and sticky under my fingers.

"How long was that there for?" I realized that it must've been there the whole time since the cafeteria. Why hadn't anyone said anything about it? "Why are you telling me this just now?" He began laughing.

"Hey, at least I told you, right?"

"Bye," I began to walk away again but faster this time but he ran after me. I groaned. "What now?"

"You might want to change your shirt. You look like vomit."

I wasn't sure I had another extra shirt and I guess I'd have to live with looking like vomit for the rest of the day. After all, everyone else had food on their clothes, too, right?

But one thing was for sure: I really hated Austin Collins.