Spirit Warriors: The Concealing

Part 5

The next morning, Lilly and I got in the Jimmy and drove down the road to pick up Bets. After we got Bets, we stopped and picked up Ollie.

Ollie lived fairly close to Charlie, Bets, Lilly, and me. His house was much bigger than ours and Oliver had the whole second floor to himself. He also had his own bathroom, a game room with a kitchenette, and an extra bedroom with bunk beds for the guys when they slept over. Oliver had all the latest technology and video games. He loved music and spent his allowance on music from obscure alternative bands. He had great taste and his mixes were always our favorite music. Oliver was not a snob and he shared anything he had with us. His parents were nice, but their lives were busy, and they weren’t around much. His dad was a surgeon and his mom was a nurse who worked in the office with his dad.

After we got Ollie, we picked up Charlie. As we drove into town to the high school, we played one of Ollie’s playlists. We pulled into the parking lot.

The routine was the same every school day. We always rode together to and from school. We divided at the door and headed to our different classes. After school, we stayed for Ollie and Lilly. It was nearing the end of basketball season and Ollie had basketball practice.

Lilly was attending the information session to try out for the cheerleading team for the fall, and she was trying to convince Bets to try out as well. She knew better than to even ask me. I was about as far from cheerleading material as you can be. My talents lay in sports. I liked to run, and it was something I was pretty good at. In the fall, I ran on the cross-country team. Since it was spring, I ran on the track team now. We didn’t have practice that week as our coach was sick with a stomach virus.

Charlie played football in the fall and ran track in the spring with me. Since Charlie and I had free time after school, we decided to go to the cheerleading information session with Bets and Lilly.

Lizzie was leading the talk. She was elected head cheerleader last summer during cheerleader camp, and that meant she would be the head cheerleader again this year. She was a good cheerleader, but she had a mean streak. Her dad owned the Chevy car dealership, so she drove a brand new Camaro every year and flaunted her tickets to rock bands and her designer clothes. Everyone gleefully called her Lizzie the Lizard. She dated Lilly’s older brother Joe. While Lilly was small, graceful and soft, Joe was big and obnoxious. He was also a bully.

Lizzie and Joe deserved each other. They walked down the hall with their hands in each other’s back pockets and kissed in the hallway. Unfortunately for me, Lizzie was in every class with me so I got a snoot full of them every day.

I looked around and saw Joe in the stands. He narrowed his eyes and flipped me off.

Charlie looked at me. “Whatever happened between the two of you to make him hate you so much?”

I sighed. “One time when I was a kid, before you moved here, I told Archie about Joe. I told Archie all the things that Joe did to the other kids. Joe would steal the other kids’ stuff, like their money or lunch. If the other kids complained to the teacher, Joe would tell them he would hurt them twice as bad when he could. After a while, no one would tell the teacher. Archie listened patiently to me. Then he asked me. ‘What are you most afraid of? Confronting Joe or being like him?’ I had to think about it for a moment. ‘Being like him,’ I answered. Archie told me, ‘When confronted by a bear, you can do one of two things, you can eat the bear or you can be bear poop.’“The next day I confronted Joe when he stole another kid’s lunch. ‘Give it back,’ I told him. ‘Who’s going to make me?’ Joe asked. I didn’t answer him. I just did a roundhouse kick that I learned in karate and knocked him to the ground. When he got up and charged me, I knocked him down again. I did it again and again until he wouldn’t get up. I walked over and handed the lunch back to the kid he stole it from. I grabbed Lilly’s arm and walked off. ‘What was that all about?’ she asked me. I just smiled at her. ‘Bear poop.’ Lilly looked confused and I laughed.