Nightfall ✓

Chapter 3

So soon that I thought only a minute had passed, I felt Helen beside me, and then she was leaning over my shoulder to look at my drawing. "Hey, that's nice." Her breath tickled my neck. "You're good at sketching. Draw the grid with a 2B, though. You don't want it to dominate the drawing." Then she stood up straight and walked over to the next person.

∞

Back in Hillview Drive, just as I was entering my house, I saw something red and blue in the park behind. Something moving. I went closer for a better look.

It was Liam and Zack and another girl I didn't know. They were playing football, using two benches on the opposite ends of the park as the goal-nets. Or whatever those nets are called.

Liam tried to dribble the ball away from Zack, and Zack shoved him. Liam fell down hard and Zack sat on top of him and started tickling him.

I felt an urge to shout out and ask if I could play too, but I didn't want to go up to them myself, because maybe they won't want me to intrude, and I knew Liam would be too polite to refuse. So I took out my phone, leaned against a tree which I was sure they could see clearly, and started tapping randomly on the screen to make it look like I was texting someone.

Pretty soon, I heard Zack say, "Hey, isn't that Reddie?" and then, a moment later, "REDDIEEEE!"

I looked up, pretending to see them for the first time. "Hi!"

"Want to play soccer?" Liam called.

"Yeah!" I pocketed my phone and went over to them, leaving my art-bag under the tree.

Liam was still lying on the ground. He pointed at the girl. "This is my cousin, Ashley."

She looked like another one of those popular girls: fancy top, designer jeans, long blond hair with streaks of red which were clearly dyed, and light make-up. Suddenly, I remembered seeing her at Luke's table yesterday and wondered why she sat with the guy who bullied her cousin.

She looked at me up and down, right from my red hair to my red sandals and then:

"Hi!" she said cheerfully, raising her hand to give a tiny wave. She seemed like a nice person, though, she wasn't one of those who had commented on my hair. So I smiled and said, just as cheerfully, "Hi!"

"Okay, we're four now," Zack said. "Let's divide the teams. We can—"

"I'm with you," Ashley interrupted and stood next to Zack.

"Okay," Liam said, still on the ground. "Hazel, you can be the goalkeeper and the defender and the midfielder and the rest of the stuff. I'm gonna take a nap here."

I laughed. "I can't even pass the ball properly, Liam. You'll have to stand up."

"Alright." He groaned and sat up then stood up, smiling, and pointed at a bench. "Go be the goalkeeper."

Before I could even start walking towards the bench, Zack ran at the ball and kicked with full force. It flew straight under the bench. "Woohoo! Goal!"

"No," Liam said. "That's not counted."

"It is."

"It's not."

"It is."

Liam pounced on Zack, making both of them fall to the ground. Then they started laughing. 

Boys are weird.

When they had managed to sober up, we started the game. Ashley and I were the goalkeepers, and as far as my untrained eyes could see, there was no reason for goalkeepers whatsoever. It seemed weird that only two people were playing in the center.