Chapter Eleven: Nerd’s Got Skill
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Brooklyn’s POV
By the time we had reached the second store in the mall, my feet were aching. I wasn’t really much of a shopper. In all honesty, all shopping got you were blisters the size of golf balls on your feet. It was a total waste of energy and time; well that’s how I see it anyway.
We walked out of the shop with empty hands and I trudged over to a bench and collapsed on it. Remy came up in front of me and surveyed the area. “Where to next?”
“Next?” Grumbling, I slumped deeper into the bench, worn out. God, this was a serious workout.
Remy smirked down at me, “What? Not a shopper?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Fine, we can take a break. Wanna head down to the food court?”
I groaned loudly, “More walking?”
He nodded, “Yup,” he said popping his p.
“I swear this should be a national sport or something. You could die from this.”
He chuckled and pulled me up, “C’mon lets go.”
I stood up and my legs wobbled underneath me. He held my arm to keep me steady and we made our way through the crowd.
When we arrived at the food court, we claimed our seats and headed towards A&W. I ordered a Mama Burger with a root beer float while Remy ordered an Uncle Burger with a coke. Picking up our trays, we headed back to our seat to find it had been stolen by two teenagers.
I stood in front of them for a few moments until they noticed that I was there.
The blond haired guy flipped his long hair then smirked up at me, “You need anything babe?”
“Yea, you're in my seat,” I answered back politely.
“What about it?” he said while turning back to his food.
“Well it’s our table so can you please move?” This guy sure knew how to test my patience.
“Funny, I don’t see your name on it.”
Rolling my eyes, I snapped back, “As if you could tell anyway. It’s not as if you know my name or anything.”
Remy came up behind me and crossed his arms over his chest. “Dude, this is our table. Can you and your buddy leave?”
“Hey, this table was empty when we showed up. Finders Keepers.”
I scoffed, “How old are you? Three?”
He smirked, “You shouldn’t be talking shortie.”
“Who’re you calling a shortie, retard?”
“Feisty,” he chuckled while standing up and taking a step towards me.
Remy intercepted his view of me and glared straight at him. “Step off.”
The blonde haired girl, who resembled the guy very well, sitting on the other side of the table stood up and grabbed the blond guy’s shoulder. “C’mon you douche, let’s go. We’re done eating anyway.”
The blond’s face fell into a mock pout, “Aww, but I was having fun.”
The girl snorted, “I have no idea how you find this funny.”
“Catch ya later babe.” Reaching around Remy, he tugged me towards himself and pecked me on the cheek. He smirked at my shocked expression. Quickly, I recovered and shot him a glare.
Disgusted, I wiped it off and snorted, “As if Godzilla.”
While he was walking away, he called out, “You know you want m—ow!”
His friend punched him hard on the arm, “Shut up Shawn.”
Once we had guaranteed that they had left, we sat down and began eating our food. Personally, I was starving and swallowed the food in a few bites, then licked the tips of my fingers, patting my stomach. Looking across the table, I noticed Remy was still picking at his French fries with a dazed look on his face.
“Uhm are you gonna eat that?”
He snapped out of his dazed trance, “What?”
“Are. You. Going. To. Eat. That?” I said emphasizing every word.
Glancing down, he stared at his tray full of food. His eyes opened wide for a brief moment before he demolished the food in seconds.
“I guess you were hungry after all.”
He ignored my statement, “So you wanna go back to the school now?”
My jaw dropped in disbelief, “You wanna go back already?”
“Yea, why not? There’s only an hour left of school anyway, and all we have is gym.”
A grin crawled on to my face. “Awesome. We can play a game of basketball. One-on-one.”
His lip twitched up in an effort to stop his smile, “Sure, but I'm not going to go easy on you.”
“Whatever.” Picking up my tray, I walked over to the trash and dumped the garbage out. Placing the tray on top of the counter, I waited for Remy to catch up. Leaving the mall, we walked outside to Remy’s car and he drove us back to the school.
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When we reached the school, we headed towards the guys and girls locker rooms. Hastily changing into long shorts and a Dwayne Wade jersey I kept at school, I made my way to the gym and grabbed a basketball from the equipment room. Leaning against the wall, I spun the ball on my finger, waiting for Remy to come out. After what seemed like forever, he emerged wearing a loose t-shirt and low riding his shorts.
“You ready?”
“Yea. Let’s go.
We walked over to an open basketball court and prepared for our game, going over the rules and regulations.
“Hey Rooky, just remember, I warned you. I'm not gonna go easy on you just because you're a girl.”
I scoffed still spinning the ball on my finger, “You might want to take that warning back and give it to yourself.”
“You wish.”
I passed him the ball at the three point line and he quickly passed it back, “You start. You’re going to need all the leads you can get.”
“Fine, if you want to play like that.”
Checking the ball with him at the three point line, I bent down and began to dribble. Dribbling the ball between my legs, I faked him out, dribbled the ball behind my back and put up a three point shot. Swish.
“Nothing but net monkey.”
“Lucky shot.”
“Spoking like a true loser.”
Picking up the ball, he headed to the three point line. By now, there was a crowd of students surrounding the court watching.
“Rooky, let’s make this quick. First to 10?”
“Whatever you want.”
Checking the ball with him, he began to mess around with the ball. For about 3 minutes, he wasted his time doing lame tricks. Doing a plain cross-over, he tried to fake me out. In a flash, I had stolen the ball from him and stood dribbling at the three point line, while he raced ahead. I laughed when he looked down at his empty hands in shock. Turning around, his mouth hung wide open.
“The ball is over here monkey.”
“What? H-h-how did you—“
“It’s called skills, which you don’t seem to have a lot of.”
I heard a few ooh’s from the crowd and Remy’s face began to fluster.
“Aww is the poor monkey getting angry?”
“Shut up and go already.”
“Whatever you say.” I dribbled the ball 2cm off of the ground, staring Remy straight in the eyes. When he blinked, I passed the ball through his legs and raced ahead, grabbing it. Jumping, I elevated in the air for what felt like an hour and dunked the ball through the hoop.
The gym was dead quiet until a random kid shouted out, “Holy shit! Remy you just got served.” The crowd began to yell out compliments on my vertical and mocking Remy.
It had been 10 minutes and I was beating Remy 9-0. While he was near collapsing on the floor with sweat leaking off of his face, I only had a few beads lingering near the top of my forehead.
“C’mon monkey, just quit while you still have your dignity.”
“Not a chance Rooky.”
“Well there goes your dignity.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Racing past me, he dribbled the ball towards the net and jumped up into the air. No way was I letting this happen. Before you could say chimpanzee, I was next to him in the air. Raising my hand, I swung and swatted the ball to the other side of the court. Everyone watching screamed like maniacs, while Remy landed on the ground with a look of disbelief on his face.
“What the hell is she?” I heard him mutter under my breath.
Ignoring him, I ran across the court and picked up the ball before it could go out of bounds. Dribbling straight at him, I jump stopped right in front of him and threw the ball against the backboard. Jumping around him, I grabbed the ball in mid-air and slammed it down into the net. Dropping gracefully, I crept up behind Remy and whispered, “That’s game son.”
Turning around, I was blind sighted by a mob of students screaming at me and congratulating me. Trying to keep my clothes on, I exited the crowd and searched my body to make sure I hadn’t lost anything important. I was good.
“Hey Brooklyn right?”
I swivelled around to face our gym teacher, Mr. Davies.
“Yea that’s me.”
“Ever consider trying out for the basketball team? You got some mad talent.”
“I don’t know.”
“Well if you make up your mind, we practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays right after school in the gym. Heck, you might even be able to take Remy’s place on the boy’s team considering how bad you schooled him.”
I heard Remy grumble a few curse words while I laughed. “Thanks coach. I’ll come to the next practice and tell you then.”
“Ok. See you later Brooklyn.”
Turning around, I ran to catch up with Remy. Before I caught up with him, I grabbed my stuff from the girl’s locker room, considering that it was the end of the day. Leaving the gym, I spotted Remy and fell into step beside him.
“Sorry about that monkey.”
“Don’t get cocky. I was going easy on you. It would ruin my rep to crush a girl in basketball.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Really now? So I guess that means we won’t be having a rematch?”
“Nah I don’t play the same person twice, especially if it’s a girl. But hey, you're pretty good.”
I laughed, turning around, “Pretty good. Whatever makes you feel better about yourse—“
I crashed into another solid surface. Swearing repeatedly and loudly, I glared up at a familiar face.
“Well, well, well. Who do we have here?”
“Shit,” I swore.
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