Shifting. Part 2

Do I like running? Not particularly, I thought, recalling the grueling days in ninth-grade gym cla.s.s where the teacher made us run three miles. "Sure," I answered.

Bonnie started laughing. "I can totally tell you're from the city."

"You can?"

"Yeah. You're so aloof. And your freaky black hair. You totally look Goth."

I nodded. "Well, thanks for showing me the way, Bonnie," I said as I pushed the gym door open.

"Sure. And Maggie Mae-" I turned to look at her. "Sit with me at lunch if you want," she said as she hurried down the hall.

I walked into the silent gym and stared at the hall of fame jerseys tacked to the wall.

"Where are you supposed to be?"

I whirled around.

"I said, where are you supposed to be, young lady?"

A barrel-chested man in his midthirties stared me down from a door leading into what I a.s.sumed was the locker room.

"Hi. I'm new. I have Track and Field first period," I explained, walking over to him and waving my schedule.

He eyed me and frowned. "Did you bring your gym clothes?"

I didn't own gym clothes. "No, sir."

"Well, at least you wore tennis shoes," he said and motioned me to follow him.

We walked down a hallway and through a door that led outside to a football field surrounded by a track. In spite of the sun being up, a thin fog clung to the field.

"I'm Mr. Fergusson. The students call me Coach. We're doing the fifty-yard dash today, followed by hurdles. You ever done hurdles?"

"No, sir. Never done the fifty-yard dash, either," I informed him, eyeing the barely visible hurdles set up on the far side of the misty track. My stomach started to flutter.

I turned to Coach, prepared to explain that I had most definitely been dumped into Track and Field by mistake, but as I opened my mouth to speak, he blew the whistle that hung around his neck.

A small group of students dressed in gym shorts, hoodies, and sneakers materialized out of the mist hovering around the bleachers. They began lining up at a line painted across the track.

"Maggie, put your bag down and join the other students," Coach said gruffly.

I slipped the empty duffle from my shoulder and lined up with the other students. They studied me, their eyes lingering on my jeans. I felt more out of place here than I ever had before. One pair of eyes caught and held mine. It was the boy from the parking lot-Bridger O'Connell. He nodded as if to say h.e.l.lo. I swallowed and looked away.

Coach hustled fifty yards down the track, put the whistle to his lips, and fiddled with a stopwatch. The whistle pealed out and the students burst into action, leaving me in their dust. I blinked, realized I was supposed to be running, too, and dug my toes into the rubbery track.

Mist clung to my face, coating it with a sheen of moisture. My feet pumped, barely touching the ground, and within two seconds I had caught up to the track team. Then I pa.s.sed them. All of them. I breezed by Coach-and the finish line-and kept following the curve of the track, my feet light as feathers. A grin lit my face. Running, when bullies weren't after me, felt like flying. And I liked it.

As the first hurdle solidified out of the mist, I leaped and soared over it. The second hurdle was the same. I glided over, hardly impacting the ground when I landed, took a step, and leaped over the next. And the next, until I'd gone all the way around the track.

I couldn't stop grinning as I skidded to a stop a few yards from Coach and the team.

"Show-off," someone murmured. "We're doing the fifty-yard dash, not hurdles." My smile faltered.

"That was ... impressive," Coach said, eyeing my sneakers. "Have you ever done any type of sprinting before?"

"No, sir." I panted. "Except when I'd run away from the mean girls at my old school. They couldn't catch me."

He studied me for a minute with curious brown eyes. "All right. Maggie, let's have you and Bridger go to the start line and race the fifty-yard dash again."

I looked at Bridger and caught the tail end of a scowl scurrying over his face.

"You afraid she's going to beat you twice, O'Connell?" Coach taunted.

"Not likely," Bridger said, running a hand through his glossy black hair.

As Bridger and I walked to the start line I studied his long, muscular legs. Not likely was right. I don't know how I beat him the first time around.

Bridger positioned his toe just at the start line, touching his fingertips on the track, and stared straight ahead. I stood with both my toes on the line, my arms hanging at my sides, and listened for the whistle. And when it blew, I took off.

I never saw Bridger, even in my peripheral view. As I approached Coach I saw the stopwatch in his hand, heard the rhythmic sound of the watch's ticking until I crossed the finish line and his thumb clicked down on it. But of course that would have been ridiculous, hearing the stopwatch, with my heart pounding in my ears.

Coach started jumping up and down and hollering, punching the hand holding the stopwatch into the air over and over again. "You set a new school record!"

"Are you serious?" I asked, completely dumbfounded. I knew I was fast, had learned to be out of necessity, but setting a new record?

"She beat the school record! She beat your dad's thirty-year-old record, Bridger!" Coach hollered. "I can't believe it!"

Bridger stood just past the finish line with his hands on his knees and his head down, breathing hard and studying me out of the corner of his eye. The rest of the team hovered around Coach and his stopwatch. A couple were smiling, but the others were frowning, looking between Bridger and me. I guess they weren't hoping I'd lead the school to victory.

We never raced hurdles that day. Instead, Coach had me individually race the fifty-yard dash with every person on the team. Twice. I beat them all.

"You're a natural," Coach said, slapping a hand on my shoulder as we walked back to the lockers. "Tomorrow, bring your gym clothes. We'll do hurdles. I promise."

I nodded, trying to catch my breath.

News of my running traveled fast. In my next two cla.s.ses, the students were whispering about it before I sat down. And most of them were scowling at me, as if setting a new school record was like infecting everyone with head lice.

At lunch, I looked for Bonnie and found her looking for me. I sighed with relief. There's nothing more embarra.s.sing than sitting alone at lunch while everyone stares at you.

"Hi!" Bonnie chimed. "Are you buying lunch or did you bring something?"

I scowled. Mrs. Carpenter and I had completely forgotten about my lunch and I didn't have a dime I could call my own. "I'm not hungry," I lied, eyeing her tray. The cafeteria was serving tacos, applesauce, Jell-O, and cookies. My stomach grumbled.

"Not hungry? After all your running this morning, you don't even want a Sprite or anything?"

"No. I'm good."

I followed her to a long row of noisy tables where the seniors sat. Bonnie sat on the second-to-last seat at a narrow rectangular table, and I filled the last. Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare at Bonnie and me.

"What?" Bonnie asked, baffled. "This is the new girl I was telling you guys about. From Albuquerque? I told her she could sit with us."

I studied the students. Bridger O'Connell sat at the center of the table, surrounded by the school's prettiest girls and best-dressed boys, and they were all shooting daggers in my direction. Bridger was obviously still mad that I'd beat him, and beat his dad's old track record. And, apparently, so were the students sitting with him. In fact, his dislike seemed contagious. Everyone in the cafeteria was glaring at me-not just the seniors.

As one, every single person at the senior table, except Bonnie, turned their backs to me. Bonnie, her face as red as the tomatoes on her taco, looked at me as if I might be infectious. She was faced with a choice. Be my friend and lose all her others, or ditch me and keep her reputation intact.

"Um," she mumbled, studying her lunch. She was nice. Too nice to tell me that she didn't want to be friends.

"Gee, Bonnie. You know, actually I am a little bit hungry. I think I'll go check out the vending machines. I'll see ya," I said. She looked at me, relief plain in her eyes.

"Oh. All right, Maggie Mae. Maybe I'll see you around or something."

"Yeah. Probably," I answered, forcing a smile to my face as I stood from the table and walked away. Of course she'd see me around. She just wouldn't notice me.

I found a quiet spot by the girls' bathroom and leaned against the brick wall, waiting for lunch to end. I had eaten at just such a spot at my last school.

"This spot's taken," a voice said.

I turned and stared into a pair of chocolate eyes framed by sleek black hair and olive skin.

"What?" I said.

"That's my spot." She motioned to the wall I was leaning against.

I crossed my arms and gritted my teeth. Was a spot by the girls' bathroom worth fighting over? She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

"Wait a sec," the girl said, a smile tugging the side of her mouth. "Are you the new girl? Who kicked the entire track team's a.s.ses this morning?"

"Yeah. That's me."

She let her arms fall to her sides. "That rocks. I wish I could have seen it. I'm Yana." She looked at the brick wall and shrugged. "I suppose there's room for two."

"Yeah. That would be nice." I let my arms relax and sank down to the floor.

Yana sat beside me and pulled a plastic fork and Styrofoam box out of her camouflage-print backpack-the kind of box you get from a restaurant for leftovers. She opened the lid and took a bite of something orange and lumpy.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"From my grandpa's restaurant. He sent it home with me last night after my shift."

"You work at a restaurant?"

"Yeah."

"Does it pay well?"

Yana shrugged. "I mostly get paid in tips. Some nights it doesn't pay all that well, but on a good weekend night, I've come home with more than a hundred dollars."

That sounded like a fortune. I could imagine having my own money. "Are you guys hiring?"

"Why? You need a job?"

"Yeah."

Yana pulled a piece of paper from her backpack and jotted down a name and address. "Stop in and fill out an app. Ask for Naalyehe. He's the tall leathery guy with a heart of gold-and my grandpa. You can't miss him. Tell him Yana sent you."

4.

The bus dropped me half a mile from Mrs. Carpenter's house, not a quarter mile. By the time I got home my stomach felt like it had been replaced by a black hole. I stumbled through the front door.

"Coach called this afternoon. Said to make sure you brought gym shorts tomorrow. I am guessing you don't own any?" Mrs. Carpenter asked, putting her denim jacket on.

I shook my head. "I don't, but, um ... actually ..."

"Spit it out, child! What's the problem?" Mrs. Carpenter asked with a grin.

"The problem is I don't have any money to buy gym shorts. I was wondering if you could take me job hunting. This girl at school told me about a restaurant that's hiring. And I could pay you back after I started working."

"A job is a brilliant idea. After you apply we'll stop by the Wal-Mart for gym shorts. I noticed you need some shampoo and toothpaste, too. But as for paying me back, that's nonsense. I get paid to foster you. That money is meant to buy you what you need." She got her keys and walked out of the house, cowboy boots echoing hollowly on the front porch. I took a wistful look toward the kitchen, set my duffle by the front door, and followed.

"Holy c.r.a.p! What is that?" I asked, my feet skidding to a stop on the gravel driveway. Mrs. Carpenter came to see what I was staring at and chuckled. A palm-sized spiky reptile was baking itself on the warm gravel drive in front of me.

"I know you're from the city and all, but haven't you ever seen a h.o.r.n.y toad?"

I tilted my head to the side and studied her. Did she really just say that? "A what toad?"

Mrs. Carpenter chuckled harder and the reptile scurried away. "They're horned lizards but we always called 'em h.o.r.n.y toads," she explained. "It doesn't mean they're h.o.r.n.y. Just covered with horns."

"Okay."

We got into Mrs. Carpenter's truck.

"So what's the name of the restaurant that's hiring?"

I took Yana's paper from my back pocket. "It's called the Navajo Mexican. The address-"

"Don't you worry about telling me the address. I can find it blindfolded," Mrs. Carpenter said with a wink.

We drove to downtown Silver City. Tall trees with new green buds on winter-bare branches lined the streets, and shops and businesses lined the sidewalks. Cars, many of them with college students behind the wheel by the look of it, were filling those streets. Western New Mexico University was close by.

Mrs. Carpenter parallel parked in one of the oldest parts of town. I peered out and frowned at a narrow two-story building sandwiched between a bank and a Navajo jewelry shop. The building had floor-to-ceiling windows on the lower level and THE NAVAJO MEXICAN was painted on the front door.