Chapter 1 Birthday #2
Suddenly the gym swells with an impossible level of cheering.
Hannah rolls her eyes, because of course Clay wants to announce Baker’s birthday after he was the only one in their friend group who overslept and forgot to decorate her locker that morning.
Still, Hannah appreciates that he wants to celebrate this person they love, especially after he gets the football team to sing a rousing, off-key version of “Happy Birthday” that has the whole school joining in.
Hannah sings quietly under her breath, keeping her eyes on Baker the whole time, watching the blush work its way over her cheeks.
Toward the end of the song, Baker looks across the bleachers and finds Hannah’s eyes for the first time.
Hannah waggles her eyebrows and grins as big as she can, and Baker shakes her head and fights a smile just as the song ends.
It’s a standard pep rally after that. Clay pumps up the crowd until the cheering around the gym is so amplified, with everyone’s emotions so heightened, that Hannah feels almost delirious with excitement.
Luke, in a fit of mania, pulls up his TIGER SPIRIT!
T-shirt until his bare chest is on display to the entire gym.
Various girls start shrieking and Luke moves to take his shirt all the way off, but Wally jabs him in the stomach to make him stop.
“Dude!” Luke rasps.
Wally points at Mr. Manceau, whose small, beady eyes are glaring daggers at Luke from beneath the basketball hoop.
“All right, all right,” Luke grumbles, pulling his shirt down. “You didn’t have to hit me.”
“Joanie would have hit you harder,” Wally says, referring to Hannah’s younger sister.
“She definitely would have,” Hannah agrees, scanning the juniors section to see if Joanie has noticed Luke’s outburst.
“That’s what makes her so hot,” Luke says with a wink, and Hannah scowls and shoves him for good measure.
The cheerleaders take to the floor while the band plays the fight song again, and Clay holds the microphone and grins out at the display like it’s entirely for him.
The pep rally doesn’t end until the school mascot—whom the administration officially refers to as Mr. Tiger but whom the entire student body calls Hot Little Mary—bursts into the center of the gym and breakdances to the fourth repeat of the fight song.
The gym goes crazy with catcalls and wolf whistles, the noise level peaking so high that Hannah’s ears ache.
Then the music cuts off with a jarring, garbled sound, and everyone turns to see Father Simon looming next to the audio equipment, the detached plug in his hand and a disgusted expression on his face.
Mrs. Shackleford hurries forward with an aggrieved sigh, gesturing for Clay and the others to move aside so she can wrap things up.
“What are y’all on today?” she shouts at the student body, not even needing the microphone. “Save some of this energy for the game tonight! Let’s all bid farewell to Mr. Tiger, and then we’ll start dismissal with the freshmen.”
“Bye, Hot Little Mary!”
“We love you, Hot Little Mary!”
“Get it, Hot Little Mary!” the students around the gym shout, and Father Simon glowers at all of them, his mouth pulled tight in disapproval.
“Were you planning on giving the whole school a striptease?” Joanie asks Luke when she joins them in the crowded hallway. The other juniors stream past her, drumming on each other’s book sacks and occasionally stopping to give Luke a high five.
“It was only for you,” Luke says with a wink. “But considering you were on the other side of the gym, what was I supposed to do?”
“You should have let him take it all the way off, Wally,” Joanie says. “You deprived us of another epic Luke-Manceau showdown.”
“There’ll be more,” Hannah says.
“A whole semester’s worth of them,” Wally says.
“Can we talk about how the band played the fight song like twelve times?” Joanie says. “Do they not know anything else? I felt like I was riding in the car with Hannah, listening to the same sad ballad on repeat for all of eternity.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hannah says dryly, “would you like me to choose something else from my library of three thousand songs that you accidentally deleted when you were wasted?”
Joanie rolls her eyes. Luke takes her hand and says, “Aw, do you not know how to respond when we publicly shame you?”
“I am above conflict,” Joanie says loftily.
Wally snorts, and Hannah shoots him a sideways smirk. Luke looks down at Joanie with exaggerated pity, almost like she’s not in her right mind.
“I hate all of you,” Joanie says. “Come on, Luke, let’s go before I change my mind about hanging out with you. Han, will you take my bag home?”
“Take it yourself, lazy.”
“Come on, it’s like two books. Can’t you at least put it in the car?”
“Fine.”
“Tell Mom I’ll be home to change before the game.”
“I’ll tell her you’re fornicating in the park and she’d better buy you a new chastity belt.”
“Shut up. You are disgusting. Bye, y’all,” Joanie says, and then she grabs Luke’s hand and pulls him toward the parking lot.
Hannah swings Joanie’s bag over her arm and looks to Wally, who leans against the white cinder block wall. He smiles knowingly at her. “Does she really only have two books in there?” he asks.
“Of course not,” Hannah says, rolling her eyes. “Feels like she’s been lugging a dumbbell around.”
“Want me to carry it?”
“I got it.”
“Don’t tell me you were waiting around for me,” a new voice calls. They turn to see Clay striding toward them, his football jersey stretched taut over his chest. “What’d y’all think of the pep rally?”
“It was awesome,” Hannah tells him. “You were as dashing as ever.”
“Don’t make me blush, Han,” Clay says, clapping a hand to her shoulder. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Joanie and Luke just left,” Wally says. “Can you hang for a bit, or do you have a team meeting?”
“Nah, I can hang. Where’s Baker?”
“Haven’t seen her yet,” Hannah answers.
“Let’s go out to the parking lot,” Clay says, brushing past them. “It was crazy in there. I need some air.”
Hannah and Wally lean against the back of Clay’s shiny F-150 while Clay talks up his excitement for the game, his statements getting increasingly repetitive. Hannah blinks against the white winter sun while she rubs her hands over her bare knees to warm them.
“But how lucky am I that I get to play one last game for St. Mary’s?” Clay says again. “This whole Diocesan Cup thing is awesome.”
“I find the whole thing weird,” Hannah says. “Making schools vie against each other for something that doesn’t even mean anything?”
“Doesn’t mean anything?” Clay says, his expression incredulous.
“Are you kidding? Dude, like Baker said, it’s a chance to show we’re the best. Fifty years of competition with Mount Sinai and we can finally prove we’re better.
We’ll have bragging rights for the next fifty years!
Besides, think about that prize money. If we could pour that into the football program—”
“Everyone talks about Mount Sinai like they’re the enemy,” Hannah interrupts, “but we’re part of the same diocese. The same Catholic diocese. Don’t you find that a little hypocritical? Or at least, like, Old Testament brother-against-brother shit?”
“Mount Sinai people suck,” Clay says decisively. “Half the kids Wally and I went to middle school with ended up going there, and they were all douchebags.”
“That’s true,” Wally says, lifting his shoulders.
“Anyway, I just have this feeling about tonight. I can’t explain it, but I know we’re going to win. You know?”
“Yeah,” Hannah and Wally say together, Hannah giving up on arguing with Clay.
Clay runs a hand through his dark hair and mutters, “Big night,” for the third time, and then a building door opens several yards behind him.
Baker walks slowly out to the parking lot, her eyes glazed over in thought, her hands pulling on her book sack straps.
“Hey,” Clay calls to her. “What took you so long?”
Baker looks up, seemingly startled by the question.
“Oh, hey. We had to clean up. You know how particular Mrs. Shackleford is. And then she wanted to debrief about how we can avoid pissing off Father Simon in the future.” She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
“Y’all weren’t waiting on me, were you?”
She’s looking at Hannah; Hannah meets her eyes and shrugs easily. “We were just hanging out. How do you feel?”
“Pretty good,” she says with a deep exhale. “Glad it’s over with.”
“No points this time, though,” Hannah says with a grin. “Such a wasted opportunity.”
“I know, I’m kind of ashamed of myself.”
“What are you talking about?” Clay asks.
“Hannah wrote me a list of dares for the assembly,” Baker says, unfolding the loose-leaf paper Hannah had slipped her that morning. “Look at this ridiculousness.”
Clay takes the note from her, and Hannah and Wally walk up beside him to read the message:
Bake,
Here are my suggestions for your speech today. I think you’ll find this list comprehensive and inspiring. Ten points to you for each one of these gems you manage to work in:
-Deliver the entire speech with your eyes closed. Never explain why
-Ask for volunteer Tributes to come forward
-Shake the microphone cord at Mrs. Shackleford and tell her you challenge her to a jump rope competition. Loser has to do body shots off of Manceau
-Interrupt yourself halfway through, make your eyes go wide, and shout, “OH MY GOD! I JUST SAW JESUS UP THERE IN THE STANDS!”
-Tell the student body we are going to “clobber the fuck out of those Mount Sinai douche-bitches”
-Call Father Simon “Mother Simon,” then pretend he misheard you
-When Clay speaks, stand at the back of the gym and shout, “He doesn’t even go here!”
-When Hot Little Mary runs in, tackle them to the ground, then yell for backup
-End the speech by invoking prayers for the football players’ herpes outbreak; proclaim your faith that their discomfort will not prevent them from winning
Good luck, you’ll be awesome.