Love-Sick Fool

Chapter 3: Brothers

Getting back to the school, I looked at my schedule to find that I had two 3rd block classes. I went to the info board at the front of the school and found a printout of the bell schedule. There, I saw that each day had a letter corresponding to it depending on the week. Just above it was a sign that read Week 1. I looked back at the schedule and because today was Monday, it was an A day. That meant I had gym. This was going to suck. I remember some of the Grade 8s last year that came to our school talking about how hard gym was. I also didn't have any gym strip so that was a thing. I grabbed out my phone and sent a message to Mom, "Hey, so I have gym today and don't have any gym strip. Could we go shopping after school to get some?"

Just after sending the message, I heard the bell ring and went to the gymnasium. This was so much larger than the one at Edgewood. It even had bleachers and a speaker system. I looked around for a minute and found the Gym teacher's office. I went over and shyly said, "Hello."

"Oh, hello. I'm guessing you are a Grade 8 coming to tell me that you don't have any gym strip, right?" He said while looking at some papers in his hands.

"No, I don't. I did send a message to my mother and I should have some for next class," I said hoping I wasn't in any trouble.

"You are just going to have to do gym in what you are wearing," He said looking up at me, "See you in the locker room."

I walked into the change room and I kid you not, the room was full of monkeys. In the time it took to walk to the gym lockers, I swear that a pair of underwear grew wings. I shoved my bag into the locker and closed the door. I then heard a snap followed by a stinging pain on the back of my leg. Turning around revealed an older boy holding a towel that was folded into a rat's tail. I was about to get after them when they ran out of the changing room and out of sight. How on earth was I going to get through this class? I looked around and saw that the changing room was practically empty except for the few Grade 8s still there. I looked at the door and saw the PE teacher enter the room. "Good afternoon. I am Mr. Schlechten and welcome to your new gym class. This isn't like what you remember from elementary school playing all of those childish games. In this class, we start by warming up with some laps and exercises, then we play some sort of sport either within our class or with one of the other classes," He said.

We all just stood there wondering what to do and a little scared because playing with the older kids would not end well, at least that is what happens in all the movies. The teacher then blew his whistle and told us to get out and start running. I haven't moved that fast since Atticus wanted to choke me out. Did I mention that he was also in my PE class? Because he is and that is just perfect. I tried to go a bit slower going around the gym to save some energy for the game later. As I was finishing my 3rd lap, one of the teachers blew their whistle and we all gathered around her and the whiteboard that had some plating card suits on it and beside them was an exercise. I also noticed that the teacher was holding a deck of cards. "We figured that we would start the year by letting you decide how many of each exercise you would do today. On the board, we have selected an exercise that you will have to do however many times as on the card depending on the suit. We will randomly pull kids out to draw each card. Start running!" The teacher said and we all went back to running.

After making a lap and a half, the first card was called. 5 of spades, which meant 5 push-ups. I did that and started running again. Another two laps and 3 of ace was called. A lap later and 6 diamonds was called so I did 6 burpees. This went on for another 15 minutes when the teachers called us back in. They were talking about some stuff that I wasn't interested in until they told us to line up so they could pick teams. Everyone lined up along a blue line that defined the basketball court and the teachers went along the line handing everyone a pinnie. I could hear further up the line people cheering that they were on the same team as their friends and whatnot. Soon enough I was handed a red pinnie and went to sit with the rest of the red team. Others continued to come as they were handed a pinnie and the game was announced to be basketball. This was a game that I knew Atticus and I were good at but I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be used.