Hoops and Dreams

[5] Sign for this L

On a good day, I can play Felix's wacky version of miniature capture the flag relatively well. The setup is similar to the real game with the same objective, to climb one of the two ropes attached to the gym ceiling and capture the enemy team's flag. Throw in paintball archers, kiddie pools, and a clown and you'll get a pretty good idea about what kind of person my instructor was. He was bone of contention at every PTA meeting our school had ever held, but so far no one could stop him.

I love it but for the first time in a while I'm with the team running through the barrage of bruising paint balls and creepy clowns rather than the archers taking aim at them.

Felix must have an interesting sense of humour if he thinks our all white outfits will emerge from this unscathed.

Some men, I think, just want to watch the world burn.

Group A is a class of juniors and seniors he's spread them out across our two teams. Making it roughly thirty people on each team, divided among the stations. As luck and what I believe is a rigged coin toss would have it, I end up on the same team as Darnell while Anika is on the other side of the room with our opponents.

Felix stands at the end of the gym by the dangling ropes holding a horn and calls out to us:

"You know the rules. You get hit, you die. You slip," He gestures to the kiddie pool, "you die. You fall..."

B group repeats the last line in unison, I with even more emphasis than usual. "You die!"

"Okay," Felix says with a finger twirl. "Five minutes to strategize then we go."

The elation of playing hits me despite my anxiety and I bounce from my left foot to my right. Our group captain, Julie divides us sending people to man the paintball guns and a few to distract the clown and protect our flag. Because Julie knows I used to run track I'm put with the runners and that includes Darnell.

Darnell, Julie and I will have to run across the littered gym and head back with the flag. He's taller than both of us and Julie assigns him to climbing.  I barely participate, biting my nails and securing my ponytail. I wonder if he feels as awkward about this as I did. Or maybe he didn't care. Yesterday I thought I didn't care but—

"—rush behind the tire, okay."

For the second time in nearly two years, Darnell has spoken to me and I didn't catch half of it. Before I can ask, Felix's horn goes off a minute early and we are running, across the shiny floor and to the pool of dyed water. This is what I love about mini capture the flag. The insanity. On my left I am dodging multi-coloured paintball-fire and up ahead of me is the clown throwing water balloons, with our instructor gesticulating and shouting.

The group A class has played capture the flag like this.

Darnell and Julie head to a tire and I realize what I missed in the strategy. The strategy.

For a moment, I am lost in throng of my classmates all shoving forward and I glance at our flag. I spot Anika tossing balloons at the clown and snickering. Which may or may not be against the rules. At this point it no longer matters. My train of thought is interrupted as Julie who must have moved away from her hiding spot behind me, drags me forward.

"Keep it moving Hazel,"

Her act of kindness blows up quite spectacularly in her face as an archer guts her in the back, purple and green paint spatter onto both her shoes and mine. Our eyes meet for a minute and then we both laugh. The unspoken rule of mini capture the flag is that there are no hard feelings. It is always just a game.

From where he is standing, Felix screams "out".

"At least it didn't get into your hair," I say as if chaos does not reign all around us.