Emma Kress - Dangerous Play

THE AIR FEELS DIFFERENT OUT herewilder, freer. In a few minutes, our girls will jump out of windows and leap off roofs all over town. Ava already has. Shell be here soon. I could leap off this roof, swing around the elm branch, and let go into a tight flip before landing on the ground. It would totally get a 10 from the German judge.

But the soles of my shoes stick to my bedroom floor, and my hands hold tight to the window frame. Im not Ava.

And I dont do rooftops.

I tuck my head back inside, shut the window, and head to my parents room. I lean my note on Dads nightstand but send one of his pill bottles rattling to the ground. So much for subtle.

Sure enough, his eyes open, narrow and cloudy. Sorry, I whisper, grabbing the bottle. Go back to sleep.

Hey, Zoe. Mom home yet? He turns to check the other side of the bed, but his face tightens, as if a burst of pain radiated across his back.

No, no. I guide him back onto his side. Its still early.

He checks the alarm clock: 11:28 p.m. He smirks. You leaving me another note? Most teenagers just do the respectable thing and sneak out.

I am totally sneaking out. Were just having a conversation first. I check the notepad I put by his bed. It looks like you could take another pain pill. Do you want one? More water?

Im fine. You have fun at that frat party now.

Sure, Dad. I kiss him on the forehead. Dont be surprised if I come home pregnant.

Dont forget drunk and high! He sticks his thumb up.

I close the door on his laugh.

Rushing back to my room, I grab my stick and backpack, and tap my Tar Heels poster for good luck before dashing down the stairs and out the front door.

When I slide into the big vans passenger seat, Ava smiles at me. Ill bet you a giant plate of Tullys chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks that you left a note.

I refuse to look at her. Shut up and drive, Capn.

Aye, aye, Capn. She laughs. Ill also take payment in anything cheesy Doritos, nachos, pastelitos, Cheetos. What do Os have to do with cheese?

We drive down sleepy streets, windows open, gathering our team of girls dressed in black who tumble out of their windows, forward roll down their front lawns, and pile into the back of the van, their sticks clanging against the metal floor, their laughs bouncing off the roof. The girls bump into one another when the van turns, limbs tangling.

We take Lakeview Road, with its small one-story houses packed tightly on one side and the expanse of lake on the other. The lake is big enough that you cant really see the other side, especially at night. A ways down, the road winds away from the lake, and the only people with access to the view are the ones who can pay for it. But here, its open to all of us.

We pull into the empty lot of the beach. North of Syracuse, this is about as close as we get to a real beach. I pretend the lake with its dark water and dark beyond is the ocean, that Im someplace better and warmer than here, and that Im on the edgethe very edge of everything old and new and just beginning. I breathe in the air thick with water, lake weeds, and tumbled earth and let the warmth of it soak in.

Tonight its nothing but us, sand, water, and moonlight.

We scramble out of the van, and the lake bounces our laughter back to us. Four girls plant goals with glow-in-the-dark flags, while others volley the glow-in-the-dark ball back and forth on the flat of their sticks. I slide face paint across Avas cheeks, the neon-blue streaks bright against the night.

Blue team here! Ava shouts, and she paints her team as they come to her.

Liv marks me with my favorite color. Green! I call, and my group clumps together, marking one anothers faces. Our individual features fade away, and we become darkened bodies with glowing stripes in school colors that crinkle when we laugh.

What do you say, Cap? No rules? Dylan wiggles her eyebrows, her peroxide-blond hair catching the moonlight.

I tilt my head at her. Shes always pushing it. Save it for parkour. Tonights all about fockey.

Liv knocks her stick against Dylans. Besides. Your version of no rules might involve someone losing a leg.

Dylan smiles, twisting her stick in her hands. I just think these sticks would look better with a little blood on em.

Liv laughs.

We knock sticks and run to position. Sticks Chicks! Our two centers tap the ground beside the ball and click sticks three times before each tries to strike it. Green wins the ball and takes off, and Blue swears as we whoop toward the goal.

Sticks beat shins, faces eat sand, and arms throb from whacking the sand dunes that rise and dip around us. Beach hockey makes for some mad conditioning. After months of training plus a summer of midnight games, our bodies are weapons-grade. And it doesnt matter whats happening at home or that schools starting soon because beaches and moonlight make everything better. When we break for water, were panting, but smiling.

Last fall, we finished yet another sucktastic season of field hockey where we lost nearly every game. So in a radical move, Coach made me and Ava co-captains, seeing as we were the only players whod ever tried anyway. For ten months, we handpicked and trained a new fockey team for the coming season. This fockey team.

Not a bad group, Ava says.

I look at her. We made this happen. We click sticks. Coach is going to shit herself when she sees a full-blown team show up on Monday.

Ew. Liv crinkles her face at me. I havent met the woman yet. I definitely dont want to see her shit herself.

I smile, but Im thinking of our team, of Coachs face. Because of us, were powerful enough to get to States and bring the scouts. The sureness of it fills me up as big as the lake, until my feet cant stay still. I race across the sand, slamming it with my stick. Fockey time!

Blue takes it first, but Green steals it back, and the ball soars to me. I tap-tap it over the sandy divots, their edges hard in the moonlight, their dips like black holes. The goal flags wave at me from the other end: an invitation. I run against the wind, lifting my stick high to drive the ball over the dunes and between the flags.

Something blurs my vision.

An animal storms onto the sand. No, not an animal. A girl. My stick connects with the ball all wrong and it arcs through the air and splinters the flag post.

Hey! someone yells at her. Whats your problem?

Who runs out in the middle of a game?

IIm sorry. The girls out of breath and twitchy. I didnt She looks behind her and I follow her gaze, squinting toward the parking lot, to the houses I know squat beyond. But the night is too close, too dark, and I cant see anything. A car door slams in the distance and she jumps. II have to go. She turns.

Are you okay? I reach out my hand, but she flinches before I even touch her.