Beyond Blonde Read Online Free Page A

had to admit we sucked. Okay, not as much as we sucked last year, but we were pretty slurpy all right. Mr. Wymeran put us through some basic drills for over an hour while David wrote things down on a clipboard. I hate that, clipboard writing I mean.
    Our starting lineup was too young given that me and the Blondes were still in grade eleven, and Jessica Sherman, our probable left forward, was only in grade twelve. The other Toronto teams were more reasonably populated with kids that were a couple of years older than us. Ontario was the only place on the planet that had thirteen rather than twelve high school grades, and we had to be the only team in the province without a single grade thirteen player. The inevitable consequence of this was that every other team in the city was taller, heavier, and meaner than we were. This we knew from last year.
    I kept telling myself that we now had a year of senior play under our tunics. We too were smarter, tougher, and then I looked at Kit, all sinew and gristle. Kit swore up and down that she hadn’t barfed in a year, but our left guard still looked about as menacing as a pen stroke. Madison was our lone Amazon, clocking in at almost six feet, but she was willowy and graceful. She’d strike fear only into her fellow butterflies as she floated down the court. Sarah, dear God, was all breasts. Her practice jersey was strained to the breaking point, which made her a threat to the male coaches, but that was about it. Then there was me, 110 pounds of terror and five-foot-four, most of which was hair.
    I didn’t like our chances this year either.
    Apparently neither did Mr. Wymeran, hence David’s brooding presence.
    There were sixteen of us on the senior team, first string, second string, and two alternates who also served as managers. The tryouts for the openings were held in the last week of August. For a fancy-pants school, Northern took its basketball shockingly seriously. Last year’s first string, us, got a pass. Me and the Blondes were in no matter what, so we were scattered until Labour Day weekend. Madison came back from somewhere called the Lake District in England. Kit returned from spending the summer at her mother’s place in Berkeley, California. And, although Sarah stayed around, she’d been consumed by the birth of a brand-new baby sister, the fifth blonde, blue-eyed girl in the Davis family collection. I spent the summer working at Mike’s restaurant and milling around the city. I don’t know about the Blondes, but I wasincoherent with boredom and couldn’t wait to get back to being “us.”
    Mr. Wymeran blew his whistle and called us over. “Not bad, ladies, not bad, but we’re going to need a little more from you this year, right?” Most of us nodded. “So as you know, I got the team an extra pair of hands.” He looked mighty pleased with himself. “David Walter will, as of today, be named assistant coach to our senior girls’ team. His word is law, ladies.” David stepped forward and flashed a smile at the left side of the room. There were audible sighs. I was on the right side of the room.
    “Just in case anyone here doesn’t know, David is the captain of our championship Northern Wildcats.” Yeah well, I’d just been voted captain back in the dressing room. So here we were facing off captain to captain. His jaw clenched and unclenched. I felt a compulsion to touch it. “David has a lot of fine moves and skills to show us.” This was greeted with very poorly suppressed giggles.
    David winked at the girls on the left side. “Ladies.” The entire second string sucked in their stomachs and played with their hair. Pathetic. I flashed to David and Luke horsing around at the third-floor lockers, coming into the restaurant with the football team on Saturday mornings, catching bits and pieces of our games over the past couple of years. He glanced at me gimlet-eyed before gracing the second string with another smile.
    Or maybe it was all in my