All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [206]
There was a connection. The person on the other end picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?”
“Robert?” Eliot yelled as loud as he could.
“Geez,” Robert said. “I can barely hear you. Speak up.”
Eliot ended the called and texted Robert instead: need 2 get out of here. give me a ride?
send gps, Robert texted back. ill get u—where 2?
anywhere, Eliot thumbed. just need to ride.
59
PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT
Fiona crackled her knuckles and stretched. Team Scarab had the gym for an hour of practice, drills, and figuring out the new course. It was a golden opportunity and couldn’t be wasted.
She squinted though the hazy morning air at the new eight-story obstacle course. There were coils of razor wire and nozzles that belched frozen carbon dioxide. Chain-link ramps swayed in the breeze. Two new top levels rippled, swathed in plastic, and had OFF-LIMITS signs all over them. Inside workers hammered and sparked with arc welders. More surprises courtesy of Mr. Ma.
But the course wasn’t the only thing they had to figure out. They had to fight and win now against the grade curve, too.
Not only had Team Soaring Eagle been disbanded because of their disastrous accident . . . but Team Red Dragon, too; they’d been declared ineligible because they had too many injured players—and their remaining members had been picked up by other teams down a person or two.
The problem was that these two disbanded teams got removed from the ranks. All the other teams slid down—without moving the cutoff point for failing.
This morning when Fiona checked the roster, Team Scarab was now well below that cut.
She turned to face and rally her team . . . at least, the half of her team that was here.
Robert, Jeremy, and Amanda sat on the bleachers.
Amanda scanned a moldy book called The Non-Illusion of Law as she weaved her hair into a braid.
Jeremy peered into a little book, jotting the occasional note.
“We have to win the next match,” she told them. “Let’s get up there and practice.”
“We’re going to practice without everyone?” Amanda asked. “Let’s compare notes on Miss Westin’s last lecture instead. I’m not getting this whole ‘dharma’ thing.”
“What do you want us to do, Fiona?” Robert said, and picked at a crack in the wood. “Run a few laps?”
Fiona frowned and crossed her arms.
Eliot and Sarah were on a field trip for their music class. She didn’t blame them; they had to keep their grades up. It still irked her, though, knowing they were off having fun while the rest of them had to work.
Jezebel was still missing. Six weeks and she hadn’t even shown up at Paxington. Was she dead on some battlefield in Hell? They might be permanently down one team member.
And Mitch? He was missing, too.
“Did you try Master Stephenson’s cell phone?” Jeremy asked without looking up from his notebook.
“Twice,” Fiona said. “No answer. Just a text.”
He’d sent her a text message a few hours ago:
FIONA
I’LL BE LATE FOR PRACTICE. START W/O ME.
FAMILY STUFF TO DEAL WITH.
COFFEE LATER? A WALK?
MITCH
When she’d tried to call, she got the “subscriber out of service area” message. And when she texted back, there’d been no response.
Mitch had never missed a practice. It worried her. This “family stuff” he had to deal with . . . was that the same problem he’d hinted at over winter break?
Whatever the reasons for their missing teammates, Fiona got why no one wanted to practice: They needed one another.
Without Sarah here for Jeremy to boss around and show off in front of, he seemed more lazy than usual (if that were possible). Fiona made a mental note to ask Sarah later if they were first cousins or more distantly related. He was from the nineteenth century; Sarah from the twenty-first. Their relationship had to be . . . complicated.
And without Mitch, Robert seemed more rude than usual (which was not so hard for her to imagine). It was as if he acted civil these days only with Mitch around. What was up with that? Some too-cool alpha male thing? She doubted she’d ever understand