Nicole Forsyth still had the stone in her backpack. And as Ash spoke, she involuntarily recoiled at the mere use of the word "wish".
I wish we could all just get along.
She felt queasy again and had to close her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she was still in the conference room. All the same people were there in all the same spots. But something seemed off. Lighting? The air? She couldn't pick up on it.
"Well, thanks for coming to the seminar on college eligibility, everybody," the DIAA representative concluded. "I hope you found it useful." She grabbed her bag and walked out. That's when she saw something on the wall. A tiled mural like the one she saw walking in. Except this one said something a little different.
It said Valley Lake Vixens. She stopped in her tracks. What am I looking at? Mount Valley...Valley Lake...Lake Point? It hit her square in the face. The tribes have merged.
A tap on the shoulder stirred Nicole out of her thinking. She turned around to see Ash Miller standing there, looking just as shocked. In fact, everyone was standing and looking at the mural. They were struggling to process what had just happened.
"Wait what?" Sym Black stood there, her jaw hung open in shock.
"Ash... When you said that..." Shan Jackson started putting the pieces together. "But... But how did it...?"
Ash thought about the encounter she'd had with Jade and the rest of the boys last night. I...shouldn't be surprised.
Karyn Anderson, who felt like she'd been in a fog for nearly 48 hours, felt like she'd been pulled straight out of it. She knew who she was again.
"Does this mean...?" It was Erin Lindell, looking the calmest she had in two days. "Does this mean...we're still playing!?"
Suddenly, the girls all turned their heads. Ash Miller, who two nights ago had started the brawl that ended these players' season and who mere hours ago was a pariah, had somehow managed to put it back together in a series of improbable—no, impossible—events.
"There's a wrestling meet going on and I know the cheerleaders are there. Wanna go?" Nicole said to Ash and the others.
"Not a bad idea, Nic. Plus I... get one more chance to see Jade, and I can't pass that up."
"And... It might give us an idea of just what's going on," Meg Williams realized. The group slowly made its way from the front office to the gym — which looked a lot like Lake Point's, but twice the size — and sat in two rows of bleachers on the home side. This must be one big school if everyone's here, Nicole thought. Lake Point had about 1,500 students, and another 1,400 went to Mount Valley. With nearly three thousand kids, Valley Lake had to be one of the largest high schools in the state.
It was a dual meet with Shadow Hill, which had a decent wrestling program but was kind of...a small school to be playing Valley Lake.
First up were the lighter weight classes, and while Jonatha didn't recognize anyone in them, he cheered and watched, thinking about how weird it was that women were wrestling. At 132 pounds was Laur O'Brien for Valley Lake. A few people in the student section held up signs reading "HEAR HER ROAR - SHE IS LAUR!". Wait a minute, Jonatha thought. Wasn't there a Lauren O'Brien on the cheer squad? He thought about who else he might see. Lauren eventually beat out her opponent, and Valley Lake held a fairly wide lead all evening. Eri Weber in the 152-pound class was almost certainly ex-cheerleader Erika Weber, and the 170-pound class featured a wrestler named Dith Stillman. He remembered a geeky girl named Edith. Wow, Jonatha thought of the contrast.
"Nicole?"
"Yeah, Ash?" She leaned in to hear the whisper.
"It's so weird... You probably knew some of these people as cheerleaders once, or movie buffs, or whatnot. Like Kell Barron, that wrestler you saw at 145?"
"Yeah?"
"I remember her being Kelly. She was in some of our school plays. Now she's not on a stage, but on a mat."
"For us that remember... There's probably a lot of that."
At 225 pounds, Nicole and Jonatha were in for a shock. "And now for Valley Lake, Clay Brewer!" The name seemed innocuous, until he got a look at Clay's face. It reminded him of someone with a large build, too, but he couldn't quite place it at first.
The new Clay had a large build, too, but it was all muscle, not fat. "So weird to see women with this much muscle," Jade whispered to him. She stepped up to the mat to face her Shadow Hill counterpart, another bulky woman. As the two faced off, Nicole had her own example for Ash.
"She used to be the most out-of-shape person in school. Everyone picked on her. Now? I'm led to think they'd be ripped to shreds."
"What was her name before this?"
"Gladys," Nicole explained. "She's gotta be enjoying this."
After the meet ended, it was time for the cheerleaders to change and head out. A boy came up next to Jonatha and began using the locker next to him.
"Hey Maddie," Jonatha said without thinking. Suddenly, he realized something. Maddie? Who? He was a little surprised he knew this boy's name. "What's up?" He took a moment to look at him. He had long, blonde hair and was beautiful in a "beach blonde" sort of way. A lot of girls probably thought he was cute, or even sexy.
"Not much...just not been feeling well lately. You?"
"I've been OK... I have a date tomorrow night! Thinking a lot about that," Jonatha replied.
"Oh cool," Maddie said, though he seemed a bit scared to think about dating. "Good luck."
"Thanks." Jonatha noticed that Maddie was really nervous even talking about things about women. He wondered why. On the opposite side, Jade was talking with a pair of boys he couldn't recall seeing before, yet who seemed familiar.
"What are you doing this weekend?"
"I have a date!"
"What is it with dates around here? Almost everyone seems to be having one lately!"
"I dunno, but when it's that cute girl Ash Miller... Who can resist? She gave me her number!"
"Well, Jaymee and I are gonna work on some projects together. Not much to do, really," he explained.
"Sounds...kinda boring."
"School's important," the other boy, evidently the one named Jaymee, said. "Anyway, Jordina and I need to get going. We'll see you later!" Completely changed, Jordina and Jaymee (Vargas, as it turned out), along with Maddie Carlyle, left together to a wave from Jade.
With the locker room mostly clearing out, Jonatha approached his best friend. "Hey Jade?"
"Yeah?"
"You feel like...a wound was healed this afternoon?"
"Hmm." Jade hesitated for a moment. "You know... I kind of do."
