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How can this happen to me in my senior year of high school? I’ve been a Warrior since kindergarten. The Deer Valley Warriors have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My family bleeds green and gold. The Granite Hills Wildcats are our rival. We hate the blue and white.
NORTH SOUTH EAST AND WEST
IN ALL DIRECTIONS WARRIORS ARE BEST
WILDCATS WILDCATS HEAR US CRY
GO GO DEER VALLEY HIGH!
“This isn’t happening,” I hear myself whisper.
Mom leans in, and she smells like vanilla hand lotion. “It’ll be okay, honey. It’s not that big of a deal.”
I meet her gaze with tears in my eyes, and I force myself to nod. But it’s not true. A new school means new friends, new classes. A new mascot and new school colors and a whole new football team. No rides to school from my boyfriend. No more seeing Nate each morning and evening and before and after each class.
This is not a big deal. This is a massive, earth-shattering deal.
Chapter Three
The kitchen smells like cookies and warm icing and for the first time in my life, the allure of Mom’s baked goods doesn’t make my mouth water. Mom takes out another tray of double chocolate chip cookies from the oven while I press my football-shaped cookie cutter into the raw dough in front of me. With a sigh, I let the football shape drop onto parchment paper and then I press the cutter back into the rolled-out dough. Tonight is the annual last party of the summer, a bonfire held at Alexander’s house, which is a mansion in the middle of nowhere. The football players throw the party every year, and only those with an invite get in. I’ve been invited all four years of high school, no doubt thanks to Nate.
“I’ve never seen someone so damn sad to bake,” Mom says. The sarcasm in her voice clashes with her sparkly eyeliner and the green and gold hairclip that pins back her bangs. She taught a cheer clinic to five-year-olds this morning, and she’s still dressed up from it. “Here Isla,” she says, holding out an icing bag with a star tip. “Switch me. You’re great at icing these things.”
I sigh again and take the bag. We walk around the kitchen island, taking each other’s place at our makeshift cookie factory. I squeeze a border of green icing around the football cookies that have cooled off. Then I switch to the bag with yellow icing and line the inside. “You know no one will care about these cookies,” I say, switching back to the green icing. “The guys go to these parties to get drunk and the girls go to hook up with the guys.”
“And you better not do either one of those things,” Mom warns, pointing a cookie cutter at me. ?
??You can eat the cookies if no one else will.”
“People will eat them, they just don’t care about them,” I say, concentrating really hard on the piping task in front of me so that I don’t have to look my mom in the eyes. “Ever think that maybe you try too hard with this school spirit stuff?”
“No,” Mom says flatly. “You’ve had a very fun life because of me. You’re popular and well-liked, and you’ve been dating that cute boyfriend of yours for four years. You think school spirit had nothing to do with that? Because it did.”
I don’t say anything because she’s right and I hate admitting it. Though I’d had a crush on Nate for months back in seventh grade, he never really noticed me until I started going to the junior high football games, cheering from the sidelines with my green and gold hair ribbons and glittered Warriors shirts.
“I shouldn’t even go to the party tonight,” I say, frowning. “It’s a Deer Valley party, and I’m no longer in Deer Valley High. I don’t belong with these people.”
Mom’s golden hair sways back and forth as she shakes her head. “Stop being dramatic, Isla. You’ve known these people your whole life and your boyfriend will be there and besides, you still live in the same house! You belong with them.”
I bite the inside of my lip and focus on the cookies, making a perfect football shape with my yellow icing. Going to this party is just delaying the inevitable. Am I really supposed to attend an entirely new school and still come back home to make green and gold stuff with Mom? Will the team still let me hang out with them when they’re planning pranks on Granite Hills if I’m a part of their rival school?
I don’t bother asking Mom these things because when I asked Nate on the phone last night, he hadn’t had an answer for me. I’ve gone from being a part of the group to feeling like an outsider in just twenty-four hours.
“Hey, Mom?”
“Yeah?” She slides a tray of cookies into the oven then looks up at me.
I give her an innocent expression. “You think I could be homeschooled for senior year?”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m not smart enough to teach you, and your father doesn’t have the time.”
I open my mouth to object and this time, she points an oven mitt at me. “It’s nearly sundown, girl. Go get dressed for the party and stop worrying about things that don’t matter.”
In all the history of the world, I’m not sure any seventeen-year-old has been as annoyed as I am to have her mother demand that she go to a party. I head to my room and throw on some cutoff jean shorts and a gold flowy tank top to make my school spirit more nuanced than Mom’s rhinestone Warriors tees. I tie a green ribbon around my ponytail, and I wear the strawberry lip gloss because it’s Nate’s favorite.
Nate texts me saying he can’t give me a ride to the party tonight because, well I’m not sure why since he avoided the question, so I try really hard not to take it as a sign that I shouldn’t go. Mom helps me load a million plastic-covered trays of cookies into the backseat of my old Honda Civic. I seem to be driving this car a lot more than usual lately since Nate keeps bailing on being my ride.
“Have fun,” Mom says, waving to me from the door. I nod and wave back at her as I back out of the driveway. Just because some decision-making suits at the county office don’t want me to be a Warrior anymore doesn’t mean I’m not still a Warrior at heart.
