James 

I just stood there, feeling like an idiot- Until a teacher noticed me awkwardly standing there. 

And... Apparently, I had another fan. 

"Jackson! Hello! You're the little league champion, for the bull sharks?? Nice to meet you!" 

Her enthusiastic bouncy talking made her hair swish and flyaways were the dominant part of her speech keeping my attention. I never had those, even with my unruly hair- But girls had them often, and I thought it was kinda funny. 

After she finished telling me how she was so happy to see a young boy such as myself working and succeeding at fulfilling his dreams playing hockey, the star Canadian, I took a deep breath and let her awkwardly shake my hand. 

"I'm Mrs. Emilee, by the way! What's your next class?" 

I focused on the bridge of her nose over her black-rimmed glasses, trying to keep myself from sneezing- I hate doing that while I'm talking to people, especially adults- But It didn't work, and snot flew all over the lockers in front of me. 

Boy, was that going to be hard to live down. There were still kids in the hallway, and watching their new cool sports kid sneeze on a teacher probably only upped the James side of Jackson. Some looked disgusted, others looked... proud, but those people were only boys. 

"I'm so sorry," I started, but Mrs. Emilee, laughed slowly and turned around and walked down the hallway. 

"Wait, Mrs. Emilee?" 

"See you next Saturday, Jackson!" She said over her shoulder. I could only imagine her expression. 

Wait- "What? Saturday? Can you help-" 

But she had turned the corner. 

"With my locker," I trailed off. 

"Isn't that your team's next hockey game? The school team, anyway. The Bull Sharks are off season right now, obviously." I jumped when a girl with light brown hair in two braids over her shoulders spoke in my ear. 

I hadn't even made it to tryouts yet! 

"Oh, yeah- Sorry, I need to get to class," I mumbled. 

"Oh, where's that?" 

I realized my schedule was in my backpack, but I'd also gotten snot on that. 

"In my locker," I answered dumbly, attempting to keep her attention off of my backpack. I didn't figure out until too late that my response made it sound like my actual class was in my locker, but she got the message anyway. 

You wouldn't think I get straight A's. 

"Well, Jackson, open it." 

"Oh." 

And then the bell rang. 

I banged my head on my locker- Guess what got on my forehead- And the girl jumped and sprinted past me into the classroom nearest my locker. 

. . . . . . . .

 The end of the day couldn't come fast enough. 

Specialized sports was the worst thing I had ever encountered. 

The name didn't even make sense! They weren't specialized, it was like Phys Ed with a twist: The teacher isn't just any P.E teacher. He's the assistant coach for girls' track and the head coach for hockey. And warmups were nothing my quick 'how bad is p.e' google searches. 

The class started with him grumping at us over his knee, and how every day that he came to work seeing us struggle with pushups, we made it hurt worse. 

I was tempted to tell him that's not how pain works, but... Jackson wouldn't have? He would have just jumped at the chance to show how good he was at pushups. So I kept my mouth shut. 

Ohh, man, and was I not good at pushups. 

While I struggled to do three in a row, everyone had finished (Why is it always the athletic kids that cheat and do really shallow ones? I mean- Doing the deep and correct ones is how you show superiority, guys!)

On the sixth one, my arms were burning and I was making that gasp squeak noise with every one. 

"Up, Turner." Coach scribbles something on the clipboard in his hand. "You're making my knee throb. Twenty jumping jacks, everyone."

Oh. I can do that.

They're considerably harder than when I do them in my bedroom- The grass is a little softer of a landing, but when you're jumping around on a lawn with twenty or so other kids it's a little scary. Everyone's got this look on their face, like if anything stops them, they will be either eternally grateful or enact their revenge in some weird way- It's the sweaty, red faces of teenagers who will do anything just to stay away from the coach's bad side but also put in the least amount of effort possible despite the risk. Not that his good side extends beyond his left elbow.

I finish way before everyone else does. I'm about to give myself a pat on the back when, to my surprise, the coach gives me a look of death.

I realize I've called other expressions 'looks of death.' And I won't say this rivaled them all- You should see me when I'm nauseous in a moving vehicle. But apparently, you can't count the downbeat of the jumping jacks as well as the up beat. ONLY the up beat, which in my book equates to forty jumping jacks, not twenty.

He snaps his fingers and orders me to do twenty (forty) more, and I finish after the rest of the class again. Michael laughs helpfully from down the line when my arms finally slap against my sides in relief. 

"Well," Coach says, itching his head, "Now that you have almost all successfully completed warmups, we will be jogging around the track twice. Tomorrow the same thing, but the day after that, we're upping the speed. Get used to the cold- or bring a jacket. If you show up late you have less time to run the track, and that means point deductions!"

You have absolutely no idea how much I dreaded the track.

I remembered a summer camp back when I was eleven, where we had run around the lake, had epic rivalries, and I met my cousin Alex for the first and most recent time. My stamina had been much better then. I hadn't run distance in a few years. Just a few short bursts here and there where I would chase Jackson with a frog, or... You get the point. 

As I reminisced, the coach rudely interrupted with a red-faced yell and a pat on his knee. "Turner!" 

As Michael ran past me, he patted my head, ruffling my Jackson hairstyle. My head immediately felt less stupid. (It has a self-esteem. Don't drag it down with hair gel.) 

"C'mon, man, if you can run a lap in two minutes you don't have to do the second one!" 

I gasped as I almost tripped over a slug. 

Michael looked at me weirdly. 

"Slug," I said dumbly. "Uh... obviously." 

"Alright, buddy," He laughed, speeding up a little. We were halfway around the track now- And I realized my legs hadn't yet copied their buddy the slug in composition and strength. (That would have been weird to watch.)

"This isn't absolutely horrible," I panted as we sped up slightly. Michael checked his watch. 

"Two laps isn't too bad," He answered. "Wait till we have to run the mile in under eight minutes. No breaks, man," He grumbled. "We've been running for over a minute- Let's go a little faster." 

We sprinted the rest of the way. My stick legs were having more fun than I thought they would have- And Michael's muscly ones were bounding along just fine, too. But there's one thing I hadn't dealt with from running before. 

Turns out, if you run long and fast enough then abruptly stop- Your brain just kinda goes "there is too much momentum in your skull and I'm about to bodyslam your face." 

Basically, it slaps your forehead- er, the inside of it? (ew.) and your vision goes a little fuzzy. Though I also hadn't drank any water since that morning, so dehydration could also have played a role. 

But the second Michael slowed in front of Coach, I planted my feet but stumbled forward for a second, then smacked into a girl running in front of me- She tripped and fell to her knees while I fell backward onto my butt. My head swam and my backside wasn't feeling much better. 

"Woah!"

"Sorry- sorry," I mumbled, blinking hard so my brain would chill out and get back a little bit. It wasn't working. 

"It's fine," The girl said as she stood up. "You look like you're about to pass out." 

I opened my eyes very slowly- The air was still windy and it was still cloudy out. So the sun didn't immediately make me puke. 

"I might," I grumbled. "Sorry. You can keep running." 

Wide-eyed, she shrugged and jogged away. 

I slowly stood up as Michael started laughing. "Smooth, man. Real smooth. Get up before she thinks you actually passed out from running one lap." 

"I don't even know who that was," I answered, straightening up and folding my arms. "And... did we do it? Under two minutes?" 

Michael slapped my back. "Yep. But we are going back to the locker room to get you some water. You look like you're dehydrated." 

Okay, cool.

"But, Jackson, you gotta gradually slow down, dude. You can't just-" He mimicked my abrupt stop and fake-tripped, kicking up dust behind him.  

"Could have gone without the whole making fun of Jam-son..." I blinked and put my head in my hands. "huhghnng."

Michael gave me a nervous smile- as if he was thinking, "this guy is nuts." hopefully not that i'd slipped and said my own name. That wasn't obvious. 

As we walked back to the school building, Michael asked me about hockey tryouts. 

"What position you hoping for?" 

Immediately as the words processed in my admittedly slow-for-that-day brain, my first impulse was to slap my own face and get mad that I hadn't studied the positions. The only one I knew the name of was goalie. 

Deciding to be safe, and also not remembering what Jackson played, I answered, "Defense."

Michael clapped me on the shoulder. "No way, dude! Left or right defenceman?" 

I had no idea what that meant. "Uhh... either. What do you play?" 

"Usually left.