Excerpt: How to Speak to Spirits

** For those of you following along, or even some who have stumbled across this page by mistake, this next excerpt is up for editing purposes. It describes a rugby match between the girls school, The REPRESENT Academy, and the boys, The CRYMES Academy. Gemma and Zoe are on the team, while Ariadne and Elizabeth are watching from the stands and monitoring Olive's whereabouts. They are all in contact via tiny telephone earpieces, which makes playing rugby even more difficult for Gemma than it already is. Which is about as difficult as I found it to write about. Unfortunately, rugby is a sport I've never seen played, unless you count the videos I watched on youtube for research. So please, if anyone spots any mistakes, feel free to email me or nanomail me and tell me what I've done wrong. **

“Wait!” Gemma cried, grabbing Zoe by the collar of her jersey. “I can’t do this.”

“Of course you can,” Zoe scoffed. “Don’t be daft. You’ll be smashing, won’t you?”

“No! No, I absolutely won’t be smashing. Unless by smashing you mean smashing into other players, because I’m almost certain to do that, being that I don’t know what I’m doing. But I suspect you meant smashing in the English way, as in great or wonderful, which I cannot possibly be.” Gemma got it all out in one breath, then gulped some air and stared at Zoe, panic churning her blood and making her have to pee.

Zoe just laughed. “It’s just like any other sport. Get the ball and run it down the pitch. How hard is that?”

“Hard!” Gemma wailed. “And what about the muck? And the ruckus? And scrumming? I don’t remember what any of these things are.”

“It’s ruck and maul and scrum,” Zoe corrected, throwing an arm around her shoulders and leading her out onto the field. “And you don’t need to know what they’re called. Just do what the other mates do when we have one. Honestly, it’s hard to mess up.”

Gemma had a feeling Zoe was going to want to take that back by the time this was all over.

Luckily for her, and for her teammates, she wasn’t asked to take the field in the first play. Her coach obviously knew what she was doing. As Gemma watched the others line up, she heard Elizabeth’s low tone in the receiver in her ear. “How are we doing so far?”

Gemma saw Zoe out on the field, giving her head a quick shake as if swatting a fly.

“So far, so good,” Gemma mumbled.

Her coach heard her and smiled. “It’s only the first play. Don’t get too excited.”

Gemma smiled back, feeling sick. She wouldn’t get too excited, she was sure of that. And if she had to take the field, she hoped all the fans and family members in the stands weren’t too excited about the outcome of the game, either. After all, what was a little fouled match and heart stopping embarrassment among friends?

“We’ve got visual.”

Gemma turned to scan the crowd, wondering where her sister and Elizabeth were sitting. Probably further down the bleachers, because now Gemma could see the cheerleading squad, as Olive and her little followers were calling themselves, standing on the sidelines near the goal post.

“Try line,” she reminded herself out loud.

Her coach gave her a puzzled glance. “They’re a little too far for a try, yet.”

“Just trying to give them a little mental encouragement,” she said, swinging her arm in a ‘go get em’ motion.

“You really have no idea how to play this game, do you?” Elizabeth remarked on the tiny phone.

Gemma ignored her and tried to focus on the field. Maybe she could focus on one player and copy her moves when it was her turn on the field. She zeroed in on Stephany Jones, the tiny girl who sat behind her in genetics. Stephany was a back, just like Gemma, so it stood to reason that they’d be making some of the same moves.

She watched as Stephany accepted a backwards pass from Zoe, then dropped back to look for an opening. Seeing one of the boys bearing down on her, she held out the ball and kicked it down the field, sending several of the girls in their bright blue REPRESENT jerseys in hot pursuit.

“Excellent grubber,” her coach cheered, clapping and whistling.

All right, so maybe she and Stephany wouldn’t be making similar moves.

Just then, the official blew his whistle. “Offside penalty.”

“Take the kick,” coach hollered.

Zoe trotted up to the ball, which had been set on the grass. After a running start, she kicked it straight through the goal posts.

The crowd erupted in applause, and the cheerleaders began chanting some mindless rhyme and doing cartwheels across the grass. Gemma tried to ignore the screaming from the earpiece that was sure to deafen her.

“Nice job,” the coach said, patting Zoe on the back as she came off the field. She guzzled from her water bottle with a pleased expression on her face.

“Dunbar, take the pitch.”

“Who, me?” Gemma asked, looking around for another Dunbar.

“Yes, you. You’re in for Dudden. Now go.”

Through her heart thudding in her chest and the blood rushing in her head, she managed to make out Elizabeth’s low whistle.

“Is there any way to turn this thing off?” she muttered. “I’m having a hard enough time concentrating as it is.”

“Olive’s on the move,” came her sister’s response.

Gemma whipped her head around to the spot on the field where the cheerleaders had been performing, noting out of the corner of her eye that Zoe had done the same thing. Ariadne was right. Olive was missing.

“Got her,” Elizabeth said after a moment.

“Don’t worry, Gem. Just concentrate on the game. We’ll take care of it,” said Ariadne.

Gemma wished she could worry about it, only because it would take her mind off the terrifying experience of being out here in the middle of a game she didn’t understand, facing off against a bunch of boys she didn’t know. Except Killian, of course, who gave her a thumbs up as they lined up on the field.

The official stood outside the sideline and blew his whistle, handing the ball off to a boy Gemma recognized as one of the Hedgehogs. Dillon, or maybe it was Collin. As she tried to remember, she realized that her teammates were lining up perpendicular to the Hedgehog, whoever he was. What were they doing? Wait. She knew this one.

“A line up!” she announced triumphantly.

“Line OUT,” Zoe hissed in her ear, while the others on the field stared at her strangely.

Gemma quickly fell into place and watched as Dillon, or Collin, held the ball high above his head, leaned back, and then threw it straight down the middle of their line. So intent was she on watching this marvelous throw that she nearly missed the fact that she was being lifted into the air by two of her teammates. She flailed her arms, trying to regain her balance, and then instinctively clutched at the ball as it hit her in the chest.

“I caught it,” she said, feeling dazed. “I caught it!”

“Drop it. Drop it!” Zoe screamed, along with several hundred other people.

Gemma dropped it, then collapsed onto the ground as the girls supporting her dropped to their knees. She scrambled in the mud, trying to get her balance. “Is this a muck or a scrum?” she wondered aloud.

“Who bloody cares?” Zoe screamed. “Just get in there and push!”

So she shoved her shoulder against whoever happened to be leaning in to her and pushed with all her might. And then as suddenly as the brawl had started, it was over. The heap of people dissolved, and she looked up to see her teammates running down the field.

“Oh, crap,” Gemma cursed, pushing herself to her feet and going after them.

“Change of plans, girls,” Elizabeth announced, her voice sounding strained. “Did Stephany ride Pepsi here today?” she asked, the question seeming to come out of nowhere.

“How the heck would I know?” Gemma grumbled, still running down the field."I'm trying to play a game here."

After a moment, Zoe’s voice came through with an affirmative yes.

“How willing would she be to fake an injury on the next play and get taken out of the game?” Elizabeth wondered.

“No,” Gemma wailed, knowing that if that happened she’d be playing the rest of the match.

The girl next to her eyed her with suspicion, as their teammate ran across the try line, ball in hand.

“I mean, yes! Yes!” Gemma squealed.

“Why?” Zoe was asking.

“I need her to ride her horse to Costington Hall,” was Elizabeth’s cryptic reply.

“All right, Gem. Just signal that you want to come out,” Zoe told her.

“I can do that?” Gemma fumed. If she’d known that, she would have done it long ago. She raised her hand in coach’s direction and waved it around until Stephany trotted out onto the pitch beside her.

“Go on,” the dark haired girl told her, sounding breathless and looking more excited than Gemma about the prospect of her looming injury.

“Thanks,” Gemma told her, giving her a fist bump. She ran back to the bleachers and slid into the seat next to Zoe.

“What the heck is going on?” she whispered, both to Zoe and Elizabeth and Ariadne, too, if she was listening.

“I was wrong,” Elizabeth finally whispered. “And Drusilla was right.”

“Drusilla!” Gemma exclaimed loudly.
“
What?” asked one of the forewards who was sitting further down the bench. She leaned in front of the other girls between them, almost crushing two with her massive girth.

Gemma remembered belatedly that her name was Drusilla, too. “Great play before,” she offered lamely, unable to come up with another lie.

“Thanks,” the girl said, beaming.

“You are not very good at this hidden telephone thing, are you?” Zoe inquired.

Gemma ignored her. “Elizabeth?” she asked instead. “What did you mean?”

“I’ve got to go offline for a bit,” Elizabeth replied, the line suddenly filled with static. “Send Stephany to the stables as soon as she can get away.” The line went dead.

“Ariadne?” Gemma said, tapping her ear. “Can you still hear us?”

“I’m still here,” her sister replied. “I don’t know what Elizabeth is up to, but I can tell you that Olive just came out of the locker room, and she’s looking very pleased with herself.”

“What the devil . . .” Zoe broke off, on her feet suddenly as pandemonium broke out on the pitch.

“It’s a maul,” she explained to Gemma, over the deafening roar of the crowd. “Like a scrum, only the ball is still up.”

“I can see why they call it a maul,” Gemma replied, wincing as she watched bodies slam together and heard the sharp retort of skin on skin.

When the melee was over, one lone player lay on the field, her blue jersey a bright spot of color against the muddy green of the field. Stephany lay on her side, clutching her knee to her chest and moaning loud enough that Gemma could hear her from the bench.

One of the medics ran onto the field and bent over her, and before long he was helping her off the pitch, supporting her weight as she hopped on one foot over to the bench.

“She needs to be seen by a doctor,” Gemma announced immediately. “I’ll take her.”

Coach scowled at her. “We need you on the field. Without Stephany, we’re down a back.”

Elizabeth was there suddenly, pushing her way through the crowd. “Her mum is waiting for her. I’ll help her out,” she offered, looking every bit the administrative assistant in her plaid jumper of REPRESENT blue and her perfectly coiffed hair held back with a matching headband. The only thing out of place was the streak of pink frosting across her cheek.

“What . . .” Gemma began, but the coach cut her off.

“Dunbar, take the pitch!”

“I’m going, I’m going,” she muttered, running back out to face her doom. “It’s quite possible I could lose this game for us,” she told her friends, then tried to ignore the open-mouthed stare of the girl beside her on the field. “I hope this is worth it.”

Her teammate glanced around nervously, then edged her way away from Gemma, obviously deciding she was loony. It was just as well, Gemma thought. When she screwed up the next play, and the one after that, it was probably better that there weren’t too many people in the vicinity to witness it.

Chapter Twenty Five

The rest of the match passed with the speed of a recurring nightmare, one that played over and over and over again, no matter how many times you woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Gemma drew penalties several times; for scrumming when she should have been mauling, and mauling when she should have been rucking, and then three times in a row for forward passing, until Zoe finally hissed at her, “Throw back, already. It’s not that hard, is it?”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Gemma complained, anger and embarrassment making her more belligerent than normal. “Why wouldn’t you throw the ball toward your goal. Why throw it towards theirs?”

Zoe threw up her hands. “That would be too bloody easy, wouldn’t it? What kind of sport would that be?”

A normal sport, Gemma wanted to say, but didn’t, partly because of the receiver in her ear.

Still, despite Gemma’s efforts to the contrary, they managed to play a tight game, and in the final minute, they were tied with the CRYMES boys twenty to twenty.

The noise in the crowd had been steadily increasing, from dull roar, to deafening squeal, and finally to a sound similar to that of a rocket launch. But when the teams took the pitch for the final play of the game, a heavy silence came over the crowd. The only sound Gemma could hear was her own breathing, deep and heavy in her ear.

Wait.

“Quit panting,” Gemma muttered, trying to keep her lips from moving. “It’s distracting me.” She couldn’t be sure if it was Elizabeth, or Ariadne, or even Zoe, who was lined up in front of her waiting for the throw in, but whoever it was managed to stop as the ball came hurtling onto the field.

Warm hands grasped her around the thighs and waist, and this time she was ready. She batted it in the general direction of her teammates and then slid down into position for the scrum, pleased with herself. She was getting the hang of this after all! Maybe rugby wasn’t as hard as she thought. Maybe she wasn’t as terrible a player as they would have her believe.

Gemma put her head down against the armpit of the player in front of her and grasped the shoulders of those on either side. She was a lock, one of the players in the middle row, and was responsible, along with the other lock, of helping to propel the front line forward.

The referee blew his whistle, and the hooker and the two props went head to head against the opposing team. They were all bent over now, eight on each side, forming a sort of tunnel with their bodies. It was here that the ball was rolled, the objective being for one team to push forward far enough to gain possession of the ball with their feet in order to send it into play, and ultimately, to the try line.

Gemma was mentally reviewing these steps in her head, feeling quite elated that she had finally figured out the scrum –scrum! It was such a funny word – that she didn’t notice right away that the entire team had nosedived onto the team. Her face smashed into one of the props elbows, and she tasted blood and then mud before falling forward onto the grass.

A wild booing had gone up from the crowd, and the official’s whistle was blowing a series of sharp, staccato tweets.

“What’s happening?” she asked of no one in particular, as she gazed up at the sky above her.

“He collapsed the scrum,” Zoe was screaming, both in her ear and in the referee’s face. “It was deliberate, wasn’t it!” She jabbed a finger at one of the boys, and her teammates had to pull her back, just in time to avoid her landing a blow.

The referee blew his whistle again, this time a long one, and pointed at Zoe. “Sin bin,” he announced, which sent up a flurry of protests. The other girls were jumping and waving their fists, Zoe at the forefront of it all. Gemma had never seen her best friend like this, so competitive and, well, mean. Then the coach marched onto the field, and the yelling ceased. After conferring with the referee, Coach threw an arm around Zoe’s shoulders and led her dejected friend off the field.

The redhead managed one apologetic glance at Gemma before stomping off for the sin bin. The sin bin, which meant she’d been ejected from the game and they wouldn’t be allowed to add a player to replace her. They’d have to play with ten instead of eleven. Darn it! Why hadn’t Gemma thought of doing thar?

She became aware of her teammates scrutiny, as one by one all their heads turned in her direction.

“Why is everybody staring at me?” she asked.

Elizabeth's voice came through, sounding grim. “Zoe was the kicker.”

Gemma still didn’t get it.

“We get a penalty kick. It’s our only chance to win the match.”

“Ah. Well, good. Let’s kick the ball, then,” she said, trying to sound cheerful.

Some of the girls on the field shook their heads and wandered off, while a couple others patted her on the back.

“You can do it, Gemma,” said one of the props.

She smiled back, then faltered. “Wait. What? What can I do?”

“You’re the back up kicker, aren’t you?” came Zoe’s voice in her ear. “You can do this Gemma. Remember that awesome kick in class? Everyone’s counting on you.”

Gemma gulped and looked up into the sea of faces in the stands. Her heart was pounding so fast she thought it might explode, and she had the bitter taste of pure fear in her mouth. That and dirt.

She watched as the referee brought out the ball and tee and set them up at an angle from the goalposts.

“Where should I stand?” she asked, ducking her head so no one could see her talking to herself.

“Move left,” Zoe instructed, and when she did, “Sorry. My left. Your right.”

Gemma shuffled a few steps over, until her friend pronounced it good, and then stood, taking deep breaths in and out.

“He’s going to blow the whistle,” Zoe said, walking her though it, “and when he does, you just run and kick it. Just like in class. Nothing to it, is there?”

“Nothing,” Gemma managed, through chattering teeth. Her whole body was suddenly ice cold and quaking, and she felt an odd sense of numbness, as if maybe this whole thing weren’t really happening, perhaps it was all a dream and she would wake up soon. Now would be good.

But she didn’t wake up. Instead, the crowd began to chant her name, Gemm-A Gemm-A, over and over, and then the official blew his whistle.

Time froze. Gemma felt everything, as if her senses were suddenly magnified. She felt the stretch in her calf as she leaned back on her foot, felt the clods of dirt kick back under her foot as she pushed off, heard the slight squee of the grass beneath her cleats as she ran. Then the satisfying thud of her foot connecting with the ball, and the blissful silence as it took flight, the silence of hundreds of people holding their collective breath in one single moment.

It all whooshed out at once, Gemma heard it, when the ball sailed past the goal, far left and outside, and bounced down the end of the field, finally rolling to a stop far past the try line. She watched it for a time, unable to look any of her teammates in the eye. She’d failed them. This was what it felt like, then, to have a stadium full of people counting on you, only to let them down when it mattered most.

She heaved a defeated sigh and blinked back tears as her teammates came up to slap her on the back.

“Good job.”

“Nice kick.”

“It was almost there.”

Gemma looked up in surprise. They weren’t angry?

“But . . .I missed,” she stammered in confusion.

“But you were so close.”

Coach and Zoe met her as she came off the field. “Good show, Dunbar,” Coach said, slapping her on the back.

“Why is everyone so happy?” Gemma asked Zoe, who was also grinning.

“We tied, didn’t we?” Zoe asked. “That’s the first time ever in the history of the rugby challenge. They’ll be talking about this for years, won’t they?” she predicted.

“But I don’t understand.”

“Now no one’s unhappy,” Zoe told her, throwing an arm around her shoulders. “We can go to the dance with everyone in good spirits. That's never happened before, has it? The boys won’t act all superior, we girls don’t have to defend our gender, or feel the need to boast about how much better we are. They never like that. Now we can actually dance, and if talk moves to the match, well, then, we’re both right. Bloody brilliant, mate,” she added, giving Gemma another slap, as if perhaps Gemma had done it on purpose.

“So, they don’t hate me?” Gemma had to know.

“Nah. Of course not. The girls might be a mite bit disappointed, but they’d rather dance now, anyway. And as for the boys, well for them you’re sort of a hero, aren’t you? Saved face and all that.” Zoe continued to grin her jaw cracking smile. “Now let’s get showered and changed, shall we?”

“Gemma,” came Elizabeth’s voice, sounding more dire than she’d ever heard her. for one last warning before they removed the telephones, “I’ve moved your things to Zoe’s locker. Whatever you do, don’t open your locker.”

“What do you suppose that’s all about?” she asked Zoe.

Her friend shrugged. “Don’t know. But when she gets like this, it’s best to just do what she says, isn’t it?”

And Gemma, in spite of her curiosity, had to agree.