Strange Country Day by Charles Curtis Page B

fly the winning school’s flag at his office for a day. He praised Coach Schmick, who barely cracked a smile when his name came up—I don’t think he liked being called Marcellus in front of an entire town that called him “Coach.” I began zoning out.
    “He’s still wearing his sunglasses, even though it’s dark out,” Dex said under his breath.
    “Good. If he shows his eyes to the press, the camera lenses will crack,” I whispered back. We chuckled, and my eyes drifted over to where Sophi was standing. There she was, talking to my parents. My heart jumped. This was not what I wanted to see. What would they say to her?
    The crowd applauded at the end of the mayor’s speech. I walked over to Sophi and my parents.
    “There he is. Nice job standing up there,” Dad said.
    “Thanks. What did I miss?”
    “Nothing you don’t already know,” Sophi said.
    “We were actually talking about how your coach never takes off those crazy sunglasses,” Mom said.
    “Trust me, you don’t want to see what’s under there,” I replied. We all laughed. There was a pause after that when I tried to give my parents a look to tell them they’d had enough time with Sophi. They figured it out.
    “We’re going to head back. Sophi, it was so nice to finally meet you. You’re welcome at the house anytime,” Mom said.
    “Thanks, Mrs. Ptuiac. I appreciate it.”
    “I’ll be home later,” I offered.
    “Not too late,” Dad replied, peering over his glasses and attempting his best stern look. I nodded.
    As soon as they left, Sophi and I walked toward the crackling fire. Most the students were sitting on blankets or towels spread on the grass with their groups of friends, laughing or whispering to each other.
    “Don’t worry, they didn’t say anything weird,” Sophi said.
    “Riiiiight,” I said sarcastically.
    “They said something really sweet, actually.” We stopped and stared at the fire in front of us. “They thanked me.”
    “Why?”
    “They said when you moved here, you were super lonely. They told me how they appreciated how much I was helping get you over all that.”
    “It‘s true. I don’t know how I would’ve survived everything that’s going on.” That was an understatement. If only she knew, I thought.
    She smiled at me and slipped her hand into mine, giving it a squeeze. Zzst! A slight static shock snapped in my hand. Sophi had never really done anything like that in front of our classmates, so I imagined that some of the whispers around the fire were now about us. Maybe they’d get louder if they’d heard what she said next.
    “Let’s get out of here. I want to show you something.”
    My mouth went dry as Dex came up to us.
    “I think we’re taking off,” I told him. I saw his eyes dart down to Sophi’s hand in mine. He got the message.
    “Cool!” His voice rose and he cleared his throat. “I was going to head out soon, too. Coach Schmick wants us to get rest for tomorrow.”
    “You’ll be okay walking home?”
    “Hey, if I can’t outrun everyone, I don’t deserve to be on the team.”
    Minutes later, we were heading away from the park. As we got farther away from the fire, the streets got darker and darker. I started to imagine the man in the hat coming after us and kept swiveling my head, trying to look in all directions at once.
    Finally, we reached a cul-de-sac with two enormous houses across from each other. Behind them was a stretch of woods. With the exception of a few lights in one of the houses, it was pitch dark. Sophi put her finger to her lips and pointed to the trees. She walked up to one large hedge and lifted the branches to duck underneath. She held it up and let me pass through. To my surprise, there was a path in front of us. We walked quickly through the darkness, brambles scraping our arms as she darted left, right, right again, and over a tree root I nearly tripped over as my eyes tried to adjust.
    What felt like an eternity passed as we moved clumsily through