Chapter 50: It's O K

Seeing a rare fight breakout, Jeffrey stayed as a spectator to watch the scene unfold.

A bunch of Stuyvescent students with an embroidered badge on their school uniforms, long socks, and polished shoes had seemingly come to challenge them. Their school students had a pen pal program with the science kids in the lego robotics team.

"tu peux retourner dans ton école", one of the kids from Jeffrey's science class said to them.

"c'est ne pas un pipe. c'est la défaite", a Stuyvescent kid spoke back.

Then with the grace of an informal competition. Both sides organized and shook hands.

One kid from both teams were chosen to referee and the tiny dodgeballs were laid on the court. Each side had a total of 12 kids facing off. They all lined up on the back court line in running position.

Jeffrey could almost imagine the old western music playing. a guitar strumming the music chords, a few notes from a harmonica, the whistle of a cowboy, a few taps from a trumpet, and the crack of a whip.

Jeffrey recognized a 7th grader intermediate band player pull out a trumpet and blasted a sharp A-flat note.

A rush of footsteps could be heard on the blacktop. The center of the basketball court had descended into chaos as the scramble for dodgeballs had begun.

At first mini dodgeballs were whizzing and curving from the close range throws. As time passed and it was clear to see that a few dodgeballs from Jeffrey's school team had been caught by their opponent.

The student referee pointed at the kids gesturing them to get out. They walked to the side of the basketball court watching and waiting for someone to catch a ball. Once a ball was caught, the referee from their school would immediately push them back in.

Although someone could target the players returning to court, the rules were that they had to wait 3 seconds before a player could be hit again.

The game continued as a stalemate had formed. Each side were dodging and collecting the dodge balls.

Jeffrey could hear the various insults some of the team members said to one another "goofball", "spaz", "you disappointed us".

"ton père sentait le goji", another French kid retorted.

Jeffrey's school French students had started rolling balls as bait. However the Stuyvescent kids were coordinated and focused fired some of the good dodgeball throwers in response.

some kids got out and some didn't.

Out of all the people playing, the key dodge ballers Alex "Jet" Devigne, Radha Carollo, and Mark Tobin were all standing on the sidelines. Spenser Thorne and Sophie Zahn were the only major threats still on the court.

Spenser was a decent thrower, however his sticky hands and good dodging skills made him a strong defense player and usually the last man standing.

Sophie Zahn however was more of a targeted stealth player. While people focused on the more heavy throwers, Sophie would throw a dodgeball from behind her back and target an unsuspecting opponent.

Usually when one threw a dodge ball they would stare at the path to see if it hit anyone. The windup, the throw and situational awareness were all things that a good player would pay attention too. However Sophie was short, quick, and sense of timing were impeccible.

She was known as the dodge ball queen as she assassinated and reaped many good players with distractions, two ball throws, and an occasional double hit.

There were a few decent players and cannon fodder still left. Their team mascot, guardian and leader Mehmet Colakaglu was still on the court as well. He ran grabbing stray balls and attracting dodge ball fire. Dodging one or two throws at a time.

It was a tense game.

The Stuyvescent kids were running low on players as well, one of their kids with glasses got out. It seemed their side's strategist and another athletic player had their throws caught and they headed to the side lines.

Although there were a few dodge balls being caught, a majority of them hit the floor. It was too risky to attempt to catch a ball. The players that would return from the sidelines weren't that important to the survivors still on the basketball court.

There were 5 students for Stuyvescent and 3 French kids left. A few well timed throws by Sophie and it was down to 4 students for Stuyvescent.

As always there was a dodge ball last stand. Deflecting the ball into the air, Sophie's dodge ball was caught easily by one of Stuyvescent's back up baseball kids.

"Pop fly", he shouted out as he caught the ball. However as a last minute act of revenge. Sophie threw a second ball at him. As he caught the ball, he was hit by the second ball and sent to the sidelines.

Stuyvescent's side had 2 girls and 1 guy on their team.

The French kids was limited to the dance team Spenser Thorne. Spenser was a little bit of a showboat, he liked to be on stage and was commonly in theatre plays and school talent shows.

However some of his dance skills must have carried over because he dodged a volley of balls. As the balls rolled out of bounds, it was fair game for the audience to throw it back to their team. Some of Stuyvescent kids threw it back to their side, Jeffrey's schools French kids handed it to Spenser.

While in the crowd Jeffrey heard about some of the kids from Stuyvescent's side still on the court from Mehmet.

"That girl over there from Stuyvescent is a softball pitcher. Last time she won their teams game against Maranantha. She's known to be one of the best in the city", Mehmet told his friends in a quiet whisper.

Jeffrey leaned in to hear more.

"The other girl is someone I'm familiar with. She's in my art class and she's doing 2d art and sculpture. She likes photography more, but she practices archery in her free time", Mehmet explained.

"How do you know so much Mehmet?", one of the girls asked him.

"Because I have a friend that goes to Stuyvescent", Mehmet responded.

"Is it a girl friend?", another of the french kid asked. He received a few elbows of Dissatisfaction

"She's my neighbor", Mehmet admitted before moving on.

"Their last player is a fencer. His older brother taught him and me this summer. He's quick, but that's about it", Mehmet continued to talk.

Jeffrey heard about another kid being a swimmer and their other strongest player was an orchestra kid. But at this point it didn't matter because they were both hit by Sophie early in the game.

Spenser saw a slow throw and was prepared to catch it, but noticing this the other of Stuyvescent's players threw at him. Spenser had no choice but to dodge.

After a few throws at their legs, Spenser got a Stuyvescent player out.

Now it was down to a 2v1.

Their weaker player threw a couple of sacrifice throws to tempt him to try and catch it, however Stuyvescent softball pitcher held onto a dodge ball ready to throw at any moment.

Then the playing field started to shrink as the players started to crowd the court impatiently waiting for the game to end.