Geography Club by Brent Hartinger Page B

the team, until some semi-believable excuse presented itself. That way, Kevin wouldn’t think I’d joined the team only because of him, which somehow still seemed too pathetic for words.
    But now I was thinking, Hey, this baseball stuff isn’t so bad! It sure beat my dates with Trish.
    “Okay!” Coach called from home plate, and suddenly I was back in the outfield, with my awkward aim and stinging palm. “Let’s try hitting a few more!”
    On our way back to the dugout, Kevin said to me, “Dip?”
    I had no idea what he was talking about. I was pretty sure he wasn’t asking me to dance.
    He must’ve seen the confusion on my face, because he flashed me his round tin of chewing tobacco. “Chew,” he said. “You wanna chew?”
    “Oh.” Suddenly, I understood why I’d spent the first part of the practice dodging wads of spit. It hadn’t occurred to me that the team members were actually spitting something . Duh.
    I’d never chewed tobacco before. (I’d only smoked cigarettes twice.) And the thing was, I didn’t particularly want to chew tobacco. When it came to putting cancer-causing toxins into my body, I was no Gunnar, but I was a bit of a health nut. Then I remembered what Kevin had said about liking his guys bold and confident and willing to take risks. Besides, I was a baseball player now; I had to try chewing tobacco at least once, right?
    “Sokay,” Kevin said to me, slipping the tin back into his pants. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
    “No,” I said. “I want to.”
    “Really,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”
    I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Hey, you should know by now that I like to try new things.”
    He laughed and blushed a little, then twisted open the tin for me to help myself.
    I tried it, and sure enough, I didn’t like it. It tasted like shredded leather marinated in warm vinegar. But I kept it in anyway, mostly because I didn’t want to disappoint Kevin. Meanwhile, I was thinking, So what if I’m making one tiny little compromise for Kevin’s sake? Wasn’t compromise part of what relationships were supposed to be all about?
     
     
    On Tuesday, the day after my first baseball practice, the Geography Club met again.
    “Well?” Terese demanded. “Where is she?” She was talking to Min and Kevin and Ike and me, and she was talking about Belinda Sherman. True to her word, Belinda had come to our meeting last Thursday. Since no one wanted her there, and since no one sure as hell wanted to talk about geography, it had been one very awkward meeting. After about ten minutes, we’d ended the meeting with some vague talk about getting back into geography the following week.
    This week.
    Today.
    “Maybe she quit,” Kevin said hopefully. That had been the unofficial plan on Thursday. Be so boring and disorganized that she’d want nothing to do with us.
    But Min said, “No such luck. I ran into her today. She said she was bringing in some geography board game this afternoon. God knows why, but I think she’s here to stay.”
    We stood there for a second, all of us sending out waves of psychic discouragement to Belinda, wherever the hell in the school she was at that exact moment. Ike looked particularly annoyed, but then I noticed that whenever he glanced at me, his scowl seemed to deepen. That’s when I knew it wasn’t just Belinda Sherman he was irritated with. I’d been right about Ike being hot for Kevin, and now he was jealous of what was going on between Kevin and me. I hadn’t told him what had happened on Saturday night—I’d only told Min, who’d been very excited for me and who’d managed to restrain herself enough to say “I told you so” only one single time. But Min had to have told Terese about Kevin and me, and she’d probably told Ike.
    “Well,” Terese said to the group. “That’s it then. If Belinda shows, that’s the end of the Geography Club. What’s the point?”
    “No!” I said. I hadn’t meant to speak so loudly, but I