The Academy by Emmaline Andrews Page A

another fourth-form student I hadn’t seen before. “I’ll take Nodes.”
     
    Jakes nodded. “I’ll take Strawsen.”
     
    And so it went. Predictably, I was chosen last and with much protest by the other members of team B, where I ended up. I tried not to feel hurt and reminded myself that my small stature wasn’t my fault. After all, I was a girl. Even if no one else in the room besides me knew it, I had a perfect right to be petite. But no matter how much I told myself that, it still stung to be called 'runt' and kept in the back of the line.
     
    Soon enough Coach Janus came back, wheeling a large cart filled with red, hard-rubber balls about the size of someone’s head. “Okay, ladies,” he shouted. “Come and get ‘em. Let’s go—we don’t have all day.”
     
    Cadets from both teams ran forward, grabbed as many of the balls as they could carry, and ran back to the black dividing line in the middle of the gym. I hung back myself, not wanting to get too involved. I was fine with one-on-one contests like fencing or chess but thanks to my sheltered upbringing and my sex, I had never played a team sport in my life.
     
    “C’mon, new guy—what’s your name?” I looked up and realized Coach Janus was looking at me.
     
    “Jameson, sir,” I answered.
     
    “Well, don’t be shy, Jameson, come on up and grab some balls.”
     
    “Don’t worry, Coach—Jameson’s good at that,” Broward shouted. He and his crew were still hanging around the ball cart. They roared with laugher and the rest of the cadets snickered as well as I came forward to collect the last remaining hard-rubber ball at the bottom of the cart. I squeezed it to my chest, its surface cool and hard and knobbly under my fingertips. I felt like I was going to explode.
     
    “What are you implying, Broward?” I said, as the coach turned away.
     
    “I think you know, freshie,” he sneered.
     
    I made my face as innocent as possible. “If you’re saying I have some kind of special skill with this equipment, I don’t. I can’t help noticing, though, that you seem to know how to handle those awfully well.” I nodded at the way he was clutching two of the balls in his hands. “Is that a skill you acquire with time or are you just naturally good at fondling, I mean handling balls?”
     
    Broward’s face darkened. “You little—”
     
    “That’s enough smack talk, ladies.” Coach Janus had turned back and was frowning at both Broward and myself. “Let’s step it up to the line. Come on, now.”
     
    Broward pointed a finger at me. “That remark is gonna cost you, freshie.” Then he turned and stalked to the thick black line painted on the plastiwood floor which bisected the gymnasium. All the other cadets were already standing there and I knew they had heard our exchange.
     
    As I walked to the line, I mentally kicked myself. Why had I gone out of my way to irritate him like that? As if I didn’t have enough trouble as it was.
     
    My distress was compounded by the fact that I had shocked myself a little, speaking in such a crude way. A joke like the one I had made at Broward’s expense would never have passed my lips in Victoria. But here it seemed natural to fight fire with fire—to return what the bully was dishing out in kind. I wondered uneasily if I would be cursing and spitting and scratching myself like the rest of the cadets by the time I got out of the Academy—if I got out alive, that was. And by the look on Broward’s ugly face, that was becoming less and less of a possibility.
     
    Coach Janus blew a sharp blast on the silver whistle he wore around his neck. “Balls on the line, ladies,” he shouted without a trace of irony. “Then five steps back.”
     
    All the cadets placed their hard-rubber balls along the thick black line and took five steps back.
     
    “Good.” Coach Janus nodded approvingly. “Now on my whistle, run in and grab ‘em. Remember the rules—you get hit with a ball, you’re