My ribs are really burning by the time I get in the shower. I try to talk myself out of it. If I can ice them and rest tonight while I’m finishing my English homework, I’ll be as good as new in the morning. But I’m still one of the last ones out of the locker room, and the drill team is getting out of their practice at the same time.

My best friend, Camille, catches me on my way out. Birdie says Camille can talk the hind legs off a donkey. Since I don’t usually have a lot to say, we’re a good match.

“How was your practice?” she asks, stretching her long frame and shaking her curls out of the tight ponytail they were in. She ties her Crenshaw County Guardettes satin jacket around her waist. I always wonder why they didn’t just call them the Guardswomen instead of the Guardettes. Seems like a lame name for a drill team.

“Probably about as good as yours,” I say, noticing how tired she looks.

“You’re walking funny; you okay?”

“Newbie made a late tackle, caught me off guard. I’m all right,” I say.

She raises her eyebrows.

“I’m fine, I swear. Tell me about your practice. You look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” I say, changing the subject.

“You’re not kidding,” she says, and starts in on a story about how Jannah Sykes took a tumble during the opening number and laughed and how they had to spend the rest of practice doing that one combination because the drill coach is a sadist and when you’re the one who has to do three back handsprings in the opening combination and you have to do it a million times until you’re so dizzy you can’t tell what’s the ceiling and what’s the floor, it can get annoying. Especially if Jannah laughs every time she falls, and Coach gets more and more mad.

I don’t think Camille breathes once while she tells me this story.

“Connors reminded me that I need to start thinking about the senior pranks,” I tell Camille when I can finally get a word in. To be honest, I half hope she has some brilliant idea that I can just steal and use.

“Ooh, what are you going to do?” Camille claps her hands in front of her like she’s a kid at the circus. “Coach still talks about the pranks the year she graduated, even though she said she’s supposed to discourage us from participating.”

“Oh, yeah? What happened in her year?”