Missing Pieces

On a warm Friday evening in early autumn, the sky-high lamps cast an eerie glow over the Parkside Middle School football field. The lights gave the hundreds of students, teachers, friends, and families on the bleachers a sickly yellow color. But even bad lighting couldn't mask the excitement and anticipation on their faces. On the sideline, cheerleaders were doing their warm-up exercises and the members of the band were tuning their instruments. Amy Candler tried to get into the spirit of the event. She wasn't a big football fan. She liked soccer a lot, and she rarely missed a basketball game, but football was a mystery to her. She'd never been able to get a handle on a game or follow it closely. Her best friend, Tasha Morgan, had convinced her to come to this game. "This is the best season the Rangers have ever had," Tasha was saying as they edged along the fifth row of bleachers looking for seats. "We've won three consecutive games. We're undefeated! If we can beat Pine Hill tonight, it'll be one more victory toward the regional play-offs. The first time ever. We could even end up at the Southern California Middle School State Championships!" "Since when did you become such a football fan?" Amy wanted to know. "Since the football team became news," Tasha replied, and Amy understood. Less than a month before, Tasha had been appointed editor of the school newspaper, The Parkside News. The Snooze was how most students referred to the dull weekly journal. Tasha was determined to liven it up and turn it into something that didn't put people to sleep. "Pine Hill has a good team," Tasha was saying now. "But we've got Mike Daniels, the best quarterback in the county. What an arm! He can throw the ball more yards than most professional players can. On the other hand, Pine Hill's got a stronger defense." Amy was impressed. "What did you do, read The Encyclopedia of Football? How did you learn so much?" "I asked Eric." "Oh." Tasha didn't elaborate, and Amy didn't ask any more questions. She didn't particularly want to talk about Eric at the moment. Tasha's brotherand Amy's boyfriendhad been a sore subject ever since the new school year had started. Tasha and Amy were now in the eighth grade. And Eric was in the tenthwhich meant he was no longer at Parkside. West Central High School was less than three miles from Parkside Middle School, but it could have been at the ends of the earth. As a sophomore, Eric was a million miles away from Amy and Tasha, and he wasn't planning to come any closer anytime soon. Middle school was way beneath him now. Resolutely Amy shoved the image of Eric out of her head and pushed forward. She plowed right into a guy wearing a black leather jacket who was coming from the opposite direction. "Excuse me," she said. The boy muttered something that might have been "Pardon" or "Excuse me," but Amy thought she heard words that were a lot less polite. Ready to snap at him, she looked up from the black leather jacketinto the most amazing blue eyes. Even behind the jet-black hair that partly covered them, they were the clearest eyes she'd ever seen. "Oh!" she blurted out. He looked directly into her brown eyes. Then, just as quickly, he looked away. And moved on past her. "Who was that?" Amy asked Tasha as they sat down. Tasha craned her neck to get a glimpse of the boy, who was now climbing higher into the bleachers. RKaye, Marilyn is the author of 'Missing Pieces' with ISBN 9780553487459 and ISBN 0553487450.