Game On (3 page)

“How can you hate the Academy?” she asked. He was already smelling like a jerk, but the sentiment was especially off-putting. “This place is a dream come true.”

“Obviously you're new.” He smiled. “Just give it some time.” The condescension reeked.

“I don't need to give it time,” she shot back. “You know how lucky you have to be to get in here?” She could feel herself getting worked up, which was so not Maya.

“
Lucky
,” he scoffed. “That's one word for it.”

“If you don't like it here,” she said as she grabbed a blanket and wrapped herself in it, “why don't you just leave? There are a ton of kids who'd kill for your spot. Who kill for your spot every year.”

“For some people,” he said, “leaving is harder than getting in. Hopefully you never have to figure that out.”

Was this kid for real? All that was missing was the leather jacket and the pack of cigs tucked under his T-shirt sleeve.

“Okay,” she said, at a total loss for words. “Thanks and everything.”

“Well, now wait,” he said. “Your roommate isn't around; there's all this crazy sexual tension between you and me. …”

“ ‘Crazy sexual'?” Maya repeated.

“Maybe we should …?” He raised his eyebrows.

After way too long, what he was saying finally sank in. “What?” Maya said. “No!”

“We could just make out a little,” he said. “You know, payment for services rendered …?”

“Out!” She bunched her blanket around her even more, shepherding him out of the room. “Good-bye. Good-bye.”

He walked out, a big smirk on his face.

“See you around, newbie,” he said as he made his way down the hall. “Oh, and I know you're watching me walk away.”

She was.

“I am not!” she called after him.

“Okay.” She couldn't see it, but she could feel the self-satisfied smile plastered across his face.

“I'm not!” she yelled louder. He just kept walking.

Maya ran to her window and waited for him to appear down below. Finally, he did.

“I'm not!”

He just tossed her a wave over his shoulder. Her fits of denial continued as he walked away. She was officially a lunatic. She never got this angry—the guy had obviously been sent by the devil.

Maya cracked open her suitcase to unpack, but all she could think was:
what a jerk.

The bad news was that Maya's first full day at the Academy kicked off not on a tennis court but in a classroom. The worse news was that it was history, Maya's trickiest subject. She'd have to concentrate. That proved impossible with Cleo in class with her. Whenever Cleo got bored (which, judging by the loudly ticking clock planted above the door, was every thirty seconds), she would text Maya from behind her book. The texts covered a wide variety of topics, but they usually involved some form of the expression
Kill me now
.

“I'm starving,” Cleo said when the bell finally, mercifully rang. “I need to get to the dining hall before I pass out.”

“I haven't been to the dining hall yet,” Maya said, equally famished.

“No?” Cleo asked with a smile. “Better bring a cup.”

Maya thought,
Bring a cup? How does a dining hall not have cups?

The place was packed. And even though kids were scattered far and wide with seemingly little rhyme or reason, there was something vaguely deliberate about it all. Like random herds of animals grouped together, ready to strike.

“There are written rules at the Academy,” Cleo said conspiratorially. “But there are even more unwritten rules, and a whole dumpload of them exist in the dining hall.” As Cleo walked them through the food line, she made sure they didn't look like they were sizing up the area. But Cleo had a bead on everyone and everything.

“Kids divide up by nationality first and foremost,” Cleo said. “Sad but true. When you're thousands of miles from home, most people look for anything that's even remotely familiar. Survival 101.”

Maya looked around. “How do you know who's from where?” She could pick out the Americans by the number of baseball caps and the loudness of their voices, but beyond that, she was useless.

“After you're here long enough, it'll become second nature,” Cleo said, loading her tray with ketchup packets to drown the scrambled eggs that made up her entire meal. “You will be able to pick a Russian from a Belarusian from a Czech at a hundred yards in three seconds flat. Facial features, skin color, clothing, hairstyles. You'll be an international detective.” Trays full, they cut through the tables en route to their seats.

“In the meantime,” Cleo said, “just check their bags. The Academy is where anything with a flag goes to die.” Sure enough, on closer inspection, each kid was marked by his or her own tribal colors.

“Next they're broken down by sport. Golfers sit with golfers, basketball players sit with basketball players, tiddledywinks players sit with tiddledywinks players. …”

“So kids do sit with other kids who play their sport?” Maya asked. “But just not if they're from other countries?”

“No, you give preference to kids from your country,” Cleo corrected. “But if no one's around, you sit with your sport.”

“But if there's someone from your country, you pick them over your sport?” Maya thought she had it.

“Unless you've got money. Then you sit with other rich kids,” Cleo said. “Cash trumps everything.”

Maya was lost, and she was happy staying lost.

“Give it time,” Cleo said. “What you need to learn immediately is the Golden Rule of the Academy.”

“Ooh, I know this one,” Maya said. The Golden Rule was etched in stone on a giant sculpture in the middle of the quad. “
Start by doing what's necessary,
” she recited, “
then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible
.” She loved that quote.

“Please, that's just garbage they wheel out for the parents,” Cleo said. “The Golden Rule at the Academy is ‘Watch your back.' Everyone is in competition, even when you don't think you're in competition. Everyone has to have the best body, everyone has to have the newest Apple thingy, everyone has to have the hottest boyfriend. You are your accessories.”

“I don't remember that from the welcome packet,” Maya said, taking a bite from her bagel.

“Not to mention sponsors and agents are everywhere,” Cleo continued, undeterred. “They're looking for the next big thing twenty-four-seven so you can never be off guard for a
minute. The way you chew your food could cost you a million-dollar-endorsement deal.” Maya laughed. Cleo didn't. Maya stopped midchew, suddenly wondering if there was a chance she was not doing it right and had just blown a cool million.

Just then, a charge filled the room. Maya felt it immediately. It was like a wave of magnetic energy had spread like a cloud through the dining hall. Everyone shifted his or her attention to one spot. The dining hall quickly filled with commotion, and Maya and now Cleo were looking around to see what was causing it. As kids started heading outside, it became clear that was where the action was. Maya and Cleo looked at each other, then followed the wave.

There it was, in the middle of a small mob forming. Or rather, there she was, pulling into the parking lot in a brand-new Aston Martin One-77.

It was Nicole King.

There was a lot at the Academy Maya didn't know about. But Nicole King? Nicole she knew. She was one of the main reasons Maya had fought so hard to get into the Academy. Nicole was her idol. And she researched her voraciously. A Latina from Los Angeles, she was rich, she was sexy, and she was as close to royalty as you could get at the Academy. And that included actual royalty. At seventeen, she was already a top-ten-ranked tennis superstar, known as much for the sheer power of her shots as for the sheer power of her will. She could crush a tennis ball with pure brute strength, but it was the psychological warfare she employed to win that was her greatest weapon.

And Nicole always won. Where everyone else at the Academy was scratching and clawing to go, Nicole was already there. She had the trophies, she had the million-dollar endorsements, she had the magazine covers.

“You want to close your mouth?” Cleo asked as Maya watched Nicole step out of her car. “You look like you're unhinging your jaw to eat her.”

“No, it's just the car. I … I'm a big fan of automotive … stuff.” But Maya rolled her own eyes at the lie.

She heard two girls whispering next to her. The grapevine moved fast at the Academy, and everyone already knew that Nicole's Aston Martin was a toy she'd bought on a whim with the prize money she'd won at her last tournament. The girls didn't seem surprised. Nouveau riche, Nicole was apparently known to blow her money as soon as she got it. Since she never lost, it was
never
a problem. Maya could only imagine what that was like.

Nicole barely noticed the crowd as she walked through with the chosen few who were allowed into her inner circle. Maya would do anything to be in that inner circle. She'd do anything just to meet Nicole.

For now, she'd have to settle for the rest of her bagel. And being really careful with how she chewed it.

Maya was in heaven. Twenty-four hours after stepping off that bus, she was finally standing on an actual Academy tennis court. Whoever said all courts were created equal had a head injury, because this was equal to nothing. It was pure magic
carpet. Fresh paint, flawless bounce, a net so pristine you could swaddle a baby in it. And there were twenty of these perfect courts nearby, all full of athletes.

As she waited for her coach, she wondered what her first lesson at the Academy would be. How to hit a nasty kick serve? A sidespin drop shot? A booming inside-out forehand? Whatever it was, she was ready.

When she saw a coach make his way over, she moved to greet him. From his leathery skin, it was clear he spent every waking moment under the scorching Florida sun.

“I am so excited—” It was all Maya was able to say before the guy was screaming in her face.

“
Let's go!
”

Wow, he was even more excited than she was. Until she realized he wasn't talking to her. He was talking to everyone on all the courts.

“
You've got thirty seconds. I want to see you lined up right here!”

He pointed to the baseline, which quickly filled up with kids. So much for Maya's private lesson.

“Today I'm gonna teach you the most important thing in all of tennis,” he said, more drill sergeant than instructor. “Five simple words that will dictate the rest of your lives, at the Academy and beyond: you eat what you kill.”

Maya scrunched her face. What was she killing and why was she eating it?

“Unlike team sports,” he barked, “tennis players are lone wolves out there. We don't have five-year contracts. We don't get a paycheck the first of every month. What we earn each week is dictated by who we beat. You don't beat, you don't eat.”

He took a racket from one of the kids. “What's this, three years old?”

The kid nodded.

“You know,” he said, spinning it, “there's a brand-new model in the Academy pro shop that gives you more power and control.”

“It's three hundred bucks,” the kid said.

“What if I told you there was a one-thousand-dollar store credit waiting there for you to buy whatever you want?”

The kid nearly drooled. “That would be awesome.”

“Well, there is,” the coach said. “There's a thousand-dollar credit for all of you. Well, not all of you. One of you. Enough to buy the newest, most expensive racket …” He handed the kid back his antique and walked past a guy with torn-up sneakers. “New shoes …” He kept walking, then lingered at Maya. He looked her up and down. “New clothes.”

Maya flushed. She didn't need a coach to tell her she looked like crap; she knew. And she knew what she could buy with that thousand dollars.

“All you need to do,” the coach said, “is be the first person to knock this down.” He took out a tiny cone, walked to the other side of the court, and placed it on the far corner of the baseline.

Without hesitation, all the kids pushed and shoved their way toward the cone. Before Maya knew what was happening, she was dead last.

“You need to hit it with a tweener.” Silence. It was like a bomb dropped on the crowd.

A tweener was a ball you hit between your legs while running away from the net. Maya knew that because every time
she'd tried one, she'd nailed herself in the kneecaps. Her last tweener bruise had been shaped like Africa.

“Here we go!” The coach fed the first ball, a deep lob that the first kid had to run to the back of the court to catch up with. He swung … and missed. The coach fed a ball to the next girl, who missed, too. More swings, more misses. The longer Maya waited, the more she thought about that money. She could buy a new everything with it. Finally, it was her turn.

She chased after the ball, swung … and missed.

The rotation started again. Again, it was one miss after the next. It was hard enough to hit a tweener, but to make it land in just the right spot was impossible. Maya went again. And missed.

With every miss, the tension increased exponentially. Whoever won was going to have insane bragging rights. They all wanted the kill and they wanted it bad.

Maya went again. She chased the ball. And hit the tweener! No bruise! But when the ball landed on the other side, it missed the cone by five feet. Maya wanted to scream.

“What's this?”

Everyone turned.

Nicole.

A hush fell.

“Knock the cone over with a tweener,” the coach said, “and get a grand credit at the pro shop.”

Nicole narrowed her eyes on the cone. “Let me borrow that,” she said to the kid with the three-year-old racket. He handed it to her.