Steering the Stars by Autumn Doughton, Erica Cope

around and not only escorted me to almost all of my classes, she also invited me to eat with her friends. For this, I could overlook the fact that I watched her eat a ham sandwich with a knife and fork during lunch.
           When we were finished getting ready, I followed Tillie through a swinging door, down a domed hallway to where the squash courts were located.
           I still couldn’t believe I was doing this.
           SQUASH.
           Of all the sports in all the world...
           I thought about what Caroline’s reaction to this new development might be and I laughed to myself.
           “What is it?” Tillie asked.
           “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about home.” I shook my head dismissively. “But don’t worry—now I’m getting into the squash mindset.”
           She laughed and stepped in with the others.
           By a quick count, I saw that fifteen of us had gathered into a loose circle for practice that afternoon. Aside from Tillie, I recognized quite a few faces. There was the floppy-haired kid who had eaten at the end of our lunch table. Tillie had introduced me to him but I couldn’t quite remember… Reagan? Reese? Ugh, why was I so terrible with names? There was a girl with long wavy brown hair and a beaky nose who I’d had my last class with. She gave a half-wave when we made eye contact.
           And, of course, standing stiffly at the front of the group with a racquet in her hand, was Ava Cameron.
           Mr. Hammond arrived five minutes later looking the part of a yachter in white shorts and a snug-fitting white collared shirt. I had to wonder how many of the girls (or guys for that matter) had showed up for the love of squash and how many had come for the love of him.
           His green eyes danced as he paced in front of the wall of the squash courts, explaining the basics of the game for us noobs. He touched on equipment and the scoring system, excitedly telling us about services and rallies, then broke us into groups to play short matches. The player to garner three points the fastest would be declared the winner.
           There were slightly different balls for the different skill levels. Unsurprisingly, I wound up in the blue-dot group—the lowest of the low.
           The first person I played against was a muscular girl with dark hair that she wore pulled back into a tight bun.
           “ Patrice, not Patricia,” is how she brusquely introduced herself before the first serve.
           Okay then .
           Squash, I’d learned from a covert search on my phone during one of the breaks and from listening to Mr. Hammond gush, was basically the ancestor of racquetball. Two players stood on the same side of a court and took turns whacking a bouncy black ball against a wall. Sounds simple, right?
           Not so much.
           As it turns out, squash is a sport with a lot of nuance. Drop shots, trickle boasts, nick shots, and Mizukis were just a few of the moves I would supposedly have to master over the next few months. And, despite what she had claimed at the beginning of practice, Patrice, not Patricia, knew exactly what she was doing with a racquet. Blue-dot group my ass.
           Somewhere behind me, I heard Tillie cheering me on as I stumbled around in my too-big shoes, but it was pointless.
            I was awkward.
           I was sweaty.
           I was an embarrassment to womankind everywhere.
           The only good thing about being horrendous was that I lost my games quickly and was able to sit out the remaining time and watch the others play.
           After we’d moved through a complete cycle and each person had played everyone in his or her skill group, Mr. Hammond put us in pairs to practice simple volleying techniques. By a stroke of luck, I was matched with the floppy-haired kid from lunch whose name turned out to be Ruben.