Wimbledon’t
I never understood it. I mean, I always thought the populars were, you know, just good at being popular. But, imagine my surprise when I saw them at the sophomore tennis tryouts. Apparently they were blessed with good looks and good physical shape. Why did I bother showing up?
As I walked by they gave me the group glare, then turned back to each other whispering. I squeezed my racket, wishing I could bring it over one of their heads, but, that’s very immature. I settled for just looking at them and the others who had shown up at tryouts. Some of the other girls were bouncing a tennis ball against the ground, while others were whirling around wielding their racket like a sword; didn’t they know that this wasn’t fencing?
I loved having a last name near the end of the alphabet today. This gave me the opportunity to watch the rest of the girls play tennis. The first girl up (Christine Andrews) looked positively terrified when they said the words “forehand” and “backhand”. When they served to her she dodged the balls, holding her racket up in front of her as a shield. The neon green balls bumped into her repeatedly until the coach finally stopped. Guess she won’t be trying out next year.
The other girls, including the populars, did relatively well. One popular girl accidentally hit the coach in the head, but otherwise all the balls veered away from him. She smirked in a satisfied when they said “Simmons, Andrea”. I frowned, walking over to the net.
At the end of the tryouts, I felt positive about my performance. They had asked me to do basic warm-ups, like ground strokes and volleys. Eventually they asked me to stop because they had seven more girls to try out. If only the populars hadn’t come. The next day I approached the bulletin board. I scanned the flapping pages on the bulletin board and opened my mouth. I hadn’t made it, or at least, on the team I wanted to. It was the B team, and all the populars had made the A team. So much for Wimbledon.
