Page 134 of On Merit Alone
All of the Denver players had helped organize this, each taking a small chunk of responsibility to accomplish it on such short notice. Yet, nobody seemed to know where the extra kids came from.
My eye caught on something at the corner of my vision. A braided woman looking awfully suspicious as she raised up to her toes and peeked around the ever filling parking lot as if she was looking for something.Someone.
I followed Merit’s line of vision as she watched over the parking lot, her lip caught firmly between her teeth. My eyebrows cascaded downward as I watched her face bloom into a smile as soon as a little white bus pulled into the lot. I don’t know how, but right then I knew that she had something to do with the extra children.
And she proved me right as she bounced onto the balls of her feet, already moving to leave before she even looked at me to say, “The rest of the kids are here! Start rounding everyone up and we can start in ten minutes.”
“Kids from where?” I called after her, but she was already gone. Running up the hill toward the white bus with a giddy pep to her step that I don’t think I’d ever seen before. Casting a skeptical glance beside me, Emily came into view. I crossed my arms and looked back at Merit who was taking a step back as kids began to file out of the bus doors and pointing them down the hill toward us. “What’s that about?”
“Beats me.” Emily shrugged. “She and Mike have been texting all week about this thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he knew but was only playing dumb.”
I bristled. Did I say I wasn’t going to rip Mike’s throat out? I think I meant I was. Friend or not, he needed to lose my girlfriend’s number.
Girlfriend.
Jesus. Merit and I hadn’t officially talked about it, but there wasno way she wasn’t my girl. Even the title girlfriend seemed too small for what she meant to me. But I wasn’t in the habit of rushing her, and I wouldn’t start now. So if there was no other label in between enjoying each other’s company and married, then I’d happily dawn that of boyfriend until I could make it official.
“Emily Nash, you are diabolical. He’s going to pop a vessel just thinking about Merit texting another man,” Charlie, Merits other friend, said. The words were framed as sympathetic but delivered in an amused snort of laughter. “But never mind all that lover boy. Are we going to do this thing or what? I think they’re starting to circle. If they surround us, we’re done for.”
This caused my own snort. “They’re just kids. You make them sound like vultures.”
She gave me a haunted look. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
I laughed. “Oh lord. Get behind me then. You can use me as a human shield, since you’re so afraid of them.”
She gave me a mocking face as I passed her along with the rest of the players who started to follow me down our side of the hill.
Arriving earlier, we had already set up the stations we were going to use before anyone had gotten here. We brought water bottles and coolers for any kids who didn’t bring their own. We had speakers playing PG music that we hoped the kids would like. And we even had a little tented area where parents could sit and watch with protection from the summer heat. The only thing left to do was divide the kids and get started.
That part was easy too. I was originally going to let somebody else take the lead, maybe Merit or even Mike. They’d played more of a hand getting this thing together, it only seemed right for them to direct it. But then I made it to the front of this group of little boys and girls, all herded into one big glob of fidgeting little fingers and bouncing little toes, and all of a sudden I felt like one of them. Not that I felt approximately four to seven years old, which was the age demographic for the group, but I felt that rushing excitement ofnewness and awe and enthusiasm that I remember when I did these things as a kid.
Mike seemed busy enough with wrangling his arms free from a couple of kids who decided they wanted to try climbing him, and Merit was talking to a small woman with a clipboard familiarly as she helped to lead the extra kids into the back of the group. So really it made sense for me to take over, even though my attempt to give someone else a chance to lead was half-hearted at best.
First, I cut the music. The sharp change in sound got a significant amount of children’s attention immediately, but I knew it wasn’t going to get all of them to pay attention. That was okay. I had an exceptionally hyperactive niece. I knew what to do in these situations.
Distract, distract, distract.
Raising one arm high in the air, I found the first kid in my line of vision who would actually look at me and gestured for him to do it too. Cautiously, he looked around himself. But slowly, with my quiet encouragement, he eventually did it.
Again, some more perceptive kids followed his movements while others continued to chatter away. Beside me, I gave an elbow to Rogers and McKivvey to follow suit, the other players instantly doing the same in front of me. When they did, I found my helper again and gave him a meaningful nod. Encouraging him to follow my lead.
Just like I’d hoped, he mimicked my movements once again and started quietly gaining the attention of those around him, getting them to do as he did. The kids beside him slowly started to get the idea as well as pass along the message to the next kid and the next and the next. It was like a ripple effect, each kid following the actions of the last, and on and on until we had a much quieter and slightly less fidgety bunch of children.
I smiled, partly because of the little faces in front of me andpartly because I heard Kivvey cough “Kid whisperer” into his hand beside me.
“Hey y’all,” I said, loud enough I hoped everyone could hear me, even the dark haired beauty in the back who was watching me with her hand obediently up and her attention squarely on me. Running my eyes over the group, I made sure to lower my hand as I said. “Do any of you happen to know the game, Simon Says?”
Immediately the group burst out into shouts and chants of:
“Me!”
And. “I do, I do!”
And. “Everybody knows Simon Says!”
Beside me the adults snickered at the sheer force in which these kids wanted their answers to be heard.
I wanted to smile too, but I held it. Instead, I shot my hand up again, this time putting my finger in front of my mouth in the universal sign of shushing. I didn’t even have to make the sound. The kids did it for me, all shushing each other until the group fell quiet once again.
