“Who the hell are you?” one of the boys on the other team asked.
“She’s his betrothed,” Ezra said, “so be nice.”
“He just wants to have fun,” I said. I wanted to hit something. Who were these guys to police who played?
Daziel’s shoulders drooped. “No, I understand.”
“You can stay within human limits!”
“He could be within human limits and still be better than any of us,” someone on the other team retorted. “It’d be like hiring a ringer.”
Daziel stepped back. “You should sub Colin in for me,” he told Ezra. “Good luck, everybody.” Shoulders slumped, he walked off the field.
Sending a fierce glare at everyone, I hurried after his dejected figure. “Come on,” I said, determined to cheer him up. “Let’s get out of here.”
He shook his head. I could practically hear the morose music playing about him. “I should watch the team. Cheer them on.”
Watching other people do something I couldn’t sounded horrible. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “It’s the right thing to do.”
So I watched the first knockball game of my life, trying to offer support to Daziel supporting his team. He stared intensely at the field, shouting encouragement at his teammates.
“Are you okay?” I asked halfway through.
He mustered up a smile. “Yeah. For sure. Go, Ezra!” He cheered as Ezra slapped at the ball.
I took his hand and squeezed.
I’d never paid much attention to knockball before. Still, I knew the basics. One ball, two teams, nine players on each. Zones where different body parts were allowed in play—heads, feet, hands. Three ways to score and one to lose points. Three goal zones, one decided randomly just before play.
Knowing rules didn’t mean I knew anything about strategy. People had tried to explain it to me before, but I’d always tuned out. It was easier with Daziel. His excitement was infectious, and he shared the plays like he was whispering secrets—“Ah, they must be trying Brown’s Route. It’s a sneaky one…”
Daziel’s team won. Not, as far as I could tell, because they were better than the other team but through pure luck. I turned to Daziel. “Congrats?”
He’d managed to be fairly upbeat through the game, despite the longing on his face. But now, as he watched his friends jump on each other and hug, the depressed creases in his brows deepened. “Are you okay?” I asked again.
“I just really wanted to play,” he said in a small, forlorn voice.
I bit the inside of my cheek, hard, to keep from viciously going after the other team. “You know what? Let’s climb Lyra’s Seat.”
Daziel lifted his head with bewilderment, then spoke as though afraid to hope. “It’s the weekend. You like to spend weekends getting ahead on homework.”
“I’m done already,” I lied.
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Let’s do it.”
Lyra’s Seat was the highest of Talum’s four hills, on the northmost peak. We took the tram, arriving as the sun started to sink. We climbed it in the cold, and harsh wind kept whipping past us, yet we couldn’t stop laughing. At the top, we could see all of Talum spread out before us, glowing in the twilight.
~~~
When we got home,it was pitch black, and we were exhausted. We fell onto the sofa, wrangling the blanket over our legs, letting them fall against each other.
“Thank you for today,” Daziel said.
“I didn’t really do anything.”
