Jane is looking forward to the start of the volleyball season when her widower father drops a bombshell: he is planning to marry a woman with a teenage daughter of her own! Jane's new mother and stepsister go out of their way to be nice and accommodating, so she eagerly tries to adjust to the new people in her life. But when her stepsister, Michaela, suddenly becomes a star on Jane's volleyball team, Jane finds her jealousy of this newcomer more than she can bear.
Release date:
December 19, 2009
Publisher:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Print pages:
153
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Jamie Bonner looked up at the bleachers running along the sides of the gym. The crowd was rocking the house, cheering for the opposing team. Jamie wiped the sweat from her brow with her wristband so she could get a better look at them.
The crowd was getting desperate, she realized. Pretty soon, if she had anything to do with it, this gym would be as quiet as a tomb.
Jamie’s team, the visiting East Side Middle School Sharks, had already won the first game of the volleyball match, 15–13. Now they were up, 12–10, over the Gaston Torpedoes in the second game of the best-of-three match.
Three more points, and another Sharks win would be in the books. Another step on the way to the statewide middle school play-offs. Jamie tried to catch her breath as she rotated to the front row left position—hitter.
Hitter, that was her. That was the role that suited Jamie best. The attacker. The shark. Go for the kill and spike it down their throats!
She was definitely the most sharklike of the Sharks, although, at five feet six inches, she wasn’t the tallest girl on the team. That distinction went to Jamie’s best friend, Laurie Gates, who was now about to serve. Laurie was five nine, with blond hair tucked back into a ponytail. Her blue eyes danced among a million freckles.
There was a gentleness in those eyes that Jamie loved. Sometimes she wished she were more like Laurie, but she couldn’t change who she was, could she? Ah, well. In some other ways, she realized, Laurie probably wished she could be more like Jamie. After all, that’s how it was with best friends, wasn’t it?
Laurie and Jamie looked like complete opposites—Jamie had dark hair, fair skin, and dark brown eyes—but they’d been inseparable since kindergarten. Jamie’s dad sometimes called them “the mismatched bookends.”
The ref’s whistle blew, and time was back in. Jamie watched as Laurie tossed the ball up and served overhand—a line drive that barely cleared the net.
Jamie turned to face the play, watching as the receivers for Gaston got the ball to the setter, who hit it up to the front line—the hitters.
“Spike it!” Jamie heard the crowd shouting.
The girl opposite Jamie leaped into the air, let out a bloodcurdling yell, and reared back to smash the ball home. But Jamie was ready for her. At the last moment, she sprang into the air and blocked the spike!
As Jamie came down to earth, she could see the Gaston players diving to keep the ball alive. But it was no use. She had placed it perfectly. The ball skidded off to the side and hit the ground. The Gaston crowd groaned, and the Sharks let out a whoop.
“What a block!” Keisha Morgan shouted, giving Jamie a slap on the back. “You’re bad, Bonner!”
Jamie gave her teammate a high five, then quickly turned her attention back to the game.
Jamie needed to keep her focus now. It wasn’t easy. All day long, her mind had strayed back to the disturbing phone call from her dad.
Jamie looked up and saw Laurie glancing at her. She can read me like a book, Jamie thought, catching the look of concern on her best friend’s face. She knows I’m just barely holding it together. Then it was back to the game, and the moment had passed.
Laurie’s next serve was underhand, a high lob that caught the tense Gaston players off guard. Two of the girls in the back row went for the ball at the last instant, confused as to whose play it was. They just managed to get the ball to the front row, and the setter had to lurch to reach it. The best the hitter could do was a weak shot to the Sharks’ back row. Keisha received it easily, and Laurie set up Jamie perfectly.
Jamie leaped up as the ball came to her, swung her right arm around in a windmill, and smashed it with all her might. The shot knocked one of the Gaston players to the gym floor, and the ball flew off into the disappointed crowd.
The ball came back to Laurie and she served again, a line drive this time, to the far right corner. The receiver sent it high into the air, and the girl in front of Jamie spiked the ball right at her head!
Before Jamie could react, the ball was past her, just missing her head and landing out of bounds by inches! The crowd groaned in unison, and the Sharks mobbed each other in triumph.
But Jamie held back, shaken for the moment. That ball should have been hers. She could have blocked it. She had let her attention wander for one split second, and it had almost cost her team big-time. If the spike hadn’t missed its mark, Jamie’s mistake would have cost her team the serve—and maybe the victory.
On the court, the other girls were celebrating. “Nine and three!” Kim Park yelled, pumping her fists in the air. “Yes!”
“Still in first place!” Brittany Hernandez said with a big grin that showed her braces. “Look out, West Side, here we come!”
High fives were exchanged all around, and then the girls went over to shake the hands of the defeated Gaston team. Afterward, in the locker room, they gathered around Coach McKean, as they did at the end of every game, win or lose.
“All right, Sharks,” the coach said, her penetrating ice blue eyes taking them all in. “We played our game today, and that’s why we won. But as you know, the toughest part of the season is still ahead of us—including West Side Middle. They’re nine and three, just like us, and only one of us is going to make the state play-offs. So enjoy this one, but stay hungry. Keep up the seamless teamwork, keep setting each other up and staying in position, and we’ll be okay. Now, let’s get cleaned up. The bus is waiting.”
With one more cheer, the girls all moved off to their lockers.
As she showered and changed, Jamie felt herself getting all worked up again. She knew she was probably letting her imagination run away with her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about that phone call from her dad last night. He’d said he had some big news to share when he returned.
He’d sounded happy—too happy. Jamie had a feeling she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. As far as she was concerned, no news was good news. Her life was okay just as it was. She didn’t need—or want—anything to change.
On the bus ride back to Milford, Jamie kept silent while the other girls whooped it up, laughing and kidding each other as they always did after a big victory.
Jamie caught Laurie eyeing her a couple of times, but she avoided her friend’s glance. She didn’t want to talk about what was bothering her. Not in front of all the others, anyway. Laurie seemed to understand, and didn’t come over and sit next to her.
The bus dropped all the girls off in front of East Side Middle School, and Jamie and Laurie began walking the six blocks to Laurie’s house. Since Jamie’s dad had been in New York on business all week, she and her little sister, Donna, had been staying with Laurie’s family.
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