Battle Dress (25 page)

“Okay, then this is what we’re gonna do, guys. It’ll be a stretch”—he grinned—“but we’re going to risk it. We’re going to wrap the rope around the barrel, secure it with a sturdy knot, and then toss the free end up to Hickman and Cero. Then we’ll boost, lift, swing—whatever it takes to get the barrel high enough so those guys can pull it up and over the mines with the rope.” He handed me the end of the rope. “Sound like a plan, guys?”

Kit nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Well, at least I’d been on the right track. Sort of. They were using the rope for something, even if it wasn’t what I had come up with. I felt slightly encouraged. I stared at the rope in my hand, then at Ping and Kit. They were pointing at the wall and discussing the barrel, their backs facing me. I looked at Gabrielle. “So . . . I guess we should get started on this.”

“Sure.” Gabrielle glared at Ping and Kit. “Maybe we’ll get a few cool points by taking the initiative.”

I watched Gabrielle as we looped the rope around the barrel. Her mouth was tight, and her hands worked fast with stiff, jerky movements. Something was bothering her.
Does she feel as useless as I do?

Ping came up behind us. “Slide the rope down a little, guys. Keep it center of mass. No need to have physics working against us.”

“No kidding,” Gabrielle muttered after he stepped away. “We’re not complete idiots.” She twisted the rope into a half knot. “Isn’t it interesting how people change when they’re handed a little power?” She scowled over her shoulder in Ping’s direction. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I snuck another quick look at Gabrielle, confused. She
wasn’t
feeling like I was. She seemed angry at them—at Ping—not at herself. “Gab, what’s up?”

She didn’t answer.

“You mean . . . Ping?” I almost laughed. I’d never seen Gabrielle criticize Ping before. She practically worshiped him! “You’re mad at Ping?”

“Not mad,” she said, forming a second half knot. “Disgusted. Thoroughly and utterly disgusted.”

“Disgusted? Why?” I couldn’t believe her 180-degree turn. It was almost schizophrenic. I sighed. “Because he double-checked us? Gab, he’s the leader. Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? You know, make sure everything’s ‘just right’?”

She stopped tugging the rope and stared at me. “Doesn’t it bother you, Andi,” she whispered, “that we’re being excluded in this whole stupid thing? And it’s just because we’re girls! I mean, I’d think you of all people—”

“Excluded? Gab—”

“All right!” Jason’s voice rose from the other side of the obstacle. “Beautiful, guys! We got it! The ammo box is now under our control!”

I looked at the wall, then smiled at Gabrielle. “Great! They did it! I mean,
we
did it!”

“You got it right the first time,” Gabrielle said.

Cero appeared over the top of “our” wall. “First mission accomplished! What’s next?”

Hickman crawled beside him. “We’re ready for that barrel, guys.”

After Ping explained the plan to Hickman and Cero, and inspected our knot, he held the end of the rope out to me. “Andi, you’re good at throwing . . .”

“Better than most of you guys,” I heard Gabrielle mutter under her breath.

I stared at the rope, my chest tightening. Was he going to ask me to do something?

“. . . so how about tossing the end of the rope up to Cero? Kit and I are gonna be lifting this thing.” Ping nodded at the barrel. “That leaves both of us out.”

“Your generosity astounds me,” Gabrielle muttered again.

I looked up at the wall, wiping my hands on my pants. “Sure.” This was it. My big chance. I couldn’t blow this. It wasn’t like running—just me against myself and the clock. The whole
squad
was depending on me. If I failed, we’d all fail.

“You’ve basically got one shot, Andi—you can’t miss. If it falls into the sawdust or hits the mines, well, you know the deal.”

Gabrielle snorted. “How quickly they forget. Only this morning, what did Andi do? Huh? Let me give you a little hint:
Who
was one of the two individuals in this squad to qualify Expert on the Hand Grenade Assault Course? Hmm?” She shook her head. “Who not only threw her grenades within the bursting radius, but got bull’s-eyes on all five targets? You guys are pathetic!”

I looked at the dirt.
Thanks a lot, Gab.
Why was she trotting that out? All she was doing was building up everybody’s expectations, setting me up for failure. I didn’t need that kind of pressure. I created enough of my own.

“Come on, Gab,” Kit said, “Take ’er easy. We’re all in this together. Okay?”

“Gab,” Ping said, “I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

“I’m not the one with the problem!” Gabrielle pushed up her TEDs and crossed her arms. “No one was surprised when Hickman got Expert this morning. Oh, no—everyone expected
that
. He’s a pitcher, after all! But when Andi gets Expert, well, it must’ve been luck or—”

“Look,” Ping said, “Andi’s performance this morning didn’t go unnoticed, okay? That’s why I asked her to do this!”

“Oh, really?” She was all sarcasm. “Well, you certainly didn’t exude confidence in her ability—”

I clenched my teeth. Here I was again, just like at home. Somehow getting dragged into an argument I wanted no part of. Being held up as the poster child for someone else’s personal agenda. I was sick of it.

Ping frowned. “What? I never doubted her ability, Gab. Just because I—”

“Just stop it!” I yelled. “I can’t believe you’re arguing about this now! We’ve got a mission to do!” I grabbed the end of the rope out of Ping’s hand. “Just tell me when you want me to throw this stupid thing.”

I could feel everyone, even Cero and Hickman on the top of the wall, staring at me.

I don’t care. Let them stare.
I was tired of always getting pushed around. I squeezed the end of the rope in my left fist.
After that huge deal Gab made, you better not screw this up.
I tossed the rope from one hand to the other, feeling its weight.
This needs to be heavier, or I’ll never get it up there.
I made a quick, tight knot close to the end of the rope, watching Ping and Kit each take a side of the barrel.

“Okay, Andi.” Ping grunted as he lifted the barrel with Kit. “Now!”

I made sure I had enough slack and, holding my breath, tossed the rope underhand, up to the top of the wall.

“Bull’s-eye!” Cero yelled, snapping his hand around the rope.

Yes!
I wanted to jump up and down, but I knew it wouldn’t have been the thing to do right then. I had to act casual, like I hadn’t expected anything but perfection out of myself.

“Now, Hickman,” Cero was yelling, “pull!”

With violent jerks, Cero and Hickman tugged the barrel upward as if they were hauling an anchor out of the sea. The barrel crashed against the wall, just missing the minefield, and banged and bumped its way up to the top.

“Okay, Ping,” Cero yelled down to us. “The barrel’s secure up here, but I sure hope you’ve got some ideas on how we’re getting the thing off of here, ’cause Hickman and I, we don’t have a clue.”

“No problem. Just tell McGill and Bonanno over on the other side to take that board and reach it up to you guys. Then you guys place it over the gap and roll the barrel across it. Got it?”

Cero nodded. “Then what?”

“I’m on my way up,” Ping said, jogging toward the aluminum partition. “I’ve got it all worked out.”

Cero gave Ping a thumbs-up and disappeared across the gap.

I watched Ping sprint toward the obstacle, bound up the wall, and disappear across the gap.

About a minute later Hickman returned to our side of the obstacle. Looking at Kit, he said, “Ping wants you—” He glanced at Gabrielle and me. “I mean
all
of you to get across to the other side ASAP.” He looked at Kit again. “Ping wants you over first to help with the barrel. And I’m supposed to stay here to make sure that, well . . .” He looked back at Gabrielle and me. “. . . just until everyone gets across. Safely.”

“There’s nothing like being lumped together with ammo boxes and fuel barrels,” Gabrielle whispered to me as Kit jogged back to the aluminum partition. “I feel like just another bothersome piece of junk that has to be lugged across that obstacle.”

I glared at her. I was sick of her negative comments, but that particular comment really riled me. She was blaming her own incompetence on other people. “
Lugged
across that obstacle? Who’s going to be ‘lugged across that obstacle’?” I felt shaky inside, because I knew I was about to say something that would probably make Gabrielle mad at me. But I
had
to say it, because she just wasn’t getting it on her own. I knew that until Gabrielle started taking responsibility for herself, she’d never earn her place in the squad. And because she was my friend, I wanted to help her, stand by her, and not let her lose the respect of the squad.

What I’d somehow figured out and wanted her to understand was this: Just because we were members of the squad, we weren’t automatically a part of the team. A gaping difference existed between the two positions. Like the difference between knowing that someone sat beside you in class because the teacher had assigned seats and knowing that someone chose the seat beside you because she was your friend. Or like the difference between people who can barely tolerate each other calling themselves a family and people who truly love each other
being
a family.

More than anything I wanted to be part of Third Squad from the inside; I’d spent seventeen years standing on the outside. And I wanted Gabrielle to be there with me. “Listen, Gab. If you let yourself be lugged across that obstacle, then you aren’t any better than an ammo box—a wood box full of rocks. A—what did you say?—a ‘bothersome piece of junk’?” I turned back to the wall, my eyes on Kit as he swung over the top. There. I’d said it.

“But Andi,” Gabrielle said, “they don’t want to hear our ideas. They just do their own thing without asking what we think.”

Our ideas? What ideas?
“No one stopped you from throwing out suggestions, Gab. You can’t get mad at them for not listening to you”—I paused, softening my tone—“if you had nothing to say.”

I kept staring up the wall, wondering how she’d respond, worrying that I’d come across like some know-it-all.

“Well,” she finally said, “they aren’t letting us do anything. Don’t pretend that—”

“What do you want to do? Lift the eighty-pound barrel? Or even better, hold some guy on your shoulders while
he
lifts the eighty-pound barrel?” I shook my head. “If we have to do that kind of stuff, we’re going to fail.”

She stared at the ground, winding a loose strand of hair around and around her finger.

“I might not be able to lift that barrel, but I know what I can do. I can follow orders, even if that includes staying out of the way, without complaining. I can take care of myself without getting someone to pick up the slack. And,” I said, pointing at the wall, “I can get across that obstacle without being lugged.”

“I can’t believe it,” Gabrielle said. “You sound exactly like Cadet Daily.”

I couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or impressed. But I wasn’t going to worry about it. I’d finally said what I needed to say, what I thought she needed to hear. And if she didn’t like it . . . well, she’d just have to get over it.

“All right, Bryen,” Hickman called down to us from his perch on the wall. “Kit’s over. You’re next.”

“Okay,” Gabrielle said, her eyes bouncing between Hickman, the slanted wall, and the minefield bordering the sawdust. “Sure. I’ll just . . . just shimmy right up that thing.” She glanced at me and whispered. “Without being lugged.”

I smiled. She smiled back.

“That’s right.” Hickman pointed at the bottom of the wall. “Just get a good running start and jump high enough so your feet hit the wall above the mines. Then all you gotta do is grab that rope and hang on. If you get that far, I’ll pull you up the rest of the way.”

Suddenly, yelling erupted from the other side of the obstacle. Hickman looked over his shoulder, then down at us. “The barrel’s over! That means as soon as we’re all across, the clock stops! Let’s go!”

Gabrielle took a deep breath, then charged toward the obstacle. But she slid to a halt inches from the red piping.

I closed my eyes.
Oh, Gab!

She laughed nervously. “Just practicing, guys.” She jogged back to the partition without looking at me. I noticed that she was limping a little.
Oh . . . her knee!
I had forgotten about her knee. I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, then, about going off on her. She’d complained about a lot of things today, but her knee wasn’t one of them.

Gabrielle licked her lips and tried again. This time she made it over the piping. The heel of her boot just barely cleared the wall’s mined area, but there she was—hanging on to the rope, squealing, “I did it!”

I jumped up and down, clapping my hands. “Way to go, Gab! Now all the way to the top!”

Gabrielle inched her way up the rope, and Hickman pulled her over the top of the wall and steadied her. “See the board?” I heard him say. “Crawl across it, over the gap.” Then he looked down at me. “Whenever you’re ready, Davis, I’m ready.”

You don’t need to be ready for anything, Hickman.
I swallowed and wiped my hands on my pants, studying the wall, then the sawdust pit, and finally the red piping. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly.
Just get a good start—and jump. Simple.
When I opened my eyes, I was speeding toward the obstacle. I saw the red piping. I saw the sawdust sailing under my feet. I saw my right foot hit the slanted wall. I saw hand over hand walking up the rope. I saw Hickman’s face. He was smiling.

“Not too shabby, Davis. Need a hand?”

“No, thanks.” I threw my leg over the top of the wall and pulled myself up. Straddling the top, I paused a moment to catch my breath. Ping was on the top of the wall across the gap leaning over the edge, his back toward me. Excited voices were coming from the other side of the obstacle. I crawled across the gap, over the precariously placed board, which shook as I moved.
Gab must’ve loved
this
!
I squeezed next to Ping and looked over. And there was Gabrielle, hanging halfway down, clinging to Ping’s hand. Jason, Kit, Bonanno, and Cero were yelling advice to her from the ground beyond the red piping. “Okay, Gab,” Ping said, dragging her back up. “We’ll give you another shot in a second. You’re thinking too much.”