A Taste of Everyday -- Chapter 5

Disclaimer: The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Zack, Zane, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me. No money is being made off of this fic. I only own the original characters (Rena/X5-120, etc.).

“I’m so happy that it stopped raining last night,” Nancy said. “It seemed like it was raining forever.”

“It was only four days,” I pointed out. “That’s not that bad.”

Nancy looked at me. “How can you call four straight days of rain not bad, Janie?”

Easily. Try going a week straight of blizzard conditions and having to go outside and run an obstacle course and training missions in them. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t get bored that easy.”

“Lucky you,” Nancy muttered. “When I wasn’t here at school, I was stuck at home with my little brat brother.”

“You win,” I said immediately. I met Nancy’s brother three months ago. He really is the brattiest little idiot that I’ve met so far. “Why is your brother like that?”

“I wish I knew,” Nancy said. “My mom insists that he’s a perfect angel, but he is definitely not an angel. He’s demon spawn.”

“Here here,” Vanessa agreed. “He always drives me crazy when I go to your house. I’ll kill the little freak if he tries to throw those nasty spitballs at me again.” She made a face.

“And your parents wonder why I always go over to your house to hang out and you never come over to mine,” Nancy said.

“All right, boys and girls. Line up. We’re going outside today,” Mr. Crawford, our gym teacher, spoke up. “We’re going to play baseball today.”

“Finally!” one of the boys in my gym class exclaimed.

We all followed Mr. Crawford outside to the baseball fields in the back of the school. I was a little nervous. I hadn’t played baseball before. I knew how it was played because Zane and I had seen a few games being played and also from reading a few sports magazines that Zane had stolen before Zack had separated us, but I hadn’t actually played it before and I was panicking a little about hitting the ball too hard by accident or running too fast, like I had before we participated in any kind of sport that I hadn’t before either back at Manticore or since I escaped. I tried to calm myself down. I could do this. If I haven’t blown my cover yet in gym class, then I could pull this off as well.

“Mr. Crawford, do we have to play?” Vanessa complained. “I suck at baseball.”

“First of all, young lady, watch your language,” Mr. Crawford warned. “Second of all, you do have to play or you will receive a failing grade. I will not be necessarily grading you by how well you play. I will be grading you by the effort that you put into playing. If you are not good at baseball but if I see that you are giving it 110 percent, then I will give you a good grade, just as good or even better than the person who does well but does not appear to be putting in effort.”

“Baseball’s easy for me,” another one of the guys in my gym class said. “Does that mean that you are gonna give me a C or something like that even if I do really well?”

“You can always give more,” Mr. Crawford told him. “You can always do better.” I unintentionally froze at those words…

“That was a pathetic effort, 120! You have always been able to defeat 417 in the past,” the trainer screamed at me one day in martial arts class.

“Sir, I gave it everything that I have, sir!” I said. “417 has improved tremendously in the last six months.” If you’ve gotten your head out of your butt, you would have noticed how much better Jack has been getting. I looked quickly out of the corner of my eye and saw Zack about to say something to defend me and Jack, but the trainer started yelling again before Zack could say what he was about to say.

“You did not give it everything that you had, 120! You can always give more! You can always do better!” He slapped me hard. “Well?”

“Sir, you are correct, sir! I can always improve upon my performance, sir!” I said.

“Louder, 120!” He slapped me again.

“Sir, I can always improve upon my performance, sir!” I yelled.

“I’m glad you finally got that through your head, you dumb little maggot! Get back in line with your unit!” he snapped. I quietly retook my place between Max and Zane in the line. “You are right, though. 417 has improved his skills. That does not mean that you can or are allowed to give another half-assed effort like you did today!” He glared at me again. “656 and 369, step onto the mats. Begin on my whistle.”

“I did give it everything,” I said quietly to Max and Zane as we watched Tinga and Wayne spar against each other. “Jack won fair-and-square. He’s getting really good.”

“We know that you did,” Max assured me. “The trainers don’t care. He just wanted an excuse to hurt somebody.”

“Don’t worry about it, Rena,” Zane said. He gave me a quick smile. “You’ll beat Jack the next time.”

“Not if I can help it,” Jack said from his place next to Zane. We giggled quietly enough for the trainer not to hear us.

“Miss Richardson? I said you are on Mr. Wilkins’ team,” Mr. Crawford said.

I mentally shook myself. “Sorry about that, Mr. Crawford. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I’m kind of tired.”

“Understood. Please join your team,” Mr. Crawford said. I nodded and walked over to where Mr. Crawford had told me to go. I sighed and rubbed my eyes.

“Are you okay, Janie?” Vanessa, who had ended up on my team, asked.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Did you have a nightmare or something like that last night?” she wondered. “Is that why you didn’t get a lot of sleep?”

“No, it was just one of those nights,” I said. I smiled, but inside I still felt shaky. I didn’t have a nightmare last night, but I lived through one for most of my life so far.

Vanessa nodded. “I hate it when I just can’t get to sleep.”

“Girls, no talking. Mr. Andrews, your team is up at bat first. Mr. Wilkins, your team is in the field. Sort out positions among yourselves. Let’s play ball!”

I followed them out to the field and, after grabbing a glove from a huge box near one of the dugouts and a brief discussion with the rest of my team, took my place as second baseman. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the game.

“Hey, dude, hit it to Janie! I bet she sucks!” one of the guys on the other team yelled. Sure enough, the boy at bat hit a line drive right at me. I caught it easily, but not easily enough to get unusual attention, and lobbed the ball back to the girl on my team who was pitching.

“What was that, Brandon?” I said, giving the loser a smirk. I needed that.

TBC