Kiki and Jacques by Susan Ross

Author:Susan Ross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2015-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

13

After the party at St. Francis, things seemed a little different at school. The Somali boy who had played on Jacques’s basketball team stopped him in the hallway. He was wearing a Manchester United soccer jersey.

“You are not so bad on the court.” The boy had a pointed chin and crooked bottom teeth.

“Thanks,” Jacques mumbled. “Sweet shirt, dude.”

The boy looked down at his chest. “It comes from my older cousin in England. He sends me his clothes that don’t fit. Our family, we are all over the place.”

“What’s your name?” Jacques asked.

“Yasin.”

“I’m Jacques. . . .”

“I know.” Yasin grinned and added, “We are in the same math class together.”

“Oh yeah,” Jacques said, “with crazy Mrs. Woodhouse.”

“Yes, she is scary like Dhegdheer.” Yasin caught the quizzical look on Jacques’s face. “The witch with long ears—all Somali children fear her most!” He laughed easily. “I catch you later, maybe in gym.”

“Sure.” Jacques wondered if Yasin lived nearby.

As soon as Jacques got to homeroom, he could see that things weren’t going to go easy with Lucy. She wasn’t talking to him, that much was clear. He tried to say hi, but she twisted around in her seat and began chatting loudly with the girl sitting behind her.

When Kiki sneezed, Lucy walked over and gave her a tissue. Jacques’s desk was right next to Kiki’s, but Lucy managed to hand out tissues while ignoring him completely.

Sammy caught up with Jacques between classes. “Hey, did you see Boucher carrying Nicole’s books?”

“I guess the Sadie Hawkins dance was a big success.” Jacques smirked.

“For Nicole, anyway.” Sammy grinned back. “So, what happened with Lucy? Did you tell her that you like Kiki?”

“I don’t like Kiki!” Jacques replied quickly. “Or Lucy. They’re both friends, that’s all.”

“Oh right.” Sammy laughed.

Mohamed strode by. Nothing new there. Mohamed didn’t even grunt; his eyes wandered along the ceiling as if he didn’t see them.

Boucher passed behind Mohamed’s back. “Good luck with practice today, Gagnon!”

“I’ve got it covered,” Jacques replied. But the trouble was, he didn’t have it covered at all.

There was no skipping soccer practice. It was his first day on the field as co-captain with Mohamed. What exactly did Coach Morrin expect? What did the other guys think?

School let out and Jacques stepped into a blast of hot air. Grandmère Jeannette had mentioned something about an early Indian summer, but this was more like steam rising from the sauna at the Y. Was it hot like this all the time in Africa?

When he got to practice, Jacques stretched every limb twice and downed a quart of Gatorade to combat the heat. He felt the team watching him, waiting. Jacques took a deep breath and ran onto the field, but immediately whiffed the ball and missed an easy shot.

“Jackie Jellyfish can’t kick straight!” Boucher cupped his hands around his mouth and sang the words.

Jacques kept on trying, but nothing, absolutely nothing, went in.

“Good thing we got until Sunday before our first game,” Coach mumbled loudly. He pulled several pieces of gum from his pocket and stuck the wad in his cheek.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.