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—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Valerie Russell felt so cold touch the s Her slap connected with flesh A can of soda hit the concrete floor of the locker roo as it pooled Other girls looked up frole

Hands raised in hed "Just a joke, Princess Badass of Badassia"

"Sorry," Val forced herself to say, but the sudden surprise of anger hadn't entirely dissipated and she felt like an idiot "What are you doing down here? I thought being near sweat gave you hives"

Ruth sat down on a green bench, looking exotic in a vintage s velvet skirt Ruth's broere thin pencil lines, her eyes outlined with black kohl and red shadow that lossy black, paler at the roots and threaded with purple braids She took a deep drag on her clove cigarette and blew smoke in the direction of one of Val's teammates "Only my oeat"

Val rolled her own eyes, but she smiled She had to admit it was a fantastic response Val and Ruth had been friends forever, for so long that Val was used to being the overshadowed one, the "normal" one, the one who set up the witty one-liners, not the one who delivered them She liked that role; it made her feel safe Robin to Ruth's Batman Chewbacca to her Han Solo

Val leaned down to kick off her sneakers and saw herself in the s out froreen bandanna

Ruth had been dyeing her own hair since the fifth grade, first in colors you could buy in boxes at the superreen and poodle pink, but Val had only dyed her hair once It had been a store-bought auburn; just darker and richer than her own pale color, but it had gotten her grounded anyway Back then, herto show that she was growing up Moet a bra, didn't want her to wear short skirts, and didn't want her dating until high school Now that she was in high school, all of a sudden, her otten used to pulling her hair back in bandannas, wearing jeans and T-shirts though, and didn't want to change

"I've got some statistics for the flour-baby project and I picked out soiantThe front flap was smeared with paint and studded with buttons and stickers—a pink triangle peeling at the edges, a button hand-lettered to say "Still Not King," a ss exist whether you believe in the ht and we could work on it"

"I can't," Val said "Toame in the city after practice"

"You're going toone of her purple braids around her finger

Val frowned She couldn't help noticing the edge in Ruth's voice when she talked about Too?" Val asked "Did he say so?"

Ruth shook her head and took another quick draw on her cigarette "No No Nothing like that"

"I was thinking that we could go to the Village after the game if there's time Walk around St Mark's" Only a couple of months earlier, at the town fair, Tom had applied a press-on tattoo to the s the spot wet before pressing it to her skin Now she could barely get him to have sex

"The city at night Romantic"