Plus I got the W
.
T
unexpected meeting. Everybody gather, he roars.
He sends us to a back court with bleachers. If all two hundred children there and be quiet, he starts to walk back and forth and keep a story. On the significance of the Bollettieri Academy and that we should feel privileged because we may be. He has this place from scratch, he says, and he is proud that bears his name. The Bollettieri Academy for excellence. The Bollettieri Academy is for class. The Bollettieri Academy is known and respected worldwide.
He pauses.
Andre, will you stand?
I get up.
Everything about this place I just have said, Andre, you have denied. You have this place defiled, ashamed, in the area that you've removed yesterday. During final jeans and your makeup and wear earrings? Boy, I'm going to something important to say. If you behave as if you you dress like a girl, then I do the following: during your next tournament, I will force you to wear a skirt. I contacted them and asked a few Ellesse skirts for you to send and who will carry you. Yes sir, because if you behave like you, we will treat you so.
All two hundred children look at me. Four hundred eyes are on me. Many children laugh.
Nick continues. Your free time, he says, is hereby repealed. Your free time is my time. Between nine and ten make every toilet in this area clean. And if all toilets are clean, you clean the area and weeding. And if you do not like, simple, then you leave. If you behave like yesterday, we want you here. And if you can not show you this place is as important as we,
buh-bye
That last word,
buh-bye,
sticks, echoes across the empty courts. That's all, he says. Everybody back to work.
All children are rapidly feet. I stand motionless, trying to decide what to do. I wish Nick the skin is full of swearing. I would challenge him to a fight. I want to scream. I think of Philly, then to Perry. What would they want me to do? I think of my father, sent to school in girl's clothes when his mother wanted to humiliate him. The day he was a fighter.
There is no time for anything to decide. Gabriel says that my sentence now begins. The remainder of this afternoon, he says, on your knees. Weeding.
As the sun sets and I've handed my rake, I walk to my room. I am no longer undecided, I know exactly what I will do. I throw my clothes into a suitcase, walk to the highway. I realize that this is Florida, I can be picked up by a crazy idiot, and nobody ever hears anything from me.
