Scramble
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 30
The rest of my morning was about the longest I could ever remember. My public breakup with Melanie had only added to the gossip, leading to a day of whispers and glares.
I was just about ready to be done with it.
At least I had a distraction. I was able to get out of class a few minutes early and made a straight line for the table Li had set up on one side of the cafeteria, with a big, hand-drawn sign that said “Blue & White Community Pantry Challenge” on it.
A massive, industrial-looking feed store scale, courtesy of Mr. Plummer, sat center stage, flanked by a microphone stand. Along the walls, cardboard boxes filled with cans and bags of pasta were already stacked waist high.
Li was standing off to one side, holding a clipboard and checking the boxes that were already stacked up. She’d already weighed all of them, so all she had to do was weigh the donations that came in today.
She looked incredibly nervous.
“Relax,” I said, dropping my bag next to a box of what looked like a hundred cans of creamed corn. “You did a great job. This is huge.”
“It’s chaos,” she muttered, adjusting a stack of boxes that wasn’t even wobbling. “What if no one brings anything? What if it’s a flop?”
“Come on. For one, look at all the stuff you’ve already got donated. Even if you get nothing else, this will be a success. Everything looks great. Seriously.”
The bell rang, signaling the start of lunch. The trickle of students became a flood.
I looked over at my normal table and saw Jerry sitting next to Harry Billings, the two laughing at something. Jerry looked over, his eyes meeting mine, and his laugh vanished. He leaned over and whispered something to the guys at his table. They all looked over at me. Jerry’s expression was pure ice. I looked away, pretending I hadn’t seen it. I hated gossip.
Li took a deep breath, walked to the microphone, and tapped it twice. A sharp feedback squeal cut through the chatter, getting everyone’s attention.
“Okay, everyone!” Li’s voice was a little shaky at first, but it gained strength as she spoke. “Welcome to the official weigh-in for the Blue & White Community Pantry Challenge! We’ll be weighing donations by class, starting with the freshmen. So, freshmen, bring your stuff up!”
A roar went up from the freshman section. It was competitive. It was loud. It was exactly what Li had wanted.
A couple of student council reps I didn’t know started wheeling shopping carts piled high with canned goods toward the scale. Their classmates started pounding on the tables, chanting, “Freshmen! Freshmen!”
Hunter was helping carry a heavy box with Casey Jackson, setting their box down near the growing pile. A different box, stacked precariously on top of another, started to slide. I reached out to steady it.
“We got it,” Hunter snapped, pulling the box away before I could touch it.
He grunted under the weight but got it settled. Casey just gave me a short, dismissive nod.
Right. Message received.
A line of freshman cheerleaders, Melanie’s friends, formed a chain, passing cans and boxes down the line to the scale. The line snaked right past me, but every single girl leaned out of her way to hand her item to Connor, who stood a few feet to my right. He looked confused by the attention, but he kept taking the cans.
Li, oblivious to the social shunning happening right under her nose, was focused on her task. “Okay, freshmen, looking good! That’s another twenty-three pounds!”
The sophomores were next. They came up with a racket, a coordinated clapping and shouting. Joe led the charge, carrying two boxes at once, showing off as always. They started yelling at the freshmen.
“Get ready to lose, fresh!”
“Hope you like second place!”
I moved to clear some of the weighed boxes away from the scale to make room. As I bent down, Joe stepped directly in front of me, cutting me off. He grabbed the boxes himself, his back to me, forcing me to shift to the other side to find something else to do. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at me. It was a clear, deliberate block.
“Keep it coming, sophomores!” Li shouted into the microphone, trying to keep some semblance of order. “Current freshman total is eight hundred and forty pounds! Can you beat it?”
The sophomores cheered wildly at the challenge, their own pile growing fast. The trash talk escalated.
“Eight hundred? We can beat that with our pocket change!” A sophomore I didn’t recognize yelled.
Next up were the juniors. Their haul was impressive, a mountain of food that made the freshman and sophomore piles look small. Varsity players and cheerleaders organized the effort.
Mickey was coordinating their weigh-in. He walked past me, a heavy box of canned goods in his arms. Our eyes met for a second. I opened my mouth to say something, maybe offer to help, but he just looked right through me. Not with anger, like Hunter, or with aggression, like Joe. It was worse. It was like I wasn’t even there. He turned his back and handed the box to someone else.
The junior section of the cafeteria exploded with every new total Li announced. “One thousand pounds!” she’d yell, and they’d go nuts. “Fourteen hundred!” They were on their feet, a sea of cheering, chanting students.
Li finally called for the seniors. They brought up their donations last, a respectable but noticeably smaller collection of boxes. Someone in the crowd whistled low.
Kenneth and Tammy were nowhere to be seen. Given the explosion that morning, it wasn’t a surprise.
“Looks like the seniors are a little light,” someone shouted from the sophomore section.
The comment was ignored in the general din. Everyone was into it now, waiting to see the final tallies. The noise hit a new level.
“Okay! Let’s get the final totals!” Li announced. “First up, the freshman class with a grand total of ... eight hundred and forty-seven pounds!”
Our section erupted. Kids were jumping up and down, high-fiving. It was a huge number, way more than anyone expected.
I saw a couple of the freshman linemen, guys I knew. I caught one of their eyes and gave him a thumbs-up.
He looked away quickly, turning to talk to someone else.
Li kept her head down, recording the numbers, but I saw her glance over at me, a worried line between her eyebrows. I shook my head and she went back to what she was doing. Beside me, Miguel and Tyrell kept working, stacking boxes. They were the only two who seemed to be in my immediate vicinity on purpose.
“Next up, the sophomores!” Li called out.
The sophomore section went quiet, waiting.
“An incredible ... one thousand, two hundred and forty-three pounds!”
The sophomores went ballistic. They were standing on chairs, on tables, drowning out every other sound in the room with their chanting. “Number One! Number One!”
Li was shouting into the mic, trying to keep things moving over the noise.
“And now, the juniors with a staggering total of...” Li paused for dramatic effect. “One thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six pounds!”
The celebration was deafening. The entire junior class seemed to surge forward. Mickey was on a chair, leading chants. Dwight was flexing like he’d actually done something. It was absolute pandemonium.
“And finally, the seniors,” Li said, once the noise died down just enough for her to be heard. “With a very respectable eight hundred and ninety pounds!”
A collective groan went through the senior section. Third place. Not what they were used to.
“Quiet down, everyone! Quiet down!” Li pleaded into the microphone. “This was amazing! It doesn’t matter who won. Look how much food we collected! This is going to help so many families in our community. You should all be proud!”
Some people clapped, but the competitive buzz was already fading as the end-of-lunch bell rang. Kids got over stuff fast. At least a good number stayed to help move the rest of the donations onto a flatbed cart, helping the lady from the food bank. I picked up a heavy box. As I turned, Hunter deliberately walked into me, his shoulder checking mine. The box flew from my hands, cans scattering across the floor with a series of loud clatters.
“Watch where you’re going,” he sneered, not even breaking his stride.
Before I could say anything, Andre was there. He stepped right in front of Hunter, grabbing his arm, a look on his face that stopped Hunter cold.
“Knock it off, Hunter,” Andre said.
Hunter ripped his arm away. “Whatever, man.”
He shot one last glare at me before stalking off.
Andre looked at me, then at the cans on the floor. He shook his head and knelt to help me pick them up. Miguel was already there, gathering the rolling cans of soup.
The four of us, me, Li, Andre, and Miguel, were the last ones left, cleaning up the mess. Tyrell came over and helped us load Mr. Plummer’s huge scale onto a dolly.
“I heard what happened,” Li said when we’d almost finished and the others were headed to class. “With Melanie.”
“News travels fast.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. It wasn’t going to last anyway.”
“Still.” She shifted her clipboard between her hands. “I’m sorry it happened like that.”
We started walking toward the main hallway.
“Can I ask you something?” Li said.
“Sure.”
“Why is everyone being so ... mean to you? Melanie wasn’t that popular. Why did everyone turn on you?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. This all started when I got to lunch. Maybe they liked her more after all.”
“No, they didn’t. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Nothing about this makes sense. You did good, though. That was a lot of donations. Your first event wasn’t a flop. You should be proud.”
“I am.” A small smile crossed her face. “Even if the seniors barely participated.”
“Their loss.”
We reached the hallway intersection where we’d need to split up to go to our different classes.
“Blake?” Li adjusted her clipboard one more time. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you deserve ... whatever this is.”
“Thanks.”
She headed toward her next class while I went in the opposite direction. The food drive had been a success, but the stuff with the rest of the team was going to be a problem, and I’d need to deal with it sooner rather than later.
The rest of my day was a nightmare. Random kids I didn’t even know stopped their conversations when I passed, turning to stare at me when I walked past. The whispers followed me down every hallway, and half the guys from the team weren’t even trying to hide their glares.