Midway through our slushies, which I had bought, the rest of the group come over. They're all solemn.

"Alright, Logan, you're on the team," Zoey tells him, and I gather that they must've had a bad practice since we left. I slurp at my slushy.

"Duh," he says, and they leave, not happy with the decision but clearly glad to have someone who can actually play on their team.

"You have to be nice to them," I tell him, "without them you're stuck in gym."

He thinks about this, "nah."

I decide to go early to swim practice to get out in time to watch their training, eager to watch their progress. I arrive as Logan finishes demonstrating how to play, and then watch them all throwing the discs at the basket. They mostly just fall around it instead of going in, and he's starting to tense up.

"Come on, guys, focus! Throw it like I showed you," he says, and they look over at him.

"I'm trying," Chase tells him, and I sigh, looking back out at the field.

Michael is approaching, the special chips in his hand. I wonder if they've been altered at all, since he's walking better than he had been before. "Hey," I say, waving to catch his attention as he watches a falling disc.

"Oh hey, Michael, you're walking normal again!" Chase says, realising who I'm talking to.

I point at the bag of chips, "did Quinn fix those?"

"Yeah, she sprayed my chips with this red stuff, and all of a sudden-" Michael's speech suddenly goes really weird and I stare at him in shock. I'm not sure if he's intentionally doing it, or if Quinn's chips have just messed him up in a new way.

"Uh, Michael," Chase says, "you may be walking fine now, but I think those chips are causing a new side effect."

"What do ya mean," Michael says, though it's slurred and hard to understand.

"We can't understand you," Zoey says, clearly.

Michael says something which I can't fully understand, but I think he might be telling us to get off his back. It doesn't really matter since he joins the disc golf team, still adamantly eating the defective chips. Logan brushes past the encounter and picks up a few lost discs, tossing them back to the team. I begin helping, a vast amount of them still needing to be picked up.

"So, what school are we playing, anyway?"

"Uh, I just picked one at random. Uh, Ridgeway."

When the day of the game comes, we discover that Chase has made a very dangerous mistake. Ridgeway, as it turns out, is a school for kids with terrifying crimes under their belts. Literal crimes. I anxiously hide my sigh, embarrassed now.

"What's it say on that bus?" Logan asks, as the opposition's school bus pulls up. The color of it is the first hint that something isn't right; it's grey, instead of the usual yellow.

"Ridgeway youth detention facility? A reform school? We're competing against teenage criminals?"

I gasp at Zoey's words, and turn to Chase. "You chose your first ever competitive game to be played against criminals?" Chase rubs his head.

"I didn't know!" He defends, but it doesn't change that the other teenagers are scary, and are being removed from their chains.

"They don't look very nice!" Nicole says, and I shake my head.

"Alright, guys, look, just calm yourselves down. Just cause they're criminals doesn't mean they're better than us at disc golf."

"Thanks, Chase," I say, "that was definitely what we were worried about."

The other team begin practicing, and the criminals are good. I go over to Logan and ask if he thinks they can be beaten. He looks at me worried, as the other team score another basket, "we're gonna need your sign."

I hold my sign up, supportively, as the other team finishes their warm up. My sign has the letters of PCA written down the side, with a word following each letter. It reads "Perfect, Cool, Ace', and is covered in blue and purple glitter, as well as a little stingray, which looks more like a blob fish, and a couple of little doodles representing disc golf things.

"Nice going, Chase," Dana says, sarcastically, and I look again at the full basket.

The referee comes over, "okay, who's the captain for the PCA team?"

"Me," Zoey says, standing.

"You got your roster?"

Her face scrunches up, "my what?"

"The name of the five players for PCA," he explains, kindly. Even he is better than the gym coach, and he's not a real teacher.

"But we have six players," Zoey says, and I count them, realising she's right.

He shakes his head, "sorry, only five on a team. One'll have to sit out. Just let me know, I'll be right back."

He walks off, and the team has a big decision to make about who is sitting it out. I don't worry too much for Logan, who's the best player, but I still have a bad feeling for the rest of my friends.

"Well, I guess one of us is gonna have to sit out," Zoey says, facing us all.

"Sorry, Logan," Nicole says.

"What?" I ask, loudly. I draw back, face flushing. "I'm sorry, I'm not even on the team, I'll be quiet."

"Why Logan?" Chase asks.

Nicole goes to explain, "cause Logan joined the team last. So it's only fair that he sits out."

"But you need to win," I say. Logan smirks and the other raise their eyebrows at me. "Sorry, sorry."

Nicole sighs, "it's only fair, right, Zo?"

The others gesture for Zoey to say no, from the second that Nicole's back is turned. "Yeah, I guess," the blonde says, and I sigh.

"Cool, I'm gonna go limber up my throwy arm." She runs off, and we watch her, all a bit confused and concerned for the choice Zoey has made.

Logan looks at their captain, silently raising his arms to ask what she's doing, while Chase goes over to talk to her. "Zoey, you're not seriously gonna bench Logan, are you?"

"Well, I mean, it does seem fair," she says.

He sighs and gestures me over, "okay, you're a part of the team, Harper, speak," Chase tells me, and I run up to them.

"Zoey, you need to win for this whole thing to work, and you can't win without your best player. If you bench Logan, you're gonna have to take gym."

"Look," Chase says, "you're team captain, so you just got to do what you think is best for the team." He looks briefly at me, and then we leave her to think.

Zoey goes over to Nicole and I watch as Nicole's face drops. She comes back over as Nicole sits on the bench, and then the whistle blows as the ref begins the game. "Alright, we're gonna play nine holes of regulation disc golf. The team with the lowest combined score wins."

The security guard, from the other school, steps forwards and begins shouting, "Ridgeway team, listen up! If you intentionally hurt, injure, punch, or kill anyone on the PCA team, you will be punished." He pulls a baton from his belt and I flinch.

"Why doesn't that make me feel any better?" Zoey remarks, and I laugh stiffly.

The ref blows his whistle, "let's play disc golf!"

"Ready?" One of the Ridgeway kids says, "one, two, three, kill!" Their team huddle frightens me, and I wonder how easily they could kill my friends. I decide not to worry, but still wave my sign as if to ward off any bad intentions.

The game progresses, better than we had thought it might go. The other team are still great, but we're performing pretty well. There's a few I stances where the other kids steal stuff and are slightly violent, but otherwise it's pretty normal for a competitive sport.

"Okay," the ref says, "the score, Ridgeway, thirty two, PCA, twenty eight."

"Okay, guys," Chase says, "that means if we get the disc in the basket in three throws or less, we win."

Michael says something that none of us can understand, and we ignore it, "who's up?"

Dana answers Logan, "Zoey."

"Go PCA!" I shout, and then quiet down with a coy smile to the ref, who holds his whistle as a warning.

"Come on, Zoey, you can do it!" Chase says.

"I don't know," she says, looking at the shot she has to make, in only three shots.

"Don't blow it," Logan warns.

"Thanks for that."

I scoff, "don't be rude, Logan." The ref blows his whistle at me, and I take a step back to show I won't interfere, again.

Zoey runs over to Nicole to grab a disc. She goes to throw it, and then, "ow, ow, my wrist. I think I sprained it or something!" I watch her suspiciously.

"Well, the rules say you can sub in another player if there's an injury," the ref says.

"Awesome, hand me that thing," Logan says, stepping forwards and holding his hand out.

"No," she tells him, "I'm putting in Nicole." I realise that she's faking to give Nicole a chance, and groan at her act of kindness. "Nicole, come here!"

The others all d'Hale confused stares, while Nicole runs over. Chase is particularly confused, "okay, obviously, the injury's to your head."

"Zoey, are you sure this is a good idea?" Nicole asks.

"Do it."

"Go Nicole," I say, hoping that being supportive might help her be better at the game.

"Come on, you've got three shots to get it in," Zoey says, and we watch the brunette take her place.

"You can do it," Chase says, and Michael also says something which I assume to be a form of support.

"Please," she says to the disc, and takes the shot.

She misses. By a lot.

The other team laugh as Zoey tries to reassure her, "it's okay, you still got two shots left."

"Player, go get your disc," the ref says.

One of the Ridgeway boys stops Nicole, "allow me, it's the least I can do since you just won the game for us." He runs off, after tickling Nicole, and she comes over to us, apologetic.

"I am so sorry, guys."

"It's not your fault, Nicole," Dana says, and I'm impressed by her being nice.

"Yeah, it's Zoey's fault," Logan says, and I lightly hit his arm.

"Did anyone see where it went, I can't find it!" The boy shouts, and his other teammates begin walking.

One asks, "why don't you look harder?"

"Why don't you help me find it, butthead?"

Zoey turns on Logan as they begin searching for the disc, together. "You know, you're a new kind of obnoxious!"

"Hey, you know Nicole stinks, and you still put her in!"

"Logan, she's being nice to her friend," I tell him, annoyed by his lack of compassion.

"Will you boys hurry up and find that disc already?" The ref asks.

"Come on, let's go help those idiots find it so we can win already, gee." The rest of the inmates leave, and Chase begins arguing too.

"Dude, lay off her, man, alright? Sometimes winning is less important than actually doing the right thing."

Logan scoffs and Michael begins ranting in gibberish. Logan turns to him, "dude, no one can understand a word you're saying."

"Look, we're probably gonna lose," Zoey says, "so let's just deal with it, okay?"

The whistle blows behind us, "they're making a break for it!" I turn to see the other team running off, as the security team run after them.

"Um, what just happened?" Nicole asks.

"I think the other team just escaped," Zoey says.

Chase sighs, "this has been a really weird day."

"Yeah," I say, wistfully.

The ref turns to us, "okay, the Ridgeway team has fled before completion of the tournament, PCA wins by forfeit." We begin cheering.

"By forfeit!" I shout, joyfully, and Logan picks me up, jumping up and down.

"Wait, we won?" Nicole asks, astonished.

"Yeah, we won, because of you," Chase tells her.

"For real?"

"Yeah! That's it, let's all get sushi!" Chase suggests. "I'm buying!"

We run off and I jump on Logan's back. "Your sign worked," he tells me, and I look at it happily.

"Yeah, I guess it did."