Ms. Todd took command, now that she noticed everyone was on the gym floor. First, everyone was to do stretching. Ms. Todd shouted the commands while some of the staff members showed us what exactly she was telling us to do. Zoe and everyone else followed, and they started with arm reaches and then pulled their arms across their body on both sides followed by toe touching. The students were asked to do this specific stretch multiple times and the staff went around to each student noting how flexible the student was. Zoe knew that when she does this stretch, she can touch the ground with the palms of her hand and has often noticed that most other people can’t. When she briefly looked around at her classmates, many students barely touched their toes with the tips of their fingers.
When the staff was done recording their findings, Ms. Todd barked, “Sit down and put your feet together. Lean over, bring your head towards the ground, then with one leg straight, bring the other leg over and twist your back using one elbow and then switch legs.”
The final command was heard “Stand back up, bend one of your knees, and grab your foot behind you and switch.”
The whole stretching session took longer than 30 minutes, due to all the information the staff was recording. Next up was the short distance running. Which was just running back and forth between different lines on the court, when Zoe was in middle school basketball these were called suicides. The gym had two side-by-side basketball courts.
Ms. Todd’s stern voice commanded, “Vampires to the left court, and I want humans on the other court.” Then to try and encourage the students to run as fast as they could, Ms. Todd paired them up, calling them by name. This was the first time Zoe could see how athletic the vampires are. She wasn’t the only person interested. The guys in both groups went first. Anyone who wasn’t running was staring at the vampires. The first two vampires running were Zack and Evan. They both looked lanky and unathletic, but when Ms. Todd yelled “Go” and the human and vampire guys were off to run their suicides, the two vampires were both even with each other, but strides ahead of the human men, who looked athletic.
Zoe’s heart sank, acknowledging that if any of the vampires were chasing after her, she wouldn’t be able to escape them. This thought wasn’t floating around in Lily’s head. Zoe could hear Lily drooling over the vampire guys with Jackie. The vampires finished the suicides much faster than the human guys and didn’t have to catch their breath when they finished. All the human guys couldn’t finish a suicide faster than any of the male vampires. Scariest of all, Josh was one of the fastest vampire guys.
Next was the girls. It was no surprise that the female vampires were about as fast as the human guys, some of them were slower because they didn’t seem to want to run. None of them were as slow as the human girls. Zoe was about average in speed among the other human girls. It didn’t help that she slipped at one of the lines when trying to run back.
The next physical test is ten laps around the two basketball courts in the gym. Long-distance running was not one of Zoe’s limited physical abilities, so she didn’t expect much from herself. Instead, Zoe was keen to determine whether the vampires could even get tired and if not the males, then maybe the females. The vampires went around the court first, males and females together. And they all kept pace with each other well, towards the end of the 8th lap there were some male and even more female vampires that started to slow down. Zoe kept a close eye on them when they finished. She wanted to determine how fast they recovered. When the last three vampires finished, Zoe watched their breathing and when they would be able to have enough breath to talk. These vampires were still breathing heavily by the time the humans had started their long-distance run. Zoe concluded that there were only a certain amount of resources that vampires have in them, and once they are used up, they are probably done for a while.
Eventually, during the start of the sixth lap around the court of the human’s run three guys and all the girls, including Zoe, were slow jogging such that when the two fit guys finished their run, Ms. Todd said we could stop. That was all the information that the staff needed for this test. Zoe was so glad to be done, she was breathing heavily, and any more would have caused her to hurl. As most of the humans needed time to rest, we had a water and restroom break. Zoe immediately walked towards the locker room. She had forgotten how red her cheeks become when she exercises. Even after a few splashes of water, her cheeks were still flushed. She decided to give up and fixed her hair, and then walked back out to get some water. Sipping on her water, Zoe, watched the staff roll in some containers with basketballs.
‘Oh great!’ Zoe thought. She hasn’t thrown a basketball in years and thought that this wasn’t quite a fair assessment of her ability to throw at a target. Ms. Todd exclaimed, “Break time is over.” And all the students gathered around for instructions. The humans and vampires can be split between the two basketball courts and one hoop gets the five girls and the other the five guys. Ms. Todd gave them ten minutes to become adjusted to the basketballs and then the test would begin.
Zoe grabbed a basketball from the collection and dribbled it a few times. It felt larger than she remembered, but she figured that she probably used smaller ones back then. The other four human girls didn’t seem to know how to dribble or shoot the ball, but Zoe didn’t have time to worry about them or so she thought. After a few shots and weird layups, the girls gathered around Zoe for help. Zoe, having already confirmed she wasn’t too rusty, decided to give the girls some pointers, and they were able to make at least one shot each before the ten minutes ended.
“Okay line up at the free-throw line, everyone,” Ms. Todd yelled. “For ten minutes you will all try to make shots from this line. Go.”
Zoe went first by the other girl’s suggestion and missed. She didn’t care, the next person was up, and she needed to retrieve her ball to try again. The next time she missed it again. The ball was heavier than she could push with her strength into the basket from the free-throw line. So, she kept trying anyway. The other human girls with her couldn’t do it either, and upon looking around the human guys could do it more regularly, while the vampire females, those that tried made it every single time, and all the vampire males made every single shot.
Zoe looked closely at the male vampire shots. Each person seemed to make the same shot as the previous one. The height of their jump was the same, the flick of their wrist was at the same time, and the basketball flew into the hoop without touching the rim every time. Zoe was captivated by the reproducibility the vampires had, but she figured if vampires had big sports programs, seeing that in a basketball game would be very boring. Maybe they have a way to make it more fun? Zoe pondered.
Ms. Todd called “Time’s up. Move closer towards the basket for a bank shot.” Zoe and the girls moved closer to the basket and lined up on one side and then started shooting off the backboard. Zoe made these shots often, even Lily and Jackie, and the others could make the shot every other throw. When Zoe looked over at the vampires, no surprises there, either the guys made every shot, while the girls, the ones that tried, did too. Zoe didn’t quite think about this as much because the next test was coming sooner than she had realized and once that test was completed the blood draw was next.
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