Nameless: The Anonymous Chronicles

By Angela Prusia

Her crimes didn't rank as felonies.

A mishap on the middle school basketball court. A prank. And a food fight.

When Teegan Miller's position is threatened by the new girl on the basketball team, Teegan wants her adversary eliminated.

Instead Coach suspends Teegan from the team and challenges her to volunteer at a soup kitchen where mystery shrouds more than the meat.

The nameless faces at the soup kitchen force Teegan to confront hunger in the most unlikely of places—her own neighborhood and the basketball court. She meets a lonely old soldier with a traumatic past and discovers her teammate is hiding an awful secret.

Will Teegan help her rival even if it means losing the season's final game?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angela Prusia
• Release date: Jun 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393408215

Book preview

Prologue

August 2011

Chocolate brown eyes blinked under the fluorescent lights in the bathroom. One of the bulbs flickered, heightening the dull pain at the back of her head. The stench of urine made her gag. She hated sharing a bathroom with strangers.

Hunger gnawed at her stomach. She leaned over the sink and tried to focus on something other than the growing emptiness. The industrial hand soap smelled like disinfectant, but it would have to do. Her last shower had been at the truck stop four days earlier.

Cold spray numbed her flesh, but she didn’t wait for the water to warm up. Lingering in the bathroom too long brought questions.

She splashed water on her face then dried her flesh with a gritty paper towel. The reflection in the mirror stopped her.

Hollow eyes.

Dark circles.

Sunken cheeks.

A smattering of freckles.

Long, oily brown hair.

The sharp jut of her collarbone.

She hardly recognized the 14-year-old girl staring back at her from the glass.

A Walmart employee walked into the bathroom and glanced her way. She tossed the paper towel into the trash can and averted eye contact. The woman disappeared into a stall. She hurried to the exit. Better to vanish out of the store before the early morning rush.

She slipped out of the automatic doors and darted across the pavement, back to the parking lot stall where they’d slept another night in the beat-up Corolla.

Her sister, Kenzie, clutched her favorite doll. The little girl should be in kindergarten, not standing in front of the open hood where Mama tried to flag down someone to jump the engine.

The battery had died again.

If only she could wake up from this nightmare.

The nightmare of life on the run.

But the monster was real.

And they could never go back.

Chapter One

Late September 2011

O ne more drop. Bing tipped the Tabasco sauce over the blender. For luck.

I pushed the pulse button and watched the strange concoction turn under the blades. Any normal person would cringe at the mix of ingredients.

Five drops of Tabasco sauce.

Three jalapeno slices.

One-fourth teaspoon red pepper flakes.

One cup of 2% milk.

Two cups of vanilla ice cream.

The yield—one extremely spicy milkshake—our good luck charm on the basketball court.

Blame Bing. She’s usually the mastermind behind anything and everything that goes wrong in our group. What started as a slumber party dare ended up as a pre-game ritual. Especially since we won against Geneva Middle School, our biggest rivals, the very next day and the five of us earned a spot on the starting lineup for the last game of the season. We’re hooked.

Bing, real name Brittany, is the point guard on our team. She bounces between her parents on the weekends and continues the momentum throughout the week. Even on meds, she’s more hyper than one of the Chipmunks on caffeine. Her agility on the court secured our league championship last season. If it weren’t for her creative side, she’d never slow down. The girl is a regular Van Gogh.

Me. Teegan (Teeg) Miller. Center. Taller than 99% of the boys in our eighth grade class. Basketball shorts highlight my knobby, giraffe legs—not an advantage at school dances, but an asset I tolerate because of my proximity to the basket. My specialty: bank shots in the paint, which for non-basketball junkies, means a shot off the backboard from inside the free throw lane. If I’m not breathing basketball, start CPR.

Holly, a.k.a. Hoot. Small forward, dynamite free throw shooter, and animal fanatic. She got her nickname from the movie Hoot where the kids save cute little owls. Hoot is mama to a three-legged dog, a blind cat, and a gerbil without a tail. She can’t walk by a forgotten penny on the ground—lucky or not—without sending it to save blue-footed boobies or pygmy elephants.

Josie, who prefers Rooster, is our power forward. Mid-range jumps are her strength, though she’s got a killer drop step. Her obsession with the outdoors comes from her dad, a major in the Army Guard. She doesn’t like to talk about it, but the Maj is getting deployed again after Christmas. The two of them love camping and riding ATVs, which is how Rooster got her nickname. Mud splatters up the backside of her shirt like a rooster tail when she’s out riding the trails.

And last on the lineup is Mia, shooting guard extraordinaire. Fashion diva and girly girl. The girl can transform a dollar purchase at the thrift store into a runway sensation. Mia owns more makeup than Cover Girl. I once ate a cucumber slice meant for reducing puffy eyes, and Mia called me a dim-witted cow for ruining a perfectly natural face mask. At least, I think that was the English translation, but then again, my Spanish needs help.

Time for the traditional toast! Bing yelled over the whir of the blender, adding to the chaos in Hoot’s house. A tangle of arms and legs hustled into basketball shorts and practice jerseys. Hoot lived across the street from our school, and basketball try-outs started in 10 minutes. We couldn’t go to try-outs without our lucky shakes.

Hoot’s dog, Olaf, sniffed through discarded jeans and socks littering the living room floor. The little stub on his missing leg never slows him down. When Jingle darted past the couch, Olaf raced after the cat. How a blind cat could avoid furniture always amazed me.

Did you add too much Tabasco again? Hoot laced her Nikes, and the beads on her corn rows clicked together. Her mom spent half a day braiding her hair while the two of us watched movies. It’s five drops. Not the entire bottle.

"No kidding, chica. Mia wagged a manicured finger at Bing. Light glinted off a jewel embedded in a flower painted onto blue polish. My mouth was on fire the whole game."

Hoot laughed, revealing braces crisscrossed with yellow and black bands, our school colors. She looked so cute with a metal mouth; I sometimes wished my own teeth weren’t so straight.

Only a sip for me. Rooster wrinkled her nose. Blonde highlights streaked her shoulder-length brown hair after a summer in the sun. The girl spent every waking minute outside. My stomach is a wreck.

Nervous or not, you gotta drink the whole thing. I poured the liquid into five Dixie cups. You don’t mess with try-outs.

Mia finished braiding her long ebony hair and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She’d host a Mary Kay party on the basketball court if you could squeeze facials into half-time. If I can do it, you can. I know this concoction can’t be good for my skin. Her bronze complexion was flawless while the rest of us had zits. Talk about annoying.

Five minutes, girls. Rooster scowled at Bing who slid around the kitchen in her basketball socks. Coach will make us run sprints if we’re late.

But I’m ice skating. Bing struck a pose and knocked into the jug of milk. I caught the handle, but not before milk sloshed onto the black granite countertop.

Oops. Bing made a face and tied her mass of wild red curls back with a headband. Did I do that?

Who else? Mia sneered. Bing was a klutz with a long history of hurting herself. Twisted ankles, fractured wrists, even a broken nose when she plunged into a wall she somehow missed.

I’m dead if we leave this mess. Hoot grabbed a rag and swiped it through the milk while I returned the ice cream to the freezer. Jingle escaped upstairs away from the insanity while Olaf ended the chase for a stroke on the head.

Grab your shakes, I called out.

The girls each snatched a cup and formed a tight circle. I held out mine for a toast, and looked over our group. Underneath our montage of skin tones and hair color, we shared the same heartbeat. To a great season.

The best, everyone murmured, and we clinked glasses.

Bottom’s up. I chugged the shake, hoping to calm my jitters. Not too many five-foot-ten girls lurked in the shadows waiting to become center. But try-outs are try-outs, and my nerves made me jumpy.

Bing finished her shake then belched.

Nice. Mia made a face that made her high cheekbones stand out.

Bing belched even louder.

Two minutes, Hoot barked. She grabbed the empty pitcher and stuck it in the dishwasher.

Where’s my Under Armour headband? Mia demanded. And my cell phone?

Where’s my other shoe? Rooster shrieked. I can’t play without my Nikes.

A flurry of fabric blurred my vision as ten arms stuffed clothing into duffle bags. We dashed out the door.

The race is on, Bing giggled as we pounded the pavement to the gym. Sweat beaded my lip despite the autumn chill. I’d be drenched before the real workout.

Is it even worth it? Rooster jogged alongside me.

You have to ask? I looked at her and almost tripped on a rock. Bloody knees would not be good. We neared the gym. I prayed the side door would be open.

The spicy shake ritual, Rooster panted. "Do you think it’ll help the five of us make the starting lineup again?

I narrowed my lids. How many games did we lose last season?

None.

The door swung easily in my hand. Exactly.

THE SOUND OF BASKETBALLS hitting the court was a comforting rhythm, as steady as the thumping of my heart. We hustled toward Coach, and I scanned my competition. Most were younger girls, sevies as we called the seventh graders. But one girl stuck out from the rest because she was alone. And tall. Long brown hair fell past her shoulders. She tied the laces on her worn sneakers and grabbed a ball.

Coach looked up from her watch and frowned at the five of us. A kinky curl sprang from her ponytail holder. She always wore her hair back to control the frizz. Thirty more seconds, and you would’ve been late.

Think Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus on stilts, and you got Coach. She teaches geography by day and coaches after school. An ex-military brat, she literally takes you to every place you study. One week, her classroom looks like a tropical rainforest and the next, it’s transformed into an African village. No boring text books in her class. As a Coach, she’s about as intense. Suicide sprints are her best friend.

I exchanged a look with the girls. Not the best way to begin try-outs.

Sorry, Coach, Rooster muttered, and the rest of us followed.

Last season’s over. Coach narrowed her hazel eyes. You earn my respect all over again. She nodded toward the court. Get out there before I make you run.

I grabbed a ball and took a jump shot. The ball bounced off the rim. Not a good sign. I shook out my arms and dribbled around the court. I needed to get loosened up.

Heads up. Mia darted around me and made the shot. Her dark eyes—ringed in black eyeliner—sparkled.

Nice shot, I yelled out, then missed another basket. I wasn’t happy, especially when the tall girl I’d noticed earlier got the rebound and made the basket. I fumed under my breath. Lucky shot.

I wanted to ignore New Girl, but I couldn’t. She was that good. Every shot—perfect. My game, on the other hand, stunk. I needed an ounce of Bing’s energy or another milkshake to add some spice to my game.

Coach corralled us near the bleachers ten minutes later. Everyone warmed up?

For the next hour, we showed off our skills. Dribbling, shooting, passing, sprinting, anything remotely related to getting the leather ball into the metal ring.

I found out New Girl was an eighth grader like me and the girls. Her name is Bronwyn Keller. I overheard her tell Coach she played ball at her last school in Alabama. 

Competitive is my middle name, so I got mad when I saw Coach getting all impressed with New Girl. Me, Rooster, Hoot, Bing, and Mia wanted to be the starting lineup for every game this season for the Jaguars—and I wasn’t about to let anyone change that.

My first defense was to psych New Girl out. She’s bow-legged, so she runs funny. Great running technique, I muttered under my breath. Red crept up her neck, but she didn’t let my trash talk mess up her game. The ball arced from her hand and swished through the net.

Beautiful, Coach yelled from the sidelines.

I missed my shot, so I was really ticked off. The ball landed at New Girl’s feet. She handed it to me, and I scowled.

I don’t need your help.

New Girl looked hurt, but I was too mad to care.

Where’d you get your lucky shoes? I pointed to her feet and sneered. Goodwill?

Mad-dogging an opponent is one thing, but even I knew my comments crossed a line. Mia shopped at the Goodwill all the time to create her stellar wardrobe. I was being spiteful and mean. No wonder jealousy was called the green-eyed monster. My envy was turning me into a beast.

New Girl said nothing. Instead, she landed a perfect lay-up, while mine fell short. I cursed. Coach was going gaga over her, and I couldn’t make the simplest of baskets. My position as center slipped away from me with each missed shot. Anger burned inside me.

What’s wrong? Hoot sidled alongside me and adjusted the waistband on her shorts. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

Nothing, I hissed and bolted for another lay-up—which I missed. New Girl nailed another smooth shot.

Desperation isn’t a pretty thing. Next chance I got, I glanced at Coach to make sure she didn’t see me trip New Girl. She slid across the court, her bare skin skidding across the surface. Even I cringed. My conscience nagged at me for being so cruel. Floor burns are the worst.

Hoot and Mia stared at me with round eyes. They knew my awful secret, but I warned them with a look, and they tightened their lips. Neither would betray me—even if I deserved getting ratted out.

What happened? Coach asked. Blood trailed down New Girl’s kneecap.

New Girl eyed me, but shame kept me from meeting her gaze.

I tripped on my laces, she lied.

Guilt punched me in the gut, but I pushed it aside. I didn’t practice my butt off all summer to sit on the bench.

Coach pulled out the first aid kit and snapped on rubber gloves. She busied herself with New Girl who sat with her leg elevated.

Nice, Mia whispered to me. Maybe you should start a welcoming committee.

I ignored the sarcasm and made a free shot just as Coach looked up. She smiled, and I pumped my arm in victory. Game back on.

Sweat made my skin glisten by the time try-outs finished, but confidence replaced my fear. I rationalized my jealousy. So, I’d been a bit mean? I couldn’t let New Girl steal my spot after all my hard work.

Coach told us she’d announce A and B Team the next day, so I followed my friends to the locker room. Only girls on the A Team had a chance at making the starting lineup.

Why are you being so cruel to the new girl? Hoot tried guilt—like she does when I step on a spider—but I turned on the shower and drowned her out.

I stood under the spray while try-outs replayed inside my head. Sending New Girl sprawling across the floor hadn’t been my proudest moment. But what could I do? Admitting fault would end my chances to be a starter. Coach’s disappointment would kill me.

I wasn’t in the mood for Hoot and Mia to rag on me, so I got dressed in record time. Later, I called to them and walked out of the locker room without drying my hair despite the cold. I didn’t need two more consciences. I had a difficult enough time ignoring my own.

My dad waited at