Tools of Ignorance: Lisa's Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

sunken living room and framed art on the walls took Lisa’s breath away. She knew people lived in luxury like that, but she’d never seen it.
    Someone yelled from another room, and Lisa followed Jeri and Marlee into a room filled with East Valley softball players gathered around a ping-pong table. The left fielder named Susie was just about to lose a ping pong game to Christy. Christy stopped the game and had them write their names on slips of paper to get in on the pingpong tournament.
    They wrote their names down and sat on a bench underneath a window. Just as they sat down, Christy sent a hard smash past Susie to win the match. Looking dejected, Susie came over and sat on the floor next to Marlee. Lisa’s chest tightened when Susie oh-so-casually leaned her shoulder against Marlee’s leg. When Marlee’s name was called for the next ping-pong game, Lisa cheered inside because Susie wouldn’t be able to touch Marlee anymore.
    Lisa cheered inside again when the uber-cute Sam stood up as Marlee’s opponent. Sam had changed from her red and black softball uniform into a low-cut mint green blouse and white Capri pants. Her gold necklace had some kind of charm on it which brought Lisa’s eye directly down to Sam’s generous cleavage. Lisa swallowed hard. She couldn’t take her eyes off the pretty blonde from East Valley, and when the girl pulled her hair back into a ponytail, Lisa almost whimpered because she had imagined running her fingers through it.
    Lisa took a deep breath and let out a sigh. What was the matter with her? She had spent the last month or so pining for Marlee, but now Sam was stirring her up in ways that only Tara had done before.
    Sam scored three quick points and practically had to show Marlee which end of the paddle to hold. Lisa laughed along with the girls from East Valley, but she also felt bad for Marlee. It was inevitable, but Marlee lost to Sam fairly quickly and sat back down next to Susie. Sam went to the white board and wrote her name in the winner’s bracket. She then pulled two more names out of the hat.
    “Mary?” Sam called, and a girl with brown shoulder length hair and bangs stood up and reached for Sam’s discarded red paddle. Sam called, “Lisa?” and looked right at Lisa.
    Lisa pointed to herself and asked, “Me?”
    Sam nodded.
    Lisa headed to the table and picked up the blue paddle. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Susie and Marlee leaning close talking. Jeri and Christy got up to leave, and Lisa wondered how long Jeri and Christy had been friends.
    Lisa smiled and shook hands with Mary after Sam introduced them.
    “Okay, girls,” Sam said, “we play to a score of twenty-one. The winner must be ahead by two. We want a good clean fight here. No kidney punches. Okay?”
    “Okay. Bring it on, Mary.” Lisa tapped the table with her paddle.
    Mary served the ball, but Lisa completely missed it because she saw Susie and Marlee stand up to leave. She laughed out loud and tapped the table with her paddle. “Okay, Mary. I dare you to do that again.”
    “Anytime,” Mary said with a laugh. She served the ball again, and even though Susie led Marlee out of the room, Lisa stayed focused enough to return the serve.
    On the outside, Lisa played ping-pong and made it look as if she were enjoying herself with some new friends, which she kind of was, but on the inside, she was desperate to know what Marlee and Susie were doing in the other room. Maybe they were just talking about softball. Marlee was the one, after all, who had invited her to go with them to East Valley. Maybe Marlee was too shy about coming out to her. That must be it. Maybe Marlee wanted to gather up her courage, and that’s why she had left the room for a while. Pfft, yeah, right. In some alternate universe maybe.
    Lisa kept up pretty well with Mary and after a while was only losing by a score of 12-15. It was Lisa’s turn to serve, but she hesitated when she saw movement outside the window. Marlee and