Battle Dress by Amy Efaw Read Free Book Online Page B

guy who taught us how to march ! The only person who had smiled today, who had joked. Cadet Black—no pun intended.
    “MISERY, OH, MISERY ...” Cadet Black sang on, echoing the thoughts of my heart. We followed the companies ahead of us toward a huge brick building crouched near the edge of the Hudson River.
    “IS WHAT THIS ARMY IS TO ME!” It felt good to be marching. No thinking. Just marching. Mindlessly repeating back the phrases that Cadet Black shouted out. I could hear the roar of voices in the companies ahead of us, traveling over the warm air. The steady beat of hundreds of feet pounding the pavement in unison—left, right, left, right—relaxed me. I felt my tense muscles start to unwind, like they did a couple of miles into an eight-mile run....
    And then I heard her voice.
    “Andi? Look, Ted! It’s Andi!”
    It can’t be! I darted a look to my left. And what I saw out of the corner of my eye—my mother, camera in hand, scrambling behind Cadet Black—almost stopped my heart. So they had stayed after all.
    “Do you think she can hear me, Ted? Come on, Andi! Look at me! Over here!”
    Cadet Black scowled and then barked at us, “Third Platoon! Heads and eyes to the front! One. Two. Three. Four. United States Cadet Corps!”
    “Why won’t she look at us?”
    Please, God, don’t let them guess that she’s talking to me. I ordered my eyes to stare at the building ahead, which was growing larger with every step. Don’t react. Not at all.
    I could hear her behind us now, her voice growing fainter. “Oh, just shut up, Ted! I only wanted to take her picture, you know. Is that so bad? She could’ve at least looked at us.”
    “I USED TO BE A HIGH SCHOOL STUD ...” Cadet Black sang. I couldn’t hear her at all now. But it had taken the entire platoon marching behind us to drown her out.
    I tried to relax, to concentrate on keeping in step—but I couldn’t stop shaking inside. How could she have done that to me? What was she thinking? No other parents had followed the cadets off the field. But then again, my parents were no ordinary parents. I should’ve expected it. During home track meets my mother had trotted out in front of the starting line just as the starter’s gun went off. She had made surprise visits to band concerts and awards ceremonies. She had zipped up and down the aisles during my high school graduation. Every place that I was featured in any way, she and her camera arrived, behaving like a sugar-charged, lollipop-clutching kid in a toy store. And my dad was always in tow, grinding his teeth and looking uncomfortable, but powerless to stop her.
    “NOW I’M MARCHING IN THE MUD.” Tears settled into my eyes. My throat ached. No other parents had humiliated their new cadet like my parents had humiliated me. I yelled louder, trying to push it all away.
    “I USED TO DATE A BEAUTY QUEEN—” My toes rubbed against my new, stiff black shoes. My wool pants clung to the backs of my legs. Clipped hair pricked the skin between my shoulder blades.
    “NOW I DATE MY M-16!”
    Date my M-16? Weird words, weird people, weird clothes. Suddenly, surrounded by yelling, sweating, White Over Gray-clad kids who only this morning were ordinary teenagers, I felt totally alone.
    We reached the building and, one squad at a time, filed inside a huge auditorium. Air-conditioned plushness greeted us. It looked like a fancy concert hall with its rows of crushed-velvet seats. But instead of containing the cultured sounds of an orchestra, the place rocked with loud chanting and stomping feet.
    “Fill up this row, Beanheads!” Cadet Daily shouted at us over the roar. “And keep your skanky bodies off the seats until you are ordered to sit!”
    Though every inch of my body whimpered for my seat, I yelled with the others, “WE ARE,” (STOMP, STOMP) “HARDCORE!” over and over. “Hardcore H,” I guessed then, was H Company’s nickname. Our job was to let all the other companies know that we had