I’m not gonna write about fairy tales or dragons this time. I’m not gonna write about high school conflicts and the drawn out dramas that can result, awkward crushes, loneliness, stupid boyfriends, first kisses (not that I would know of any), social cruelties, heartbreaks, close friendships, or fights between the best of friends. None of the heartwrenching stuff, the dirt and grime of high school life; I’m just gonna write about four square.

Chances are, you might not know what four square is. Or maybe, you did know what four square was, but that was back in elementary school or even junior high. Four square is a playground game played on a set of four squares, labeled 1,2,3,4 that make up a larger square. One person stands in each of the four squares while the others wait on line. The game begins with the person in the fourth square dropping the ball and hitting it to another in the act of serving. With the ball in play, the people in the square must hit the ball into another square without letting it bounce twice in their own or go out of bounds. If that should happen, the person would be out, and a person on line or in a square below them, would take their place.

Four square sort of stumbled into our lives and the social makeup of our school by accident. Nobody came into high school thinking that they were gonna play this juvenile game everyday at lunch. As freshmen, my friends and I were actually basketball freaks and on the first day of school we were headed towards the gymnasium to play during lunch. But the gruff security guard chased us out of the gym and we wandered to the sidewalk in front of the cafeteria patio. I still had my basketball and it was begging me, wailing to be used. With its smooth, leather surface pressed against my fingertips, how could I refuse its calling?

“Wanna play two square?” I suggested to Kyleen, a friend of mine (two square is essentially the same as four square except it is played with two squares instead of four).

“All right,” she agreed and we positioned ourselves in two of the sidewalk squares. Some of our other friends, fidgety freshmen boys who couldn’t be content with just sitting during lunch, got curious and we taught them how to play. Thus, the great game of four square began.

Guys made up most of our initial group except for Kyleen and me and a few anomalies on spontaneous occasions. But as the first few weeks of school went on, it attracted a variety of kids: athletes, jerks, oddballs, losers, freshmen, sophomores, and kids of polar social groups. Some kids were able to play well or we just liked them so that they were accepted almost immediately. Some stayed to develop their skills and eventually earn respect and four square prestige. The rest of them left, or came every once in awhile, and a few started their own group. Here, a bunch of kids who might have never considered associating with each other before grew close throughout the year. It was a strange occurrence, yet it was sort of neat. Some of us became the best of friends during this period despite never talking or knowing of each other before. Take Aaron, for example. Freshmen year, (he was a sophomore), he became pretty close with Kyleen and now he’s one of my best friends as well. When he came, we thought he was just some loud, goofy sophomore intruding our space. None of us knew him before that but he was soon well liked after playing with us everyday.

It’s sophomore year and well, things happen. Boys happen. Girls happen. And four square brings out the best of it. So some kids even develop crushes or find boyfriends or girlfriends here. There aren’t too many girls who play four square but one ended up meeting some guy. They started getting close and then started going out. It’s a sweet little love story to interrupt our war legends on sidewalk squares.

We’re a combination of completely different people playing the same game and becoming good friends. You don’t see that in high school too often. Most groups like to isolate themselves rather than taking the risk of mixing. I guess we kinda forgot such social differences and barriers since we’ve been playing.

As with all games, personal techniques and rules develop. We learned to hit the ball with an assortment of spins, angles, and forces to get ourselves into the fourth square. Four square soon evolved into a game using our hands, feet, even heads. It wasn’t the same playground game third graders played: it was an intense competition involving quickness and coordination. With the fast pace of the game came rules that determined how you get out. If you hit the ball out of bounds, in your own square, if you hit it twice, if you catch the ball or hold it for an extended period, or if you hit a ball that landed in another person’s square (always a confusing one for newcomers), in all of these situations, you would get out. A do-over could be called when a person or square boundary was hit or the ball rolled after being hit.

There’s always bickering about the calls but it usually doesn’t get too bad. As a sophomore playing with other sophomores and freshmen, there is a subconscious sort of hierarchy. Certain sophomores can bend the rules, break the rules even, to stay in. It may be that a person might call a random do-over or slam the ball down illegally in a square to get them out. People complain. People always complain. Often, things truly aren’t fair, but we like kids who don’t complain that much. If a kid’s new and doesn’t whine, eventually most people will lay off and play fair with them. Freshmen this year especially have it hard. I guess the freshmen status of inferiority had been pressed into our minds by the current juniors. In the beginning of the year, there was an influx of freshmen on our four square line. Us sophomores had to dish it out and chase away as many Freshmen as possible. A few determined souls ended up sticking with us and integrated into the group. And some of them are cool people, too. And if a freshmen can make a rule to describe an uncertainty policy in deciding who’s out like, “when in doubt, the freshmen is out,” that is pretty great. We do chase kids away, though. Sometimes, our group makes it really miserable for somebody they just don’t like. They’ll play the game so that the kid won’t get a chance to even touch the ball or they’ll ridicule them so much that it just isn’t worth it for them to stick around. I don’t like it too much but I’m not somebody stopping it all the time either.

I guess I have a bit of authority, especially since I’m a sophomore, I’ve been there awhile, and I run shit. Directing the game, whether its plays or calls, is controlled by the skilled sophomores. It used to be a lot more complicated freshmen year. Sophomore year right now is considered pretty mellow because most of us get along well and we’re just trying to have a good time. But ninth grade was the year of alliances. These alliances were made up of kids who were able to match each other’s abilities pretty evenly. We really went at each other then. The alliances were jumbled up once in the middle of the year, after we decided to abolish them. It didn’t really happen. My friend and I continued a secret alliance as partners, working our way to the upper squares. Everyone found out after awhile and new alliances were built for war. During this year, biases directed our calls because we’d like to support our own teammates.

Freshmen year was a fascinating year in four square. Fascinating but also melodramatic. It started one afternoon when my allied friend was serving the ball after the usual string of arguments and competitive taunting. The worn out ball rocketed straight into Aaron’s nose and the blood came rushing out. It was an accident; there had never been a conflict between the two of them. Somehow, this was not how our rival team saw it. They hastily condemned him with a series of shouts and accompanied Aaron and hurried him to the nurse. Not that I didn’t care about Aaron or anything, but I couldn’t leave my friend. Instead of checking to see how Aaron was, he had wandered into the other four square game. I came up to him, suggesting that he come to the nurse or at least apologize, acknowledging that I knew it was just an accident. I knew, even if they didn’t. I don’t care. I don’t care about those kids. I don’t care what they think of me.

For the rest of the year, he played at the other group. I admit, I kept thinking that maybe he’d come back. Kept looking over, kept waiting. It was hard though, especially since we stopped talking as well. But then came the tensions between the two four square groups. It was a battle, a true battle. Our group hated their group and their group hated ours. Loose balls meant that someone from over there would pick it up and chuck it or punt it down the hill in front of hour school. Or sometimes, they would intentionally throw the ball at someone’s back or feet. So with sure-footed agility, swiping hands, and cautious eyes, members from both of the two sides made sure to scoop up their own ball before the other could grab hold of it. Some of the kids from the other group would roll their own balls through our game to disturb us or even at the nerve to steal the ball from my broken locker and risk my wrath.

I remember this one time, Mark (not his real name and neither are the rest of them in this event), a kid from our group, chased down a ball that rolled into the court of the other group. Two from the other, Leo and Brett, also scurried for the ball and when they failed to obtain it, tackled Mark as he held onto it. With an uproar of “ohhs” from a table of juniors and sophomores, both of our groups, including me, who was nearby the assault, crowded around Mark, Leo, and Brett as they wrestled to the ground. I extended my arms, calling for the ball, hoping that they would give up when they saw that it was against an unwritten code to tackle a girl. Instead, Mark wrested himself from the hands of Leo and Brett, being lean and quick, and began to run: down the steps across the street, beside the fence. Leo ran after him and Brett attempted to cut him off. Mark ran in erratic movements to keep the two boys off his track. The rest of us from my group and probably from the other as well, knew that Mark was a track maniac and there was no way that Leo and Brett ever had a chance. As Brett closed in on him, I stepped out to provide him auxiliary relief. I called for the ball and Mark chucked it over Brett’s head and into the bushes a little up ahead. I raced against the members of our rival group and scooped it up. It wasn’t over, though: Brett picked up Mark’s arms and Leo, his legs, and they tossed him top of the prickly hedge. “Don’t mess with my friend!” Gerald, another kid from our group ran at Brett, and pushed him to the ground. Closest thing our well-to-do-white-suburban school has ever had to a gang fight and rivalry. The days were certainly filled with fear then.

Sophomore year came with a lot of changes. Only one group played four square and that was ours. It was a new year, a new beginning, and none of us carried the old animosities of the year before. Maybe everyone forgot what had happened freshmen year? I couldn’t, but I don’t forget anything. Can’t really seem to move on or follow the changes. But anyway, my friend and I cleared things up, he came back to four square, became best friends with a kid he never got along withlast year and then they eloped to Mexico. They lived happily ever after.

So nobody was trying to kill each other anymore come sophomore year, for the most part, anyway. Four square was about careless entertainment. We’re sitting in school for six periods and lunch comes along where we can channel our frustration into a game. It’s nice to move around and get some fresh air and believe me, we’re out there in any kind of weather. We’ve seen days where the sun embraces every breathing soul that she comes in contact with or days where we’re pelted with frozen spears of rain. We’ve gone through snow many times, but we had security guards and even our vice principal scolding us to come inside. One time, or rather, a few times we were out in the pouring rain, the entire forty minutes, playing four square. Warriors. We are warriors. I suppose we’ve gotta to be pretty crazy too, and I thought about that as I spent the next three periods shivering in my wet clothes. But we love four square. We love playing and just plain old hanging out.

A lot of people left four square when tenth grade came. Aaron, kids who thought they were too cool for it, kids who thought they were too old for it, or kids who found other things to do during lunch. I look back on it sometimes, when I’m talking to someone who knew of the old four square days and say, “remember when so-and-so played? God, that was soooo weird!” Cause it is. It’s freakish to think of who we used to be close with and associate with on a day to day basis. I think of yesterday, or rather, yesteryear a lot though. Most of us don’t really concern ourselves with anything but today. It’s fun that way, it is. We know each other, we joke with each other, greet each other in the hallways, or talk out of school. It’s always something to look forward to: the fierce competition or the friendly banter.

But the transition and changes from ninth grade to tenth grade makes me think a lot about next year. I mean, we all claim that we’re gonna be here for the next two years after this one, but who really is gonna stay? Who’s the next one to grow up, to think that they’re too old to play an elementary school game? Who’s the next one that finds a new group of friends somehow cooler than us and cut off all contact with us? Who’s gonna leave us for their boyfriend, or for their girlfriend, and drift off to some other part of the high school during lunch everyday? Sometimes I wonder if next year, I’ll be the only one standing on the four square court with the ball in my hands. And I do know that I will be there. I don’t change, but I guess I’m always afraid that everyone else will.

One thing I know for sure is that tomorrow, the same group of kids who were here today, will be there, waiting for me and a worn out basketball. And that is all I need to keep me excited for the future.

(In essence, I lied to you in the beginning when I said I wouldn’t talk about those topics. I did talk about them, because that’s exactly what four square is all about. Four square is a story of a bunch of teenagers getting by just as most teenagers do. Maybe we haven’t seen any dragons yet, but in this story, we are having a hell of a