Chapter 22: Build Day (Part 1)

Carly’s whistle rang out across the soccer field, signaling the end of club. With a sigh, Sam slumped over and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

For the first time, she hadn’t had fun playing boffer.

She glanced down at the sword in her hand. It wasn’t her Golden Rose. She’d had to switch the sword she was used to out for one of the others, and she’d done so multiple times, much to her chagrin. One was too heavy on the tip, which was annoying. Another one was so unbalanced she could barely make it swing straight. She even borrowed Nick’s sword, but for the life of her she couldn’t make the bumpy surface move the way she wanted it to.

She must have tried a dozen different swords that night, and none of them felt right.

While the club packed up the equipment, the others gave Sam a wide berth. Everyone could tell she wasn’t in the best mood after all the deaths she’d accrued tonight, and they knew her well enough by now to not want to bother her further.

Carly was the only one who approached her.

“Hey, you were really off your game tonight, huh?” She said sympathetically. The tender look on her face was an amusing contrast to the giant scythe she had draped over her shoulder.

“It’s these stupid swords,” Sam muttered, jerking it into place in the bag. “They’re all weighted terribly, they feel so awkward when I swing them!”

The other girl just laughed, unfazed by Sam’s bad mood. “Yeah, that’s the unfortunate thing. A lot of our weapons are pretty old, and when we built them, we hadn’t really perfected the process for balance and stuff like that. But you did really well anyway!”

Her hollow praise fell on deaf ears.

Carly scrunched up her face thoughtfully, but didn’t say anything. Not interested in waiting around, Sam slung the golf bag over her shoulder and joined the others in marching to the equipment storage room. After that, well… she wasn’t in the mood to go to the café. She’d probably just head back to her room.

While everyone else walked towards campus, Nick and Carly headed back to the parking lot.

“Where are they going?” Daniel asked.

“To put the scythe away,” Mike guessed. “It’s not like we’re going to lug that monstrosity back and forth from storage every week, so she’s probably going to store it in her car.”

Without Carly’s perkiness, the walk back to the equipment storage room was remarkably quiet. The whole way there, Sam was stuck between two options. She didn’t want to give up the club, but she’d gone through pretty much every sword they’d had, and none of them had worked. Maybe she could give switching weapons a shot? It seemed to be working okay for Mary. Weak as the other girl was, Andy and Josh had taught her a lot about how to use a spear.

She quickly dismissed that thought though, and grabbed her shoulder. Most of the other weapons the club had needed two hands to wield properly. Spears, axes, longswords, not to mention whatever the ‘Penetrator’ was supposed to be.

No… those were completely out of the question. That just left the shorter swords, which were basically worthless.

“Hey, you coming?”

Sam snapped back to reality to see that they’d already arrived at the storage room. Mike was holding the door for her and giving her a funny look.

“O-Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, heading inside and setting down her bag with the rest of the equipment. As she did, her eyes landed on a flash of red and gold.

Golden Rose. It was just lying there, tucked in among the other swords in the bag. It looked the same as any of them like that, but it would never fight again.

“Hey, Mike,” Sam turned to the co-captain. “What do you guys do with all the weapons that you can’t use anymore?”

“You’re talking about Golden Rose?” He asked, walking over to her. “Well… usually, we just toss ‘em out, since we can’t use them. Depending on the weapon, though, we might scrap it for parts? Like if it’s a really big axe, that’s a lot of valuable foam that we might be able to repurpose. Why?”

“W-Well…”

Thrown away. They were just going to throw it away? It didn’t seem right.

“If you’re just gonna throw it out, then can I have it?” She whispered.

What was she doing? Sam was the least sentimental person in the world. What was she gonna do, put it on a shelf so she could admire it? More likely she was just gonna chuck it in the closet as soon as she got back to her room and never think about it again.

…Even so, she still wanted it. They’d only been together a few weeks, but she felt bizarrely attached to her sword.

A wave of bitterness washed over her. This wasn’t the first time she’d held onto something out of stupid sense of sentimentality.

I’m just making the same mistakes all over again. Getting too invested…

She shook her head.

No! It’s different from last time. You’re different. You’re not going to screw everything up, not again.

Sam turned to Mike, aware that she must have looked pathetically desperate. She expected to have to beg, or make some impassioned speech. But the older boy wasn’t bothered at all.

“I don’t see why not,” he shrugged. “There are a lot of times when members have gotten attached to a particular weapon, and decide to take it with them rather than see it get dismantled. Sure, no problem at all, Sam.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She dug out her old partner and gently held her, relief washing away the bitterness.

She would never fight with Golden Rose again, but at least they’d still be together.

Sam and Mike went out to rejoin the others who were waiting patiently. No one said a word about the fact that she brought along her sword, since a few of them were carrying their personal weapons themselves.

They headed to the Honey Café, and even Sam decided to join them after all, her mood having taken a turn for the better.

…

Sam was just settling down in her chair with a cup of ice-cold milk when Carly burst into the café, face flushed with excitement.

“YOU GUYS!” She shouted, practically leaping onto the couch, “YOU GUYS, I JUST HAD THE BEST IDEA!”

Sam winced. This didn’t sound good.

“We should do a build day! Next Saturday! Not tomorrow, I mean, but next next Saturday!”

Mike perked up at that. “Oh, that’s an idea.”

“What’s a build day?” Mary asked, looking around in confusion.

“Totally the most fun thing ever!” Carly grinned. “It’s where we all make a bunch of weapons!”

The three first-years stared at her, not quite sure what she was talking about.

Nick quickly stepped in to explain a little better.

“So you know how a lot of our stuff is kind of old? And a lot of it isn’t weighted very well? Well, every once in a while, when we realize that our equipment is starting to become a little worn out, we arrange for a build day. We take apart old weapons and try to build new ones.”

“It’s a ton of fun!” Carly assured them. “But it’s also really expensive, since we gotta pay the cost for foam, cores, duct tape, everything. So we can’t do it as often as we like. On the other hand, it’s not like our club spends the budget on much of anything else, right?”

“So what, we just go build stuff, then?” Sam asked.

“Yep,” Carly nodded. “We can do it at my place! In the meantime, Nick will go to the hardware store sometime this week and buy what we need. Any other questions?”

Mary raised a shaky hand.

“Um… I’m not so good with my hands… I don’t know the first thing about making weapons or anything like that…”

“That’s okay,” Nick assured her with a grin. “I’ll actually be making a few swords and spears myself to show you guys what to do. And I’ll also be there to test ‘em out, too, to make sure what you guys make is safe.”

Mike glanced over to Sam. “What about personal weapons?”

Carly deflated like a balloon. “Come on! I was saving the best part for last! Why’d you have to go and ruin it?!”

“Personal weapons?” Sam asked.

“You guys have noticed that some people bring their own weapons to Boffer Club, right?” Nick said, nodding to Mike’s sword. “Well, those are personal weapons that they built themselves, often on a build day. See, since we’re buying the materials in bulk, it’s the perfect opportunity to build something for yourself, too.”

Daniel gasped. “Wait, so I can make my own sword?!”

Mary gasped too. “For keeps?!”

“Exactly!” Carly chirped.

Sam couldn’t believe it. She’d been worrying all night about not having a replacement for Golden Rose, and now she was being given an opportunity to make one herself? And not just any replacement, but one that was hers. Her own personal sword.

“It’s not free though,” Nick clarified. “Materials don’t come cheap. If you want to make a standard sword or spear like the kind we have, it’ll cost you ten dollars for a PVC core. If you want to use wood, it’ll cost twenty dollars.”

Only ten dollars… it sounded so cheap. “Wait, what’s the difference between PVC and wood?” Sam asked.

“Other than the price? In my experience, wood is just better for cores,” Nick explained. “Especially stuff like swords and spears. They balance better, and surprisingly, they’re lighter, too. But it costs way more to buy a wooden dowel of the right size than a PVC pipe, so yeah. Twenty bucks.”

“Golden Rose has a wood core,” Carly added, pointing to Sam’s sword. “It was one of Nick’s first experiments with them. In case you were thinking of a comparison.”

Sam turned over the sword in her hands and thought about it. Was she really going to spend twenty dollars on this club? Just for a sword that was a little better than those other ones?

But a sword like her Golden Rose…