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By seven forty on Sunday morning, Drita Kodra had already made three girls repack their bags, confiscated a packet of sunflower seeds from the equipment crate, and discovered that somebody had brought two left kneepads. The tournament bus had not yet moved from the school courtyard. This, as far as Drita was concerned, proved her long-held belief that sporting disaster usually began before anybody reached the court. The girls of Tirana Secondary School No. 8 considered this view unnecessarily pessimistic. They stood in small groups beneath the covered entrance, breath pale in the February air, wearing navy tracksuits with the school name stitched across the back and complaining about a departure time that had required most of them to wake before their parents. Drita moved among them with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm and a canvas equipment bag hanging from the other hand, inspecting what had actually been brought rather than what everybody swore had been brought. When she asked where the spare ankle tape was, Ina pointed confidently toward the equipment crate. Drita opened it, found two volleyballs, a pump, towels, a packet of sunflower seeds and no tape at all, then turned back toward the girls without changing expression. Ina immediately said, “I thought it was there.” Drita answered, “Thinking is an excellent beginning. Packing is generally what gets the tape onto the bus.”
The girls were accustomed to this. Drita had taught athletics at the school long enough that an entire ecosystem of stories surrounded her insistence on equipment being returned properly, uniforms being washed instead of merely aired near windows, and balls being counted both before and after any trip. The fact that she had once stood beneath Olympic lights in Albania’s most famous generation of women volleyball players gave these habits an authority the girls both resented and exploited. Whenever Drita demanded that somebody reroll a net rather than stuff it into a bag, one of them would mutter that perhaps Olympic champions had better net-folding techniques. Drita invariably heard. That morning, when Ema said precisely this while wrestling the tournament net into a straighter bundle, Drita told her, “Olympic champions mostly had coaches who made them do it again.” Ema asked whether Drita had ever complained. Drita said, “Constantly.” The answer disappointed several girls who preferred imagining her as an eighteen-year-old machine built entirely from discipline. She added, “We complained while doing it correctly,” which restored enough of the legend to satisfy everyone.
Mira Doda stood slightly apart from the team holding a small ruled notebook she had brought for homework. She was fourteen, narrow-shouldered, dark-haired and profoundly indifferent to volleyball as an activity performed by her own body. This had caused difficulties throughout the school year because Drita did not accept indifference as a medical condition exempting someone from physical education. Mira could run, jump, throw and move perfectly well; she simply disliked being watched doing any of it. Team sports irritated her further because other people shouted instructions based on situations that changed faster than she cared to process. She had been included in the tournament group only because one regular substitute had influenza and because Drita believed travelling with the team might teach Mira something useful even if she never entered a match. Mira suspected the useful lesson would concern boredom. When Drita handed her the score sheets and told her to keep them dry, Mira asked, “Why me?” Drita replied, “Because you are the only person here who has never lost a worksheet.” Mira said, “That doesn’t mean I want responsibility for volleyball.” Drita tucked the clipboard beneath Mira’s notebook and said, “Today it does.”
The regional tournament was being held in a secondary school gymnasium on the other side of Tirana, close enough that the bus ride lasted less than half an hour and long enough for the girls to become louder than Drita preferred. They sang part of one song, abandoned it when nobody remembered the second verse, argued over who would start at outside hitter and asked Drita whether her Olympic team had ever travelled in a bus this uncomfortable. Drita, seated near the front with the equipment inventory on her lap, told them, “We travelled in worse buses and complained about those too.” Ina leaned over the seat and asked whether the famous team had really been nervous before big matches. Drita turned one page of the inventory and said, “Of course.” Ina persisted, “But you were Albania.” Drita answered, “We were women with stomachs. Stomachs become nervous whether newspapers approve or not.” Several girls laughed. Ema wanted to know whether Drita had ever been sick before a match. Drita admitted once, in Warsaw, but warned them this information did not constitute permission for anyone to manufacture symptoms before their first serve.
The gym hosting the tournament was newer than their own but already carried the familiar scars of school sport: varnish worn pale near the service lines, tape residue along one wall, folded benches marked with initials, and a scoreboard whose left side took several seconds longer than the right to illuminate. Six schools had arrived from Tirana and surrounding districts. Girls in different colours warmed up beneath banners hung for ordinary school competitions, some of them recognising Drita immediately and some only after a coach whispered her name. Adults still occasionally approached with the respectful hesitation reserved for people whose younger faces lived in famous photographs. One visiting teacher shook Drita’s hand and told her his mother had kept a newspaper clipping from the Paris final for nearly twenty years. Drita thanked him, asked how his team had travelled, then moved directly to a complaint about one of the antennae being loose. Mira noticed the man remain standing for a moment as though he had expected history to last longer.
The girls from School No. 8 were not equally casual about Drita’s past. They had grown up with the famous women of the 1970s and early 1980s everywhere sport could place them: photographs in gymnasiums, old match footage replayed before major tournaments, interviews with former players, relatives who still remembered where they had been when Albania won. Drita’s own image appeared in a photograph mounted high on their school gym wall, younger by almost two decades, body airborne near the net while two Egyptian blockers rose opposite her. Yet on ordinary weekdays the woman beneath that photograph was the teacher who told them not to drag benches across varnished floors. The historical and domestic versions of her had long ago collapsed into one person. When Ina once asked what it felt like to win Olympic gold, Drita had given a thoughtful answer about the strange silence in her head after the last point. Ten minutes later she made Ina clean mud from the changing-room floor because she had worn outdoor shoes inside. The girls found this vaguely offensive on behalf of history.
Their first match began badly. School No. 8 surrendered three early points through poor communication, then another because Ema served directly into the net while trying to hit harder than necessary. Drita stood beside the bench with her arms folded, refusing to rescue them through constant instruction. At the first timeout she asked, “What is actually failing?” Three girls answered at once. Ina blamed serve reception. Ema blamed nerves. Their setter, Rovena, said everybody was standing too deep. Drita pointed toward her and said, “That one is measurable. Fix it first.” She shifted two receivers half a step forward, told Ema to stop attempting to kill the ball from the service line, and sent them back without speechmaking. Mira sat at the end of the bench with the score sheet on her knees, marking points whenever the official table called the number. At first she recorded only what was required. Then, because the match remained mildly boring whenever the ball was not moving, she began placing tiny dots beside the points lost on serve receive.
After twelve rallies she noticed something. School No. 8 had lost five points directly from poor first contact, but three of those occurred when the same opposing player served from the back right position. Mira wrote the player’s number beside each dot. When the rotation returned and Number 7 served again, Mira stopped watching the scoreboard and watched the receivers instead. The serve was not especially powerful. It curved late toward the gap between Ina and another girl, and both hesitated because either could reach it. The ball struck Ina’s forearms awkwardly and flew beyond Rovena. Mira added another mark. Drita, passing behind the bench, noticed the cluster of numbers and asked what she was doing. Mira said, “Nothing.” Drita crouched enough to see the page and replied, “You have written seven four times beside four lost points. That is a rather elaborate nothing.”
Mira explained what she had noticed. Drita read the marks again, then asked, “Where is she serving from?” Mira pointed toward the right rear zone. Drita asked whether all four balls had gone to Ina. Mira said no, two had gone between players. Drita’s interest sharpened. “Show me.” Mira indicated the four marks, adding that the server seemed less successful when aiming straight and more successful when putting the ball into the seam. Drita did not praise her extravagantly or act as if a mathematical prodigy had just been discovered. She called Ina over during the next stoppage and said, “Number seven is using the seam. Mira has counted four points from it. You and Elona decide who owns that ball before she serves.” Ina glanced toward Mira with surprise, then toward the opposing server. “Mira counted that?” she asked. Drita replied, “Apparently Mira has been secretly watching volleyball despite years of denial.”
Mira objected that counting was not the same as liking it. Drita said, “Good. Then continue disliking it accurately.”
The adjustment worked often enough to interest Mira. Number 7 served again, this time into the same corridor, and Ina called early before taking the ball cleanly. The rally continued and School No. 8 eventually scored. Mira marked the point, then circled the previous four losses because they now belonged to a pattern rather than merely failure. She began paying closer attention to the rest of the rotations. Rovena set the middle more often when receiving from the left. Ema’s attacks were successful from one position and wasteful from another. Ina served six times during one run and placed four of those balls toward the same opposing receiver. Mira recorded this in the margin even though no official score sheet requested it. By the end of the first set her notebook had acquired columns.
School No. 8 lost the set narrowly and won the second. During the break before the deciding set, Drita came to Mira rather than summoning her. “What have you got?” she asked. Mira turned the notebook around and explained that Ema had scored on five of seven attacks when Rovena’s first pass came from the middle third of court, but only twice when the set was pushed too far outside. Drita asked whether Mira had counted blocked balls separately from errors. Mira had not. “Then those numbers are not the same thing,” Drita said. Mira frowned because she knew immediately that Drita was right. An attack struck out of bounds and an attack stopped by a strong block both ended the rally, but they said different things about the hitter. She drew another column. Drita watched and asked, “Annoyed?” Mira said, “Yes.” Drita replied, “Good. It means the category matters.”
The team won the deciding set by four points. The girls celebrated as though they had survived something larger than a school tournament, crowding into one another near the bench until Drita reminded them there was another match in an hour and that enthusiasm did not prevent dehydration. Mira remained seated with the notebook. Ina came over while drinking water and asked to see what she had written. Mira initially refused because the page was messy, then relented when Ina promised not to laugh. Ina studied the columns without understanding all of them and pointed toward a line marked 7/11. “What’s that?” she asked. Mira explained that Ina had received eleven serves and controlled seven well enough for Rovena to use all three attacking options. Ina asked whether that was good. Mira said, “I don’t know yet. I need everybody else.” Ina laughed and told her, “You sound like Drita.” Mira’s expression made clear she did not consider this an uncomplicated compliment.
The hour between matches gave Mira more data than the match itself because she started watching the other schools. She sat high in the bleachers with her notebook balanced against one knee while her teammates ate sandwiches and discussed people they knew in the opposing teams. The second match on court featured two schools from outside central Tirana, and Mira began recording serves without intending to continue for long. Fifteen minutes later she had divided a page into six rotation positions and was comparing how often each team scored before losing service. A girl beside her asked whether she was doing homework. Mira said, “No.” The girl examined the page and replied, “That looks worse than homework.” Mira told her, “It’s volleyball.” The girl said that made it worse still and went back to her sandwich.
Drita found Mira there near the end of the set and sat beside her without asking for the notebook. The former Olympian’s presence made several younger players from another school glance over, but Drita ignored them. She asked what Mira was counting now. Mira explained that the green team seemed much stronger when its setter began in the back row because it gave them three attackers at the net, but she was not sure whether that advantage existed consistently or only in the points she happened to notice. Drita said, “That is the right question.” Mira expected an explanation and received none. After a few moments she asked, “Well?” Drita said, “Well what?” Mira demanded to know whether the back-row setter actually created the advantage she thought she saw. Drita replied, “You have paper. Find out.”
Mira gave her an irritated sideways glance. “You already know.” Drita said, “Of course I know.” Mira asked why she would not simply tell her. Drita answered that being told a volleyball principle and proving it from a match were different experiences. “Besides,” she added, “you told me this morning that you had no interest in volleyball. It would be rude of me to burden you with explanations.” Mira recognised that she was being punished with her own words and said so. Drita denied punishment. “I am respecting your position.” Mira told her, “You’re enjoying this.” Drita allowed herself a small smile and said, “A little.”
The second match was less successful for School No. 8. Their opponents served aggressively, blocked Ema twice in the opening minutes and forced Rovena to chase poor passes away from the net. Mira abandoned the official scoring because another student from the host school handled it and devoted herself entirely to the notebook. She began with marks and soon found marks inadequate. Successful serve receive became a plus sign. A pass that remained playable but restricted the setter became a small circle. A lost reception became a cross. She numbered attack attempts by player and started noting whether the ball went line, cross-court or into the block. The system changed every few rallies because she kept discovering that categories she had treated as one thing were actually several.
When Drita called timeout with the team five points behind, Mira was waiting before being asked. She told Drita that Ema had attacked cross-court six times from the left and been blocked twice because the opposing right-side blocker had started cheating inward before the set. Drita asked, “And line?” Mira checked. “Three attempts. Two points, one dug.” Drita called Ema closer and said, “Mira says they are giving you line because they think you won’t take it.” Ema, breathing hard, asked, “Mira says?” Drita told her, “Yes. Today we obey the girl who dislikes volleyball.” Mira protested from the bench that she had not said to obey her. Drita corrected herself: “Fine. Today we consider the evidence provided by the girl who dislikes volleyball.”
Ema scored twice down the line over the next five rallies. The third attempt went long, and she turned toward the bench with an accusatory expression. Mira raised both hands and said, “I gave you numbers, not permission to miss.” Ema laughed despite herself and returned to position. The girls lost the match anyway, but by the final whistle Mira had stopped measuring usefulness by whether the team won. Her notebook contained enough information to occupy her through lunch.
The tournament cafeteria served soup, bread, cheese, fruit and sweet tea to the teams in shifts. The room was crowded with uniforms, damp hair and the particular hunger produced by a morning spent moving, coaching or watching other people move. Mira sat near the end of School No. 8’s table and recopied numbers while eating with her free hand. Ina told her to stop working long enough to taste the soup. Mira said she could taste and count at the same time. Ina leaned closer and asked whether she had calculated who on the team was worst. Mira answered that she could if Ina wanted. Ina withdrew the request immediately. Ema asked whether Mira had anything flattering about her. Mira said, “Your serve was in eleven out of thirteen times.” Ema brightened until Mira added, “But only three were difficult enough to damage reception.” Ema accused her of cruelty. Mira replied, “You asked for statistics, not compliments.”
Drita, eating at the other end of the table, heard this and said, “Statistics are perfectly capable of compliments. You simply need better questions.” Mira asked what counted as a better question. Drita wiped her spoon against the edge of the bowl and explained that numbers became useful only when attached to something someone needed to know. Raw totals could mislead. A hitter with fewer points might also have received fewer usable sets. A server with no aces might still force enough weak passes to damage the opponent. A team could win many short rallies and still lose because the other side dominated the longer exchanges. Mira immediately asked whether Drita had kept statistics when she played internationally. Drita said the team staff had, although not with the detail modern analysts increasingly preferred. “We remembered more than we wrote,” she said. Mira asked whether memory was reliable enough. Drita answered, “Not always. That is why you are interesting me.”
One of the girls farther down the table heard only the end of this and said, “Mira has finally impressed an Olympian.” Drita answered without looking up, “I have been impressed by students before. Some of them even remembered to return equipment.” The entire table groaned because they knew what was coming. Drita waited until the noise faded before adding, “Speaking of which, whoever left the ball bag open in the gym can close it before we leave.” Ina protested that they were eating. Drita said the zipper would probably survive until dessert.
The afternoon brought a placement match rather than a path to the final. Nobody treated this as tragedy. School tournaments mattered intensely while they were happening and became school on Monday. Drita warmed the girls up, corrected two approaches, reminded the back row to call earlier and refused to invoke her own history as motivation. She never told them that Albania had once required more from girls like them, never suggested they owed victory to women who had won medals before they were born. The national tradition existed around them strongly enough without becoming a debt. Several girls on the team had mothers or aunts who played in clubs. Most had grown up watching women’s volleyball as a normal serious sport. Some would continue. Most would not. Drita understood that sport became culture only when children were allowed to inherit it without being drafted into reverence.
Mira sat beside the bench with four pages of notation.
During the first set she realised that School No. 8’s strongest rotation was not the one she expected. When Rovena began in position one, the team scored efficiently because the front line contained Ema and Ina together while still allowing Drita to use a stronger server immediately after side-out. Mira checked the first match, then the second, counting backward through her own messy symbols. The same rotation had been positive twice and neutral once. She wrote the figures in the margin and waited for more evidence.
By the second set, she had begun predicting which substitution Drita would make before it happened.
The first time she was wrong.
The second time she was right.
The third time she wrote the substitute’s number before Drita called it.
Drita caught the movement and asked, “What?” Mira showed her the number. Drita read it, then glanced toward the bench where the named girl was already standing to remove her tracksuit top. “Why her?” Drita asked. Mira said, “Because Ina rotates back after this point, and you used Mira H. for her serve in both other matches when we were within three points.” Drita asked whether Mira thought the substitution was correct. Mira hesitated. “Probably.” Drita said, “Dangerous word.” Mira revised it. “It worked four of six times.” Drita nodded. “Better.”
School No. 8 won the placement match in straight sets.
Their celebration lasted perhaps five minutes before Drita started collecting equipment.
This offended everyone.
Ina was still talking about one rally when Drita handed her two balls and said, “Bag.” Ema complained that other teams were leaving theirs near the court. Drita replied, “Then those teams have decided to begin Monday by searching for missing equipment.” Ema said, “You won an Olympic medal and this is what matters to you?” Drita took down one end of the net and answered, “I won an Olympic medal partly because somebody always knew where the equipment was.” Ema rolled her eyes but began folding the antenna sleeves.
Mira remained seated with the notebook until Drita passed and asked whether she planned to leave it on the bleachers as an offering to future statisticians. Mira closed it and stood. She helped collect the score sheets, then found herself checking that all six match forms were present before putting them into the folder. Drita noticed but said nothing. Mira counted the volleyballs without being asked. Four. She checked the pump, towels and ankle tape. This time the tape existed.
On the bus back to school, most of the girls slept or talked softly. The morning’s noise had burned away. Ina rested her forehead against the cold window. Ema had her jacket folded beneath her head and pretended not to be asleep despite responding to nobody. Mira sat two seats behind Drita with the notebook open on her knees, trying to turn the day into a cleaner table.
Drita moved back after ten minutes and sat across the aisle.
Mira had created columns for serves attempted, serves in, difficult receptions forced, attack attempts, points, blocks against, reception errors and what she had labelled useful passes because she did not yet know the accepted term.
Drita pointed to that column and said, “Reception quality.”
Mira crossed out useful passes and wrote the phrase beneath it.
Then she asked, “What do you call it when the pass is bad but the setter still makes a good set?”
Drita said, “Depends how badly you want to annoy the setter. Coaches call many things playable.”
Mira frowned. “That’s vague.”
“Volleyball is played by people. People are vague.”
Mira told her that this made statistics harder.
“Yes.”
“I thought numbers were supposed to make things clearer.”
“They do. Then they show you where the next question is.”
Mira considered that for several seconds before returning to the page.
She asked whether Drita still had statistics from the Olympics.
“Some.”
“Could I see them?”
Drita did not answer immediately.
Mira added, “Not the medals. The records.”
That distinction pleased her.
Drita said she had several old match sheets at home and more detailed copies somewhere in school storage, although finding them might require surviving an archive cupboard no one had organised since before Mira was born. Mira asked whether the 1972 final was recorded possession by possession. Drita said no, not in the form Mira wanted. Mira seemed genuinely disappointed. “How am I supposed to compare it?” she asked.
Drita rested one elbow against the seatback and said, “You may have to watch the film.”
“All of it?”
“That is generally how matches work.”
Mira sighed with the exhaustion of someone being assigned pleasure before she had admitted wanting it.
Drita returned to the front of the bus.
Mira kept writing.
By the time they reached the school courtyard, she had filled nine pages.
The equipment had to be carried into the gym before anyone went home. The girls complained automatically, though less passionately than in the morning. Drita unlocked the storage room while they brought in the net, balls and first-aid bag. Ema tried leaving a bundle of towels on a bench and was called back before she reached the door. “Laundry basket,” Drita said. Ema protested, “They’re just towels.” Drita answered, “That is exactly what they were this morning, yet somehow you understood where to find them.”
Mira entered last carrying the folder of score sheets.
Inside the storage room, an old photograph hung above the equipment shelves. It showed the Albanian Olympic squad from 1972 after the final, young women standing shoulder to shoulder beneath the brightness of Paris, medals visible against their uniforms. Drita was there near one end, much younger, her face leaner and her body still carrying the exhaustion of the match. The photograph had been in the room for years. Mira had seen it dozens of times without stopping.
Now she stepped closer.
“Which one was their strongest rotation?” she asked.
Drita followed her attention toward the photograph and answered, “That depends on the match.”
Mira said, “The final.”
Drita unlocked the score-sheet cabinet.
“Monday.”
Mira turned from the photograph. “What’s Monday?”
“We find the old records.”
“You said they’re badly organised.”
“They are.”
“How long will it take?”
Drita slid the tournament folder onto the correct shelf and said, “If you had put things away properly in 1972, perhaps not long.”
Mira stared at her.
Drita managed to keep her expression neutral for several seconds before smiling.
Mira said, “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“No.”
“You weren’t the person filing them.”
“Probably not.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because you finally care where something was stored.”
Mira understood the trap.
She looked around the equipment room at the labelled shelves, folded nets, boxes of forms and old match folders that had suddenly become more interesting than any of them had been that morning.
Then she picked up the notebook again and asked, “Where do you keep pencils?”
Drita pointed toward the second drawer.
Mira opened it, found a sharpened one and tucked it into the spine of the notebook before going home.