Between The Bells:
Semester One 1986

The guys from Between the Bells in the hallway.

The game happens on Friday night. The fallout happens between the bells.

At Edna High, the real drama doesn't always happen on the football field.

Sometimes it happens at the senior bench.

Set during the fall semester of 1986, Between the Bells runs alongside the events of Beyond the Goalposts: Junior Year, showing the school-day side of Matt Garrett, Amber Brown, and the friend group trying to survive the rumor mill one misunderstanding at a time.

Structured as sixteen short episodes, each built around an unwritten rule of high school, this companion book follows the conversations, theories, arguments, and accidental scandals that spread through Edna High faster than anyone can control.

A Companion Book To
Beyond The Goalposts Junior Year

Paperback

Kindle

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Amber and Sarah from Between the Bells in front of the lockers.

The Real Action Happens In The Hallway

Amber Brown watches everything from the senior bench, tracking the school’s social patterns in her blue spiral notebook while trying to keep her own feelings for Matt Garrett buried beneath sarcasm, control, and routine.

Matt, meanwhile, knows exactly how to read a room. He can charm a hallway, scramble a rumor, and redirect attention before anyone realizes they have been played. But even he cannot control every story people tell about him.

Especially when the stories start getting close to the truth.

Between the Bells is a 1980s Texas high school companion book about friendship, gossip, secret crushes, social survival, and the chaos that happens when everyone thinks they know the real story.

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A 1980s Texas High School Coming-of-Age Novel

Between the Bells cover, the companion novel by Jason Curlee for the Beyond The Goalposts series.

If you love the hallway energy of Saved by the Bell, the small-town pressure of Friday Night Lights, or YA high school stories built around friend groups, rumors, secret crushes, and misunderstood moments, Between the Bells takes you inside the social world of Edna High.

This is the companion story for readers who want to know what was happening between classes, behind the main scenes, and around the senior bench while Matt Garrett’s junior season unfolded.

It is funny, messy, dramatic, and sharper than the gossip it follows.

Because at Edna High, everyone is watching.

Everyone is talking.

And almost nobody has the whole story.

Story Elements

The Senior Bench

The unofficial command center of Edna High, where Amber Brown and her friends watch, judge, argue, and try to make sense of the school’s daily chaos.

The Rumor Mill

Every misunderstanding becomes a theory. Every theory becomes a scandal. Every scandal becomes someone else’s version of the truth.

Sixteen Rules to Survive High School

Instead of a traditional novel structure, Between the Bells unfolds through sixteen short episodes built around the unwritten rules every student eventually learns.

Secret Crushes and Hidden Feelings

Amber may be the one keeping order, but her blue spiral notebook tells a different story about what she sees in Matt Garrett and what she refuses to admit out loud.

The Social Chessboard

Matt knows how to play the room, protect his friends, and manipulate the gossip before the gossip controls him. But some rumors are harder to outrun than others.

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