Live Love Lacrosse

Other Title IX books by Barbara
L. Clanton . . .

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LIVE LOVE LACROSSE

By

Barbara L. Clanton

© 2016 Barbara L. Clanton

A
ll rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be

repro
duced or transmitted in any
means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing

from the publisher.

978-1-943837-50-2 paperback

978-1-943837-51-9 epub

978-1-943837-93-9 mobi

A Title IX Book

Cover Design

by

Dragonfeather Books

a division of

Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company

Fairfield, California

http://www.dragonfeatherbooks.com

Addie Coleburn,
fresh out of the sixth grade, is spending the summer at her grandmother’s house
in Syracuse with her mother and brother. Kimi Takahashi, a girl who lives up
the street, invites Addie to go to the park and play lacrosse. Addie hasn’t the
first clue what lacrosse is and would rather sit on Grandma’s front porch
eating potato chips, drinking sodas, and reading books. But then again,
spending the summer dealing with her younger brother isn’t that appealing,
either, so she goes to the park with Kimi. Within a week, she’s hooked on
lacrosse. She’s overweight and can’t keep up with the faster stronger girls.
She has to find a way to lose her excess weight and lose it fast or risk
getting cut from the team.

This
work is dedicated to 4Girls Foundation, Inc who supports organizations that it
deems helpful to girls, women, families, and communities. Their vision is for
all girls and women to be respected and be able to fulfill their true
potential. www.4girlsfoundation.org

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the
“village” that helps me navigate my life: Family, friends, colleagues, beta
readers, and countless others I don’t even know about. A special thanks to
Bedazzled Ink for their fun and upbeat approach to publishing.

Chapter 1

Do You Play?

ADDIE SLAMMED HER bedroom door and stomped down the hallway. Troy
probably didn’t even hear it, because his death metal music was so freakin’
loud. It was summer vacation and all Addie wanted to do was read the million
science fiction books on Grandma’s dusty bookshelves.

Why did she have to share a room with stupid Troy, anyway? She was
a year older than him. Why couldn’t she have her own room like she had at home?
Oh, yeah, right. Because her stupid parents were in a huge fight, and her
mother was so mad, she packed up a bunch of stuff and drove to Grandma’s in
Syracuse the day after sixth grade ended. Her dad was still back home in
Watertown. Her mom would probably stop being mad soon, so Addie refused to
think of her grandma’s house as her new home. Her parents fought sometimes, but
they always made up. Always.

Addie flew down the stairs, determined to find a quiet spot to
finish her
Star Trek
book. She only had two more chapters to go and
couldn’t wait to see if Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager was going to
escape from the mean and ugly Kazon aliens.

“Slow down on those stairs, girl,” her grandmother grumbled from
where she sat in her well-worn recliner.

Addie came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stairs. “Sorry.”

“I can’t hear myself think around here,” her grandmother flicked a
lock of her gray hair out of her face and then leaned forward for her glass of
iced tea. The flab under her arm swung back and forth as she did so.

Addie frowned. Why didn’t Grandma yell at Troy about his loud
music? Couldn’t she hear it? Grandma and Mom were watching TV, worshipping some
hot guy on one of those stupid soap operas Grandma was addicted to. And now Mom
was getting addicted, too, after only a couple of weeks. Her mother had set up
residence on one end of the couch and looked like she was becoming part of it.
Calling them couch potatoes was an insult to potatoes.

Speaking of potatoes. “Mom, do we have any
more potato chips?”

“Shhh,” her mother hissed without looking at her. “Go outside.”
She waved Addie away with a hand. “Go play.”

“Okay.” Addie slunk toward the kitchen, rolling her eyes as she
went.

People said she looked like her mother. Dirty blonde hair, fair
complexion, and hazel eyes. She even had the same plump frame and round face
like both her mother and grandmother. Troy the jerk’s hair was more ginger,
though, and he looked more like their father. They were both lean and strong,
but Troy had their mom’s hazel eyes, which could be bad because Addie didn’t
want anybody in their grandmother’s neighborhood to know they were related.
Hopefully they wouldn’t be there long enough for her to make friends with any
of the kids she’d seen playing down the street.

Addie squinted as she stepped into the bright kitchen and headed
to the snack cabinet. Victory! The jerk hadn’t snagged the rest of the potato
chips. That was the one cool thing about Grandma’s house, there was an entire
cabinet dedicated to snacky goodness. With a smirk, Addie grabbed the white
no-frills potato chip bag and shut the cabinet door softly. No way did she want
Troy knowing she had the chips, because she planned to devour them all by
herself. She skipped over to the fridge, pulled out a can of grape soda, and
then hoped for a miracle—someplace she could read in peace and quiet.

Book, soda, and chips in hand, Addie eased
open the kitchen screen door and stepped onto the front porch. The annoying
metal music was still blasting upstairs, but at least it was far enough away
that she could hear herself think. That was something Grandma had said a
thousand and one times since they arrived, “You kids be quiet. I can’t hear
myself think.”

Addie sat down in Grandma’s chair on the screened-in front porch.
Grandma called it a glider because it rocked front to back, not like a rocking
chair which lifted you up and back. Grandma’s gardening junk sat in a pile in
one dark corner, but the rest of the porch was open and airy. Steps led off the
porch to the gravel driveway where her grandma’s blue four-door car sat in
front of her mother’s awesomely uncool green minivan.

Most of the screens on the porch were torn and flapping in the
light breeze, but Addie didn’t care. She’d finally found peace. She pushed the
full ashtray away and put her book down on the grimy side table. She munched on
a few chips and then popped the top to her soda and took a long swig.

“Ahh.” She sighed. “That’s more like it.”

The stink of the overflowing ashtray ruined the mood a little, so
she pushed it further away. It still wasn’t better, but she didn’t feel like
getting up to move it to the other side of the porch.

She dug heartily into the chips and scooped up the few that fell
in her lap. “Mustn’t waste food,” Grandma always said. As far as Addie was
concerned, that included potato chips. With another swig of soda and a
satisfying burp, she rolled the top of the crinkly chip bag closed and clipped
it shut. She tossed it on the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her
hand. Then she rubbed her greasy hands on her cutoff denim shorts. Another
quick chug of soda and she was ready to find out how Captain Janeway and her
crew were going to get out of the mess they were in.

She dug into her book and was deeply mesmerized by the battle with
the Kazon when her spider senses tingled. The music. It had stopped. The jerk
was probably sneaking up on her. He had recently decided to be a ninja
assassin. Fifth graders were so immature. She would have rolled her eyes, but
couldn’t. She needed to stay focused. She held the book out in front of her as
if she were still reading, and used her side vision to see if she could spot
movement. Yep, there he was. Near the stairs to the driveway. She could see the
top of his head, covered with a ridiculous black ski cap.

With a yell, Troy leaped up the stairs at her. Addie lunged for
the ashtray and flung it at him. Score! It hit him right in the chest, ashes
poofing up everywhere.

“Pfft,” he sputtered, spitting ashes from his mouth. He smacked at
his Metallica shirt, trying to get the residue off. “What’d you do that for?”

“’Cuz you’re a jerk.” She didn’t tell him that his whole face was
covered with ash.

“You’re such a lardo, you fatty fatso.”

“Hey! Mom said you’re not supposed to call me that.”

“I’m telling.” Troy flung open the kitchen door and ran inside.
“Mom!”

“Oh, no,” Addie muttered and leaped up.

Sometimes she didn’t think about the
consequences of the things she did. She frantically kicked the cigarette butts
under the glider. Then she spotted a broom and dustpan in the dark corner too
late. It was just like the one they had at home.

Home. Addie forgot to be afraid of her mother
at that moment. Where was her home? Here in stupid Syracuse or back home with
Daddy? She sat down hard on the glider. Her chest tightened as her heart broke
for the millionth time. Were her parents going to get a divorce? Maybe if she
hadn’t fought with the jerk so much, maybe if she’d cleaned her room when her
mother told her to, maybe if she had done a thousand other things . . . maybe
they could be a family again.

“That was good,” a voice said from the sidewalk. “I think you won
that round.”

Addie wiped at her tears and looked up. A
girl about her age, wearing running shorts and a tank top, smiled at her from
the sidewalk. She recognized the girl. She was one of the neighborhood kids who
played down the street. The girl’s long black hair was pulled back into a tight
ponytail. She held a sports bag in one hand and two weird stick things in the
other.

“You saw that?” Addie said with a laugh, although she didn’t
really feel like laughing. Her mother might come storming out to yell at her
any second.

“Little brothers can be a pain, huh?” The girl smiled. She was
kind of exotic looking, like she was Chinese or something.

“No kidding,” Addie said. “Do you have one? A jerk brother?”

“Nah. But my friend Brooke does. I don’t know if he’s a jerk, but
he can be a pain sometimes.”

Addie was about to ask the girl about the weird-looking sticks
when she heard Grandma yell, “Troy, go upstairs and get cleaned up. You know
not to bother us when we’re watching TV.”

Troy started to protest, but her mother interrupted. “Troy, listen
to Grandma. Go upstairs and stop picking on your sister. I can’t hear myself
think around here.”

“See,” the girl said, “you won.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Hey,” the girl lifted the sticks, “do you play?”

“Play what?”

The girl’s jaw dropped open as if Addie had said the dumbest thing
in the world. “Lax.”

Addie still didn’t know what the girl was talking about.

“Lacrosse,” the girl said slowly as if talking to an idiot.

“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Addie hopped down the steps toward the
girl.

“It’s a great game.” The girl held her sticks up.
“Lacrosse—softball’s bigger, meaner, tougher older sister.”

Addie laughed. She knew only a tiny bit more about softball than
she did lacrosse.

“Do you want to come to the park and play with us?” the girl
asked. “I have an extra stick you can borrow.” She lifted the sticks higher.

Addie hesitated. She didn’t know this girl
standing in front of her grandmother’s house. She didn’t even know where the
park was. And she didn’t know if she wanted to play a sport. It was a beautiful
June afternoon for reading science fiction. She looked at her book and then at
the kitchen door. Crud, why not? It beat hanging around waiting for another
ninja attack.

“Let me tell my mom.” Addie turned toward the porch, but then
turned back. “Wait, what’s your name?”

“Akimi Takahashi.” The girl held her head high as if proud of her
name.

“Is that Chinese or something?”

“Japanese. My father’s Japanese and my mother’s, uh, white. Most
people just call me Kimi.”

“That’s cool. I’m Addison Coleburn. Most people call me Addie.”

“Nice to meet you, Addie. So do you want to play?” Kimi turned
toward the sidewalk. She was obviously in hurry.

“Okay.” Addie raced up the porch steps and called into the kitchen
screen door, “Mom, I’m going to the park with Kimi. I’ll be back for dinner.”

“Okay,” came her mom’s quick reply from the couch.

“That was easy,” Addie muttered and headed back down the steps.

“You’ll like lacrosse.” Kimi linked arms with Addie. “It’s the
best game on the planet.”