Win or Lose (11 page)

“Goooooooooo, Kicks!”

The whole Kicks team—all nineteen of us—had taken over Pizza Kitchen. The seventh graders were still at one table, and the eighth graders were at another, but at least this time they weren't across the room. Some of our parents were scattered around at other tables too. We all had a lot to celebrate.

“To Grace!” Taylor cried, standing up and holding out her glass of water. “For her game-winning kick!”

Everybody clinked glasses and cheered. Then Jessi stood up.

“Don't forget Devin's kick,” she said, and I saw Taylor look at Megan and make a face.

“And Megan,” I said, quickly standing up too. “And the whole team! We all did it together.”

We all clicked glasses again, and I sat down. The eighth graders started huddling together and whispering, and it struck me that even though we had played like a team on the field, we still didn't feel like the old Kicks. Not yet.

“We should text Coach Flores!” Zoe said, and she quickly started typing into her phone. “She's going to be so happy.”

“Do it!” Emma urged.

Zoe sent a quick text, and things settled down when the servers brought a bunch of pizzas to the table. I grabbed a broccoli slice and wolfed it down really fast. I hadn't realized how hungry I was.

“Devin, I can't believe how calm you were out there,” Zoe said. “I would have been freaking.”

I grinned. “Well, it was all thanks to Princess power.”

“Oh my gosh! I did the same thing too,” Emma said. “After I let those first two goals go past, I thought I was going to lose it. But then I looked at Frida on the sidelines, and I thought, ‘Well, I could be Princess Emma, trying to keep the evil goblins from the goal.' And it worked!”

Jessi groaned. “Does this mean that all of you are going to be acting like drama queens out there every game? Because I don't think I could handle that.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “It was extreme shoot-out circumstances.”

“I don't know,” Emma said, grinning at Frida. “It was kind of fun.”

Brianna was busy scrolling through her phone. “So I
guess this means practice all next week, right? I'm going to have to move my violin lesson. And try to get into a different dance class. And then there's that chess club tournament.” She frowned.

Zoe suddenly looked miserable. “How am I going to get ready for my bat mitzvah if we have practice all next week?”

“We'll help you,” Emma said. “There's no practice tomorrow. We could come over tomorrow. Right, guys?”

“Sure,” I said. “I just need to ask my mom.”

Zoe looked relieved. “That would be so nice. Thanks!”

Suddenly Jessi nudged me with her elbow. “Look who it is.”

I turned toward the door and saw Cody and Steven walk in. They came right to our table.

“Hey, we were looking for you guys,” Cody said.

“You were?” I asked, but Jessi didn't seem surprised. She was way calmer about the whole hanging-out-with-boys thing than I was.

Steven smiled at me. “We heard about the game. Congratulations.”

“Yeah, that's awesome,” Cody said.

Jessi looked at me and raised an eyebrow, and I knew what she meant. It was nice that the boys weren't acting all bummed out about losing anymore.

“So, we're going to the mall later,” Cody said. “You want to meet us there?”

“Sure,” Jessi answered.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” I said. I mean, I liked the mall, and Steve and Cody were nice, so what was the big deal, right? “I just have to ask my . . . Mom!”

My mom and Jessi's mom suddenly appeared at our table.

“We just wanted to make sure you girls were enjoying your pizza,” Mom said. Then she turned to the boys. “Hello. I'm Devin's mom. Are you friends of Devin's and Jessi's?”

My cheeks turned pink. I had talked to Mom and Dad about Steven a few times, but they had never met him.

“Well, they're—um, I mean—” I stammered.

Jessi jumped in. “This is Cody, and this is Steven,” she said, pointing. “They're on the boys' team. We're going to meet them at the mall later. Is that okay?” She looked at her mom.

Mrs. Dukes and my mom looked at each other.

“What time?” Mrs. Dukes asked.

“Around four,” Cody replied. “Just for a little while.”

“Dad can drop you off at four, and pick you up at six,” Mom said to me. Then she turned to the boys. “How did you boys get here? Are your parents outside? I'd love to meet them.”

“Me too,” added Mrs. Dukes.

Steven smiled. “Sure, my mom's outside.”

Mom and Mrs. Dukes walked away with Cody and Steven, and I turned to Jessi.

“I cannot believe that just happened,” I said.

“Captain Kiss strikes again!” Frida yelled, and then she started giggling like crazy.

Jessi shook her head. “Do you think our moms will always be like this?”

I nodded. “Definitely!”

When the pizza party ended, I went home to shower and change. I put on my favorite blue shirt with butterflies on it and a denim skirt and my blue flip-flops. Then Dad took me to pick up Jessi.

I was expecting Dad to tease us in the car, but he just put on the classic rock station and started humming along.

Well, why would he tease us
? I thought.
We're just going to the mall. It's not like it's a date or anything.

And then it hit me. Cody and Steven had asked Jessi and me to go to the mall with them. Just the four of us. It
was
a date! A double date!

Panicked, I turned and looked at Jessi in the backseat.

“What's wrong?” Jessi asked, noticing the expression on my face.

I didn't want to say anything out loud, because I didn't want my dad to hear. So I took out my phone and texted her.

So I just realized that this is a double date. Why didn't u tell me?

What do u mean?
Jessi asked.
Of course it's a double date
.

But I thought we were just going to the mall,
I typed.

That's a date!
Jessi texted back.

That's when I noticed that we were at a stoplight—and my dad was looking right at the phone in my lap.

“Nobody says this has to be a date,” he said.

I groaned and put my head in my hands. “This is so embarrassing.”

“Listen, it's not a big deal,” Dad said. “In fact, it shouldn't be, especially at your age. Just hang out and have fun.”

“Exactly!” Jessi piped up.

“But what if
they
think it's a double date?” I asked.

“Then just tell them your dad said you're not allowed to date until you're sixteen,” Dad said.

“Sixteen!” I wailed, but part of me was glad he had said that.

Dad pulled up to the mall entrance. “Where are they meeting you?”

“By the arcade,” Jessi replied. “Cody texted me.”

“Okay, then,” Dad said. “Don't leave the mall. Keep your phone on. And I'll meet you right here at six.”

I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Bye, Dad.”

Jessi and I headed into the mall and up the escalator. We found Cody and Steven hanging outside the arcade, just like Jessi had said.

“Hey,” Cody said, nodding.

“Hey,” Jessi said.

Steven smiled at me. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said back.

Then nobody said anything for a minute, and I worried that “hey” and “hi”
were going to be all anybody could say all night. Then Jessi broke the ice.

“I am undefeated on this thing!” she said, running over to the Dance Party! machine by the front of the arcade. It was one of those arcade games where music played and you had to follow the arrows on a screen and step on the arrows that lit up on the floor.

I nodded. “She is seriously awesome. I've seen her.”

Jessi slid a dollar into the machine. “Watch.”

Music started pumping from the machine, and Jessi began to dance, her feet moving like lightning on the pad. A bunch of other kids gathered around to watch.

When the song ended, she jumped off the pad. “And that is how it's done!” she said, grinning.

Cody jumped up. “Oh, yeah?” he asked, putting a dollar into the machine.

Cody was pretty good, I had to admit—but not as good as Jessi. When he finished, his score was fifty thousand points less than hers.

Jessi smiled at him. “Don't worry about it. I'm hard to beat.”

“My turn!” Steven yelled, and he put his dollar in. The music started, and Steven started . . . well, it wasn't exactly dancing. He waved his arms around and he stomped on the arrows but never the right ones, and in the middle of the song he tripped over his own feet and had to grab on to the bars on either side of the platform to keep from falling.

It took me a minute to realize that Steven wasn't a terrible dancer—he was just having fun. I started cracking up, and then I noticed that Jessi was laughing so hard, she was doubled over.

“Dude! You stink!” Cody yelled over the music.

“I'm awesome!” Steven yelled back.

Finally the music ended, and Steven jumped off the machine.

“The master,” he said, bowing. “Your turn, Devin.”

I shook my head. “No way. I can't follow any of that.” I nodded toward the basketball machine. “Come on. I'm really good at that one.”

So I made ten perfect shots in the basketball machine, and we played some more games, and then we were thirsty and we got lemonade, and before I knew it, it was time to go. Cody and Steven didn't say anything about dating at all. Basically we just hung out and had fun.

Sometimes I hated it when my dad was right. This time I was really glad that he was.

“Hit the lights!” I called.

“On it!” Jessi yelled back.

The bedroom that Zoe shared with her sister went dark before her laptop lit up the room. When we'd gotten to Zoe's house, Jessi had confiscated Zoe's laptop and uploaded the video from her phone onto it without telling Zoe what it was. We wanted it to be a surprise.

Frida's smiling face filled the screen. She was wearing the black fringe dress that Zoe had picked out for her, and she turned from side to side, modeling it for the camera.

Zoe clapped her hands together. “You went to Debi's!”

“Surprise!” Emma cried. “We all went there this morning for our fittings, and Jessi took a video with her phone so you could see how they looked on us.”

Emma appeared on the screen next, wearing the long, shimmering dress. She tried to twirl around but stumbled
and had to grab on to the mirror next to her to keep from falling. You could hear the rest of us giggling and Debi's loud groan of frustration in the background.

“That Debi needs to chill!” Jessi said. “Hey, I wonder if she's married. We could introduce her to Coach Valentine.”

We all cracked up.

“Actually, it wouldn't work. As dorky as it is, at least Coach Valentine has a sense of humor. Debi doesn't!” I said, just as I saw myself on the video. The blue dress with silver flowers was the prettiest I had ever worn. I smiled at the camera, my hands on my hips.

Next up was Jessi, looking so cute in the sparkly silver dress. She had given me her phone so I could take the video. Jessi posed confidently for the camera, a huge grin on her face.

“You guys look so awesome!” Zoe was all smiles.

“It's all thanks to you,” I told her. “You should be a stylist. The dresses you picked out for all of us are amazingly perfect!”

Zoe blushed. “It was really fun.”

“And you're really good at it!” Emma added. “Now you don't have to worry about our dresses anymore. So you can cross it off your bat mitzvah to-do list!”

Zoe sighed. “That's great, because I accidentally added another thing to my list. Check this out.”

Zoe held up her phone, showing us a picture of her in a one-shoulder dress. The top was black-and-white sequined stripes flowing into a fluffy black tulle skirt.