Win or Lose (5 page)

“How about a
Wizard of Oz
thing?” I suggested. “You're Dorothy, and the other team's players are flying monkeys, trying to capture you.”

Frida nodded. “That could work. And you guys could all be my friends, the munchkins.”

“Hey! I'm no munchkin,” Jessi protested.

“I'll be a munchkin,” piped up Zoe, who had been behind us the whole time. “I'm the right height, anyway.”

“Can I be a witch?” Emma asked, overhearing us.

“No, you need to be that guy who guards the Emerald City gates, because you're the goalie,” Frida said.

Emma wrinkled her nose. “Didn't he have a mustache?”

“You might look cute with a mustache,” Zoe said. She put a lock of Emma's long black hair under Emma's nose. “See? Not bad?”

“So it's settled. I'm Dorothy,” Frida said. She looked
down at her cleats. “Too bad I can't wear ruby slippers out there.”

We were all cracking up when Grace's voice cut through everyone's talking.

“Sock swap, everybody!” she yelled.

As we got into a circle to do our sock swap, I couldn't help thinking that Grace had been acting kind of different lately. She was always pretty quiet, and almost never called for the sock swap.

It's ever since the article came out,
I thought, but I pushed the thought away. The last thing I wanted to think about today was that stupid article.

Emma nudged me out of my thoughts and handed me a pink sock with green polka dots.

“Oh, thanks,” I said. Then I quickly took off my right sock—Kicks blue with white stripes—and handed it to Jessi on my left. Then I put on Emma's sock. We had been doing the sock swap since our first game, and it had become a Kicks tradition.

When we had our cleats back on, Coach Flores got us into a huddle.

“We've still got some time before the game, so I think we should warm up with some simple drills,” she said. “You guys have been working really well as a team lately. Just keep that up and you're going to do great.”

I glanced at Grace. I hoped we were still working as a team. We all piled hands on top of one another in the middle of the circle and let out a cheer.

“Gooooooo, Kicks!”

We dribbled and practiced passing for a little while, and then the refs started coming out onto the field. Coach called us into a huddle again.

“Emma, I want you to start on goal,” she said. “Giselle, Anjali, Frida, you're on defense. Midfield is Jessi, Grace, Maya, and Taylor. Devin, Zoe, and Megan, I want you on the forward line. Got it?”

We nodded. Coach was basically putting up our strongest players first, in the positions we all played best. Not a bad strategy to start off an important game.

Then Grace went out for the coin toss, which we won, and we chose to receive the ball first. I took a deep breath as I ran out onto the field to take my place.

Then the ref's whistle blew, and the Tigers player kicked the ball pretty deep into our midfield. Jessi stopped it with her foot and then dribbled it down the right side as two Tigers charged for her. One of them stole it right out from under her and passed it to another Tigers striker farther down the field. That Tiger started dribbling it toward the goal, but Frida zipped in front of her.

“Follow the Yellow Brick Road!” she yelled, kicking the ball away from the striker. It was a wild kick that went out of bounds, but it was worth it to see the look on the striker's face. Frida grinned at me as I jogged past her.

“It was a ruby slipper malfunction,” Frida said sheepishly.

The Tigers player tossed the ball in from the sidelines, and the play continued up and down the field. The soccer
ball bounced from player to player like a ball bouncing off bumpers in a pinball machine. Every time we got control of it, one of the Tigers got it away from us—and we did the same to their attackers. I think the Tigers were a little surprised to see us putting up such a good fight.

Then one of the Tigers found herself surrounded by Kicks, so she kicked the ball hard across the field to one of her teammates. Grace was all over it, intercepting it and making a mad dash to the goal straight down the middle of the field. None of the Tigers could catch up to her.

“Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!” I yelled, and I could hear the other Kicks yelling behind me. The Tigers goalie had her hands on her knees, ready to dive, jump, or catch, trying to anticipate what Grace would do.

Grace waited until she was about twenty feet away from the goal, when she kicked it hard and fast—not too high and not too low. For a second I thought the goalie might catch it, but it flew just over her head. She jumped, reaching for it, and it brushed her fingertips as it went into the goal.

“Whoooo!” I hollered and high-fived Zoe, the closest player to me. The rest of the girls erupted into cheers and hugs. But there wasn't much time to celebrate, because the Tigers set up for kickoff just seconds after the goal.

“There's no place like home! There's no place like home!” Frida yelled down the field.

“Nice one!” I said to Grace as she caught up with us, but she didn't say anything in response.

The Kicks and the Tigers did the back-and-forth pinball thing for a while, and then suddenly the Tigers were all over the Kicks goal, passing the ball back and forth to each other so that our defenders were practically running in circles trying to stop them.

“Curse you, flying monkeys!” Frida cried.

Emma got confused too, running back and forth across the goal, trying to keep pace with the ball. Then a Tiger made another quick, short pass to a teammate, who headed it right into a wide-open part of the net. Emma wasn't anywhere near it.

There wasn't much time left after that, and the first half ended in a tie, 1–1.

We jogged back to the bench. I grabbed my water bottle and held it up to the stands so my mom could see me take a big, long drink.

“You guys are doing great out there,” Coach said. “Defense, they tuckered you out in those last ten minutes, so I want to put in Jade, Olivia, and Alandra when the half starts. Zarine, you go in for Emma for a while. Brianna, you go in for Megan, and Anna, you go in for Maya.”

I saw Megan frown, and I knew she didn't like being taken out of the game. But I understood Coach. She took me out sometimes too.

When the second half started, the Tigers had control of the ball. I got lucky when one of the Tigers passed the ball right in front of me, and I stopped it with my foot. The two players converged on me, so I passed the ball to Zoe.

“
Zoe, do your lightning thing!” I yelled. Zoe's size and speed meant that she could zigzag her way through defenders so fast, they didn't know where to turn. She got all the way down to the goal and made a solid shot, but this time the Tigers goalie stopped it.

The Tigers took the ball all the way down to our goal, and one of their strikers sent a shot skidding toward Zarine. She made a spectacular dive, stopping it with her body.

“Way to go, Zarine!” Emma yelled from the sidelines.

The second half sped by. We went back and forth up and down the field. Coach put Emma back in when Zarine got tired, and she switched up some of the midfielders, too, when she had a chance. A few minutes before the game ended, we were still tied 1–1, and she sent Megan back in to sub for Zoe.

That's when we finally got a break. One of the Tigers kicked the ball out of bounds, and Taylor tossed it in.

Jessi got it and headed it right to me. We were pretty close to the Tigers goal, and I had a clear path right to it.

“Devin! Over here! Over here!”

Megan was running parallel to me. I know she wanted me to pass it to her, but there were two Tigers defenders about to overtake her, and I didn't want to risk it.

So I did the next best thing. I faked like I was going to pass to Megan, and while the goalie's head was turned, I kicked the ball right into the goal.

“Go, Devin!” I heard Jessi and Brianna cheer, and I felt like I was floating.

Then, to my amazement, the ref's whistle blew. Game over!

Jessi ran up to me and hugged me so hard, I couldn't breathe.

“Devin, you did it! We won the game!”

“We're heading to the league championships!” I heard Coach Flores shout over the Kicks' excited voices. “Who would have thought we would get to the championships back at the start of the season? We've come so far, and I'm so proud of all of you.”

I felt like those butterflies inside me were making me float off the ground. We'd won! And my goal had broken the tie! Now we had a shot at being the league champions!

And then I heard Megan behind me.

“Oh, good,” she said in a flat, sarcastic voice. “Devin saves the day again.”

The butterflies floated away, taking my happiness with them. Jessi must have seen my face.

“Don't let it get to you, Devin,” she said. “We won!”

“I know,” I said, but I didn't feel like a winner. What was the point of winning when half of my teammates hated me?

“Come on, Devin.” Emma draped an arm around my shoulder, trying to cheer me up. “Let's go celebrate with some ice cream!”

“Wait! What time is it?” I asked.

“It's one-thirty, and by the way, congratulations!” I heard my dad's voice behind me, and I whirled around. He grabbed me into a big hug. “Way to go, Devin! You did great.”

My mom and Maisie were with him. “Congrats, sweetie! I know how hard you worked for this.” My mom smiled at me as she gave me a hug too.

“That was really cool,” Maisie said, smiling. Yeah, she could be pretty cute and nice when she wanted to. She ran around on the soccer field, mimicking my last goal of the game. “Boom!” She pretended to kick the ball toward the goal. “And the crowd goes wild!” Maisie held her hands up in the air triumphantly as we all laughed.

“So, I think
I heard something about ice cream to celebrate?” my dad asked.

“Actually, I was hoping we could cheer on our fellow Kangaroos,” I explained. “The boys' first play-off game is today at two. It's an away game at Riverdale. Can you give us a ride?”

My dad nodded. “Sure thing!”

“Let me ask my parents!” Emma said before racing off. I went to find Jessi, Frida, and Zoe.

They were standing together, but something seemed wrong. Frida's face was flushed bright red, and Jessi had her arms crossed tightly in front of her. Zoe had a frown on her face.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

Jessi shook her head. “Nothing, it's nothing.”

I glanced up and saw Megan and Giselle walking away.

“Um, okay,” I said, not believing her, but since my dad was waiting, I didn't get into it. “So, do you guys want to go cheer on the boys at their Rams game?”

Jessi's eyes widened. “Of course! I told Cody I would try to come.”

Frida grinned. “I bet you did. Who wouldn't want to see Captain Kiss in action?”

Jessi shrieked. “Frida!” But Frida had already raced behind me to hide. She had made up that silly nickname once when she had been teasing Jessi about her crush on Cody. Whenever Frida said “Captain Kiss,” Jessi would pretend to be super-angry at her and chase her around.

“We don't
have time for this! The game starts in a little bit, and my dad is going to give us a ride, but there is really no time to change,” I told them.

Jessi stopped in the middle of lunging toward Frida. “No problem. We're already wearing Kentville blue to show our support!” she said, gesturing to her uniform.

But Zoe frowned. “I was going to work on party plans this afternoon. . . .”

“You'll have plenty of time after the game to plan away,” Frida poked her head out from behind my back to say to her. “Come with us, Zoe, please?”

Zoe's face softened. “Oh, okay. I guess I have time.”

After my dad arranged everything with all of the parents, we piled into the minivan and got to the field. We were late. The game had already started.

Zoe, Emma, and I were walking toward the bleachers, with Frida and Jessi right behind us. I heard them angrily whispering to each other.

“We should tell her!” Frida whispered loudly.

“It will only make Devin upset!” Jessi was so insistent that she forgot to whisper, and I easily heard her.

I turned around. “What will make me upset?”

Jessi turned to Frida. “Great, look what you've done!”

“What I've done? You're the one with the big mouth!” Frida shot back.

I remembered how flustered they had looked when I'd seen them after the game was over. “Does this have anything to do with Megan and Giselle? You all looked angry
when I came over. Right when Megan and Giselle were walking away.”

Zoe and Emma had stopped and were listening to the conversation.

“Just tell her,” Zoe said softly.

Frida sighed. “Look, Megan was really mad after the game. She said she was wide open, but instead of passing to her you took the shot, and it was only luck that it was a goal.”