Defending Champ

by Mike Lupica

  Lindsey nodded, and for the first time in a long time put out her fist for Alex to bump.

  “You think they’ll say yes?” Alex said.

  Lindsey flashed Alex a conspiratorial look.

  “How can they say no?”

  Before Alex left, they decided not to tell any of their teammates, or Coach Cross, until practice on Monday.

  “We should actually tell Coach before we tell anybody else,” Alex said. “Just in case she thinks it’s a terrible idea.”

  “Which it’s not,” Lindsey said.

  “Still . . . we don’t want the rest of our grade to find out before it’s a done deal,” Alex said. “Or the school, for that matter. We’re gonna need a lot of people on board to actually make this happen.”

  Lindsey nodded.

  “But it can’t happen if Coach Cross isn’t on board,” Lindsey said. “Got it.”

  “Soooo, between us for now?”

  “What,” Lindsey said, “worried about my big mouth?”

  Alex laughed. So maybe Lindsey did have a sense of humor about herself after all. At least for now, they’d proven they could be cordial to each other. Even go as far as work together toward a common goal. It was more than Alex could’ve hoped for when she first entered Lindsey’s house that afternoon.

  As they got up so Lindsey could walk her out, Alex nodded toward the soccer net in the backyard.

  “Hey,” Alex said, “I’ve got that same one at home.”

  “You want to kick a ball around before you go?” Lindsey asked.

  The fact that Lindsey had asked was proof enough for Alex that they were finally turning a corner in their relationship. It could almost be considered a peace offering.

  Without thinking too hard about it, Alex took Lindsey up on her offer and ran into the goal, taking a keeper stance.

  Lindsey started dribbling the ball and taking shots.

  It didn’t feel natural, exactly, but it was a step in the right direction.

  22

  Alex and Lindsey arranged to meet with Coach Cross fifteen minutes before practice in the gym on Monday.

  The temperature outside was in the fifties and the sun had been high in the sky all day, so Coach had emailed the team before school, letting them know they’d be having their scrimmage outdoors that afternoon.

  She also hinted that she might have a surprise for them.

  So do we, Alex thought.

  When they met with Coach Cross in her office, Alex let Lindsey do most of the talking. She didn’t care who got credit for the idea and mostly just thought that if Lindsey felt in control, she’d be more engaged and more involved as they proceeded with their plan. Lindsey preferred taking the lead, and since—for the first time—she and Alex were seeing eye to eye, it hardly mattered which of them assumed that role.

  “We think we may have come up with a way to raise money to have a season,” Lindsey said.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Coach said.

  “Alex and me for now,” Lindsey said. “But we think the other girls on the team will go along once we tell them our idea. Unless you think for any reason we shouldn’t go through with it.”

  “I’m listening,” Coach said.

  “It’s only a rough idea for now,” Alex prefaced. “But we’re pretty sure the girls will help us flesh it out.”

  Then Lindsey took the floor, explaining the basic concept.

  Coach listened, remaining expressionless until Lindsey finished.

  “Our team against their team,” she said, capping off her speech.

  “Maybe the Saturday before our season’s supposed to start,” Alex added.

  She felt as if she and Lindsey had just co-written an essay and were waiting for Coach Cross to grade it.

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  Alex felt her heart sink into her stomach. She eyed Lindsey, who also looked like she’d just swallowed a soccer ball.

  Then Coach Cross’s mouth curved upward into a wide grin, like the lights in the gym had suddenly turned up. “I love it.”

  “Really?” Lindsey said, blowing out the breath she’d clearly been holding for the last few seconds.

  “Love, love, love it,” Coach repeated.

  Alex and Lindsey high-fived each other.

  Another first.

  “And I think the other girls are going to love it too,” Coach said. “But they’re not the only ones we’ll have to convince. First, we’ve got to get permission from the school and the Town Council. And that might not even be the hardest part.”

  “What’s the hardest part?” Alex said, almost afraid to ask.

  “Getting Coach Selmani and the boys to buy in,” she said.

  Lindsey said to Coach Cross the same thing she’d told Alex only days before.

  “But how can they say no? Wouldn’t it make them look like they’re afraid to play us?”

  “It would,” Coach said. “But I’m not a mind reader with seventh-grade boys.” She grinned. “Or, I should say, especially with seventh-grade boys.”

  “What about the Town Council?” Lindsey said.

  “I honestly believe they’d have a hard time explaining to good old Orville, Pennsylvania, why they shouldn’t support an idea that would do this much good for two dozen seventh-grade girls. Not to mention that getting the community to rally around a worthy cause is good for morale.”

  It was settled then. Coach Cross would help get the idea in front of the proper committees, while Alex and Lindsey were responsible for telling their teammates.

  But now was not the time.

  Because right now was reserved for soccer.

  Alex and Lindsey decided to tell the rest of the team in the locker room after practice. That way, they could focus 100 percent of their energy on soccer, then commit 100 percent of their brains to formulating a plan.

  As they walked out of the gym, Alex skipped ahead to catch up with Coach Cross.

  “One last question,” she said. “Do you think if we play them, we have a chance to win?”

  “We’re going to win just by playing the game,” Coach said. “Sometimes sports don’t have to be about anything more than that.”

  “But it sure would be fun to find out if we can beat them,” Alex said.

  “Oh, heck yeah,” Coach said.

  23

  Once in the locker room, Alex and Lindsey sat everyone down on the benches to tell them about their grand plan.

  The words were barely out of Lindsey’s mouth when the group erupted in hoots and hollers, their voices echoing loudly against the cinder-block walls. In fact, there was so much cheering, it sounded as if they’d just won a championship.

  But then Coach stepped in, not to spoil their excitement but to remind everyone this wasn’t set in stone. Before they got too far ahead of themselves, and before anybody else at Orville Middle found out what they were planning, she would first have to approach the head of school tomorrow. If she got the green light, her next move would be to call Mrs. McMahon, the president of the Town Council and an old high school soccer teammate of hers.

  “So this has to be our secret until I have those two conversations,” she said. “Understood?”

  She was firm in her delivery but smiled to show she wasn’t trying to be too tough on them.

  “That won’t be a challenge for this group, right?” she added.

  Everyone nodded.

  “The last thing I’d want to do is sabotage our chances of having a season,” Annie spoke up.

  “Exactly,” Carly said. “It’s in our best interest to keep our mouths zipped.”

  Roisin raised a hand then.

  “Coach,” she said, “was this the surprise you mentioned in your email this morning?”

  Coach shook her head.

  “Nope,” she said. “My
surprise is a little different.”

  The girls sat in silence, waiting for Coach Cross to reveal her big secret.

  “How would you feel if I told you that tomorrow afternoon, we are going to scrimmage the Palmer Lions right here on our home turf?”

  Cheering immediately filled the room. A few of the girls even got up to dance around, unable to contain their excitement.

  For a Monday, it was turning out to be a pretty good day, Alex thought.

  Maybe the first of many.

  Sometimes a little luck went a long way.

  24

  Alex sat with Sophie, Roisin, and Rashida at lunch the next day. The girls had become close ever since soccer tryouts and could now consider themselves actual friends instead of just “soccer buddies.” And because Sophie was Alex’s friend, and got along with everybody, they all seemed to fit perfectly.

  “I still don’t get how the spelling of your name translates to ‘Ro-sheen,’ ” Rashida said.

  “Ah, it’s just an Irish thing, isn’t it?” Roisin said. “I’ve got a cousin named Siobhan.”

  “ ‘Shiv-on’—that’s a beautiful name,” Alex said. “How do you spell that one?”

  Roisin laughed. “I’d have you guess, but it’s an Irish spelling. S-I-O-B-H-A-N.”

  “And you call soccer ‘football,’ ” Sophie said.

  “To be fair,” Alex cut in, “so does the rest of the world.”

  “Well, we do use our feet, yeah?” Roisin said. “Makes a whole lot more sense to me.”

  “You got us there,” Sophie said. “Maybe we should start calling it football.”

  “Well,” Alex said, “whatever we call it, we’ve got a big game today.”

  The girls on the team were keeping their promise, at least so far. No one had breathed a word about the girls vs. boys game. There had been nothing on social media, mainly because Lindsey had been watching everybody like a hawk. And by the end of the day, Coach would have talked to the school and then, hopefully, the Town Council.

  But for now they were focused on the chance to play against a real opponent. One that felt big. Significant. A good omen for a season that might not be so far out of reach.

  * * *

  • • •

  Alex refused to call it a scrimmage. The game was scheduled for right after school, as soon as the Palmer bus arrived in Orville. Alex and her teammates were already on the field warming up when they saw the bus pull into the parking lot behind the gym. Even that felt exciting.

  As the players came down the steps, Alex saw that they were already in their orange jerseys, wearing them over long-sleeved shirts and sweaters and vests, as the day had grown colder. Some even had hoodies on. Most wore sweatpants.

  Since the Orville Owls didn’t have uniforms, they were wearing blue pinnies over their own sweaters and vests and hoodies.

  “We’re going to look so unofficial in pinnies,” Lindsey said.

  “I’ll admit, it’s not the best look,” Annie said, but then she might have been the most fashion-conscious girl in their grade.

  “Only until we score our first goal,” Alex said. “Then we’re going to look cooler than Megan Rapinoe.”

  “Palmer beat us in the championship game,” Lindsey said to Alex, with some snap in her voice. “I know you were off doing something else at the time . . .”

  Things were better between them, but hardly great. Alex knew they were never going to be perfect, and things could turn sour at a moment’s notice. Like they were right now.

  “I remember,” Alex said. Then she added, “But that was last year.”

  The championship game had come down to penalty kicks. It had been tied at the end of regulation and then into overtime. After that, the refs agreed to determine the game with PKs. Palmer selected their best player, Adella Martinez, who took the last shot and beat out Carly in the net.

  Now here they were. As hopeful as Alex was to get their season back, she also knew this game might be the closest Orville got to a rematch this year.

  Both teams took a ten-minute warm-up. Then the coaches called their players over to the sidelines.

  “We play like champions today,” Coach Cross said, keeping her voice low. “And for those of you who were on the team last season, I want you to clear your heads of that championship game. Today’s a new day. We’re a new team.”

  Alex caught Annie and Lindsey glancing at each other.

  “If we do end up having a season,” Coach Cross went on, “we’ll be playing them in our first game. So win, lose, or tie today, let’s give them something to think about. Like always, we play the game right. Next pass. Next shot. Next stop.”

  They didn’t get the first score. Adella did, in the first minute, on a breakaway. Then Annie lost the ball to Adella at midfield a few minutes later. Adella made a sweet pass up the field to one of her other strikers, and the ball snuck in under the crossbar, just over Carly’s outstretched hand.

  It was 2–0 and the Owls had yet to break a sweat.

  And it had nothing to do with the cold weather.

  25

  Alex hadn’t started the game. Not that she expected to.

  Coach had pulled the new girls aside and told them she was starting all of last year’s players out of respect.

  “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Coach,” Alex said. “The team comes first.”

  The starters kept the score to 2–0 after that. But twenty minutes into the game, with ten left in the half, Coach started mixing in new players, two or three at a time. The first two were Alex and Roisin, replacing Annie and Lindsey. As she ran out onto the field, Alex worried how Annie might react, even if it was only a glorified scrimmage to most. Alex never had anything against Annie, not even when she’d aligned herself with Lindsey against Alex in the fall. Though back then, it seemed everyone in the school was against her.

  However, as Annie came running past Alex now, she slapped her a low five and said, “See if you can get us back into this.”

  “Gonna try,” Alex said.

  These weren’t drills in the gym now. This wasn’t the Owls playing against each other in a game that would never show up in any standings. They were playing against a legit league team. One they’d face in a real season, if they managed to have one. The thought got Alex thinking briefly about the prospect of playing against the guys. They needed that game more than anything.

  As soon as the whistle blew, Alex snapped her attention back to the field.

  All at once, she was a soccer player again. Playing against the Palmer Lions. And it felt good.

  No, she thought, check that.

  It felt awesome, even lined up against somebody as talented as Adella Martinez.

  Coach said it didn’t take long to identify the player on the other team you had the most to worry about. She was right about that.

  “I thought you were a football player,” Adella said to Alex after another whistle.

  She didn’t say it meanly. In fact, she almost sounded impressed.

  “Not today,” Alex said, giving her hamstring a quick stretch before Ms. Rossovich, the Palmer head coach, placed the ball on the ground between them.

  Adella was fast. Really fast. So was Alex. But despite all the practices they’d had up till now, Alex knew right away that she hadn’t reached peak game shape. She wasn’t Adella fast. At least not yet.

  Adella kept beating her to the ball, taking ownership of the field the way a good center middie was supposed to. They were supposed to score too. And set up scoring with their passing. In their offensive end, the game was meant to flow through them. But Coach said the place where a center middie should really show off her stuff was in the middle of the field. More like the forty-yard field within a field, the place where they could turn defense into offense on a dime.

  Adella was doing that now, and
a lot better than Alex was. In fact, at full steam, the best Alex could do was try to keep up with Adella. Outrunning her was out of the question.

  Five minutes after Alex came into the game, Adella made a great defensive play against her, a clean, sliding takeaway. Before Alex knew what was happening, Adella was up on her feet again, flying toward Carly and scoring her second goal of the game, left-footed this time.

  Now it was 3–0.

  So much for getting the Owls back into it.

  Alex felt like she was back at QB and had just thrown a bad interception that resulted in a touchdown for the other team.

  “I’m not good enough to play with that girl,” Alex said to Roisin in frustration, when they were jogging back to midfield.

  “Oh, don’t be an eejit,” Roisin said, smiling and looking awfully upbeat considering the score.

  Alex couldn’t help but smile back. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Just like it sounds,” Roisin confirmed. “Now let’s crack on, shall we?”

  “Need a little help with that one,” Alex said.

  “It means it’s time for us to get on with it, yeah?”

  A minute later, Alex was able to dig up some extra energy from the reserves and push herself to the max. Now she was the one turning defense into offense, catching Adella from behind and sliding to kick the ball away while avoiding direct contact. Then she got up, regained control of the ball, wheeled, and headed for Palmer’s goal.

  Roisin was to her right, and suddenly there was nothing but green grass stretched in front of them. What was it the football announcers said? Running in space. Alex and Roisin were running in space now.

  Two defenders were positioned between them and the keeper. Palmer had been playing a 4-4-2 alignment the whole game, same as the Owls. The defender closest to Alex, a girl with a long dark braid trailing down her back, came up to try to stop her. The other defender fanned out to her left, readying herself should Alex pass to Roisin.