by Mike Lupica
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, though, Gabe tried to pull them back. “That came out wrong,” he stumbled. “Now I’m the one who should be sorry.”
“We both are,” Alex said.
It was her last apology before the call ended. She had wanted to tell him everything that was happening with The Game. But now wasn’t the time.
After a good day with her friends going door to door, now she felt as if one had just been slammed in her face.
33
The town of Orville boasted a number of beautiful community parks open to the public. The one Alex liked best wasn’t the one closest to their house. But Alex’s dad had taken her there when she was a little girl. It was called Montoya Park, and it wasn’t so far away that she couldn’t ride her bike there.
Monday was the coldest day they’d had in months, but Alex didn’t care. After school let out and their practice ended, she bundled up in a hoodie and a sleeveless vest and headed over there with a soccer ball shoved in her backpack. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to run, she wanted to dribble, she wanted to kick the ball as far as it would go, retrieve it, then kick it again.
She wanted to restore all her positive feelings about The Game from the day before. Everything she’d felt going around town with Lindsey and Roisin. Alex had to laugh at the irony—wanting to reminisce about time spent with Lindsey Stiles. But it was true. What was the saying? Teamwork makes the dream work.
She wanted to trust that their hard work would amount to having a season, because if it did, it would be her greatest achievement to date. In sports and everything else. Or if not the greatest, then certainly in the top three. Bigger than a win. A significant moment Orville would always remember.
The park would also help take her mind off the conversation she’d had with Gabe. Alex tried to put herself in Gabe’s shoes. It didn’t matter how minor the injury was or that the doctors had cleared him to play. Only he knew how much he was hurting, and it wasn’t Alex’s place to tell him how to feel or what to do.
If he decided he didn’t want to play baseball, well, then that was his decision, not hers.
When Alex grew tired of running around and taking out her frustration on the ball, she sat down on one of the swings.
And thought:
Things were a lot simpler when Dad used to take me here.
But now she remembered something her dad had once said. Something his father had told him about being a parent:
The bigger they get, the bigger the problems.
“Your dad told me I’d find you here,” she heard.
She knew without looking that it was Jabril. Twisting herself around in the swing, she greeted him with a limp smile.
“I’d ask you to play,” she said, touching the ball in her lap, “but you might get hurt.”
Jabril shook his head. “I’d say you’re right,” he said, “but we both know I’m more of a superhero than Black Panther.”
Jabril, Gabe, and Alex had seen the movie three times together when it had released in theaters. Gabe had said the test of a really good movie was if you were already thinking about seeing it again while the credits rolled. When the actor who’d played T’Challa, Chadwick Boseman, had died so young, they all felt as if they’d lost their hero.
“I would have called you last night,” Jabril said, “but I ended up sleeping over at Gabe’s.”
Alex opened her mouth to speak, but Jabril held up a hand.
“And you don’t have to tell me what happened, ’cause I heard every word.”
“Not good, right?” Alex said.
“Not good and not Gabe,” he said. “Just don’t tell him that I said that.”
He sat down on the swing next to hers. Jabril and Gabe were about the same height, average for seventh graders. But every other thing about Jabril was big. His heart, his smile, his talent, and his personality. He also played a big game, as a one-man wrecking crew at linebacker.
“He sounds really angry with me,” Alex said. “I get it, though.”
Jabril pushed back on the woodchips under his feet and began swinging back and forth. Then he pumped his legs to go higher. Alex laughed and told him to stop, afraid he might loop all the way over the set.
Finally, he slowed down. “He’s not mad at you,” he said. “At least I don’t think so. He’s just mad at the whole situation. He hates being hurt, and more than that, he hates being scared.”
“I know,” she said. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
Jabril nodded. “On top of everything else, he knows the weather’s about to get nicer—even if today’s no indication—and everybody’s going to be outside playing some kind of sport. That jams him up even more.”
Alex leaned over, elbows to knees, and rested her head in her hands.
“Come on, Alex,” Jabril said, trying to comfort her, “you gotta stop feeling guilty. What happened was sports. Nothing you did or didn’t do.”
“Yeah, but it never would have happened if I hadn’t invited him to play.”
“Yeah, so?” Jabril said. “You could say that about pretty much anything. If Terry Bradshaw’s pass hadn’t ricocheted off Jack Tatum’s helmet, the Steelers would never have won the AFC Championship.”
Jabril, of course, was referring to the Immaculate Reception, one of the most famous plays in NFL football.
Alex smirked. “Trying to appeal to the fan in me?”
“Think of it this way,” Jabril said. “Say it’s a football game and you throw one to your favorite receiver, over the middle. You lead him perfectly, but when he gets his hands on the ball, he bobbles it slightly and gets planted by some dude who’s the Jabril of the other team. Now, is that your fault because you threw him the ball? Heck no. It’s just sports. It’s like my daddy says: you play the game, you take your chances.”
“That’s just it, though,” Alex said. “One slip doesn’t mean he’s not getting better.”
“See there, that’s your problem,” Jabril said. “You want this all to be logical and make sense. It doesn’t matter what we think or what your mom or Dr. Calabrese says. It’s what he thinks. And right now he thinks he’s just gonna keep hurting it if he keeps playing.”
“I’ve got to find a way to get him through this,” Alex said.
Jabril smiled. “I know you’re eager to make things better, Alex. But sometimes the best way to help is to give him space and let him figure things out on his own.”
“You know how hard that is for me!” Alex said.
“I do,” he said. “Hard for me too. But not harder than it is to be Gabe right now.”
Alex breathed in the cold afternoon air. “What if he really does decide to quit the baseball team?”
“Then there’s nothing we can do about it,” Jabril said. “All we can do is be the friends he needs us to be.”
“It would be a lot easier if we were all on the same team like last fall,” Alex sighed.
“The best thing you can do for now is focus on your team.”
He pointed to her ball.
“So,” he said, “think you could turn me into a soccer player?”
Alex chuckled. “You’re not thinking of trying out for the team, are you?”
Jabril shook his head. “All I’m doing this spring is football training with some of the guys from the team. I stink at everything else.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Alex said.
Then they both stood up and walked through the playground over to the grass that stretched all the way to the end of Montoya Park. Jabril put out his hand, and Alex tossed him the ball. He placed it on the grass, took a couple of steps back, swung his right leg, and sent the ball skidding into the dirt, several feet from where Alex was standing.
“Told you,” he said. “Think I’ll stick to football.”
Alex peered over at Jabril an
d pursed her lips together into a tight smile. Her way of telling him she appreciated him coming out here. Talking to her. Making her feel better about the whole Gabe thing.
She had come out here for the purpose of clearing her head. Jabril did her one better. He lent her his ear and his advice. And for the first time in what felt like weeks, a weight lifted off her chest.
Finally, she could allow herself to feel excited about all there was to come and devote her full attention to The Game. Her whole body felt lighter, kicking the ball around with Jabril. Sports could make you glad that way.
But not always.
When they got to practice on Monday, Coach Selmani and the boys’ team had some news.
34
Chase Gwinn had hurt his ankle the day before, playing a pickup game with some of his teammates on the fields at Orville Middle.
From what one of the girls on the team had heard, it was totally Chase’s fault. It had gotten around that Chase was showing off his version of Pelé’s signature bicycle kick.
Except he hadn’t quite mastered it yet.
It was probably the most famous shot in the history of soccer. Pelé, with his back to the goal, kicked up from the ground and flipped backward, almost floating parallel to the ground as he somehow, magically, kicked the ball into the goal behind him.
Plenty of other soccer players had tried the move after him with varying degrees of success. Alex was skeptical of how many players had been able to pull it off in the seventh grade. But Chase was determined to show his buddies that he could do pretty much anything he wanted on a soccer field.
Unfortunately, this time, he couldn’t.
He had landed awkwardly, ending up in so much pain that Dr. Calabrese feared it might be a high ankle sprain, the worst kind of ankle injury. One that could take up to two months to heal.
Chase hadn’t shown up at school on Monday, and the doctors wouldn’t get the results of his MRI scan until Thursday or Friday at the earliest. Apparently, the lab was backed up this week. In other words, Chase wouldn’t be as lucky as Gabe had been getting his results back.
Coach Cross told the girls all this while they were waiting to take the field for practice. The boys had the field first today. That’s also when she told them there might be a problem with The Game.
“I hope it’s not serious for Chase,” Alex said. “My friend Gabe might be out a whole season, and he only suffered a minor sprain.”
She didn’t add that he probably didn’t have to be out a whole season, but that was beside the point.
“What does Chase’s injury have to do with our game, though?” Annie asked.
“Apparently,” Coach Cross said, “the boys got together and decided that if Chase can’t play, they don’t want to either.”
Alex’s heart sank into her stomach.
“They can’t do that!” Lindsey shouted, her voice bouncing off the gym walls.
“Don’t they understand how much this game means to us?” Carly said.
“And how much work we’ve put into it?” Roisin said.
“I’m not sure they’re thinking that way,” Coach Cross said, playing devil’s advocate. “Chase is their star player and lead scorer. They must feel as if their odds have gone down overnight.”
“So you’re saying they basically only want to show up if they’re sure they can win?” Lindsey said.
“That’s not exactly what they said to their coach,” Coach Cross said. “They just feel as if their team isn’t their team without Chase on it.”
Alex could feel her face turning red. Her cheeks burning hotter by the second.
“People get hurt all the time in sports,” she said, “and the games still go on.”
“The boys aren’t against having a game,” Coach said, “they just want to delay it until Chase is better. Except—”
“Except if it’s that high ankle thing,” Lindsey interjected, “he could be out the whole season.”
“Or,” Coach Cross said, attempting to defuse the tension, “it could turn out to be just a mild sprain and he’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet.”
Alex wasn’t sure if her teammates had processed what Coach had said. But she had. And it sent her into a panic.
“We don’t have a couple of weeks,” she said. “In a couple of weeks, the season will have started. You said yourself the league’s already waited as long as they can to fit us into the schedule.”
“It’s worse than that,” Annie said, her voice full of disappointment. “I’m pretty sure the T-shirts have already been made, with the date of The Game on them. And if the hats aren’t done yet, they’re about to be.”
Lindsey said, “And the program has to go off to the printer by this weekend.”
A dark cloud settled over the gym.
“We can’t start all over again,” Alex said, choking down a frog in her throat.
The gym fell silent again. It was as if they’d rolled all the way back to the day the Orville Patch reported there wasn’t going to be a seventh-grade girls’ soccer season.
“What can we do?” Alex said to Coach Cross, hoping she’d have some miracle solution and they could all go home and pretend this never happened.
“Two things,” Coach said, holding up her fingers. “One that will be easy, one not so easy.”
“Tell us the easy one first,” Alex said. “Think we could all use some good news today.”
“We keep working,” Coach said. “We keep working on and off the field as if The Game’s going to be played as scheduled. We stick together as a team, which I know is easy for you guys.”
“And the hard part?” Roisin asked.
Coach Cross sighed. “We wait.”
35
Chase didn’t return to school until Wednesday, wearing a walking boot on his right ankle. Johnny Gallotta told Alex before their second-period earth science class that he was still waiting on his MRI results.
Between classes, Alex ran into Chase in the hallway and politely asked how he was doing.
Injury or no, he was still the same old Chase. “You concerned about me or about our game?”
Alex widened her eyes at him. “That’s not fair,” she said. “I don’t like seeing anybody get hurt.”
“If you want the truth,” Chase said as he limped beside her, “I don’t see any way I can play a soccer game in ten days.”
“Is that what the doctor says?”
“It’s what my ankle says,” Chase said.
“Well,” Alex replied, “I hope you feel better, whether you believe me or not.”
With that, she headed down the hallway, toward English class. Chase went in the other direction.
“Hey,” he called after her.
Alex stopped and turned around.
“This game was never that big a deal to me in the first place,” he said.
“Never thought it was,” Alex said. “But I assumed losing your entire season might be.”
Then Chase was the one turning and heading for his next class. His limp, Alex thought, was a lot more pronounced than when she’d seen him walking into school that morning, as if it were put on for Alex’s benefit.
* * *
• • •
Later, Alex was eating lunch with Roisin and Annie when she saw Chase sit down next to Gabe in the cafeteria. Alex couldn’t believe it. As nice as Gabe was, she knew he had no use for Chase. Like pretty much everyone in their grade, Gabe saw Chase as being a conceited jerk.
“This isn’t good,” Alex said.
“What?” Roisin said. “The mac and cheese?”
Alex nodded discreetly in the direction of Gabe and Chase.
“What’s the matter with them having lunch together?” Annie asked.
“It’s not that,” Alex said. “Just don’t think Gabe is t
he best person for Chase to be talking to right now.”
“Why not?” Roisin asked.
“Between us? Gabe doesn’t think his knee is getting better,” Alex said. “Even though my mom—a pediatric surgeon—pretty much told me he’s almost fully healed. He’s ready to throw his entire pitching season away because of it.”
“And he’s using his knee as an excuse not to play?” Roisin said.
“Not an excuse,” Alex said. “A reason.”
Roisin cocked her head, not comprehending.
“With Gabe there’s a difference,” Alex explained. “He never makes excuses for anything.”
She kept sneaking glances across the room. At one point she saw Chase shove out from his seat and put all his weight on his injured leg. Gabe got up and did the same, demonstrating the weakness there. Then they both shook their heads and sat back down.
“We need Chase to get his MRI results back,” Annie said.
“Waiting is total bruscar,” Roisin said.
When Alex and Annie looked at her curiously, she translated, “Rubbish.”
“What bothers me the most,” Alex said, “is that The Game shouldn’t depend on whether Chase can play. He’s far from my favorite person, but I don’t think it’s fair to put all the pressure on him either. We’re not playing Chase Gwinn in a game. We’re playing the entire seventh-grade boys’ team. They’re just choosing to let Chase’s injury stop them from participating.”
There was nothing Annie or Roisin could say to that, so they just nodded and finished their lunches. Silently, they all agreed, this was a sticky situation.
The bell rang then, and Alex watched as Gabe and Chase got up from their table, both pouring it on thick with their heavy limps.
“That’s not lookin’ good for us,” Roisin said.
They watched as Gabe and Chase slowly made their way out of the cafeteria.
“I never thought I’d hear myself say this,” Annie said, “but I’m rooting for Chase Gwinn.”
36