by Guy Antibes
“But I’m not on the first team, yet. Tryouts are right after Spring Break,” Ricky said.
“You don’t use this stick for practice. Here.” Karian thrust the stick into Ricky’s hands.
“It sure feels different.”
“It better. This stick is hardwood and shaped for a professional broomball player,” Saganet said. “The pads might be a little big on you, but you are a growing boy.”
Even the pads were much better constructed than the ones he had used in the three-on-three sparring matches inside the gymnasium.
“I’ll save these for a real game.”
“I imagine that’s what your teammates will do,” Karian said, grinning. “I’ve got a carry sack for those.” He pulled out a thick canvas bag with a long opening secured with leather straps.
“How much do I owe you?” Ricky said.
“Let me watch your games. That will be payment enough.”
“But if I don’t make the team—”
Karian growled. “None of that. Sippa gives you a high probability of making the team.”
“Sippa?”
“That’s what Saganet and I call Insippa Baldico. We’ve both known Sippa from visits he’s made to Tossa.”
“I don’t want any special favors. Your friend Sippa said I’d need to earn a spot on the first team, and I intend to make sure that happens.”
Saganet patted Ricky on the back. “We wouldn’t want it any other way, but make sure you bring your fancy equipment to the tryouts. The others will.”
“I’ll accept the gifts and wear them to the tryouts. At least you’ll be able to see me wear the equipment once.”
“The first of many,” Karian said.
Ricky scoffed as he stuffed the stick and the pads into his new broomball bag. He even noticed a few pouches with broomballs inside.
“Time for lunch,” Karian said. “My treat.”
~
Ricky staggered into the cottage after a long, brutal practice. Sippa had withheld his hardest practice routines until he had control of the field, and the Spring Break practices were longer and more exhausting.
“You two manipulated me,” Ricky said to Saganet who relaxed on the couch, napping.
His guardian sat up. “How did we do that?”
“You and Karian gave me that fancy broomball stick. Now I have to work my behind off to live up to your gift.”
“Don’t do it for me, Ricky. Do it for you.” Saganet said.
“You lie. You know me better than I do myself.”
Saganet laughed. “In some areas. I was a lad once, you know.”
“I’d do better if I could use my magic,” Ricky said.
Saganet put his hands behind his head. “Then it wouldn’t be much of a competition. The team with the strongest magicians would win.”
“Now it’s the team with the physically best players. What’s the difference?”
“You tell me,” Saganet said. “Aren’t you the sorcerer that deflected arrows at the Battle of the Barracks?”
“And I could move the broomball all around the field, couldn’t I?”
“Could you? Do you have that kind of power?”
Ricky grunted his frustration. “You know I can.” He sat down and began to sulk. “This isn’t the right behavior is it?” he finally said.
“Is it?”
“Then they should have a magician’s league, but King Leon wouldn’t permit it.”
“He might if it was solely an exhibition match,” Saganet said.
Ricky pressed his lips together. “That won’t happen for the rest of the year.”
“No, it won’t, and I doubt if you’d find sorcerers who would play.”
“What about the University of Sealio?”
“Maybe,” Saganet said. “Start a magician’s league there when you get to the university.”
“I will,” Ricky said, folding his arms. “Tossa is started to cramp my style.”
“What’s your style?” Saganet said.
Ricky threw a pillow at him in frustration.
~
Insippa Baldico called the broomball team together. “I worked hard over Spring Break to organize suitable games for our team. We’ll be playing three schools in Tossa, and we’ll be traveling to Applia to play the best school in that city.”
“A trip? Really?” one of the boys said.
“Really,” Insippa said mockingly. “I’m still working on two of the six professional teams in Tossa to allow us practice games towards the end of our season. Our first game is in two weeks. We’ll have tryouts tomorrow and the next day for the first team. There will be twelve players selected. The rest will practice as the second team, and we will practice against each other.”
Jac poked Ricky in the side. “I hope you’ve been working hard, Valian.”
Ricky only nodded. He felt as nervous trying out for the first team as he did when he performed last summer with Loria.
“Where did you go for Spring Break? I didn’t see you around.”
“I spent it at the estate of an earl my father knows. He has mines.” Jac flashed his eyes. “You would have loved it.”
Ricky had never been in a mine in his life, but Jac obviously had.
Jac continued, “Did you enjoy living with your guardian for a bit?”
“I did, although Instructor Baldico ran us through the wringer.”
“All the better,” Benno chimed in. “I worked out with my brothers.”
Benno hadn’t returned to the pudgy state that he was in when Ricky first met him. He had grown taller and stronger and looked as fit as all the other older broomball players.
“Gather round, boys. Let’s go over the tryout procedure,” Insippa said. He looked at Ricky. “I drafted your guardian to help me with the evaluation along with the two professors who worked with the team last year. There wasn’t a formal team last year, but there were broomball practices and informal matches.”
“Saganet won’t be evaluating you,” Insippa said as if he read Ricky’s mind.
“You will note that we finally got our goal boxes installed,” Insippa said in a much louder voice.
Ricky could see the sturdy wooden boxes three feet square. The back of each goal box was padded to keep the broomball from rebounding out. Before today, two posts three feet apart served as goals for practices. Everything seemed ready.
Ricky could feel the sweat erupt on his palms. He had been through much worse pressure, but it hadn’t affected him so badly.
“Hit a few goals today to get used to hitting the ball into the goal boxes, and then you are on your own until tomorrow morning. We start right after breakfast and then during our team time in the afternoon.”
Ricky looked at Insippa watching the other boys run out to the field with their sticks. Insippa turned around.
“I thought you were there,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“I wish I knew what I am supposed to be ready for, but I guess I am.”
Insippa looked at Ricky with his arms still folded. “No magic, right? I don’t want you to use sorcery to your advantage. That will get you dismissed from the team.”
“I already had a talk with Saganet about that.”
The instructor smiled. “You would. Is there anything else?”
“Saganet said we could bring our sticks to the tryouts.”
“You can. It’s encouraged. The experienced boys will be using their own equipment. You can use your new stuff,” Insippa said.
“You know I have my own stick?”
Insippa smiled a little too knowingly. “Who do you think selected your stick and pads?”
“Karian Grandari.”
“Me,” Insippa Baldico said using his thumb to point at himself. “Saganet and Karian asked me to select a broomstick made for professional broomball players.”
“I didn’t want to know that,” Ricky said. “I’m not good enough to use professional broomball equipment.
“Doesn’t matter if you
want to or not. Bring it. That way the older boys won’t look down at you the way they would if you had to use one of the school’s sticks.”
“It makes a difference to the teammates?”
Insippa nodded. “No one wants to admit it, but it does. We’ve talked enough. Go practice.”
Ricky walked out to the field. He passed two older boys. They weren’t in Jac’s morning practice group. As he walked past, one of the boys took his stick and tripped Ricky, who fell face forward on the grass.
The two boys laughed. Ricky jumped up and glared at them.
“Want to fight?” one of the boys said, quickly losing his smile.
Ricky saw a few boys gathering.
“Why would I want to do that? I just want to practice enough to be ready tomorrow. I suggest you do the same.”
Ricky had had experience with ‘tough’ boys before at the Home. He wasn’t about to be intimidated or drawn into a fight. He clutched his stick tightly and walked away, ignoring the taunts. He nearly turned back when someone called him ‘shantyboy’. That was nearly too much, but Ricky walked to some of the older boys in the morning group flipping broomballs into one of the goals.
“Can I join you?”
“Why not?” one of the boys said, passing Ricky a ball. “You’re one of us.”
One of them. Ricky looked back at the boys gathered where the encounter occurred. All four of the boys who confronted him were nobles, Ricky could tell, but Jac’s group had accepted him, and they were nobles, too.
~~~
CHAPTER ELEVEN
~
R ICKY BROUGHT HIS BAG TO BREAKFAST. He wore loose, comfortable clothing. He didn’t even know if broomball players wore uniforms. His teammates were dressed much the same as he. They all had brought bags.
Ricky felt like an interloper. At the Home, Ricky had to rise to the occasion to survive, but he didn’t have the same kind of pressure at the academy, and it made him feel exceptionally young. During the term, so far, he hadn’t felt the tension he had earlier. Had it made him soft? Did he revert to a weakling?
Ricky didn’t feel weak, but he did feel unchallenged. The tryouts, hopefully, would change that, and he vowed as he ate that he would rise to the challenge in the same way he had pushed himself during practices at Spring Break.
“Let’s see your stick,” Benno said.
Ricky unbuckled his bag and pulled out his new stick.
“Never been kissed,” one of the boys said, to laughter. “This would make a professional proud.” The boy stood and gripped the stick. “I wish mine were as good. I wish you well with it.”
Ricky had expected some teasing past the boy’s first comment, but everyone liked his equipment.
“The stick isn’t what makes a good player,” Insippa said, walking to the boys from the direction of the faculty dining area. He thumped Ricky on the chest. “It’s what is in there. Have you all got it?”
All of them laughed and said they did. Ricky chose not to respond. He still lacked the confidence the others had after years playing broomball.
“Finish up. I want to get you boys qualified, so you can help me evaluate the others,” Insippa said. “Not you, Valian. You’ll be sweating along with the other first-team wannabes.” As he passed Ricky, he quietly boasted, “Nice stick I chose, eh? Now, let’s get on the field.”
Saganet and two other professors that Ricky had never met walked over to Insippa, who was by that time on the other side of the broomball field. He kept loose by doing exercises while the four talked. He heard the names of most of his morning teammates called, and the four judges ran the boys through a series of drills.
Most of them looked very practiced as they performed for the four men. Ricky didn’t see any difference between how they ran through the drills from the morning practices. The warning bell for the first period rang, so Ricky headed off to his room to drop off his bag before class without having been evaluated at all.
With his mind on the broomball tryouts later in the day, Ricky didn’t engage with the classes he attended. He didn’t recall much of the subject matter and performed badly in his sorcery session. As a result, he hardly tasted his lunch. Ricky breathed a sigh of anxiety when he grabbed his bag and headed back out to the field.
He wondered why he was so concerned about making the first team. It wouldn’t change his life, or would it? Ricky realized that he had grown used to the camaraderie of the breakfast workouts. He had never had a group of friends before, and if the judges didn’t select him, those friends might abandon him.
Ricky had never worried about such things before. He had always been by himself. Even amidst hundreds of inmates, Ricky always perceived his presence as apart from the others. Gil and Mara were the only acquaintances he had, excluding the adults, of course.
None of the other broomball players were warming up, but Ricky wouldn’t allow that to happen to him, so he began running along the edge of the field, and soon the other broomball players joined him as the judges stood at a table going about their paperwork.
Ricky grabbed a broomball and began moving it up and down the field, taking a shot on goal at every pass. The other players followed Ricky’s lead until Insippa Baldico whistled them back to the judge's table.
“We will begin with stick skills,” Insippa said.
Ricky saw the breakfast group placing spaced boxes up the field.
“Take a ball and move it between the boxes and shoot on the goal.”
His breakfast workout teammates had done the same drill in the morning. Insippa called out a name, and the boy moved the ball around the obstacles. Before the first boy finished, Insippa called the second name, and Ricky came last.
He imagined he performed as well as most, but a few of the boys worked their way through the boxes much faster than he did.
The judges conferred, and then Insippa called for running. The boys ran the long way on the field. Up and back. He gave them a few minutes and then had them do the same thing, four times. Ricky came in first each time. At least he excelled in one thing, but was running enough to make the team?
“Now, I want you to try to get the ball past one of the boys who made the team this morning.”
Ricky looked at the eight players in his morning group. All of them were on the first team. That meant only four players out of twenty would join them. Ricky didn’t like those odds.
He sighed and did as well as everyone he could see, but there were so many boys, Ricky lost track. A few were better than he. If he could use sorcery, he would beat them all, but he had to make the broomball team on his own, unaided by his talent.
Insippa called out two names. “You two are the on the first team. Now we will have a practice game. Organize yourselves into two teams and play a ten-minute game. This is the last step in the tryouts.”
The boys milled about as if they didn’t know what to do. Ricky was frantic about losing precious tryout time, so he stepped in and asked who would play with him. Those who didn’t want to had to stand aside. Soon the two teams were set. Ricky wanted to play up front, but so did everyone else. More panic ensued. Ricky couldn’t believe the opportunity his teammates were throwing away, so at Ricky’s suggestion, they ended up playing a children’s hand game to determine the positions on his team. Ricky ended up with a defensive position.
Ricky’s team had already chosen positions and the other team still fought about who would play where. Insippa whistled for the game to begin. Because of deciding the positions, Ricky’s team scored a goal before the other team could organize. The other team’s players finally settled down.
Ricky couldn’t allow his team to lose, so he ended up directing his players on the field when on the attack, since, as a defender, he wasn’t allowed to go past the halfway point on the field. When the next whistle blew, Ricky’s team had scored four goals to one.
The judges conferred. Being on defense, Ricky hadn’t been able to show many of his skills. His speed helped stop a few goals, but he had no
opportunity to score on offense. He shook his head, dismayed that he didn’t see a way to get on the first team.
Jac walked up to him as Ricky removed his pads and stowed everything in his bag.
“Good job. You didn’t let a goal get past you.”
Ricky gave Jac a half-smile. “I didn’t score any goals. How can I make the team if I—”
Insippa whistled again before Ricky could finish making excuses. He felt awful about the tryouts.
Ricky looked over at Saganet, who gave Ricky an encouraging look, but what else could his guardian do?
“The judges had a tough job this afternoon. We had four spots to fill with twenty students. Two of you set yourselves apart from the others in the drills, and we chose one student who stood out during team play.” Insippa named the boy, who puffed out his chest and walked over to the first team.
Ricky looked at the other candidates. One left to choose, or would they just stay with three extra players?
“Out of all the candidates, one showed an intangible quality that the others didn’t possess, even though he wasn’t the first or second best performer during the practice game. One of the boys showed us how to lead. There is more to a team than skills. A team needs players who can see past their own immediate need. Hendrico Valian stepped up to lead the warm-ups and managed the winning team from selection to coaching. He is undersized, at present, and lacks experience, but he showed that he belongs on the first team.”
Ricky took a step back, amazed at Insippa’s words. Ricky learned to take charge when he went to the Home. People relied on him to get things done, even through difficult circumstances. He didn’t think his taking charge in Applia would lead him to make the first team at Doubli Academy, but he guessed it did. He let a smile momentarily brighten up his face.
“See?” Jac said, putting his arm around Ricky’s shoulder. “You’ll get better and better around us.”
Ricky had to agree. He would have never made the team, even with some leadership skills, if he hadn’t joined in the breakfast practices. Saganet nodded to him as the newly chosen team celebrated on the field.
Insippa let them go for a minute or two before he stopped the congratulatory moment. “We have twelve players that constitute the second team. We are still the broomball players of Doubli Academy, all of us.”