MVP #2

by David A. Kelly

Franklin had won!

  The crowd erupted in cheers. Nico, Max, and Luke jumped up and down and screamed.

  “She did it!” Luke yelled. “My sister won the game! Go, Kat!”

  As fans flooded the field, Kat ran over to Alex and gave her a big hug. “Thank you so much for teaching me how to chip the ball,” Kat said. “It worked great!”

  Alex smiled. “I only showed you the shot,” she said. “You’re the one who did it. Keep working on your skills like that and maybe you’ll be able to play on the Breakers when you get older!”

  Later that day, the MVP Club ended up at Kat and Luke’s house. They were hanging out on the back deck with Alex Akers. Kat’s mom had put out a bunch of food. There was a big blue cooler filled with PowerPunch and another one filled with ice cream. Kat and Alice were still in their soccer uniforms. Everyone was sitting around the table celebrating the win.

  “That was an amazing move, Kat,” Alice said. “When we tied the game, I knew you would be the one to help us win. That’s why we got something for you.”

  Alice dug inside her backpack and pulled out a shiny gold medal on a red, white, and blue ribbon.

  “We decided you’re our soccer MVP!” Alice said. She hung the medal around Kat’s neck.

  Kat’s face broke into a wide smile. “Thanks, everyone,” she said. “Maybe someday this will be me.” She pointed at the picture of Alex on the label of her drink.

  “You know, Kat, being a soccer star isn’t just about getting your picture on the PowerPunch bottle,” Alex said. “It’s also about working hard and believing in yourself, even when you mess up. Especially when you mess up. That’s when it’s most important to put your head down and just keep working. I’m proud of how hard you worked and the fact that you stuck with it. It was nice to see it pay off.”

  Kat smiled. “It felt great to have it pay off,” she said. “Thanks for all your help.”

  Kat’s mother brought out the model of the field house. She put it in the middle of the table. Then she put a hammer down next to it.

  “What’s that for?” Kat asked.

  “To open it up!” her mother said. “How else are we going to get the money out?”

  Kat smacked her head with her palm. “Mom! We’re trying to save the field house, not destroy it!” she said. “Do you think I didn’t leave a way to get the money out?”

  Kat leaned over and stuck her fingernail into the side of the front door. The little door popped open. Dollar bills and coins tumbled out.

  The table broke into laughter. Then Max and Nico started clapping. “Another great job, Kat!” Nico said.

  For the next half hour, they counted the money. When they were done, they handed it over to Kat’s mother.

  “That’s a lot of money,” Kat’s mom said. “It’s amazing that we were able to raise so much in such a short time. But I have some bad news: I checked with the town planner, and I just don’t think this will be enough to stop the town from selling the field house.”

  Kat sat up straight. “Oh no!” she said. “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

  Kat’s mom shrugged. “We’ll try,” she said. “But I don’t know.”

  Nico and Luke moaned.

  “I can’t believe we worked so hard and we still failed,” Max said.

  “You didn’t fail,” Kat’s mom said. “But sometimes even when you try, you’re not always able to do what you want.”

  While Kat’s mom put the money away, the kids sat around the table trying to figure out other ways to raise money. Alice suggested a dog-walking service. Nico thought of selling healthy snacks at school. Max just spun his chair around and tried to get something helpful to pop out of his brain.

  But it looked like there’d be no way to save the field house.

  A short time later, the doorbell rang. Kat’s mom went to answer it. She seemed to be gone for a while. Finally, she returned. But she wasn’t alone. Just behind her was Mr. Danforth!

  He stood on the deck with his hands in his pockets. “Sorry to interrupt your party,” he said. “But I had an idea and wanted to stop by.”

  Mr. Danforth looked at Kat and Alice. “What a terrific soccer game!” he said. “Kat, that was one of the most amazing moves I’ve ever seen on a soccer field.”

  Kat blushed. “Thank you,” she said. She glanced at Alex. “I had a good teacher.”

  “I’ll say,” Mr. Danforth said. “But I didn’t come to talk soccer with you. I came over because I wanted to talk about the field house.”

  Mr. Danforth turned to Kat’s mom. “Max, Nico, and Luke gave me a tour of it during the soccer game.”

  “We saw him exploring and wanted to make sure nothing went wrong,” Luke said.

  “You’re not supposed to go in there,” Kat’s mom said to the kids. “I hope it was safe.”

  Mr. Danforth nodded. “It was,” he said. “The boys really gave me some things to think about. That’s how I came up with a new idea for the field house.”

  “What?” Luke and Kat asked together.

  “I’m going to ask the town to let me buy it and fix it up,” Mr. Danforth said.

  “But that’s what you were doing already,” Max said.

  Mr. Danforth smiled. “Actually, it isn’t,” he said. “After taking the tour of the field house with you today, I thought of something different.”

  Mr. Danforth pointed to Kat’s field house model on the table.

  “What if we share it?” Mr. Danforth asked. “I’ll put my offices on the second floor. Then, with the money you raised today, we can turn the first floor into an activity center for the town. We can build out the snack bar and Alice’s golf room.”

  “Really?” Max said. “That would be awesome!”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Danforth. “And I think we can even build a pretty neat rock-climbing wall on one side of the building!”

  “Yeah!” Nico said. “I’ve always wanted to try rock climbing!”

  “What a great idea,” Kat’s mom said. “You’ll get your offices, and the town will get a great new activity center!”

  The kids all clapped and hooted.

  Mr. Danforth smiled. “I wouldn’t have thought of it without the help of Max, Nico, and Luke,” he said.

  Max got up. “And I have another idea,” he said. He went over to the cooler and opened the lid. He reached in and scooped out a big ball of blue raspberry ice cream and put it in one of the cones.

  Max took the cone over to Mr. Danforth. “One cool idea deserves another,” he said. “To our new field house friend, Mr. Danforth!”

  The kids cheered for Mr. Danforth. He raised his cone and took a bite.

  “And when we get the field house fixed up,” he said. “I’ll buy ice cream for anyone who can beat me to the top of the rock-climbing wall!”

  SOCCER POSITIONS. Soccer teams usually have one goalkeeper and ten field players. The team splits the field players into three kinds of positions: forwards, midfielders, and defenders.

  ★ A forward’s job is to score goals.

  ★ Midfielders pass the ball up the field to the forwards, and they also try to help keep the ball away from their own goal.

  ★ Defenders play closest to their team’s goal and must stop the other team from scoring.

  A coach can organize the forwards, midfielders, and defenders into many different formations. Here’s an example of one:

  ANCIENT HISTORY. Sports that feature kicking leather balls into nets have been around for thousands of years. Modern soccer emerged in England in 1863, when teams met to create rules.

  WHAT’S IT CALLED? Soccer is called soccer in the United States. But it’s called football almost everywhere else in the world.

  THE WORLD CUP. The World Cup is the biggest soccer tournament. Billions (yes, billions!) of people watch it. There is a tournament for men’s teams and a tournament for women’s teams. The women’s World Cup typically takes place one year after the men’s. Both are played every four years in a different country.
The winner receives the World Cup Trophy. The original men’s trophy was stolen in 1983 and has never been found! The current trophy is fourteen inches tall and made of solid gold. It weighs over thirteen pounds!

  RUNNING. Some soccer players run seven miles or more in a World Cup game.

  ONE TOUGH GAME. As of July 2015, the biggest defeat in international soccer was Fiji’s 38–0 win over Micronesia. The match was part of the 2015 Pacific Games. This tournament was an early step in qualifying for the 2016 Olympics.

  TIME TO GO PRO? Recently, a twenty-month-old was signed to a professional soccer contract in Belgium. Although it’s much too early to tell if young Bryce Brites will be any good at soccer when he grows up, the soccer team (FC Racing Boxberg) thinks he’s very good…for his age.

  TRY THIS AT HOME. Dan Magness from England holds the world record for keeping a soccer ball in the air without dropping it or touching it with his hands. In 2010, Dan juggled a soccer ball using his feet, legs, chest, shoulders, and head for twenty-six hours!

  NO SHOES, NO PLAYING. One of the reasons that India withdrew from the 1950 World Cup was because its team wasn’t allowed to play barefoot!

  FALLING DOWN. In a 1938 World Cup semifinal game, an Italian player’s shorts fell down just before an important penalty kick! While the goalie was laughing at what had happened, Giuseppe Meazza quickly picked his shorts back up and made his shot. He scored! The goal got Italy into the World Cup final.

  COOL MOVES!

  Sometimes players do amazing kicks. They are one of the great things that make soccer such an exciting game to watch. Here are two examples of surprising kicks:

  THE RAINBOW KICK. A rainbow kick is used to help a player get past a defender. To do a rainbow kick, you roll the ball up the back of your leg and then flick it up over your head. The ball will fly into the air over the top of your head, arcing like a rainbow, and land in front of you. (You can even make the ball go over the top of an opponent in front of you!)

  1. Trap the ball between your feet. One foot is in front of the ball. The other foot is behind.

  2. Use the top of your back foot to roll the ball up the calf of your front leg.

  3. Lean forward and pop your heel up. This will flick the ball into the air.

  THE BICYCLE KICK. Bicycle kicks are usually used to make a shot. They’re also called scissor kicks. To do a bicycle kick, a player jumps up and falls back while the ball is in the air.

  As the player falls back, they kick the ball over and behind them.

  NOTE: Bicycle kicks can be dangerous! Talk to a parent or coach before you try one.

  “Blue twenty-two!” Nico yelled. “Hut, hut, hike!”

  Nico snapped the football back to his friend Max. Their friends Alice and Luke counted five-Mississippi and sprang forward. They were trying to grab one of the blue flags hanging from either side of Max’s waist before he could pass the ball or run by them.

  “Come on, Max!” called Luke’s sister, Kat, from the sideline.

  Max tucked the ball under his arm and started to run. Alice headed straight for him. Max dodged to the left to get away. But as he did, the ball slipped through his fingers.

  “Oh no! It’s a fumble!” Kat yelled as the ball bounced end over end down the field. The flag football rules at Franklin Elementary School allowed fumbles, backward passes (or laterals), and a few other plays that made it more like regular football. Just no tackling!

  Before Max could recover the football, Alice scooped it up. She tucked it under her arm and zipped down the field. There was no way for Nico or Max to catch up. Alice was a fast runner. A second later, she crossed the goal line.

  Touchdown!

  Nico’s shoulders slumped. He brushed his dark hair back. Nico was one of the best athletes at Franklin Elementary School. He loved playing any kind of sports, but he didn’t like losing. He held up his hands and shook them in pretend anger. “Max!” he said. “Not again!”

  At the far end of the football field, Alice held the ball up and spiked it into the ground. She pointed at Max and smiled.

  “Butterfingers!” she called. “Max has butterfingers!”

  Max scuffed the field with his sneaker. “I’m just tired,” he said. “We’ve been practicing forever!” Max liked reading more than sports. But he loved playing with his friends.

  It was Wednesday afternoon. Max, Nico, Luke, Alice, Kat, and the rest of their team had spent an hour practicing football after school. They were getting ready for a big game against Hamilton Elementary School on Saturday.

  But after practice had finished, the five friends decided to stay even later to work on a few more plays. Kat was the team’s coach.

  Kat ran onto the field from the sidelines. The purple ribbons she used to tie her curly hair back streamed along behind her. She waved her clipboard. “Alice, teasing Max isn’t helping!” she yelled. “Everyone come here and huddle up.”

  Alice ran back as Max, Nico, and Luke huddled with Kat.

  “Max, that was a good try, but you’ve got to hold on to the ball better, like this,” Kat said. She took the ball from Alice and tucked it under her right arm. “Use your fingers to hold the front of the ball and press the back of it against your biceps. Then hold it tight against your chest. That will make it harder to drop. We can’t make any mistakes if we want to beat Hamilton.”

  “The only way we’re going to beat Hamilton is if they turn into eggs and someone gives us a whisk,” Luke said. He loved to joke, but no one laughed. Luke looked around. “Didn’t you get it?” he asked. “Eggs? Beat them?” Still, no one laughed. They were all too tired from practice. Luke shook his head. “It’s your loss,” he said. “You’re missing a good yolk!”

  Nico groaned. “Oh, that’s bad,” he said.

  “But not as bad as our chance of beating Hamilton,” Max said. “Maybe we can figure out a secret plan to win!” Max was big on secrets and special plans. He wanted to be a detective when he grew up, like his father. He had even gone to detective camp last summer.

  Kat nodded. “We might need a secret weapon to win. Even with all our practicing, it doesn’t look good. Hamilton has won five out of the last six years. It always seems like their players are bigger than us.”

  “But they’re not!” Max said. “Well, they may be bigger than me, but they’re in the same grade as us.” Max was the smallest one of the group.

  “But that’s not what makes them better than us,” Kat said. “They always beat us because they practice so much! They start practicing in the summer for this game. They always have special plays.”

  Nico clapped his hands together. “That’s it! I’ve got it,” he said. “I know how to win Saturday’s game against Hamilton! This is a job for the MVP Club!”

  Everybody turned to look at him. A little while ago, the five friends had helped save their school Olympics by discovering who was trying to sabotage the games. They were awarded Most Valuable Player medals. After that, the kids had decided to form the MVP Club to play sports and have adventures together.

  “How can the MVP Club beat Hamilton?” Alice asked.

  “It’s easy,” Nico said. “All we have to do is spy on Hamilton’s practice tomorrow after school and learn their plays!”

  “Pssst! Kat!” Max whispered. “Keep your head down!”

  Kat ducked. The blue butterfly clips in her hair bounced. It was Thursday afternoon, and she and Max were hiding behind a brick wall outside Hamilton Elementary School. The rest of the MVP Club had decided to stay behind.

  “Follow me,” Max whispered. “But stay down so we don’t get caught! If the Hamilton team knows we’re here, they might beat us up or something!”

  He led Kat along the wall that ringed the athletic field behind the school. The Hamilton football team had just come out to practice.

  Max and Kat crept along the wall toward the bleachers on the far side of the field.

  They could hear the calls of Hamilton’s quarterback.

  “Red twenty-four! Red
twenty-four! Hut, hut, hike!”

  Max and Kat peeked over the top of the wall to watch the action. The Hamilton team wore matching football jerseys. The players on offense wore red. The players on defense wore white. They also had matching football shoes with plastic cleats. They looked a lot more professional than the Franklin team.

  The Hamilton quarterback was so large, he looked like a middle school kid. Two receivers had run far down the field as their defense tried to stop them. The players around the quarterback blocked the rushers so he had time to make a throw. Two seconds later, he saw an opening and let the football fly. It sailed high into the sky and came down right before the end zone. The Hamilton receiver shot to his right and held his arms out. The football dropped into his hands like someone had placed it there. One more step and he was across the line.

  Touchdown!

  Kat let out a whistle. “Wow!” she whispered. “They look like an NFL team compared to us!”

  Max sank down on his heels. “I know,” he said. “That’s why we need to find a way to win. Otherwise, we won’t have a chance.”

  Kat tugged his shirt. “Come on,” she said. “Once we get to our hiding spot, we can study their plays.”

  They continued along the outside wall until there was an opening. A few minutes later, Max and Kat had found their way under the shiny silver bleachers. It was dark and damp, but they had a clear view of the field from between the rows of seats.

  “This is great!” Kat said. “It’s so easy to spy on their practice!”

  Max nodded. He pulled a pen and small notebook out of his back pocket. “You watch and tell me what they’re doing, and I’ll write it down,” he said.

  For the next half an hour, Kat and Max studied the Hamilton team. They watched as the team ran through one play after the other. Kat would describe the plays, and Max would write them down. Kat also used her phone to take pictures.