I’m only on touch seven when the ball bounces too hard off my left ankle, hits the window frame, and falls to the ground.
“I win,” Jaimes says. “You get wrecked, Goldie. I’m taking a shower. A long one.”
I examine the window frame. Only a tiny chip of paint is missing from my most recent hit. But hey, if you value boring, unchipped doorframes and sloppy ball control, by all means, keep the soccer ball outside or sitting neglected in the garage for nine months out of the year. From firsthand experience I know that until you master the ball, it has to roll across kitchen floors, hit walls, windows, cupboards, your little Squirrel sisters—and your snarling older one, too. The ball flies off your knees and hits telephones, breaks dishes, and busts windowpanes until you can control it from ever hitting anything you don’t want it to again.
That’s the price you pay for greatness.
I start getting ready for school and glance out the window again. Dad’s slowly making his way into the house. But he’s no longer alone.
“Hi, Lucy Goose!”
“Hi, Coach Maroni!” Dad and Mom traded off coaching us before we got to the middle school team, so most of my friends still call him Coach too. Lucy’s wearing her roller skates with her pajamas, hair still in braids. Lucy greeted him with her normal, super-cheerful voice. But did she notice how hard it was for him to move? To get up the stairs?
She must have because I watch her hold out her arm, like it doesn’t freak her out at all, and Dad leans on her to get back inside.
What’s really unfair is that Dad put in his ten thousand hours. I’ve seen the footage from his pro days, studied him as Coach. He had mastered it. Now, as I watch him shuffling inside, I wonder what it feels like to have put in your ten thousand hours only to go backward in time and have to start all over.
But… even the greatest of all time have temporary setbacks. I mean, Messi retired after that devastating 2016 World Cup elimination. Of course he couldn’t stay away—not when he loved the game so much. So look who’s back on the field dominating? That’s right! Our man Messi!
You know what he says? You can overcome anything, if and only if you love something enough. I love soccer that much. Dad does too. That love and determination are going to save both of us.
Running downstairs, I wait until Lucy skates in to pull a Maradona move on Mom, who is standing in front of the microwave, wearing her bathrobe. I accidentally bump into her while turning.
“Bend your knees,” she says irritably. Mom is so not a morning person.
“Push-up contest,” I say to Lucy, dropping to the ground. “Bigger stronger faster,” I say between breaths.
“You’re lucky I’ve got to catch the bus or you’d be losing right now,” Lucy says. “I’ll take you on at practice—see you there—for the captain’s vote!”
A thrill goes through my body. Captain. The armband.
“That’s right… today!”
“You didn’t forget that, did you?”
Now she sounds like Benny. What exactly do they think I’m forgetting?
Lucy skates out of the kitchen and across our porch and jumps smoothly onto the driveway before I can ask.
“Check Kermit!” I yell after her.
“Honey?” Mom says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Even if today doesn’t go the way—”
“Mom! You don’t have to protect me. I’m fine.”
“Golden?” Dad calls from the bathroom, distracting us. “I really need a shave.”
I wriggle away from Mom and walk in to see Dad’s left hand slightly raised, holding his razor.
“Me?”
“I’ll show you how. Good for you to learn anyway. Get my face wet?”
“Dad…” I really don’t want to do this, not after the toenails. I want to just sit here and tell him about my Lucy suspicions, but instead I say, “I saw you practicing this morning.”
“Golden, shave.”
“Dad… I don’t think…”
“It’s very simple.”
“If it’s that simple, then how come you don’t do it?”
“Five minutes!” Mom calls. “Where’s my purse?”
“Get my face wet. Put on shaving cream,” he says impatiently. “We don’t have much time.”
I do, but tentatively.
“Yep. Now razor.”
“Dad—”
“Put the razor on my face. Swipe down slowly… slowly! You don’t need to go against the grain. Go with the hair. Good.”
Pretty soon I’m doing it—shaving him. “So, Dad. Your touch is looking… okay,” I begin again. “Let’s play after practice—and we can lift weights, too.”
Dad sighs like I’m not listening, even though I am. “Son, let’s focus on this. Me and you. Right now.”
I accidentally nick his chin.
“Let’s go,” Mom calls.
“Sorry!” I wipe the little bead of blood off and finish quickly. Then I pat down our hair, pushing it up in front. A little water. A little gel.
“Very Messi-like,” he says, grinning.
I want to race Dad to the car like we used to, but instead we walk super slowly. It gives me time to think about all the jumbled-up stuff going on in my brain.
I want to think about soccer, but instead it’s Maine and stupid new houses and razors and right now.
All the things that almost made me forget that today is a very important day.
Step one in my master plan—the captain’s vote.
A Hero Will Rise
There’s no one I believe in more than you, Golden.
—LUCY LITTLEHOUSE
A few hours later Mr. Mann smiles widely while introducing the first science unit: Human Reproduction.
Mortifying.
I duck my head, pretending to take very detailed notes, but that’s even worse.
“That’s right, my young friends, by the end of the term you’ll know exactly where babies come from. No longer will you have to rely on the knowledge of your friends and bus mates to incorrectly educate you,” Mr. Mann says.
Oscar falls out of his chair, laughing.
“Let’s show some maturity,” Mr. Mann says.
“Sorry,” Oscar says. “My mom says I’m impulsive because of my undeveloped frontal lobe. I’ll eventually grow into it.”
“Let us hope,” Mr. Mann says wryly.
Lucy, Benny, and I are sitting in a row like we always do. “The Three Musketeers” is what Mr. Mann said when we came to class together. But for how long? When the bell finally rings and we’re able to pack up, Lucy tries to talk to me about the captain’s vote, but it sounds like gibberish and my eyes won’t focus. All I can think of is not talking about moving and wanting to talk about not moving at the same time.
I walk through the lunch line in a daze as Gag Me doles out a spoonful of overcooked beets.
“No thanks.”
“You take it, you eat it!”
“But—”
“Next!”
Grimacing, I sit down next to Benny, saving a place for Lucy.
“What’s wrong?” Benny asks.
“Look at my lunch.”
“Peanut butter and jelly?” he offers, handing me half of his sandwich. I’m grateful but I can hardly take a bite.
“What else is up?”
I shake my head.
“Fine, then. Keep your secrets to yourself like you have all summer.”
“I did not!”
“Tell me, then!”
I open my mouth and close it.
“Whatever,” Benny says. “I’ll just go hang with Brady then, if we’re not gonna talk.”
“Okay, fine,” I burst out. “Today is the captain’s vote and I’m trying to focus on soccer, but I can’t stop thinking of how the Dark Lord is planning an evil takeover.”
“So let’s just ask her,” Benny says.
“Tell her we were spying through her window? Uh, super creepy.”
“True,” Benny says. “Still. It’s not
like Lucy wouldn’t tell us.” He pauses. “Let’s say you’re right and she is moving. What are we going to do?”
Lucy and Ziggy arrive at the table at the same time, and Ziggy quickly squeezes next to me in the space I was saving for her.
“Hi, Golden,” Ziggy says. “Who are you voting for today?”
“Benny,” I say. “You?”
“You or Benny.” I swallow soft boiled beets, feeling slightly hopeful.
Lucy and Sunny start talking about summer and how Lucy got such a great tan.
“Maine was amazing,” Lucy says. “We were at the beach almost every day.”
“We?” I interrupt. “As in you and the Dark Lord?!”
Lucy laughs. “He’s actually not that bad.”
“Do you hear this? We gotta keep her from going to the dark side,” I whisper to Benny.
“But, dude,” Benny breathes. “The Dark Lord is almost like her dad.”
“He’s not!” I say just a little too loudly.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” Slick cackles, flicking my ear as he passes.
“Shut up, Slick,” Benny says, halfway rising in his chair.
The lunchroom pauses. Slick glances at Benny and shrinks away.
See that? That’s the power Benny has that I don’t.
The aroma of warm, soggy beets rises as the chatter resumes, offending my sense of smell.
I take a bite of the peanut butter sandwich.
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know yet. But something,” I say, determined.
Even though we’re dealing with a seriously ginormous problem, I’m feeling slightly calmer. Benny and I are on the same side.
We just have to make sure Lucy is too.
* * *
When the final bell rings, we’re out the door and on the field in about five seconds.
“Hi, Coach,” Benny says when she arrives. “We voting today?”
“Today is the day!”
I start clapping my hands, get out the ball bags for the drills, lay down cones with C.J. and Sunny, move the benches with Benny and Paige, find the pinnies and hand them out for the scrimmage. Today, because it’s the captain’s vote, everyone is being a little nicer, a little more helpful.
I try not to think about it, about the fact that my entire season plan rests on the outcome of this vote. I try to never stop moving even though Slick calls me a tryhard about five times and I can hear Brady asking Chase to vote for him and Sunny telling Hannah and Savannah that Lucy would be the best captain even though she missed preseason. I keep moving, and with each movement, the worry melts away a little more until I’m in the zone. Me and soccer, just like it’s always been meant to be.
At the end of practice, when we run sprints, I run hard, leaving worry behind. I run so hard and so fast, I’m in my own personal pain cave by the end.
“That’s right!” Coach is saying as we near the end. “A championship season starts right here and right now.”
Chase and I run neck and neck, neither one willing to be second, reaching the end line at the same time, collapsing on the sideline.
It’s all good until Chase starts wheezing.
“Where’s your inhaler?” I ask quickly.
He shakes his head.
“You forgot it? How can you forget something that makes you breathe?”
Benny crosses the finish line next.
“Dude, help!” I say. “Asthma attack!”
“Inhaler?”
“He forgot it.”
Chase puts his hands on his knees, inhaling like he can’t get enough air, his lungs desperate for oxygen.
“He’s fine,” Benny says, but his voice is way less certain than his words. “He’s always fine.”
“He doesn’t sound fine. He sounds like he’s… suffocating.” I choke out the word.
Suffocation. That’s how most ALS patients die. I looked it up once and I wish I hadn’t. It’s a fact I never allow myself to think of, but suddenly it’s right in front of my face. You slowly suffocate to death because the diaphragm is a muscle. And the neurons that tell the phrenic nerve, which tells the diaphragm to rise and fall, will suddenly stop working. The diaphragm is what lets the lungs fill with oxygen and push out carbon dioxide. If the lungs don’t do this, you don’t breathe. If you don’t breathe, oxygen can’t circulate to the cells in your muscles. You will gasp for air until—
It’s a good thing Chase starts breathing again because I’m about to hyperventilate myself. He suddenly stands upright again and pounds on his chest, willing his lungs to work.
“See?” Benny says, shaking me back to life.
Chase claps me on the shoulder. “See?” Like I’m the one who was just about to die.
We face the field, and I feel my heart continuing to race. I focus on the grass and breathe in, breathe out. The diaphragm, the lungs, the heart. Still working. I have to chill. Captains can’t freak out over stuff like that. I look up just as Moses trips.
Ziggy looks like he’s dragging his feet behind him, not even trying. Archie is trying so hard he’s sweating through his shirt, breathing practically as hard as Chase was, like he wants to go faster, he just can’t. His face is bright red from effort and the blistering heat.
They’re the last three on the field.
“Sucks to be last,” I mumble.
“That’s ’cause they suck,” Slick says, laughing.
“No…,” I say. “It’s like their feet or their ankles or their body or something—they just can’t run as fast. At least they’re trying.”
“What did you say?” Slick asks.
“I said… they’re trying!”
Anger prompts me to do something I’ve never done before: I step off the white sideline.
I take another step, my Battle Packs propelling me forward even though my legs are toast.
I start jogging. At first I don’t even know where I’m going. I just have to get off the line.
“What’s Tiny Tot doing?” I hear Slick say.
“He’s… running,” Lucy says.
I jog until I reach Moses, Ziggy, and Archie.
“Finish!” I say to the guys. “Come on!”
I turn and face the team as I jog with them, wanting to shrink into the grass and disappear. I hate being last. Like really, really hate being last. But I don’t shrink. I raise my chin and face the line.
You know what happens next?
Benny steps off the line.
Followed by Lucy. She starts skipping, then running.
It’s a domino effect. One by one, the whole team begins running too. Even Slick.
As we run I get another idea: I start a slow clap.
It too has a domino effect. Suddenly everyone is clapping with me, gradually getting faster and faster.
We don’t stop clapping until every single one of us is all the way back to the sideline.
Coach blows her whistle. It drops from her mouth.
Her eyes meet mine.
“That,” she says, “was… very cool.”
* * *
After one last water break, Coach hands out little slips of white paper that I tore in half last night, along with every pen I could find. Everyone writes two names: one boy and one girl. My hand is so shaky and clammy I can hardly spell or think.
I hesitate. Would it be so bad to vote for myself? I decide it would, so I hastily write, Benny. And Lucy, of course.
After, we sit on the grass, fidgeting, waiting while Coach counts the votes. I grab handfuls of grass to hold still.
Parents are starting to arrive. I see Mrs. Ho pull into the parking lot, followed by… the Dark Lord. He’s never picked Lucy up. Why’s he always around now? My eyes narrow. Benny elbows me.
“Subtlety,” he says, “is the way of the spy.”
“Bring it in!” Coach says.
I clench my hands. The anticipation makes my toes curl up like Dad’s left hand.
Slick taps the ground impatiently. Even Benny looks nervo
us.
“Team,” Coach says. “You have voted for your two cocaptains.”
I brace myself to hear “Benny” and “Sunny.”
Or “Lucy.”
“Congratulations…,” Coach says, “Lucy Littlehouse.”
Lucy looks surprised as we clap—and super happy. I whoop.
“And your second captain is… Golden Maroni.”
For a half second the world stops spinning. I look around. Is this really happening?
I’m not the only one who’s shocked.
Slick raises his eyebrows sky-high.
But then Archie lets out a war cry that kind of sounds like “Macaroni!”
Ziggy plays air guitar.
Benny lifts me off the ground and shakes me.
And I can tell Mom’s excited but trying to be professional.
It feels unreal, even as the team claps and gathers around.
Captain. The armband.
My eyes find Lucy’s. Cocaptains.
We grin and high-five like ten times.
Dad. I can’t wait to tell Dad.
It’s like the universe is responding to everything I’ve ever wanted. Telling me my plan is going to work. That anything is possible.
You don’t give up on me and I don’t give up on you.
It’s, like, the greatest moment of my life.
I’m Your Captain Now
Everyone sit down. I run this show.
—MESSI DIDN’T SAY THIS. BUT THERE’S A GREAT MEME OF HIM SAYING IT.
The next day, in the boys’ bathroom at Mudbury Middle, I push up my hair all Messi-like, but it’s so long it falls back in my eyes.
I grin at myself in the mirror anyway, reliving the greatest moment ever, over and over.
Benny was a shoo-in. Then again, this summer I spent more time with my soccer ball than I did with humans. Compared to Benny, it feels like I’ve always had to work so much harder to be almost as good, but maybe those ten thousand touches are finally starting to pay off. And deep down inside, I kind of feel like I deserve it. Yeah, life has thrown some suckiness at me, but I didn’t give up. And look what happened? A dream came true.
A Messiquake has exploded into my heart.
Ten Thousand Tries Page 7