by Alex Morgan
“He was not,” I protested.
“He’s cute!” Kara said. “I wish somebody that cute would stare at me.”
“Fine, he’s cute,” I admitted. “But I can’t think about stuff like that right now. I need to focus on school and on the Kicks until the season is over.”
“Maybe Steven is thinking about you right now,” Kara teased. “Devin and Steven. It kind of rhymes.”
Then she began to sing, “Devin and Steven. Devin and Steven—”
“No distractions!” I yelled, and then we both collapsed into giggles.
Every time I talked to Kara, I realized how much I missed her. The webcam was nice, but it was just not the same as being with her in person. Sometimes I daydreamed that Kara and her family moved out to California and she joined the Kicks. If that could have happened, I thought my life would have been pretty perfect!
CHAPTER TWO
“Devin!” Frida cried as I walked into the locker room on Wednesday after school. We had a rare afternoon game against the Victorton Eagles. We had lost to the Eagles once before and I really wanted to beat them this time.
Frida was sitting on a bench in front of a row of lockers. “I need inspiration,” she pleaded.
“Oh! I got one!” Emma called as she stuck her head around the row of lockers. “Frida, you can be an alien who is sent undercover to Earth to learn about what life is like for a typical middle school girl. So you join the soccer team and stuff.”
“Hmmmm.” Frida considered this. “Am I an evil alien? Like, am I going to use the things I learn to take over the world?”
“Nah.” Emma shook her head. “You’re peaceful. You’re trying to figure out if humans are ready to know about alien life or if they’ll just freak out. And if you find us worthy, you can share all your awesome alien technology with us.”
“I like that,” Frida said. She closed her eyes tightly. “Okay, need to find my motivation.”
Some people might have thought that Frida was weird. But we’d figured out that if she had a role to play during a soccer game, she’d play a lot better. Whatever worked, right? I left her to it and walked to the next row of lockers, where Emma, Jessi, and Zoe were getting changed.
“Victorton Eagles are going down!” Jessi said with a grin. “I feel like the Kicks are unstoppable!”
“I can’t believe how good we’re doing, especially after how rough the start of the season was, especially for me,” Zoe said, and she shook her head.
“I knew you could do it, Zoe!” Emma cheered. I swore Emma had an endless supply of enthusiasm.
“Yeah, you’ve totally conquered your soccer stage fright,” Jessi said.
Zoe smiled shyly. “Frida’s tricks really work. During the last game I just imagined that everyone in the stands was my mom, and I calmed right down.”
“Can you imagine if everyone in the stands were Maisie?” I joked. “Wait, that might not be so bad. She could annoy the other team into distraction.”
My friends laughed as I sat down on the bench and started pulling my cleats out of my duffel bag. Then a garbled voice sounded over the loudspeaker. “Devin Burke, please report to the main office.”
“Ooooohhhh!” my teammates cried as if I were in trouble.
“But we’ve got a game!” I complained as Coach Flores walked into the locker room.
“Better hustle, then, Devin,” Coach said.
I sighed. I had wasted time talking when I should have been getting my uniform on. And the main office was on the other side of the school! I wondered what they wanted me for. I was sure I wasn’t in trouble for anything. At least, I was pretty sure.
“Okay,” I said to Coach. “I’ll be back soon!”
I sprinted out of the locker room, nearly colliding with Giselle and Grace, and then took off running as fast as I could. Oh, well. I could consider it my warm-up for the game.
I skidded to a halt in the main office, panting.
“My name is Devin Burke,” I said in between breaths. “I was paged over the loudspeaker to come to the office.”
“Ah, Devin.” Mrs. Wolbach, one of the secretaries, smiled at me. “Your mom is on the phone.”
She pointed to a phone on a table in the corner of the office. The receiver was off the hook and sitting on the table.
Why wouldn’t my mom call me on my cell phone? I wondered. That was what she usually did. And she knew I had a game after school today too. I started to get nervous, wondering if everything was okay.
I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
A dial tone hummed on the other end, so I told Mrs. Wolbach.
“Go ahead and call her back,” she said. “Maybe the call got disconnected.”
I quickly punched in my mom’s cell phone number.
“Devin?” My mom sounded surprised when she heard my voice. “Don’t you have a game? Maisie and I are sitting in the bleachers now.”
“Yes, but you called me,” I said. “I mean, the secretary, Mrs. Wolbach, said that you called the main office asking for me. They paged me from the locker room to come and take the call.”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I didn’t call. Maybe they got your name mixed up with someone else?” Mom suggested.
“Maybe, but I gotta go!” I cried. “I’m not even in my uniform yet!”
“Good luck!” Mom said before hanging up.
I quickly told Mrs. Wolbach what my mom had said.
“I could have sworn the woman said she wanted to talk to her daughter, Devin Burke,” Mrs. Wolbach said, and frowned. “That’s odd. There is a boy named Devon Ernst in the sixth grade. I suppose I could have mixed you two up.”
“Okay, but I have to run!” I said. I didn’t want to miss the game!
“Go, and have a great game!” Mrs. Wolbach gave me a smile, and I darted out of the office, running as fast as I could.
I cut outside and ran past the field because I figured it was shorter, plus I didn’t want to get in trouble for running in the halls. The Kangaroos were already on the field, warming up. I had to hustle!
“Hurry, Devin!” Jessi yelled. “We need you out here for the sock swap!”
“I’m coming!” I yelled back as I careened into the locker room. I ran to the bench and went to grab my duffel bag.
Only problem: There was no duffel bag! My cleats were sitting on the bench, right where I had left them, but my duffel bag was missing. In it was the rest of my uniform and gear, and the makings for my lucky pink headband.
Had I put my duffel bag on another bench? I raced up and down the locker room, checking each row. Then I really started to panic and began to open and close all the lockers, slamming the doors shut when I couldn’t find my bag.
Frantic, I ran outside and found Coach Flores.
“Devin! What’s going on?” she asked. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Coach! I can’t find my duffel bag,” I said. “I left it on the bench when I got called to the office, and it was gone when I got back. It’s got everything in it!”
“It’s got to be there somewhere,” Coach said.
I shook my head. “I looked everywhere. I swear.”
“Uh-oh.” Coach frowned. “You can’t play without your team uniform, or without your shin guards.”
“I know!” I wailed. No way did I want to miss a game!
Coach’s face brightened, and she snapped her fingers. “I have an idea! I’ve got a spare uniform, shin guards, and some duct tape. Follow me.”
We ran to her office, and she handed me a blue-and-white Kangaroo uniform, some shin guards, and a roll of black duct tape.
“Quick! Get changed, and when you’re done, meet me on the sidelines. I’ll use the duct tape to put your number on the back.”
I changed in record time. My hands wandered to my head, looking for my pink headband. That was a pregame ritual I had brought with me from Connecticut. Kara and I always wore pink headbands at every game. Not only did they help us stand out, but we were convinced they brought
us luck, too. I let out a big sigh.
“This is the first time I’ll ever play without my pink headband,” I said to Coach when I got outside.
“At least you’ll be able to play,” Coach said. “Now turn around.”
She quickly spelled out my usually lucky thirteen onto the back of my shirt with duct tape.
“All right. You’re good,” she told me. “Don’t worry. We’ll find your bag after the game. Now let’s hurry!”
The game was about to begin, and I looked around at the Kicks’ legs. Everyone was wearing mismatched socks, and I could see I’d missed another pregame ritual, the sock swap. It was something Jessi and I had done together at the tryouts for the Kangaroos. Before long the entire team had joined in. Before every game we got together in a circle and handed one of our socks to the person on our left. Jessi had even come up with a silly way of putting the socks on—for luck, she said. It had worked, because as soon as the entire team had started doing the sock swap together, we’d started improving.
No pink headband. No sock swap. I hoped this wasn’t a bad omen. The confidence I had felt earlier that afternoon began to disappear, and was replaced by a group of hyperactive butterflies flying around in my stomach. Not a good way to start a game!
“What happened?” Jessi asked, eyeing me curiously as we took to the field. “Are you in trouble? And what’s with the uniform?”
“Long story, but I’m not in trouble,” I said. “But my duffel bag—with my uniform, gear, and pink wrap for my headband—are missing. Did you see it?”
Jessi shook her head. “It was there when we left the locker room. I remember that. Right next to your cleats.”
I was totally confused. What had happened to my bag? It hadn’t just gotten up and walked out of the locker room. But before I could try to forget about that and turn my attention to the Victorton Eagles, Jessi dropped a bombshell.
“Don’t freak out,” she warned me. Why do people tell you that? As soon as you hear the words “freak out,” that’s what you do—freak! “But Mirabelle is up in the stands.”
She pointed to a dark-haired girl.
“Oh, great,” I groaned. “Why would she even show up here? She hated being on this team.”
“No idea,” Jessi said. “But if she calls us losers one more time, she’ll have to deal with me.”
Emma walked up behind us. “Mirabelle did us a favor when she transferred to Pinewood. Her negative energy was totally bad for the team. The Kicks are better off without her.”
Mirabelle’s perfect white teeth glistened in the sun as she laughed at something the girl next to her said. Ugh. Had Mirabelle come to intimidate us from the stands?
“And that,” Jessi continued, pointing to the blond girl sitting next to Mirabelle, “is Jamie Quinn, captain of the Riverdale Rams. She and Mirabelle are friends. They met on their travel team.”
Jessi always had a lot of insider info on Mirabelle. That was because not only were they neighbors, but they used to be besties once upon a time. But both Jessi and Mirabelle had changed a lot. They were no longer friends, and often they were openly hostile toward each other. Actually, Mirabelle was openly hostile to a lot of people, not just Jessi.
“They must be here to scope out the competition,” Jessi said, and grinned. “Let’s make ’em worried!”
Easy for Jessi to say, I thought as I suppressed a groan. She hadn’t lost her bag and hadn’t had to make a mad dash across the entire school. This game was already not turning out how I had hoped!
The whistle blew and the game started. I felt a little distracted and had a hard time getting my head in the game at first.
“Offsides!” The ref blew his whistle at me after I zoomed past an Eagles defender, trying to connect with a pass Grace had sent my way.
Ouch. “Sorry, guys,” I said to my teammates.
“No problem, Devin,” Grace answered.
“Kick that ball and make a score. Come on, Kicks, we want to see more!” Emma cheered from the goal as an Eagles striker swooped in with a scoring chance. Emma dove on the ball and stopped it in its tracks.
“Yes!” I called, pumping my fist in the air. Emma grinned and clapped her goalie gloves together.
Once the ball was back in play, I managed to steal a pass. Charging up the field, I heard my teammates shouting “Go, go, go!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an Eagles defender swooping down on me. I turned to get a better look at her, but my hair fell over my eyes, blocking my vision.
Rats! I had been wearing my pink headband for luck for so long that I’d forgot it served a functional purpose too, not just a superstitious one!
The defender took advantage of my momentary blindness and stole the ball from me, spiking it to an Eagles midfielder, who lofted it with ease to a striker. But what the Eagles striker didn’t know was that Frida the alien was playing defense for the Kicks today!
“Sorry, earthling, but you must be immobilized,” she said in a strange, almost robotic voice. The Eagles player, a tall, thin girl with her dark black hair pulled into a high ponytail, got a nervous look on her face. Her eyes grew wide, and she fumbled slightly, losing control of the ball, and Frida quickly took advantage of the situation.
The striker turned to another Eagles player as Frida punted the ball safely away from our goal. “What was that?”
“Don’t worry. That’s Frida. She’s an alien from another planet,” Emma called from the goal. “But she’s totally harmless. She won’t hurt you.”
The Eagles players exchanged anxious glances while the Kicks cracked up. Even though I was feeling flustered from the uniform fiasco, Mirabelle turning up, and my missing headband costing me a goal, I had to laugh at Frida’s antics. The Eagles players had no idea how to deal with an alien on the soccer field!
The action continued, fast and furious. Alandra passed the ball to Grace, who was within striking distance of the Eagles goal. The pass went high, and Grace dove into the ball, slamming it with her head into the goal before landing on her arms in the grass.
The crowd cheered. “Awesome diving header!” Giselle yelled.
“Wow!” I said. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
Grace laughed and shook her head. “I didn’t know I could do that either. I’m so glad I pulled it off.”
Zoe managed to score three goals practically in a row, which caused more excitement.
“Zoe, the scoring machine!” Jessi yelled.
“Way to go, Zoe!” Sarah called, and Zoe gave a shy smile.
At halftime we were up 4–2. I still felt like I didn’t have my act together, so Brianna subbed in for me as a striker. Luckily, my teammates had brought their A games with them, and I watched the action, proud of my team. I was impressed with the way Jessi and Grace worked together, using short passes to move the ball down the field. The Eagles’ defense was lacking in organization, so Zoe and Brianna were on the lookout for an open passing lane. Jessi and Grace moved the ball back and forth, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Finally they spotted it: a break in between two of the Eagles defenders. Jessi had possession of the ball and lofted a kick through the space. Both Zoe and Brianna were waiting for that very moment, and they both carelessly raced to get the ball, forgetting about each other in their eagerness.
Boom! They collided, hard. Zoe tumbled to the ground, putting her hand out to brace her fall. Brianna got control of the ball and punched it past the Eagles goalie. Goal! The final whistle sounded. We had won!
I rushed onto the field along with the other Kicks who’d been on the sideline. Everyone began hugging one another and cheering with happiness.
“We are the Kicks. We can’t be beat, because we got the power to knock you off your feet,” Emma cheered.
“Oh, no!” Jessi groaned as she rushed over to Zoe. “Someone got knocked off their feet, and it wasn’t an Eagle.”
We all watched Jessi race over to Zoe, who was still sprawled in the grass after her collision with Brianna. Coach Flores stood an
xiously over her. Tears streamed down Zoe’s face as she cradled her right arm with her left hand. I ran over there as fast as I could.
“Zoe, are you all right?” I asked.
CHAPTER THREE
Zoe looked pale. “My wrist really hurts,” she said softly.
Just then Zoe’s whole family descended onto the field—her mom, dad, and her three older sisters, who were all petite with strawberry-blond hair, just like Zoe.
Coach Flores turned to us. “Great game, girls. Why don’t you all go change while Zoe’s parents and I evaluate her injury. I’m sure she’s going to be just fine.”
“Bye, Zoe.” Emma kneeled down and kissed her on the cheek. “Feel better!”
The team drifted off the field, calling out get-well wishes to Zoe as we left.
“Poor Zoe!” Jessi said once we were back in the locker room.
“It should have been me instead!” Frida wailed dramatically, throwing a hand onto her forehead.
“No, it was my fault,” Brianna said. She looked upset. “I wasn’t paying attention. Once I saw that you guys got the ball through, that’s all I focused on. I didn’t realize Zoe was going for it too.”
Anna, a seventh grader who was friends with both Brianna and Sarah, put an arm around Brianna’s shoulder. “It was an accident,” she reminded her. “Accidents happen in soccer sometimes.”
“And on the bright side, we did win,” Emma said.
“Maybe, but I’m so worried about Zoe,” Frida said.
Jessi’s eyes narrowed. “It’s that Mirabelle. She probably put a hex on Zoe or something.”
“Mirabelle?” Anna asked, her big brown eyes getting even bigger in surprise. “What does Mirabelle have to do with it?”
At the mention of Mirabelle’s name, a crowd gathered, curious to hear what we were talking about. A lot of people were still mad at her. When she was on the Kangaroos, she called her fellow teammates losers all the time, which was not the best way to make friends.
Jessi filled everyone in. “So Mirabelle was in the stands watching the game, along with Jamie, the captain of the Rams. I bet they put the evil eye on us!”