by Liz Tigelaar
“Let’s go, Lucy. Come on,” Charlie said breathlessly as she passed.
As Lucy jogged back toward the end line, Charlie’s encouragement made her push even harder. Sweat dripped into her eyes, stinging them. This was about more than just soccer. This was about not sitting alone at lunch or getting picked last in gym class. If she made this team, she’d be automatically accepted into a group of twenty girls, anxious to embrace her as one of their own. She’d have friends. They wouldn’t be Annie or any other of the girls she’d known for practically her entire life, but at least she wouldn’t be alone.
Lucy picked up her pace as she ran across the full length of the field. She didn’t care how many suicide sprints she had to do, or how many squat jumps, or how many times she’d have to stop the ball with her chest. She was going to make this team if it killed her.
four
On Friday, Lucy felt as though things were definitely looking up—with soccer, with school, with everything. She’d finally figured out the trick to getting her frequently jammed locker open (kicking it three times in the lower right-hand corner) and she knew the fastest way to all her classes—sometimes going outside and walking around the periphery of the school was actually better than trying to weave her way through the crowded hallways.
In study hall, Lucy sat down at a table in the cafeteria by herself. She took out Madame Bovary so she’d look engrossed in something. Suddenly, Benji, the Afro’d kid from gym, slid into one of eight open seats at her table.
“This seat taken?” he joked.
Lucy smiled. “Uh … let me think….” She paused, then answered, “No.”
As he sat, she noticed he was wearing a football jersey. “Whose back did you steal that off?” she joked, playfully because really, Benji didn’t exactly fit the mold of your stereotypical football player.
“Very funny,” he said sarcastically.
“Wait …” Lucy realized. “Are you actually on the team?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m on the team. You’re not the only hard-core athlete around here. I’ve seen you out on the soccer field.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself hard-core,” she confessed.
“Maybe medium-core?” Benji offered.
“Is that like medium rare?” Lucy joked, taking a sip of her Diet Coke.
Benji gave her a funny look. “Do you even know what we’re talking about right now?”
Lucy giggled. “I have no idea.” She liked how sweet and friendly he was. Funny, too.
Benji smiled. “So, how’re you enjoying gym class?” he asked. “Dodgeball to your liking?”
Lucy shrugged. “What’s not to like about standing against a wall waiting to be decapitated by a girl who looks like a corpse?”
“Are you talking about Morbid? The emo chick from class?” Benji stood up. “Come with me to the vending machine?”
Lucy stood and followed him. They continued their conversation. “What’s her deal? I’m not gonna lie—she kind of freaks me out.”
“Don’t let her. Her real name’s Nancy.” Benji inserted quarters. “After you. We’ll share.”
Lucy surveyed her options. “Thanks.” She pressed B3 for Doritos. Forget Cool Ranch. Nacho Cheese were her favorite.
Benji shoved a few more quarters in and looked back at Lucy. “Anything else?”
She pressed D4. A Twix dropped down. Benji handed it to her and gave her the lowdown on Morbid.
“Last year,” he explained, “she was obsessed with plaid skirts, and white button-downs tied under her boobs, and pigtails. It was very Britney circa 1999. Then, apparently, over the summer, she started wearing all black and changed her name to Morbid.”
“Weird,” Lucy commented as they sat back down.
“And she’s not even the weirdest,” Benji pointed out. “Let’s see, at Beachwood, you’ve got the classics: your jocks, cheerleaders, band geeks, burnouts … then it gets a little tricky. You’ve also got the crunchy granolas, the Wiccan freaks, and, weirder than the emos, the emo wannabes.You’ve got your divas, your divos, then your syrup heads—”
Lucy took a wild guess. “Kids who like pancakes?”
Benji shook his head. “Kids who down cough syrup like it’s Red Bull.” Lucy pushed the Doritos toward him. He popped a chip into his mouth, then dug into the Twix. Lucy had already eaten her half.
“So … big plans tonight?” he asked.
She considered thoughtfully. In the two weeks she’d lived in Malibu, she’d had a total of zero plans. “I don’t really have plans,” she admitted.
“Well, you know, it’s our season opener tonight. Our first home game—” Suddenly, the bell rang. Study hall was over. “If you want to come, there’s a party after at Ryan’s… .”
Lucy gulped. “Wait. Ryan Ryan?” As in, CUTE Ryan from English class?
Benji continued. “Yeah, there’re always parties after games. Usually just the cheerleaders and football players, but we can invite people. You could even bring some of your friends.You know, whatever …”
Some of her friends? Unless Annie could make it from Toledo, she didn’t know who she’d ask.
“I only joined the team this year,” Benji explained. “So I don’t really fit in with that whole football crowd yet… .”
Lucy had the feeling that even if Benji were on the team for a million years, he still wouldn’t fit in with that crowd.
“Here, just call me if you’re coming,” Benji said, grabbing her cell phone. He quickly programmed his number in and then called his own phone so he’d have her number as well.
“That’d be great.” Lucy smiled.The bell rang again, and together, they rushed out of the cafeteria doors.
“We could meet after the game. I could drive you over there and then drive you home,” he said hurriedly, as they were swallowed up by a sea of students.
“Yeah,” Lucy said excitedly. “That’d be great. The party sounds awesome.” And the fact that it was at Ryan’s was even more awesome.
As Benji smiled and took off in the opposite direction, Lucy saw Max and Pickle at their lockers. Suddenly, she had an idea. She’d overheard Pickle talking about how much she wanted to go to a football party. Here was a chance to make her dream come true!
“Hey, you guys,” Lucy said as she approached them.
Pickle turned around. “Hey, Lucy.” She smiled.
“Um … I know we don’t know each other that well yet … so I hope it’s not weird, you know, that I’m asking this but—would you want to go to Ryan’s party tonight?” she asked tentatively, then turned to Max. “Both of you?”
Pickle and Max’s jaws dropped practically in unison.
“Are you serious?” Pickle gasped.
Max looked confused. “I thought those parties were only for football players and cheerleaders.” She downed a grape Pixy Stick. Her tongue was chronically purple.
“Yeah,” Pickle agreed. “Everyone says it’s invite-only.”
Lucy nodded. “I know. But Benji just invited me and said I could bring whoever I wanted.”
Pickle threw down her backpack in mock annoyance. “Seriously, I’m going to kick that boy’s ass. Why didn’t he invite me?”
Lucy couldn’t help but be surprised. “Are you and Benji friends?” she asked.
“Just friends,” Pickle admitted. “That was kind of the problem.” Pickle explained that last year Benji’d had a serious crush on her. “He’s such a sweet guy. But kind of the type of guy you’re friends with. Not the type of guy you date.”
Lucy nodded, sort of getting it. Benji had that chronic “I just want to be friends” vibe. Pickle had probably broken his heart and he was still bummed about it.
“Well, what d’ya say? You guys want to come with?” Lucy asked.
Pickle thought quickly. “Well, Charlie was gonna drive us to the game … but maybe she could pick you up too and we could all go to the game together… .”
“But Charlie won’t want to go to the party,” Max in
terrupted. “No way.”
“Why?” Lucy asked. “She knows she’s a lock on the team.” Tomorrow was the final day of Hell Week, when all the decisions would be made. They all needed to get a good night’s sleep.
“It’s not because of tryouts,” Pickle said, biting her lip. Max nodded knowingly. Lucy wasn’t sure what they were talking about. Suddenly, she had an idea.
“I bet Benji would drive us to the party and then home after,” she offered. “And seriously, bring as many friends as you want—whoever!”
Pickle clapped her hands together. “Awesome! This is so cool!” She pounced on Lucy and engulfed her in a giant hug. “You’re the greatest!”
Lucy beamed, glancing from an elated Pickle to a suddenly worried Max.
“What’s wrong?” Pickle asked, noticing too.
Max sighed. “I just need to figure out what to do about my parents… .”
Suddenly, the color drained out of Lucy’s face. She’d been so excited at the prospect of winning over Pickle and Max that she’d forgotten about one huge obstacle that came in the form of a 6’, one-hundred-and-ninety-pound man: her dad.
“You are not going to a party thrown by someone you don’t know and whom I have never even met,” her dad said sternly as they were eating dinner in front of the television. Her mom never allowed them to eat anywhere but the kitchen or dining room table. And certainly never in front of the TV. But it was Friday night in the Malone house, and rules were relaxed. Well, some of them.
“Why not?” Lucy whined. She had a precautionary ice bag over each ankle and was propped up on the couch.
Her dad responded matter-of-factly. “Because you’re fifteen years old.”
“I’m almost sixteen!” she pleaded. “I’ll be sixteen in two months! What’s the difference?”
“The difference is, you can go to parties like that when you’re sixteen. And I talk to the parents first.”
Lucy threw down her napkin. One of the ice bags fell to the floor. “It doesn’t make any sense! This is, like, globally unfair!” she complained, repeating what she’d heard Max say in the van.
Her dad looked at her oddly. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Lucy tried to remain calm. She wanted to scream, It means you’re totally ruining my life! But instead she simply said, “Dad, look. People are counting on me—you really expect me to tell them I can’t go because I’m fifteen and ten months?”
“See?” her dad said. “You do get it.” Lucy threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “Luce, you can go to the game with your friends tonight and then be home when it’s done. How long does a high school game take? A couple of hours?”
Lucy had no idea. She didn’t know the first thing about football. All she knew about it was that there was a game tonight … and she was supposed to be there.
“But Dad …” she protested. She couldn’t believe this. She wished her mom were there to talk some sense into him. Like the time when her dad didn’t think she was old enough for sleepaway camp. Or the time Billy Miller asked her out on a group date to a movie and her dad said no. Her mom had told her dad that they were going out for a girls’ dinner and instead had taken Lucy to the movies to meet Billy and her friends. Sure, her mom stayed and watched the movie too, but from the opposite side of the theater, far enough away that she couldn’t tell Lucy and Billy were holding hands. Or maybe she could. Either way, she’d let Lucy go, and that was the point. Her dad was never going to let her go … anywhere!
“Why do you get to make all the decisions?” Lucy protested. She took a deep breath and mustered her courage. “If Mom were here …” She barely got half of the sentence out before her dad grabbed the remote and turned up the volume on CSI-something. New York, Miami, Topeka—whatever.
Lucy sighed. She should have known that strategy wouldn’t work. Any mention of her mom seemed to make her dad shut down.
“Fine,” Lucy said sullenly. She dropped her plate on the coffee table, grabbed her ice bags, and hobbled to her room, slamming her bedroom door for emphasis.
Miserable, she collapsed onto her bed. She couldn’t just sit here and do nothing! Pickle and Max were counting on her for this party. She wasn’t going to let them down.
An hour later, Lucy stood in a pile of clothes, having taken everything out of boxes. Now her entire wardrobe was scattered around her bedroom. After two emergency phone calls with Annie, she’d come up with a plan.
“Haven’t you ever heard of car trouble?” Annie had asked. “I mean, it’s not your fault if Benji gets a flat, right?”
“Wrong. My dad’s gonna see right through that,” Lucy complained. She was a terrible liar.
“Okay, it’s simple. After the game, just go to the party. You can get Pickle and Max settled—what’s with these names, by the way?—then as soon as they’re good, you can sneak out.” It was a good idea, but Annie was forgetting one thing.
“Well, how am I supposed to get home?” Lucy challenged.
Annie sighed. “Does California not have cabs?”
Lucy laughed. “Oh, right.”
“What would you do without me?” Annie asked. “You’d be so lost.”
“No, I’d just ask the cab driver,” Lucy joked. She hadn’t wanted to admit that she was totally lost without her best friend. And that she didn’t even care that much about the party, Ryan or no Ryan. What she cared about most was having someone to go to the party with.
And now, thanks to Annie, she had the perfect plan; what she needed next was the perfect outfit. Jeans? A skirt? A cute little sundress? Nothing seemed right for her first Friday night out in California.
Suddenly, she heard a honk out front. Charlie and the girls were already there! She quickly threw on a faded pair of jeans and a tight red Urban Outfitters T-shirt that read LITTLE MISS TROUBLE, and wrapped a long, glittery pink scarf around her neck. Perfect or not, it would have to do.
It was halfway through the fourth quarter (apparently there were four quarters in football), and the home crowd had just erupted in cheers as Beachwood scored against Madison. And now, according to Pickle’s play-by-play explanations, Beachwood had closed a big gap.
“We’re only trailing by nine!” Pickle yelled. “We can win this!” Cheering wildly next to Lucy, Pickle seemed to personify school spirit and enthusiasm. “Go Beachwood!” she shrieked. “We got this!”
Max and Lucy exchanged amused glances. Charlie, Carla, and a few other girls from the team sat on the bleachers right below them.
“Who’s hungry?” Charlie asked. Then she said dryly, “Oh, right—me.” Carla laughed and interlaced her arm through Charlie’s.
“I could eat,” she said. “Something warm. I swear, it’s fifteen degrees colder at the beach than in my neighborhood.”
As Charlie and Carla headed to the snack stand, Max turned to the girls.“Hey, if we don’t make the soccer team, maybe we should go out for cheerleading.”
Pickle hit her lightly in the arm. “Don’t even think it!” she warned. “We are so making the team.”
Lucy laughed as the girls’ playful argument was drowned out by the marching band playing in the stands.There was one tuba that sounded so off, Lucy wondered if its owner was actually playing a different song. She tilted her head to get a better look at the cheerleaders who stood on the track that encircled the field, as they gyrated and thrust their hips. Lucy couldn’t help but be mildly impressed.
She recognized Regan, the whatever girl, leading the charge. A few of the second-string players on the bench seemed more interested in Regan than in the game.
“Regan Holder,” Pickle pointed out. “She’s a barracuda in lipstick. Avoid her like the plague.”
“She’s in my English class,” Lucy mentioned. “Do you know her?”
“All I know,” Pickle whispered as she leaned in close to Lucy, “is that Charlie hates her guts.You can’t even spell Regan’s name around Charlie without smoke coming out of her ears….” Suddenly, Pickle noticed somethi
ng on the field. “Interception! Woo-hoo!” she cheered, bouncing up and down.
“What happened with Charlie and Regan?” Lucy asked when the crowd noise had quieted down.
“I don’t know the whole deal, because I wasn’t at Beachwood yet,” Pickle continued, “but I guess they were best friends for, like, ever, and then one day, Regan just kind of dropped Charlie.”
Lucy wanted to hear more but stopped talking so she could watch Ryan—gorgeous, even wearing his football helmet—throw a fifteen-yard pass on the field. Mrs. Lucy Conner, Lucy thought. It had a certain ring to it.
“Hey.” Pickle nudged Lucy in the side.“I think he likes you.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “What? Really?” she asked. On the field, Beachwood was going to attempt a thirty-yard field goal to tie the game.
“Yeah,” Pickle said. “Look how he’s staring.” Lucy glanced around, confused. Ryan wasn’t even facing in her direction. And suddenly, she figured out what Pickle meant. She was talking about Benji, who was looking right at her.
He gave her an inconspicuous wave. Both Pickle and Lucy happily waved back.
“He doesn’t like me,” Lucy protested. “He’s just being friendly.”
Pickle shrugged. “Whatever you say.”
At that moment, the whole crowd groaned. Benji and the girls simultaneously turned their attention back toward the field. It was fourth down, and Beachwood’s placekicker, Matt, had approached the ball for an attempted field goal at the thirty-five-yard line but had been cut down by a player on the other team.
“That’s roughing!” Beachwood’s coach screamed, irate. “Roughing the kicker!”
“Fifteen-yard penalty to Madison,”the referee announced. “Automatic first down, Beachwood.”
“What just happened?” Lucy asked. She knew next to nothing about football.
“Because of the penalty, we move up to Madison’s twenty,” Pickle explained. “You have to move at least ten yards in four tries, then their team gets the ball. If you do ten yards or more—you get four new tries to move again.You’re only on your first down,” Pickle explained. She paused. “Is any of this making sense?”
Lucy shook her head. “Not really.” Luckily, she didn’t have to understand pass plays and yard lines. She needed to know throwins and corner kicks.