by Cari Simmons
My legs, arms, and stick began to work together. Faster and faster, I moved the ball upfield. I spotted Miranda in a yellow pinny off to my right side, so I darted left.
“Molly!” Roseann cried.
I was on fire! I heard Roseann cheering, and that pushed me even faster.
Grace was upon me now. She stood a head taller than me. No way is she stopping me, I thought. No way!
I faked left, but she moved with me. Time to show Roseann what I can do, I thought, eyeing the goal nervously. Barreling past wasn’t an option, so I got creative. Tapping the ball to the right, I sprang into a split leap, startling Grace. She gaped at me as I sailed past her in the air. I landed by the ball and took it up towards the goal.
Ha! I bet she’d never seen a player do a gymnastics leap before.
Footsteps pounded on the field behind me. My name was called over and over. I felt the power of my team as they surrounded me. I charged forwards. Roseann ran up my right side, ready to help. The new Dynamic Duo. Time to score!
With a burst of energy, I sped towards the goal. I pulled my stick back wide. Power, I thought. Power it in!
I had to make this shot.
Fiona ran in to defend their goal. Her dark eyes widened as I gave my most awesome swing. I heard my stick connect. The ball soared powerfully through the air . . . and far from the goal. My stick kept moving, and I lost my grip.
I watched in horror as my heavy wooden stick spiraled sideways into the sky—right for Roseann’s head!
CHAPTER 11
I screamed and screamed as the stick boomeranged straight for Roseann.
Grace leaped into action. She dove and flung her arms around Roseann’s waist, pulling them both to the ground.
The stick whizzed by. My screams echoed throughout the park.
We all raced to where the two girls lay panting.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” I repeated. I felt awful.
“I’m fine.” Roseann sounded shaken, but she wasn’t hurt.
“Grace, you saved Roseann from being beheaded by Molly’s stick!” Miranda patted Grace on the back. Everyone cheered for Grace. Roseann hugged her.
“Never, and I mean never, do you raise your stick above your waist!” Coach Nicki scolded me. Her face was red.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I got carried away. And then, I guess, my stick got carried away too.”
No one laughed at my lame joke. Especially not Roseann. The girls gathered around her as if she’d just survived a plane crash. I gazed where the stick had landed, several feet away. By my guess, it would have missed her even if Grace hadn’t tackled her to the ground.
I decided to keep this calculation to myself.
Coach Nicki pulled me aside. “I’m thinking you may not be ready for the team just yet. We should have you join a clinic or take a few lessons.”
“I could do that,” I agreed. “Then maybe later I could be on the team.”
“No! You have gymnastics. You can’t give that up.” Roseann came up behind us. The rest of the team trailed her.
“No offense, Molly, but I’m not sure field hockey is your thing,” Grace added.
“She is supergood at gymnastics,” Miranda told Coach Nicki.
“I got that sense on the field.” Coach Nicki winked at me. “It’s great to do a sport that you love.”
Did I love gymnastics? I knew I didn’t love field hockey. I wanted to be on a team with Roseann, but this might not be the best way to go.
“Give your pinnies to Chrissy,” Coach Nicki instructed. “Good practice, girls. See you all next week.”
Not me, I thought. I listened as Grace and Roseann recounted Grace’s heroic save. Joining field hockey hadn’t gone as I’d planned. It certainly hadn’t brought Roseann and me closer. But I guess that’s what happens when you nearly take off someone’s head.
Trudging to the sidelines, I spotted my brother standing alongside Chrissy. He smirked at me, and I knew he’d seen it all. Boy, would Alex tease me tonight!
Great. Just what I needed.
Alex didn’t stay home long enough to tease me. He dropped me off, then disappeared.
“What’s with the mystery?” I asked Mom later in our backyard. “Why wouldn’t he tell me where he’s going?”
Mom hunched over and pulled a hoe through a big section of dead grass. “He went to the library to help a friend study.”
“What friend? Who’s his friend?” I demanded. How was my shy brother making all these friends already?
“I don’t know, honey.” She grunted as she dug out the weeds. “I wished he’d stayed and helped. I wanted to lay the seed tonight too.”
“I can help,” I offered. Mom hadn’t noticed that I was home earlier than I’d normally be if I were at the gym. She was too focused on pulling up our backyard and planting grass seed. She said she’d always dreamed of a lush, green yard filled with flowers and walkways.
“Once our yard blooms, this house will feel cozier and settled,” she explained.
I knelt beside her and used my hands to yank out the stubborn weeds.
“We could plant a vegetable garden in that corner.” Mom pointed towards the fence.
“That would be fun, but don’t you need to know how?” I looked around our yard. The old grass had been mostly pulled up, leaving behind a field of tan dirt. “Do you have any idea how to turn all this dirt to food?”
“We’ll figure it out together. All three of us. The Larsen farmers!” She hacked with the hoe. “Alex promised to help with the yard this month for gas money.”
“Good luck with that,” I quipped. “He’s never around anymore.”
Mom regarded me. “I didn’t think you’d care. You two bicker so much when you’re together.”
I shrugged. “It’s not so bad. It’s just what we do.” The house felt quiet without him.
“You know, I could track down that woman at work and get her daughter’s phone number for you. Sheila, I think her name is. You could text her.”
Sheila. I imagined a girl my age in the tailored dresses Mom wears to work. A mini-businesswoman with heels and her hair pulled into a bun. She and I would not get along.
“I don’t need it, Mom. I’m making great friends already.” Even if things weren’t going totally smoothly with Roseann, I wasn’t going to blow it! She and I had bonded this afternoon at her house. I told Mom about Roseann and her sisters. She was happy for me.
After Mom had gone upstairs to take a shower, I sat at the patio table with my computer to video chat with Eden. I told her everything, minus the bit about the Olympics. When I gave a play-by-play of the flying stick, Eden doubled over with laughter. I joined in with my hiccup laugh.
“Funniest story ever,” Eden said.
“Roseann didn’t think so.”
“She was just surprised. Of course she thinks it’s funny,” Eden said. “Tell me more about her house.” Eden was fascinated with all things Bleeker. From all the way across the country, she’d caught the Bleeker bug, just like every kid in my new town.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Eden said after we reviewed the entire afternoon. “I’m begging my mom to let me visit you as a Christmas gift.”
“Yoo-hoo! Hey, Molly!” Shrimp bellowed from somewhere behind the fence.
“What’s that?” Eden asked.
“Shrimp’s calling. Remember the tiny girl on the trampoline that I told you about?” I stood. “Hey, Shrimp!” I yelled.
“Is she friends with Roseann?” Eden asked.
“I don’t think they’re close, but Roseann is friends with everyone. Besides, Shrimp kind of does her own thing. I’m going to go see what she wants. Talk later, okay?”
“Okay, but remember the next part of the plan. Be happy. Be the nicest girl on the planet. Go out and get Roseann.”
“Got it, Dr. Eden!” I logged off and hurried to the corner of the fence. “Shrimp! You there?”
“Yep, just practicing your favorite game,” Shrimp r
eplied.
“What’s that?”
“Hmmmm . . . limbo? Pole vaulting? I know it’s something”—Shrimp chuckled—“with a flying stick.”
“Oh, no!” I groaned. “You heard about that already?”
“It’s awesome! Did you even score?”
“Not even close,” I admitted.
“And I thought I was the worst at team sports! Want to do flips on my trampoline with me?”
“Yes!” I cried, relieved that Shrimp didn’t find the field hockey mess up a big deal. Hopefully Roseann felt the same. “How do I get to you?”
“I live on Royal Oak Drive. You have to go down your street, across Maple, and then down my street,” Shrimp told me through the fence.
“My mom’s in the shower. She won’t let me walk around the new neighborhood by myself yet. I guess I’m stuck here tonight. If only this fence wasn’t so high . . .”
“Could you climb it?”
“If I had a ladder or a rope,” I said.
“I have an idea. Wait there!” I heard Shrimp run off.
Five minutes later, she returned. She made a few grunting sounds.
“What’s going on?” I hated not being able to see.
“Almost done,” Shrimp said. “I need to make sure these knots are tight.”
“What knots? What are you doing?”
“Catch this!” Shrimp called.
A huge piece of pale pink fabric sailed over the high fence. I grabbed the end and pulled it towards me. The fabric kept coming and coming. Pink, then beige, then yellow, then white, like an enormous never-ending magician’s scarf. “What is this thing?”
“I tied a few bedsheets together. Pretty smart, huh? You can use it as a ladder. I tied some extra knots along the way.”
“It’s genius!” I gave it a tug.
“My end is tied to a tree. Can you shimmy up? If you don’t want to, I can climb to you.”
“Oh, I’m coming! I’m not scared. Ready?”
“Ready, spaghetti! I’m holding on too,” Shrimp called.
I scaled the sheet ladder the same way we had to climb the ropes in gym class. Holding on to the sheets tightly with my hands, I wrapped my feet around the bottom. I used my arm strength and the knots to pull myself up. The sheet ladder swayed as I inched my way up. Twisting around at the top, I shimmied down Shrimp’s side of the fence.
Shrimp cheered when I landed. Her yard was the same size as mine, but with lots of flower beds and shrubs. Together we scrambled onto her big, round trampoline. At first we just bounced. Then we competed to see who jumped the highest. Shrimp could really fly!
“Try this,” she said. She did a front somersault into a half twist.
“Wow! You’re good.” I completed it on the third try.
We did front and back tucks. We timed them together, jumping as a pair. We even made up a routine.
“I looked for you in the gym today,” Shrimp said as we flipped. “You ditched for field hockey, I guess.”
“Big mistake!” I did a split jump.
“Try it touching your toes.” Shrimp split her legs and stretched her fingers to her toes.
“Anyway, Andre was probably happy to have a break from me,” I said. “I kind of needed a break too.”
“Gymnastics isn’t good?” Shrimp asked.
“It’s not what I thought it would be.” I touched my toes in the split jump.
“What did you think it would be?”
I thought it would be fun, like in my old gym in Arizona. I thought my teammates would encourage me, like my old teammates did. I thought the coach would praise me, like Daria did. I thought I’d be good enough to train for the Olympics and then I wouldn’t have to feel as if I misled Roseann.
I didn’t say any of this out loud. Instead I answered, “I just thought it would be different.”
“You have two choices.” Shrimp did a front tuck. “You can quit.”
“I’m not a quitter,” I said forcefully.
“I didn’t mean that.” Shrimp stopped jumping. “Or, choice two—our cheer coach says when something is hard, you just have to work harder.”
“That’s what I’m going to do. Work harder.” The sky darkened as the sun set. “What’s that noise?”
“I don’t hear anything.” We sat back-to-back on the trampoline and listened, quiet, catching our breaths.
“All that chirping and trilling,” I said. “It’s so loud.”
“The crickets? Or the tree frogs?”
“No idea. Night never sounded like this at home.”
“I don’t even hear it. We moved to Hillsbury when I was four.”
“Four was probably easier than twelve.” I rested my head on my knees.
“Probably,” Shrimp agreed. “I remember being scared of the grass. Isn’t that crazy? We came from New York City. I hated how the grass felt all prickly on my bare feet.”
“My mom really wants grass. She’s trying to grow it in our backyard.”
“Can’t be that hard. Look around. Everyone has it.” Shrimp waved her arms at her own yard, covered in shadows as dusk fell.
“Lots of times at night, we’d hear coyotes howling,” I told her.
“Really? C.J. would freak out. He’d be hiding in my parents’ bed. No, under it!” Shrimp rubbed her palms together. “I’m so going to howl at his bedroom door tonight.”
“That’s not nice,” I scolded.
“True. But it’s funny, and he really does like it. It’s what we do, you know?”
I thought about me and my brother. “Yeah,” I told her. “I do know.”
The crickets chirped ever louder in the trees. “I need to climb back over the fence before my mom finds out where I went,” I said.
“I need to return the sheets to the closet before my mom finds out what I did,” Shrimp agreed.
I jumped off the trampoline. Shrimp found a stepladder in her garage. We flung the knotted sheets back over the fence. With the ladder and the sheets, I was able to twist over the top and slide back into my yard.
“Bye-bye, french fry!” Shrimp called into the darkness.
“Good night, Shrimp.”
Later, as I lay in bed listening to the crickets, I thought about Roseann. When Eden and I had planned out being friends with the It Girl, it’d seemed easy. A big smile. A few jokes. Instant friendship.
But in real life, it was not so easy. Not really.
I thought about Shrimp’s coach’s words: The harder it is, the harder you have to work.
The next week, I worked hard at being happy, just as Eden suggested. Her mother had written on her blog that happy people are attracted to other happy people. She said friendliness goes a long way. I planned to out friendly Roseann. Or, at least, be equally as friendly.
When Roseann said she liked my periwinkle nail polish, I loaned her the bottle. I complimented her on her oral report in social studies, because she really did do a great job. I cheered extraloudly for Miranda during the fifty-yard dash in gym. I offered to throw away Grace’s trash at lunch when I stood to dump mine. I went back to the gym. I worked on my beam moves with Nastia without complaining.
No one talked about the field hockey stick near miss.
Everyone stopped calling me Ugga Bugga except Lyla, not that I cared about her.
But the strangest thing was that Roseann didn’t mention the article. Could she have forgotten about it? I wondered. Did she decide to write something else?
“Um, what’s going on with the article?” I whispered on Wednesday morning, leaning towards her desk in social studies.
“Kate said I should write a draft with the information you gave me, then interview you again to fill in the holes,” she whispered back. “I’m still writing. I think it’s good, though. Mrs. Murphy’s going to be impressed.”
I couldn’t let her do all that work and then drop the bomb that I wasn’t going to the Olympics.
Even though I was trying hard, I didn’t think that I’d ever be going. Unless
it was as a spectator.
“I have to talk to you,” I said.
“Quiet, girls,” Mrs. Murphy called. “Filling in your Europe map is an individual assignment.”
I hurried to lunch early that day, hoping to catch Roseann. Shrimp waved, but I was too nervous to go over. I rehearsed three different ways to tell Roseann that my Olympic dreams had all been a joke. Nothing sounded good.
I have to do this fast, I decided. Rip off the bandage as soon as she walks in.
Roseann arrived with Ms. Fairley, the Earth Science teacher with the cat’s-eye glasses, and a tall boy I didn’t know. They talked about a car wash for hurricane victims. I waited impatiently. By the time she finished and had greeted a bunch of other kids, our table had filled up.
Roseann bit into her sandwich, and I peeled back the foil from my strawberry yogurt. I didn’t need an audience. I’d have to find Roseann alone later.
“We need to win,” Grace announced over the roar of the lunchroom. “We need to finish the dance.”
“There’s a winner for each grade, right, Roseann?” Miranda asked.
I poked my plastic spoon into the yogurt and leaned forwards to hear better.
“Yes. Kate won in sixth grade, but she didn’t win last year. Her eighth-grade group has been practicing a lot. They’re singing a song with three-part harmony,” Roseann reported.
“We can sing too.” Fiona straightened her blue-framed glasses.
“Not me. I look horrible when I sing,” Miranda confided. “We should stick to dancing, so we can look pretty.”
“Look pretty for what?” I finally asked.
“The fall talent show is Friday, in front of the whole school. It’s a big deal,” Roseann explained.
“We want to win,” Grace put in.
“Competitive much?” Miranda teased.
Grace wanted to win at everything. I’d figured that out already.
“We had a big sleepover this summer and choreographed a dance. Well, most of it. We need to practice,” Roseann explained.
“That sounds cool,” I said, twirling my spoon into the pink yogurt.
“We don’t have much time,” she added, “especially since we have to fix it up for the six of us.”