Other Title IX books by Barbara L. Clanton . . .
Bases Loaded
Side Out
LIVE LOVE LACROSSE
By
Barbara L. Clanton
© 2016 Barbara L. Clanton
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
978-1-943837-50-2 paperback
978-1-943837-51-9 epub
978-1-943837-93-9 mobi
A Title IX Book
Cover Design
by
Dragonfeather Books
a division of
Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
Fairfield, California
http://www.dragonfeatherbooks.com
Addie Coleburn, fresh out of the sixth grade, is spending the summer at her grandmother’s house in Syracuse with her mother and brother. Kimi Takahashi, a girl who lives up the street, invites Addie to go to the park and play lacrosse. Addie hasn’t the first clue what lacrosse is and would rather sit on Grandma’s front porch eating potato chips, drinking sodas, and reading books. But then again, spending the summer dealing with her younger brother isn’t that appealing, either, so she goes to the park with Kimi. Within a week, she’s hooked on lacrosse. She’s overweight and can’t keep up with the faster stronger girls. She has to find a way to lose her excess weight and lose it fast or risk getting cut from the team.
This work is dedicated to 4Girls Foundation, Inc who supports organizations that it deems helpful to girls, women, families, and communities. Their vision is for all girls and women to be respected and be able to fulfill their true potential. www.4girlsfoundation.org
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the “village” that helps me navigate my life: Family, friends, colleagues, beta readers, and countless others I don’t even know about. A special thanks to Bedazzled Ink for their fun and upbeat approach to publishing.
Chapter 1
Do You Play?
ADDIE SLAMMED HER bedroom door and stomped down the hallway. Troy probably didn’t even hear it, because his death metal music was so freakin’ loud. It was summer vacation and all Addie wanted to do was read the million science fiction books on Grandma’s dusty bookshelves.
Why did she have to share a room with stupid Troy, anyway? She was a year older than him. Why couldn’t she have her own room like she had at home? Oh, yeah, right. Because her stupid parents were in a huge fight, and her mother was so mad, she packed up a bunch of stuff and drove to Grandma’s in Syracuse the day after sixth grade ended. Her dad was still back home in Watertown. Her mom would probably stop being mad soon, so Addie refused to think of her grandma’s house as her new home. Her parents fought sometimes, but they always made up. Always.
Addie flew down the stairs, determined to find a quiet spot to finish her Star Trek book. She only had two more chapters to go and couldn’t wait to see if Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager was going to escape from the mean and ugly Kazon aliens.
“Slow down on those stairs, girl,” her grandmother grumbled from where she sat in her well-worn recliner.
Addie came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of the stairs. “Sorry.”
“I can’t hear myself think around here,” her grandmother flicked a lock of her gray hair out of her face and then leaned forward for her glass of iced tea. The flab under her arm swung back and forth as she did so.
Addie frowned. Why didn’t Grandma yell at Troy about his loud music? Couldn’t she hear it? Grandma and Mom were watching TV, worshipping some hot guy on one of those stupid soap operas Grandma was addicted to. And now Mom was getting addicted, too, after only a couple of weeks. Her mother had set up residence on one end of the couch and looked like she was becoming part of it. Calling them couch potatoes was an insult to potatoes.
Speaking of potatoes. “Mom, do we have any more potato chips?”
“Shhh,” her mother hissed without looking at her. “Go outside.” She waved Addie away with a hand. “Go play.”
“Okay.” Addie slunk toward the kitchen, rolling her eyes as she went.
People said she looked like her mother. Dirty blonde hair, fair complexion, and hazel eyes. She even had the same plump frame and round face like both her mother and grandmother. Troy the jerk’s hair was more ginger, though, and he looked more like their father. They were both lean and strong, but Troy had their mom’s hazel eyes, which could be bad because Addie didn’t want anybody in their grandmother’s neighborhood to know they were related. Hopefully they wouldn’t be there long enough for her to make friends with any of the kids she’d seen playing down the street.
Addie squinted as she stepped into the bright kitchen and headed to the snack cabinet. Victory! The jerk hadn’t snagged the rest of the potato chips. That was the one cool thing about Grandma’s house, there was an entire cabinet dedicated to snacky goodness. With a smirk, Addie grabbed the white no-frills potato chip bag and shut the cabinet door softly. No way did she want Troy knowing she had the chips, because she planned to devour them all by herself. She skipped over to the fridge, pulled out a can of grape soda, and then hoped for a miracle—someplace she could read in peace and quiet.
Book, soda, and chips in hand, Addie eased open the kitchen screen door and stepped onto the front porch. The annoying metal music was still blasting upstairs, but at least it was far enough away that she could hear herself think. That was something Grandma had said a thousand and one times since they arrived, “You kids be quiet. I can’t hear myself think.”
Addie sat down in Grandma’s chair on the screened-in front porch. Grandma called it a glider because it rocked front to back, not like a rocking chair which lifted you up and back. Grandma’s gardening junk sat in a pile in one dark corner, but the rest of the porch was open and airy. Steps led off the porch to the gravel driveway where her grandma’s blue four-door car sat in front of her mother’s awesomely uncool green minivan.
Most of the screens on the porch were torn and flapping in the light breeze, but Addie didn’t care. She’d finally found peace. She pushed the full ashtray away and put her book down on the grimy side table. She munched on a few chips and then popped the top to her soda and took a long swig.
“Ahh.” She sighed. “That’s more like it.”
The stink of the overflowing ashtray ruined the mood a little, so she pushed it further away. It still wasn’t better, but she didn’t feel like getting up to move it to the other side of the porch.
She dug heartily into the chips and scooped up the few that fell in her lap. “Mustn’t waste food,” Grandma always said. As far as Addie was concerned, that included potato chips. With another swig of soda and a satisfying burp, she rolled the top of the crinkly chip bag closed and clipped it shut. She tossed it on the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Then she rubbed her greasy hands on her cutoff denim shorts. Another quick chug of soda and she was ready to find out how Captain Janeway and her crew were going to get out of the mess they were in.
She dug into her book and was deeply mesmerized by the battle with the Kazon when her spider senses tingled. The music. It had stopped. The jerk was probably sneaking up on her. He had recently decided to be a ninja assassin. Fifth graders were so immature. She would have rolled her eyes, but couldn’t. She needed to stay focused. She held the book out in front of her as if she were still reading, and used her side vision to see if she could spot movement. Yep, there he was. Near the stairs to the driveway. She could see the top of his head, covered with a ridiculous black ski cap.
With a yell, Troy leaped up the stairs at her. Addie lunged for the ashtray and flung it at him.
Score! It hit him right in the chest, ashes poofing up everywhere.
“Pfft,” he sputtered, spitting ashes from his mouth. He smacked at his Metallica shirt, trying to get the residue off. “What’d you do that for?”
“’Cuz you’re a jerk.” She didn’t tell him that his whole face was covered with ash.
“You’re such a lardo, you fatty fatso.”
“Hey! Mom said you’re not supposed to call me that.”
“I’m telling.” Troy flung open the kitchen door and ran inside. “Mom!”
“Oh, no,” Addie muttered and leaped up.
Sometimes she didn’t think about the consequences of the things she did. She frantically kicked the cigarette butts under the glider. Then she spotted a broom and dustpan in the dark corner too late. It was just like the one they had at home.
Home. Addie forgot to be afraid of her mother at that moment. Where was her home? Here in stupid Syracuse or back home with Daddy? She sat down hard on the glider. Her chest tightened as her heart broke for the millionth time. Were her parents going to get a divorce? Maybe if she hadn’t fought with the jerk so much, maybe if she’d cleaned her room when her mother told her to, maybe if she had done a thousand other things . . . maybe they could be a family again.
“That was good,” a voice said from the sidewalk. “I think you won that round.”
Addie wiped at her tears and looked up. A girl about her age, wearing running shorts and a tank top, smiled at her from the sidewalk. She recognized the girl. She was one of the neighborhood kids who played down the street. The girl’s long black hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. She held a sports bag in one hand and two weird stick things in the other.
“You saw that?” Addie said with a laugh, although she didn’t really feel like laughing. Her mother might come storming out to yell at her any second.
“Little brothers can be a pain, huh?” The girl smiled. She was kind of exotic looking, like she was Chinese or something.
“No kidding,” Addie said. “Do you have one? A jerk brother?”
“Nah. But my friend Brooke does. I don’t know if he’s a jerk, but he can be a pain sometimes.”
Addie was about to ask the girl about the weird-looking sticks when she heard Grandma yell, “Troy, go upstairs and get cleaned up. You know not to bother us when we’re watching TV.”
Troy started to protest, but her mother interrupted. “Troy, listen to Grandma. Go upstairs and stop picking on your sister. I can’t hear myself think around here.”
“See,” the girl said, “you won.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Hey,” the girl lifted the sticks, “do you play?”
“Play what?”
The girl’s jaw dropped open as if Addie had said the dumbest thing in the world. “Lax.”
Addie still didn’t know what the girl was talking about.
“Lacrosse,” the girl said slowly as if talking to an idiot.
“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Addie hopped down the steps toward the girl.
“It’s a great game.” The girl held her sticks up. “Lacrosse—softball’s bigger, meaner, tougher older sister.”
Addie laughed. She knew only a tiny bit more about softball than she did lacrosse.
“Do you want to come to the park and play with us?” the girl asked. “I have an extra stick you can borrow.” She lifted the sticks higher.
Addie hesitated. She didn’t know this girl standing in front of her grandmother’s house. She didn’t even know where the park was. And she didn’t know if she wanted to play a sport. It was a beautiful June afternoon for reading science fiction. She looked at her book and then at the kitchen door. Crud, why not? It beat hanging around waiting for another ninja attack.
“Let me tell my mom.” Addie turned toward the porch, but then turned back. “Wait, what’s your name?”
“Akimi Takahashi.” The girl held her head high as if proud of her name.
“Is that Chinese or something?”
“Japanese. My father’s Japanese and my mother’s, uh, white. Most people just call me Kimi.”
“That’s cool. I’m Addison Coleburn. Most people call me Addie.”
“Nice to meet you, Addie. So do you want to play?” Kimi turned toward the sidewalk. She was obviously in hurry.
“Okay.” Addie raced up the porch steps and called into the kitchen screen door, “Mom, I’m going to the park with Kimi. I’ll be back for dinner.”
“Okay,” came her mom’s quick reply from the couch.
“That was easy,” Addie muttered and headed back down the steps.
“You’ll like lacrosse.” Kimi linked arms with Addie. “It’s the best game on the planet.”
Chapter 2
But She’s Fat!
ADDIE DID HER best to keep up with the shorter, but faster walking Kimi, but it was getting harder and harder.
“Hey, sorry.” Kimi slowed down. “I always walk fast.”
“That’s okay,” Addie said. “I don’t usually walk.”
Kimi flashed her a puzzled look.
“My mom drives us everywhere.” And it shows, I guess.
“I saw you guys unloading all that stuff from your van last week. Are you moving in? What happened to the grumpy old lady that lived there?”
Addie tried to hide her smile, but wasn’t too successful. “That grumpy old lady is my grandma.” Grandma could be kind of grumpy. “She still lives there. We’re staying with her for a while.”
“How come?” Kimi turned right onto Miner Boulevard. She had slowed down so Addie could keep up, but it was still fast.
Addie didn’t want to say the words out loud, but she had to. “My parents are having a huge fight. They, I don’t know, they might get a divorce.” Okay, so that wasn’t necessarily true, but for some reason she wanted to impress Kimi.
“That sucks.”
“My dad’s still back home in Watertown.”
“That sucks, too. Sorry about the grumpy crack about your grandma. She’s kind of mean to us kids, though. She yells at us to be quiet and not scare the birds at her feeders, but sometimes we have a catch in the street and the ball goes into her yard. We can’t help it.”
Addie didn’t want to bad mouth her own grandmother, so she changed the subject. “So, why do you play lacrosse?”
Kimi stopped walking so abruptly that Addie almost bumped into her. “Why do I play lacrosse?” She turned slowly to face Addie, an almost comical look of disbelief on her face. “Why?” she asked again.
“Yeah, why?” Addie wondered if going anywhere with this girl had been such a good idea. She seemed a little crazy.
Kimi looked down at the ground, her shoulders slumping as if she’d just lost her best friend. “Because to not play lacrosse would be to not live.” A smile crept up her face. “Life is where I visit in between lacrosse games. C’mon,” she pulled Addie along by the arm and started jogging, “Brooke’s waiting.”
Running of any kind wasn’t in Addie’s vocabulary, but she didn’t want Kimi to know that she was out of shape, so she did her best to keep up. They came up to a 7-Eleven, and Addie hoped maybe they could stop and get a candy bar. She had a couple of bucks in her pocket and could buy Kimi one, too. If Kimi would just stop running. Addie couldn’t breathe anymore. She stopped to catch her breath.
Kimi looked back over her shoulder. “Meet me at the park. It’s just up ahead.”
“Okay.” Addie leaned against the glass windows of the convenience store and tried not to look as if she was out of breath. After a couple of minutes, she felt like she could breathe normally.
The door to the store opened and a middle aged man stepped out. He held the door open for her as if she had been about to go in. Why not? She could get two candy bars. One for now and one for later.
After snarfing down a Baby Ruth, she wiped her mouth and ran her tongue across her teeth so the evidence wouldn’t show. She didn’t want Kimi or this Brooke girl to think she was rud
e not offering them any. She tucked the other Baby Ruth into her back pocket snuggly. Hopefully no one would notice the lump back there.
Addie took a more leisurely pace up Miner Boulevard and after what seemed liked forever, finally reached the entrance to Webster Park. A waist-high two-rail wooden fence surrounded the large park, and Addie wished she could stop and play on the swings, but she saw Kimi waving to her from an open field on the other side of the jungle gym. The other girl standing with Kimi was tall and thin and had long strawberry blonde hair pulled back into a braid. That must be Kimi’s friend Brooke. Supposedly Brooke also had a brother, but he was nowhere in sight.
Addie waved back and headed toward her new friends. She navigated her way through the horde of little kids running around the playground.
Addie stepped off the rubber playground surface onto the grass and overheard Brooke say to Kimi, “That’s your new friend?”
“Yeah,” Kimi nodded, “she just moved in on my street.”
“And she’s gonna practice with us?”
“Yeah.”
“But she’s fat.”
Addie’s stomach clenched. Why did that always have to be the first thing people noticed about her?
“So what?” Kimi said. “You’re skinny. Who cares?”
Addie pretended she hadn’t heard the conversation and put a bigger smile on her face than she felt.
“Hey, Kimi,” Addie said as if they’d been friends for twenty years instead of twenty minutes, “this is a nice park.”
“We’re lucky no one’s on the field today,” Kimi said. The grassy field was actually half grass, half dirt. It looked like it got a lot of use. “Hey, Addie, this is Brooke.”
“Hey,” Addie said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Sure.” Brooke flicked her braid behind her. “Likewise.” She plopped to the ground, put the soles of her feet together, grabbed her ankles, and pulled them closer.
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