Nancy Clancy, Soccer Mania

by Jane O'Connor

  DEDICATION

  To Coach Adam, Nora, Zoe,

  and all the other Green Goblins of Brooklyn.

  From your biggest cheerleader!

  —J.O’C.

  To Will and Alex—

  who are great sports and great at sports!

  —R.P.G.

  CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1: NANCY’S GOAL

  CHAPTER 2: ALMOST A SPORTS INJURY

  CHAPTER 3: DRIBBLING

  CHAPTER 4: J-J-JITTERS

  CHAPTER 5: EARLY-MORNING MANICURES

  CHAPTER 6: THE HORNETS ATTACK!

  CHAPTER 7: CHEERLEADING

  CHAPTER 8: ANOTHER SPORTS INJURY

  CHAPTER 9: ALMOST HALLOWEEN

  CHAPTER 10: SEASON FINALE

  CHAPTER 11: TWO MORE SPORTS INJURIES

  BACK AD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  CREDITS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Soccer practice had just ended.

  “All I want is to be mediocre,” Nancy told Bree. Mediocre meant being average, or in the middle. “That’s not asking much. I’ll never be great. But I hate being terrible.” Nancy sighed. “Mediocre. That’s my goal.”

  “You are mediocre,” Bree assured her. Then she said in a whisper, “Clara is way worse than you. So is Yoko. So is Tamar. Well—” Bree stopped to think about that some more. “Actually, you and Tamar are tied.” That was one of the superb things about Bree. Nancy could always count on her best friend to be completely honest.

  “No, Bree,” Grace butted in. “Nancy is worse than Tamar.”

  Nancy could always count on Grace to listen in on private conversations. It was like her ears had superpowers!

  “Nancy, face it. You can’t dribble. You don’t have any control of the ball. And you get so scared whenever somebody kicks it to you. You’re like—” Grace put her hands in front of her face and trembled as if she were watching a horror movie. “And you’re scared of falling. Look how clean you are!”

  Grace’s T-shirt and shorts were covered in grass stains. Nancy’s were spotless.

  Grace was right. But the way she pointed out stuff wasn’t the same as how Bree did.

  “You and I are tied for best on the team,” Grace said to Bree. Their team was called the Green Goblins. “Then come Rhonda and Wanda. But neither of them can intercept like you.”

  Intercept meant getting the ball away from a player on the other team. It was amazing, astounding, almost superhuman how speedy Bree was. Nancy’s dad, who was their coach, called her Bolt. That was short for Lightning Bolt, because Bree could dribble fast with the ball and zigzag in between other players.

  “I can’t wait for our first game,” Grace went on. It was on Saturday, only three days away. “Bree, you and I are going to rule!” Then they all reached into a bowl of oranges that were cut into quarters. Refreshments were Nancy’s favorite part of soccer. When Bree and Nancy finished sucking out the juice, they smiled widely. The orange peels were still stuffed in their mouths.

  “Hold it!” Nancy’s dad said. He whipped out his smartphone for a photo.

  Orange-peel smiles looked so absurd.

  In the car on the way home, Nancy’s dad said, “We’re really coming together as a team. Bolt, love that fancy footwork! And Nancy, you are staying much more focused. During the scrimmage you always knew where the ball was.”

  “Merci,” Bree and Nancy said at the same time.

  Nancy’s dad always had a compliment for her. She understood. He was trying to build up her confidence, but anybody, even the worst player in the world, could watch the ball. So Nancy said, “It’s okay, Dad. I know I’m pretty bad.” Then she told him the same thing she had told Bree before. “My goal is to become mediocre.”

  Bree and Nancy were in the backseat. Nancy could see her dad looking at her through the car’s rearview mirror. “No. No. Definitely wrong. Your goal is not to be mediocre. . . . Your goal is to score a goal.” Then her dad cracked up at his own joke.

  “Come on. Let’s do some more drills,” Bree said as the car pulled into the Clancys’ driveway. “We have time before it gets dark.”

  “Are you serious? I’m pooped.” All Nancy wanted to do was collapse on the living room sofa. But Bree was out of the car and tugging Nancy by the arm.

  “Practice makes perfect,” Bree said. She said that about a lot of things—like tap-dancing, spelling, even learning pig Latin. Bree never settled for being mediocre at anything. She always wanted to be superb.

  Nancy’s dad heard Bree. “That’s the spirit!” He opened the trunk of the car and tossed a soccer ball to Nancy.

  “Okay, okay,” Nancy muttered. Between her dad and Bree, it was two against one. She was outnumbered.

  In the backyard, JoJo was pulling Freddy in her wagon. They were pretending to be on the way to a fire.

  “Can you guys please play on the deck?” Bree asked. “Nancy and I need to practice soccer.”

  “No. We were here first,” JoJo said.

  “What if we let you play with us?” answered Bree.

  “Big mistake!” Nancy told Bree at the same time JoJo and Freddy shouted, “Yes!” They ditched the wagon, took Frenchy into the house, and then listened to Bree explain some rules. Bree bent down on one knee with her hand on the ball, just the way Nancy’s dad did while talking to the team. It made Bree look very professional. “It’s not like catch. You can’t use your hands. All you can do is kick the ball.”

  “I don’t like that rule,” Freddy said.

  “Too bad,” Bree told her brother. “That’s how soccer is played.”

  After they spread out, Bree said, “I’ll kick to Nancy and she’ll kick back to me. Then it’s your turn, JoJo. Freddy, you go third.” Bree let out a whistle and passed the ball to Nancy. But before Nancy had a chance to return it, JoJo ran in front of her and kicked the ball—really hard for a little kid. Nancy watched it whiz back to Bree.

  “Nice one, JoJo.” Bree looked as surprised as Nancy was.

  “Yay, me!” JoJo shouted, and jumped up and down. “Kick it again, Bree.”

  “It’s supposed to be my turn,” Nancy said sternly.

  This time when Bree sent a fast ball skidding her way, Nancy managed to stop it with her foot and kick. Actually, it was more like a gentle tap. The ball rolled only a few feet away.

  “Nice try!” Bree said. “You remembered to use the side of your foot, not your toes.”

  Actually Nancy hadn’t done that on purpose. It just happened that way.

  A little later, the twins—Rhonda and Wanda—showed up. They had missed practice because of a dentist appointment.

  “Can we play?” Rhonda said. The twins were superb at all sports. Nancy was sure that one day they’d be in the Olympics and come home with loads of gold medals around their necks!

  There were enough kids for a scrimmage. So everyone divided up—Bree, Wanda, and Freddy against Nancy, Rhonda, and JoJo.

  “Freddy and JoJo, try to steal the ball away from the other side. And remember, use your feet. No hands.” Then Bree let out another whistle.

  Nancy ran her hardest. Soon she was gasping for air and had a pain in her side. Nobody else even seemed out of breath. At one point, JoJo stumbled over a ball that Nancy managed to stop. Nancy bent back her leg to kick when suddenly Freddy appeared out of nowhere and beat Nancy to the ball. When her leg swung forward, all it connected with was air.

  A second later Nancy lay sprawled on the ground. Bree and Wanda trotted over. “Are you hurt?”

  Nancy examined her knee. It throbbed. Through the dirt, dots of red were appearing.

  “Ooh
!” Bree covered her eyes. She hated the sight of blood. It made her dizzy. She looked the other way as she slung an arm around Nancy and helped her to the deck.

  Nancy brushed grass and dirt off her T-shirt and shorts. Her clothes weren’t spotless anymore. She watched everyone continue kicking the ball to one another. Even JoJo and Freddy were better than she was. And they were in preschool!

  Soon it started to get dark. Everybody had to go home.

  “Au revoir.” Nancy waved to her friends. That was French for “Good-bye.”

  As she limped upstairs, Nancy wondered if a banged-up knee counted as a sports injury. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to play in the game on Saturday. Instead she could sit on the side and cheer for the Green Goblins. She’d pass out bottles of water and towels to players coming off the field. She’d wear her Goblins jersey and be in the team photo her dad took after the game. And win or lose, they’d go out for pizza at the King’s Crown. All that would be really fun. Actually the only part of soccer that Nancy didn’t enjoy so much was playing it.

  That night, the mailbox bell rang. Nancy reeled in the basket that hung from a rope between her window and Bree’s. In the basket were several pages of soccer tips. It was all the stuff Nancy’s dad said at practices. Nancy never bothered to write any of it down, but Bree had.

  Study these tips before the game, a note said in Bree’s lovely handwriting.

  1. Look for open spaces.

  2. When in doubt, kick the ball out.

  3. Don’t kick the ball with your toes. Use the side of your foot.

  4. Play hard and be tough but play fair.

  5. No elbows!

  6. Follow up and rebound.

  7. Share the ball with other players. We’re a team.

  There was no time to study soccer now. Nancy had real homework to do for the Graveyard of Boring Words. So she stuffed the soccer tips in her desk drawer.

  The Graveyard of Boring Words was something Nancy’s teacher had thought up. Behind Mr. Dudeny’s desk were a bunch of shoe boxes with cardboard tombstones. In each one were index cards with boring words on them. Words like “nice,” “pretty,” and “sad.” On Halloween this year, instead of wearing different costumes, everyone in room 3D was coming as a ghost with boring words taped to their sheet.

  For tomorrow Nancy had to think of three boring action words. An action word meant doing something, like walking or eating or singing. Then she had to come up with a Superb Synonym for each word. A synonym was a word that meant the same thing as the boring one. She also had to put each of her Superb Synonyms in a sentence.

  Rocking back in her desk chair, Nancy sat and pondered. That meant thinking really hard. She thought about playing soccer. Then she filled out three index cards.

  Voilà! Nancy was done!

  RUN/WHIZZED

  I whizzed toward the ball.

  FALL/STUMBLED

  But I stumbled over it.

  HURT/INJURED

  I injured my knee.

  The next day in class practically everyone’s hands shot up when Mr. Dudeny asked, “Who has some boring action words to share?” By the time the bell for recess rang, one of the shoe boxes was almost full. As each word got dropped into a tombstone, everybody shouted along with Mr. D, “BO-ring!”

  Outside in the yard, Grace shouted to Bree, “Over here! I brought a soccer ball. We can practice.”

  Bree turned to Nancy. “Come on!”

  Nancy shook her head. “You go. My knee still hurts.” Instead she and Lionel hung on a low bar of the jungle gym and chatted. Lionel wasn’t very good at sports either. In fact, he said that a fourth-grader tried to pay him to stay off the boys’ soccer team. “But my parents won’t let me quit. They think being on a team builds character.”

  “My first soccer game is Saturday,” Nancy said. “I’m frightened we’ll lose ’cause of me.”

  Lionel understood and nodded. “Want me to come and cheer for you? What’s your team’s name?”

  “The Green Goblins.”

  “Cool! I’ll wear all green. I can be the team mascot.”

  “Really? That’s so nice!” Nancy said, before remembering that “nice” was the very first boring word that had gone into a shoe box. She clapped a hand over her mouth as Lionel yelled, “BO-ring!”

  In the distance Nancy could see Bree tap-tapping the soccer ball back and forth between her feet as she crossed the school yard. “Look at Bree. I wish I could dribble like that.”

  “Dribbling? That’s easy. Watch!” Lionel slurped up a big mouthful of spit juice—the proper word was saliva—and let it trickle down his chin.

  “Ewww! That’s not dribbling. That’s drooling, and it’s disgusting!” Even so, Nancy couldn’t help giggling.

  Suddenly Lionel’s eyes grew wide. “Bee alert!” he yelled, pointing at Nancy.

  Sacre bleu! That was French for “Yipes!” Sure enough, a bee—a big fat one—was buzzing around Nancy’s legs. It looked like it was coming in for the kill.

  Nancy jumped off the jungle gym and took off. She didn’t stop until she reached the water fountain.

  The bee was gone.

  Lionel caught up with her.

  “Merci,” Nancy said, out of breath. “That was a close call.” Then she took a drink of water.

  Just like how Bree was scared of blood, Nancy was scared of bees. She’d never been stung until last year. It happened at the second-grade family picnic. While she was eating ice cream, two bees attacked Nancy. Nobody else had gotten stung. It was as if she were a bee magnet. Bee stings were even worse than shots!

  Just then the bell rang. Recess was over. Before they headed inside, Lionel bent over the water fountain. When his cheeks were full, he turned to Nancy and let all the water in his mouth dribble down his face.

  “You are such a goofball,” Nancy said.

  The front of Lionel’s T-shirt was soaking wet. Lionel didn’t care. If a joke got a laugh the first time, Lionel was positive it was even funnier the second time . . . and the third and the fourth and the fifth.

  That afternoon Lionel came over to Nancy’s for their weekly checkers game. Lionel was a better player. But today he didn’t notice that Nancy could triple-jump his kings. Nancy won.

  “I have a surprise,” Lionel told Nancy as they scooped up the checkers and put away the board.

  “A surprise!” JoJo was riding her scooter in the hall and heard. “I want to see.” She came into Nancy’s room.

  “Okay. It’s going to take me a minute.” Lionel left with his backpack. Nancy and JoJo heard the bathroom door shutting.

  “What’s he doing?” JoJo asked.

  “I don’t know. If I did, it wouldn’t be a surprise.”

  A little bit later, Lionel reappeared. He had changed into green shorts and a green T-shirt from Otto’s Auto Body Shop. Green makeup was smeared on his face. He was wearing a green Afro wig, plastic fangs with fake blood on them, and rubber gloves that looked like monster hands. Lionel held his arms out and walked stiffly, moaning, “Gooooo, Goblins!”

  “JoJo, he’s a green goblin!” Nancy cried. “Because that’s the name of my soccer team.”

  JoJo didn’t answer. Her face looked frozen. Then she clamped her eyes shut. Her mouth opened so wide, it looked like a big black hole. Out of it came a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Don’t be scared!” Nancy clasped her sister by the shoulders. “It’s only Lionel.”

  Lionel removed his fangs. “Yeah! It’s just me!” He took off the monster hands and wig too. “Look!”

  JoJo didn’t look. She broke away from Nancy and tore out of the room, still screaming.

  “Wow, I didn’t expect that,” Lionel said to Nancy.

  “JoJo gets scared really easily.” A couple of weeks ago, Nancy, JoJo, Bree, and Freddy had been watching Frozen. When the giant snowman came on, JoJo got so scared, she wet her pants. Nancy didn’t tell Lionel about that.

  They found JoJo in Nancy’s parents’ bedroom.

  “JoJ
o, I didn’t mean to scare you. Honest,” Lionel said.

  “It’s okay. JoJo understands that,” Nancy’s mom said. Then she stood and took JoJo by the hand. “Come on, missy. Let’s get you in the tub. How about a bubble bath?”

  A bath so early? Usually JoJo didn’t take a bath until after dinner. And usually she put up a fuss. But not now. As her sister followed their mom into the bathroom, Nancy suddenly understood why. There was a big wet patch down JoJo’s leggings.

  Another accident! Nancy felt bad for her little sister. Fear could do terrible things to a person!

  On Friday everybody brought in more index cards. This time the cards had boring describing words on them. “Sad,” “pretty,” “mean,” “great,” and “bad” got dropped into one of the shoe boxes.

  Mr. Dudeny held up an index card. “Here’s mine.” The word “awesome” was written on it.

  “Wait a minute. That’s not a boring word. It’s long and hard to spell,” Grace said. “‘Great’ is boring. ‘Awesome’ isn’t.”

  Mr. Dudeny looked around the room. “Who agrees with Grace?”

  A lot of hands went up, including Bree’s.

  “Okay. Now, who disagrees?” Mr. D asked. “And if so, tell me why ‘awesome’ belongs in the Graveyard.”

  Clara started to raise her hand.

  “Yes, Clara,” Mr. D said encouragingly.

  “Um, sorry. Never mind. Actually I don’t think it’s a boring word either.”

  “Ooh, I think I know,” Nancy said. “Mr. D, you told us a word gets boring if it is used too much. And all of us say ‘awesome’ all the time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Awesome” joined the other boring words in the Graveyard. Everybody shouted, “BO-ring!”