Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook

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Gabby Garcia's Ultimate Playbook Page 8

by Iva-Marie Palmer


  So I’ll just keep moving until I get this perfect.

  Anyway, back to the analysis.

  After my parents feared for my sanity (and fed me), Louie told me that when she started college, she imagined she’d study theater and write plays and perform them for the world. But so did a lot of other people, and she realized they were better than she was, so she started helping them get people to come to their plays by making signs and promoting the plays and that kind of thing. And it turned out that she was really good at that. Better than she was at writing plays.

  “Life surprises you,” she said. “The lessons you learn the best aren’t always the ones you start out looking for.”

  I really don’t know what lesson I’m supposed to learn, though. I mean, before Piper Bell, no one was really better than me at baseball. At Luther, I had my win streak and life was perfect, so deep down, I feel like I know all the lessons, and there is just something about Piper Bell that has made my life go haywire.

  So I took Louie’s story to mean that maybe it will turn out that field hockey is my sport, and my destiny is to be a better field hockey player than I ever even was a baseball player.

  Seeing as I’d always been a GREAT baseball player, that could only mean I would be FIELD HOCKEY CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.

  All night, I dreamt of my victories and imagined how I’d tell this story years from now as I led my future field hockey team to Olympic gold. When I woke up, my neck was sore from all the medals I had to wear in my dreams.

  As the day wore on, I kept reminding myself of the dream because I wasn’t totally psyched about field hockey yet. I even took the long route to our bus for my first field hockey game, just so I could look at the baseball team. I didn’t want them to see me or anything, so I stayed a good distance from the fence. I was hoping that it wouldn’t bother me to see the baseball field, but instead the pit of my stomach ached and I just wanted to run out there and say, “Take me back!” But I couldn’t. The team sure didn’t seem to miss me. And they looked good, like the kind of team that had gotten rid of its jinx. I watched Devon throw a superfast pitch into Ryder’s glove like she was some kind of superstar. I watched Mario crack a hit far into center field. I watched Madeleine make a perfect catch, with no injuries to her nose.

  They looked like winners. And they would be, especially without a jinx like me to hold them back.

  Bob: Is this a low point for Gabby? I think so.

  Judy: She doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s fearing the worst.

  I wished they’d shut up. I could feel my whole body wanting to be out there with the team, but I had to keep going. Field hockey. I was a field hockey player, about to play her first game, even though I’d never practiced the sport before.

  But I needed to talk myself into it. There’s a famous Shakespeare saying my dad likes to quote whenever he is behind on one of his work deadlines, “All things are ready, if our mind be so.”

  Not only were my parents full of helpful quotes, but also I figured I could make my mind ready.

  So, with my uniform on and a loaner stick (until I could get my own), plus being all studied up on field hockey and even our opponents (they had an okay record but nothing great), I told myself to be ready.

  I told myself to be better than ready. I knew I could score on this opponent.

  A goal in my first game? Yup, I was planning on it.

  But I was nervous when I met the team at the bus turnaround.

  AND THEN THERE WERE HUGS.

  “Hey, Gabby,” said Molly Oliver, the eighth-grade captain. “Welcome to Penguin field hockey.” And she hugged me.

  Then Katy Harris hugged me, too. She sort of sang my name, “Gabby Garcia, you’re looking fierce in our colors!” Being hugged by her was like being hugged by a star—not just a star like a celebrity but an actual star from the sky. In a good way, not a pointy-edges, “it burns!” way.

  Then I got a hug from Colin Reedy. And a girl named Sophia Rodriguez, who I’d seen doing skateboard tricks on the steps leading up to the school. She gave me a hug and a fist bump and said, “This is gonna be so wicked.”

  It was kind of wicked to be hugged by so many people. They were really happy about me. Maybe it was just an inner-peace yoga thing but it seemed like a good sign.

  Coach Raddock slapped me five and asked if I was looking forward to my first game. I said, “Yes!” with a lot of enthusiasm. And then she said, “I have a good feeling about this.”

  It was how I wished Coach Hollylighter had acted about me.

  So maybe I was on the verge of Golden Child status already.

  I was definitely feeling better about being here.

  We were all standing around, smiling at each other for so long that it started to get weird. You can’t just stand around smiling with people for too long without it getting weird. Just a fact.

  But then the bus doors opened with that bus-door-opening noise—not to be gross but it sort of sounds like Dumpster farting—and I sighed in relief. “Game time!” I said, because I really didn’t know anyone yet. Except in a hugging way.

  “Game time, indeed,” said a boy named Arlo Cole, who looked like he was about my brother Peter’s age but sounded like someone in one of Louie’s TED Talks videos. “After you. Not because you’re female, but because you’re new.”

  Okay, weird, but nice. I plopped into a seat on the bus, hoping that I’d found my place. I definitely had no yips—it would be hard to forget how to play field hockey since I’d never played before. But I didn’t feel yippy at all.

  I felt more YIPPEE!

  I was so comfortable that when we pulled away from the school I knelt up on my seat and looked around the bus at my teammates. To no one in particular, but also to everyone, I said, “So, I heard Dorchester’s only so-so. What’s our strategy today?”

  After my baseball team experience, I hoped this wasn’t annoying to them, but it seemed like a good question.

  Molly smiled. It was a great big smile. I figured she was already grateful to have me on the team.

  “Well, we are going to play our best.” Her voice sounded like a yoga voice, soft and airy like the foam on one of Louie’s lattes.

  But her strategy was kind of Sports 101. Playing your best could apply to playing Candy Land.

  “So, by ‘best,’ do we have some key plays you can fill me in on? Like, I’ve seen some cool moves online. I was thinking that I’m pretty fast, and with my baseball skills, if someone could flick the ball my way, I can deflect it off my stick into the goal.”

  I really sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I was pretty impressed with my mastery of field hockey lingo.

  And everyone was looking at me and listening.

  They must have been impressed as well.

  “Deflect?” Grace Chang, a girl in my social studies class, said. She snapped her gum and I was somewhat relieved that someone on the team sounded like a twelve-year-old. “Sure, we can try that.”

  I got the sense she’d never really tried deflecting in field hockey. Unless you counted her deflecting my entire idea for getting a win.

  “Yes, we’ll do our thing,” Molly said, and smiled with confidence. I waited to hear what “our thing” was but she didn’t say anything else.

  I sat back down and stared at the seat in front of me. At Luther, the bus ride to away games was when all my teammates and I would get psyched for the coming game, talking about our opponents, singing the school song, getting pumped up to play and to win. The field hockey team seemed to be more preoccupied than psyched. It was a letdown after all the hugs.

  Was this part of doing their thing?

  My stomach knotted up, wondering if they knew what their thing was but I didn’t. It was going to be like the baseball team’s “rapport” all over again. What good were hugs if you felt cut out of the core plays and strategy?

  The hugs were LIES.

  I popped up in my seat again. Maybe I just needed to try harder.

  �
��So is our strategy more offense-based or defense-strong?”

  Molly shrugged and turned around to Katy, who was sitting in the seat behind her and writing something in a notebook. “What do you think, Katy? Are we stronger on offense or defense?”

  Now we were talking. Really talking: with Katy and her star power in the mix, it was like a mini–team conference. I was being brought in on the important stuff.

  Katy looked up from her writing and laughed. “Well, we’re strong, for sure. But offense or defense? Gabby, girl, maybe we’re good at a little of both.” Okay, she sounded like a baby Beyoncé. I thought she was far and away the coolest person I’d ever met in my life and even though what she’d told me made no sense, I was willing to accept it.

  Almost.

  “But, I mean, do you have anything you want me to do?”

  Katy beamed at me. It was mysterious and also frustrating. “Gabby, sweetie, you’ll see.”

  You’ll see? Those didn’t seem like the words of encouragement you want to share with the player who could help you start to win some games.

  I sank into my seat, believing that the team had some kind of team-only telepathy where they were all communicating with brain waves and my brain waves were just sitting there, riding the bus.

  See, yet another time when telepathy would have come in handy. Note to self: work on ESP skills.

  As Katy went back to writing in her notebook—I tried to see it; was it a play??? But no, it appeared to be music and lyrics for something titled “See the Day”—I told myself to be patient. I wasn’t always good at that. But maybe I’d see.

  So I turned to my playbook, where I’m writing all this down. It gives me something to do besides worry. I mean, the stakes aren’t that high. I even told Dad and Louie not to come to any games until I get into the groove. After all their questions, it seemed like the safest way to handle things for now.

  We’re pulling up to Dorchester, a school that looks a lot like Piper Bell, with fancy bricks and trees and everything. Okay, taking a deep, yoga-like breath. Not knowing is okay. Even without a goal and a strategy, I have a team and I have me.

  And that baseball-field-green grass I love so much?

  The field hockey pitch, I can see from my window, is the same beautiful color.

  It charges me up instantly.

  I’m making my mind ready. This is going to be the best first game of field hockey a person has ever played.

  That win streak is on its way!

  REPLAY: THE GAME

  Win streak . . . nope.

  That first Piper Bell baseball game only seemed like the WORST GAME OF MY LIFE.

  Because fifteen minutes into the first half, it’s clear: my first field hockey game is THE WORST GAME OF MY LIFE.

  But this time, it’s not due to me.

  THIS TEAM IS BAD.

  THEY ARE SO.

  SO.

  BAD.

  “Great work out there, Garcia,” Coach Raddock says, and I chug a paper cup of water to avoid her eyes. I wish the time-out could last forever. “Keep it up.”

  Keep what up? I’m scribbling this down just so I can remind myself: I’m playing my heart out. And, even in my first game, I’m actually pretty good. Not as good as I am at baseball, but I’m naturally athletic and I’m handling the ball well and have pretty good stick control.

  Ugh, gotta go back . . .

  Back on the bus now. It only got worse after that last update, Here’s the full recap. The “do our thing” thing Molly had mentioned? Well, one thing’s clear about that thing.

  THIS TEAM HAS NO IDEA WHAT ITS THING IS.

  Whatever we’d done seemed to be the exact opposite of what the Dorchester Demons had done. By the end of the first half, they were easily beating us, 3–0.

  And none of my fellow Penguins seemed upset about this at all.

  Katy, who I’d hoped just was cool and mysterious with her “you’ll see” talk, pulled on my sleeve. “Gabby, girl, your energy is killin’ it.”

  I wanted to ask if my energy was killin’ it, was her energy already dead? But I didn’t.

  Colin Reedy did a tap dance with no actual taps on his way back to the field for the second half. “Isn’t this a joyful, glorious game?” The statement was, I thought, his version of a joke. Then he smiled at me like he really meant it.

  “Yeah, definitely,” I lied, wondering if he’d been playing the same game I had. The same awful, not glorious, game.

  But the whole team was like Colin, smiling and happy, like we weren’t getting crushed by our opponent.

  How could anyone be having FUN in this game? I wondered. I wanted to WIN. I wanted, at least, to look like a team that knew what winning WAS.

  Maybe it was a strategy, I thought, as Dorchester put the ball into play. Maybe we were about to come on strong. I know Johnny had said the team wasn’t very good, but he would have told me if he knew they were this bad, right?

  At the start of the second half, the Dorchester Demons had the ball, so we were on defense. Diego’s info was solid: there was a ton of running in this game, and I had sort of defaulted to a midfielder spot, which meant I covered almost the whole pitch, heading toward our goal when we were in possession and then doubling back to the Dorchester goal when we were defending against them scoring.

  The Demons forward-flicked the ball toward our goal and I made a break in the same direction as the ball. Molly was our goalkeeper.

  On a positive note, Molly was energetic. She bounced from foot to foot, swayed from side to side, and hopped onto her toes, like someone who wanted to be ready to block anything.

  The only problem was, she blocked NOTHING. On the Demons’ first three points, it almost seemed like she invited the ball into the goal. Like with a red carpet and some pre-party snacks. She may have even asked it how it was doing and if it had a nice weekend.

  So I came up with a strategy: if I played the whole field, maybe I could stop Dorchester from scoring yet again. I noticed that several of my teammates were running up alongside me, but I got the sense it was more to follow me than to follow the ball.

  I tried not to let them distract me and closed in on the Demon midfielder who was dribbling the ball toward their goal. When she let the ball roll a sliver out of her stick’s reach—I lunged in and pulled it away.

  I turned on my heels and kept the ball close to my stick. I dribbled it in the direction of OUR goal as best I could. I was still learning how to do this—my stick caught in the grass here and there, and it was harder to keep track of a moving ball than I’d thought, especially on grass. I’d played street hockey in the cul-de-sac before, but that’s pushing a flat puck down the street. Big difference.

  With the ball in my possession, I spotted Katy standing just outside the striking circle, so I yelled, “Katy, heads up!”

  And I sent the ball in a perfect pass right to her. It might as well have been on a path to kiss Katy’s hockey stick right on the mouth (if hockey sticks had mouths).

  But Katy MOVED! Like she was trying to stay out of the ball’s way!

  I don’t think she meant to, because once she saw the ball roll past her, she scrambled toward it, but a Demon defender already had it and headed back toward their goal.

  So I was running AGAIN. And, if I was being honest, I was trying to run away from the nagging question I had: had anyone on my team ever played field hockey before?

  If I learned the answer was in fact no, that those 35 or so minutes of that exact game were the only ones any of my teammates had ever played, I would not have been surprised.

  For a moment, I caught myself fearing the worst: WAS I A JINX HERE, TOO?

  No, that wasn’t it. Because I could have been ready to score a goal from inside the striking circle and Grace Chang would have fallen in front of the ball so that I couldn’t.

  Or I could have gift-wrapped the ball and presented it to Colin Reedy and he would have returned it . . . to the wrong store.

  I could have flown a helicopt
er over the field and shone a spotlight on the ball that only our captain—our captain!—Molly Oliver could see, with big lights saying, “DON’T LET THIS GO IN THE GOAL!!” and she would somehow have made sure the ball got into the goal.

  They weren’t just bad at field hockey. They might have been allergic to it.

  But after every play (if you could call them plays), they were so happy.

  I ran, I zigged, I zagged, I flicked the ball, I dribbled it.

  Sometimes I would hit the ball to another player and get hopeful. On one of these passes, Arlo got a good piece of the ball. He gave it a good whack, but ended up sending it completely out of bounds.

  Wait, am I being negative? Maybe I’m overlooking highlights.

  (LONG PAUSE WHILE I TRY TO THINK OF HIGHLIGHTS)

  HIGHLIGHT REEL

  •There was one highlight. One.

  At the start of the second half, I made it all the way down the field and into the striking circle and I scored a goal. This should be more exciting. However:

  I am worried I sort of stole the ball from my own teammate. Sophia had the ball, she was kind of dribbling it but then the ball sort of got away from her and rolled toward me. She was running for it like she meant to keep hitting it but I sort of pretended it was a pass to me and took control of the ball.

  The whole trip down the field, I felt bad about the possibility of having stolen it from her.

  When I finally got the ball to the striking circle and flicked it toward the goal, I swear the Dorchester goalie moved ever so slightly to the side to let the ball go in. She definitely didn’t reach out to block it. She might have smiled at me. I think she felt sorry for me.

  We ended the game losing to Dorchester 7–1. So I got my goal. But it was a PITY GOAL.

  WINS: 3

  LOSSES: 8

  STEALING SECOND

  Goal: Find out if the game was a one-off bad game or if the team always plays like that.

 

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