by Rue, Nancy
Everyone moved in. Even Carla Rosa. Even Gabe.
Lucy was sure God was there too.
15
Lucy had two goals to reach before lunch, neither of which had anything to do with a soccer ball. She prayed for both of those goals while the Select Team was gathering and hoped the Dreams were doing the same.
Coach Neely put a cone in the center of their practice area and announced that they were going to play Coneball for their morning drill. The object, she said, was for Bella, Waverly, Patricia, Taylor, Sarah, and Kayla to try to hit the cone with the ball, while Lucy and Rianna played as defenders to keep them from doing it.
“That will be so easy,” Rianna said, until Coach Neely added that she and Lucy weren’t allowed within three feet of the cone.
“That is so not fair,” Lucy heard Rianna mumble under her breath. “Why do I always have to be on this side?” But to Coach Neely, she said, with a huge smile that made Lucy think of Mr. Potato Head, “We’ll give ’em a good workout, Coach.”
Coach reminded them that the drill was a way to practice their passing and off-the-ball movement skills.
“You girls on the outside pass the ball around until you get an open shot,” she said, and blew her whistle.
Lucy bent her knees and put her arms out in defensive position and watched Kayla make a nice shoelace pass to Sarah, who dribbled toward the cone. Lucy was closer to her than Rianna, but Rianna crossed in front of Lucy and ran straight at Sarah. Sarah switched directions and went for the middle, where Rianna had left a hole. Before Lucy could get there to block her pass to Taylor, Rianna leaped in and tried to capture the ball. It bounced over the touchline, and Coach Neely blew her whistle.
“Play your position, Rianna,” she said. “Talk to Lucy about who’s playing where.”
Perfect. While Rianna was curling her lip and looking like she had no intention of discussing anything with anybody, Lucy marched over to her and got her face close to her ear.
“I’m having lunch with Hawke today,” she said.
“So?” Rianna said. “I have lunch with him every day.”
Lucy bit back the urge to call her a big fat liar. “Then it’ll be three of us. Are you meeting him by the last tree? I think that’s where he told me to meet him.”
“Well, yeah,” Rianna said. She didn’t even blink. “That’s where I always meet him.”
“Okay,” Lucy said. “I wasn’t sure.”
“It isn’t rocket science, ladies,” Coach Neely called to them. “Right and left is all you have to decide.”
Rianna fixed on the Mr. Potato Head smile and bounded left of the cone. Lucy gave herself a nod. First goal accomplished. Rianna would be waiting by the last tree, where J.J. would find her while Lucy rode off with Hawke. Now for goal number two . . .
That one was harder. How was Lucy supposed to figure out who Rianna’s messenger was, when she’d thought nobody on the team liked the girl? All through Coneball, she tried to watch for anyone who might exchange a smile with Rianna, or give her some kind of signal, or even let her have the ball. But nobody even looked at her, and nobody was willing to give her a chance to keep them from hitting the cone.
Coach Neely was almost smiling at them when she called for a water break. “I think you’re actually starting to work together,” she said. “Which is a good thing. Your first game in the camp play-offs is Monday afternoon, you know.”
“Yeah, Hawke showed me the schedule.” Rianna lounged against the second row of bleachers. “We’re playing that team from Los Suenos. That oughta be like a practice game for us, right, Coach?”
Taylor narrowed her black eyes. “Why?”
“Because I heard they were a bunch of losers.”
Coach Neely actually smiled at her, stinging Lucy right through her skin. “I don’t think that goes along with the Fair Play Code, Rianna.”
“Okay, so I could’ve said it different — but it’s true, right? They’re not that good.”
Nobody else seemed to know anything about it. Rianna left to go to the bathroom, and Lucy took a long drink out of her water bottle and hoped her face wasn’t turning as red as it felt as she tried to read the other girls’ faces. She almost choked when Kayla cocked her little bird head and said, “Didn’t you come from that team, Lucy?”
Kayla? It couldn’t be her, could it? Lucy liked her. She’d thought they were sort of becoming friends.
“The point is,” Coach Neely said, “we are our own team now. Let’s focus on working that way.” Something that sounded like rap suddenly erupted from her pocket, and Coach pulled out her cell phone. “Finish up your break,” she said, and moved to the end of the bleachers, one hand over her ear, the phone in the other.
“I bet it’s that other coach,” Sarah said. “The hot one with — ” She looked at Lucy. “ — the Los Suenos team.”
Was it Sarah? It couldn’t be. She’d never made it a secret that she couldn’t stand Rianna. Of course, that could be an act. . .
Lucy shivered, even though the sun was beating down. It felt so cold, not to be able to trust the people she was playing with.
“They’re not all from Los Suenos,” Waverly said.
“Who?” Patricia said.
“The people on that team. There’s that one cute guy named Yen.”
Patricia shook her head. “Zen.”
“Oh, yeah. I saw him with that one girl.” Taylor looked at Lucy. “What’s her name?”
Lucy shrugged, but her head was spinning. J.J. had said not to tell them anything about the Dreams, but they sure knew a whole lot anyway. Patricia, Waverly, Taylor. Any of them could be working with Rianna, just because they thought the Dreams were losers. The only person who hadn’t joined in was Bella, but, then, she never did. Lucy could almost feel her heart breaking in half.
Coach returned, smiling from earring to earring.
“Yeah, that was Coach Cutie on the line all right,” Patricia muttered.
“Where’s Rianna?” Coach Neely said.
“Bathroom,” Taylor said.
But Rianna didn’t hurry toward them from the direction of the restroom building. She came across the field, breathing like she’d just run from Alamogordo.
“Where were you?” Sarah said.
“Talking to my little sister,” Rianna said.
“Who’s your little sister?”
“She’s on the junior girls’ team. She’s their best player.”
Lucy tried not to stare. Could this girl not tell the truth ever? She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. No matter how bad she felt about all this, they had to go through with their plan — because somebody who lied like that could do a lot of damage.
“Pick a partner,” Coach Neely said. “Each pair gets a cone for a goal. You and your partner take turns firing balls at each other.”
Once again, perfect. Or it would be, if Lucy could just decide which girl was most likely to be in league with Rianna.
“Set up a line that the shooter isn’t allowed to cross, and each of you take twenty shots on the other. See who makes the most saves.”
The only thing Lucy knew for sure was that being Rianna’s partner would be a waste of time, and she didn’t have much left before lunch. But Rianna was headed straight for her, and nobody else was begging the girl to work with them. Whoever she’d gotten to pass that note to J.J. obviously wasn’t doing it because they liked her.
Lucy felt a light flicker in her head, as if the electricity had just come back on. Of course. Somebody was either being forced by Rianna, which was hard to believe in this group, or they had something to gain too. But what was it?
“Be my partner,” someone said behind her.
Lucy turned to Bella. She was somber, as always, black braids hanging as straight as her face. Her eyes didn’t waver as she waited for an answer.
“Sure,” Lucy said. “We’ve never worked together before. I’ll get our stuff.”
Lucy hurried to grab a cone and a ball, but her heart was s
inking. This was going to be a total waste of time. There was no way it was Bella.
Still, as Lucy stuck a cone under her arm and reached for a ball, one thing did occur to her. If anybody shut up long enough to hear what anybody else was saying, it was Bella. Maybe she knew something about Rianna’s plan. It was Lucy’s only shot. Lunch was just fifteen minutes away.
For the first five, Lucy just defended the cone while Bella practiced low balls and got about half of them in. Lucy had never noticed what a good player she was. She was so busy diving for the ball, she didn’t have a chance to talk to her — not that she knew what she was going to say. “I know you aren’t Rianna’s evil little messenger, but do you know who is?” didn’t seem like a good choice.
When Bella had taken her twenty shots, they switched places. Lucy got as close to the line as she could and pretended to set herself up.
“I like playing with you better than Rianna,” Lucy said.
“Who doesn’t?”
So she’d been right about that part. Lucy lobbed a ball that Bella bounced easily off her chest.
“She’s kind of pushy,” Lucy said.
“She hates you.”
Lucy gave the ball a spastic kick that wandered right into Bella’s hands. When Bella looked up, their gazes clinked together.
“Do you?” Lucy said.
“No.”
Lucy lined up her third shot while her mind raced. Bella watched Lucy instead of the ball.
“You won’t block her shots that way, Bella,” Coach Neely called out.
Neither one of them looked at her. Lucy licked the dry off of her lips and made a shot that Bella let pass between her legs.
“See what I mean?” Coach said, and moved on to Patricia and Waverly.
Bella passed the ball back to Lucy, eyes still on her. Lucy could see she was kind of like J.J.: she could say a lot without ever speaking a word. Only she was going to have to, or Lucy was going to be as clueless as ever.
She pretended to consider one shot and then another while Bella kept ignoring the ball and watching her face. She looked like she was seeing everything.
Okay, then. She might as well go for it.
“Did you give my friend that note from Rianna?” Lucy said.
“Yes.”
Lucy kicked the ball, hard, and Bella dove for it and missed. She took her time getting up.
“Why did you do it if you don’t hate me?” Lucy said.
Bella’s face didn’t change. “I wanted to see what she was up to.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy stared as Bella juggled the ball on her knee. “I can’t stop her,” Bella said. “But you guys can.” She looked at the pairs of girls scattered on their practice area and curled her lip. “You’re actually a team.”
She sent the ball to Lucy, who rebounded it and smacked it straight into the cone. She didn’t know if goal number two had just been scored or not. But she had to believe it had.
When Coach Neely sent them off to lunch, it was all Lucy could do to race straight to the spot where she’d left Hawke yesterday, and not stop to make sure the Dreams were all where they’d promised to be. She prayed and dragged in a big ol’ breath. Coming toward her in the golf cart was King Hawke.
“Finally,” he said as she hopped into the passenger seat. “It’s hard to get an appointment with you. You’re a busy lady.”
“Uh-huh,” Lucy said.
“Working on your skills. Saving girls from bullies. Taming Rianna.”
Lucy tried not to let her mouth drop open. Hawke gave her a sideways look as he drove the cart past the picnic tables.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed what an interest you’ve taken in her,” he said. “She’s a great player, but I was worried about her attitude at first, knowing other members of her family like I do. This is just between you and me, of course.”
Lucy had that throw-up feeling again. “Um, sir?”
“You’re not comfortable with that?” Hawke said.
“No, I am — but, if it’s just gonna be between us, could we talk at that table over there?” She pointed to the empty table and prayed frantically.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Hawke said.
He pulled up to the table and un-pleated himself from the cart. Lucy stole a look behind her as she climbed out too. Oscar and Emanuel were leaning lazily against the pavilion pole two tables down, between her table and the tree. They seemed to be working very hard at keeping their toothpicks out of their mouths. So far, so good.
Lucy sat where she could still see them and opened her lunch bag — but she knew she wasn’t going to eat her sandwich. She pulled off a crust and listened to Hawke.
He looked right at her over the top of his nose. Who wouldn’t listen when he talked? “Rianna’s a talented athlete but, like her sister, not a team player. I wanted to see ODP take a look at her, but I was afraid they’d think she played too much for herself. You see what I’m saying?”
Ya think?
“I do,” Lucy said.
“But there’s been a big change in her in the last two weeks, and I think that’s because of you, Lucy.”
Lucy was glad she hadn’t taken a bite. She knew she would have choked. “Me?” she managed to say.
Hawke sparkled his sharp blue eyes at her. “That’s what I like about you. You have special gifts you aren’t even aware of. You bring out the best in people without even knowing you’re doing it.”
Lucy felt as if the seat was sinking into the ground. If she didn’t hurry up and say something, this was going to be harder than she thought.
Hawke was grinning. “Feel free to jump in any time.”
“Um, well — ” Lucy swallowed. She was going to have to be smoother than this. She thought of Dad’s voice pouring molasses and Senora Queen Esther going face down before the king. She shot for somewhere in between.
“Sir?” she said. “I don’t think I have been a good influence on Rianna. In fact, I think I’ve brought out the worst in her.”
“Oh?” Hawke folded his hands on the table. “How so?”
Okay, just like you practiced it with Marmalade.
Lucy took a ragged breath and started from the beginning. How Rianna first suggested flopping. How she tried to cheat in two of their practice games. How she pretended she’d written the Fair Play Code and handed it out just to impress Hawke into giving her the VIP award. By the time Lucy pulled out the blue paper with Rianna’s note and J.J.’s picture on it, before she could even get to what J.J. had overheard Rianna and Lawanda talking about, she could tell he wasn’t accepting it all as the absolute truth, the way she had so hoped he would. He rested his chin on his fist and stared hard into her face, so hard she felt like she was at the wrong end of a bow and arrow.
“How do you know it was Rianna who sent this?” he said.
“I have witnesses,” Lucy said. She turned toward the junior girls’ table, where Yo-Yo and Januarie were sitting so close to the edge of the seat, Lucy was surprised they hadn’t fallen off.
“Those two?” Hawke said. “Your mustard girls?”
He really didn’t miss anything, just like he said.
“Where is this note now?” he said.
“J.J. has it,” Lucy said. “He’s trying to find out what it is Rianna wants the team to do so she won’t tell that lie about me.”
“So J.J. is going to come and tell us what she says and that will be my proof.” Hawke shook his head. “I’m in a very bad position here.”
Me too! Lucy wanted to cry — with plenty of exclamation points. Where was Gabe with that soccer ball? Did something go wrong? Visions of Dusty falling down from the tree, right in front of Rianna, camera in hand, warped through Lucy’s mind like a nightmare.
But it wasn’t as bad as the real sight of Oscar and Emanuel stuffing their toothpicks into their mouths and chowing down like they were eating beef jerky. The signal. At the far end of the pavilion, Rianna was elbowi
ng her way through startled campers, overturning juice boxes and leaving a trail of disgruntled shouts. She was going to get to Hawke and Lucy them before Gabe did. Lucy’s heart climbed up into her throat.
And then a figure launched itself into the picture, obstruction that would have had a ref ’s whistle blowing for a foul. Bella planted herself in Rianna’s path, and she didn’t move.
But someone else did. Tearing down the outside of the pavilion was Gabe, with a soccer ball under his arm — the one Dusty had kicked to him. Lucy almost cried.
Hawke was craning his neck, gazing past Lucy. “I see Rianna down there,” he said. “Let’s get her over here, and we’ll talk this thing through.”
Lucy closed her eyes and waited. Come on, Gabe. Come on.
Hawke stood up and waved his arm in Rianna’s direction. Oscar and Emanuel looked like they were about to swallow their toothpicks. Januarie actually did fall off her bench. Lucy watched in horror as Rianna faked around Bella and made a beeline for Hawke. It was all over.
Until a curly red head popped up next to Rianna. Lucy watched the mouth open. She couldn’t hear what it was saying, but she knew Carla Rosa was clearly asking, “Guess what?”
Rianna kept walking until the next words came. Lucy mouthed them with Carla. You have a booger hanging out of your nose. While Rianna stopped and wiped frantically at her nostrils, Gabe picked up speed and landed at the end of Lucy and Hawke’s table. He was barely breathing hard as he set the soccer ball down in front of Hawke. All that mad dog dribbling had paid off.
“And this is?” Hawke said.
Lucy turned the ball over and revealed a cell phone, taped to it by Dusty’s precious hands.
“This is proof, sir,” Lucy said.
16
Lucy had never been in Hawke’s office before, but she had the whole waiting room memorized by the time J.J. and then Yo-Yo were ushered out and Hawke finished looking at the video Dusty had taken from up in the cottonwood tree on Mora’s camera phone. Lucy forgot all of it when Hawke came out of the inner room with a grim look on his face.
“Thanks for staying here,” he said. “I know you would rather have been playing a practice game with your team, but I didn’t want you and Rianna together until I had a chance to review this.”