Choosing Sides

by Alex Morgan

  The temperature soared back into the eighties the week after the Tigers came, but there was a definite chill in the air. Emma and Zoe were not speaking at all. And Grace and Megan and most of the eighth graders were still not speaking to me.

  At lunchtime Zoe sat with her art friends almost all the time, and Emma took turns sitting with us or the Tree Huggers. So on Thursday it was just me, Jessi, and Frida at our lunch table.

  “I cannot take being frozen out by everyone anymore,” I complained. “This has gone too far. We need to resolve things before Saturday’s game.”

  “So, how can we solve the problem?” Frida asked.

  “I’m sure if Emma and Zoe just talked to each other, they could work out their problems,” I replied. “But we can’t even get them into the same room. Kara thinks that if we could get them together, they might talk things out.”

  “Leave that to me,” Jessi said, and she started scrolling through her phone. “What are you guys doing tomorrow night, after practice? Like at around seven?”

  “I’m free,” I replied.

  Frida picked up her phone. “Let me check my schedule,” she said. “Hmm. I was supposed to do a half hour in front of the mirror practicing my facial expressions, but I can move that.”

  “Are you still doing that?” Jessi asked.

  “Of course,” Frida said. “Try me.”

  “Um, sad,” Jessi said.

  “That’s easy,” Frida replied, and she frowned slightly, lowering her eyelids.

  “Awesome!” Jessi cheered. “You pick one, Devin.”

  “Um, how about frustrated?” I suggested. “As in, frustrated because your two friends aren’t talking to each other and you don’t know how to help them?”

  “No problem,” Frida said, and this time her eyes narrowed and her frown became crooked, and she looked exactly as I was feeling.

  “Well, practice your expression for surprised, because that’s how you’re going to feel tomorrow night when you see what I’ve done,” Jessi said. “Just leave it to me.”

  “I am happy to,” I said. “Do you have any ideas about what to do about the eighth graders? I caught them whispering again at practice last night. It’s got me worried.”

  “I’ll find out what they’re up to,” Frida promised. “I haven’t gotten into spy mode in a while. It should be fun.”

  “So don’t worry, Devin,” Jessi said. “We got this. Frida, show Devin your chill face.”

  Frida made what I can only describe as a “super-chill” expression, and I smiled. With Jessi and Frida-the-spy on the case, I had a feeling that things might just get better after all.

  • • •

  After practice on Friday, I showered at home, and then we ate some Chinese take-out food from Panda House, which is a rare occasion at our house. Mom let us order only steamed chicken and vegetables with sauce on the side, but I didn’t mind, because it was really delicious no matter how much sauce you put on it. And Dad always snuck in an order of egg rolls for all of us.

  When dinner was over, Dad dropped me off at Jessi’s house. Jessi answered the door when I rang the bell.

  “Good. You’re here,” she said. “Frida texted that she’s going to be late. But Zoe and Emma should be here any minute.”

  “How did you get them to agree to come here?” I asked.

  Jessi just grinned at me, and the doorbell rang. It was Zoe.

  “You didn’t say Devin was going to be here,” Zoe blurted out when Jessi opened the door. “I mean, that’s cool, but Emma’s not here, right?”

  “No, Emma’s not here,” Jessi said truthfully. “Why don’t you guys head to my room? I’ll be right there.”

  “Sure,” Zoe said with a shrug, and I followed her. I had a feeling I knew what was going to happen next.

  Jessi’s bedroom was small but cozy, with a string of tiny blue and white lights draped along the blue walls. It used to be her father’s office, and Jessi’s bedroom used to be upstairs. But her parents needed that room for the baby, so Jessi had been kicked out.

  “This is such a cute space,” Zoe said, flopping down onto the bed. “I’ve got to share my room with Opal for a few more years.”

  “I am so glad I don’t have to share with Maisie,” I said. “I think I’d go crazy.”

  Zoe grinned. “Crazy with Maisie!” she said, but then the doorbell rang again and her smile faded. “Who’s that? Frida? When Jessi invited me over, she said it would be just the two of us. She said she wanted someone to watch House of Screams with her because she was too scared to watch it alone.”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say. Jessi had obviously woven a large web of deception, and I didn’t want to ruin any of it.

  Then Jessi walked into the room with Emma.

  Zoe sat up. “What is she doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” Emma shot back. She turned to Jessi. “You told me you wanted me to come over to watch the Pony Pals movie with you because Devin thought it was too silly. Was that a lie?”

  “Yes!” Jessi said, closing the door behind her. “But I had to do it. You two won’t listen to reason.”

  “I am being very reasonable,” Zoe snapped. “Emma is the one not listening.”

  “Are you kidding?” Emma asked. “How can I listen when you won’t talk to me?”

  “You’re not talking to me either,” Zoe shot back.

  “You’re the one who stopped sitting with us at lunch first!” Emma argued. “And how many times did I text you? Like, a million! And you didn’t reply!”

  Jessi held up her arms. “All right, guys. Calm down!” she said. “I didn’t bring you here to fight.”

  Zoe jumped off the bed. “No, you brought me here under false pretenses. I’m leaving.”

  “Please!” I blurted out. “Please just stay, Zoe. I don’t know what Jessi has planned. Let’s find out.”

  Zoe stopped.

  “You guys don’t have to talk to each other if you don’t want to,” Jessi said. “I just need you to watch.”

  “Watch what? Pony Pals?” Emma asked.

  “No. This is much better,” Jessi said. She walked over to her laptop, which was propped up on some books on her desk. Then she pressed a button, and the screen came to life.

  On the screen was the title Emma and Zoe: Friends Through the Ages.

  “Seriously?” Zoe muttered under her breath.

  Music started playing, and a slideshow began. The first slide was a class picture of a bunch of really little kids.

  “Kindergarten!” Emma cried. “Where we all met!”

  The next picture showed three little girls in costumes. Emma was a witch, Zoe was a superhero, and Jessi was a cute little puppy dog.

  “Awwwww!” I couldn’t help myself. “You guys are so cute!”

  “Remember that day?” Jessi asked. “Emma got scared by a mechanical ghost that came to life at somebody’s house, and Zoe gave Emma her candy to make her feel better.”

  “That was really sweet of you,” Emma said, with a glance at Zoe. Zoe didn’t smile, but she settled back in on the bed.

  More pictures popped up. Emma and Zoe in their first soccer uniforms. Jessi blowing out birthday candles with Emma and Zoe on either side of her. The three of them at a school fair. The girls got older in each picture, and it reminded me that my California friends had all known one another for a long time before I’d moved here. Except for Frida. They had met her in middle school.

  So it made me happy when I finally started appearing in the pictures, and Frida, too. There we all were, eating pizza after one of our fall games. And then there was a photo of us all dressed up for Zoe’s bat mitzvah.

  Then words came up on the screen. Friends 4Ever . . . Right?

  The music stopped, and the words stayed on the screen. Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

  “I hate fighting with you, Zoe,” Emma said. “I love you. And I do always want to be your friend.”

  “Me too,” Zoe said, but she
still wasn’t looking at Emma. “But, Em, you need to understand. I’m just not into Brady McCoy anymore. You know, we’re getting older, and that means that we won’t always like the same things.”

  Emma nodded. “Yeah, I figured that out,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, does it?”

  “No,” Zoe replied. “But it might mean, like, we don’t always do things together. Like maybe sometimes I’ll do things with Jasmine and Arthur.”

  “Things I’m not invited to?” Emma asked.

  “Well . . .” Zoe looked thoughtful. “I mean, I can invite you to stuff. And you can say no if you’re not into it. And the same goes for me. Does that make sense?”

  Emma nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

  “This is truly beautiful,” Jessi said. “Now hug it out!”

  Emma and Zoe hugged, and a wave of relief washed over me. Then the doorbell rang. We heard Mrs. Dukes answer it, and then running feet. Frida burst into Jessi’s room.

  “Sorry I’m late, but I have big news!” she announced. “My spying was successful!”

  Emma and Zoe looked puzzled, so I filled them in. “Frida was going to find out what the eighth graders have been whispering about.”

  Frida nodded. “I went undercover,” she said.

  “As an eighth grader?” I asked. “How would that work, exactly?”

  “No. I mean, I was myself, but I pretended that I didn’t like you, Devin,” Frida answered.

  I cringed. “Oh.”

  “I walked home with Gabriela and Jade after practice,” Frida explained, “and I told them I thought you were a traitor for helping the Roses. And then they started singing like canaries. They told me what the eighth graders are planning.”

  “No more suspense!” Jessi cried. “What are they planning?”

  Frida leaned in and lowered her voice. “Grace found some blue spray paint in her Dad’s workshop, so they’re going to paint the roses that grow along the walkway to the Roses field,” she said. “So that the red roses will be Kicks blue!”

  I gasped. “But that’s . . . that’s vandalism! Isn’t that just as bad as what the Rams tried to do to us?”

  Frida shook her head. “I asked the same thing, but Jade says this isn’t sabotage. It’s just sending a message to the Roses not to mess with the Kicks. Grace told everyone that her dad played soccer in college, and they did stuff like that all the time, and nobody got in trouble.”

  I groaned. “That is just stupid! Of course they’re going to get in trouble!”

  “We should tell Coach Flores,” Emma said.

  “If we do that, Grace will still be in trouble,” Jessi pointed out. “Maybe really big trouble. Maybe get-kicked-off-the-team trouble.”

  Without Grace or the other eighth graders on the team, we wouldn’t have a chance at the play-offs. Our season would be over. Besides, even though Grace was difficult sometimes, I actually liked her. I knew she’d be devastated if she got kicked off the Kicks.

  “Let me try to talk to her first,” I said.

  Jessi raised an eyebrow. “You? You’re her number one enemy right now.”

  “No, the Roses are her number one enemy,” I pointed out. “I’m still her co-captain. Let me try.”

  “It’s planned for tonight, Devin,” Frida said. “They’re probably heading to the Roses field now.”

  “Oh no!” Emma wailed. “What should we do?”

  Zoe took out her phone. “I have an idea,” she said. “Sometimes it helps to have an older sister.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “So let me get this straight,” Zoe’s sister Jayne said as she drove us to the Roses field in her car. “Some members of your team are about to do something stupid, and you want to stop them?”

  “That’s about right,” Zoe said.

  Zoe had asked Jayne to come pick us up. We’d told Mrs. Dukes that Jayne was taking us for ice cream, and when she had pointed out that five of us could not fit into the car safely, Jessi had agreed to stay behind. I had waved to her from the car, nervous about what was about to go down.

  “It should be fairly simple,” Frida said. “There shouldn’t be anybody at the field at this time of night. The eighth graders said they were meeting at eight thirty. We should be just in time to stop them from painting the roses blue.”

  “That’s a dumb thing to do,” Jayne said, snapping her gum. She had Zoe’s blue eyes and blond hair, but her hair was long and straight, with long bangs. “You think you can stop them?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But we have to try.”

  We rode in silence, and arrived at the Santa Flora Middle School field a few minutes later. Because the school teams were called the Roses, the walkway to the field was lined with rosebushes.

  “Park on the street, not in the parking lot,” Zoe said. “We don’t want them to see us coming.”

  Jayne parked under a tree and turned off her lights.

  “I’m going to go alone,” I said. “If we get caught, it’s not worth all of us getting in trouble.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Emma said, and I could tell she was nervous about the whole thing.

  I got out and walked down the darkened path. I could see five girls huddled by the rosebushes, and as I got closer, I could make them out: Grace, Megan, Anjali, Jade, and Gabriela.

  At least it’s not all of them, I thought with some relief.

  Then I heard Grace’s voice. “Taylor? Is that you?”

  I cleared my throat nervously. “No. It’s Devin.”

  “What are you doing here?” Grace snapped.

  I had reached them by now, and I took a deep breath. “I came to talk to you. I know the Roses are being jerks. And I’m sorry if my helping Sasha made it worse. But if you spray paint those roses blue, everyone will know it was the Kicks. And we could get in big trouble.”

  “We’re not hurting anybody, or anything,” Grace replied. “The paint will wash off. And nobody will be able to prove who did it.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So they’ll blame the whole team. We might even get suspended from playing. Think about it!”

  Gabriela bit her lip. “Devin’s got a point. I didn’t think of that.”

  “Yeah,” Jade agreed.

  “No, she’s wrong,” Megan said. “They can’t suspend all of us if they can’t prove anything.” She picked up a spray can. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

  Grace looked at me. “Unless you’re planning on ratting us out, Devin?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “That’s why I came, instead of calling Coach Flores.”

  “Just keep quiet about it, and we’ll all be fine,” Megan added.

  Suddenly we were blinded by headlights. Too stunned to run, we all stood there, like deer.

  “What’s going on here, girls?”

  The headlights dimmed, and a woman stepped out of the vehicle. It looked like the Roses’ coach!

  “Nothing,” Grace said quickly. “We were just leaving.”

  The woman walked closer to us. It was definitely Coach Doyle. “Please wait,” she said, and then she nodded toward Megan. “Is that spray paint?”

  Megan’s boldness left her. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and then she handed it to the coach, who squinted at it.

  “Blue paint,” she said, and then a look of recognition dawned on her face. She sighed. “Oh no. Are you girls from Kentville? I’m Coach Doyle.” She shook her head. “This is very disappointing.”

  “We’re really sorry,” Grace said. “Can’t we just go?”

  Coach Doyle shook her head. “I think I should call your coach and let her know what her team is up to.”

  “But we’re not up to anything!” Grace protested. “We haven’t done a thing!”

  “So you just came to stroll around the Roses field, in the dark, carrying blue spray paint?” Coach Doyle asked, and Grace stared at the ground.

  I had broken out in a sweat. My throat felt dry. My stomach was doing flip-flops. Coach Doyle t
ook out her phone, and then she looked at me.

  “I’d like to tell Coach Flores which of her students are here,” she said. “What’s your name, and is there anything you’d like to explain?”

  My head felt fuzzy. Now I was in trouble, just like the others! And all I’d been doing was trying to stop them! But I knew I couldn’t tell Coach Doyle that. I was with my team, and teams stuck together.

  “Devin Burke, ma’am,” I replied. “And, um, no, there’s nothing to explain.”

  To my surprise, Grace stepped forward.

  “Devin shouldn’t be in trouble for this,” she said. “She heard about what we were going to do and came here to stop us. We were just going to paint the roses blue, that’s all.”

  Coach Doyle looked at me. “Devin, can I assume that someone drove you here?”

  I nodded silently.

  “Then you may go,” she said. “But next time let your coach deal with issues like this, okay?”

  “Yes, I will,” I said, and I flashed Grace a grateful look before running back to Jayne’s car.

  “What happened?” Emma squealed as I climbed into the backseat. “We saw a car pull up!”

  “It was the Roses’ coach,” I reported. “I’m not sure what she was doing at the field, but she caught everyone before they sprayed the flowers. And she’s calling Coach Flores.”

  “Oh no!” Emma cried.

  “But she let you go?” Zoe asked.

  “That’s the crazy thing,” I said. “Grace told her I was trying to stop them. She stood up for me.”

  “So I guess your Grace problem is solved, then,” Frida said.

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “But I don’t know what’s going to happen to the others.”

  “Who was there?” Zoe asked.

  “Grace, Megan, Anjali, Jade, and Gabriela,” I said. “I think they’re all in big trouble.”

  Then my phone beeped with a message from Jessi.

  WHAT IS HAPPENING? I need 2 no!

  Long story, I typed back. I am fine. But Grace + 4 caught by Roses’ coach.

  Nooooooooo! What about game 2morrow?

  I don’t know, I replied.

  “Bummer,” Jayne said from the driver’s seat, with another snap of her gum. “So, what next? Do you guys need to stop a bank robbery? Thwart an alien takeover?”