Live Love Lacrosse (9 page)

Chapter 15

Attacker

AFTER THE PRACTICE on Saturday, Addie slept until dinner, stumbled
down the stairs to eat soup and then practically crawled her way back up the
stairs to go back to bed. Kimi wanted to do some running and get some practice
in on Sunday, but Addie was so sore and tired, that she had to pass. Oh, she
wanted to practice, but her body was sore in places she didn’t know she had.
Even lifting her arm to brush her teeth was difficult. She totally expected
Troy to give her grief over how tired and sore she was, but he barely spoke to
her. He barely spoke to anyone. Addie figured out why he was so quiet. He was
mad. He was mad at their dad for getting in a fight with their mom, and at
their mom for making them spend the summer in Syracuse instead of back home.
Addie was mad, too, but that didn’t mean she was going to stop speaking to
everyone.

Once Tuesday evening practice rolled around, Addie was feeling better
and ready to move. She had been drinking fluids, including the Gatorade that
Coach Cairns had recommended, and eating mainly soups. Eating soup was a good
way to feel full, but not take in too much real food. Calories in, after all,
had to be less than calories out, and she had to offset the calories in the
Gatorade.

On their jog to the park, Kimi was
uber-excited because after drills, they were going to scrimmage. That made
Addie nervous because she didn’t know anything about the positions, except goalie
which she definitely did not want to be, and was afraid she’d look stupid. Of
course, since she was only on the second team, and she might not get to play at
all anyway.

Coach Cairns came up to them as they were stretching on the
sideline. “Hey, girls. Are you feeling better, Addie?”

“Much better. Thanks, Coach.” Addie smiled. “I’m doing my best to
get in shape, I guess.”

“Good for you. Just keep drinking those fluids.” Coach Cairns
turned to go, but then looked back. “I’m glad you came back, Addie.”

“Me, too.” And she was. Hopefully her new diet regimen would start
showing results soon. Brooke wasn’t the only one who gave her disdainful looks,
and one day she hoped to run rings around everybody else and be so in shape
that everyone would keep asking to see her monstrous bicep muscles.

Coach Marks blew his whistle and the madness that was lacrosse
drills continued right where it had left off on Saturday. After two water
breaks, they finally broke up into a half-field scrimmage.

“Second team and subs gather here with me on the sidelines,” Coach
Cairns called them over. “If you already know what position you want to play,
that’s great, but let me point out some of the positions. Watch these players
if you aren’t sure yet. Brooke, obviously, is a goalie – you have to be a
little crazy to play that position in my opinion.” The five girls surrounding
the coach laughed. “For attack, you should watch the sisters.” She pointed
toward two girls standing together at midfield. “Taylor and Paige.” Addie had
seen them play the weekend before, and both of them were crazy good. “And for
you insane middies out there, watch Kimi. She is all over the place. You have
to have a lot of stamina to play this position, because you have to play both
defense and offense. Defenders watch Megan. Okay, I have to go referee. I want
you second-teamers to figure out a position that intrigues you, but try to
learn all the positions, okay?” There were several head nods.

Coach Marks blew his whistle and called out, “Defense, every
attacker must be covered. Offense, you must find a way around the defensive
coverage. The drill stops when there is either a goal–”

“Not going to happen, Coach,” Brooke called from the end line and
pounded her chest with a gloved fist. She had on her full regalia of goalie
pads, helmet, and oversized stick. She looked downright mean.

“I like your attitude, Goalie,” Coach Marks called back to Brooke.
“The drill stops when there’s either a goal or the defense gets the ball. We
reset when that happens. Got it?”

A chorus of “got it” echoed across the field.

Coach Marks backed away and then rolled a ball onto the field
toward Taylor who scooped it up cleanly and sprinted toward the goal. Kimi was
on her instantly, but Taylor dodged and broke free. Addie was surprised that Kimi
had gotten beat. Even Addie could tell that Taylor was going to fake left. It
was all in the mid-section. You watched a person’s hips, not the arms or the
shoulders or the feet. Those were fake-outs. Wherever the hips went, so went
the person. Addie had learned that from avoiding Troy’s ninja attacks.

Taylor made it past all the defensive players and all the way to
the goal, but sailed her shot over the net.

Coach Cairns’ whistle blared as she ran by. “Hey, can one of you
guys go get that?”

“I’ll go,” Addie said and jogged after the ball.

She wanted to show the coaches that she had recovered from
Saturday’s temporary setback and that she was a team player. When another ball
skipped past the end line, she figured she should just hang out there and
retrieve balls. Standing behind the goal gave her an incredible view of the
players. Watching the fierce determined look in Taylor’s eyes as she headed
toward the goal fired her up. Her sister Paige had an equally ferocious look
when she was directing her teammates. Attackers. They were intense. Addie
wondered if she’d make a good attacker. Attackers scored goals, and she had
scored that one goal on Brooke the other day. Hmm.

Addie stood mesmerized by Kimi’s crisp and precise movements as
she tried to prevent the attackers from reaching Brooke’s goal. And, Brooke,
wow, she had a single determined focus not to let any ball get in that goal.
She wasn’t always successful, but watching her move, you could tell that she
was determined.

“We’re going to have a good team,” Addie muttered, but then
checked herself. “
They
are going to have a good team.” She wasn’t
exactly on the team.

The first-team players that had been hanging on the sideline got
cycled in and out of the scrimmage, but the second-teamers didn’t. They had to
be content watching or running after loose balls.

Addie ran after another missed shot on goal and muttered, “I guess
all I’m going to do all summer is chase down missed shots.” She’d take it,
though, because it was a really good way to get calories out.

Coach Marks blew his whistle. “Water! Five minutes.”

The girls sauntered off the field. It was obvious that they were
tired. Addie was also tired from running after all the loose balls, but she was
also kind of bored-tired, too.

“You guys look great out there,” Addie said to
Kimi and Brooke.

Kimi frowned. “Not really.”

“What are you talking about?” Addie asked.

Brooke laughed. “Taylor keeps burning her, and that makes Kimi
mad.” Brooke laughed again and walked away to talk to some of the defenders.

“It’s all in the middle, Kimi,” Addie said. “They can fake you out
with their arms and shoulders and even their feet, but they have to go wherever
their hips go.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” Kimi still sounded bummed.

“C’mon, you can do it,” Addie encouraged. “Who are you anyway? My
friend Kimi is a fierce warrior.”

A glimmer of amusement crept up Kimi’s face. “You know what?
You’re right!” She stood up tall and pounded her chest with one fist. “I am
midfield! I am everywhere! Including right in Taylor’s face!”

“That’s the spirit.”

Coach Cairns called over. “Hey, Addie, Anne-Marie has to go home.”
She pointed to one of the girls heading toward the parking lot with her bag
over her shoulder. “I’ve convinced Coach Marks to put you in. Attacker.” Before
Addie could ask why, Coach Cairns said to Kimi, “Give her the break down on the
attacker position and what she has to do, okay?”

With guidance from Kimi, Addie knew where to
stand and what part of the field to cover. She had to laugh when Kimi said that
in theory Addie’s main focus was to try to score, but in reality her best bet
was to pass the ball to Taylor or Paige and let them do the scoring. And that
was basically it.

“And,” Kimi added as they headed onto the field, “good luck
getting past me.”

If Addie hadn’t been so nervous, she would have smiled at Kimi’s
maniacal laugh. She steeled her nerves and decided to be strong like the time
Captain Janeway snuck onto the Borg cube to disable its engines.

She felt a little better when the girls on offense gave her
encouragement.

Two minutes into the play, a loose ball bounced near her. Addie
scooped it up, amazed that she’d done it so smoothly, but before she could do a
thing with the ball, Kimi was on her and knocked the ball out of her stick
head.

“Sorry,” Kimi said as she scooped up the ball, ending the drill.

“Crud,” Addie muttered under her breath. “I messed that one up.”

“Reset,” Coach Marks yelled with a frown. He turned to Addie.
“C’mon, kid, know where the defenders are.”

“Yes, Coach.” Addie said, determined to do better.

Coach Marks rolled the ball into play, and Paige scooped it up
cleanly. She dodged one defender and ran right toward Addie. Not sure what to
do, Addie got out of her way and circled back to fill in the area where Paige
had been. Paige headed toward a wall of defenders and then flicked the ball
toward Addie. Addie hadn’t been expecting it, and missed it cleanly. The only
thing she could do was watch helplessly as it bounced out of bounds.

“Double crud.” Addie blew out a sigh. She didn’t know what she was
doing.

“Sub!” Coach Marks called out. The frustration was clear in his
voice. One of the first-team players on the sideline came in to take her place.

Addie ran off the field, hanging her head in
shame. All those circuit stations and running drills that she and Kimi did
together, none of those taught her what to do in an actual game.

The other second-teamers congratulated her when she got off the
field.

“Thanks, you guys. It’s a lot harder than it looks.” She sat down
and took a swig of Gatorade. She had only been out there for three minutes, but
it was long enough to sap every ounce of energy right out of her. It wasn’t
quite as bad as Saturday, but an overall feeling of exhaustion took over her.

“Nice job, Addie,” Coach Cairns said as she ran by. “You knew to
fill the lane Paige left open for you. Good instincts.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

Okay, wow. So she had good instincts. She leaned back on her
elbows as fatigue permeated her bones. She didn’t belong on the field with
those girls. They were so much better than she was. And they were in so much
better shape. She rubbed a hand over her big belly. None of the other girls had
a fat belly like she did, and all of the other girls could outrun and outlast
her at everything.

Addie sat up and took a deep breath. She resolved to do two
things. The first was to continue to keep her intake of calories to a bare
minimum. The second was to watch lacrosse on TV between now and Thursday’s
practice. That way she’d have a fighting chance of figuring out what the heck
attackers were supposed to do.

Chapter 16

Willpower

IT WAS THE last day of July, exactly four weeks since she’d met
Kimi and exactly two weeks since she’d played in her first team scrimmage.
Okay, so she’d only played for three whole minutes, but still—four weeks
before, the words exercise and sports weren’t in her vocabulary. And now she
sat in a circle with her team, her dark blue t-shirt emblazoned with the words
“Onondaga Owls” across the front; a big number twenty one on the front and on
the back. She was getting ready for their first real game against a real team,
the Van Buren Vipers. Of course, Addie probably wouldn’t get in the game at
all, but it was awesome to feel like she was part of the team.

In those two weeks since her first scrimmage, Addie had tried to
find lacrosse games on television, but couldn’t find any. Kimi quipped they
couldn’t find a cameraman fast enough; that’s why lacrosse wasn’t on TV.
Luckily, though, Kimi had a few games recorded on her family’s DVR. They spent
every free moment watching the Syracuse Orange Women’s lacrosse team play.
Addie was mesmerized by the fast pace. Kimi instructed her on every position,
while Addie drank in every word.

She found that she really liked the attack positions with the fast
action and scoring goals. Coach Cairns must have thought Addie would like it,
too, because whenever the team scrimmaged, she’d put Addie in the attacker
position for a few minutes. And Addie was catching on. She even caught a few of
the passes Paige sent her way. And Addie was getting better at knowing how and
when to pass the ball so Taylor could score. Of course, Addie still couldn’t
run like the other girls. That had become extremely obvious when Coach Marks
made them do full-field scrimmages. Addie could barely keep up with the speed
of the game.

During those two weeks since her first ever scrimmage, Addie
discovered that her heavy no-energy feeling came on quickly if she didn’t eat
before workouts, so she compromised and ate either an apple or an orange or
even a banana before leaving the house. They were only about one-hundred
calories each, so she’d do a gazillion sit-ups and push-ups after each workout
to try and offset the extra calories. And eating only salads for dinner with a little
chicken or hardboiled egg on it was also helping make sure the calories in were
at a bare minimum.

She hadn’t had any more leg cramps. Well, not that many. Okay,
sometimes she felt light-headed when they ran or when she got up too fast, but
she powered through. Willpower. The diet book said willpower was the key. Mind
over matter. Addie was amazed to find she was able to ignore the jerk when he
taunted her with bacon or cookies or chips now that he had officially found out
she was on a diet. Her “calories in less than calories out” strategy seemed to
be working, too. The scale in her grandmother’s bathroom said she’d lost
sixteen pounds. She had no idea how much she should weigh, but she still had a
muffin top so obviously she had more pounds to lose. She hated the fact that
she’d had to buy girls’ size large clothes at Dick’s Sporting Goods. She knew the
pretty sales girl was thinking she was a big fat pig but was, thankfully, too
polite to say anything.

As Addie stretched with the team that evening, she couldn’t
believe how many people had come to watch the game. All the parents were there
sitting in their fold-up chairs. Well, not all the parents. Her parents weren’t
there, but Kimi’s mom and dad sat together on the sideline. It was like a big
party, or something.

Coach Marks blew his whistle. “Circle up, Owls.”

“You ready?” Addie asked Kimi as they headed over.

“As I’ll ever be,” Kimi said and took a deep breath.

“Good luck.” Addie moved to the outside of the
circle, so the real team members could get closer. She had stretched and warmed
up with the team, but her assignment for the game was to be the endline ball
retriever. That was a job she knew well.

Taylor won the opening draw for the Owls and the game was on.
Watching the fast-paced play was both exhilarating and exhausting. During the
first half, both sisters Taylor and Paige scored two goals apiece, and Kimi was
incredible. She knocked the ball loose from the other team a thousand times and
kept the play going the Owls way. Kimi seemed to be everywhere at once, and
Addie was glad she was on their team. The Vipers, on the other hand, only
scored twice. Brooke had been furious both times.

By the time the second half was midway done, the Owls were beating
the Vipers by a score of 10–2, and the Vipers coach called for a time out. Both
teams ran to the sideline for water. Addie joined them, but again stayed toward
the outside. One thing was for sure, she had burned up the calories from the
salad she’d had for dinner.

Coach Cairns and Coach Marks stood off to the side as the players
guzzled down their water. Addie heard Coach Cairns say, “We’re up by eight.
Give her a couple of minutes toward the end.”

“This better not bite us, Haley.”

“It won’t, Bob. I promise.”

Coach Marks gave his pointers, which mostly
involved hustling and working hard. “Oh, yeah, and have fun, too,” he added.

After his pointers, Coach Cairns bounded over to Addie. “I’m
pulling you off endline duty.”

“Okay,” Addie said confused. Had she done a bad job?

“You’re going in the game.” Coach Cairns grabbed Addie’s hands and
bounced up and down like a little kid.

Addie wondered if she looked as
scared-to-death as she felt.

“Not right away. With about three minutes left in the game. Make
sure you’re stretched, have your goggles on and mouthpiece handy. Have your
stick in hand and be ready to move fast when Coach Marks calls for you.”

“Okay.” It was the only word she could get out. She was going in
the game. For reals.

Kimi squealed her approval. “See? All that hard work paid off.”

“Don’t mess this up,” Brooke growled as their water break came to
an end.

Way too soon, Coach Marks called for subs and took Taylor and
Paige out of the game. By this time the Owls were up by a score of 15–3. Addie
ran out to the field and looked to Coach Cairns as to where to stand. Anne
Marie took the draw in the middle of the field and Kimi ended up with the ball.
This was it. The game was on. Addie’s heart was beating so fast that is was
hard to think, but after forever, she got her feet to move in the right
direction.

Kimi dodged a defender and zigged and zagged her way up the field.
Addie tried to stay ahead of her, being an attacker and all, but Kimi kept
getting ahead. Kimi stopped short and tossed the ball to Addie. Addie caught
it. She couldn’t believe it. One of the Viper defenders was on her instantly.
Addie faked left then spun right and was free. Holy crap! She had shaken the
defender. Her heart was pounding so hard in her ears that she barely noticed
the thunderous roar from the home team crowd. She saw Anne Marie running ahead
of her and flicked the ball toward her. Anne Marie caught it cleanly, ran two steps
and shot the ball. Goal!

In less than a minute, Addie had helped her team score a goal.
Kimi grabbed Addie by the arm and they ran over to Anne Marie to engulf her in
a group hug.

“Nice assist, Addie,” Anne-Marie said.

“That was so awesome,” Kimi said once they broke free from
Anne-Marie.

“I can’t believe how amazing that was,” Addie gushed. “You passed
me the ball and then I caught it and then Anne-Marie was up there and then I
passed it to her and . . . Wow!” She was rambling, but she didn’t care. Kimi
had been right. Lacrosse was addicting.

Anne-Marie lost the next draw, but it didn’t matter because Kimi
stole the ball and headed toward the goal. Kimi passed the ball to Anne-Marie
who passed it forward to Addie. Addie saw the goalie glaring her down, but
Addie saw the open spots around her. She dodged one defender and then changed
direction. She reached with all her might and sent the ball sailing toward the
goal. She’d aimed low, but the ball went too low and bounced off the grass and
hit the goal post. The goalie scooped up the ball and the play was over. She
was disappointed that she hadn’t scored a goal for her team, but the feeling
had been incredible.

“Almost, Addie. Almost,” Kimi yelled back as she retreated on
defense.

“Almost,” Addie echoed. Dang it.

She had almost scored a real goal in a real game. Her heart was
still pounding as she hustled back toward midfield. She couldn’t wait to try
for another goal, but then the referee blew her whistle signaling the end of
the game. Cheers went up on the Owls sideline. They had won their first game.
Addie wanted to join their celebration, but she couldn’t get her legs to
cooperate. They weighed a thousand pounds each. Her entire body felt heavy. She
felt the stick fall out of her hands. A zillion black stars covered her vision
as she fell to the ground.