Win or Lose (6 page)

Jessi shook her head. “It gets worse. Giselle called you a ball hog.”

“What? That's crazy!” I felt my cheeks turn red with anger. “There were two Tigers defenders on Megan. If I had passed to her, the ball would have been intercepted. I know it! I knew my best bet was taking the shot. And it worked!”

“That's what I told her,” Jessi said angrily.

“And me too!” Frida chimed in, at the same time as Zoe.

“They wouldn't listen to us,” Zoe added sadly. “And there's more. Megan said all the eighth graders agreed that you were hogging the ball and were trying to be the star of the game.”

“And they said we shouldn't pass the ball to you anymore so you would learn a lesson,” Frida said. “As if!”

“Did they really ask you to do that?” I asked, shocked.

Jessi nodded. “They want the entire team to not pass to you. But I told them no way!”

Ugh! I smacked my forehead with my palm. “This thing with the eighth graders is getting worse. It's definitely not blowing over!” I groaned.

Emma wrinkled her forehead as she frowned. “Maybe we should tell Coach.”

“No!” I cried. “It will just make things worse.”

Just then the cheering of the crowd distracted us.

“Let's forget about it for now,” I said, “and watch the game.”

“I'm starving,” Emma said. “Let's sit near the snack stand.”

We quickly found seats in the away section, right next to the snack stand. Emma got some fries, and Frida ordered the cheese nachos, but I wasn't hungry. I slumped over as I sat down and put my chin in my hands, my elbows resting on my knees.

Emma and Jessi immediately began stomping their feet on the metal bleachers. “The Rams are the ones that we're gonna defeat! So come on, everybody, get the Kangaroo beat!” they yelled in unison.

“Um, guys,” Zoe said, her eyes round as she pointed to a bunch of kids standing at the snack stand. They were all wearing red and yellow, Riverdale colors, and were giving us annoyed looks.

Emma and Jessi just looked at each other and burst out laughing. “We are on Riverdale's field. What did we expect?” Emma asked between giggles.

“Is that Jamie?” I poked Jessi in the ribs before pointing to a girl with long blond hair. She was wearing a Riverdale jersey and scowling at us.

“It sure is.” Jessi's eyes narrowed. “I guess she's still mad
about us beating out the Rams for a spot in the play-offs. Tough!” Jessi raised her voice loud enough for Jamie to hear her. “Get over it!”

Jamie turned toward us. “Let's go,” she said to her teammates as she wrinkled her nose slightly. “Something suddenly stinks around here.”

“Yeah, and it's you!” Jessi said. Then she stuck her tongue out at Jamie. Emma started laughing hysterically again, but Zoe tapped Jessi on the arm. “Hey! Don't stoop to their level.”

“You're right. We are heading to the league championship. No need to hold a grudge,” Jessi said with a shrug. But the damage was done.

“Come on,” Jamie said tersely to her friends before they stomped angrily away.

“What a sore loser,” I said. “And after everything she did to us! We're the ones who should be mad at her.”

Jamie had pulled a lot of mean pranks to make sure the Rams would beat the Kicks in the last game before play-offs. But it hadn't worked. In the end the Kicks had faced the Rams on the field and beat them fair and square.

“Whatever.” Jessi rolled her eyes. “It's about the boys' team today. How's Cody doing?” she asked as she sat forward, her eyes on the field.

Since it had taken us so long to get settled, we'd ended up missing a lot of the game.

“The score is zero–zero,” Frida said. “It looks like this is going to be a close one. No one is giving an inch!”

The Rams offense was putting a ton of pressure on the Kangaroos defense, but the Kangaroos were holding their own. But as the game wore on, our defense began to get tired out. At the game half we could hear Coach Valentine talking to the boys. Loudly.

“Get it together, men!” he barked. He sat out some of the players and put in some new, fresh players.

Then he paced back and forth in front of the benched players, telling them in detail where they'd gone wrong.

“Dylan! I told you to shoot wide, not high! Adam, you know that a player misses all of the shots that he doesn't take. Look for openings!” He kept going on and on.

“I'm so glad he's not our coach,” Zoe said with a shudder.

“I feel so bad for them,” Frida said. She cupped her hands over her mouth. “Go, Kangaroos!”

We all joined in shouting encouragement, hoping to give the boys a boost. At first it seemed like it might have worked. The Kangaroos definitely had some more pep in their step, but unfortunately so did the Rams. The Kangaroos' attacks seemed stronger now, and one of the Kangaroos got a good shot, but the Rams goalie shot straight into the air to make a spectacular save, catching the ball with the very tips of his fingers.

“What does he have, trampolines in his cleats?” Emma wondered. Even though we were rooting for Kentville, we all couldn't help but be impressed.

I spotted Cody and his teammate Michael using short passes to carry the ball down the field.

“Just watch!”
Jessi said, grabbing my arm. “Cody's got this!”

Steven hung back, sneaking up as he tried not to draw the attention of the Rams. Cody spotted him and sent the ball flying his way, just as a Ram swooped in to intercept. The shot went wide. Steven dove for it, and managed to connect. His hard kick went high, sailing toward the goal. But once again the Rams goalie made what looked like an impossible jump and batted the ball back.

The Rams fans cheered, while we groaned. A few minutes later one of the Rams scored, and the crowd went wild. The momentum was firmly on the Rams side now.

I had to hand it to the Kangaroos. They didn't back down, even though the tide had turned. Our defense tightened up, and not another goal got through, but the Kangaroos couldn't make any headway on scoring themselves. The game ended 1–0, Rams. The boys' play-off dreams were over.

“Poor Cody!” Jessi dug her fingers into my arm. “He must be so upset!”

“I'm pretty sure they all are,” Frida reminded her. “They're a team, remember?”

I let out a big sigh. I felt bad for all of the Kangaroos, but I knew where Jessi was coming from. I could only imagine how Steven was feeling right now. If we had lost our play-off game to the Tigers, I would have been totally bummed out.

“Let's go say hi,”
Emma suggested. “Maybe we can cheer them up.”

“Good idea!” Jessi jumped to her feet, and we followed the crowd down the stairs and to the field.

Some of the Kangaroos were already heading out with their families, but Steven and Cody were huddled together on the sideline, talking.

“Hey,” Jessi said. “Great game. You guys really toughed it out. Sorry it ended the way it did.”

“I thought your one kick was a goal for sure,” I told Steven. “That was some save the Rams goalie made.”

“Yeah,” Steven mumbled without even looking at me. “You ready, dude?” he said to Cody. Cody nodded.

“Let's go,” Cody said, and together they walked off without saying another word to us.

I looked at Jessi and saw the hurt, confused look in her eyes. I might as well have been looking in the mirror, because I knew the same expression was on my own face. I knew Steven and Cody were just upset about their loss, but their reaction stung anyway.

“Hi, Devin!” Kara's big blue eyes were glowing with happiness when I logged in for our video chat later that afternoon. I didn't even have to ask.

“The Cosmos won!” I cried happily.

Kara nodded. “We sure did! Four to two! How did you guys do?”

“We won too,” I
told her. But she read my tampered enthusiasm right away.

Kara frowned. “What's up, Devin? You sounded more excited about the Cosmos winning.”

I sighed. “Don't get me wrong. I'm so totally excited that we won.” I paused, not even sure where to begin. I hadn't told Kara the story about the newspaper article because I'd been so sure it was going to blow over. But now I told her everything.

“They called you a ball hog and told the other girls not to pass to you!” Kara exclaimed. She made this frowny, mad face that she'd been making since preschool. The first time I saw her make it was when the teacher gave her graham crackers instead of animal crackers for a snack. I laughed so hard, milk squirted out of my nose. It just looked that silly. And it has made me laugh ever since. But thankfully I didn't squirt milk out of my nose anymore. That was not a good look for me.

I let out a long belly laugh. It felt good after all the highs and lows of this crazy day.

“Thanks,” I said as I finally stopped laughing. “I needed that.” Usually when I started laughing over the frowny face, Kara forgot whatever it was she was mad about. But not today.

“Seriously, Devin, those girls are mean!” Kara was still angry. “You need to say something.”

“We just won our first play-off game. They have to let this go. Don't they?” I asked hopefully.

Kara blew out a deep breath. “If they don't, you really need to talk to the coach about it. It's one thing if they're mad. It's another if they're bullying you over it or trying to get the other players to not pass you the ball.”

“Let me give it some more time,” I told her. “Maybe they were just angry after the game and didn't really mean it, about not passing the ball to me. But if not, I guess I'll have to talk to Coach.” I sighed. “Why does this have to be so complicated? We just won our first play-off game! We should be celebrating. They've got to stop being mad at me.”

“I hope you're right,” Kara said.

“I forgot the other bad news.” I filled her in on how the boys' team had lost.

“And then Steven totally blew me off after the game,” I said as I made my own frowny, mad face.

“Wait! Are you
sure
he didn't say anything else?” Kara asked.

“Positive,” I sighed.

“He was just disappointed, that's all,” Kara said. “After all, it had just happened. It's not like he even had time to wrap his head around being booted from the play-offs before you showed up.”

“I know. You're right,” I said. Kara always knew how to make me feel better. “And on the bright side, both the Cosmos and the Kicks are still in the play-offs!”

“State championships, here we come!” Kara grinned.

As a team the Kicks had come so far. At the start of
the season nobody would have thought we could make it to the league championships, let alone even have a shot at state. We were all finally playing to our full potential. Coach was awesome and really motivating us. It would stink if this stupid newspaper article caused a rift in the team that would hurt our playing. If we wanted to be champions, the Kicks had to start getting along!

“So Jessi will marry Jake Washington, and they will live together in an apartment in Rio de Janeiro, where Jessi will work as a graphic designer. They'll drive around in a PT Cruiser and have ten kids!” Frida read from her notebook, and everyone started laughing.

We were sitting outside in the library courtyard at lunch on Monday. Frida was leading us in a game of MASH, which was supposed to predict your future. I loved how silly all the outcomes were.

“I don't know how you'll fit all those kids into a PT Cruiser,” Emma said, and laughed.

I wiggled my eyebrows at Jessi. “So, Jake Washington, eh?” He was in our gym class.

“Coming up with the names of four boys wasn't easy. Wait until it's your turn!” Jessi said. Of course, Cody had been the first boy she had named. Frida had then counted
and randomly crossed off an item from each list: boys, careers, numbers, cities, types of cars, and MASH (which stood for “mansion, apartment, shack, or house”) until only one remained for each.