Archenemy (2 page)

Belle yelped in alarm, then flipped around and pounced on the beagle. They continued growling and yelping as they rolled around with their teeth bared. I closed the gap and started yelling, “No! Get away! Bad dog! Get away!”

By then, I was in front of Belle. I lifted my right leg and got ready to stomp on the beagle. Did I mention I was wearing my cleats? My entire uniform, in fact. If I couldn't play on the team, at least I could dress like my teammates. One good stomp, I thought, would send this maniac dog running.

“Skittles, come!”

I didn't recognize the voice, but the beagle seemed to. She stepped away from Belle and trotted past me. A girl stood in the corner of the field and called for her dog again, “Come on, Skittles! That's a good girl!”

She crouched down, and the dog jumped into her arms. Standing up, she headed my way, her beagle squirming and wiggling but unable to get free. The girl wore a spring dress and strappy heels. With each step, one heel or the other sunk into the ground. When the girl was a few feet from me, she crouched again. I thought she was going to set the dog down, but she didn't. Instead, she picked up the piece of notebook paper on the ground.

“Sorry about that,” she said to me.

“Skittles was supposed to deliver this note,”—she unfolded the paper for me to read—“but I guess she found her own friend to play with instead.”

In big, pink, bubbly letters, the note said, “Wanna play soccer?”

“Not sure I'd call what your dog was doing
playing
,” I said.

“She's totally harmless, I swear.”

I must have made a face like I didn't believe her because the girl said, “Besides, your dog totally liked it.”

I looked at her skeptically. “My dog's always been more of a cuddler than a fighter.”

“All dogs are fighters,” the girl said. “Look.”

Sure enough, Belle was sitting below the girl's arms, growling and standing up on her hind legs to paw at Skittles. The girl lowered Skittles to the ground and Belle pounced. Within a few seconds, the dogs were rolling around again and growling. Now that I wasn't so freaked, I could tell that it was happy growling.

“I'm Eva,” the girl said. “Just arrived in town, like a second ago.” She was short, with dark hair and plenty of makeup. “My parents are setting up the house. They wanted me to get Skittles out of their hair.” We were standing close enough that I could see some freckles behind the concealer she'd caked on her face. She interrupted my thoughts, “Miss the bus to your game or something?”

“Something like that,” I said. I didn't feel like talking about my suspension.

“I know—the bus left as you were strapping on those calves. Is that it?” She gestured toward my legs.

That's another thing I don't think I mentioned: I have huge calf muscles. Seriously. I got them from my dad, who was an Olympic-hopeful ski jumper. For most of my life, I thought my calves were really freakish. But when I realized I could jump higher than everybody else on the soccer field and hit headers to my teammates, I changed my mind about my calves. I think they're awesome now—like a superpower. Eva seemed to agree.

“I mean, those things are amazing,” she said.

“I do what I can,” I said.

We looked at each other for a second, both of us laughing. “I'm glad you missed the bus,” she said.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Now you can play soccer with me instead.”

“In those?” I pointed to her heels.

“I've got my soccer bag.” She gestured to the lumpy, black duffel bag lying in the grass a few feet away. “Mom and Dad want to check out the church down the block soon, but I'm sure they can wait a little while for me. After all,” she said, showing me her best pouty face, “they don't want their daughter to be the new kid with no friends, do they?” She was already walking over to her soccer bag, her heels sinking. Then she stopped and turned around. “Besides, there's Skittles's social life to consider too.”

I

t's weird to think that Eva and I might have never become best friends if she hadn't stopped by the field that day. We might have never spent all summer together, playing soccer and hanging at each other's houses.

We might have never become archenemies.

Really, the more I think about it, the more I wish Eva's parents had brought her to church like they wanted to. We might have never become best friends, but at least we'd be on speaking terms.

As it is, we played the first three games of this new season without saying a word to each other—which is pretty incredible, considering we play across from each other on defense. And considering we used to talk nonstop.

During summer league, we even came up with a code. We told each other all the usual stuff, of course:
Get back!
and
Go left!
and
Line!
and
Man on!
But we also had two phrases of our own.

Hey-o!
was one of them and meant, “I'm not open, so you shouldn't even bother looking my way.”

Whoop!
was the other and meant the opposite: “I'm wide open on the other side of the field if you need any help.”

We heard an old lady using these phrases on the Fourth of July. She was sitting next to us on a hillside. Every time a new firework exploded across the sky, she'd yell, “Hey-o!” or “Whoop!” at the top of her lungs. She was being completely serious, so it would have been really mean to laugh at her—but that we couldn't laugh out loud just made it funnier. She yelled other stuff too, such as, “Awesome blossom!” and every time she yelled, she leaned her chair back like she was trying to get a better view of the sky. During the grand finale, she leaned back too far and fell flat on her back. We helped her up and made sure she was okay, then laughed all the way back to Eva's house. We decided then and there that we were going to find a way to use all the lady's sayings on the soccer field.

Unfortunately, we still had a bunch of sayings left to use by the middle of fall when we stopped talking to each other completely.

I

t's spring now. We're playing the fourth game of the season, and Eva and I still haven't said a single thing to each other. We're playing Cardinal Creek, who luckily aren't very good, because Eva and I have been really careless on defense all game. Twice we've let a Cardinal Creek player get behind us with only a bad pass bailing us out.

Coach Berg is having a fit on the sidelines. “Communicate!” he keeps yelling. “Are you trying to cost us a goal?”

“
Ask Eva!
” I want to shout. After all, she's the one who stopped talking to me first. But I don't. I don't see what good it would do. Coach Berg views the defense as one unit—one player's mistake is everyone's mistake. If I blamed Eva, Coach would just tell me to take responsibility for myself.

Besides, if I don't blame her, maybe she'll finally forgive me.

“Addie!” shouts Alyssa Duncan, our goalie. “Take the ball!”

At least
she's
still talking to me.

I take two aggressive steps forward and block a Cardinal Creek player's pass with my body. I push the ball past the oncoming opponent and keep pushing it toward midfield. It's an aggressive move, and as I enter the crowd of other players, I wonder if it's too aggressive. The Cardinal Creek players are closing in fast. If I'm going to get rid of the ball, I need to do it quickly.

“Whoop!”

I can't believe it. Just when I thought Eva and I might never talk again, there she is, on the other side of the field, ready to save the day.

“Whoop!” she says again.

If you need any help
, she's telling me,
I'm wide open
.

She and I performed this maneuver so many times over the summer that I don't even need to look: I know exactly where she'll be. I send a big, field-switching pass and watch the ball soar over the Cardinal Creek players' heads toward the empty space on the other side of the field. Of course, the space won't be empty for long. By the time the ball hits the grass, Eva's foot will be there to stop it. Then it will be her turn to jump-start an attack.

Except she never shows up. The space stays empty. The ball lands and bounces out of play.

“Williams!” Coach yells. “Get your head in the game!”

“P

ut that one front and center,” Eva told me.

This was late last spring, in her bedroom. I was helping her finish moving in. Specifically, I was helping her tape tons of crinkly magazine pictures to her walls and ceiling. Most of the pictures were of male soccer players or models posing shirtless in soccer shorts and cleats.

Eva called them her soccer studs.

Her room was on the top floor of an old house, which meant the ceiling was also the roof. It slanted from maybe twelve feet high almost to the floor. The bottom half had already been covered with six packs, but Eva wasn't tall enough to reach any higher.

That's where I came in. It was my job to stand on her bed and put up the rest of the soccer studs.

“Right here?” I asked.

“Let me see,” she said. She flopped down on her bed, and I almost lost my balance. Then she tilted her head to the side and squinted, mulling over the placement of the picture. “Perfect,” she finally said. “Too bad I can't sleep with my eyes open, huh?”

I looked at the picture. Up close, the crinkles looked like wrinkles. “Ummm, yeah. I guess so.” Suddenly I wanted to change the subject, so I hopped off her bed and cracked open a window. It was almost summer and getting hotter every day, but there was still a nice breeze. It felt good inhaling the fresh air. Like Eva, who had changed without showering into a spaghetti-strapped shirt and flowered skirt after going for a run with me, the room smelled of perspiration and perfume.

As I took another deep breath, I heard a series of growls and yelps. “Hope Belle and Skittles are still getting along,” I said.

“Are you kidding?” Eva said. “They're BFF. Just listen to them down there.”

No matter how many times Eva insisted that they were only play fighting, the dogs' roughhousing made me nervous—even though I knew she was right. Despite all the biting, neither had ever broken the other's skin.

“Maybe we should bring them up here,” I said.

“No way,” Eva said. “You'll never get out of here alive.”

“What?”

“Skittles hates when people leave her. When someone tries to leave a room that she's in, she doesn't let them.”

I still didn't get it.

“She goes right for the person's ankles and won't let go,” Eva said.

“Yikes.”

“It's kind of endearing, if you think about it. You know that she loves people that much.”

I can't say I drew the same conclusion. “So you can never bring her in the house?”

“Only when strangers are here. For some reason, she doesn't bite family members. Maybe she trusts that we're coming back.” Eva bit her lip and looked away, thinking about what she just said. “Of course, you're not exactly a stranger, so maybe we could bring her inside and see what happens.”