Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer (19 page)

“Guess what?” Carla Rosa said.

As the door closed behind her, Lucy heard Dusty, Veronica, and even Januarie all buzzing her to hush up.

Lucy dragged herself to the top of the back steps before she realized Mudge was meowing forlornly at her heels.

“I’m sorry, kitty,” she said as she scooped him into her arms. “I didn’t mean to ignore you.” She squeezed another mew out of him. “It must be so easy being a cat. I wish I was one right now.”

“Uh-oh.”

Lucy looked up to see Mora standing behind the screen door.

“Things must be really bad if you’re wishing you were feline. Personally, I think you’d look pretty weird with whiskers.”

Mudge was now hissing, and Lucy let him go and pushed past Mora into the house.

“What’s up with
you?”
Mora said.

“I’m going to my room,” Lucy said.

Inez turned from the sink. “Senorita — ”

“I don’t need a snack, thanks.”

“I have the message for you from Senor Ted.”

Lucy stopped in the doorway to the hall. “My dad?”

“He says tell you Senor Auggy, he will be here for the reading lesson tonight.”

Could this day get any worse? How was she supposed to concentrate on that right now? Lucy let out a sigh that came from the soles of her tennis shoes and then turned again to the hall.

“Okay, take her temperature, Abuela
,
” Mora said. “She doesn’t want a snack
and
she’s not doing cartwheels because Mr. A is coming. Yeah, she’s sick.”

“Mora,” Inez said — in the low voice even Mora didn’t argue with.

Mora shrugged and wandered back to the living room. Inez padded across the kitchen holding something. Lucy didn’t see until she was right beside her that it was her Bible.

“Practice the reading,” she said as she pressed it into Lucy’s hands.

“You want me to read
this?”
Lucy said.

“Sí,”
Inez said. “The Senora Queen Esther — she can help you.” Then she went back to the sink.

Lucy carried the Bible carefully to her room. But once she was inside with the door shut, she set it on the dresser and looked at it from her bed. Lolli jumped from the windowsill and sniffed at its cracked leather cover.

“You can probably read it as good as I can,” Lucy said to her.

The first day Inez had started Bible study with her and Mora back in January, she’d tried to get them to read it themselves and had figured out pretty fast that Lucy wasn’t a reader. Ever since then, she had always told them the stories instead. A large lump formed in Lucy’s throat as she stared at Inez’s special book. Inez was trusting her with it, and she was sure she wouldn’t understand a word of it.

The bedroom door squeaked open, and a small orange head poked itself in. Marmalade gave an inquiring mew and landed on the bed, where he sat in front of Lucy and looked at her.

“Inez sent you in here to make sure I was reading, didn’t she?” Lucy said. “Okay, I’ll try it. But don’t expect a miracle.”

Lucy pulled the Bible from the dresser and placed it reverently in her lap. A piece of paper stuck out of the top, marking the Book of Esther. Inside, another piece said, in curly handwriting, “Begin at the chapter 4, verse 14.”

Lucy dried her sweaty fingers on her shorts and ran one of them down the thin, like-an-onion-skin page, the way Inez always did. The Bible had a nice smell, like candles and tea.

When she stopped on verse fourteen, Lucy touched Marmalade’s fur and waited for him to purr before she began.

“Okay — ‘For if you remain silent at this time, relief and de-liv-er-ance’ — okay — ‘deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will per-ish.’ ”

Lucy looked at Marmalade. “Perish. You mean, like, die?” She shook her head. At least she and Dad wouldn’t die if she didn’t figure out what to do at soccer camp. But if she didn’t, living wasn’t going to be that much fun either.

She licked her lips and read on: “ ‘And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’ ”

Lucy sank back into her pillows. Marmalade gave a loud meow.

“I can’t read anymore,” Lucy told him. “I don’t even get this.” Inez said Queen Esther would help her, but what did it mean — “you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Was it like the whole reason God made her queen was just so she could convince King Hottie not to kill her people?

Lucy groaned out loud. She was starting to think like Mora. She sat up and read some more. “ ‘Then Esther sent this reply to Morde — ’ ” Yeah, that must be that Mordecai guy, her cousin. Sort of like J.J. was to her. Lucy cocked her head at the page. What if she substituted . . .

It was a worth a try.

Lucy studied the page again and began. “Then Lucy sent this reply to J.J.,” she read to Marmalade. “Go gather together all the Dreams who are in Las Cruces Soccer Camp, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day.”

Lucy looked at Marmalade. “Okay,
that’s
not gonna happen.” She couldn’t imagine Januarie — or anybody else, for that matter — going without food or drink. Even skinny Veronica ate like a truck driver when it came to French fries or Claudia’s chocolate soccer balls.

“We’ll skip that part,” she said to the kitty. “Okay, ‘When this is done . . . ,’ here we go. I will go to the king — Hawke — even though it is against the, uh, soccer camp rule about not tattling to him. And if I perish — uh, if I get kicked out of camp, I get kicked out of camp.” Lucy stroked Marmalade’s back. “That Queen Esther was totally brave. She could have died going to the king. The worst that can happen to me is I won’t get to play in a championship game at camp or get seen by an ODP person. There goes my whole dream.”

Lucy felt the back of her neck prickle again. It seemed kind of selfish just to be thinking about her own dreams. What about the way the Los Suenos Dreams were suffering? And not just over soccer. This was about her friends — and about people being stupid and mean to them. And about the deep down inside feeling that she had to do something about it.

Even if her soccer dreams died.

After all, there was always the Los Suenos field. Even though she’d been freaked out when she and J.J. discovered what might actually have happened to it, it still wasn’t
completely
destroyed. Maybe they could fix it up and get back what they used to have. At least it was still theirs for now —

But maybe not for long – not with “times being so hard.” And not with those corporation people being so pushy they would tear it down on purpose and then bribe people for their votes. She bent over Inez’s Bible again and read some more. And then she reached for the Book of Lists and wrote:

Dear God — Is This How Esther Would Do This?

Then she read some more and wrote some more and read even more — until the page got hard to see. When Lucy looked up, the sun was dipping behind the mountains. A sniff told her Inez had already cooked supper. And she could hear voices from the kitchen, Dad’s and Mr. Auggy’s.

She moved a sleepy Marmalade from her lap and headed out with Inez’s Bible. She was feeling so much better, she almost rode the yellow rug — until she heard Mr. Auggy say, “I finally got it out of Pasco.”

“What’s his plan?” Dad said.

“He’s decided to sell the café.”

Lucy stepped into the kitchen, frozen down to her bones.

“Champ?” Dad said. His eyes groped for hers.

“He’s selling it to those corporation people, isn’t he?” she said. “That means he’s going to vote to sell the soccer field, too!”

Mr. Auggy looked down at the tabletop, but Dad kept his face pointed toward Lucy.

“It looks that way, Luce.”

“But I thought he loved our team!”

“It isn’t just about the field,” Mr. Auiggy said. He nodded Lucy toward a chair, but she stayed where she was, in the doorway, clutching Inez’s Bible.

“I don’t care what else it’s about,” she said. “Those people tore up the bleachers and the refreshment stand on purpose,
after
the storm. They did it so we’d all give up — and we can’t!” She whipped her head toward the phone. “We have to call the sheriff! We have to tell him that me and J.J. found — ”

“Sit down, Luce,” Dad said.

“I can’t, Dad — somebody has to do something! This isn’t fair!”

“Lucy,” Dad said.

His voice wasn’t stern, but Lucy pressed her lips together.

“If we start making accusations without proof, we’re only going to make things worse.”

Lucy shook her head hard. “I don’t see how it could get any worse, Dad.” Her voice was shaking too. “I don’t think I can do any reading tonight.”

No one stopped her from running back to her room.

And no one heard her make a secret phone call to Mora later that night.

“I need your help with a plan,” she whispered.

“Finally, you come to your senses,” Mora said.

Before Lucy fell into a toss-and-turn sleep that night, she added one more thing to her List:

Don’t think about our soccer f ield or us moving until
THIS problem is solved.

That helped her focus the next morning when she gathered the Dreams behind the restroom building before camp started. She asked Januarie to be there too.

“Okay, team,” she said. “We have a problem, and I think I know how we can deal with it.”

“Guess what?” Carla Rosa said. “You’re not our captain now. You’re not even on our team.”

Dusty made a loud buzzing sound. Carla Rosa’s brow puckered, but she closed her mouth.

“Go on, Lucy,” Dusty said.

“And everybody else, hush up.” Veronica looked at Gabe. Tears were already welling up in her eyes.

“I didn’t say nothin’!” Gabe said.

Lucy pulled the blue paper from her pocket. “Everybody’s seen this, right?”

They all nodded.

“Guess what?” Carla Rosa said. “It says you want us to lose on purpose so you’ll look good for POD.”

“ODP,” Gabe said.

“It isn’t true,” Lucy said.

Gabe squared his big shoulders. “How do we know that?”

“In the first place, you know me — I would never do that to you guys or anybody else.”

“You want ODP pretty bad.”

“Not that bad!”

“Shut up, Gabe,” J.J. said.

Gabe shrugged his meaty shoulders. “What are you gonna do, J-man? Inflict bodily harm?”

“What does that mean?” Januarie said.

J.J. gave her a dark look. “It’s what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t — ”

“See?” Veronica said — and started to cry again.

Lucy put her hand up. More people were showing up for camp, and Hawke’s whistle was going to blow any minute. She couldn’t leave the whole team having a meltdown.

“There is only one person I know who would even think up something like this.” She thought of Rianna’s messenger and added, “Maybe two.”

“That Rianna chick,” Veronica said. “I don’t like her.”

“Guess what?” Carla Rosa said. “Lucy does. She likes that whole team better than us.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Who cares?” Gabe said. “You women — you make everything this big drama.”

“We
do?” Veronica said. “What about you? Yesterday you were wanting to go flirt with her.”

“You should talk!”

“Stop!”

Mouths closed, and eyes darted to Lucy.

“Look,” she said, “we have to forget all that. I’m telling you the truth: Rianna is just trying to bring me down, and I guess she figures the best way to do that is using you.”

“I don’t get why,” Dusty said.

“Because she’s mean to the bone.” Januarie’s eyes were big. “That’s what her sister said.” She gave J.J. a look. “Sisters know stuff like that.”

“That’s part of it,” Lucy said. “She’s trying to save the family name or something, because that was her sister that got kicked out the first day — so she’s trying to win the VIP award and be all buddy-buddy with Hawke, and she wants to be picked for ODP bad.”