Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer (8 page)

“I used to hate soccer,” Januarie announced in the back seat on the way to soccer camp Wednesday morning.

Dusty brushed her finger across Januarie’s nose. “Then how come you whined all the time because we wouldn’t let you play?”

Lucy could answer that. Januarie just wanted to do what the big kids did, which would have been fine if she had been any good at it.

Veronica stopped braiding her hair and looked at Januarie. “So why don’t you hate it anymore?”

“’Cause the people on
my
team are nice to me.
They
don’t tell me I don’t know how to play.”

Lucy was glad J.J. wasn’t in their car. He would have said, “You don’t.”

“And we play with a littler ball, and it’s easier.” Januarie folded her chubby arms. “It’s just way better.”

“I wish
I
could say that.” Veronica let her lower lip hang. “I don’t think I like soccer anymore.”

“Really?” said Carla Rosa’s mom from behind the steering wheel.

“It’s just not that much fun without you, Lucy,” Dusty said. “And our coach is kind of — ”

“Guess what?” Carla Rosa piped up from the front seat. “He can’t even remember our names.”

But at least you’re all together,
Lucy wanted to say. Her coach knew who everybody on their team was, and they all knew each
other
. But the only words that had been spoken to Lucy the afternoon before were Coach Neely saying, “Be sure to drink a lot of water. And wear sunscreen.” The rest of the girls acted like all the friend slots were full.

“We still get to eat lunch with you, Bolillo,” Dusty said. “Don’t we?”

Lucy could hear J.J.’s voice in her head:
Pretend you don’t even know
us. They’ll make fun of you.

But that couldn’t possibly be true. People had to know you were there to make fun of you.

“Don’t we?” Dusty said again.

“Try and stop me,” Lucy said. And hoped J.J. wouldn’t.

Coach Neely started practice with the shoelace pass.

“It’s called that because that’s exactly the part of the foot you’re going to use to kick the ball,” she told the Select Team.

“Well, du-uh,” said the girl with the ponytail almost to her waist.

Lucy thought she might be Sarah, but whoever she was, nobody buzzed her. Coach Neely just went on with, “It’s also called the instep pass. It looks like this.”

She took a hop and swung her kicking leg backward, bending it at the knee. As soon as she planted her other foot about three inches from the ball, she swung her kicking leg forward with a snap of her hip. While Lucy soaked it in, Coach Neely pointed her toe down, whacked the center of the ball with the inside of her foot, and sent it skimming down the field. Lucy could feel the power of it, and she imagined a wide-open teammate near the goal, ready to smack it right past the goalie, in front of an ODP scout —

“Yo, Lucy.”

Lucy snapped her head up to see Coach Neely peering at her over her sunglasses.

“Why do we do this kick with our instep instead of our toes?”

“You’re asking me?” Lucy said.

A girl with what looked like an extra set of teeth snorted.

“Yuk it up, Taylor,” Coach Neely said to her. “If she doesn’t get it, I’m asking you.”

Lucy saw the glint go out of Taylor’s narrow black eyes. Everybody else’s eyes were on Lucy, and she could feel her cheeks burning.

Coach Neely folded her arms. “Why do we — ”

“Because you have more control over where it goes with your instep,” Lucy said. “It’s harder to get it exactly where you want it with your toe.”

Coach Neely blinked. “You’re absolutely right.”

“I knew that,” Taylor said.

The girl next to her, the one with out-of-control hair straining at a headband, poked her. “No, you did not.”

Coach Auggy would have been buzzing his head off, but Coach Neely ignored them. “Next question’s for you, Patricia.”

But before she could ask it, a golf cart puttered up to the edge of their field. Lucy sucked in air when she saw Hawke’s silver hair and felt his eyes boring at them as he unfolded himself from the driver’s seat.

“Look sharp, girls,” Coach Neely said. She plastered on her Hawke-is-here smile.

Hawke stood up — and up and up — while a twelvish girl sprang out of the other seat. She had blonde-streaked light brown hair and eyes that sizzled blue, so Lucy knew she wasn’t Hispanic. But the way-long legs that flowed from her shorts and the arms she swung at her sides were as brown as Veronica’s. Coach Neely would be telling her to wear sunscreen if she stuck around long enough.

If she did stay, Lucy was pretty sure it was going to be the girl’s own choice. She looked at Hawke like he was her manager instead of King Coach, and she didn’t fold her arms or twirl her hair around her finger or any of the other things girls did when they entered a new girl-group. Sarah and Taylor whispered behind Lucy:

“Who is
that?”

“She must be new.”

“She has split ends.”

Lucy had no idea what that was, but from the pinch of their voices, she knew it couldn’t be good. She wondered with a pang if they’d whispered that
her
ends were split yesterday.

“Coach Neely,” Hawke boomed out.

“Yes, sir!”

“Your Select Team is complete.” He nodded down at the girl, who was now surveying each of them in turn. Nobody seemed to be able to hold her gaze — there was a lot of looking at toes and studying fingernails and examining hair — except Lucy, who couldn’t take her eyes off the newcomer. Maybe it was the way she already seemed to be in charge before she’d even said a word.

“This is Rianna Wallace,” Hawke said. “She’s — ”

“I was on a Select Team in Albuquerque,” Rianna said, “but I just moved to Alamogordo.” She pulled a ponytail holder out of the pocket of her short-sleeved hoodie and scooped her wavy hair into it as she went on. “They don’t have one. They don’t have anything.”

“This team has everything,” Hawke said with a broad smile.

“You’re going to fit right in.”

From the way Rianna planted her hands on her hips, it looked like
they’d
better fit in with
her.
Lucy longed to hear a “Guess what?” from Carla Rosa — or even a “Lucy Goosey” from Gabe.

“Let’s put the shoelace pass on hold for now,” Coach Neely said as Hawke folded himself back into the golf cart and drove off. “Now that we have everybody, we can start gelling as a team. Circle up — we’ll play ‘Hot Potato.’ ”

“That’s the one where you keep passing the ball around,” Rianna said, “and whoever has it when the whistle blows — ”

“Is out.” Coach Neely gave her a long look before she picked up the ball. Lucy made a note to self:
Don’t show off for the coach.
She might have to make a list in her Book tonight to keep track of the rules nobody said out loud.

“That’s not the way we played it in Albuquerque,” Rianna said. Everybody gaped at her. “The way we did it was every time you get caught with the ball, you get a letter in the word POTATO. The first one who spells the whole word is out. It lasts longer that way.”

She held out her arms and wiggled her fingers at Coach Neely. “I’ll start.”

Taylor gave a nervous-sounding snort. “So which way are we playing it?”

“My way,” Coach Neely said, and passed the ball to a tiny girl with a boy-short haircut. “You start, Kayla. Girls, spread out your circle and use as many different passes as you can. The point is to learn to vary your passes. And don’t forget to talk to each other.”

“What’s your name?” Rianna said, blue eyes drilling into Kayla.

“Kay — ”

“To me, Kay.”

To Lucy’s surprise, little Kayla’s pass was crisp and sure, though she made it right to Rianna as instructed. Rianna made a push pass so hard at Sarah that she practically fell backward trapping it. Before she could even plant her foot, Rianna was saying, “Back to me!”

Sarah-of-the-Long-Ponytail looked at Coach Neely, but she was taking a swig out of her water bottle.

“To
me
!” Rianna yelled.

Sarah gave the ball a shove, but her foot hit it on the bottom instead of in the center, and the ball popped up and landed several feet short of Rianna. She made a hissing sound as she ran up on it, already looking around. Her eyes stopped on Lucy.

“To you!” she said, and lofted a pass Lucy had to trap with her chest. She heard Rianna shout, “Now back to me!” But the hair on the back of Lucy’s neck was standing up. Who resigned and made her coach? Lucy let the ball drop and glanced at the girl next to her — the one with the wild hair — was her name Patricia?

“To you,” Lucy said, and used the outside of her foot to give the ball a nice nudge.

“What was that?” Rianna said.

“That was a good move!” Coach Neely said. “Pass it, Patricia!”

Patricia took her time — which got the veins in Rianna’s forehead bulging — and made a controlled pass across the circle to a girl Lucy hadn’t seen smile yet.

“To you, Waverly,” Patricia said,
after
she kicked the ball.

“Aw, man!” Rianna said.

Waverly missed the pass, but she managed to retrieve the ball, and Lucy was impressed that she didn’t take the time to turn around but made a heel pass instead.

“Nice!” Coach Neely said.

The ball came straight to Lucy, and she scanned the circle to see who hadn’t had a chance yet. A Hispanic girl with two braids looked back at her hopefully.

“To you-with-the-braids,” Lucy said, and lobbed the ball her way.

Coach Neely did say to use different kinds of passes.

“Hold your foot up, Bella!” Coach Neely called to her.

Bella appeared to be ready — until another figure was suddenly there between her and the ball. Rianna headed it, bounced it off of her thigh, and planted it on the ground. Coach Neely blew the whistle.

“You’re out, Rianna,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because I just blew the whistle and you have the ball.”

Across the circle, Lucy saw Sarah put her hand over her mouth. Next to her, she heard Patricia mutter, “Serves you right.”

Lucy waited for Rianna to pitch a fit. As visions of the girl who got thrown out of camp went through her mind, she almost wished she would.

But Rianna shrugged and backed out of the circle. The second Coach Neely gave the ball to Bella, Rianna bent forward, hands on her knees, ponytail dangling over her shoulder, mouth going.

She pointed at Waverly. “Pass it to her!”

Bella obeyed, but this time, Waverly was ready and passed it on first touch. These girls were good.

But obviously not good enough for Rianna, who paced around the circle like somebody’s embarrassing father, yelling —

“That was a lazy pass!”

“Who were you passing to? You were way off!”

“Hit it in the middle, not the top!”

When Coach Neely finally blew the whistle, Kayla looked grateful that she had the ball and squinted her already tiny eyes at Rianna as she left the circle. Sarah shot up her hand.

“Question?” Coach Neely said.

“Yeah.” Sarah stuck her gaze on Rianna. “Who’s the coach?”

“I am,” Coach Neely said. “So why don’t you let me deal with it?”

“Then, like, do it,” Patricia muttered.

Lucy nodded at her. One more thing to add to that Unspoken Rules List:
Let the coach handle everything. Including girls that think they
run the whole world.

At lunchtime, Lucy snatched up her backpack and walked, stiff-legged-fast, toward the Dreams’ table. She couldn’t get away from Rianna’s voice fast enough. She was sure it was taking over her brain, so when she heard it behind her calling, “Hey — Freckle Girl,” she looked over her shoulder to assure herself Rianna wasn’t really there.

Big mistake.

“Yeah — you,” Rianna said.

She reached Lucy in two more long-legged leaps and grabbed onto Lucy’s backpack like she knew she wanted to take the nearest escape route. She was smart, this girl.