16

The racquet Kelsey got for her was nicer than any racquet Leanna had ever owned. Still, it felt unfamiliar in her hands as she was warming up for the big match against East. She was exhausted from her lack of sleep the night before, and she couldn’t get Jenny’s warning off her mind. She still thought it was unlikely that Kelsey would actually try to sabotage her, especially given how generous she had been in giving her a new racquet. Focus, she thought. Now is not the time to be worrying about Jenny drama. I have to keep my head in the game.

Her opponent was tougher than she had anticipated. Despite East’s poor reputation, the girl on the other side of the court had a wicked backhand and an even meaner serve. Still, Leanna managed to pull out a win in the first set by focusing on her fundamentals and making sure to conserve her energy. She didn’t want a repeat of her matchup with Kelsey at the first tryouts.

In the second set, Leanna fell behind in the first couple of games but quickly regained ground in the next three, managing to outmaneuver her opponent by staying aggressive and charging the net. But each point was a battle, and she was starting to get tired. Her opponent was fast and had excellent placement, so even when Leanna kept up the pressure at the net, she found herself sprinting back and forth just to keep the rally going. She knew that if she was going to win her first match, she would have to knock the other girl out quickly before she started to get tired. You’ve built up a solid rhythm, Leanna—now just keep it going.

The girl from East waited until the sixth game of the second set to start pulling out all of her tricks, but thanks to playing against Kelsey, Leanna was ready for them. She had managed to fight her way to a set point through sheer force of will, and her opponent gave a last-ditch effort to break Leanna’s momentum. Leanna recognized the windup of the kick serve immediately, so she pretended to put her racquet toward the center of the court as if she was tricked by the direction of the serve. Her opponent thought she had the point in the bag and dashed toward the net, trying to get a good position while Leanna was thrown off, but as soon as she left the baseline, Leanna dashed toward the outside, where she knew the serve would bounce.

When her opponent recognized that Leanna was onto her, it was too late. Leanna reached out and smashed the ball straight at her feet. Her opponent tried to recover, but her positioning was just too awkward, and she wasn’t able to get her return over the net.

Now all that was left was to win the next two games and she’d win the match. And I’ve got the serve, she thought, smiling to herself. She spun her racquet across her palm and bounced the ball against the court a couple times, making a mental note to thank Kelsey for using the kick serve against her in tryouts. Across the court, the girl from East was looking ragged and had a scowl on her face, clearly upset about how the last game ended. Leanna smiled to herself, tossed the ball in the air, wound up, and took a swing.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Leanna looked down in horror. Half the strings on her brand new racquet had broken all at once.

She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed before, but as she inspected her racquet more closely, she saw that the remaining strings had little grooves carved into them near the frame, as if someone had used a file to weaken them. The sneer on Kelsey’s face two courts over was enough to tell Leanna what she already knew—Kelsey had messed with her strings on purpose.

Worse yet, she hadn’t thought to bring her old racquet with her. Leanna’s heart dropped into her stomach. Jenny warned me about this, she thought, mentally kicking herself. I should never have doubted her.

Borrowing another racquet would be easy enough, but at this point Leanna wasn’t sure she could win her match anyway with so much on her mind. She felt awful for not believing Jenny and even worse knowing that one of her teammates—even if it was Kelsey—had betrayed her. As she walked over to the sidelines to borrow a racquet from one of her teammates, she considered forfeiting. That’s when she saw Jenny standing in the crowd. Their eyes met, and suddenly Leanna’s heart soared. Jenny actually came to watch me play! But then Leanna noticed something else. Jenny had her own tennis racquet slung over her shoulder.

“Jenny!” Leanna shouted, running toward her. “You were right about everything. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“I’m sorry too, Lee,” Jenny said. “I thought about what you said about Kelsey giving you a racquet and realized that must be what the other girls were talking about. I couldn’t just leave you out here without a backup. Here.” She held out her racquet with a smile and Leanna took it from her. The grip was worn down from the long hours Jenny had spent playing with her, and it felt good in Leanna’s hands.

“Thanks, Jen,” she said with a smile.

Jenny grinned back at her. “You’ve got a match to finish. Go get ’em, Lee.”

Leanna jogged back to the court, where her opponent was waiting for her. Kelsey had tried to throw her off, but now Leanna was even more determined to bring home a win for Kramer. She took a fresh ball out of her skirt and bounced it off the court’s surface, preparing to serve. With all eyes on her, she tossed the ball into the air. This one’s for you, Jen, she thought. Jenny’s racquet struck the ball clean, and she knew even before the ball had crossed the net that she had just fired off an ace. Everyone cheered, but one voice stood out from the rest—Jenny, her friend until the end, shouting, “Bring home the win!”