Stacey wasn’t actually baby-sitting that Saturday afternoon. At least she wasn’t being paid for it. Kristy had volunteered her to help out with the girls’ basketball team that afternoon in the Stoneybrook Elementary School gym.

Like me, Stacey isn’t terribly involved in sports. She likes to bike and swim and that sort of thing, but she’s no superathlete.

Still, she didn’t mind helping out. She figured Kristy would do the coaching part. All Stacey would have to do was show up and lend a hand.

Little did she know!

“Haley can’t come today,” Vanessa announced the moment she walked into the gym. “She’s been grounded.”

“For how long?” Kristy asked. She could already figure out why Haley had been grounded, since I’d told my friends the story about her homework that morning on the phone.

Vanessa shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Kristy turned, looked at her players, and did a quick count. “I’m one short,” she said. “Now what?” That’s when her gaze fell on Stacey. “You’ll have to play.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Stacey, you have to,” Kristy pleaded. “You can’t let down the rest of the girls.”

“Me? Why don’t you play?”

“I can’t coach and play at the same time.”

Stacey couldn’t argue with that, so she joined the other girls.

She already knew a bunch of them from baby-sitting. Besides Vanessa, Jessi’s younger sister, Becca, was there. So were Charlotte Johanssen, Karen Brewer (Kristy’s stepsister), and Sara Hill, along with some eight- and nine-year-olds Stacey didn’t know as well.

Charlotte wrapped her arms around Stacey. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re on my team,” she squealed. Stacey is by far Charlotte’s favorite sitter.

“Just for now,” Stacey reminded her.

“Stacey, no offense, but … aren’t you a little tall to be playing with us?” Becca asked.

Stacey laughed. “I sure am,” she agreed.

Kristy wasted no time in separating the girls into two practice teams. The girls on the team without Stacey instantly protested. “We can’t win with her on their team,” Vanessa pointed out. “No matter what position she plays, it will give them an advantage.”

“This is just a practice,” Kristy replied with a touch of annoyance in her voice. “It doesn’t matter who wins.”

“It matters to us,” Vanessa insisted sulkily. “Why play if you can’t win?”

“Believe me, I’m not a great player,” Stacey assured her. “You probably have a better chance of winning without me on your team.”

The girls on Stacey’s team groaned. “Thanks for telling us,” Sara said.

Kristy blew her whistle loudly. “No more arguing. Let’s play.” She assigned Stacey to be a guard, which caused a lot of grumbling.

“Nothing like having a giant guarding you,” a girl named Diana Gonzalez complained when Stacey stole the ball from her.

“Sorry,” Stacey apologized. “I’m just doing my guard job.”

Stacey felt more than a little ridiculous. She towered over everyone. And, despite not being the ultimate sportswoman, she’d been playing basketball longer than most of the other girls had been alive.

Then there was the Kristy factor. It seemed that every other minute Stacey heard a whistle blaring in her ear. “McGill! Traveling!” Kristy shouted, circling her arms around each other to indicate Stacey’s breach of the rules.

It took Stacey a second to remember that traveling meant she was running with the ball. “Get off it! I was not,” she argued.

“McGill, you’re benched for talking back to the coach,” Kristy told her.

Stacey’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe Kristy was actually benching her. “You can’t bench me. You have no one to replace me with.”

“You’re right,” Kristy had to agree. “I’ll have to give the other team a free throw instead.” This news brought forth an assortment of cheers and groans.

Throughout the remainder of the game, Kristy continued to be especially hard on Stacey. By the end, Stacey was ready to strangle her.

“I was only trying to make things fair, since you had such an advantage over the other girls,” Kristy whispered to her after the game was over and Stacey’s team had lost.

Kristy ended the practice with a pep talk. “That was a good game, but you girls have a lot to learn. You have to share the ball more, and there were too many violations of the rules.”

“Stacey made most of them,” Sara pointed out.

“Well, I was a tougher on her because she should know better,” Kristy said.

“There won’t be so many mistakes once Haley comes back,” Vanessa said.

Stacey wasn’t sure she appreciated that.

“What’s she grounded for, anyway?” Becca asked.

Vanessa jumped in. “Claudia told her parents that she didn’t do her homework on Friday night. They were all upset even though Haley had the entire weekend to get it done. Claudia just did it to get her in trouble.”

“Claudia wouldn’t do that!” Charlotte said.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Stacey agreed.

“And even if she did, it wasn’t to be mean. Claudia was only following the rules,” Kristy added.

“See, Kristy admits it,” Vanessa insisted. “Claudia did turn Haley in.”

“That’s not true,” Stacey cried. “Claudia told me the whole story. Haley simply got caught in a lie. Claudia very innocently, by accident, told Haley’s parents that Haley didn’t do the book report.”

“Claudia told Haley’s parents that Haley didn’t do the book report,” Vanessa echoed. “See? That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“You can’t trust anyone over nine,” Sara said with a sigh. “Once a kid becomes a two-digit number, something changes.”

“Hey!” Diana objected. “That’s not true. I’ll be ten soon. The problem is baby-sitters. They’re paid by parents, so that’s who they’re loyal to.”

“No, the problem is Claudia,” Vanessa disagreed. “She’s turned on us.”

I shook my head as Stacey told me this story later that Saturday. Even though I’d done nothing to deserve it, it seemed that I was getting a bad reputation among Haley and her pals.