Marysville, Washington
Wednesday, January 29th, 3:00 pm
The past week had flown. Last Thursday, we stomped the Snohomish team. Aspen Watson had shown up at the game with some of the same girls and a few new ones. They’d sat on our competitor’s side of the gym and watched us play. I’d used most of Coach’s strategies, passing the ball to the rest of the squad and didn’t do what he called my “hero” routine until the last four minutes of the game.
He left me in so we won by a wide margin, but he wasn’t happy. I knew that and I didn’t complain when he made me run lines the entire practice on Friday. The other girls didn’t join me this time. Gretchen had suggested we try the “choose up sides” strategy on him. They would play whatever game he wanted and let him use me as the scapegoat. Fighting him on the point hadn’t worked. Maybe, joining him would.
The act didn’t bother me that much since they discussed it with me in the locker room before we came onto the court. I had to wonder if he knew how much talking we did in there. If he’d been as spiteful as one of my stepdads, Coach would have groomed up a spy. He wasn’t and he didn’t.
Friday afternoon was obedience class and Charlie wowed everyone by coming when I called him both on and off leash. Aspen had asked how I taught him that and I told her the same way I’d taught it to Nevada. I hated chasing my horse and I wasn’t going to run after Charlie. Carrots brought my horse to the pasture gate. Bits of homemade chicken jerky did the same for my puppy. Aspen eyed me suspiciously when I said that.
I explained my mom’s fiancé had issues with store-bought doggie goodies so he taught me how to make my own. Aspen actually high-fived me and told me I was the best new puppy owner she’d met. She usually had to lecture people forever on the subject before they recognized the perils of highly-processed treats. I didn’t tell her I grew up reading labels on feed sacks and I wasn’t feeding chemicals to my dog. If I couldn’t say one of the ingredients, he didn’t get the product.
On Saturday, it was Community Theater back in Stewart Falls. Mr. Haller and the other teacher took turns assigning the parts. I was part of the supporting cast like I wanted. Patricia was too and she was also the understudy for the lead. We had both signed up to do costumes during our talk with Mr. Haller. When Ms. Incredible heard that she would be Victoria, she turned white, then green, then burst into tears.
I pulled a package of tissues out of my pocket and went over to her. “Sop it up, will you? Otherwise, they’ll think Patricia and I are morons.”
“What?” More tears streamed down. “I don’t get it.”
“You’re the best. I’ll have to work to catch up with you. Patricia will too, so we told Mr. Haller that.”
“What?” She lowered the wad of tissues, but she still looked shocked.
“Come on.” Patricia joined us. “I may be blonde, but I’m not stupid. You’re better than us, but if you were here next year, we’d kick your rear and be the stars. This time, it’s you.”
“No way. You didn’t do that.”
“Yes, they did. Your teacher and I already wanted you, but I thought I might need to finesse it with my students.” Mr. Haller smiled at the three of us. “Instead, the girls informed me last week that I should choose the best singer for the part regardless of what school she attended. I’m extremely proud of them. They’ve set a high standard for our Community Theater participants to follow. The show comes first.”
“Can we move on, Ms. Incredible?” I demanded. “We want to hear the names of the rest of the leads. Who is King Marchand?”
“Why are you calling me that?” She looked at us from beautifully drenched dark eyes. “My name is Madison.”
“Your voice, Ms. Incredible.” I was growing impatient with her, but I still worked on my Saint Sierra act. I wouldn’t tell her she was annoying. But, come on. When I bawled, I looked like a cross between Rudolf and a demon with my red eyes and runny nose. She was just as gorgeous as she’d been before she lost it. There should be a law, or at least a rule that brunettes weren’t allowed to cry in front of an audience.
I hadn’t changed my mind on that during practice this Wednesday afternoon. We did all our usual drills and moved onto scrimmages. Coach Norris continued to sub in players and I kept missing all the shots whenever I was on the court. Finally, he blew his whistle and waved for the five of us to come over to him.
“Are you going to do this the entire time, Sierra?”
“Do what, Coach?” I widened my eyes and did my best innocent princess look. “I’m not doing nothing, sir.”
“That’s the problem. You keep air-balling and expecting everyone else to pick up the slack.” He frowned at me, then the rest of the squad. “You’re not going to hit the basket today, are you?”
“No, sir. Not unless you tell me that I can, sir.”
“What?”
I held the ball and met his gaze. “Sir, if you tell me that it’s okay for me to really play with these girls, I will, sir. Otherwise, sir, I’ll wait until tomorrow’s game with Pine Ridge, sir. And then, sir, I’ll clobber our competition, sir.”
He held up his hand to stop me. “And if I don’t tell you that I want you to take practice seriously, you’ll continue to hold back, won’t you?”
“I’m just trying to please you, sir. What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Are you going to think about the game today?”
“I am, sir. It’s not easy to miss this much, sir. Do you really want me to change it up, sir?”
He grabbed the ball from me, passed it to Olivia. “Run lines, Sierra. The rest of you get back on the court. Sub in, Zoey.”
I shrugged and jogged off to run lines at the far end of the gym. I didn’t bother to hustle or try hard. What was the point? There wasn’t one. Nothing I did pleased the guy. Whether it was chauvinism or a contest with the principal, Coach Norris had issues. They weren’t mine and tomorrow, I intended to do my part to see we won the game up in Pine Ridge.
* * * *
Marysville, Washington
Thursday, January 30th, 3:00 pm
Coach Norris and Coach Evans stood by the bus while we boarded for the trip to the other school. Coach Evans grinned at me. “Hey, Sierra. How’s it going? Have you beaten my record yet?”
“No. It’s tough.” I stopped and grinned back at him. “The best I’ve done is eight when I talked to my grandfather on the phone last Sunday. I had to stop when he asked me if I was mad at him for a reason because I’ve never done it with him before. I only got to two with my mom’s fiancé. He told me that if I ever did it again, I’d be cleaning my barn with a teaspoon for a week.”
“Did what?” Coach Norris looked at us. “Is there a problem here?”
“No, sir.” I pasted on one of Vicky’s “rah, rah” smiles. “With twenty stalls to muck every day, sir, I don’t want to irritate my potential stepdad, sir. Dave might actually take away my pitchfork, sir, and only let me have a teaspoon, sir. I’d do better with one of my student’s plastic gloves, sir. She picks up each individual turd, sir.”
“That’s only seven, Sierra.” Coach Evans pointed to the bus. “Get on and next time, put one at the beginning, middle and end of each sentence.”
“Hey, awesome tip. Thanks.” I got on the bus.
This time Bill sat next to me and helped with my Cornell notes for Social Studies. Granted he spent part of the trip telling me how wonderful Robin was and how happy she’d been when we chose her to be president of our club, but I couldn’t have everything. I wondered if a guy would ever do that about me. Did Tom think I hung the moon and stars?
In the parking lot, we clustered around Coach Norris and he reviewed his expectations for the game, the plays and us. We headed for the gym and I saw Aspen Watson standing near the doors, her posse of first-string players behind her.
Coach eyed her, then nodded. “Hi. Are you part of a greeting committee?”
“No. We’re from Centennial.” She stepped around him and met me, look for look. “Did you choose Madison as the lead for the spring production to influence me? Did you think I’d take it easy on you next week?”
Patricia ranged up beside me. “We chose her because she’s the best singer in Community Theater. You don’t think much of her or us if you’d decide it was all about you.”
“And you don’t need to take it easy on us next week,” I said. “I cleaned your clock last year. I’m on a better team this year. Like my grandpa says, we’ll teach you to suck eggs. If you’re nice, we may let you score once or twice.”
“You can try to stop us, but you won’t succeed.” Aspen didn’t even look at the girls who stood shoulder to shoulder, behind her. “We have a secret weapon.”
“What?” I asked.
“Him.” She clenched her fist and pointed her thumb at our coach. “We have him. He’s on our side. We’re breaking your streak next week and he’s going to help us.”
“How do you figure that, young lady?” Coach Norris glowered at her.
“Your team doesn’t have any heart or spirit or passion for the game,” Aspen told him. “I thought they might grow spines when you chose Sierra for the Yankees, but you’ve ground her down too. You might as well tattoo “Welcome” on their foreheads because we’re wiping our feet on them next week. We couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks. We’ll bring you flowers when we come to Lincoln.”
She turned and walked away, her gang covering her back. Patricia flicked a glance at me. “What do you think?”
“We’re toast if they’re as tight on the court as they are in the stands.” I heaved a dramatic sigh. “Well, let’s go see if we can take Pine Ridge.”
Gretchen came up and hooked her arm through mine. “It’s okay, Sierra. We never beat Centennial or Stewart Falls Academy. It won’t be your fault when we lose next week.”
“You’re talking like losers,” Coach Norris said, his jaw beginning to jut forward. “Winners never quit and quitters never win. We’re the Lincoln Yankees. We don’t stop.”
“Hello, Coach.” Olivia eased up on the conversation. “Weren’t you here? Aspen is right about us. We’re a one-trick pony wonder team. We have Sierra, but none of us play full out. We’ve seen what happens to her when she does and we know better than to try.”
“Is that what you all think?” Coach Norris stared at the whole squad as if he’d never seen any of them before. “Are you afraid to try?”
“It’s not your fault, Coach,” Kanisha said, giving him an earnest look. “We’re just little girls. My grandma says we have to remember to be humble, obedient and sweet if we want people to like us. We need to give everyone what they want. Only Sierra doesn’t care about that. She’s on the team to win, no matter what because she isn’t scared to try something new.”
I waited until I was in the gym, sitting between Kanisha and Cedar before I said, “You two don’t actually believe that horse-radish, do you?”
“Horse-radish?” Cedar tilted her head. “If you mean crap, why not say so?”
“My mom has been preaching that I need to be patient and tolerant with folks who are a waste of time, space and oxygen, not tell them. My shrink says that means using more appropriate language, not swearing like a Navy sailor on shore leave.”
“Good luck with that.” Kanisha turned to look at Coach where he talked earnestly with Patricia and the first string. “Okay, this was Gretchen’s idea. She got it from Dr. D. It’s called reverse psychology. We don’t think that Coach actually wants us to lose. He’s just mad at Principal Gallagher telling him how to run the team.”
“So, we talked it over and came up with a plan. We decided to tell Coach that we’re afraid to play our best because we think he’ll be mean to us like he is to you,” Cedar said, “and we don’t have your guts. We care too much about keeping him happy.”
“And he decides he is happy if Lincoln High wins. It all becomes his idea and he gets to be the man, the hero.” I heaved a sigh and shook my head. “This is major manipulation of the worst kind.”
“Which is why you weren’t part of it,” Kanisha said. “You’re too honest. You say exactly what you think and if people can’t handle it, too bad, too sad.”
“Even when you say “sir” to Coach, you still don’t pull any punches,” Cedar agreed. “It’s why you end up running lines. Remember that prompt Mrs. Weaver had us write about a couple days ago? “If a ray of light falls into a pigsty, it is the ray that shows us the muck and it is the ray that is offensive.” You may not like it, Sierra, but you’re the ray.”
“Okay, I’m starting to understand why all of you did this.” I glanced across the gym and spotted the Crusaders. “Tell me one more thing. How did you get Aspen Watson involved?”
“We didn’t.” Olivia leaned around Cedar. “That set-to in the parking lot wasn’t planned by us. It was all because Madison, the singer you call Ms. Incredible really is Aspen’s best friend.”
“No way.” I gaped at Olivia. “I had no clue.”
“Yeah. They’ve been tight forever. If she thought you and Patricia were going after her, setting her up to be the laughing stock in the Community Theater spring production, Aspen would definitely attack. Madison is the chink in Aspen’s armor.”
“Oh, wow.” I watched our first string run out to the floor and Patricia signal Zoey to step up for the tip-off. “This just keeps getting worse and worse. No wonder, Aspen’s out for blood. Mine.”