CHAPTER 6
RESULTS
After practice, Dominic got into the car without saying goodbye to anyone — even ignoring Johnny and Nathan.
Grandpa could tell something was wrong right away. “How was practice today?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Dominic replied. “I just want to know how Caleb’s doing.”
“We haven’t heard anything yet, but they should be calling any minute,” Grandpa said. “There’s a soccer game on tonight. What do you say we watch it while we wait?”
Dominic smiled. At least it would be a distraction. “Sure thing, Grandpa,” he replied.
As soon as they got home, Dominic and Grandpa grabbed a snack from the kitchen, but before they could do anything else, Grandpa’s phone rang. Immediately, Dominic felt his stomach get tight with worry.
“Hello?” Grandpa said into the phone. Then he paused for a minute.
Dominic stood still as he watched, almost afraid to move.
“Oh, thank goodness!” Grandpa cried. He wiped tears from his eyes, but Dominic could tell they were happy tears.
“Was that Mom?” Dominic asked when Grandpa had hung up. “What’d she say?”
“They won’t know for sure until the lab results are back tomorrow, but the doctors removed the growth, and they think the tumor is the harmless kind,” Grandpa replied. “If the results are good, they’ll all come home tomorrow.”
Dominic hugged his grandpa. For the first time in months, he felt truly happy.
* * *
When Dominic woke up the next morning, he was relieved thinking about Caleb’s surgery. But then he remembered something else — his soccer game tonight.
I really messed up at practice yesterday, he thought. I have to make it up to my teammates by putting in my best effort in the game tonight.
Dom spent the day practicing his moves outside and watching soccer games on TV.
When it was nearly time to go, Grandpa stuck his head out the back door and called to Dom, “You almost ready, champ?”
Dominic ran inside, filled up his water bottle, gathered his soccer equipment, and headed to the car.
* * *
When Dominic arrived at the field, the sun was starting to set, and the floodlights over the field had been turned on. Most of his teammates were already warming up. Dom went onto the field to join them, but no one said hi or even looked in his direction.
They must be upset about yesterday. Can’t really blame them, Dominic thought, so he went to sit on the bench instead.
Soon Coach walked over and sat down. “Hey, Dominic. Can we talk about what happened yesterday?” he said. “I’m upset that you weren’t taking practice seriously, and I think some of your teammates are upset, too.”
Dominic sighed. “I wasn’t being a good teammate, and I’m sorry for yelling at you,” he said. “I was having a bad day. My brother had his surgery yesterday, and we’ll find out today if he’s okay or not.”
“That must be scary. But the way you were acting yesterday wasn’t acceptable, even if you were nervous about your brother. In the future, I’d rather you come talk to me than disrupt practice,” Coach said.
Dominic nodded in response.
“In the meantime,” Coach continued, “I think some soccer will do you good. It’ll give you something else to focus on — like having a good game.” With that, Coach smiled, stood up, and walked out to center field for the coin toss.
The Rockets won the toss and chose to kick off. The referee placed the ball at the center of the field and stepped back. Dylan, the Rockets’ center forward, ran up and passed the ball to his teammate on the left, David. They tried to advance, but one of the Warriors darted in, stole the ball, and broke toward his team’s goal.
The Warriors’ player passed the ball to a teammate, who gave it a strong kick into the net. After just forty-five seconds of play, the Warriors had scored their first goal.
The ball was put back into play, and two of the Rockets passed the ball back and forth as they moved up the field. But when they got inside the goalie box, a Warriors’ defender lunged and stole the ball away, knocking it out of the defensive zone.
The Warriors managed to advance the ball all the way to the Rockets’ defensive zone before Nathan attempted to steal it. He darted forward, but since he hadn’t practiced much, he ended up tripping the player with the ball.
“Foul!” shouted the referee, pointing at Nathan. “Penalty kick for the Warriors!”
The Rockets groaned as they got positioned on defense for the penalty kick. The Warriors player ran at the ball and kicked it hard into the right-hand corner of the net. The score was now 0–2.