Chapter 6
After practice, Coach Kelly told Fiona to change and come to her office. Fiona hurried to change back into her school clothes. Then she knocked on the coach’s office door.
“Come in, Fiona,” Coach Kelly said. She was sitting at her big desk in her office.
Fiona sat across from the coach in a rickety plastic chair. She nervously cleared her throat.
“You haven’t studied the rules, have you?” the coach asked.
“Um, a little,” Fiona replied.
“Very little, I’d guess,” Coach Kelly said. “Do you know why that wasn’t a goal today?”
“Was I off-sides?” Fiona asked. She didn’t think she had been past all the defenders when she shot, but it was possible that she’d missed someone.
“There are no off-sides in field hockey,” Coach Kelly replied. “Which just proves that you haven’t studied.”
“Oh,” Fiona said quietly.
The coach sighed loudly. “The goal didn’t count because to shoot you must be inside the striking circle,” the coach said.
“The . . . striking circle?” Fiona repeated.
The coach sighed again. “You’d probably think of it as the crease,” the coach explained. “That’s the ice hockey term for it.”
Fiona smiled and nodded. “Oh,” she said. “Gotcha. You have to be inside the crease — I mean, the striking circle — to score a goal.”
Coach Kelly shook her head slowly. “I took a chance putting you on the team, Fiona,” the coach said. “You’re new here, and you love ice hockey. You’re obviously a good athlete. But you haven’t kept up your part of the bargain.”
Fiona looked down at the ground. Then she quietly asked, “Are you cutting me from the team?”
“No. Not yet,” Coach Kelly replied. “You’ll sit the bench this week and watch. On Friday, you’ll practice with the team again. But if by the end of this week you don’t have a better grasp of the rules, I’m going to have to cut you.”