Bending Over Backwards (7 page)

“Molly? What are you doing here?” Miranda ran over to Roseann and me as we walked onto the field together.

“Trying to learn field hockey.” I bowed comically.

“That's awesome!” Miranda laughed and seemed truly glad to see me. So did all the other girls, most of whom I recognized from the lunch table. “It's not too hard.”

“I'm thinking: see ball, swing stick”—I gave my stick a wild swing high above my head—“and whack ball into the goal!” I made a roaring-crowd noise.

“Whoa, there, champ!” A muscular woman in a black baseball cap grabbed my wrist and gently lowered it. “Rule one. The stick is never raised higher than your waist. It's dangerous.”

“And you'll get a foul,” Grace added. Her pale hair was pulled into tight French braids.

“Good to know,” I said. “Stick on the ground.”

“I'm Coach Nicki. Chrissy told me it's your first time, so welcome to the Eagles.” She tilted the visor of her cap to better see me. “You look like you have strong arms and legs. What about those sneakers?”

Grace, Miranda, Roseann, and I stared down at my white Converses. Everyone else wore rubber-soled cleats. “I didn't know I was coming,” I explained.

Coach Nicki nodded. “For today, it's okay.” She tossed me a pair of long green athletic socks and shin guards. “Pull these on to protect your legs.”

“I need protection? Does the stick hurt?” I'd never considered being hit by it.

“Only when it connects with your leg,” Coach Nicki said. “Run fast, keep your eyes on the ball, and you'll be fine.”

“I have tons of bruises,” Miranda confided. She pointed out all her black-and-blues as I pulled on the thick socks.

“Grace is bruise-free, because she runs so fast,” Roseann put in.

“You got to keep up with me, Roe. That's how we score.” Grace tapped her stick against Roseann's.

Roseann tapped hers back. “You and me. The Dynamic Duo in action.”

“They always score the goals,” Miranda explained to me.

“Do I look ridiculous?” I wore my rose-colored, lace-trimmed tank with Roseann's baggy black mesh shorts, high green socks, and my new white Converses.

“You look cute,” Roseann assured me. She tossed me a pair of goggles. “Put these on too.”

“Are we snorkeling?”

“If the ball hits your eye, you can go blind,” Miranda put in.

“I see.” I slipped the plastic goggles over my head. “Get it? I see?”

Roseann and Miranda groaned at my pun.

“Huddle up!” Coach Nicki called.

The twelve of us gathered around. She introduced me, then we placed our hands into the circle. “Eagles on three. One, two, three—”

“Eagles! Eagles! Eagles!” they all cheered. I joined the group roar, feeling the power of being part of a team.

“Break it out.” Coach Nicki divided our group in half. “Stick skills with Chrissy. Running with me.”

While Roseann, Grace, Miranda, Anna, and their friend Fiona dribbled the ball in and out of cones, Chrissy had a private session with me.

“Meet Myrtle.” She held up her battered stick. “Myrtle is my best friend.”

“Your best friend is your field hockey stick?”

“Totally. She's like another body part. Where you go on the field, your stick goes.”

“Does everyone name their hockey sticks?”

“The good players do.” Chrissy showed me how to grip my stick and use only the flat side.

“What do you think about Stanley Stick? Or Peppermint Stick?” I asked. “How about Captain Hook?”

Chrissy shook her head. “It's a little early for you to be picking out names.”

I crouched low and moved the flat side of the stick back and forth to dribble the small, hard ball. My arms twisted like a pretzel.

“Eyes on the ball!” Coach Nicki walked over.

“I'm watching it. I watch it go over here. I watch it go over there,” I joked.

“Make it go straight,” Coach Nicki instructed.

“This ball has a mind of its own,” I told Chrissy.

“It's a special trick ball we give first timers,” she whispered.

“Seriously?” That would explain a lot.

“Not seriously.” Chrissy fixed my grip. “You're in good athletic shape. No huffing or puffing, but you
need to get the feel of the stick. Remember, it's your friend.”

I tried again. One ball shot to the far left. The next ball flew off to the right. “My friend doesn't like me.”

“Try a flick,” Chrissy suggested.

Roseann and Grace stopped dribbling to watch me. My stomach fluttered. I didn't want to mess up again.

“Flip? Did you say a flip?” I called out. Then I dropped my stick and did three back handsprings, landing next to one of my many off-course balls. “Ta-da! A flip!” I cried.

Roseann and Grace clapped.

“Enough funny business,” Coach Nicki said. I tried not to blush. I just thought I'd crack a joke.

Chrissy lined us up for offense-defense drills.

“Ow!” My partner, Miranda, cringed after my stick whacked my own shins for the fifth time. “Molly, you can't stand in one place like that. You need to keep moving.”

“No pain, no gain,” I joked. My legs throbbed. I'd be black and blue tomorrow. “I'm too busy trying to slap the ball to move my body.”

“You've got to do both!” Grace called. She and Roseann performed the drill perfectly next to us.

“Scrimmage time!” Coach Nicki called after I'd messed up the drill several more times.

“What about me?” I asked.

“You're far from ready, but get on the field and see what you can learn. Stay out of the action and over by the sidelines. Try to pick up on what the others are doing,” she suggested.

I watched Roseann high-five Grace even though they were on opposite scrimmage teams. I longed to be the other half of Roseann's Dynamic Duo.

Forget staying on the sidelines, I decided. I was going to play—and play hard.

Fifteen minutes later, I was sweating. Not from the running. Jump roping and conditioning had me in good shape. I sweated from trying to get my stick on the ball. These girls were like magicians. The ball would be clearly in front of me. I'd swing my stick back, readying to hit it, and
wham
! Someone would magically scoop the ball out of my path. Some girls shouldered me away. Hard! Twice, I tripped over my own feet and face-planted on the grass.

“You okay, Molly?” Roseann called from across the field. How could she talk to me while blocking a shot and stealing the ball away from Anna? I couldn't even stop hitting myself in the shins with my own stick!

“Perfect,” I called back. I stopped running and stood, watching the action.

I hated this game, I decided. I hated the tiny ball. And I hated my nameless hooked stick. We were never going to be friends.

Just as I was about to tell Coach Nicki I was done, I heard Roseann call. “Molly! It's coming to you!”

The ball rolled right in front of me. No one blocked me. Why would they?

This is it,
I realized. My chance to shine.

I lined up my stick and began to move the ball forwards.

“Go, Molly!” I heard Chrissy yell.

“Molly! Molly!” Roseann cried.

The goal stood in the distance, and Grace, in her yellow scrimmage pinny, stood in between, ready to block.
I'm getting by her,
I promised myself.
I can do this!

My legs, arms, and stick began to work together. Faster and faster, I moved the ball upfield. I spotted Miranda in a yellow pinny off to my right side, so I darted left.

“Molly!” Roseann cried.

I was on fire! I heard Roseann cheering, and that pushed me even faster.

Grace was upon me now. She stood a head taller than me.
No way is she stopping me,
I thought.
No way!

I faked left, but she moved with me.
Time to show
Roseann what I can do,
I thought, eyeing the goal nervously. Barreling past wasn't an option, so I got creative. Tapping the ball to the right, I sprang into a split leap, startling Grace. She gaped at me as I sailed past her in the air. I landed by the ball and took it up towards the goal.

Ha! I bet she'd never seen a player do a gymnastics leap before.

Footsteps pounded on the field behind me. My name was called over and over. I felt the power of my team as they surrounded me. I charged forwards. Roseann ran up my right side, ready to help. The new Dynamic Duo. Time to score!

With a burst of energy, I sped towards the goal. I pulled my stick back wide.
Power,
I thought.
Power it in!

I had to make this shot.

Fiona ran in to defend their goal. Her dark eyes widened as I gave my most awesome swing. I heard my stick connect. The ball soared powerfully through the air . . . and far from the goal. My stick kept moving, and I lost my grip.

I watched in horror as my heavy wooden stick spiraled sideways into the sky—right for Roseann's head!

I screamed and screamed as the stick boomeranged straight for Roseann.

Grace leaped into action. She dove and flung her arms around Roseann's waist, pulling them both to the ground.

The stick whizzed by. My screams echoed throughout the park.

We all raced to where the two girls lay panting.

“I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry,” I repeated. I felt awful.

“I'm fine.” Roseann sounded shaken, but she wasn't hurt.

“Grace, you saved Roseann from being beheaded by Molly's stick!” Miranda patted Grace on the back. Everyone cheered for Grace. Roseann hugged her.

“Never, and I mean
never,
do you raise your stick above your waist!” Coach Nicki scolded me. Her face was red.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I got carried away. And then, I guess, my stick got carried away too.”

No one laughed at my lame joke. Especially not Roseann. The girls gathered around her as if she'd just survived a plane crash. I gazed where the stick had landed, several feet away. By my guess, it would have missed her even if Grace hadn't tackled her to the ground.

I decided to keep this calculation to myself.

Coach Nicki pulled me aside. “I'm thinking you may not be ready for the team just yet. We should have you join a clinic or take a few lessons.”

“I could do that,” I agreed. “Then maybe later I could be on the team.”

“No! You have gymnastics. You can't give that up.” Roseann came up behind us. The rest of the team trailed her.

“No offense, Molly, but I'm not sure field hockey is your thing,” Grace added.

“She
is
supergood at gymnastics,” Miranda told Coach Nicki.

“I got that sense on the field.” Coach Nicki winked at me. “It's great to do a sport that you love.”

Did I love gymnastics? I knew I didn't love field hockey. I wanted to be on a team with Roseann, but this might not be the best way to go.

“Give your pinnies to Chrissy,” Coach Nicki instructed. “Good practice, girls. See you all next week.”

Not me,
I thought. I listened as Grace and Roseann recounted Grace's heroic save. Joining field hockey hadn't gone as I'd planned. It certainly hadn't brought Roseann and me closer. But I guess that's what happens when you nearly take off someone's head.

Trudging to the sidelines, I spotted my brother standing alongside Chrissy. He smirked at me, and I knew he'd seen it all. Boy, would Alex tease me tonight!

Great. Just what I needed.

Alex didn't stay home long enough to tease me. He dropped me off, then disappeared.

“What's with the mystery?” I asked Mom later in our backyard. “Why wouldn't he tell me where he's going?”

Mom hunched over and pulled a hoe through a big section of dead grass. “He went to the library to help a friend study.”

“What friend? Who's his friend?” I demanded. How was my shy brother making all these friends already?

“I don't know, honey.” She grunted as she dug out the weeds. “I wished he'd stayed and helped. I wanted to lay the seed tonight too.”

“I can help,” I offered. Mom hadn't noticed that I was home earlier than I'd normally be if I were at the gym. She was too focused on pulling up our backyard and planting grass seed. She said she'd always dreamed of a lush, green yard filled with flowers and walkways.

“Once our yard blooms, this house will feel cozier and settled,” she explained.

I knelt beside her and used my hands to yank out the stubborn weeds.

“We could plant a vegetable garden in that corner.” Mom pointed towards the fence.

“That would be fun, but don't you need to know how?” I looked around our yard. The old grass had been mostly pulled up, leaving behind a field of tan dirt. “Do you have any idea how to turn all this dirt to food?”

“We'll figure it out together. All three of us. The Larsen farmers!” She hacked with the hoe. “Alex promised to help with the yard this month for gas money.”

“Good luck with that,” I quipped. “He's never around anymore.”

Mom regarded me. “I didn't think you'd care. You two bicker so much when you're together.”

I shrugged. “It's not so bad. It's just what we do.” The house felt quiet without him.

“You know, I could track down that woman at work and get her daughter's phone number for you. Sheila, I think her name is. You could text her.”

Sheila.
I imagined a girl my age in the tailored dresses Mom wears to work. A mini-businesswoman with heels and her hair pulled into a bun. She and I would not get along.

“I don't need it, Mom. I'm making great friends already.” Even if things weren't going totally smoothly with Roseann, I wasn't going to blow it! She and I had bonded this afternoon at her house. I told Mom about Roseann and her sisters. She was happy for me.

After Mom had gone upstairs to take a shower, I sat at the patio table with my computer to video chat with Eden. I told her everything, minus the bit about the Olympics. When I gave a play-by-play of the flying stick, Eden doubled over with laughter. I joined in with my hiccup laugh.

“Funniest story ever,” Eden said.

“Roseann didn't think so.”

“She was just surprised. Of course she thinks it's funny,” Eden said. “Tell me more about her house.” Eden was fascinated with all things Bleeker. From all
the way across the country, she'd caught the Bleeker bug, just like every kid in my new town.

“I can't wait to meet her,” Eden said after we reviewed the entire afternoon. “I'm begging my mom to let me visit you as a Christmas gift.”

“Yoo-hoo! Hey, Molly!” Shrimp bellowed from somewhere behind the fence.

“What's that?” Eden asked.

“Shrimp's calling. Remember the tiny girl on the trampoline that I told you about?” I stood. “Hey, Shrimp!” I yelled.

“Is she friends with Roseann?” Eden asked.

“I don't think they're close, but Roseann is friends with everyone. Besides, Shrimp kind of does her own thing. I'm going to go see what she wants. Talk later, okay?”

“Okay, but remember the next part of the plan. Be happy. Be the nicest girl on the planet. Go out and get Roseann.”

“Got it, Dr. Eden!” I logged off and hurried to the corner of the fence. “Shrimp! You there?”

“Yep, just practicing your favorite game,” Shrimp replied.

“What's that?”

“Hmmmm . . . limbo? Pole vaulting? I know it's
something”—Shrimp chuckled—“with a flying stick.”

“Oh, no!” I groaned. “You heard about that already?”

“It's awesome! Did you even score?”

“Not even close,” I admitted.

“And I thought
I
was the worst at team sports! Want to do flips on my trampoline with me?”

“Yes!” I cried, relieved that Shrimp didn't find the field hockey mess up a big deal. Hopefully Roseann felt the same. “How do I get to you?”

“I live on Royal Oak Drive. You have to go down your street, across Maple, and then down my street,” Shrimp told me through the fence.

“My mom's in the shower. She won't let me walk around the new neighborhood by myself yet. I guess I'm stuck here tonight. If only this fence wasn't so high . . .”

“Could you climb it?”

“If I had a ladder or a rope,” I said.

“I have an idea. Wait there!” I heard Shrimp run off.

Five minutes later, she returned. She made a few grunting sounds.

“What's going on?” I hated not being able to see.

“Almost done,” Shrimp said. “I need to make sure these knots are tight.”

“What knots? What are you doing?”

“Catch this!” Shrimp called.

A huge piece of pale pink fabric sailed over the high fence. I grabbed the end and pulled it towards me. The fabric kept coming and coming. Pink, then beige, then yellow, then white, like an enormous never-ending magician's scarf. “What is this thing?”

“I tied a few bedsheets together. Pretty smart, huh? You can use it as a ladder. I tied some extra knots along the way.”

“It's genius!” I gave it a tug.

“My end is tied to a tree. Can you shimmy up? If you don't want to, I can climb to you.”

“Oh, I'm coming! I'm not scared. Ready?”

“Ready, spaghetti! I'm holding on too,” Shrimp called.

I scaled the sheet ladder the same way we had to climb the ropes in gym class. Holding on to the sheets tightly with my hands, I wrapped my feet around the bottom. I used my arm strength and the knots to pull myself up. The sheet ladder swayed as I inched my way up. Twisting around at the top, I shimmied down Shrimp's side of the fence.

Shrimp cheered when I landed. Her yard was the same size as mine, but with lots of flower beds and shrubs. Together we scrambled onto her big, round trampoline. At first we just bounced. Then we
competed to see who jumped the highest. Shrimp could really fly!

“Try this,” she said. She did a front somersault into a half twist.

“Wow! You're good.” I completed it on the third try.

We did front and back tucks. We timed them together, jumping as a pair. We even made up a routine.

“I looked for you in the gym today,” Shrimp said as we flipped. “You ditched for field hockey, I guess.”

“Big mistake!” I did a split jump.

“Try it touching your toes.” Shrimp split her legs and stretched her fingers to her toes.

“Anyway, Andre was probably happy to have a break from me,” I said. “I kind of needed a break too.”

“Gymnastics isn't good?” Shrimp asked.

“It's not what I thought it would be.” I touched my toes in the split jump.

“What did you think it would be?”

I thought it would be fun, like in my old gym in Arizona. I thought my teammates would encourage me, like my old teammates did. I thought the coach would praise me, like Daria did. I thought I'd be good enough to train for the Olympics and then I wouldn't have to feel as if I misled Roseann.

I didn't say any of this out loud. Instead I answered,
“I just thought it would be different.”

“You have two choices.” Shrimp did a front tuck. “You can quit.”

“I'm not a quitter,” I said forcefully.

“I didn't mean that.” Shrimp stopped jumping. “Or, choice two—our cheer coach says when something is hard, you just have to work harder.”

“That's what I'm going to do. Work harder.” The sky darkened as the sun set. “What's that noise?”

“I don't hear anything.” We sat back-to-back on the trampoline and listened, quiet, catching our breaths.

“All that chirping and trilling,” I said. “It's so loud.”

“The crickets? Or the tree frogs?”

“No idea. Night never sounded like this at home.”

“I don't even hear it. We moved to Hillsbury when I was four.”

“Four was probably easier than twelve.” I rested my head on my knees.

“Probably,” Shrimp agreed. “I remember being scared of the grass. Isn't that crazy? We came from New York City. I hated how the grass felt all prickly on my bare feet.”

“My mom really wants grass. She's trying to grow it in our backyard.”

“Can't be that hard. Look around. Everyone has it.”
Shrimp waved her arms at her own yard, covered in shadows as dusk fell.

“Lots of times at night, we'd hear coyotes howling,” I told her.

“Really? C.J. would freak out. He'd be hiding in my parents' bed. No,
under
it!” Shrimp rubbed her palms together. “I'm
so
going to howl at his bedroom door tonight.”

“That's not nice,” I scolded.

“True. But it's funny, and he really does like it. It's what we do, you know?”

I thought about me and my brother. “Yeah,” I told her. “I do know.”

The crickets chirped ever louder in the trees. “I need to climb back over the fence before my mom finds out where I went,” I said.

“I need to return the sheets to the closet before my mom finds out what I did,” Shrimp agreed.

I jumped off the trampoline. Shrimp found a stepladder in her garage. We flung the knotted sheets back over the fence. With the ladder and the sheets, I was able to twist over the top and slide back into my yard.

“Bye-bye, french fry!” Shrimp called into the darkness.

“Good night, Shrimp.”

Later, as I lay in bed listening to the crickets, I thought about Roseann. When Eden and I had planned out being friends with the It Girl, it'd seemed easy. A big smile. A few jokes. Instant friendship.

But in real life, it was not so easy. Not really.

I thought about Shrimp's coach's words:
The harder it is, the harder you have to work.

The next week, I worked hard at being happy, just as Eden suggested. Her mother had written on her blog that happy people are attracted to other happy people. She said friendliness goes a long way. I planned to out friendly Roseann. Or, at least, be equally as friendly.

When Roseann said she liked my periwinkle nail polish, I loaned her the bottle. I complimented her on her oral report in social studies, because she really did do a great job. I cheered extraloudly for Miranda during the fifty-yard dash in gym. I offered to throw away Grace's trash at lunch when I stood to dump mine. I went back to the gym. I worked on my beam moves with Nastia without complaining.

No one talked about the field hockey stick near miss.

Everyone stopped calling me Ugga Bugga except Lyla, not that I cared about her.

But the strangest thing was that Roseann didn't mention the article. Could she have forgotten about it? I wondered. Did she decide to write something else?

“Um, what's going on with the article?” I whispered on Wednesday morning, leaning towards her desk in social studies.