Defending Irene (6 page)

Luigi crossed his arms, thrust out his lower lip and complained, “But
mister
, I am always in the goal.”

“Poor Luigi,” Giulia said, playing along with his imitation of a whiny first grader. “You can change with me after five minutes.”

“Okay,” Luigi said. His expression suddenly looked very much like my brother Max when he managed to get his own way.

I turned back to my questioner. “Find a ball and meet us at the basketball court.”

We had finished setting up a pair of goals inside the rusting chain link fence when our opponents arrived.

“Ciao, ragazze!”
one of them shouted.

An insult. Luigi's face stayed blank even though the
e
on the end of
ragazze
labeled him as one of the girls. With thousands of girls and one boy, it would still be appropriate to use the masculine form and say
ragazzi
.

“Giulia, I forget. When did those idiots quit playing soccer?” he asked in a low voice. It was the same voice his father had used to speak to Davide about arriving late to practice.

“Oh, four or five years ago.”

“Very good. Very, very good,” Luigi said with an evil smile.

So what happened? The three of us rocked! We cleaned the court with them. As I raced up and down, I thought about how wonderful it would be to stomp Matteo in the same way. Once. Just once. He would need some kind of handicap, though. A bad cold? A twisted ankle? A mild case of salmonella poisoning from a slice of tiramisu pastry that had been left out on the counter too long?

A small but growing audience cheered every goal we scored. Or, to be more precise, they taunted our opponents for every ball we put past them. I recognized the difference. Ten minutes into this shellacking, some of the
ragazzi
who had been hanging on the outside of the chain link fence had either grown tired of our opponents' performance—or taken pity on them—and asked if they could play too.

“What do you think, Alessandro?” I asked. That was the name of the boy who had asked me if I really played soccer. I had learned his name while he and the rest of his friends yelled at each other about improving their defense.

“It's okay,” he muttered, shrugging. He turned away, his lips a thin line. Giulia and I had probably hurt his and his friends' poor masculine feelings. Well, so be it. It was worth the trouble. I probably wouldn't have liked him anyway. At least this demonstration would put an end to the questions about whether or not I could really play.

And Giulia! Her performance made me wonder again exactly why she had quit. Maybe she wouldn't have made it into the
Terza Categoria
, the 16-years-and-up traveling team. But she could have lasted easily through this year and maybe the next one. It was true that male hormones were already at work, giving the guys an unfair advantage. But the honor of being the first girl in town to wear an
Esordienti
uniform should have belonged to her. Instead, on Saturday, it would be mine.

“Irene!” the mister snapped.

“Here I am,” I said. I felt a rush of energy. A light breeze made the soft, smooth, almost slippery fabric of my game uniform flutter against me.

“Stay by me, Irene,” the
mister
said, his eyes still locked on the game. “At the beginning of the second period, I must put you in the game for Giuseppe. You will be
terzino
…or
terzina
?” He shrugged. “I don't know. In any case, it is the same. You will be a wing on defense. Understand?”

“Sí.”

“If a player gets past you, do not chase him. Run to the nearest goalpost and you will find yourself between him and the goal. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Watch well the Lana player Number 44. He is very fast. If he is in your area, mark him. Stay with him. If it is safe and appropriate, do not hesitate to kick a ball back to Luigi. Don't worry yourself. He can stop any pass from you.”

“Without a doubt,” I said. For the first time, the
mister
'
s eyes left the game and focused on me. The left corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile, giving his face an expression that I could not read.

My stomach lurched. Had I been disrespectful? Or did he think I had complimented Luigi to get on his good side?

“Without a doubt,” he echoed. The barest hint of smile defrosted the other side of his face. “All right, Irene. Watch and wait.”

I nodded. Watching and waiting had been my job, and I was becoming very good at it. My legs and arms had stopped demanding “Put us in! Put us in!” when I stood on the sidelines. It was an adjustment, though—one of the many that I had made that week.

At the beginning of the second period, I trotted onto the field with my hair braided tightly against my head. It seemed less conspicuous than a ponytail. I had thought seriously about having it all cut off, so I would blend in more with my teammates.

“
Forza
, Irene!” Giulia cheered from the stands. “Come on, get tough!”

Werner, a tall, solid boy with light brown hair, smiled at me as we ran onto the field together. “Listen to me and Manuel. We will tell you what to do.”

Werner usually played in the middle of the defensive line. There he was allowed to dash into our opponents' territory, break up a play, and go deep into their penalty area for a corner kick. As the tallest player on the field, he had a chance to head the ball into the goal. It had taken me a few practices to figure out that Werner was part of the local German-speaking population. He usually didn't say much to me beyond “Go forward” or “Come back,” and when he did, it was without an accent.

I didn't have much to do at first. Werner, Manuel (the other wing), and the midfielders kept knocking the ball down to Matteo and Emi. Since most players tend to drive toward their right, I knew that Manuel and Werner would see most of the action. There was no better place to put a weak player than where I stood.

So I watched the red uniforms from Lana work against my Merano teammates in blue, adjusting my position every time things moved in my direction. I tried not to wish that the ball would head toward our goal. That wouldn't be good for the team. Still, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to test me: the girl, the tempting target. Maybe I should have worn the ponytail.

Finally, trouble arrived. With a beautiful fake, Number 44, the player the
mister
had warned me about, drove past Manuel.

“Dai,
Mendichela,
dai!”
his coach shouted.

Werner rushed to cut him off, and I sprinted back into the penalty area to help.

Thirty feet from the goal, Number 44 dropped his eyes and shot the ball. Luigi batted it away with two hands.

Like any good player, Mendichela followed his shot in, looking for another chance if the first one failed. He and I raced to the ball. I heard footsteps behind us. My teammates or his? It didn't matter. Not yet anyway.

This sprint felt like that drill I had done against Davide at the second practice. The first person to reach the ball would be on offense. I had one or two steps on Mendichela. I reached the ball first and kicked it straight at the goal.

A gasp of surprise went up. My stomach dropped. Was my aim off? Was it too hard? No. The ball sailed right to Luigi. He caught it and wrapped his arms around it.

He took only a second to scan the field before racing to the right hand in order to punt the ball. The low, hard kick made the other team scramble back on defense.

“So, trying to score on me, Irene?” Luigi asked.

“No!”

“Only joking. Well done. And
grazie
, eh?” He retreated to the goal.

When our opponents moved the ball back down the field toward Luigi, I backed into the penalty area. But then I saw Number 44 again, Mendichela. He was standing alone on my side of the field. Danger.

I pelted back toward him. His teammate passed him the ball. He must not have seen me coming. Or if he did, he must have assumed I wouldn't be a problem. He was wrong. I intercepted the ball and sent it spinning to the sidelines. Since none of my teammates were there, I chased after it. A pass isn't complete until it reaches a target.

Players converged on me, cutting off the pass to the center, so I dribbled the ball down the field instead, protecting it as best I could. A player caught up to me and knocked the ball out of bounds.

I glanced back at the
mister
. He pointed his linesman flag in my direction—the direction of our opponent's goal. Our ball. I picked it up for the throw-in.

“No, Irene!” the
mister
shouted.

“What are you doing?” Matteo asked. He did not add the word
idiota
, but I could still hear it in his tone.

“Have you forgotten your place, Irene?” asked a third voice I barely recognized. It was snotty with distinct overtones of Matteo. Not Federico? But it was, and he wasn't joking.

My face burned. Yes, I had forgotten my place. Or at least I hadn't realized I was twenty feet over the centerline. No one could criticize me for bringing the ball down the field and staying with it. But picking up the ball for a throw-in? A definite mistake.

I jogged backwards to my spot, so I could keep an eye on the action. When I arrived, Werner smiled at me. “I would prefer to play midfielder too, you know,” he said.

“Me too,” Manuel added. “But we are on defense. We are the brutes.”

“We do not score. We only stop the enemy before he can do so,” Werner went on.

“Hey, sometimes we score. I had one goal last year,” Manuel interrupted.

“And I had two. All right then.
Sometimes
we—”

“Pay attention, defense!” the
mister
shouted. “Don't chatter!”

My neck muscles tightened. People seemed to talk on the field when I was around. The
mister
would not consider that a good thing. No coach would.

I was still thankful to Werner and Manuel. They knew how it felt to be back on defense instead of getting the chance to score. A brute, huh? I rather liked the idea.

We, the brutes, worked together well. We stopped Number 44, Mendichela, like a pride of lions taking down a lone antelope.

Time ticked away. We kept a narrow 1–0 lead into the third and final period. For five tense minutes, Luigi, Manuel, Werner, and I had more action that we would have liked as the other team controlled the ball on our half of the field. We barely managed to get the ball to the centerline before they forced it back in the direction of Luigi and the goal.

In what must have been the fifth or sixth attack, Mendichela swept past Manuel with another of his convincing fakes. Instead of dribbling closer to the goal, he decided to shoot the ball. It rocketed into the air. If I hadn't been directly in the ball's path, I could have done nothing to stop it. But since I was, it slammed into the bottom of my ribcage, forcing the breath out of my body.

My mind urged me to stay with the ball—to pass it to safety. My lungs said no. I dropped to my knees. If the ball had hit an inch or two lower, I would have been flat on my back.

Whump!

It was not the sound of someone taking a shot. More like a high pass spinning twenty feet above the field. I glanced up. Manuel? I wanted to cheer, but only a choked squeak came out.

A hand touched my shoulder. “Irene. Irene? You have hurt yourself?” Luigi asked.

“No. Mendichela has done it,” I whispered.

Luigi snorted. “Do we need to call a time-out for you?”

“Where's the ball?”

“Far away, or I would not be here.”

“I'll be okay. Only a second.”

“Brava.”
His fingers tightened briefly on my shoulder.

I lurched to my feet and made it back to my area with about twenty seconds to spare before the next attack. One of Lana's forwards dribbled the ball up the sideline on Giuseppe's side of the field.

“Put it out! Put it out!” our
mister
roared. Mendichela and another forward were waiting in the center of the field for a crossing pass from their teammate.

Giuseppe put it out. The whistle blew. With a sideways gallop, I made my way into the penalty area to join the fight for the ball. But the
mister
called me: “Irene, come here. Federico, you too.”

Reluctantly I went.

“Everything all right?” Werner asked as our paths crossed.

“Sí,”
I said.

“Gut,”
he said, switching to German. He sounded relieved.

“How do you feel, Irene?” the
mister
asked.

“Fine,” I said.

“Well done, Irene.
Bravo
, Federico,” the
mister
said. Instead of taking us aside and commenting on our play, he was already looking past us to the action on the field.

Federico was the one person who didn't seem interested in my health. He stared right past me, as if I didn't exist. Matteo had gotten to him. I was sure of it.

Between a punt from Luigi and a header by Davide, the ball finally moved back down to our forwards. Emi and Matteo managed a few more shots on the other team's goal before a long blast on the whistle signaled the end of the game. Another win.

Federico pumped his fists in the air. He turned to me, his face bright with enthusiasm. His mouth opened to say something. Then it closed to a tight, horrified O when he realized his near mistake. He spun around.

Mom and Dad waved from the stands. Dad's wide smile told me that he would have a lot to say when I met him at home. Most of it positive.

In the locker room, the
mister
distributed a few compliments and a lot of criticism. He was greatly disappointed by our lack of stamina. We did not pass well. We did not play our positions. He made his way around the circle for personal remarks, but skipped right over me. When he finished, I grabbed my blue backpack with our team name and sponsor stenciled on it and headed for the bathroom to change.

Three people were standing in line when I came out. But they weren't waiting to use the bathroom. They were waiting for me.

“Poverina,”
Matteo said softly. “How are you?”

I glanced back over my shoulder, as if looking for the “poor little girl.” Then I stood up as straight as possible. Even though I had changed into tennis shoes and Matteo still wore his cleats, I was taller than he was.

“To whom are you speaking, Matteo?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I fear it is too dangerous for you here. I saw how that ball knocked you to the ground.
Poverina
,” he repeated. “And I heard what the
mister
said to you after the game.”

“He didn't say anything.”

“Exactly.” Matteo smiled.

“Maybe there is too much for you to remember here in Italy, Irene,” Giuseppe said. “If you are on defense, you must stay in your area.”

Federico smirked from his spot behind Matteo. “Or did you forget you were on defense, Irene? You tried to score on Luigi.”

“That's not true!” I shouted. A mistake. Now they knew they were getting to me. I kept my voice even. “I
passed
the ball to Luigi.”

Matteo laughed. “Luigi said that the only time he was afraid during the game was when you “passed” him the ball.”

“It's true,” Federico said. “I heard him say it.”

Not Luigi too? For an instant, my brain froze. Fortunately, my mouth did the same thing. No, not Luigi. He had even told me that he was scared for a moment, but then he had thanked me. I had done the right thing. I had done what the
mister
told me to do. I took a deep breath, ready to tell them so.

“
Ciao
, Irene.” Giulia appeared at my side and tugged at my elbow. “Let's go.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Ciao, ciao, ciuccio,”
Giuseppe said.

Bye, bye, baby pacifier? I stiffened. The
ch
sound, which started every syllable he spoke, landed on my ears like a series of slaps.

“Ciao, ciao, cucciola,”
Matteo added.

The different meanings of
cucciola
ran through my brain: kitty, puppy, little darling. This was definitely not a compliment.

I was ready to turn and face them, but Giulia said softly, “
Dai
, Irene. Don't listen to them.”

“I am not a
cucciola
,” I said through clenched teeth. “I am a brute. Werner said so.”

Giulia giggled. “Werner would know. But I like him. He's fair.”

“Agreed.”

So many people were being fair to me: Werner, Luigi, Emi, Manuel, and maybe even the
mister
. So how could three idiots ruin everything for me? Or was it just one idiot—one extremely talented idiot?