Gracie (12 page)

Although it didn't seem to be talking about sports specifically, I knew that the teams at Columbia High received money from the government and that had to count as federal funding. I decided to mention Title IX at the end of my appeal. I figured it never hurt to have the law on your side and, besides, it sounded cool and official, like I knew what I was talking about.

Something thumped against my bedroom window. It made the hawk squawk anxiously. “It's okay,” I said, soothing him and feeding him a cracker as I leaned forward to check out the window.

Peter was under my window throwing his soccer ball up to get my attention. What did that traitor want? Not that I cared. I had no time for friends who weren't really friends.

Pulling down my shade, I turned from the window. It made me shudder to think that I had actually started liking Peter as more than a friend. He was nicer than Kyle, but he wasn't really all that different. He'd just been using me for his own selfish reasons.

I couldn't think about him for another second. He'd already wasted too much of the little time I had left to write this appeal.

The hawk made a funny little chirp and I looked at him. I remembered how I'd like to think that Johnny was in him. The idea had comforted me at the time, but now I didn't think so anymore.

Johnny wasn't inside the hawk. His spirit would never allow itself to be caged. Johnny was all around me. I could feel him when I played soccer and it was going
well. It was as if I could hear his voice coaching me, believing in me, just as he had that day out on the rec center field when he'd believed I could kick that bottle off the post. With Johnny beside me, I'd done it.

Johnny had believed this hawk would fly again, and he'd believed I could play soccer against any boy. He'd bet five dollars that I could.

Sitting at my desk, I crumpled what I'd written before and started with a new idea. I decided I would tell the School Board about Johnny, after all. But I wouldn't talk about his death. I'd tell them about what I'd learned from him, both on the soccer field and off.

I began to write:
In many ways, I'm like the hawk with the broken wing that my brother Johnny rescued last summer.
Suddenly writing wasn't hard at all. Everything in my heart began to flow onto the page.

Mrs. Bowsher called right after her meeting to tell Mom that the Board had agreed to hold a hearing about my case. Dad came to my room to give me the news. I thanked him coolly. As soon as he left, though, I did a dance of joy all around the room.

Once I settled down, I reminded myself that there was still a long way to go. School Board meetings were held in the school auditorium. I had personally never been to one, but Mom had told me that they weren't that well attended. I sure hoped this one wouldn't be. I was nervous enough without the whole school staring at me.

Okay,
I told myself,
take it one step at a time
. So far each step I'd taken had been a success. I could only hope the next one would be successful, too.

When I saw how well attended my particular School Board meeting was (during summer session, no less), it was pretty obvious that word had gotten out. The auditorium was packed with both students and parents. You would think I was asking to commit a federal crime instead of simply wanting to play a sport.

My whole family came. I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about that. I was still trying to avoid Dad, and my brothers weren't exactly on my list of favorites either. I now suspected they'd been in on the Gracie-can't-really-do-this but-let's-make-her-feel-good aspect of my training. I knew, logically, that I couldn't really blame them. They meant well, but my feelings were still so hurt and I so resented their lack of faith that it was impossible to let my head rule my heart.

I was happy Mom came. At least I was sure one person there truly thought I should be fighting this.

The only other ally I was sure of was Mrs. Bowsher. She smiled warmly at me as I walked into the crowded auditorium and took a seat with my family in the front row. She sat at the center of a long table on the stage, flanked by six other School Board members, all men. A glance at them told me that they had copies of my appeal on the table in front of them.

There was a pretty impressive bunch of people who had come out to hear me make my appeal. Coach Colasanti was sitting onstage with the Board. So were Principal Enright and Mr. Clark. Coach Conners, the gym teacher who ran the girls' sports program at school, was also with them.

The members of the Varsity soccer team and their parents had come out. I figured they were there to object. Peter wasn't among them. I wondered if he had come over the other evening to warn me. If so, I was glad I hadn't spoken to him. Knowing they planned to be here would have made me sick with anxiety.

Kate Dorset and the entire cheerleading squad were there, too, including Jena, who I guess was planning on becoming a cheerleader in the fall. I couldn't imagine what reason they had to attend, except that wherever the soccer team went, they followed. Maybe they were there to protest the outrage of possibly having to cheer for another girl. What a concept!

Mrs. Bowsher called the meeting to order. I wasn't the only subject they had to talk about, but she put me first on the list and invited me to come to a table that was set up in front of the stage. A microphone had been set up, and I had to speak into it.

“Hello, my name is Grace Bowen and I am here to appeal a decision by the School Board ruling that I cannot play soccer on the boys' team because I am a girl,” I began. I had never spoken into a microphone before, and at first I couldn't get used to the sound of my own voice
booming in my ears. I realized I sounded higher than usual and quivery because I was nervous.

Once again, it was as though Johnny were beside me. I could almost hear him whisper in my ear:
See the target? Don't look at the target. Keep your eye on the ball.

The target was the School Board. The ball was my appeal. And just as I had that day at the rec center, I needed to block out everything else around me and focus on delivering my appeal so that it would hit the target.

As I began reading the appeal, my voice grew increasingly steady. Even though the appeal was only two pages long, it felt as if it took forever to read. Then I came to the part I'd written about Title IX, and I knew I was almost to the end. “And finally,” I read, “Title Nine, the federal mandate, requires equal access to sports for girls.” I looked up at the Board. “Thank you.”

Thunderous applause did not follow as I left the microphone and returned to my seat.

Mike, Daniel, Mom, and Dad clapped, though.

Otherwise, dead silence.

Mrs. Bowsher leaned into her microphone. “Coach Conners, tell us about Title Nine,” she requested. “How does it apply here?”

“Title Nine means there is money to create a girls' soccer team,” Coach Conners explained. “But there's no interest in creating one. You need more than one player to make a team.”

That comment created a ripple of laughter from the cheerleaders and the soccer team. I forced myself not to look at them, as though they weren't even there.

One of the School Board members spoke next. “If another school in our district has a girls' team, does Miss Bowen have the option of playing there?”

“Yes,” Coach Conners replied, “but no city in this state has a girls' soccer team.”

“Why is that?” Connie Bowsher asked.

Coach Conners' tone of voice implied that the answer should be obvious. “It's not considered a girls' sport,” she replied. “The girls I know would rather watch it than play it.”

The soccer team and the cheerleaders thought this remark was just hilarious and let everyone know it.

Principal Enright spoke to the Board next. “We offer girls' gymnastics, field hockey, softball, tennis, swimming, badminton, track and field. All these teams could use a skilled athlete like Miss Bowen.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw someone enter the auditorium. Turning, I realized it was Peter. He sat alone in the back aisle.

One of the Board members had a son on the soccer team. He said that the Board would like to hear from the team's captain to get their views on the subject. I figured that this was how word had gotten around.

Kyle smirked at me nastily as he sat where I had been, in front of the microphone facing the School Board. The cheerleaders burst into applause. “We on the team don't think Gracie Bowen should be playing with us,” he began.

No surprises there. Would he have anything to add to that? Tensing, I waited to hear what he'd say next.

“Everyone will be afraid to play hard 'cause they'll be worried about her breaking something or whining 'cause she's bleeding,” he went on.

What a reptile he was!

“She can't run as fast or kick as hard. I don't want to lose 'cause of her,” he continued. He got up to go and then bent forward to the microphone for one last comment. “Just because she's Johnny's sister and he died, doesn't mean she should play.”

I wondered if he said that last thing to provoke me into jumping out of my seat and punching him. The idea that he
wanted
me to try to kill him, or to act like a maniac in front of everyone, was the only thing that kept me seated.

Next, Mrs. Bowsher asked Coach Colasanti how many openings there would be on the soccer team. “I'll take the best two or three players who try out in the fall,” he replied, speaking into his microphone.

“Define ‘best,'” she requested.

“I look for speed, ball control, passing ability, toughness,” he replied.

“All abilities a girl could demonstrate as well as a boy?” she asked.

“I've never seen it,” he said.

“But, in theory, a girl might be able to possess these skills?” she pressed him.

Coach Colasanti wriggled uncomfortably in his chair, indicating that he was doubtful. “In
theory,
I suppose,” he admitted dubiously.

A Board Member who hadn't spoken yet leaned forward. “If Miss Bowen were good enough to claim a spot on the team, why not let her play?” he questioned.

Once again, the coach squirmed in his seat. “There's the problem of the locker room. Showers. Changing into uniforms…”

“Thank you, Coach Colasanti, and everyone else for sharing your views,” Mrs. Bowsher said, cutting him short and making it clear that the discussion was over. “The Board will take Miss Bowen's appeal under consideration and—”

“Wait!” Mom said, raising her hand and standing. “I'm Lindsay Bowen, Gracie's mother. I'd like to say something.”

I looked up at her, surprised. What was she going to say?

“You have to be on the speaker's sheet in order to address this issue,” Principal Enright objected.

Mrs. Bowsher wrote Mom's name on the sheet on the table in front of her. “There! Now she's on the sheet. Please, Mrs. Bowen, go ahead.”

Mom walked up to the table with the microphone. Her voice shook more than mine had but she went ahead anyway. “All of you must be asking, if you were me, would I let my daughter play on a boys' team? Boys play hard. She could get hurt.”

I didn't think Mom would let me down, but I wondered where this was going.

“I see her going out in the rain, in the dark. She won't give up,” Mom went on. “She's fierce. She has a dream
that's bigger and more important to her than any dream I've ever had.”

She turned and looked at Dad, Mike, Daniel, and me for just a moment before speaking again. “For all my boys, soccer is and was everything. Gracie's the same. She loves competing. She loves that win-or-lose life.” She faltered, as though considering her next words. “It's not the same for me. It's been lonely. She's my only daughter.”