Saving the Team (13 page)

“Try humming into it, not blowing,” Coach suggested.
Something about her was way different. I couldn't put my finger on it, but she had a gleam in her eyes that she hadn't had before. Even with a silly kazoo it looked like this Coach Flores meant business.

“It's been brought to my attention that you guys have felt like you haven't been learning many new skills at practice,” Coach Flores said.

The girls looked around at one another quizzically. It was true.
But how did Coach Flores know that?
their faces asked.

“So we're going to try to do things differently today,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “And the activities won't have anything to do with soccer.”

She turned over the big bag, and a bunch of balls came bouncing out. There were rubber bouncy balls, tennis balls, volleyballs, a basketball, and even some footballs. We all looked around at one another, totally confused.

“You'll never guess what I have in here,” Coach said as she pulled open the smaller bag. She started to pull out a bunch of long socks! There was an excited energy in the air. What was all this stuff for? Did this have something to do with our sock swap?

“Now, which game do you want to play? The one with the balls or with the socks?” Coach asked us, smiling that familiar smile of hers.

In a unanimous vote we all raised our hands for the socks. Coach laughed. “Okay, this game is for teams of two. Split yourselves into pairs.” While Coach still seemed
as nice as ever, there was something more forceful about her too.

“Hey, sock buddy,” Jessi said to me. “Let's be a team.”

Coach gave us directions while handing out a single sock to each pair. “One of you has to wear this as a blindfold.”

Jessi wrinkled her nose. “I hope they're clean,” she joked.

“Don't worry. They're brand-new,” Coach said, and laughed. Then she rolled the rest of the socks up into individual balls and put them in piles around the field. “Now here's what we're going to do. The person not wearing the blindfold will be the driver. The one wearing the blindfold will be the tank. The driver will direct the tank by giving her verbal directions. The object of the game is to work together to grab a sock from the pile. Once you grab a sock, your team can eliminate another team when your tank hits another tank with a balled-up sock. Last team standing wins. Got it?”

It sounded a bit confusing, and totally ridiculous, but more important, it sounded like fun.

“I should be the tank,” Jessi said. “You'll be way better at giving directions.”

I agreed. I wrapped the sock blindfold around Jessi's head.

“If only Cody could see you now,” I joked. Jessi laughed as I took her hand and led her to the starting position.

We gathered in a circle around the randomly placed piles of socks. Coach blew her kazoo, and we were off!

Jessi immediately lurched forward way too fast, putting herself right into Emma's path.

Zoe yelled, “Emma, turn right, right!” Of course, blindfolded Emma was twice as disoriented as usual, so she moved left and bumped right into Jessi. I was doubled over laughing already.

“Devin, where do I go?” Jessi said, her hands in front of her like a zombie. She shuffled slowly toward what she thought was the middle.

I tried hard to stop laughing, barely gasping out, “Forty-five degrees left, take five big steps, and there's a sock on the ground right there.”

We were a good team. Jessi found the sock. Right behind her was Frida, moving superslowly with her blindfold on. Sarah was trying to get her to move faster.

“Now flip around a hundred and eighty degrees!” I yelled at Jessi. All the drivers were yelling at the same time. It was so noisy, it was hard for the tanks to hear their drivers.

Once I saw that Jessi had turned the right way around, I screamed loudly, “Aim, and FIRE!” Jessi didn't hesitate. She threw her sock directly in front of her, and it bounced off Frida's arm.

“Got 'em!” I cried, jumping up and down in celebration.

Right then a sock dropped out of the sky, looping toward Jessi's head. “Duck, Jessi, duck!” I yelled. Again she did exactly as I said, and the sock missed her.

It took another ten minutes, but Jessi and I won by outmaneuvering Grace and Anjali to become the last team standing. I ran over to Jessi as she ripped her blindfold off, my adrenaline pumping so hard, I leaped right into her arms for a big hug.

“Want to play again?” Coach Flores asked with a grin. Of course we did!

“Switch partners!” Coach tooted into her kazoo. The rest of practice zoomed by as we took turns being tanks and drivers with different partners. I didn't win again, maybe because I wasn't partners with Jessi, but it was still superfun. Everyone was laughing at the end when Coach gathered us together.

“So what did you learn from this game?” Coach asked.

“You gotta listen to your driver!” Jessi said.

“When you're a tank, you gotta trust your driver first?” Frida chimed in.

“Be patient with your tank,” Emma added. “Especially me.”

“You are all correct!” Coach Flores said. “Listening, trusting your teammates, and patience are all incredibly important tools! But my favorite lesson that this game teaches is that, sometimes, it's important to just let loose and have fun.”

Coach was a genius! Not only had this silly game helped our teamwork skills, but our team had never laughed so much together. And she'd still done it her way—the fun way!

I caught Coach Flores's eye, and she gave me a wink. She was right: Listening
was
an important skill. And she had clearly taken my words to heart. I couldn't wait to see what else she had in store for us! But first I had my own plan to put into action—turning Zoe and Frida into two of the Kicks' most valuable players!

While the rest of our teammates headed to the locker room, Jessi, Emma, Zoe, Frida, Brianna, Sarah, Anna, and I stayed behind. They were still smiling over the great practice when they huddled around me.

“That was so much fun!” Anna cried, her big brown eyes shining.

Brianna nodded. “I'm so busy with all my other extracurricular activities, I was thinking of dropping soccer. But not anymore!”

Zoe looked at me curiously. “Did you have anything to do with this, Devin? I saw you going into Coach's office yesterday.”

I smiled. “Yes, and that's when I found out about the Kicks being state champs!”

“Well, whatever you said worked,” Emma said. “That was awesome! I feel like we really have a chance at being a
team now. Maybe a champion team. Who knows? Maybe history will repeat itself.”

“So what's your big idea?” Jessi asked, her eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, we've been wondering all day,” Frida added. “I told my mom I would be late coming home from practice today. She was shocked! I'm usually texting her the second it's over to come and get me.”

I took a deep breath. I hadn't thought this all the way through, but the glimmer of an idea had taken hold in my mind last night. I had to give it a try.

“Frida,” I began, “I know your mom is making you play soccer, but Jessi said you're a really great player when you're paying attention.”

“It's not like I hate soccer or anything,” Frida admitted. “It's just that I'd rather be acting.”

“Well, what if you could practice your acting and play soccer at the same time?” I asked hopefully.

Everyone looked at me, surprised.

“Um, how exactly would she do that?” Sarah wondered.

“What if we could give you a part to play at every game?” I said. I had my fingers crossed that Frida would be willing to give this a try. “Like, maybe one week you could be an undercover spy, sent to infiltrate our soccer team? Or you could be a secret princess who just wants to live a normal life and play soccer and stuff?”

I looked eagerly at Frida. Her hand was on her chin, rubbing it slightly as she thought.

“Hmmmm,” she said. “Interesting. So I could play soccer, but I'd really be acting?”

I nodded. “Each week we would give you a new character with different motivations, so you'd get to try different roles while you played.”

Slowly a smile spread across Frida's face. “Devin, that's brilliant! I can't believe I never thought of that before.”

Jessi jumped in. “But all the characters will be good players who want to win, right?”

I laughed. “Of course!”

“So is that the only reason you asked us here?” Sarah asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “I was hoping there would be a way for Frida to help Zoe.”

“Me?” Zoe asked, her eyes growing wide.

“You get stage fright,” I explained. “Frida has no problem getting onstage in front of a crowd of people. She's got to have some tips.”

Frida smiled. “You bet I do! Did you know that three quarters of all performers get stage fright? It happens to everyone—even to me sometimes! Sure, there are some tricks that could work for Zoe when she's playing soccer.”

“So why don't you talk to Zoe?” I suggested. “Then we can take turns playing with her, while some of us sit and pretend to be the audience.”

Frida grabbed Zoe enthusiastically. “This is going to be great! First you've got to visualize the game going perfectly. If you picture it going well, it will! Another proven
winner is to picture everyone in the crowd as one person. Picture everyone as Emma, or your mom, or even your pet! Whoever your biggest cheerleader is.”

They walked off together, Zoe taking in every word Frida was saying.

Jessi playfully tapped me on the shoulder. “I've got to hand it to you, Captain. That was some smart thinking.”

After Zoe and Frida huddled for a while, we took turns playing with Zoe and being the audience. She really started to loosen up, and soon she was zipping all over the field. My jaw dropped.

“See? We told you she was good,” Emma said with a smile.

I remembered back to the sleepover at Emma's when we had wished on the shooting star. I think my wish was starting to come true!

I gulped. I was sitting between Frida and Emma, a spoon in my hand. Would the Kangaroos be able to overcome their toughest challenge yet?

We were all sitting together that Thursday night in the Sock Hop, a fun restaurant decorated to look like a 1950s diner. The waitresses wore poodle skirts and saddle shoes, while the waiters were dressed all in white, wearing bow ties and little white paper hats. The floor was black-and-white tiles, and every wall inside was filled with old posters and advertisements, like the one offering soda for two cents a can.

The Kangaroos had taken over a long white and steel table in the back, with bright red vinyl chairs. Our parents and Coach Flores were there, getting ready to take photos of the action. My dad had his trusty video camera in his hand. He gave me a thumbs-up as he smiled. I looked at the door hopefully. The only thing missing was Jessi. I had texted her earlier but had gotten no answer, which was weird. But the Giant Purple People Eater, a massive icecream sundae, was about to come for us.

Our waitress, who had her red hair teased up into a puffy hairdo, smiled. “Are you girls ready?” she asked.

“Yes!” we yelled in unison, pounding the table with our fists. A gong went off in the back, temporarily drowning out our voices. Then two more servers emerged, each carrying a huge wooden bucket.

Inside each bucket were twenty scoops of amazing ice cream of all flavors.

That's right, we had ordered
two
Giant Purple People Eaters. The sign at the Sock Hop said that this sundae would eat you before you could eat it! And we were going to race to see which team could finish theirs first.

Emma, an icecream junkie, had always wanted to try this and had talked the rest of us into it as a team-building exercise. Every person to finish a Giant Purple People Eater got their name on a plaque on the wall. The manager of the Sock Hop had agreed to put the Kangaroos' name up on the wall if we could eat two of them in less than ten minutes. At first Coach Flores had said no way,
that part of being on a sports team was learning good nutrition. And my mom was horrified when I told her! But we wore Coach down, and I was able to talk my mom into letting me do it, with a little help from my dad. It was all in good fun! And I had a feeling once would be enough. This definitely wouldn't become part of our daily diets.