The Beast (5 page)

When I asked her how she knew, she said, “Are you kidding? I've been trying to pull this trick on Coach Berg for years. Only problem is, I'm pretty sure he's the one who had the sprinklers put in in the first place.”

Anyway, my job right now is to find a place where I can witness Becca's soggy-ing without detection. And I know just the spot.

I
walk to the end of the soccer field and keep going until I reach the yellow poplar tree that stands behind it.
My
yellow poplar tree. Of course, it's not yellow yet, despite its name. Its leaves won't take on their gold color until the fall. One day they'll be the same green they've been all summer. The next, without warning, they'll be bursting with color.

That's exactly what happened last fall when Rick and I would sit up here together and talk about soccer. Until our conversation changed just like the leaves. One minute we were discussing the two primary defenses—zone and man-to-man—and the next we were discussing the two of us.

Usually, we sat on different branches of the tree. But that night, as I stared at the field, he managed to move to my branch without me noticing. I was still looking at the field when he put his arm around my shoulder. This yellow poplar helped my relationship with Rick begin, and now it's going to help me save it.

I grab a branch and try to pull myself up, but the effort sends a wooziness wave my way. I slip sprawling to the ground. After a few minutes, I get up and try again. This time, I close my eyes as I hoist myself from one branch to another, and that helps a lot. It's a good thing I know this tree so well.

I find a leafy branch where I can see the field, but where no one standing on the field could see me. Then I wait. One minute, two minutes, three minutes. I check the clock on my phone—9:59—then turn it to silent. I don't want a random call to give away my hiding spot.

Then, at ten on the nose, the butterfly arrives.

She must be taking my offer to help her seriously because she's wearing a full soccer getup: shirt, shoes, soccer socks, and cleats. She sets her bag on the edge of the track that encircles the field, takes out a soccer ball, and begins dribbling across the track and all the way to midfield.

Becca looks around—for me, probably—and then starts dribbling again. Only this time, it's full speed and right at the net below me.

That's when I realize she's talking to herself…
about
herself.

“Miller's charging with the ball!” she says. “She sidesteps a defender—only a couple seconds left in the game—fakes out another defender—five, four, three, two—and shoots.” Becca blasts the ball with her right foot into the net.

“Goal!” she screams. “Miller's done it! She's won the game! Her teammates are lifting her on their shoulders!”

She sits on the ground and waves her arms. I can't help but imagine Becca being carried by all of us after scoring the game-winning goal.

“But wait,” Becca says, getting up. “The referee rules that the game's not over. It's a tie, and there's no time to argue.”

Once again, Becca gets the ball and races across the field. I watch her take off and dribble toward the other goal. She's doing the countdown again: “Five, four, three, two…” She brings her foot back and then forward.

Just as she's making contact with the ball, the inground sprinklers shoot go off. One of the sprinklers is only a few feet from her and sprays her at point-blank range. Another sprinkler head, farther away, sends an arc of water that lands on her face. I doubt she even got to see her shot hit the back of the net.

I wait for her to slump to the ground and make her own waterworks. But she doesn't slump. She doesn't sob.

Instead, she runs. First to the net to get her ball, then back across the field, once again dribbling. She isn't talking like an announcer anymore.

She's laughing. Loudly. She isn't devastated. She's delighted.

Maybe Ruth's not an evil genius after all.

I watch Becca score another goal in the net below me. Once she's retrieved the ball and started heading to the other end, I climb down the tree. To avoid the wooziness, I keep my eyes shut. Unfortunately, climbing down is a lot harder than climbing up. Fortunately, I fall only a few feet and land safely on my knees. I need to get away and regroup, but the only exit is next to the bleachers. I'm on the track when Becca spots me.

“Hey, Alyssa!” she hollers over the sound of the sprinklers. “Come join me!” Still laughing, she runs fifteen yards, dives, and slides on her stomach for another ten yards.

“You're getting the field all muddy,” I say in a scolding voice, then turn my back to her and walk away.

I
keep walking the four blocks to Big's Bar and Grill. When I ask the hostess if my mother is around, she points to the back of the restaurant.

I find my mother writing down someone's order. I wait for her to finish before greeting her: “Hi. Any chance you can give me a ride home?”

She tells me she has a break coming up in a few minutes. “You want anything to eat or drink in the meantime?”

Mom's been working here so long that the manager, Alan, lets her feed me for free when I stop in. “Just lemonade,” I say.

She gestures toward an open booth and goes to take care of her orders. The wall above me is covered with sports clippings from our local paper. Mom used to say that one day there'd be articles about me hanging there. For a while, I believed her. But I've been playing varsity goalie for two years now, and my mug shot hasn't made the paper even once. Rick Morris's face, on the other hand, is everywhere in this restaurant. So is Becca's, even though she's been playing varsity for less than a year.

“Here you go,” Mom says. She slides the lemonade across the table.

“Thanks.”

“I'll be ready in just a few more minutes.”

I look at my phone. Two missed calls and one message—all from Becca. The last thing I want to do right now is hear her perfect perky voice. Maybe I should just give up now. Call Coach and give up soccer. Call Rick and give him up too. What's the point of fighting for things when you're not good enough to have them?

No—that's not the attitude to have. I know that. The reason to fight is because it's the right thing to do. Anyway, it's the right thing for a beast to do.

So instead of calling Rick to dump myself, I call him to talk. These last few days, I've been worrying nonstop about us but haven't even told Rick I was concerned. I guess I was too afraid he'd say exactly what I suspected—that he wanted to trade in his beast for a butterfly.

But maybe I'm worrying over nothing. Maybe a conversation with him will put my fears to rest. Maybe we can talk here, in the restaurant, while munching on burgers and fries.

I listen to my phone ring. A split second later, I hear Rick's phone ringing too. I know it's his phone because he has a special ring for my calls. I'm the one who downloaded the ring, in fact. Whenever I call, his phone growls.

Ring
, goes my phone.

Grrrrr!
goes his phone.

Ring.

Grrrrr!

I get out of my booth and follow the growl. Sure enough, Rick's sitting in a corner of the restaurant. As always, his utensils are placed in the exact middle of the table. He started doing this about a month ago—just to be safe. That's how worried he is about getting injured before signing a scholarship. He can't eat unless all sharp objects have been moved away from the table's edge.

As always, he's busting out of his Under Armour.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Oh, hey, babe,” he says.

I wait for him to answer my question.

“I'm meeting somebody. What are you doing here?”

“My mom works here, remember? Who are you—”

“Hey, Alyssa!”

By now, I know that upbeat voice even better than Coach's shouts. I pivot to my right, and then I'm face-to-face with the enemy. “What's going on here?”

Becca winces at the sharpness in my voice. “Nothing. I mean, when you left, I tried calling you, but you didn't pick up—so I called the next best person. Rick agreed to meet me here and give me more advice. You wanna join us?”

How dare this girl try to act all innocent! The dirt on her cheeks just makes her teeth look that much whiter, and my own cheeks start to burn.

I'm about to tell her, in the nastiest possible way, that the answer is
no
, I don't want to join them and watch my boyfriend put the moves on some blonde bimbo who wants to—

“There you are.” It's my mom's voice. “Ready to go?” Stepping up next to me, she sees glances at the corner booth and adds, “Oh, hello, Rick.”

“Hey, Mrs. Duncan.”

Looking at Becca, my mother asks, “And who is this?”

This? This is the blonde, beautiful thief who's stealing my life—that's who
this
is.

“I'm Becca,” she says, thrusting her hand toward my mother. “I'm filling in as keeper until your daughter can come back from her injury.”

My mom is too surprised to shake Becca's hand. She still hasn't noticed Becca's hand, but she instinctually grabs mine. Tight. This is another thing my mom does when dealing with bad news. For some reason, clutching me makes her feel like she has more control over the situation. When I broke my pinkie as a kid, she actually had to sit on her hands to keep from grabbing my hand and injuring me even worse. “What happened, Alyssa?”

“Nothing, Mom.” I know by now to keep my voice as casual as possible.

“It doesn't sound like nothing. It sounds like it's bad enough that you can't play.”

“Can we talk about this in the car, Mom?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” she says.

I look at Rick one more time before my mother drags me away. I consider announcing at the top of my lungs that there's no way that stretchy thing he's wearing qualifies as a shirt under Big's “No shirt, no shoes, no service” policy. But right now, I don't think the head waitress is too concerned with the restaurant's rules. Judging by the way she's yanking me out the door, the only thing she cares about is getting her daughter in the car.

T
he second we are in the car, Mom says, “Explain yourself.”

I tell her how I got injured and that I haven't been allowed to play since. I tell her about the dizziness and the headaches. I'm about to keep going when I'm interrupted by my mother's sobs.

“Oh, my God, Alyssa. All this time you've been feeling this way, and I didn't even know it. What kind of mother am I?”

“It's not your fault,” I try to tell her, but she's crying too hard to listen.

“How could I not have known?” she says. She's blubbering so much I can hardly understand her. Her face is gushing with tears and mucus. “You've been suffering through a major head injury. And me? Totally clueless about it. I've been going about my day thinking everything is fine.”