Kiss List (12 page)

I tried to say something to defuse the moment but I couldn’t form any words. I felt his breath on my hair. I smelled a certain fresh and clean but also masculine scent radiating from his body. I stared into his light blue eyes. They made me think of the calm, warm waters that one might fight just off a tropical island.

His eyes closed. Was he going to kiss me? My heart thundered in my chest. I felt weak. I let my eyes close as well. I waited.

And then my cell phone rang.

My eyes flew open. Aaron pushed himself off the wall and shook his head. “Thanks for touching me up, Anderson,” he said. “I should get back out there.”

“Wait!” I said. I lunged over to my bag and grabbed my phone. I punched the talk button and practically yelled “What?” into the phone.

“Sadie!” Alyssa’s voice hissed. “Where are you? Coach Dumfy is about to give his speech. I think he’s going to notice that his star player is missing.”

“I just need a minute!” I said hurriedly. I hung up on her and looked around. It was just in time to see Aaron disappear out the door.

“And now,” Coach
Dumfy thundered, reaching the climax of his speech, “you have an opportunity. Moments like this only happen occasionally in your lifetime. You strive for them, yearn for them, sweat for them, bleed for them, and shed tears for them. You give up everything just to have them. And when they arrive, you can do one of three things. You can surrender. You can do your best. Or you can reach deep within yourself and seize the very core of your being with two hands and strangle it, screaming ‘Give me more! It’s not enough. Your best is not enough. I need more!’ ‘Citius, altius, fortius,’ the Olympians say. ‘Faster, higher, stronger.’ It’s never enough. Not nearly enough. Go faster. Jump higher. Be stronger. Play the game harder and better and smarter.”

Coach
Dumfy paused and stared deep into our eyes. He needn’t have looked for intensity burning within us. We were enraptured and right there with him.

“Are those Churchill girls good? Yes. Should you be afraid of them? No. Know why?”

We didn’t. Tell us, Coach Dumfy.

“Because this championship game is our darkest hour.
In order to be triumphant, in order to be champions, we must first prevail over our greatest pains, fears, and failures. Ladies, in moments of despair, it can feel as if the sun itself has been blotted out and we are walking through a valley of shadow full of beasts that go bump in the night. But we have gone through more suffering and pain than anyone and have a desire that burns like an inferno. We have turned ourselves into beasts beyond comprehension and as Churchill walks through our valley we shall come upon them with a vengeance! We are the biggest beasts in the valley and we will crush them!”

We roared with approval.

Coach Dumfy stopped to take a breath. “Have you ever been afraid of the monsters under your bed?” he asked solemnly.

Yes! Most of us still were.

“Did your mommies and daddies tell you that they didn’t exist? Sure. But you didn’t believe them, did you?” he said rhetorically, rapidly gaining volume. “You knew deep down there were monsters under your bed and they wanted to get you!”

Totally.
We were actually quite certain of that fact.

“Well I’m here to tell you that those monsters are real.
Very real. And do you know what to do? Don’t pull the cover over your eyes and quake and quiver in fear. Don’t whisper to yourselves that they aren’t real. We do not relent. Do you hear me? We do not relent! We do not give in to fear!” he raved, reaching a fevered pitch.

Yes! We will not fear the monsters under our beds!

“I say grab your baseball bat and go under your bed and beat those little buggers down until they fear you and they shiver and shake and tell tales to their parents about the monster on top of the bed!”

So that just got weird. We’re not with you anymore, coach.

Coach Dumfy’s chest heaved as he drew in ragged breaths. “Listen to me girls,” he said. “If you want to make a change in this world you need to start by challenging yourselves. We’re athletes. We tear our muscles apart and run our bodies down so that they will build up stronger. You’re also students. You study as hard as you can so you will know more and become smarter. The world challenges us every day. If you want to change the world, you need to take on those challenges with a passion. When you do, you will make a better world for us all.”

He looked at all our faces in satisfaction.

We were completely lost.

“I think I’ve just given you all a lot to think about,” he said. “We’ve got another 10 minutes or so before you need to get on that field so I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to leave and wait for you on the field. I can’t fight this challenge that you’re facing today. Only you can. So, I want you to talk to each other about what I’ve just said and when you burst onto that field I want there be nothing but conviction in your heads about what you are going to do today.”

Coach Dumfy gave us all hard stares and then nodded and smiled to himself. He turned and walked out the doors without another word.

We looked at each other in utter confusion. The silence was excruciating

“Well,” I finally ventured tentatively, knowing I had to say something as the captain of the team, “does anyone have, ah, any thoughts on that?”

“Did he just call us beasts?” Jenny asked.
“Because if he did, I am not okay with that. I’ll try as hard as any girl but I want to look good out there too. There are a lot of boys watching. We do look good when we play, right?”

“I think maybe he took that part from scripture,” Alyssa suggested. “You
know, the valley of the shadow of death section. Except he didn’t want to say death.” Then she frowned. “But I think that means he’s calling us demons.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Shouldn’t we be the good guys? Like the angels or something? Or do you think Coach
Dumfy is telling us to play dirty but he can’t actually tell us that officially so he’s hoping we’ll take the hint?”

“No, hold up girls,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Coach
Dumfy just wants us to play hard. I think that’s what we should take away from this.”

Darcy raised her hand. I groaned inwardly. Darcy was the blondest girl we had. I mean, she actually raised her hand for me to call on her. “Yes Darcy?” I asked.

“So, two questions,” she said. “Are the Churchill girls the monsters under the bed and, if so, does he, like, want us to actually beat them? ‘Cause I didn’t bring my bat.”

“My mom’s here and she
keeps a bat in her car,” Vicki offered. Vicki was our brunette. “She needs it for something at work.” Vicki’s mom was a dentist. She was also the worst driver I had ever encountered. I had seen Dr. Marcourt at several crashes around town wielding her bat at drivers that she believed had failed to drive fast enough to get out of her way. My dad said she was the town’s traffic control officer because everyone, including the real traffic cops, switched to using back roads from 8:30 - 9 AM and 3:30 - 4 PM when Dr. Marcourt was driving to and from work.

“No, you idiots, it was a metaphor,” Lindsey said. “Though I don’t really understand why we’d be beating monsters if we’re beasts. It seems like they’d be on our side.”

I jumped in before Darcy could ask what a metaphor was. “Okay, I think this has been good, girls. A lot of soul searching just took place here. We’ll work on that. Let’s just bring it in and yell ‘Go Pirates’ on three and then run out there and win a championship.”

When we charged onto the field the stadium erupted in cheers. Well, one half of it did anyway. The Churchill fans on the far side of the stadium were deathly silent until their girls took the field. Then they erupted, doing their best to rival the noise our fans had made. Even the fans of this game were evenly matched.

I won the coin toss and chose to start the game with the ball. The minute the whistle blew everything else ceased to exist. The spectators were gone – even Dylan and my dad. The kiss list was gone. Missy was gone. Coach Dumfy was just a hazy presence in the back of my mind. For me, the only things that really existed were my teammates, my opponents, and the ball. That was it.

Kick. Pass.
Head. Shoot. Slide tackle. Kick. Shoot. Pass. Pass. Who’s open? Anyone open? Lindsey can get there. That space is open but if I put the ball there Lindsey can get it. We’re pressing them. Their defense is challenging me. They know who Sadie Anderson is now. They’re bunched up with me on the right side of the field. Time to boot the ball across the field to where they’re sparsely positioned. Now back to defense. No, don’t cross it on defense! Never in front of our own net. Girls, let’s get back to basics. Kick. Pass. Shoot.

We ended the first half tied with a score of 2 - 2. Coach
Dumfy was perspiring so much he looked like he was melting before our eyes. I don’t remember what he said to us. As I was sitting in the warm-up room waiting for the second half to begin, all I was thinking was that I wanted to win. Win. Win!

Churchill came out strong and scored a goal within the first five minutes of the second half. Then I got a head on the ball off a corner kick from Sarah and tied things up again. Our teams battled back and forth for the rest of the half with neither of us gaining the upper hand. I tested them, probing for a weakness, an opportunity to attack. Five minutes went by. Ten minutes. The clock ticked inexorably towards the end of the game and yet we were still tied. And then there was less than 10 minutes left.

Then I saw it, or rather her. The purple rocket girl I had beat to score the winning goal the last time we played Churchill. She was streaking towards me with the ball. I knew I could beat her. I had already done it once before.

I waved Grace off. I didn’t need her to take this girl down and I didn’t want to leave someone undefended in the middle of the field. No, Purple Rocket was mine. I pressed her closer and closer to the sidelines. She looked up and saw me and I thought I saw fear in her eyes. Would she simplify her technique this time?
Nuh-uh, she would resort to what she knew best and go for the fancy footwork. Here it came! Purple Rocket reached me. Left. Right. Fake right. Now for the spin. I saw her foot land in front of the ball, a tell-tale sign. I lunged for the ball, ready to strip her of it and leave her in my dust.

My foot sailed through empty air. No! Purple Rocket had faked the spin and pulled back on the ball with her foot. She took off and I was left behind like a fool.

I turned and ran after her but it was too late. Seconds later I heard a scream of joy and the sounds of jubilation. Purple Rocket had scored. The smug look of satisfaction she gave me as she ran back to her end of the field was beyond infuriating. It made me want to pummel her with my fists but there was nothing I could do. This time I would be the one getting the lecture after the game and she knew it.

And then things got worse. Grace was
laying on the field clutching her leg. When I got beat she had frantically tried to challenge Purple Rocket but overextend her leg in the process. The physical trainers from both teams rushed onto the field. It could not be determined if she had suffered a strain or a tear. She was carried off.

For the first time in the game I became aware of the spectators. The Churchill fans had quieted down after the goal out of respect for our injured player but the broad grins on their faces were impossible to ignore. Some were already celebrating the victory. I couldn’t even blame them; there was less than three minutes left on the clock. We needed a miracle and instead one of our best defenders was being hauled off the field. As Alyssa ran onto the field for the first time, I
felt the eyes of the Lakeville fans boring into me. I knew that Dylan and Dad were groaning somewhere in the audience. Perhaps even feeling sorry for me. It was unbearable.

I moved back into my position at midfield. For the first time in the game I felt tired. That was not a good sign. I usually never felt fatigued until after the game was over. Something in my mind had switched. For me, we had already lost.

“Hey Anderson!” a voice suddenly boomed from across the field. I looked up in surprise. What was that? And then I saw the bright red soccer boys. The letter R, Aaron, was holding a megaphone. “Hey Anderson!” he bellowed again. “Let’s do work!”

That was all he got out before two refs jumped him and seized the megaphone. Let’s do work... it didn’t even make sense, really. Somehow, however, the words rekindled the embers of my competitive fire. The soccer boys jumped up and down with “Go Pirates!” emblazoned across their bodies. Then a cheer erupted. It started quietly but quickly began to build to a roar. “Let’s do work! Let’s do work!” The Lakeville fans united behind those three words, screaming them louder and louder and louder. The noise coursed through me, stoking my internal flames until they had become a raging wildfire.

“Jenny!” I yelled. Jenny, our center forward, turned around and met my stare. She instantly picked up on my intensity. I had played soccer with Jenny for years even before high school. She knew when it was time to give me the ball and get out of my way. It was that time. “Get me that ball,” I growled.

Jenny touched the ball across the line and then kicked it back to me. “Alyssa,” I hollered over my shoulder. “Forget D. You’re with me.”

I charged down the field like bulldozer, invading Churchill territory and conquering ground with every step I took. They came at me. All of them. Churchill girls ran at me with fury in their eyes as if I had just stolen all of their boyfriends. But it wasn’t their boyfriends I was interested in, for I wasn’t a girl at all. I was a beast. I was the biggest beast in the valley. I was the monster and these little girls were going to learn not to hide under my bed.

My style had never been pretty and I didn’t change it now. I went for speed and brute force. I didn’t do a lot of fancy tricks. I did raw power. And that’s when I understood what Aaron and all my fans were screaming at me. I “do work” and everyone - my teammates, my coach, and my fans - were with me.

One girl down. Two girls down. The Churchill girls came at me and got left behind. Why? Because they hadn’t fought like I had all year, clawing their way through practices and strength training sessions and running mile after mile to build up the endurance to sprint for an entire game. They didn’t yearn to be a champion like I did. They didn’t live soccer like I did.