Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer (20 page)

“So do you,” Dusty said. “But you aren’t doing all this evil stuff.”

“Or are you?”

They all looked at Gabe, who gave a bulky shrug. “I’m just sayin’ — this whole thing could be a way for
you
to look good for Hawke.”

J.J. took a step forward, his eyes slitted down at Gabe. “She doesn’t have to do that to look good,” he said.

Gabe pursed his lips to make his kissing sound. J.J. took another step. Veronica squealed, and Carla Rosa shrieked, “Guess what? If you fight, you’ll get kicked out.”

Emanuel stepped between Gabe and J.J., and Oscar put his hands on J.J.’s shoulders and pulled him back. J.J. shook him off, but he stayed put. Gabe’s nostrils were flaring like trumpets.

Lucy suddenly wanted to throw up. “Don’t you see what’s happening?” she said. “This whole thing is ruining our team. I care about getting noticed by the ODP, but it doesn’t have to mean we let somebody get away with breaking us up.” She hated that her voice was thick, but she pushed on. “Didn’t we lose enough already?”

“Are you talking about our field?” Dusty said.

Gabe folded his meaty arms. “That does reek.”

“Okay, so see?” Lucy said. “We might never play soccer together again after this — but what if we were never friends again? What if somebody takes us down and we don’t try to do anything about it?”

Oscar looked at Emanuel, chewing his toothpick for all he was worth. “So what are we supposed to do? Take this chick out?”

“I’m all for that,” Veronica said.

Gabe grunted.

Lucy shook her head. “No. First I have to know that we’re all together on this.”

Dusty put her hand up. So did Veronica. Januarie squeezed between them, bobbing her crooked ponytail. J.J. nodded. Oscar looked at Emanuel, who also nodded, so Oscar did, too.. That left only Gabe and Carla Rosa. Dusty nudged her.

“Guess what?” Carla said. “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“I’m trying to get us out of trouble, not in,” Lucy said. “We have to find out what it is Rianna wants from J.J. to keep her from spreading this big lie about me. Then we can turn her in to Hawke because we’ll have proof that she’s not following the Fair Play Code.”

“What are you thinkin’ we oughta do?” Gabe stuck his palm toward Lucy. “Not that I’m gonna do it — I’m just askin’.”

Lucy let out a long breath. “I have a plan. It starts with everybody — everybody who wants to — praying.”

Gabe hissed.

“I don’t think we can do this without God,” Lucy said.

That got an eye roll from Gabe, and a nervous giggle from Veronica.

“What else?’ ” Dusty said.

“It’s gonna mean skipping lunch.”

Januarie let out one of her Chihuahua yips.

“It’s not gonna hurt you to miss a meal,” J.J. told her.

“Lunch break is the only time we can do this,” Lucy said.

“I’ll pass out snacks.” Dusty nodded her on.

Lucy put her arms out and beckoned them forward. “Okay, listen carefully, because I only have time to say this once.”

Everyone moved in. Even Carla Rosa. Even Gabe.

Lucy was sure God was there too.

15

Lucy had two goals to reach before lunch, neither of which had anything to do with a soccer ball. She prayed for both of those goals while the Select Team was gathering and hoped the Dreams were doing the same.

Coach Neely put a cone in the center of their practice area and announced that they were going to play Coneball for their morning drill. The object, she said, was for Bella, Waverly, Patricia, Taylor, Sarah, and Kayla to try to hit the cone with the ball, while Lucy and Rianna played as defenders to keep them from doing it.

“That will be
so
easy,” Rianna said, until Coach Neely added that she and Lucy weren’t allowed within three feet of the cone.

“That is so not fair,” Lucy heard Rianna mumble under her breath. “Why do I always have to be on this side?” But to Coach Neely, she said, with a huge smile that made Lucy think of Mr. Potato Head, “We’ll give ’em a good workout, Coach.”

Coach reminded them that the drill was a way to practice their passing and off-the-ball movement skills.

“You girls on the outside pass the ball around until you get an open shot,” she said, and blew her whistle.

Lucy bent her knees and put her arms out in defensive position and watched Kayla make a nice shoelace pass to Sarah, who dribbled toward the cone. Lucy was closer to her than Rianna, but Rianna crossed in front of Lucy and ran straight at Sarah. Sarah switched directions and went for the middle, where Rianna had left a hole. Before Lucy could get there to block her pass to Taylor, Rianna leaped in and tried to capture the ball. It bounced over the touchline, and Coach Neely blew her whistle.

“Play your position, Rianna,” she said. “Talk to Lucy about who’s playing where.”

Perfect. While Rianna was curling her lip and looking like she had no intention of discussing anything with anybody, Lucy marched over to her and got her face close to her ear.

“I’m having lunch with Hawke today,” she said.

“So?” Rianna said. “I have lunch with him every day.”

Lucy bit back the urge to call her a big fat liar. “Then it’ll be three of us. Are you meeting him by the last tree? I think that’s where he told me to meet him.”

“Well, yeah,” Rianna said. She didn’t even blink. “That’s where I always meet him.”

“Okay,” Lucy said. “I wasn’t sure.”

“It isn’t rocket science, ladies,” Coach Neely called to them. “Right and left is all you have to decide.”

Rianna fixed on the Mr. Potato Head smile and bounded left of the cone. Lucy gave herself a nod. First goal accomplished. Rianna would be waiting by the last tree, where J.J. would find her while Lucy rode off with Hawke. Now for goal number two . . .

That one was harder. How was Lucy supposed to figure out who Rianna’s messenger was, when she’d thought nobody on the team liked the girl? All through Coneball, she tried to watch for anyone who might exchange a smile with Rianna, or give her some kind of signal, or even let her have the ball. But nobody even looked at her, and nobody was willing to give her a chance to keep them from hitting the cone.

Coach Neely was almost smiling at them when she called for a water break. “I think you’re actually starting to work together,” she said. “Which is a good thing. Your first game in the camp play-offs is Monday afternoon, you know.”

“Yeah, Hawke showed me the schedule.” Rianna lounged against the second row of bleachers. “We’re playing that team from Los Suenos. That oughta be like a practice game for us, right, Coach?”

Taylor narrowed her black eyes. “Why?”

“Because I heard they were a bunch of losers.”

Coach Neely actually smiled at her, stinging Lucy right through her skin. “I don’t think that goes along with the Fair Play Code, Rianna.”

“Okay, so I could’ve said it different — but it’s true, right? They’re not that good.”

Nobody else seemed to know anything about it. Rianna left to go to the bathroom, and Lucy took a long drink out of her water bottle and hoped her face wasn’t turning as red as it felt as she tried to read the other girls’ faces. She almost choked when Kayla cocked her little bird head and said, “Didn’t you come from that team, Lucy?”

Kayla? It couldn’t be her, could it? Lucy liked her. She’d thought they were sort of becoming friends.

“The point is,” Coach Neely said, “we are our own team now. Let’s focus on working that way.” Something that sounded like rap suddenly erupted from her pocket, and Coach pulled out her cell phone. “Finish up your break,” she said, and moved to the end of the bleachers, one hand over her ear, the phone in the other.

“I bet it’s that other coach,” Sarah said. “The hot one with — ” She looked at Lucy. “ — the Los Suenos team.”

Was it Sarah? It couldn’t be. She’d never made it a secret that she couldn’t stand Rianna. Of course, that could be an act. . .

Lucy shivered, even though the sun was beating down. It felt so cold, not to be able to trust the people she was playing with.

“They’re not all from Los Suenos,” Waverly said.

“Who?” Patricia said.

“The people on that team. There’s that one cute guy named Yen.”

Patricia shook her head. “Zen.”

“Oh, yeah. I saw him with that one girl.” Taylor looked at Lucy. “What’s her name?”

Lucy shrugged, but her head was spinning. J.J. had said not to tell them anything about the Dreams, but they sure knew a whole lot anyway. Patricia, Waverly, Taylor. Any of them could be working with Rianna, just because they thought the Dreams were losers. The only person who hadn’t joined in was Bella, but, then, she never did. Lucy could almost feel her heart breaking in half.

Coach returned, smiling from earring to earring.

“Yeah, that was Coach Cutie on the line all right,” Patricia muttered.

“Where’s Rianna?” Coach Neely said.

“Bathroom,” Taylor said.

But Rianna didn’t hurry toward them from the direction of the restroom building. She came across the field, breathing like she’d just run from Alamogordo.

“Where were you?” Sarah said.

“Talking to my little sister,” Rianna said.

“Who’s your little sister?”

“She’s on the junior girls’ team. She’s their best player.”

Lucy tried not to stare. Could this girl not tell the truth ever? She straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. No matter how bad she felt about all this, they had to go through with their plan — because somebody who lied like that could do a lot of damage.

“Pick a partner,” Coach Neely said. “Each pair gets a cone for a goal. You and your partner take turns firing balls at each other.”

Once again, perfect. Or it would be, if Lucy could just decide which girl was most likely to be in league with Rianna.

“Set up a line that the shooter isn’t allowed to cross, and each of you take twenty shots on the other. See who makes the most saves.”

The only thing Lucy knew for sure was that being Rianna’s partner would be a waste of time, and she didn’t have much left before lunch. But Rianna was headed straight for her, and nobody else was begging the girl to work with them. Whoever she’d gotten to pass that note to J.J. obviously wasn’t doing it because they liked her.

Lucy felt a light flicker in her head, as if the electricity had just come back on. Of course. Somebody was either being forced by Rianna, which was hard to believe in this group, or they had something to gain too. But what was it?

“Be my partner,” someone said behind her.

Lucy turned to Bella. She was somber, as always, black braids hanging as straight as her face. Her eyes didn’t waver as she waited for an answer.

“Sure,” Lucy said. “We’ve never worked together before. I’ll get our stuff.”

Lucy hurried to grab a cone and a ball, but her heart was sinking. This was going to be a total waste of time. There was no way it was Bella.

Still, as Lucy stuck a cone under her arm and reached for a ball, one thing did occur to her. If anybody shut up long enough to hear what anybody else was saying, it was Bella. Maybe she knew something about Rianna’s plan. It was Lucy’s only shot. Lunch was just fifteen minutes away.

For the first five, Lucy just defended the cone while Bella practiced low balls and got about half of them in. Lucy had never noticed what a good player she was. She was so busy diving for the ball, she didn’t have a chance to talk to her — not that she knew what she was going to say. “I know you aren’t Rianna’s evil little messenger, but do you know who is?” didn’t seem like a good choice.

When Bella had taken her twenty shots, they switched places. Lucy got as close to the line as she could and pretended to set herself up.

“I like playing with you better than Rianna,” Lucy said.

“Who doesn’t?”

So she’d been right about that part. Lucy lobbed a ball that Bella bounced easily off her chest.

“She’s kind of pushy,” Lucy said.

“She hates you.”

Lucy gave the ball a spastic kick that wandered right into Bella’s hands. When Bella looked up, their gazes clinked together.

“Do
you
?” Lucy said.

“No.”

Lucy lined up her third shot while her mind raced. Bella watched Lucy instead of the ball.

“You won’t block her shots that way, Bella,” Coach Neely called out.

Neither one of them looked at her. Lucy licked the dry off of her lips and made a shot that Bella let pass between her legs.

“See what I mean?” Coach said, and moved on to Patricia and Waverly.

Bella passed the ball back to Lucy, eyes still on her. Lucy could see she was kind of like J.J.: she could say a lot without ever speaking a word. Only she was going to have to, or Lucy was going to be as clueless as ever.

She pretended to consider one shot and then another while Bella kept ignoring the ball and watching her face. She looked like she was seeing everything.