Shaken Up (2 page)

“Yum!” I said as I wrapped my hands around the turkey burger my dad had made for dinner that night. Even when we'd lived in Connecticut, both my parents, especially my mom, had always been strict about what we could eat. Everything had to be healthy, which wasn't always that bad. In fact, like tonight, sometimes it was downright delicious. My dad did most of the cooking. When we moved to California, he started trying some new recipes. Dad's California burger had muenster cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a special ingredient that Dad had invented.

“Extra top secret guac sauce, right?” I asked him before I took my first bite. I loved that stuff.

He smiled. “Of course! I always give you extra top secret guacamole sauce, Devin.”

My eight-year-old sister, Maisie, lifted her hamburger bun and peeked under it suspiciously.

“Don't worry, sweetie,” he said to her. “Yours is just a burger and cheese, nothing else on it.”

Maisie was a picky eater. If my parents would let her, she'd live on only potato chips, cookies, and juice boxes. My mom kept a hidden stash of those items in the house. They came in handy as bribes when my little sister was acting up. Although, lately she'd been in a pretty great mood. It had even been kind of fun to be around her. But I would never have admitted that to her!

The reason she'd been so happy was that she, like me, had been bitten by the soccer bug. We actually had something in common for a change!

“How was practice, girls?” my mom asked as she passed the bowl of sweet potato fries to Maisie, who tried to pass them right over to me. Mom put a couple on her plate anyway and ignored the pout that followed.

“Awesome!” I said, but since my mouth was full of turkey burger, the word came out more like “Agggslurp.” I chewed and swallowed. “Sorry. It was awesome!”

“Has Coach Darby eased up at all?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “She's still tough, but she has definitely toned it down a bit. She even smiled for, like, two whole seconds today!”

My parents laughed. “She's the total opposite of Coach Flores, isn't she?” Mom asked.

Coach Flores was the coach of the Kicks. At first
Coach Flores had been so laid back that the Kicks hadn't been able to win a single game. Coach Flores would give everyone a hug for trying and call it a day. But after she saw how much the team wanted to compete, she changed. Now I thought she was the perfect coach—fun-loving, encouraging, and tough when she needed to be.

“They've got completely different coaching styles,” I said. “But Coach Darby has been a lot more supportive lately.”

“Well, I've got the best coaches ever!” Maisie announced loudly. “Dad, Emma, and Frida. Practice is so much fun. I wish we had it every day!”

Emma and Frida, along with Jessi and Zoe, were my best friends in California. We all played together on the Kicks. Unfortunately, Emma had tried out for the winter league but hadn't made a team. Frida had been away, filming a TV movie (yes, I had a friend who was going to be a movie star!), so she hadn't been able to try out. But the movie had wrapped, and now Emma and Frida were helping my dad coach the elementary school kids.

“Maisie is fast like you, Devin,” my dad said. “I think we've got another striker on our hands.”

Maisie sat up straight in her chair with a huge grin on her face. She looked very proud of herself.

“Nice, Maisie,” I told her. “Wanna kick the ball around after dinner?”

“Yeah!” Maisie said eagerly. “Frida gave me some pointers today. I'll fill you in.”

I saw my mom and dad exchange glances as they tried to hide their smiles. One thing Maisie was already a pro at was confidence!

After dinner Maisie and I went out back to practice some drills. I set up cones for us to practice dribbling through. It took no time at all for me to see how Frida had rubbed off on Maisie.

“Okay, so let's pretend that we live near a volcano, Mount Hotsuti,” Maisie said, one foot balanced on the ball and her hands on her hips. “We have to zigzag through the cone course as fast as we can to try to make the angry volcano spirits happy. If we do it fast enough, they won't let the volcano erupt.”

Frida was an actor who needed to pretend to be someone else on the field. It helped her to focus, and it let her practice acting, too. It really worked for her, and I could see that it worked for Maisie, too. She zoomed through the course as though her life depended on it. I guess in her imagination, it did!

I laughed as I told Kara, my best friend from Connecticut, about it while we video chatted before bed. Well, before her bedtime, anyway. There was a three-hour time difference between Connecticut and California.

“Sounds like Maisie takes after her big sister!” Kara said.

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe she will in soccer. But otherwise we're nothing alike.”

Then Kara moved in closer to the screen, squinting at
me. “Hey, I love your hair!” Kara said. “Come closer to the camera.”

I leaned in toward my laptop camera so Kara could get a better look.

“Devin!” She sounded shocked. “Do you have highlights?”

I smiled as I tossed my light brown hair over my shoulder. I hadn't been sure if the natural sun streaks were noticeable, so I was really happy that Kara had said something about them.

I nodded. “From the best salon in California—the sun!”

“That's from being out in the sun?” Kara asked in disbelief.

“Yep! Just being outside and playing soccer,” I said. “Of course, we all wear sunscreen. But not on our hair!”

“And I love the way you've been wearing it in those beachy waves,” Kara complimented me. After my nightly showers I'd been braiding my hair while it was still wet. In the morning I unbraided it, and it was nice and wavy. “You look like such a California surfer girl!”

Kara's compliments made me feel great. When I had first moved to Southern California, I'd been so worried about making friends and fitting in. Not only did I now have friends, but this place was starting to feel like home. And, according to Kara, I even looked like I belonged.

“Well, you look like a total New England girl,” I said. Kara was wearing a knit cap and a scarf over her sweater.

“It is so cold here!” Kara shivered. “More snow
tomorrow. The chance of me getting highlights from the sun is zero, which is what the temperature is!

“But seriously,” Kara continued, “I am so glad that everything is going so great for you on the Griffons. Things really turned around.”

I smiled. “I know. Everything is sooooo much better! And today we came up with our team cheer too. I'm totally stoked to use it at our next game.”

“Wait. Did you just say ‘stoked'?” Kara asked, crinkling her nose in confusion.

I paused. “Oh yeah!” I said. “You know,
stoked
. Like, I'm excited.”

Kara snorted. “I know what it means, Devin!” she said. “But I'm pretty sure that's the most California thing you've ever said.”

I shrugged. “I guess I just picked it up, living out here!”

“Wow, Devin.” Kara smiled. “You really are a California girl now.”

“I guess I am,” I replied, liking the sound of that—and that was when the room began to shake.

At first I thought Maisie was bumping around in her room and making the walls vibrate, but then it felt as though the entire house were rocking slowly back and forth. The bottle of water on my desk fell over.

“Devin, what's wrong?” Kara asked, but it felt like her voice was a million miles away.

I jumped up to clean up the water, and I could feel the
floor underneath my feet swaying. My heart was pounding like crazy as I realized what was happening.

“Earthquake!” my dad yelled from downstairs. “Girls, get to your safe spots!”

Safe spots.
Our family had done an earthquake drill a week after we'd moved in, and Mom and Dad had told us where to go if an earthquake happened. For a second my mind was a blank, and then the drill came back to me.

I moved away from the windows and ran to an inside corner of my room, on the wall I shared with Maisie's room. I crouched down and covered my face and head with my arms.

I sat there, frozen in place. Then one of my soccer trophies from Connecticut launched off my bookshelf and almost hit me in the head! It landed with a thud next to me.

I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and my Mom's voice calling out my name. “Devin? Maisie? Are you girls okay?”

I was too afraid to move or even answer her. I thought
the house was still shaking, until I realized it was me that was trembling from head to toe.

I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. I put a hand out and touched the wall. It was still. How could my entire house be moving one second and not the next?

Dad ran into my room and bent down to hug me.

“It's okay, Devin. It's over,” he said.

I slowly stood up. “So that was an earthquake?”

Dad nodded. “I don't think it was a major one, though.”

Mom and Maisie came into my room.

“I got into my safe spot right away,” Maisie said proudly.

“I did too, but now I'm wondering how safe it was,” I said, and I pointed to the trophy on the floor. “That almost hit me on the head!”

Mom frowned. “I guess we have some more thinking to do about earthquakes,” she said.

“You're right,” Dad agreed. “I need to go check the rest of the house. Are you sure you girls are okay?”

Maisie and I nodded.

“I actually have a test I'm supposed to be studying for,” I realized.

Mom kissed me on the forehead. “Okay, sweetie. I'm glad you're okay.”

Mom, Dad, and Maisie left. I picked up the trophy, cleaned up the spilled bottle of water, and sat down at my desk. My laptop lid had shut during the earthquake.

When I opened it, I found Kara anxiously waiting for me.

“Devin, was that really an earthquake?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “That was totally weird. I think I'm still shaking.”

“Oh my gosh! So everyone's okay? The house didn't break or anything?” she asked.

I started to giggle nervously. “How does a house break?”

“You know what I mean!” Kara said, laughing with me. “Well, I'm so glad you're okay. I can't imagine what that must be like. It sounded pretty crazy over there!”

It had felt pretty crazy too. In fact, I was feeling a little too jarred to keep casually chatting with Kara. Assuring her I was all right, I signed off and then sat down to study for my World Civ test the next day.

We were learning about the Roman empire. Apparently the ancient Romans had had these big arenas where they used to watch gladiators fight each other and even battle it out with wild animals, like lions. And that had been their idea of fun! If you asked me, arenas without soccer were nothing much to brag about. I tried to focus, looking over my notes, where I had jokingly listed “no soccer” as one of the reasons for the decline of the Roman empire.