Offside!

by Diersch, Sandra

  “I see,” he said when she had finished. He looked around at his team, meeting everyone’s eye. Some of the girls were staring hard at the ground. He came to Alecia and his eyes questioned her. She lowered her head, her face flushing with heat.

  “Jeremy, I tried to talk them out of it,” Laurie said.

  “Don’t worry about it, Laurie. This is not your fault.”

  “It is! It’s because I quit as captain,” Laurie cried, tears springing to her eyes. “I shouldn’t have given up so easily. I should have honoured my commitment. If I agree to be captain again will you change your minds?” she asked, spinning around. Stacie hesitated, then shook her head.

  “We won’t play with Lexi.”

  Alecia spotted Lexi across the field, walking slowly, her head down, her bag dragging behind her. Alecia’s heart started pounding harder. What would Lexi do when she found out what was going on? Would she agree to go away? Or would she stick her heels in and refuse to back down? Alecia couldn’t guess.

  “I won’t chase a girl from my team,” Jeremy told them at last. “If you are sure this is what you want to do,” he said slowly, looking at each girl again, “then I will forfeit. You do realize that this game counts for a whole lot? If we win today against the Rocketeers, we are sitting in a perfect position heading for the finals. I want each of you to understand that.”

  Lexi was getting closer. Alecia could see the puzzled look on her face as she walked. The majority of Burrards nodded their understanding of what they were willing to give up.

  “Fine.” Jeremy turned and headed to where the referee was standing. He passed Lexi, but said nothing to her, didn’t even acknowledge her. Lexi stopped when she got to the team and dropped her bag.

  “What is going on now?” she demanded. “Some secret club meeting?”

  No one said anything. Jeremy came back a second later and picked up the mesh bag of balls.

  “Go on home, then,” he said quietly, “there is no game today.”

  “What do you mean there is no game?” Lexi cried. “What’s going on?”

  For a long, painful minute no one said anything, but at last Stacie stepped forward and explained. Lexi’s face went pale at the words but she said nothing. Her shoulders were slumped, arms hanging by her sides. Her hair, in its sloppy ponytail, had come loose and was blowing about her face as she looked at the girls gathered around.

  “I won’t be chased away,” she said at last. “I have a right to play with this team and I’m going to play.”

  “Not today, you’re not,” Stacie snapped at her. Lexi grabbed her bag and ran from the field. Behind her, no one said anything.

  * * *

  The air in the car driving home was heavy with emotion. Alecia felt as though she were drowning in it. She wanted to speak, to say something to Jeremy, but there didn’t seem to be anything to say. His disappointment felt like lead weights on her shoulders. Did he even like her anymore? What would he do now? Her thoughts were muddled and scattered, jumping from one thing to another.

  They were almost home before Jeremy cleared his throat. Alecia braced herself for what he would say. She held tight to the strap of her bag as though it might protect her in some way.

  “I won’t be blackmailed, Alecia. Do you understand that?” he asked softly, as he pulled the car into the garage. “I won’t be forced to kick a girl from my team, not by other players.”

  “They’re angry because Laurie is upset and doesn’t want to be captain anymore,” Alecia whispered.

  “Partly. Partly they just don’t like Lexi. I understand that. She’s abrasive and bossy and not easy to get along with. Did you ever once, any of you, try to get past that? Did you ever talk to Lexi, any of you? Get to know her? You girls were resistant to her joining from the very first day and when she proved hard to get to know, you just stopped trying altogether.”

  Jeremy looked over at Alecia for a second, letting her absorb his words. She squirmed under his gaze and stared out the window at the wall of tools, carefully laid out on their board.

  “You asked me once what happened to Lexi’s mother, why she didn’t live with her. Did you ever bother to find out?” he asked.

  “No,” Alecia muttered, reddening under his gaze.

  “Lexi is a good soccer player,” Jeremy continued. “She has good instincts and a good eye, plus she’s fast and she reads her opponents very well. I think if given a chance, she’d enjoy playing with us. We’re a good team, a good match for her, skillwise. But some people aren’t easy to get to know. You have to work a little harder with them, push past the walls they put up. And sometimes it’s worth the effort.”

  11

  One Big Mess

  Alecia hid in her room most of Sunday, miserable and angry and frustrated. She didn’t want to face Jeremy, who looked so disappointed and upset every time she caught his eye that she felt like a knife was jabbing into her heart. She knew he didn’t hold her personally responsible for the boycott, but she was part of the group. And as part of the group she had not made things any better. The problem was, she had no idea how to fix things. What could she do? Would Lexi even come back? A lot of things would be resolved if Lexi would just quit. But a lot would be left unresolved.

  She got next to nothing done as far as homework went and headed off to school Monday morning feeling slightly sick. If she could have gotten away with it, Alecia would have just stayed in her room forever, hiding.

  Anne and Monica were waiting for her at their usual corner. Monica full of her usual good cheer and bubbling chatter, Anne anxious and worried.

  “I’ll tell you when we get to our lockers,” Alecia whispered, grabbing Anne’s arm as she joined her friends.

  “You’ll never guess! Never, never, never in a million years will you guess what happened over the weekend!” Monica cried, bursting with her news.

  “Then you’d better tell us,” Alecia said, pulling herself out of her funk. Monica’s chatter was a useful distraction this morning. It made it hard for her tortured thoughts to take hold of her.

  “My mom told me she’s pregnant! She’s having a baby!” she cried, clapping her hands together. Alecia and Anne looked at each other in stunned silence. Monica laughed, throwing her head back. “Isn’t that unreal? I’m going to have a little brother or sister. Well, another one. I already have Cam. I am so excited! Mom and Dad are pretty happy. They’ve been trying for a long time. Years. The doctors kept telling them they couldn’t get pregnant, they couldn’t have their own kids. It was just killing my mother. I mean, she loves me and Cam, I know that. But she really wanted her own. And here, all these years after I showed up, is another one!”

  Alecia frowned, confused. “Are you adopted, Monica?” she asked, hesitantly. It seemed such a personal thing to ask.

  Monica gave her a little shove and laughed again, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Yes! Didn’t you girls know that? I thought you knew. Cam and I are both adopted. Mom and Dad tried for years and nothing! Not one silly thing! But then, all of a sudden … ! Mom is only forty, not very old at all. She figured she was going through menopause, then the doctor told her, nope! It’s a baby! She’s a little nervous, but she’s healthy. She’ll be fine. I am so excited!”

  Alecia stared hard at the ground. Monica, adopted? Still, it wasn’t quite the same thing as her situation. Alecia was nearly fourteen — Monica had been adopted as a baby. But then, she knew Jeremy, had known him for years.

  “Do you like being adopted? I mean,” she paused, blushing, “do your parents treat you like you were their real, natural daughter?” she asked.

  Monica laughed again. Nothing fazed her. “Of course! They are the best. I even look a bit like my dad.”

  “Still, you were adopted as a baby. You don’t even remember anyone else,” Alecia said.

  “No,” Monica told her, som
e of the bounce going out of her. She spoke more quietly. “Cam and I were adopted eight years ago. I was six. Cam was a baby.”

  Neither Anne nor Alecia knew what to say to that. Alecia looked at Monica, a new respect growing for the girl. She loved her parents. She called them Mom and Dad. She thought she looked a little like her father, even though he wasn’t her natural dad. It was all rather bewildering.

  “Our mother died just after Cam was born. Dad took off, so they put us in foster care. Our foster mother was pretty nice. I don’t remember her all that well. We stayed with her until they tracked down our birth father and he gave up his rights to us. Our foster mother didn’t want to adopt us, so they found the Jenkins. We’ve been with them ever since.”

  “That’s amazing, Monica,” Anne said softly, smiling at her. “You were so lucky.”

  “I guess. Man, this conversation is getting so sad and depressing. Let’s talk about baby names! I hope it’s a girl. I really want a sister!” Monica said. Alecia listened with half an ear as Monica and Anne discussed baby names.

  She was stunned by Monica’s news. Stunned and a little curious. She had a lot of questions she would have liked to ask, but Monica obviously didn’t want to talk about it any more. She was more interested in possible names. Alecia walked along silently, stealing glances at Monica every once in a while. Somehow, the girl seemed like a whole different person to her now.

  “So tell me what happened! Was Jeremy really mad?” Anne demanded when they finally said goodbye to Monica and headed for their own lockers. Alecia sighed. Monica’s news had completely chased away all thoughts about Lexi and the Burrards. They came flooding back quickly, however.

  “It was awful. Stacie just said they wouldn’t play if Lexi was allowed to play and Jeremy said he wouldn’t be blackmailed into forcing a girl off his team and he forfeited the game. Then he was really disappointed and upset.”

  “Oh, Alecia! How awful! What is going to happen now?” Anne asked.

  “I don’t know.” Her thoughts were all jumbled and her stomach tied in knots. There had to be a way to resolve this mess, but what was it?

  * * *

  “What are we going to do now?” Alecia asked Stacie over the phone. “I mean, you take this big stand, the game is called, but Jeremy won’t kick Lexi off the team. So what happens next?”

  She had decided, on the way home from school that afternoon, that she needed to talk to Stacie. The boycott had been Stacie’s idea in the first place. She should fix things now that they were a big mess. At least, as far as Alecia was concerned she should. But Stacie didn’t seem to be all that agreeable to the idea.

  “What do you mean, ‘what happens next?’ We said we wouldn’t play with Lexi, so we don’t play until she leaves the team. We want Laurie back as captain and Lexi gone.”

  “Jeremy isn’t going to do that, Stace,” Alecia told her, again. “He says he won’t be blackmailed.”

  “Well, then I guess we don’t have a team.”

  “You’re just going to let it all go down the toilet then? Not play soccer anymore?” Alecia asked, stunned. She hadn’t thought Stacie would let it go that far. But then a small thought came to her. Stacie didn’t want to back down. She didn’t want to be seen as giving in.

  “I’ll find another team.”

  “What about the others?” Alecia wanted to know. “Do they agree with you too?”

  There was a short silence on the other end of the line. “I don’t know, Alecia. Why don’t you ask them? I’ve got stuff to do.” Stacie hung up without saying goodbye.

  Alecia stared at the phone for a minute. That was it. Stacie didn’t want to admit defeat. Jeremy had called her bluff and now she had to quit rather than look foolish.

  “Stubborn jerk,” Alecia muttered, angrily. She kicked at the innocent shoe lying on the floor beside her mother’s bed. Now what? she wondered. She didn’t want to have her team fold because of this. It was too stupid a battle. They could figure out a way of playing with Lexi, couldn’t they?

  She called Laurie next. It was too difficult having all this on her shoulders alone. She needed someone to help her decide what to do. Laurie was the most level-headed person she knew. She would know what to do.

  “What do we do now?” Alecia asked, when she’d filled Laurie in on her conversation with Stacie. “Do the others feel the same way?”

  “I don’t know how the others feel. Well,” Laurie corrected herself, “Nancy was against it to begin with. And I think maybe one or two others.” She paused and Alecia could hear her breathing, knew she was thinking things through.

  “We can’t let Stacie decide what’s going to happen with our team, Laurie,” Alecia said, breaking the silence. “It’s not fair. Just because she doesn’t like Lexi, doesn’t mean she can just ruin everything for the rest of us.”

  “I know, I know,” Laurie agreed. “But maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s all too late.”

  “Will you come back as captain? You said you would last Sunday.”

  “I know I did. But I just don’t know,” Laurie said slowly. “I can’t fight Lexi all the time. I don’t like it. I can’t play well when there is so much fighting. I won’t leave the team, I promise. But I don’t know about being captain.”

  “Well, that’s a good start anyway,” Alecia decided. “First we need a team, then we can work on the captain bit. Do we call everyone ahead of tomorrow’s practice or do we just show up?”

  “Let’s just show up. See who is there. See if Lexi shows. Decide when we get there. Is Stacie going to be at practice, do you know?” Laurie asked.

  “I don’t know. She just hung up. Why don’t you call her? She says she’s doing all this because of you, wanting you back as captain. She may listen to you.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’ll see you tomorrow night, Leesh. Hopefully all this will work out.”

  Alecia hoped so too. What would she do if it didn’t? She couldn’t stand the idea of not having the Burrards anymore. Somehow, some way, they had to fix things.

  12

  Fixing Things

  “Practice tonight, Leesh,” Jeremy reminded her the next morning.

  “Yeah, I know,” she muttered into her cereal. They hadn’t said an awful lot to each other in the last couple of days.

  “What am I going to walk into?” her stepfather asked. Alecia looked up at him. He was wearing a suit and tie that morning, and the tie did not have any cartoon characters on it. He has a meeting today, Alecia thought to herself. It was funny how she could always tell what kind of day Jeremy had planned by the way he looked in the morning. He knew her too. Knew when she had a test or a project due by the way she sat hunched over her breakfast and refused to laugh at his lame jokes. They knew each other well, she thought, pleased by the realization.

  “I don’t know, Jeremy,” she told him honestly. “I really don’t know.”

  He got up and put his breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. As he picked up his briefcase he glanced at her, his eyes serious. “I heard you talking to Laurie last night,” he said.

  “Yeah, I talked to Laurie, but talking about it with Laurie isn’t solving the problem, is it?” Alecia snapped.

  Jeremy ignored her tone and continued to look at her until Alecia started to squirm. “Have you thought about confronting Lexi?” he asked at last. Alecia closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “What good would that do?” she asked. “It would just be a big shouting match, with her telling me to mind my own business, as usual. Then she’d go storming off and nothing would be any different than it is now. And why should I be the one to do it? Seems to me it’s the captain’s job to deal with this kind of thing.”

  “At the moment you don’t have a captain, do you?” Jeremy asked. “And maybe she would react that way,” he went on. “But on the other hand, she might talk to
you, if you asked the right questions.”

  Her voice barely a whisper, Alecia asked, “What questions would those be?”

  Jeremy smiled at her and opened the door to the garage. “I think, my dear, that you know what they are. I’ll see you tonight. Have a good day,” he said, leaving Alecia alone in the silent kitchen.

  * * *

  “How long will Laurie be with her tutoring?” Alecia asked, hunting through her locker for the piece of music she needed. Connor leaned against Anne’s locker, his arms folded across his chest.

  “She said it would only be a half-hour or so,” he told her. “I promised I’d wait this time. She’s been pretty upset lately.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Alecia muttered. She found what she was looking for and stood up, holding it out triumphantly. “Well, I guess that’s it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You haven’t talked to Lexi yet,” he reminded her.

  Alecia scowled at him. She hadn’t forgotten, she was just hoping that she had missed her. “I haven’t seen Lexi all day,” she said.

  She had confided in Connor that morning, needing to talk to someone about it. He thought it was worth a try and had even given her some suggestions of things she might say. Hopefully Alecia would remember them when the time came.

  “Well, don’t decide not to do it,” he warned her, looking stern. “Even when she’s nasty and says things that bug you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Alecia said, swinging her backpack onto her shoulders. “I’ll see you later.”

  She pushed open the orange fire door and stepped outside into the winter afternoon. She frowned at the figure seated on the cement steps, leaning against the chipped metal handrail. It was Lexi. Alecia’s heart pounded and her mouth went dry.