by Jonathan Eig
“Empathetic passing,” Gabriel said.
“Yes!” Lola said.
“That makes sense,” Gabriel said. “But I can’t get those guys to pass at all. All they want to do is shoot.”
“That’s because they’re cavemen,” Lola said.
Gabriel looked up from the book. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind,” Lola said. “But maybe there’s a way we can work together. You can test your video-game soccer strategy, and I can figure out how to get the boys to pass the ball to girls.”
“How?” Gabriel asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” Lola rubbed her chin. “But if you teach me how to play your computer game, maybe I’ll think of something.”
That night Lola dreamed she was a soccer player in a video game, and that she was faster and more skilled than all the other video-game soccer players. She scored three goals. She was about to score a fourth when the morning sun slanted through the blinds in her bedroom and woke her.
Meanwhile, Grampa Ed dreamed that his bald head had suddenly grown beautiful brown, curly hair. Lillian Jones dreamed of driving a convertible along curvy mountain roads in California. They were both already awake and in the kitchen when Lola got there. It was Saturday, which meant Grampa made pancakes for Lola and Lola made coffee for Grampa and Lola practiced soccer in the park with her mother. Lola ate quickly and asked if she could go to Gabriel’s house.
“You don’t want to practice soccer?” her mother asked.
“Maybe later,” Lola said. “But I really want to see this video game Gabriel told me about.”
“So, you guys are friends now?” Ms. Jones asked.
“Oh, definitely not,” Lola said. “But I think he might have scope for imagination. We’ll see.”
Lola walked through the alley. It was a warm, bright day. Lola breathed in the smell of the damp leaves from last night’s rain, and bacon from Stella’s Diner on Broadway. “I wish they made candles that smelled like damp leaves and bacon,” she thought, as she broke into a run down to Gabriel’s building.
Gabriel’s apartment was big and full of sunlight. Gabriel’s parents, his grandfather, and his brother, Tony, were all in the kitchen. Tony wore a sweatshirt that said “Avondale High School Varsity Soccer” on the front. Gabriel’s parents acted surprised to see Lola. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe Gabriel didn’t get a lot of visitors.
“May I take Lola to the game room?” Gabriel asked. His parents nodded, and he led Lola down the hall.
“My brother and I decided to share a room so we could turn the other bedroom into a game room,” Gabriel said as they walked. “It’s cool. Wait until you see it.”
It was cool. The room had a big TV, a computer, a whole shelf full of board games, and another shelf full of books. Two giant beanbag chairs sat in front of the TV. But the coolest thing in the room by far was the set of monkey bars hanging from the ceiling.
“Whoa! You have monkey bars in your house?”
“Yup.”
“Can I try?”
“My dad’s a mechanic. He says it’s safe as long as long as you don’t weigh more than 300 pounds.”
“Well, I did eat a lot of pancakes this morning,” Lola laughed. “But I think it’s OK.”
She leaped to grab the first metal bar, swung her legs, and grabbed the second bar. Lola made it from one end of the room to the other on the first try. When she plopped down to the floor her hands were red and achy.
“Nice!” Gabriel said.
“Thanks!” Lola said. “You do it now! I bet you’re really good at!”
“Maybe later.” Gabriel sat on one of the beanbag chairs and pulled out two remote controls for his video game. He handed one to Lola, who flopped down on the other beanbag.
“I like car-racing games best, but soccer is cool, too,” he said.
Lola and Gabriel played the video soccer game for an hour. The longer they played, the more her grandfather’s drawings and the lessons from Smarter Soccer made sense.
“You know what’s really interesting, Gabriel? The computer only lets me control one player at a time. But look at the players I’m not controlling. They hardly move at all. Most of the time they stay in their positions. They don’t chase the ball.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “They play the opposite of the way Howie and Tommy play.”
Lola couldn’t believe it, but it was true. The two best soccer players at her school were doing everything wrong. They chased the ball all around, tried a lot of fancy moves, and never passed.
“I’ve been trying to teach them,” Gabriel said, “but I’m not doing a good job.”
“Maybe we can help them learn to play more like the computer,” Lola said.
“How?”
“By trying to understand them. What do the boys really want?”
“They want to score goals,” Gabriel said. “That’s it. Goals, goals, goals!”
Lola frowned. “They have no scope for imagination.”
While Lola and Gabriel talked, some of the players in the video game kept running around. Gabriel controlled the player with the ball and Lola controlled the player defending the ball. But as long as Gabriel didn’t pass or shoot and Lola didn’t try to make a steal, the soccer ball didn’t move. The other players—the ones controlled by the computer—ran around waiting, trying to get open.
“Hey, Gabriel, look at that!” Lola said. “They’re running around the field. No one is passing it to them, but they keep running around anyway and hoping for a pass! Just like the girls at recess!”
“They never give up, do they?” Gabriel said as he watched the little figures on the screen running back and forth without the ball.
“Whoa! That gives me an idea.” Lola rubbed her chin. “What if the girls played their own game at recess? What if we used our own ball? An imaginary ball! And what if we ran around like those players in the video game and we made imaginary passes and scored a bunch of imaginary goals? And when the boys got tired of it, maybe they would pass the real ball to us!”
“Yeah! If you ran really good plays, you’d score a ton of imaginary goals, and the boys would see that there’s a smarter way to play!” Gabriel ran his hand through his hair. “It would be a score for imagination!”
Lola jumped up from her beanbag chair. “Yes! Score for imagination! That’s it!”
Lola got to school early on Monday. She zipped her coat to the neck as she stood by the building’s entrance, waiting for her friends. The wind blew coldly in her face and the air smelled like rain.
She held some of her grandfather’s soccer sketches. Gabriel and Lola had put names on the dots so that the girls who were playing would know exactly where they were supposed to be when the game started.
Lola gave the sketches to Maya, Fayth, and Romy. She also invited a few new girls to join the game. She explained her plan about playing with an imaginary ball. “I think we should ask Charlotte, Zayd, and Edith to play because they’re extremely empathetic,” Lola had explained to Gabriel when they were assigning positions. “And I want to invite Antoinette, because she just moved here from France and she’s been sitting alone under a tree at recess, and we simply have to explore her scope for imagination.”
“Are any of them good soccer players?” Gabriel had asked.
“We’ll find out!” Lola said.
At recess, Tommy and Howie picked the teams, as usual.
“Better get started,” said Mr. Nick. “Looks like rain.”
Lola was on Howie’s team, along with Romy, Charlotte, Zayd, and three boys. Tommy’s team had Fayth, Maya, Edith, Antoinette, and three more boys.
Lola gathered all the girls in a huddle to remind them of her special instructions. “Just remember not to look at their ball,” she said. “Remember that we’re going to play an imaginary game at the same time as their real game. Only look at the imaginary ball. Close your eyes and picture it in your mind. It’s bright purple with orange polka dots and it has flames shooting out of it
. The harder you kick it, the more flames it will shoot. But you have to kick it quick so it doesn’t set your shoes on fire. Got it?”
Everyone shouted, “Got it!” and the game began.
At first, the boys thought the girls weren’t playing at all. It took them a few minutes to realize the girls were playing their own game with an imaginary ball.
“Um, Lola!” Howie called. “You do realize that you don’t have a soccer ball, right?”
“Sorry, Howie? Did you say something? I wasn’t paying attention because I just made a perfect pass and Romy just scored her third goal. Nice shot, Romy!”
After ten minutes it began to rain and everyone went inside.
Lola and the girls played with their imaginary purple and orange flaming soccer ball again on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. While the boys ran all over the field, the girls stayed in their assigned positions. They darted back and forth along short routes. They took imaginary shots only when the imaginary ball arrived near the goal in a perfect imaginary pass.
By Friday, the boys got angry.
“They’re ruining everything!” Tommy said, as the boys huddled before the game. “If they don’t want to play real soccer, they should go away and let us have the field.”
“Gabriel, you’re supposed to be our coach!” Howie said. “What should we do?”
Gabriel had been waiting for this moment, but he acted as if he had to think about it. He paused and scratched his head.
“All right, I’ve got an idea,” he finally said. The boys bent into the huddle. “The girls are acting like they don’t care about the game. They know they’re not as good as we are. They know they can’t really compete with the boys. That’s why they’re trying to ruin our game. But I know how we can get rid of them once and for all. Listen up, guys. Next time you see one of the girls wide open and cutting toward the goal, pass her the real ball. She won’t be able to resist a perfect pass. She’ll kick it…and, of course, she’ll miss. Then the girls will realize they’re wasting their time. They’ll give up and we’ll have the soccer field forever!”
“Good idea!” Tommy said.
The game began.
“Nice one, Antoinette!” Lola shouted as she received a perfect imaginary pass.
“Hey, Lola, look left!” Maya yelled. Lola looked left and spotted Maya wide open for another imaginary pass.
Maya fired an imaginary shot toward the goal. “Darn it!” she shouted. “It hit the upright and bounced away.”
“I’ll get it!” Edith sang as she ran to the bushes to retrieve the imaginary ball.
Tommy was so busy paying attention to Maya’s imaginary shot that he didn’t notice when the real ball came his way. It hit him in the nose.
“Ouch!” Tommy shouted. The shot in the face made his nose numb and his vision bleary. He shook his head, looked down, and tapped the soccer ball—the real soccer ball—with his right foot.
“Hey, Tommy!” Gabriel shouted from the sideline, “Lola is wide open on your right!” Tommy had to think for a second. It had been a long time since he had passed the ball to a girl. Wait! Had he ever passed the ball to a girl?
Tommy booted the ball to Lola, who had found a gap between two defenders and had cut toward the goal. The pass reached Lola with such speed and accuracy that she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t bear the thought of wasting such a wonderful chance. And, oh, it felt so good to connect with a real soccer ball again! With one quick swing of her foot she sent the real ball zooming into the real net for a real goal.
Lola didn’t stop running. She jogged over to Tommy, putting her hand up for a high-five.
“Nice pass, Tommy,” she said.
Tommy smiled.
“I guess you could call it real nice,” he said.
“I guess you could,” Lola said.
After recess, Mrs. Gunderson turned down the lights in the classroom and turned on the big television at the back of the classroom. It was time for Lola’s group to show the class their Women’s History Month project.
Bryce’s face came on the screen and he began to speak in a very serious voice.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to one of the biggest sporting events of all time, the 1999 World Cup. In 1999, cell phones and women’s soccer were not popular at all. Can you believe it? My name is Bryce. And before the big game starts, I’m going to interview one of the best soccer players in the world. Her name is Mia Hamm.
Lola appeared in a T-shirt that said mia hamm across the front. She had a soccer ball under her arm.
Hi, Bryce, I’m Mia Hamm. I was born in 1972 in Selma, Alabama, and I’m an awesome soccer player.
Yes, you are! Mia, can you tell us how you got so awesome?
Well, Bryce, there’s a rule called Title Nine that says colleges have to let women plays sports just like men. Thanks to that rule, I got a scholarship to play soccer in college. And once I had that scholarship I worked very hard to do my best. As Anne says in Anne of Green Gables, it’s delightful to have ambitions, and I have a lot! That’s how I got to be so awesome!
Everyone in the classroom clapped. The camera turned back to Bryce.
Now I’m going to interview Mia’s coach. Coach, can you tell us what makes Mia Hamm so awesome?
Eva came on the TV, dressed in a T-shirt that said COACH.
Of course I can tell you, Bryce. It’s because she understands that good teams share. They don’t leave anyone out. Mia is the star of our team, but she always passes the ball. She makes sure everyone gets a turn to play. That makes the whole team stronger. And now, if you’ll excuse me, the game is about to start! And we’re going to give it our all—together!”
The lights came on in the classroom and everyone cheered. Mrs. Gunderson smiled and told the group they’d earned an A-plus.
The third-grade boys and girls learned many things that chilly day in March. They learned that Antoinette was an excellent soccer player. They learned that it was much easier to score goals when they were spaced out on the field and made quick passes and didn’t chase the ball too much. In Mrs. Gunderson’s class, they learned that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the first woman to run for Congress.
But they didn’t learn how Gabriel and Lola had worked together to hatch the plan that solved their soccer problems.
“Do you think they’ll ever figure it out?” Gabriel asked Lola as they walked home from school together.
“We’ll see,” Lola said. “I have to admit that some of the boys have shown more scope for imagination than I had expected.”
“Have you finished that book yet?” Gabriel asked. “What was it called again? Gilbert of Green Gables?”
“Ha-ha! Very funny! I’m almost done. It turns out that Gilbert wasn’t really mean. Anne was just being obstinate. That means stubborn.”
Gabriel nodded. “And who turned out to be the smartest student in their school, Anne or Gilbert?”
“Oh, I’m not telling,” Lola said. “You’ll have to read the book.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe you won’t.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I won’t.”
Gabriel laughed.
“You know what, Gabriel?” Lola asked. “You’re funny.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m glad we’re friends now,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“But there’s still one thing about you I don’t get.”
Gabriel turned to her. “What?”
Lola stopped walking and looked at Gabriel. “Why don’t you play soccer with us? And why didn’t you swing on your monkey bars?”
Lola waited. But Gabriel didn’t answer.
Lola waited longer.
Gabriel still didn’t answer.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she said finally.
“OK,” Gabriel said. “I’ll tell you. But you’ll probably think I’m a wimp.”
“Maybe I will!”
Gabriel laughed. “It’s pretty simple really…I stink. A
nd not just at soccer. I’m bad at all sports. I’m super clumsy. I even drool toothpaste on my shirt practically every time I brush my teeth.” Gabriel looked down at his shirt and pointed to a small stain. “See!”
Lola cracked up. “I’m glad it’s nothing serious,” she said.
“Well, it is kind of serious,” Gabriel said. “My brother got all the talent and I got none.”
“Sorry,” Lola said. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I’m kind of bad at soccer, too. But, you know what, I’ll bet your brother isn’t as smart or funny as you are.”
“Actually, he’s incredibly smart. And super funny.”
“Well then he’s too perfect. Nobody likes people who are too perfect.”
“But I like him!”
“Wow, Gabriel,” Lola said. “I’m trying to be supportive, but you’re not making it easy.”
“It’s no big deal,” Gabriel said. “I’m not sad or mad about it. I like being different. And I love watching soccer and coaching. I really don’t need to play. But, hey, thanks for being an empathetic listener.”
That night, Lola made mac and cheese without any help from her mother or grandfather. Instead of salsa, peppers, and avocado, she mixed in tomatoes, black olives, and spinach. Grampa Ed made the salad.
“I had coffee with your teacher this afternoon,” Grampa Ed said. Grampa Ed and Mrs. Gunderson were friends. “She asked me what book you were going to read after Anne of Green Gables.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Lola said. “What was your favorite book when you were my age, Grampa?”
Grampa Ed scratched his head. “To be honest, I didn’t read that much when I was a kid.”
