by Monica Nolan
Bobby hurried out to the center line, taking one last look over her shoulder at the divine Dot, who was now chatting with Mona. Funny, Mona hadn’t mentioned Mrs. Driscoll’s relationship to the Kerwins when she’d seen the two of them at the Flame Inn.
The Holy Martyrs’ coach and the league umpires were conferring. The official score table was set up, with teenaged assistants crouched by each scorer. Both teams were on the field now, the Metamora girls practicing their recently learned dodges and tackles more tentatively than usual next to the Holy Martyrs’ swagger and skill. Angle stood off to one side, glowering at the Catholic schoolgirls. Bobby paused a moment to ask the sullen teen why she wasn’t warming up.
“You’re not going to play me, are you?” Angle demanded.
“Your job is to be ready, no matter whether you play or not,” Bobby reproved before hurrying on.
In truth, Bobby couldn’t decide whether or not to play Angle this game. Although Angle looked up to her, asking her opinion about movies and books, imitating the way she walked (“Like an Indian brave,” she’d told Bobby admiringly), the coach couldn’t convince the girl to drop her grudge against the DAPs. She had an idea that if she benched the recalcitrant loner, Angle would see that she needed the team as much as the team needed her.
A firm handshake with the Holy Martyrs’ coach, a welcome to the ref, a toot on her whistle to round up the Metamorians, and the game began. The starting lineup took the field—Ilsa “Iggy” Jespersen and Kayo as inner forwards, Annette and Beryl as wings. Linda’s friends, Penny and Sue, were halfbacks, and Shirley, Helen, and Anna were fullbacks, with Edie in goal. Bobby had tapped Linda for center. The young girl had an ability to anticipate and surprise her opponent, and could win a bully purely through psychological skill.
But something was wrong with Linda today—she seemed intimidated by the big freckled girl with the squinty eyes who crouched opposite her. The ball went to the Holy Martyrs and they drove it into Metamora territory with embarrassing quickness.
“God bless Edie,” Bobby thought as the padded girl stopped a shot on goal. The goalie seemed to be the only member of the team who wasn’t frightened of the Holy Martyrs. The rest of the Savages stumbled and fumbled until Bobby’s cheeks were crimson with embarrassment. It was as if her players had forgotten everything she’d painstakingly drilled into them the past week. At the end of the first half, even Edie had not been able to prevent five goals for the visiting team.
Home 1, visitors 5. The Savages’ lone goal was the result of a penalty shot—the ball had scarcely left Metamora territory. Lotta ran to and fro with water for the thirsty Savages. Bobby glanced across the field at the Holy Martyrs, who were barely winded, laughing as they stood around their coach. The hatchet-faced coach was pulling new players off the bench. This, to Bobby, was the final humiliation. The coach was sending in her second string—treating the game like a practice for her team.
Bobby tried to rally her girls. “Penny, what happened to your lunge? You were doing so well last scrimmage!”
Penny looked down. “I don’t know, Coach.”
“And Beryl, remember how we talked about running parallel and a few steps ahead of Kayo when she has the ball?”
“These players are pulling some dirty tricks,” Beryl muttered.
Bobby knit her brows. The Holy Martyrs had been playing a clean game as far as she could tell. Was there something else happening out on the field, something she couldn’t see? The whistle blew before she could ask the right wing what she meant. As the girls got to their feet and ran back on to the field, Bobby watched, feeling helpless. So this was life on the sidelines—trying to win the game with your head, making decisions that the players executed!
“Coach Bobby, Coach Bobby!” Lotta was jumping up and down as she frantically sought Bobby’s attention. “I can tell you why we’re getting beat—that Holy Virgin girl spooked Linda at the bully—she said something terrible about the ghost of Miss Froelich!”
“Lotta, you know there’s no ghost—” Bobby began automatically, and then stopped. “What did she say, exactly?”
Lotta looked down at her shoes. “She said Miss Froelich’s ghost will always haunt Metamora, that she can never find rest, because—because she—because she jumped from the tower on purpose!”
Bobby smacked her head in despair. Of course—her girls weren’t used to the kind of heckling a competitive team like the Holy Martyrs could bring on. And superstitious Linda would be the most vulnerable target for this attack on the Savages’ morale!
Angle was suddenly at her other side. “Put me in, Coach, please, put me in!”
Bobby was watching the game. Kayo had won the center bully, and for the first time that day the ball was in Holy Martyr territory. Kayo sped toward the goal, taking the Holy Martyr halfbacks by surprise, but as she lifted her stick for the drive that would score, the umpire’s whistle blew. “Offsides!” she called as the Savages’ captain looked around in bewilderment. In her inexperience, Annette had run past the Holy Martyrs’ two fullbacks and goalie.
“That idiot!” Angle ground her teeth in frustration.
“She’s your teammate,” Bobby reminded her benched player. If nothing else went right this game, at least she could say her strategy with Angle was beginning to work. The girl was so tormented by her desire to rush out on the field she couldn’t sit still.
Edie blocked the penalty shot.
“Put me in, Coach, you’ve got to put me in!” Angle was pleading now. “I’ll be a team player and all that baloney you’ve been jawing about, I swear!”
“Get ready, then,” said Bobby. Angle hadn’t phrased her capitulation quite as Bobby wanted to hear it, but she’d made a beginning, and coach and player were united in their desire to see Metamora score at least once. The young coach waved for a time-out. “Number twelve going in for number four,” she called to the umpire. Linda trotted off the field, and sat on the bench, looking half ashamed, half relieved. Angle ran out to take her place at the bully.
Bobby shaded her eyes and watched anxiously as the Holy Martyrs’ center said something that evoked mocking laughter from her teammates, but Angle only adjusted her stance, crouching a little more. When the whistle blew, Angle tapped her stick against her opponent’s three times and then neatly rolled the ball over the other girl’s stick, simultaneously stepping forward and dribbling the ball upfield before the Holy Martyrs had recovered. Bobby saw Kayo running parallel on the right, shouting to Angle to pass, but Angle ignored her. It was like that first scrimmage the day of tryouts. Angle simply boiled upfield and scored.
There were vociferous cheers from the Metamora supporters in the stands and mutters from the Holy Martyrs. The ref caught the ball and placed it on the center line. The two centers took up their positions, in dead silence this time. Bobby sensed rather than saw the way the Holy Martyr lifted her stick a trifle higher, bracing for the same technique Angle had used the first time. But Angle, with a flick of her wrist, sent the ball through her opponent’s legs, and Kayo scooped it up. Angle ran forward calling, “Back to me, back to me!” Kayo paused, looking for Beryl, but Beryl was well guarded. “Back to me, for crissake!” shouted Angle. Kayo obliged at last, with a smart left pass.
The whistle blew. “Home three, visitors five,” shouted the umpire.
Angle lost the ball on the next bully, but Kayo picked it up, quick as a wink, and took it upfield, keeping so close to the alley, Bobby held her breath. “Pass!” shouted Bobby as she watched the hulking Holy Martyr halfbacks descend on the slender girl. “Pass!”
Kayo passed, but she passed too forcefully—the ball whizzed past Angle and went to Annette on the left. Annette lunged to stop it too late, and the ball rolled out of bounds.
As the teams arranged themselves for the roll-in, Bobby saw Angle say something to Kayo, one hand on her hip, the other hand gesticulating. Bobby half rose to intervene, but the whistle blew, and Angle hastily took up position. However, it was Helen who got the
ball and flicked it over her opponent’s stick as if she’d been doing it all her life. Angle called for the ball, but Helen dribbled on. Bobby frowned. It was as if her whole team had forgotten the passing drills they’d been practicing the last month! But what was Angle doing? Instead of waiting for the pass, she’d run after Helen and stolen the ball from her own astonished teammate. Bobby’s jaw dropped. She’d never seen such a thing. Angle scored. It was 4 to 5.
Kayo took the next bully. She just managed to send the ball to Annette with a tricky left pass, but a hulking halfback on the Holy Martyrs tackled Annette, knocking her down. The umpire’s whistle blew. “Penalty shot to the Savages!” she shouted.
Bobby and the Savages on the bench held their breath as Annette limped up to the ball and carefully took aim. Cheers erupted as the left forward flicked the ball into the very corner of the Holy Martyr goal and the Holy Martyr goalie made a futile dive to stop it. “Home five, visitors five!” trumpeted the umpire through cupped hands.
Bobby looked at the time. Five minutes left on the clock. Her hands trembled as she shaded her eyes again. Could the Savages actually win, their first time out in twenty years? “Hustle, hustle, you can do it!” she cried to her revived team, even as she reminded herself the odds were against them.
Her team hustled, but the Holy Martyrs were equally determined and their pride was at stake. The Holy Martyrs center knocked the ball halfway down the field on the bully and the determined forward line caught up with it just as the Savage halfbacks grabbed the ball and sent it back to their own forward line. But the Holy Martyrs were all over them like fruit flies on an overripe peach. This would be their strategy, Bobby knew, keep the ball in Metamora’s territory, keep the Savages on the defensive.
Yet somehow Shirley managed to send the ball to Annette, and limping Annette was not as heavily guarded as Angle and Kayo. She broke away from the pack, dribbling rapidly up the alley, dangerously close to the sideline. The Savage forward line was at her heels. “Here!” Bobby heard Angle’s raucous cry. “Over here!” The Holy Martyr halfbacks were closing in on Annette as she passed off her back foot to Angle, who only managed to dribble a few yards before she too found herself surrounded.
“Angle, here!” screamed Kayo.
Angle feinted left, and then instead of passing, she shot on goal, from just inside the shooting circle. It was a strong, clean shot, straight up the center, but the goalie was prepared, knees together, hands raised, ready to block and kick the ball back downfield.
And then a miracle happened. The ball bounced sideways—on a tuft of grass, a gopher hole, it didn’t matter. The goalie made a futile dive, and as the stands erupted in pandemonium, the ball rolled across the end line. The buzzer blew.
The Savages were besides themselves with glee, jumping up and down and embracing each other in an excess of excitement. Their faces were still wreathed in astonished grins as Bobby lined them up to shake hands with the defeated Martyrs. The Holy Martyrs’ coach gripped Bobby’s hand for a moment and said, “You got a lucky break there, but I guess you earned it.” Bobby’s heart warmed at this terse praise from the unsmiling veteran of the Midwest Regional Secondary School Girls’ Field Hockey League. “Next time, we’ll be ready,” the iron-jawed woman added with a grim smile.
The girls ran toward the gymnasium, chattering excitedly, and Bobby followed them, passing clusters of Metamora supporters who had descended from the stands. Mona was the first to congratulate the young field hockey coach. “Quite an upset!” she said with a wide smile. “Not many of us expected that.”
“I certainly didn’t!” Bobby responded exuberantly.
“Well done, Coach!” Dot Driscoll made a V for victory as she climbed down from the stands. “What a terrific break on that last goal! Once their passing catches up to their scoring—”
Bobby felt a twinge of guilt. Angle had played like a prima donna and Bobby should have taken her out the minute she stole the ball from Helen. And Kayo—had she overshot that pass to Angle accidentally or on purpose? “They’re still a little rough,” she admitted. “And they haven’t quite jelled as a team—”
Kayo’s aunt Dot put her hand on Bobby’s arm. “Oh, don’t think I’m complaining! It was a smashing game—just like seeing the long shot win the Derby, with a ticket in your hand and the odds twenty to one!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bobby saw Enid exiting the door to the locker room. Had she missed the winning goal? Bobby couldn’t help hoping the Math Mistress had witnessed the Savages’ triumph. That would teach her to meddle with Metamora’s sports program!
Dot stepped closer, pushing any further thought of Enid out of the field hockey coach’s head. “Besides,” she murmured, “I’m sure you’ll whip them into a froth of perfection in no time! I saw you play the Bayard Blackhawks for the championship last fall.” Dot’s admiring eyes played over Bobby’s face, flushed with excitement, and traveled down her lean, lithe frame. Bobby felt like Dot was stripping off the coach’s crimson Metamora sweatshirt with her eyes alone. “What do you think of Metamora’s chances against Rockford?” Dot asked in a confidential tone. “I don’t think that any of their players are as strong as number twelve—do you think you can take them?”
“In field hockey you can never say for sure, but if the Savages continue to make progress…” Bobby hardly knew what she was saying as her head spun under an onslaught of different sensations, the swell of Aunt Dot’s breast pressing against her arm, Aunt Dot’s expensive scent filling her nose, the heat radiating through Aunt Dot’s clothes. Again, the urge to pull Aunt Dot under the bleachers and quell her questions about Metamora’s odds with a hail of fevered kisses was almost overwhelming.
An automatic glance toward the bleachers told Bobby this would be impossible. Miss Craybill was emerging from their shadow, climbing over the steel struts and poles of the support structure, her eyes on the ground as she scuffed at the dirt with one lace-up shoe. She looked like a Victorian hobo, scrounging for loose change. Tearing herself away from the mesmerizing suburban matron with a muttered excuse, Bobby took the distracted Headmistress’s arm.
“Did you drop something, Miss Craybill?”
Miss Craybill looked up, focusing on Bobby with difficulty. “Oh no, I just…How goes the hockey match? Shouldn’t you be out on the field, with your team?”
Bobby’s jaw dropped. “The game is over, Miss Craybill. Metamora won.” She was relieved when Miss Otis swooped down and carried the Headmistress away. She felt deeply troubled by Miss Craybill’s latest eccentricity. The Headmistress had wandered off in the middle of the game!
To Bobby’s disappointment, Dot had disappeared. As she peered about, searching for the voluptuous blonde, she heard a threatening voice.
“You think you showed us, huh, Angela? You think you’re a hotshot now at your hotshot new school, with your hotshot new coach? Wait until we come back and beat the pants off you, then see how hotshot you are!”
Bobby turned around and saw Angle standing toe to toe with the freckled forward from the Holy Martyrs, who was flanked by two teammates. Except for their black watch plaid kilts, they looked like a girl gang from the docks of Bay City.
“I’d like to see you Holy Virgins try,” taunted Angle. “I thought God was supposed to be on your side—how come he didn’t send his only son to help you out at the bully, Duffy?”
Duffy was so pale every freckle stood out. “You’re going straight to hell, O’Shea. Even if you weren’t half kike, you’d be going straight to hell for what you just said!” She clenched her fists, but one of her teammates tugged at her elbow.
“Leave her be, Kathy, she’s right where she belongs at this queer school—everyone knows there’s something unnatural about that teacher’s death! It’s cursed—and so are you!”
Bobby surprised them, stepping from the shadow of the bleachers. “That’s enough, all of you! Where’s your sportsmanship?” She addressed the Holy Martyrs sternly. “Your bus is leaving soon.”
/> As the three Holy Martyrs hurried away, Bobby reproved Angle. “I’m ashamed of you, Angle! No matter what they said, it’s poor sportsmanship to insult the losing team! Remember—you won!”
“That’s right!” Angle’s face was lit by a grin so dazzling Bobby felt momentarily blinded. “I sure showed them!” Then she was gone. Bobby bit her lip. She wasn’t sure Angle had gotten her message about sportsmanship.
Inside the locker room, Kayo and Beryl were in a huddle with Edie.
“She’d better not try that stuff again,” Beryl was saying angrily to her friends, and Bobby couldn’t help wondering if the boisterous girl was referring to Angle. What was the matter with these kids? Couldn’t they set aside their petty jealousies and enjoy the victory?
“What’s the problem, Beryl? You sound like your team lost instead of won,” said the young coach heartily.
Beryl was flustered by Bobby’s sudden appearance, and scrambled for an explanation. “It’s Kayo—she can’t find her heirloom third-generation Daughters of American Pioneers locket.”
“That’s too bad,” Bobby sympathized, trying to look Kayo in the eye and not let her glance drop to the swelling bosom barely concealed by the teen’s skimpy towel. Kayo’s pale blond hair, the color of buttermilk, was still damp from her shower. Her skin had the opalescence of a pearl, flushed faintly with pink. “I’m sure it will turn up.” Bobby gulped as she backed away. “Don’t let it spoil your victory!”
“Did you hear, Mrs. Gilvang’s throwing us a party.” Kayo stepped forward eagerly. “She said she’d serve cocoa and cookies in Dorset’s common room.”
“Gosh, girls, I wish I’d known,” said Bobby with genuine regret. “But tonight I have an appointment in Bay City.”
Chapter Twelve
Bay City
Looking out the window of the cab as it rolled toward Metamora’s front gate, Bobby glimpsed the girls streaming toward Dorset for the impromptu party. She leaned back in her seat, a faint sense of regret tugging at her as she thought of the gay celebration, the rich cups of cocoa, the buttery cookies, and most importantly, the opportunity to foster a sense of team unity. If only she could be in two places at once!
