by Alex Morgan
The next night, before I went to bed, I practiced Zoe’s relaxation and positive visualization techniques. I wanted to be ready for my Saturday morning soccer practice and prove to Coach Darby that I could be a player she could count on.
Even though I didn’t think of myself as very creative, I was in for a surprise. I was picturing myself on the soccer field having everything go so perfectly that I scored goal after goal. At one point I imagined I was running so fast that I started flying! Soon I was soaring above the soccer field. Things got really crazy when I turned and saw that flying next to me was a unicorn with wings! At that point I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. It was pretty cool.
Then the dream got even stranger when Steven and Hailey started flying ahead of me. I tried to fly as fast as I could to catch up with them, but the faster I wanted to go, the slower I went. And then I slowly sank back to the ground while I watched them fly off in the sky.
It wasn’t a perfect night’s sleep, but I didn’t wake up with my heart pounding, so that was better than the night before, at least.
Saturday morning I felt pretty relaxed, and for the first time in a while I was looking forward to soccer practice. I definitely didn’t want to quit anymore. I actually couldn’t believe the thought had even crossed my mind—I was no quitter. Yet I did have a little bit of butterflies when I thought about practice. When I’d trained with Zoe, I’d felt like my soccer mojo had returned. But that wasn’t quite the same as facing Coach Darby and my teammates. Would I embarrass myself again?
It’s only a practice, I told myself. Give yourself a chance to get comfortable.
When I hit the field, I felt fluid and athletic, like my old self. This gave me confidence. We had a warm-up, some drills, and then a scrimmage. While I didn’t do anything spectacular (like flying), I had a good, solid practice and managed to assist a goal during the scrimmage. Which to me was even better than seeing a unicorn. Well, maybe not quite.
“Good practice, Devin,” Coach Darby said when it was over.
I was all smiles when we got off the field, and Jessi noticed. “Looks like you’re getting your mojo back, Devin,” she said. “And we’re going to make sure it stays that way! Your presence is requested at Emma’s house at noon.”
Uh-oh. I couldn’t remember if I had an appointment with the kiddie dentist to fill those cavities, which I was NOT looking forward to.
“I hope I can come!” I said. “I might—”
Jessi interrupted me. “Relax. We checked with your parents, and it’s a go.”
“So, will you be there too? What’s going on?” I asked.
Jessi zipped her lips and pretended to lock them again. Then she waved good-bye without saying another word before she sprinted to the parking lot.
I went home to shower and change. My curiosity was running wild. I had no idea what the Kicks had planned for today!
Which was why I was practically bouncing in my seat as Dad drove me to Emma’s house.
“You certainly seem very happy today, Devin,” my dad commented. It was just him and me in the car. “Are things going better?”
I nodded. “They sure are! I had a good practice this morning. And my friends are the best! They’ve been so supersupportive. I haven’t felt this good since before the earthquake.”
Then I thought of the earthquake again and shuddered. What if there was another one? Would everything in my life unravel again?
Dad noticed the change in my energy. “Tomorrow night we’re going to have our family earthquake readiness party,” he said reassuringly. “Before you know it, we’ll be like all the other Californians, taking earthquakes in stride.”
I let out a big exhale. Even though we had done some drills as a family before the earthquake, I hadn’t taken them that seriously. Now that I had actually experienced an earthquake, I knew I’d give the drills my full attention.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “I think it will be a big help!”
Emma lived in a private, gated community. My dad had to stop at a gatehouse to get permission to drive through. I’d never forget the first time we came here. The guard had given us a map so we wouldn’t get lost! Even though Emma lived in a house like one of the stars of RTOBH, she could not have been more different. The only drama in her life was her perpetual clumsiness!
Dad dropped me off in her circular driveway, which had a big, fancy fountain splashing away in the middle.
I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Kim opened the door, a big smile on her face.
“Devin, it’s so nice to see you,” she said. “Come in.”
I walked into the fancy marble foyer. “Emma is in the rec room,” Mrs. Kim said. “You know the way.”
I made my way through the maze of a house to the recreation room. When I opened the door, it was dark. All the lights were off. “Emma?” I asked as I scanned the room. I spotted the gigantic television that took up almost an entire wall, the pool table and foosball table, plus the rows and rows of DVDs of what seemed like every movie ever made. But no Emma. Maybe Mrs. Kim was wrong and she was in her room instead?
Before I could turn around to leave, Emma, Jessi, Frida, and Zoe all jumped out from behind the huge sectional sofa and yelled, “Surprise!”
The lights turned on, and I saw that the room was not only filled with balloons, but hanging on a wall was a huge banner that said, DEVIN IS DIVINE!
“What!” I said, totally shocked. “This is all for me?” I could not believe it.
“Yes, it is!” Emma beamed. “I’m throwing you a surprise party to let you know how much I appreciate you. I’ll never forget how you planned that Emma Appreciation Day when I didn’t make the winter league. And how you helped me see my potential as a goalie. So now it’s my turn to help cheer you on!”
“Group hug!” Jessi shouted, and soon we were all mashed together in a gigantic Kicks embrace.
“To celebrate how divine you are, dear Devin,” Frida said after we had all untangled ourselves, “we’re going to be watching the US women’s national soccer team game live. And eating all your favorite foods. Your dad even gave Mrs. Kim his secret guacamole recipe.”
My dad had known about this too. He hadn’t let on at all. I had been totally surprised.
“Let’s get the game on,” Emma said as she turned on the TV.
“Wait. We need to eat!” Zoe reminded her. “We’ve got tacos, guac and chips, and red velvet cupcakes.”
Red velvet! My favorite.
“Wow, guys. You planned the perfect day for me,” I said. I actually felt a little choked up, that was how touched I was. I had the most awesome, caring friends.
How could I have ever felt like I had bad luck? With friends like these, it was clear that I had the best luck in the world!
The next day Mom and Dad had set up the house for our earthquake preparation party. It was a weekend of back-to-back parties, and I loved it! We got take-out Chinese food, which everybody loved, and Dad made a joke when he opened his fortune cookie.
“Mine says, ‘You are about to eat a fortune cookie,’ ” he reported.
“Really?” Maisie asked. “Let me see that!”
She looked at it and frowned. “It doesn’t say that! It’s boring. It just says if you work hard, you will see results.”
“Boring, but true,” Dad said. “And I have my own prediction. After we clean up this mess, we will start our earthquake drill.”
It started with Mom showing us an emergency survival kit she had prepared, and a first aid kit, and then she put them both on top of our shoe locker in the mudroom so we would always know where they were. Then we walked all around the house, where Dad pretended to be a tour guide, showing us the safest places to be during an earthquake, and the most dangerous places.
“And here in the Burke living room, we have a bookshelf that’s bolted to the wall, which is a good safety precaution,” Dad said. “But the books could still fall out, so this is not a good place to be when an earthquake strikes. If you’re in the liv
ing room when an earthquake hits, under the archway is the best place to be. Now, in the kitchen . . .”
He went on like that, sounding like a goofy tour guide, but it worked. The next time an earthquake hit (and I knew there probably would be a next time, whether I liked it or not), I would know exactly what to do. And that made me feel better.
Sunday night I combined advice from both Zoe and Jessi to prep for the retake of the World Civ test. First I went over the notes I had taken with Jessi, which were much better than the notes I’d taken on the night of the earthquake. I studied for an hour, then took a fifteen-minute break to go on my phone and check my texts. Then I studied for another half hour, but that was all I needed. I was feeling pretty confident.
I hoped I could get a good night’s sleep. It would help me on the test. Before I went to sleep that night, I closed my eyes and imagined myself in Mr. Emmet’s classroom, taking the test. This time I knew the answer to every question. I filled out the test and handed it to Mr. Emmet before anyone else did. As I was walking back to my desk, Steven gave me a big thumbs-up. I drifted off to sleep, feeling peaceful, until I had this really weird dream that I was taking the test, but the only thing I was wearing was my underwear. No shirt. No pants. And not only were Steven and Hailey pointing and laughing at me, but so was Noodles the Clown, who had been the entertainment at my sixth birthday party. It was totally freaky. I tossed and turned awhile before I could fall back asleep.
Before World Civ started the next day, I took a second to again picture myself acing the test, this time making sure I was fully dressed, with no clowns lurking in the classroom.
My thoughts were interrupted when Mr. Emmet spoke. “All right, class. Today is the retest for some of you. If you’re not taking the test, please get a head start on reading chapter thirteen.”
I inhaled deeply as Mr. Emmet passed out the tests, and exhaled as I looked down at it. I smiled when I saw the first question.
List three causes of the decline of the Roman empire.
I put pen to paper and began to write. I knew the answers! Every one! I was so excited about knowing them that my pen could barely keep up with the words flowing out of my brain. When I finished, I was eager to hand the test in—and I would have been the first one to finish, just like in my imagination—but then I remembered another tip from Jessi, and I used the extra time to check my answers.
I handed in my paper just before the bell rang. I knew I had aced it! I couldn’t wait to tell Jessi.
As I walked back to my desk, Steven smiled at me.
“Hey, Devin!” he said.
Then he turned to Hailey, and the two of them began talking as they walked to English class together.
I didn’t give it much thought. I was so eager to tell Jessi about the test that I raced past them in the hall. “So, how’d it go?” she asked as we sat down in English class
“I’m pretty sure I got an A,” I said, and she high-fived me. “It’s thanks to you, Jessi.”
“Devin, you had it in you all along,” Jessi said in a mock serious voice, and we both cracked up.
There was one more person I was eager to talk to—Kara. That night, on video chat, I told her the whole story.
“So it started with a mysterious text, and the last thing that happened was that amazing party at Emma’s,” I said. I rubbed my belly. “Emma brought the extra red velvet cupcakes into school today. I need to do some extra laps at soccer practice!”
Kara had a sly grin on her face. “Gee, how do you think they knew that you liked red velvet cupcakes?” she asked.
Then it hit me. “No way! You told them?”
Kara nodded. “Jessi asked me. Your Kicks friends out there really care about you, Devin.” Then she looked a little sad. “I wish I could have been there! If I win the lottery someday, I’ll fly out and see you whenever I want.”
“That would be awesome,” I said. “You have got to see Emma’s house in person to believe it.”
“I know!” said Kara. “The way you describe it, it sounds like something from The Real Teenagers of Beverly Hills!”
“Are you watching that too now?” I asked.
Kara shrugged. “It’s hard not to watch, you know?”
“Sadly, I do,” I agreed. “Well, anyway, thank you for telling my friends my favorite cupcake flavor. You wouldn’t happen to know what else is in store, do you?”
“You mean there’s more?” asked Kara.
“Frida texted me that we have a mystery appointment at lunch tomorrow,” I told her. “I’m a little worried about this one. Frida can be so dramatic, you know? What if, like, she hired a marching band or gospel choir or something? I’ll be so embarrassed!”
“Well, I think Frida knows you better than that,” Kara said. “All of the other things your friends had planned for you were fun. I think you just need to have a little faith.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. But my dreams that night were of a marching band blasting music through the cafeteria, carrying a DEVIN IS DIVINE! banner!
I was on pins and needles the next day when I walked into the cafeteria. To my relief, no marching band or gospel choir greeted me when I entered. But Frida was standing in front of our usual table, looking very serious.
“You and I are eating outside today, Devin,” Frida said. “We’re going to need some privacy.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. That sounded ominous.
Frida led me to a small round table in the shade of the school building. We both opened our lunch bags. Mom was making up for all the party food with a salad of grilled chicken, apples, and walnuts, with a yogurt on the side.
“Devin, I’m here to help you with your most sensitive issue,” Frida said.
“Which one is that?” I asked a little anxiously.
“Steven,” Frida said flatly. “If he is walking another girl to English class, then we need to fix that.”
“Well, okay,” I said slowly. “I mean, that’s kind of up to Steven, isn’t it?”
Frida shook her head. “If there’s one thing I learned from filming Mall Mania, it’s that boys are never in control when it comes to romance.”
“They’re not?” I asked, surprised.
“They think they are, but they’re not,” Frida assured me. “In the movie there’s this subplot where Cassie has a crush on PJ, but PJ gets distracted by this girl named Marnie who works at the pretzel kiosk. So Cassie pretends to like Matt, and then PJ realizes that Cassie is the one he really likes.”
My head was spinning. “What?”
“If you act like you’re interested in a boy, they get scared. But if you ignore them and act like you like another boy, then they’re interested in you.”
That didn’t make any sense at all to me. “But I don’t like any other boy. I like Steven,” I told her.
“You don’t have to actually like the other boy. You just have to pretend you like him,” Frida explained.
I was starting to think I would have preferred the marching band to this conversation. “That just seems too fake. How am I supposed to pretend I like someone?”
“It’s easy,” Frida said. “First, all you need to do is talk to another boy when Steven is around.”
“About what?” I asked. This sounded completely nuts.
“Let me show you,” Frida said. “I’ll be you, and you be some random boy.”
“What?” I didn’t know how to be a boy. I was no actress, like Frida. I knew she was trying to help me, so I decided to go along with it, no matter how ridiculous I thought it all was.
“Just follow my lead,” Frida said confidently. “We’ll call you Noah.”
“Noah, hi,” Frida said, her voice switching to a high-pitched tone. “Can you believe all this rain we’re having? It’s been making my hair a mess.”
With that, she flipped her hair over her right shoulder, letting one of her loose auburn curls fall to the front.
I tried to talk like a boy. “Um, it hasn’t been raining,” I said in a gruf
f voice. “It’s been sunny.”
“Devin!” Frida hissed, going out of character. “Just pretend!”
“Yeah, the rain stinks,” I said, again trying to use a deep voice. I felt like a complete idiot.
Frida laughed. “Oh, Noah,” she said with a big smile on her face.
“Yeah, rain is really funny,” I said in my boy voice again. I had no idea what she was laughing at.
Frida sensed my discomfort. “Maybe you’ll be more comfortable playing yourself. I’ll be the boy, and you be the girl. Remember to flip your hair and laugh like I did.”
I groaned. Frida was my friend, and I knew she had the best intentions, but this was starting to be even worse than when I’d made that offsides goal.
“Devin, hi!” Frida said in a deep voice.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly. I sat there feeling like a complete dork, until Frida whispered loudly, “Flip your hair.”
The weather and my hair. I couldn’t think of what to say as I tried to imitate Frida’s high tones. It came out sounding like a dog’s squeaky toy. Then I tried the hair flip. I had my hair up in a ponytail. So I wiggled my head back and forth, swinging my ponytail behind me.
“No, no, no!” Frida groaned in frustration. “Take the ponytail out!”
“But I like my ponytail!” I protested.
“Out,” Frida repeated.
With a sigh I removed the elastic from my hair. Frida stood up and started pushing my hair around with her fingers.
“Perfect!” she said. “Now flip!”
I flipped my hair over my right shoulder.
“Not bad,” Frida said. “But you were frowning when you did it. You can’t frown.”
Of course I was frowning. This was a total disaster. I couldn’t believe that this would work. My skepticism must have shown on my face.
“Devin, you have to trust me on this,” Frida said. “I was on a movie set. There was a lot of flirting going on. I know what I’m talking about.”
