by Nancy Rue
“None at our school,” Oscar said. “Huh, Lucy?”
Lucy lifted her chin. “None. They have some boys’ teams at the middle school and the high school — baseball and basketball and football, but the girls can’t even try out for those.”
“Girls have that thing where you punch the ball over the net.” Carla Rosa frowned and looked at Lucy.
“Volleyball,” Lucy said. “My mom was going to start a soccer league in Los Suenos.”
“Why doesn’t she?” Mr. Auggy said.
“She’s dead,” Carla Rosa said.
“Shut up!” J.J. said.
Mr. Auggy cocked his head at J.J., but Lucy shook her ponytail.
“It’s okay. She can’t help it.”
Mr. Auggy didn’t say anything for a minute, and J.J. slid back down in his chair.
“My dad asked about the school having a soccer team,” Lucy said. “But they said there wasn’t enough money.”
“I see,” Mr. Auggy said. He had stopped writing things down. It figured. Whenever somebody said there wasn’t any money, that was usually the end of whatever needed to be paid for.
Mr. Auggy committed a few more flubs before lunch — like giving them each a clump of clay and telling them to make something, which ended in a major clay-ball battle — but as far as Lucy was concerned, his worst mistake came during recess.
They gobbled their lunches as usual — in four bites Lucy downed the peanut butter and pickle sandwich Dad made her — and raced out to the playground, stopping only at her cubby in the main hall of the sixth-grade wing to get the soccer ball she kept there. Cubbies lined the walls on both sides and served as lockers, but no one ever took anything from anybody’s because, Lucy always figured, nobody had anything worth taking. In her case, no one else in sixth grade except her little team had any interest in soccer equipment.
Just as Lucy was tucking the ball under her arm, a female voice behind her said, “What happened, Lucy?”
She turned to Veronica, who stood, hang-lipped, on the other side of the hall next to Dusty.
“What?” Lucy said.
“Why aren’t you wearing that cute pink coat you had on yesterday?”
Dusty nodded. “That one looks like you ran over it or something.”
“I’m saving the pink one,” Lucy said.
“That lady you were with was nice.”
Lucy wasn’t sure which one of them said that, and she didn’t care. What was up with them noticing her all of a sudden? “You guys ready?” she said to her group.
Veronica and Dusty turned to their side-by-side cubbies, filled with color-coded pastel binders that said SOCIAL STUDIES and ENGLISH in perfect fat letters. They never had to come to the support class. Lucy reminded herself to make a list of all the reasons she was glad. Them paying attention to her couldn’t be a good thing.
Once she was out on the playground with Emanuel and Oscar and Carla Rosa, however, she forgot all about them. She could even ignore Januarie, who sat on the ground with her lower lip poking straight out, bleating like a small goat because they wouldn’t let her play.
“We could use her for the ball,” J.J. muttered to Lucy.
“You want to hold my jacket for me, Jan?” Lucy said.
Januarie settled for that, though she kept her lip standing out.
Lucy pointed to a space near the fence. “Be goalie, J.J. Oscar, you be the defender — ”
She doled out the positions — midfielder to Carla Rosa, and forward to herself and Emanuel. That made it basically J.J. against everybody else, but there weren’t enough of them to make one team, much less two. Besides, J.J. was the best player, except for Lucy.
“Ready?” she said.
Heads bobbed, and Lucy set the ball down, took a step forward, and smacked it squarely in the middle with the inside of her foot so her leg looked like a hockey stick. That was the way her mom had taught her, the way she’d watched players on TV do it, and the way she’d practiced in her backyard until her feet were black and blue.
“To you, Emanuel!” she shouted.
He stuck out a long, spindly leg and caught the ball with his toe. It popped up and spun back toward him. He flailed at it again with his foot, missed, and said, “To you, Lucy.”
“No!” Lucy waved her arms at him. “I can’t touch it again until somebody else does.”
Emanuel looked at Carla Rosa, who blinked at him.
“That’s why you need me!” Januarie said.
“So why aren’t you playing, Miss Thing?”
Lucy stopped in mid-lunge toward the ball and stared at Mr. Auggy, who was crouching beside Januarie.
“They won’t ever let me,” she said, pitifully.
Carla Rosa chose that moment to whack at the ball with her foot. Lucy trapped it with hers and dragged it back behind her with her sole.
“Okay, let’s start again,” she said.
“Pass it here,” Mr. Auggy said. “I’ll throw it in.”
Lucy didn’t move.
“I love a pickup game. It looks like you could use another player.” He looked down at Januarie. “Two, even. You want to be on my team?”
J.J. grunted. Carla Rosa giggled. Oscar and Emanuel shrugged at each other. Lucy kicked the ball hard toward Mr. Auggy. It was trapped and in his hands so swiftly, Lucy barely saw how he did it.
“Go on in, Miss Thing,” he said to Januarie, who was jumping up and down and squealing.
She bounded onto their playing space, nearly knocking Emanuel over, and turned to face Mr. Auggy. Leaning forward with one leg, he raised the ball over his head and threw it gently to her feet.
“What do I do?” she cried.
“Kick it to me,” Mr. Auggy said as he jogged onto the “field.”
“No, kick it here!” J.J. said.
When she turned her head to him, Emanuel got his foot between hers and snagged the ball.
“Here!” Lucy said, running toward the goal.
But from somewhere, a high-pitched sound came. All heads turned to Mr. Auggy, who let a silver whistle drop to his chest on a cord. He waved his hand for them to gather around him. Carla Rosa bounced over like she was going to hug him. J.J. gave Lucy a dark look.
“Listen,” Mr. Auggy said when they’d formed a half circle around him, “I like your spirit, but no fair taking advantage of the new kid.” He gave Januarie his small smile. She looked back like he’d just given her the last cookie. “What’s your name, Miss Thing?” he said.
“Pain in the Tail,” J.J. muttered.
“Is that your brother?” Mr. Auggy said.
Lucy felt J.J. growl, but Mr. Auggy was still smiling.
“Yes,” Januarie said. “And he’s evil. And my name’s Januarie.”
“All right, Miss Januarie. Let me give you a few basics.”
It was all downhill from there. Lucy and the others got to play for five minutes while Mr. Auggy explained the entire point of soccer to Januarie. Then he made them play against the two of them and J.J., barking out instructions and stopping the game to give them pointers at least every seven seconds.
“Great game!” he said when the bell rang.
The only other person who seemed to agree was Januarie. Even Carla Rosa had drawn her mouth into a straight line.
“I’m bad at soccer,” she said to Lucy as they headed back to the portable.
“No, you’re not,” Lucy said, even though Carla Rosa was the worst, next to Januarie. “He’s just B.O.S.S.Y.”
Carla wrinkled her forehead.
“Bossy. And he doesn’t even know anything,” Lucy said, even though he obviously knew a lot.
“Everybody go to the main wing for water,” Mr. Auggy said from behind them. “Stay hydrated.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Lucy said, even though she was.
And then she spent the rest of the school day pretending it didn’t feel like she had the entire desert inside her mouth.
“It was way more fun when we played by ourselves,” Lucy told J.J. when they
were at Pasco’s Café after school.
“When we didn’t have to play with Januarie.” J.J. glared at his sister. She was on the other side of the room playing checkers with old Mr. Esparza who ran the museum next door that hardly anybody ever went to, especially in the winter.
“Who even asked him to play anyway?” Lucy said.
“Nobody had to ask him. He’s the teacher. He can do whatever he wants.” J.J. grunted. “Just like parents.”
Lucy ripped a corner off the grilled cheese sandwich Pasco had just put in front of her. It felt good to rip something. She’d been wanting to all afternoon.
“He made Emanuel feel like a dork,” she said. “He probably won’t even want to play tomorrow.”
“Are you going to eat both of those pickles?” J.J. said.
Lucy shook her head. “Carla Rosa got her feelings all hurt. We were doing just fine giving her the ball once in a while so she thought she knew how to play.”
“Nobody knows how to play,” J.J. said, green juice spilling over his lips.
“I was teaching us! This is our thing. I was gonna get it started and get everybody playing better. And now this Mr. Auggy person is ruining it.” Lucy pushed the plate toward J.J. “You can have the rest of this.”
“Am I going to have to tell your father you’re not eating what he’s paying for?”
Lucy looked up at Pasco, who was standing at their table, hands on his own opposite shoulders like he was afraid they were going to get away. He was shaped like a playing card and always wore his hair brushed straight back and shiny as Aunt Karen’s car. He smiled at the end of every sentence, whether there was anything to smile about or not.
“J.J.’ll eat it,” Lucy said.
J.J. stuffed half the grilled cheese into his mouth before Pasco could think about grabbing the plate.
“You didn’t like it?” Pasco said, his very big dark eyes clouding over the smile. “You want me to make you a quesadilla? A burrito?”
“I’m not hungry,” Lucy said.
J.J. jammed the other half of the sandwich in and chewed with his eyes sparkling. “Your father wants you to eat.” Pasco smiled — at nothing — and moved back to the counter. Lucy hauled in a big breath that smelled like chiles and coffee beans.
“He’ll probably just go away,” she said.
“The teacher?”
“Yeah. He’s not gonna stick around that long.”
“How do you know?”
Lucy leaned in. “He’s all excited about being a teacher. Those kind always leave or they get like Mrs. Gomez and don’t care that much anymore.”
“Didn’t you save anything for me?”
This time it was Januarie at the table. She was more like a begging Chihuahua than ever.
J.J. narrowed his icy eyes at her.
“Want the rest of my pickle?” Lucy said.
Januarie wrinkled her nose. “I wanted some sandwich. I bet you ate it all, J.J. I’m telling.”
J.J. looked around. “Who you gonna tell? Old Man Esparza?”
Januarie didn’t answer but hiked herself one bottom-cheek at a time onto the chair next to Lucy and scooped up some melted cheese from Lucy’s plate.
“Who invited you?” J.J. said.
“Mr. Auggy,” Januarie said.
“Huh?” Lucy and J.J. said in unison.
“He said you had to play soccer with me.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to hang around with us all the time,” J.J. said. The “time” climbed up into outer space.
“Go order us another sandwich,” Lucy said to Januarie, “and I’ll split it with you.”
Januarie’s eyes grew rounder. “Your dad must be so rich. You get to order anything you want.”
“Don’t forget napkins,” Lucy said.
When Januarie had skipped happily away, Lucy leaned into the table again. “Don’t be too hateful to her, J.J. You’ll get in trouble.”
J.J. aimed his gaze at Januarie’s back. “You better be right about that teacher going away, ’cause I’m not playing with her.”
“She’s really not that bad,” Lucy said.
“You don’t know.” And then J.J.’s mouth closed, and Lucy knew the conversation was over.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Mr. Augus-whatever won’t have recess duty tomorrow. They only have it every other day. We won’t even see him on the playground.”
“Do we want double cheese?” Januarie called from the counter.
“You just better be right,” J.J. said.
6
By Wednesday, it was clear that Lucy was not right. Mr. Auggy played soccer with them three days in a row, even when there was another teacher on the playground for recess duty. He kept calling what they were doing a “pickup game.”
“I’ve played pickup games all over the world,” he told them Wednesday as he was herding them toward the water fountain for a break — like Lucy hadn’t already taught them to drink plenty of fluids when they did sports. “But this is the most fun group I’ve ever played with.”
Carla Rosa beamed. Emanuel kicked at a rock. Oscar had to know what foreign countries he’d visited. Had he been to California?
While Mr. Auggy patiently explained that California was part of the United States, J.J. nodded Lucy away from the group.
“I thought you said he would go away,” he said.
“I thought he would.”
J.J. grunted, sounding like it was all Lucy’s fault that this pushy teacher had appointed himself their soccer coach.
“I want to throw in this time,” she heard Januarie say.
“You got it,” Mr. Auggy said. “Is your side ready, Miss Lucy?”
J.J. looked like he wanted to spit.
Back on the field, Lucy, Emanuel, Oscar, Carla Rosa, and J.J. waited while Mr. Auggy instructed Januarie on how to throw in properly. “Both feet on the ground when you let go of the ball. . . . Throw it equally with both hands. . . . Both hands start from behind your head and come all the way over. . . . Your body faces the way you’re throwing.”
Januarie didn’t get it.
After the fifth time she messed it up, when even Carla Rosa was looking bored-out-of-her-braces, Mr. Auggy said, “Miss Lucy, demonstrate for our Miss Januarie.”
“Me?” Lucy said.
Mr. Auggy gave her his small smile. “Yes, you.” He pointed to the place he wanted her to stand and looked at Januarie. “You watch Miss Lucy — she has perfect form.”
Lucy felt a strange f lush as she planted her feet and pulled the ball back. It sailed lightly toward Oscar, who was startled and bonked it with his head.
“All right!” Mr. Auggy said. “You rock, Miss Lucy.”
She almost felt like grinning as she ran onto their tiny field and, with her foot like a big squishy pillow, trapped the ball that rolled randomly toward her.
“Next time I’ll teach you to direct the ball on the first touch,” Mr. Auggy said to her.
She hated to admit it, but whatever that was, she wanted to learn it.
She didn’t have the same feeling once they were back in the classroom. Mr. Auggy told them all to take out a piece of paper and think about a person they considered to be their hero.
“You!” Carla Rosa said.
Lucy thought of Dad, of course. And then she thought of the obvious next thing, which was having to write about why he was the bravest person on the planet.
She didn’t rock at writing.
“This is not for a grade,” Mr. Auggy said as Lucy pulled a piece of paper out of her notebook one wire spiral at a time. “I just want to get an idea what your writing is like.”
She could tell him that. It stunk.
“Start now,” Mr. Auggy said. “Simply put your thoughts on paper.”
Lucy stared at the blank sheet in front of her. She studied a stray fleck of ink from where the lines were printed. She noticed how the ripped places hung out like f lags where it had been torn out. She counted how many lines there were on the
page. She wondered why the lines were blue and the margin marker was pink. Anything but pink would have been better.
She did everything but write on it.
What was the point? Mr. Auggy was probably only going to scribble all over it in red when she was done. Or circle the words she didn’t spell right, which would be half of them.
That was the other thing. Why even try to write about “My Hero” when the words she wanted to use — like courageous and insurmountable — she couldn’t even begin to spell. She knew why her dad was her hero. She didn’t have to write it down. She couldn’t write it down.
So why try?
“I can see those wheels turning in your head, Miss Lucy,” a voice whispered near her ear.
Lucy jumped and hunched over her paper, pencil clenched between her knuckles, so Mr. Auggy couldn’t see its blankness.
“There’s so much going on in there,” he said, “I bet it’s hard to catch it.”
Lucy curled harder over her table. When he moved on, she sneaked a glance around the room. Carla Rosa was carving into her paper with her pencil, slowly, as if she were cutting up a steak. Emanuel was erasing a hole in his. Oscar shook his hand and huffed and puffed like he’d been writing for hours. J.J. had his head on his arms on the tabletop.
“Okay,” Mr. Auggy said. “I know what I need to know now.”
“That we’re dumb?” Oscar said. “I coulda told you that.”
“Shut up,” J.J. muttered into his arms.
Lucy didn’t listen to the rest. She just wrote her name on her paper and handed it in.
She skipped having grilled cheese at Pasco’s that afternoon because Wednesday was her day to go to the market for groceries. Dad went on Saturdays. Since they didn’t have a car, they couldn’t get all the stuff for a whole week in one trip.
Lucy would have liked going to the market if it weren’t for Mr. Benitez. He was the owner, so he was always lurking there, spying as she went up and down the skinny aisles with her handbasket like he was sure she was going to steal something. He wasn’t a fat man. It just seemed to Lucy like he had thicker skin than most people, and that made him big and fleshy. It also made his eyes almost impossible to see, but she could feel him surveying her anyway.
Otherwise, the market was fun. On Tuesday nights, she and Dad made a list of what they were out of — usually cat food and milk and bread and Captain Crunch, which they both ate a heaping bowl of almost every morning, and microwave popcorn, their best bedtime snack. When it was her turn to shop, she always got the buttered kind. Dad bought the plain. That was their deal.
