by Nancy Rue
“This is my sueno,” he said.
“Come on, Mr. Auggy,” Oscar said. “You been all over the world. This ain’t your dream.”
“You have no idea,” Mr. Auggy said.
But Lucy thought she did. They had uniforms and a name and they felt like a team and maybe they could even beat Aunt Karen’s team tomorrow. It really was part of a dream, and she hoped she didn’t wake up before it all happened.
Just when she didn’t think it could get any better, it did. Mora greeted her at the back door when she got home, fingers going all over the place.
“I have the most fabulous surprise for you!” she said.
For a second, Lucy was afraid she was going to volunteer to do all the girl players’ hair the same way for the game. Mr. Auggy already said ponytails were fine —
“You’re gonna have cheerleaders for your team!”
Lucy stared as Mora pulled out her cell phone, pushed a button, and displayed a picture on the tiny screen. Lucy recognized Mora’s dance team, only they were all in short navy blue skirts and white T-shirts that said, LOS SUENOS DREAMS in sparkly red letters. Each girl had her hair in French braids so the soccer ball earrings hanging from their ears could be seen.
“We’re totally going to be your cheerleaders,” Mora said — well, shrieked. “I bet those lame Pachucos don’t have cheerleaders.”
“Mora,” Inez said. But her voice hid a laugh beneath it, Lucy could tell.
“This is so cool,” Lucy said. “I mean it, Mora — it’s just — ”
“I know!” Mora cried, and f lung herself at Lucy in a fingers-f lying hug.
As Dusty would have said, Wow. Just wow.
Lucy was awake with the sun the next morning, even though the game wasn’t until 10:00. She checked to see if Mudge was back first, and when the place under the century plant was still vacant, she closed her eyes and said out loud, “God — please take care of him. Untie his knots.” Because if he was still in J.J.’s garage, there would be no end to the knots he had to deal with.
Dad made pancakes, though Lucy could only eat half her usual stack. Dad teased her about liking Inez’s cooking more than his, but she was just too excited — nervous — everything. He even said the chores could wait — this was game day.
Lucy loved the sound of that. Game Day. Maybe — if the town council didn’t sell the field and people thought the Los Suenos Dreams were fabulous — maybe there would be lots of Game Days ahead.
At 8:30, Lucy told Dad the biggest van she’d ever seen had just pulled up in front of their house. Aunt Karen parked behind it in her car and hopped out, wearing a bright turquoise jacket with gold embroidered letters that spelled out Pachucos. It didn’t look quite right on her — like she had borrowed it from some guy because she was cold.
Lucy and Dad met her on the front porch, and Aunt Karen stopped short at the bottom of the steps and lowered her sunglasses.
“Where did you get a uniform?” she said.
“You thought I’d be in an old ratty T-shirt, huh?” Lucy said.
Dad squeezed her arm. “Incredible community support. So — you have your team with you?”
“And our coach,” Aunt Karen said. “A few of the parents are driving up too.”
“Why didn’t everybody’s parents come?” Lucy said. “ALL our team’s parents will be there.”
Aunt Karen put her sunglasses back on. “They’re busy people. It’s not like this is the game of the century.”
Lucy felt like Aunt Karen had just stuck her with a pin and all the air was going out.
“So where’s this field?” Aunt Karen said.
She said “this field” the same way she said “this house.” Lucy sucked her air back in. Aunt Karen was going to see today — she was just going to see — and then “this thing” about Lucy needing to live with her was going to be over for good.
Lucy couldn’t wait any longer to ride to the field with J.J. Mr. Auggy said he’d pick her up, but she wanted to go on bikes like always. She didn’t want to mess up her game by doing anything different.
She waited by the back gate for what seemed like forever, glancing at her watch every few seconds. When Mr. Auggy arrived to get Dad, she was still standing there and J.J. still hadn’t appeared.
“You’ve got your game face on, captain!” Mr. Auggy said before he went into the house.
Lucy didn’t tell him it wasn’t a game face. It was a scared face. What if J.J. didn’t show up?
And then he was there, without his bike, face stiff as a shin guard.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where’s your bike?” Lucy’s heart was pounding. “J.J., what’s wrong?”
“Run,” he said.
And Lucy would have, if someone hadn’t screamed from the corner in a voice that rooted her right to the sidewalk. There were words in the scream, bad ones, but all Lucy heard was the anger. And all she saw was Mr. Cluck coming at them, his teeth gritted like the front grill of a truck. J.J. flattened himself to the fence.
When he got to them, J.J.’s father stabbed his hand toward J.J., and then he stopped and stared at Lucy as if he’d just discovered she was there. He was so close to her she could smell him, and it made her want to throw up.
The hand drew back. “Where do you think you’re goin’?” Mr. Cluck growled at J.J.
J.J. didn’t answer. Lucy was sure he was so scared he couldn’t. And so it was somebody else who said, “We have a soccer game today.”
Only when J.J.’s father turned his glistening eyes on her was Lucy really sure she was the one who had said it.
“He ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“But he’s on the team. We’ve been practicing for weeks — ”
“Lucy.”
It was Dad, talking before the gate was even open. Mr. Auggy stepped out with him, his hand outstretched as if he were going to shake the hand of this awful man with the stinky breath.
“Mr. Cluck,” he said.
J.J.’s father sneered at his outstretched hand.
Mr. Auggy dropped it to his side. “Is there a problem?”
“No kiddin’ there’s a problem. You were gonna ‘help’ him stay outta trouble. It’s not workin’. He’s got a worse attitude than ever.” With a jerk, Mr. Cluck curled his fingers around the back of J.J.’s neck so hard Lucy could feel it herself. “Guess you’re gonna have to play your little football game without him.”
“Soccer,” Lucy whispered.
No one seemed to hear her as Mr. Cluck half-dragged J.J. down the street and Mr. Auggy called after him and Dad found his way to Lucy’s side.
“You okay, champ?” he said.
“No! He can’t do that, can he?”
Dad gave a huge sigh. “Yes, I’m afraid he can.”
“Can’t you do something, Mr. Auggy?”
Mr. Auggy took off his ball cap and smoothed his hair with an unhappy hand and jammed the hat back on. “I’m sorry, Lucy. He’s the parent. He has the right — ”
“No he doesn’t. He doesn’t have any right to be horrible to J.J. It’s not fair!”
“Nobody ever promised us fair, Luce,” Dad said. But he sounded like he found it just as hideous as she did.
Lucy sagged against the fence. She didn’t know which knot to turn to first. It was going to be so messed up, playing without J.J. He was their midfielder.
And he had worked so hard — harder than anybody because he had to deal with Gabe all the time.
“Come on, Luce, ride with us,” Dad said. “It’s too late to go on your bike.”
With her heart in the pit of her stomach, Lucy climbed into the backseat of Mr. Auggy’s Jeep and sat down hard. Why wouldn’t his dad let him go? Did he find out Mudge was in the garage? No, that was stupid. Was it because he hated Mr. Auggy? Januarie had told her that, and she’d just seen it with her own eyes.
Or was it what she’d figured out that night with Inez . . . that J.J. lived with a very mean man who did more than just yell at h
im.
“He’s gonna hit J.J. when they get inside the house,” she said.
They had just pulled up to the soccer field behind the enormous van. Mr. Auggy pressed the brakes, hard, and looked at her in the rearview mirror.
“Why do you say that, Miss Lucy?”
“Because he almost did it before you got out there, only he noticed me. But I think he’s done it before, and that’s why J.J.’s so mad all the time.”
Dad tilted his head, and Mr. Auggy looked at him as if he could see. They seemed to have a whole conversation without saying a word.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” Lucy said.
“You saw him start to hit J.J.?” Mr. Auggy said. Lucy nodded.
“You’ve done a lot, Sam,” Dad said, “but I think it’s time.”
Lucy felt like one big knot. Had she just gotten J.J. into more trouble?
Mr. Auggy twisted to look at her. “I want you to put this out of your mind right now,” he said.
“How can I?”
“Because you’re the captain, and whatever you tell your team, they’ll do.”
“So, I need to tell them J.J. can’t play but we’ll be fine?”
“We will be. How do you think we can move people around?”
Lucy tried to get her thoughts out of J.J.’s house. “Okay,” she said slowly. “We’ll just go back to being forwards and backs. It’ll be less confusing for Carla Rosa anyway.”
“Excellent.” Mr. Auggy put up his hand for her to grip. “You’re a good leader, and you have a strong team. You can do this.”
Lucy thought she could. She grabbed her bag and got out of the car with confidence. And then it all drained away as she watched the van in front of her empty. Aunt Karen’s team climbed off one by one. Tall. Looking older than eleven. She lost count at fifteen.
Mr. Auggy was already shaking their coach’s hand.
“Dad?” Lucy said.
“Yeah, champ? What’s wrong?”
She stood on her tiptoes to reach his ear. “Their whole team is boys. All of them.”
Dad’s brow wrinkled, and then he chuckled — that sound she loved so much, that sound that made everything okay.
“Why is that a problem, champ?” he said. “I’ve never known you to play with anything but boys until recently.”
That was true.
“Are they big?”
“Huge,” Lucy said.
“Good — they won’t be able to run as fast.”
“You think?”
“It’s all about heart, champ,” Dad said. “That’s what your mom used to say. She was all heart — and so are you.”
Lucy straightened her shoulders and mentally counted her freckles. Okay. God — no knots. Please untangle us and let us go.
The team was behind the concession stand, which already smelled like funnel cakes and nachos. Carla Rosa was on her before Lucy could open her mouth.
“Guess what — ”
“I know — it’s all boys — so what?”
“Hello!” Veronica said. She had lost all control of her bottom lip. “I’m scared.”
“They’ll trample us!” Dusty said.
Carla Rosa whimpered.
And then Lucy heard something else. High-pitched girls’ voices were yelling, “What about — what about — what about our Suenos?”
A roar answered them — or at least it seemed like a roar to Lucy. The team ran to the side of the concession stand and peeked around. The bleachers were full of people, familiar people — the ones who cut their hair and sold them their candy bars and yelled at them for picking their roses. And their kids. And some folks Lucy didn’t even know who appeared to be as excited as they were. In front of them was Mora’s dance team, swinging hips they didn’t have and shouting, “What about — what about — what about our Suenos?”
“Where did we get cheerleaders?” Gabe said.
Oscar nudged him. “What about — the whole town is here!”
It was true, and they looked like a happy town, waving the red, white, and blue pom-poms Inez was handing out.
Inez?
In one corner of the bleachers, a group of grown-ups dressed in clothes like the ones in the windows in Ruidosa sat watching the rest like they were witnessing a play put on by a kindergarten class. Some of them had turquoise jackets in their laps, as if they were holding them for someone and they better hurry up and come back and get them. Lucy didn’t even have to look for Pachuco cheerleaders.
“Oh, they’re dead,” Gabe said. “Come on, we can take them.”
“Yes, we can,” Lucy said.
“We at least have to try. I mean, look at that.” Dusty tightened her ponytail. “I’m in.”
“Heck, yeah,” Gabe said.
He nudged Emanuel, who nodded and punched Oscar, who looked around for someone to poke. Lucy caught her breath.
“Um, you guys,” Lucy said, “J.J.’s dad won’t let him play today.”
This time there were no whimpers — only angry shouts of “What?” and “That’s messed up.” Lucy quieted them with one hand up and explained what they were going to do.
“Okay, now I’m really smoked,” Gabe said. “We gotta win this for J.J.”
“I love that,” Veronica said.
Lucy could only think that she really was having a dream.
Mr. Auggy led them out onto the field for warm-up. The crowd in the bleachers went wild, and Lucy felt as if she were in the Olympics. Energy surged all the way out to her fingers, and she was ready. She could tell the rest of her team was too. Dusty and Veronica f lipped their ponytails like young horses, and she was pretty sure Gabe was snorting smoke from his nostrils as they all stretched. She felt a pang of hurt for J.J., but then Mr. Auggy said it was time. It wasn’t a dream with pieces missing. It was real.
There was one referee on the field: Reverend Servidio in long pants and sneakers and a black sweater. He looked like Mr. Rogers at a funeral.
“He’s our ref?” Gabe whispered — sort of loudly — to Lucy.
“He’s the only one they could get who wasn’t related to somebody on the team and used to play soccer and could still run.” She didn’t say that Dad had added, “Without having a heart attack.”
She wondered if he had talked to God about this game. It couldn’t hurt. Especially since one of the linesmen, the one provided by the El Paso team, looked all official in black shorts and shirt and knee socks that covered his shin guards.
Things became dreamlike again. Lucy and the captain of the Pa-chucos went to the center of the field. He was a head taller than Lucy and had more hair on his chin than Gabe. They f lipped a coin — Lucy won the toss — and the crowd went wild as if she’d scored a goal. When the Dreams got into formation for the kickoff, they shook their pom-poms and stomped their feet until Lucy hoped the sheriff ’s workers had done an extra-good job or the bleachers were going to fall down. And the game hadn’t even started yet.
When it did, there was a lot to cheer about. The Pachucos were fast and fancy, but Mr. Auggy had warned them about that. Lucy coached her team: “Steady, Oscar.” “Take your time, Dusty.” And they settled down.
There were a couple of offsides calls, but Mr. Auggy kept saying that was okay. And there were no fouls on their team. Clean play, Mr. Auggy always said. They moved the ball down the field, passing to each other, evading the presence of their opponents just as they’d practiced with each other. When one stocky Pachuco tripped Carla Rosa, his own ref blew the whistle and Carla got a direct free kick. It was way too far from their goal for even Gabe to have gotten it in, but it charged the Dreams up. The ball came so close to the goal on their next drive that Lucy could feel every nerve in her body standing up cheering. It just needed a nudge, the slider shot J.J. was so good at. Emanuel wasn’t as good at it. The goalie picked up the ball, and Lucy’s team was at the ready. He looked around, his teammates yelling “To me!” The whistle blew.
“You only have six seconds to do something with that b
all, son,” Reverend Servidio said.
“That wasn’t six seconds!” the goalie said.
“Indirect kick for the Dreams.”
Lucy glanced behind her. Veronica was hanging back, but she looked alert.
“To Veronica!” Lucy called.
Emanuel passed the ball right to her, and they were in control again.
That didn’t last long.
The Pachucos began to chatter to each other in Spanish and closed in on every Dream who got the ball. Lucy yelled for them to shield! — turn! She herself used the fakes she and J.J. had practiced — but when she saw an opening and passed the ball to Carla Rosa, it was swept away. The Dreams were suddenly like clowns on the field, running this way and that to find the ball, which was being dribbled straight for the goal. Oscar came to life — the crowd screamed — and the ball shot right between his legs. Only a spattering of clapping could be heard over the moan from the bleachers.
“It’s okay, Oscar!” Lucy called to him. “Spread the defense!”
Nobody seemed to move.
“Hello! Spread out!”
“Let’s go!” Gabe cried.
Lucy focused on the ball, which Mr. Chin Hair was dribbling lazily. He was leaning and lunging like he had fancy moves, but he wasn’t doing anything with his feet. Lucy kept her eyes on the ball. She didn’t want to make a move until she was sure she could get it.
And then her chance came. Mr. Chin Hair let the ball get a little too far away from him, and Lucy pounced. She was off toward her goal — with another hulking couldn’t-possibly-be-eleven-year-old boy on her, arms out wide, trying to block her vision.
“To me!” she heard Dusty cry.
Lucy turned and passed the ball to her, and she took off. Mr. Chin Hair flew toward her and contained her. Another Pachuco got the ball, but suddenly Gabe had it.
Back and forth it went until a whistle blew. Lucy shielded her eyes with her hand and said, “What? Did somebody foul?”
“That’s the half,” the other ref said. “Take a rest, girl.”
The team ran to the back of the concession stand where Mr. Auggy waited with water.
