Chapter Nine
Chapter
nine
ABOUT FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, THEO’S friends started arriving in clusters. Two or three or four at a time. At least twenty people from school and the football team were here.
“He lied to us,” I said, standing on the patio of the now-lit-up backyard. It was an amazing yard. I’d seen it before—this was where the last party of his I attended had taken place. A large pool was steps from the patio, surrounded by resort-quality patio furniture. Beyond that was an expanse of grass where some guys had started a pickup football game. Past the grass was a rock garden, swirly patterns twisting along the ground made with different colors of rocks and interspersed with succulents and potted plants. Vines, dripping with flowers, climbed up an arbor that arched over a section of the stone path. There were side fences separating them from the neighbors, but the back of the yard transitioned straight to the sandy beach, making it look like the ocean itself belonged to them as well.
“He told us the wrong time,” I said. “This was the party he knew I wanted to go to. He wanted to make me uncomfortable.”
“He’s an evil genius,” Lee said.
“Or just plain evil,” Deja amended.
“He’s something,” Maxwell agreed, wiggling his eyebrows as he watched him catch a football.
My mind drifted back to the last time I’d been here. We’d come in through the side gate. Jensen had immediately left me to go throw the football with some friends. I’d sat on one of the lounge chairs by the pool and watched the lights under the water change colors.
“There’s no hidden pattern,” Theo had said from where I hadn’t noticed him sitting alone ten feet away. “It goes red, blue, green, purple, red, blue, green, purple.” If he knew the order so well, I’d wondered what life events he’d contemplated while staring at those lights.
“Are you sure it’s not blue, green, purple, red, blue, green, purple, red?” I’d said.
He’d chuckled. “I guess it depends on when you started paying attention.”
“At just the right time,” I had said with a smirk in his direction.
“More like a little too late,” Theo had said.
“Because your opinion is the most true?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Mostly because this is my pool.”
Our conversation had been cut short by a football landing in the pool and splashing water all over the two of us.
“My bad!” Jensen had called.
Theo had gotten up and brushed off his jeans. His eyes lit up as he looked at me. “Is it just with me, or does he always feel threatened?” With those words, he’d walked away.
“Earth to Finley,” Max said, shaking my arm and pulling me out of the memory I’d nearly forgotten. “When does Operation Infiltrate the Football Team begin?”
I looked at the guys in their pickup game, suddenly not sure what exactly I was going to do or say to them but knowing I needed to do something. “Soon.”
“What’s up with the funky soccer net?” Deja asked.
On the far right of the yard was one of those freestanding nets kickers used to practice. I’d never seen one in a backyard, just in the stadium at school. Jensen definitely didn’t have one. Maybe that’s why he stayed the backup kicker all those years. “It’s for kicking a football,” I said.
“Let’s go check it out,” Maxwell said.
Next to the net was a large storage cabinet, its doors open. Inside were all sorts of football gear: pads and orange cones and more footballs, even one of those rolling sticks that distributed chalk powder into straight lines.
“Theo’s kind of obsessed,” Deja said, running her hand along a shelf.
Maxwell retrieved a ball and ran twenty feet away from us. “Ready?” he called.
“For what?” Lee asked.
“I’m going to throw it to you.” It was less of a throw and more an underhand lob that landed at my feet.
I picked up the ball and twisted it in my grip. Maxwell jogged back to us. I held a fake microphone to my mouth. “Maxwell, how does it feel to have thrown an unreceived pass that lost the game?”
He ignored my microphone like he usually did and twirled around with his arms outstretched. “It feels amazing.”
“I think it’s called an uncompleted pass,” Lee said.
“That doesn’t sound right either,” Deja said. Then she pointed. “Try kicking the ball into that net.”
I made a show of putting my fake microphone on the ground. “Like Jensen told me numerous times, kicking a football and kicking a soccer ball are two totally different things,” I said, eyeing the net. “Soccer balls basically kick themselves.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Deja said. “I’m beginning to think he wasn’t hiding his jerk at all. You just didn’t recognize it.”
“No,” I said defensively. “He meant that a soccer ball is round and it’s easy to put in motion.”
Deja scoffed. “So easy. I basically tell it where to go and it does my bidding.”
“I guess he was making it seem like it took no talent to play soccer.”
“Not cool,” Lee said.
Had he done that with other things? Nice-guyed his insults? Tried to one-up me in everything? Felt threatened when he wasn’t the best? How had I not seen it before? Was that why he tried out for the podcast too? To prove he was better than me?
“Am I blind?” In my indignation I held the football out in front of me and drop-kicked it, like I used to do with the soccer ball.
I could tell right when the ball hit my foot that it wasn’t going to go where I’d intended it to go—in the net. My foot struck the ball at an odd angle. It veered to the left, flying through the air, much farther than I realized it would go. It hit some guy all the way across the yard, who was standing next to Theo, on top of the head.
The guy looked around confused. So did Theo. He picked up the ball, then glanced up at the sky like God himself wanted to join their game.
The guy with the ball they’d been using held his up as if to show he hadn’t done it.
I rolled my eyes and decided to solve the mystery for them. “Sorry!” I screamed, cupping my hands around my mouth. “Can we have it back?”
At the sound of my voice, Theo searched the yard directly surrounding them until he finally discovered us beyond where he’d been looking.
I held up my hands when he saw me like I was really going to catch the ball if he threw it from there. Could he throw it this far? Obviously not, because he said something to the other players and headed our way. The rest of the group resumed their game.
“You throw that, Soccer Star?” he asked, but he was really looking at Maxwell and Lee as he approached, like they were the only ones he believed could’ve accomplished the feat.
“She kicked it,” Deja said, collecting the ball from him. “What do you think about that, Mr.Starting Kicker?”
“You kicked it?” That seemed to be even more unbelievable to Theo. “From here?”
I pointed at the net, ready to admit it wasn’t as amazing as he seemed to think it was. “I was aiming for that.”
His eyes drifted to the net, then back to me. “Yeah, accuracy takes some work. But your power”—he raised his eyebrows—“that was impressive.” He gave me a nod of respect.
Maxwell raised his hand. “What’s it called when you throw a ball to someone and it hits the ground?”
He furrowed his brow. “An incomplete pass?”
“Oh!” we all said at the same time.
He chuckled, then turned to rejoin his friends.
“You think I could be better than him!” The words came pouring out as if some subconscious part of my brain thought them up, because the fully functional part of my brain was shocked by them. This was the first time I’d kicked any sort of ball in nine months. Who did I think I was? “If I practiced.”
Theo stopped, turned slowly, then gave me a once-over almost as intimidating as his mom’s.
Deja made a weird noise I couldn’t interpret. Did she think it was a terrible idea?
Max gave a surprised “Huh.”
And I just stood there as Theo assessed me from head to toe, seriously considering my question. He closed the distance between us and asked in a serious voice, “You want to be the kicker for the school football team?”
“What? No. I don’t know if I could get that good. I just want to show him up. March onto the field one practice, kick a field goal in front of the whole team, and then shrug Elle Woods style and say, What, like it’s hard? ” Maybe it would humiliate him so much that he would quit football.
“Epic,” Maxwell said.
“Why not try out to be the kicker for the team?” Lee said. “It would accomplish your goal of taking it from him. And his suffering would last all year, just like what he did to you.”
Could I?
Theo stood there silently, as if waiting for me to make the decision. But I wasn’t sure if it was so he could laugh in my face or tell me how to make it happen.
“When are tryouts for next year’s team?” I asked.
“Second Saturday in April,” Theo said.
That was only a month away. Not nearly enough time.
That’s when I saw Jensen, over Theo’s shoulder, join the football players on the grass. He gave fist bumps and said something with a laugh like he was perfectly fine. Like his whole life hadn’t been yanked out from under him last week. Instead, he was acting like he was about to claim his crown as king of the school and wear it our entire senior year. In his hand was my Target bag and he was digging out his stuff like it was Christmas morning. How did he getthat?
“Yes,” I said. “I want to try out to be kicker for the football team. But I will only try out if all of you objectively tell me after I practice for the next four weeks that you think I can make it. I am not going to set myself up to be embarrassed again.”
Maxwell raised his hand to the square. “I swear on my life I will tell you if you suck.”
The others nodded. “ And this plan…this goal…this whatever”—I looked at each of them—“it doesn’t leave this circle. If I’m going to fail, this time, I’d like it to be in private. Or at least as private as a failure kept between five people can be.” My eyes stopped on Theo. He was the wild card. I trusted everyone here except him. He could march over to the group, that now included Jensen, this second and share the news like it was the joke that he probably thought it was.
“Are you kidding?” Theo said. “I’m not going to tell anyone. But promise me I can be there when you earn the spot from him.”
I nodded slowly, remembering what my grandma had asked that surfer boy all those years ago. There was one more necessity to this plan if it was going to work. Jensen used to tell me Theo was selfish with his time. Never wanted to help him when he’d ask for pointers. But it was the only way. I couldn’t see myself getting good enough fast enough without him. “Will you teach me?”
Theo didn’t hesitate at all when he said, “Absolutely.”