Water Girl

Ch. 1: Soccer Sit-in

Copyright 2014; by Grace Ivy

Chapter 1: Soccer Sit-in

"My name is Ella Kelsey, and I'd like to try out for the McKenzie High soccer team."

Coach Russo is looking at his clipboard as I say it, and when he finally tears his eyes away from it, all that escapes his too-big mouth is, "Dance team tryouts are in the auditorium, kid."

I clear my throat. This is what I expected. "Actually," I say, "I'm here to try out for the soccer team."

Coach gawks at me for a second or two. "Uh-huh," he grunts, "You do know this is a boys’ soccer team, right?"

"Yes," I answer.

"Go try out for volleyball, will you?"

"No, thank you, sir," I say, trying to maintain an aura of cool when inside, I'm preparing to wipe that dumb look off his face.

"This is what happens when you cut the girls' soccer team," Coach grumbles, "A bunch of prissy girls come in thinking that they could play among the boys." He spits out the word girls like it's caustic. I glance around. I'm the only girl here, and right now, the way the guys are gaping at me, their expressions dripping with complete shock, you'd think I was standing there dressed in a bright yellow Big Bird suit or something.

I try to ignore Coach's extremely sexist outlook on life and continue, "Look, Coach, just give me a shot. I'll impress you."

Coach rolls his eyes with an extreme and utter exaggeration usually reserved for my mother when she asks me to clean my room and I begin my speech about the rights I have as a citizen to keep my room as clean or as messy as I please.

"Get out of here, kid."

I stand there, keeping silent and staring at the gruff, bulky and extremely irascible man sitting in a beat-up lawn chair.

"Seriously, little girl, this is a tough sport. We aren't some kind of tea party."

"I know, sir," I say, and it's true. I've been playing soccer since I could walk; I really think I would know.

"Look, just get out of here; I'm trying to run a try-out."

Ms. Walsh’s social studies class comes back to me at that moment, and an image of four African-American college kids sitting at a lunch counter in a segregated store during the Civil Rights movement appears vividly in my mind. They didn’t move, and the store ended up getting desegregated, eventually.

I figure I could take a hint from their example.

I sit right beside Coach on the wet grass, careful not to get too close, because a stench of bologna and cheese is emanating off of him profusely, and it's not making my nose very happy.

He glares at me with unmistakable loathing. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Sitting," I answer.

"Get. Out," he growls, and I hope to God he’s not going to turn into a wolf or something. I've read enough of those stories to know that kind of thing usually ends up in someone getting bitten and turning lupine at the next full moon.

"It's a free country." I am totally ready to start reciting my messy-room “To Clean or Not to Clean” speech, except obviously I would say sit, not clean.

I see Coach raise his hand like he's going to grab me and pull me away, but he knows better. If he hurt me, he'd lose his job in an instant.

Coach only glares at me from the very edge of his peripheral vision, and I watch contentedly as he runs a couple drills from his lawn chair. I can see why the soccer team hasn't won a game in four seasons- Coach doesn't seem to care about soccer at all, besides the part where he gets to yell at all of his potential players.

Eventually, Coach starts making his cuts. Try-outs won't take more than the two hours allotted for today. So few guys tried for the team, it's impossible to make the time stretch out any further.

Every so often Coach shoots one of his poisonous glares at me, and I smile back politely. Sometimes I make suggestions for his plays, but he pretends like I’m just an annoying mosquito buzzing in his hairy ear.

"Why are you still here?" he asks irritably as practice comes to a close.

"I thought you knew, Coach Russo," I respond sweetly, "I'd like to try out for the soccer team."

"If I give you a spot on the team, will you get out of my fricking hair?" he demands. I'm immediately thrown off guard; never did I expect gruff Coach Russo to offer me a spot, even if I sat on the side of the soccer field all night.

I nod eagerly.

"Great," he says, and I almost see him smile; his yellowing teeth are a mess of cavities and crookedness, badly in need of dental work.

"So... I have a spot on the team?" I ask hopefully.

"Of course, Ella." I didn't realize he remembered my name. "You're our new water girl.”

I feel my face fall, but somehow I know this is as good as it’s going to get.

“Okay, Coach Russo. When do I start?”

“Now,” he answers, and he thrusts the empty water bottle he had been sucking on the entirety of practice at me, and points his beefy finger towards the old water cooler that sits amidst a pile of sweaty soccer gear.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

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xoxo Grace Ivy