“And be gentle,” she continues. “Start slow. Make sure you have all the proper padding.”
“Oh, we’ll be gentle,” Heath says, grinning down at me. “We’ll take it nice and easy. Wouldn’t want to break a pussy on the first day.”
I’ve never heard such a bogus lie.
In the locker room, Heath roughly helps me into some ill-fitting padding and shoves a stick in my hands. When I trot out in my borrowed cleats and oversized helmet, all the boys on the field turn to watch.
As do some people in the bleachers.
Ah, crap.
Olive and her cohorts are here. She waves jovially at me from her seat on the bleachers, and I give a half-hearted wave in return. On the field, Jasper glares at me from behind his full-faced helmet.
Of course she had to be here. She has to keep making things so much more complicated.
“Look who just got cleared by the nurse!” Heath crows as I follow him to the field.
An adult man who I assume is the coach walks out to meet us.
“You Alex?” he asks.
“Yes,” I reply uncomfortably. We’re standing right on the edge of the field, so I can see Jasper and Beck staring at me from behind the coach. Beside me, Heath bounces happily on the balls of his feet.
“You know anything about lacrosse, Alex?”
“Uh … no, sir,” I admit.
He shrugs. “I suppose we’ll have to get some experienced players to look after you. Show you the ropes.”
“Jasper, Beck, and I would love to do that,” Heath pipes up.
The coach nods. “Fine. We’re about to do a couple skirmishes. Nothing better than a trial by fire—right boys?” he adds, shouting across the field.
I hear chuckles from my “teammates”.
Of course, I get put on the team opposing The Brotherhood. The captain of my team, a six-foot-tall almost-man called Vic, sneers disgustedly at me and points me toward the goal at our end of the field.
“Just be the goalie and stay out of the way,” he snaps.
Gladly, I think, but I don’t say anything as I scurry out to the goal. The usual goalie gives me a dirty look.
That’s exactly what I need. More enemies.
The game starts with a tussle over the ball in the center of the field, and then everyone starts running back and forth. I stand rooted in the center of the goal. Our team scores a point, I think. It’s sort of like soccer played with sticks.
Heath comes hurtling down the field with the ball. The guys in front of my goal start heading toward him, but there’s been some guys from the opposing team over here the whole time, and they start battling it out.
Heath is really good at lacrosse, or, at least, it looks like it. He runs down the field and jerks the stick in his hands. The ball flies out from it, toward me, and I position my stick to try to whack it away—but it plunges into the goal behind me.
I wasn’t even close.
The coach blows a whistle.
Vic comes running up to me with his teeth bared. “Okay, out on the field,” he snaps at me. “Maybe you’ll at least be a decent defender.”
“It was just one goal,” I snap. “I’m learning.”
“Well, learn something else. Adrian!” he yells. “Take goal!”