Ten Thousand Tries by Amy Makechnie

Author:Amy Makechnie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

The Day She Actually Crashes the Big White Whale

The best decisions aren’t made with your mind, but with your instinct.

—LIONEL MESSI

One week later and it’s another game day!

Today we travel an entire hour away to play Franconia Middle School near the White Mountains. I can’t wait for the bus ride and Secret Circle. Coach is dreading both.

I’m wearing my jersey to school like I told the rest of the team to do.

Jaimes and I walk to the big white boat, loaded down with our backpacks and soccer gear, but instead of getting in, I drop my stuff and run to the mailbox.

Curtis Meowfield is on a mission too, and meows insistently at me.

At first I think he’s trying to bite me until I realize he’s meowing in approval.

We’ve never done anything together, but here we are looking left and then right. Curtis plays the lookout as I very carefully peel the brand-new numbers off Lucy’s mailbox.

The impossible, Dad said, is always possible.

Curtis walks so close to me his tail flicks my leg. Like a high five. Maybe we aren’t friends exactly, but we both need Lucy.

And now we have a common enemy.

“What the heck are you doing?” Jaimes asks when I get into the van.

I smile, making room for Whitney and Roma. Roma’s wavy hair looks like a giant beehive had a fight in it.

When I wrestle with her hair, she cries. When I suggest we buzz it like mine, she cries. When I say she can go to school with it like it is, she cries.

“I’m never going to have kids,” I say, finally getting her hair into the rubber band.

Roma looks in the mirror and stops crying. “I love it, brother!”

I flex. Maybe I’ll have ten kids.

“I can do my own hair,” Whitney says.

Eventually Dad comes out of the house.

“Does he look like he’s shuffling more?” Jaimes asks, starting the van.

“Nope.”

“You didn’t even look. You live in denial.”

“Dad’s just tired today,” I say. “Don’t let him work too hard at practice.”

“Golden… Dad’s energy has nothing to do with me or the team.”

Dad’s followed by Mom, who is carrying jackets, her purse, and a frazzled expression.

“Ew,” Jaimes says, looking in the mirror. “Is that a pimple?”

“Can you please not say ‘pimple’?”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “If you ever hit puberty you’ll get pimples too.”

“If Jaimes was a pimple I would pop her,” I say for Roma and Whitney’s benefit. They collapse into their seats, laughing.

It takes an excruciatingly long time for Dad to shuffle to the van.

“Yur moh needs mo help,” he says. We stare at him, his speech so thick and garbled this morning I can barely make out the meaning.

Jaimes and I take Dad’s arms. We pull while Mom pushes from behind. Dad waddles up the small van ramp. Roma grabs on to his left arm, while Whitney pulls the right.

“Than yooo,” Dad says.

I want to tell him to enunciate but keep my mouth shut.

“Golden,” Mom says as Jaimes begins backing out. “Don’t freak out when I tell you something, okay?”

“Since when do I freak out?”

“I just got a phone call.

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