Select by Christie Matheson

Author:Christie Matheson [Matheson, Christie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Even after we get home from the game, I’m still cringing inside whenever I think about the way Coach treated the ref and the other coach.

I know why I decided to join this team. I want to play soccer at the highest level possible. I want to be on a team that can go all the way to Nationals. But I have a nagging feeling that doing it with Coach leading us won’t ever feel quite right to me. It won’t feel like home, the way playing for Jayda’s team did. And suddenly I really want to go to my happy place.

“Hey, Belly Boo!” I say. “Want to go to the rec center and learn to juggle?”

“Yes!” she shouts, and runs into our room. She comes out smiling and holding my soccer ball, the one Jayda let me “borrow” years ago. “Can I practice with this one?” she asks.

“Of course,” I say. “It’s the best juggling ball around.”

Disliking Coach shouldn’t get in the way of all the things that are fun about soccer. I’m starting to understand what Jayda said to me right before I joined Select—not to forget how much I love soccer.

I got hooked on juggling when I was little, after I told Jayda I wished I could play every day. The next day, she taught me about juggling.

“It’s one of the best ways to work on your touch when you don’t have much space, or other people to play with,” she said. First she taught me how to juggle on my thighs, and then on my feet. “It’s all great practice,” she said, “but once you get the rhythm down, concentrate on juggling with your feet.”

Then she told me that once I got the hang of it, I could keep track of how many I got in a row. “It’s like a competition with yourself, just for you, as a way to challenge yourself,” she said.

“Can you do it?” I asked.

“I can,” she said with a smile.

“Will you show me?”

“Sometime I will,” she said. “But for now…”

“Please? Please?” I begged. I had a feeling it would be cool to watch her juggle.

I was right.

She pulled the ball close to her with her foot, then looked at me and said, “One thing, Alex. I’ll show you some juggling, but don’t expect to be able to do this right away, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

“But also, Alex? If you keep practicing, you will be able to do this someday. Probably better than I can!”

I nodded.

She drew the ball back with the bottom of her right foot, popped it up with the tops of her toes, and started juggling. Back and forth, from one foot to the other. Ten times, twenty times, fifty…so many times I lost count. Occasionally she’d do two or three on one foot, then get into a back-and-forth rhythm again.

I just watched. I was mesmerized. It was both the coolest and most soothing thing I’d ever seen. After a few minutes she flicked the ball up and caught it, then handed it back to me.

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