Playing With the Boys Read Online Free PDF

She nailed Heather back in the arm.
     
     
    “Girls!” Martie said sternly, and Karen instantly snapped to attention. Lucy giggled. Heather grabbed the balls and the girls composed themselves as Martie explained what they were doing next. Of course, when she said, “We’ll do various touches on balls,” everyone—Lucy included—burst out laughing again.
     
     
    But soon, Lucy was hard at work, focusing on the ball in front of her as she tried to follow Martie’s footwork instructions. Running behind Carla and Charlie, Lucy dribbled around orange cones in as fast and controlled a manner as possible . . . and then came the trapping drills.
     
     
    Lucy hated trapping. Using her body to stop a ball careening toward her wasn’t really at the top of her to-do list. In fact, it was a giant “to-don’t” ever since she’d been nailed in the chest by a soccer ball three years ago. To this day she blamed that incident as the reason her boobs had failed to grow past A-cups.
     
     
    Now, as a punt came right toward her, she backed up, letting it fall to her feet rather than stopping it with her body.
     
     
    “Lucy, go to it,” Martie ordered. “You don’t back away!”
     
     
    I do , Lucy thought . But instead she just mumbled, “Sorry.” She hoped Martie wasn’t making a mental note of that weakness—but then she saw Martie taking literal notes. Crap! Had she noticed how many extra mountain climbers and push-ups Lucy had done? Had she written that down on her yellow pad? By the end of practice, Lucy was too tired to worry about it.
     
     
    When she arrived home that night, thanks to a ride from Charlie, her eyelids were so heavy she was barely able to make her way from the car to her bedroom. She collapsed on the bed without eating dinner, doing her homework . . . or, worse, calling Annie. When her dad came in to ask how practice had gone, she could barely muster a response. All she could think about was sleep, but once she finally drifted off, she even dreamed of soccer.
     
     
     
The next morning at breakfast, when she was well rested and more alert, she gave her dad a rundown of the girls on the team.
     
     
    “There’s Charlie,” Lucy explained. “She’s the surfer I told you about. From the beach that day. She’s kind of what Mom would call a tough cookie, you know? Like, hard to get to know. I guess she had this older sister, Krista, who graduated—and was totally best friends with Brooks Sheridan!”
     
     
    From her dad’s blank expression, he had no idea who that was.
     
     
    “You know, Brooks Sheridan? The actress? She had all those straight-to-DVD movies? Remember Girl for Sale ? And then Mom got me the sequel, Boy for Sale ? Anyway, I guess Charlie and her sister were, like, the big stars of the team last year and now that Krista’s gone, Charlie’s the leader. Along with Carla . . .” Lucy told her dad how Carla was from East L.A. and commuted all the way to Malibu in order to play soccer and have a better education. “She was recruited, like, handpicked by Martie last year and got this, like, mondo scholarship—”
     
     
    “Mondo?” her dad questioned. “Wow. You’ve already been living in California way too long.”
     
     
    Lucy kept going. “Charlie and Carla are funny together. They’re kind of opposites—Charlie’s, like, dark and sarcastic, while Carla’s totally optimistic and, like, super-positive. Then there’s Pickle. Her real name’s Nicole, but everyone, like, calls her Pickle. She’s a sophomore too—we have, like, three classes together—”
     
     
    “What’s with all the ‘like’s?” her dad asked.
     
     
    Lucy sighed. “Do you want me to tell you or not?”
     
     
    “No, no, go ahead,” her dad urged, then added, “minus the likes.”
     
     
    Lucy glared, then continued. “Well, I heard she—Pickle— was cut from the team last year. She tried out as a goalie, but then she played on this league all summer, as a fullback, and now