Read Saving the Team for Free Online

she stood still, Emma looked as athletic as Mirabelle. They were about the same height and athletically built. It was when Emma moved that the resemblance crumbled. As Emma tried to do the double tap, she kicked the ball too far ahead each time, which meant she had to run to catch up to it, and she overshot the cones.
    I felt my back stiffen as Mirabelle laughed from behind us. Jessi twirled around to face her. “You do it, then.” Thatwas absolutely the wrong thing to say. I had no doubt Mirabelle could double tap. Triple tap even. Of course, when Mirabelle’s turn came, she whipped through the cones perfectly. “Beat that,” she said, gloating.
    Ignoring her, Jessi went through the cones pretty perfectly herself. But when she turned around to see Mirabelle’s reaction, Mirabelle was ignoring her, talking to a group of eighth graders and laughing. “Figures she’d pretend she didn’t see me,” Jessi said with an eye roll.
    After ten more minutes of us dribbling around the cones, Coach Flores got us started doing a passing drill. If you could call it that. In Milford we would have called it a warm up. The whole thing consisted of standing around with everyone in a big circle, with one ball being passed around. You had to call out the name of the player you were going to pass to before you kicked the ball. It was kind of a mega-yawner.
    But with the Kangaroos it was also an exercise in patience. You would think that not knowing everybody’s name yet would make the drill more difficult for me, but no, that was not the case. Someone would call out “Grace!” and the ball would go to Mirabelle. “Anna!” and Emma would get bonked in the face.
    â€œNobody really knows what they’re doing, do they?” I asked Jessi.
    She shrugged. “It is only the first practice. But Coach Flores doesn’t seem to care a whole lot about teaching us skills, does she?”
    I looked over at Coach Flores, who was smiling like we had all just won a game. I never thought I’d meet somebody who was too nice, but Coach Flores seemed to fit that description. She stopped smiling just long enough to blow her whistle. “It’s five o’clock!” she said, grinning once again. “Gather round, everyone.”
    â€œI hope you all had fun today! And congratulations for making the team!” I did a mental eye roll. All you had to do to make the team was show up! “You are all officially Kicks!” Some of the girls cheered at the mention of the team’s nickname. “No pressure, but I wanted you to know our first game is at the end of the week,” Coach continued once we’d all formed a circle around her.
    â€œWait— this week?” Mirabelle asked.
    â€œYes, on Friday night,” she said. “But don’t worry, you girls are looking great.”
    â€œBut the game wasn’t even on our schedule,” Mirabelle complained.
    â€œOh, it wasn’t?” said Coach Flores, looking confused. “I’m sorry. That is completely my fault.”
    How could we possibly have our first game when we barely even knew one another’s names? Coach’s touchy-feely-everyone-have-fun-no-pressure style had left us completely disorganized.
    â€œWe’ll be traveling to Victorton, so we need at least eleven of you to show up. Otherwise tell me in advance if we need to forfeit. I know Friday’s the weekend. And since I left if off the schedule, I’ll understand if you guysmade other plans.” I swear, if she weren’t our coach, I would have thought Coach Flores was encouraging us to skip the game.
    â€œBut if you do want to play, you’ll have to get your permission slips signed to ride the bus.” A stack of permission slips was passed around. Another sunny smile lit up her face as she looked around the circle. “Anyone have any questions?”
    Mirabelle raised her hand. “We don’t even