1
“COACH?” THOM SAID. BUT NO one heard her. Everyone was too busy gearing up for the second half of the game.
“Coach?” Thom called, a little louder.
Coach Pendergrass whirled around, looking at the space above Thom’s head in confusion before spotting her down below. “Oh, uh. No.”
Thom was used to hearing the word no. But the problem was, she never knew if people were really telling her no, or if they just didn’t know how to say her last name, which was pronounced literally how it was spelled, like ING-O without the I: Nng-O.
So when Coach Pendergrass said no from behind her clipboard, Thom wasn’t surprised. She was a nobody. Invisible.
But Thom wanted to be on the field. She didn’t want to go back to the Bench of Shame and Decay—so old and worn that you had to make sure not to let your exposed skin touch it or you’d get splinters. She wanted to feel the crunch of grass beneath her cleats, run alongside the other girls, know that she was part of something. She wished her mom was there. Ma would have made sure Thom played in the game, but Ma had to work late again.
“I want to play,” Thom said before one of the other girls could grab Coach’s attention. The words squeezed out of her like the last bits of an empty toothpaste tube. “I thought you said earlier? That I could play in the second half.”
“Oh,” Coach said, looking at her clipboard. “Right. Okay.” She turned to Bethany Anderson, whose mouth was all tight and pursed. Bethany didn’t look at Thom, though. She never looked at Thom—like she might contract some sickness just from the eye contact. “Anderson, center forward. Jones, grab some water for this play. No, you’re on left defense.”
Thom’s stomach did a weird flippy thing. Left defense wasn’t even a real position. Okay, it was, but it was a filler spot, the weakest angle. You barely got to play from that position; you were just there to stay low and wave your arms around, hoping the ball accidentally rolled your way.
Still, it was better than sitting on the bench. Thom ran onto the field and joined the rest of the DeMille Middle School soccer team standing in position against Monrovia Middle.
Shelley Jones glared as she took Thom’s place on the bench.
The referee blew his whistle, and Bethany kicked the ball. Everyone ran forward, even the other two defense players on Thom’s team, even though they weren’t supposed to leave the goal. Thom glanced at Coach Pendergrass, but she was too focused on the ball and on DeMille’s dynamic trio—Kathy, Bethany, and Sarah—weaving across the field like they were performing a dance routine.
Kathy Joon, Bethany Anderson, and Sarah Mazel were the stars of the team. They always got to play. Granted, the team was pretty small, so there was only one person on the bench at a time. That person was usually Thom.
It wasn’t that Thom was bad at soccer. She was actually pretty good when she had played for her last school, in West City. Back then, soccer had been fun, an escape, where she and her friends played and hung out and got boba and popcorn chicken after. She was good then. She was still good now, when she played by herself, anyway. But because soccer isn’t exactly a play-by-yourself kind of sport, she couldn’t prove this to everyone else.
The thing was, Thom couldn’t kick the ball. Well, no, she could kick the ball, but she shouldn’t. The last time she’d tried ended in a small disaster, and she hadn’t found the courage to try again since.
Suddenly, Monrovia’s offense stepped it up, and the ball was rolling toward Thom. She hesitated.
“No,” Coach Pendergrass called from the sidelines. Thom stopped. “No! Go for it, No! Send it flying!”
She could send it flying. She could show them all how good she really was.
But what if something went wrong? They’d never give her another chance. It was her first time in a game that season, the first time playing for DeMille, and she had to be perfect.
A flash of white charged toward her, Monrovia’s jersey. Too late, Thom ran for the ball, but the other player knocked it out of reach. The ball brushed the tips of the DeMille’s goalie’s fingers as it hit the net, followed by dead silence.
White uniforms bobbed up and down, their Monrovia’s cheers drowning out DeMille’s groans.
Girls in striped jerseys glared in Thom’s direction.
“Nice job,” Linda, the center defense, hissed at Thom.
“I thought you wanted to play!” Shelley shouted from the bench.
Thom didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as she retook her position and stared straight ahead. She should have gone for the ball. She should have kicked it like they’d said. Who cared if it hit anyone or exploded or something terrible happened? It couldn’t be worse than this feeling, like her insides were turning inside out.
Everyone shook their heads. “Should have just stayed on the bench if you’re going to choke,” Linda said. She sneered as she placed her hands on her knees.
Thom ignored her, but it was difficult to keep her eyes on the ball when heat blossomed behind them, traveling into her nose and throat. She focused on the smell of the wet grass, the breeze cooling the sweat on her skin.
The ball flew back and forth across the field, Monrovia pulling ahead by one goal, and then two. Each time the ball came toward Thom, someone else got to it first. It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying; she was. But even when she called it, like you were supposed to do when you needed the other players to take different positions to receive a pass, Linda or Madison would knock it out of her way.
It was getting more difficult to breathe. It could have been from running, but Thom knew the lump in her throat was the real culprit, and it only grew bigger each time a teammate snatched the ball away. She was the worst player. She couldn’t even get near the ball, and this time, it wasn’t by choice.
She glanced at the sidelines, where Shelley was bouncing next to Coach as they shouted after the players. She wished she could just go for it, could play the way she was supposed to, the way she knew how.
“No!”
She didn’t realize someone was calling her until Linda snapped her fingers.
“Hey, No.” She rolled her eyes as if Thom’s very existence were annoying and saying her name was the most tiring thing anyone could do. “Coach is calling you.”
Sure enough, Coach Pendergrass waved Thom over. She was calling her out of the game. That wasn’t fair. She’d only gotten to play for like ten minutes.
“No!” Coach shouted again.
Thom turned to the referee, who hadn’t noticed Coach waving and was starting the next play. If she was going to get benched anyway, she should at least do something to earn it.
The play started. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and focused on the ball until she saw nothing else, the shouts around her dying, the coach’s voice fading. The ball glowed against the grass, its glossy white surface reflecting sunlight in all directions. She ran past one girl, then another, and another, catching a whiff of Kathy’s lavender perfume. Then suddenly the ball was there, right in front of her.
“No,” Coach Pendergrass shouted, waving her arms, but as usual, Thom couldn’t tell if she was telling her, No, don’t do it, or if she was shouting her name, cheering her on. For a second, she let herself believe Coach was cheering, that everyone was, that she was back at her old school, that she was playing with her friends.
Her teammates looked at her with wide eyes. Thom had never done anything like this before. She always listened, always obeyed, always stayed away from the ball.
Breaking the stillness, a white, opposing jersey thundered toward her, and she had to act, to do something now.
She kicked. The ball connected with the top of her foot with a pop. It soared … past the white shirt across the field, past the midfield line.
The goalie jumped up to catch it, and the ball hit her right in the stomach, forcing an oomph out of her mouth that Thom heard from across the field, before knocking her down completely. But the ball didn’t stop in the goal. It tore clean through the net and kept going until it was out of sight.
2
ALL HEADS TURNED TO THOM. Kathy’s mouth dropped open, eyes wide. Linda took a step back, her hands lifting as if shielding herself. Their expressions filled with horror.
This wasn’t how Thom had expected them to react when she scored. They were supposed to cheer, jump, and slap her back, the way they’d done when Kathy scored earlier.
This was a goal. And they were looking at her like she’d pushed over a puppy learning to walk.
Then Monrovia’s coach knelt over the goalie, still flat on her back.
Thom’s hand moved over her mouth. A hush fell over the girls, the coaches, the referees. The wind stilled, the blades of grass crumpling beneath her shoes, the stillness imitating the body that lay unmoving beneath everyone’s stares. Was the goalie dead? Had Thom killed her?
“Is she okay?” Coach Pendergrass’s voice broke through the silence.
Monrovia’s coach checked the girl’s pulse. “Knocked out cold.” Her blue eyes pierced Thom in place. “That was some kick.”
Thom couldn’t read anything in her flat tone. “Did I kill her?” she whispered.
The coach laughed, but the other girls, even the ones on Monrovia’s team, looked at one another with concerned frowns. They eased away from Thom as if she were going to turn and attack them next.
“You can’t kill someone like that, sweetie,” the coach said. “You’d have to be Superman.”
* * *
The girls remained silent as they trudged back to the lockers. Thom’s teammates glanced at her, turning away sharply whenever she looked back. Their expressions were full of wonder—and something else. The way you look at the new lunch option, not sure if it’s meat or pudding.
“Well,” Coach said as they all twisted the dials on their combination locks. “The good news is, we won the game.”
Usually, this would have been followed by applause and high fives. But no one made a sound. They all shot side-eyes at Thom, who stared at the inside of her dark locker. Her clothes hung on the hook—a black graphic T-shirt, dark jeans, and a hoodie, as usual.
“The bad news is,” Coach continued, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, “the goalie, Cassie Houghton, is in the hospital.”
Cassie. The girl had a name now, not just a jersey number, thirteen—unlucky or lucky depending on how you looked at it, but probably unlucky in this case. Unlucky enough to play against Thom, anyway.
She leaned into the locker, hiding behind the door, but she could feel the eyes on her like pinpricks. If only her locker were big enough to crawl all the way inside. She’d killed the goalie; she must have. Her mouth and throat were dry, and yet she started to salivate at the same time, tasting something bitter and rancid. She knew exactly what this feeling was, and knowing what it was only made it worse. Thom was going to vomit.
“A few cracked ribs.” If Coach felt the tension in the room, she didn’t show it, speaking cheerily as if nothing were wrong. “But nothing that…” She cleared her throat.
Thom peeked from behind the door. Coach had her thumbs hitched in the belt loops of her jeans, her head down.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“So … No didn’t kill her?” Bethany asked. She’d already changed out of her uniform and into navy-blue-and-gold sweats. Her sleek ponytail made her eyes look sharper as they flashed at Thom. They didn’t linger enough to acknowledge her, just enough to make her know Bethany was watching her, wary of her.
“No. No didn’t kill her.”
Thom let out a breath. She could have melted right onto the floor, joined the puddles created by the swim team, trailed down the cracks, and dripped into the drain. Instead, she sagged against her locker door.
“And, er…” Coach added, still not looking up. “Nice shot, No.”
If anyone else agreed, they didn’t say so. They barely looked at Thom as they finished getting ready. It wasn’t any different from how they usually treated her, but today it was worse. Because she had finally done something right, something that should have made them all like her or, at least, respect her, treat her like she existed. She had scored. Not only that, but it had been the winning goal. They’d won! The first game of the season, and they’d won. Because of her.
But it felt wrong. Of course it did; she had knocked a girl out. She had broken her ribs. Who did that? Not anyone normal.
Thom hovered at Coach’s office door, the last one to leave the locker room. The drip of a faucet echoed behind her, the lingering traces of chlorine from the swim team stinging her nostrils.
“What’s wrong, No?” Coach asked, peeking out behind an overflowing box of shin guards. The fluorescent lighting above flickered, casting ominous shadows over her face. The others were gone; even the assistant coach, Martha, had left.
“I was just wondering … is the Monrovia goalie … is Cassie really going to be okay?”
Coach heard the crack in Thom’s voice. “Oh yeah, sweetie, she’s fine. She’s in stable condition. They just called me.” She tapped her phone and then paused. Thom knew she was doing that thing grown-ups do, trying to find the stupidest way to say something—like that was the only way kids would understand. “The ball probably hit her at a weird angle and she landed awkwardly, that’s all. Come on. Tiny thing like you—couldn’t have been all your fault.” She had the kind of laugh that involved her whole body, every wiggly bit that could wiggle wiggled. “Don’t worry about it, No. You did good today. You scored!”
Thom’s smile felt odd on her face, the stiff muscles around her mouth not used to the movement.
“You should have seen yourself. Practically flying across the field! I want to see the same enthusiasm out of you tomorrow.” She picked up her clipboard and pretended to slap Thom on the back with it. “Now get out of here before your mom threatens to sue me for keeping you late.”
Thom smiled, waved, and left feeling lighter. She wasn’t in trouble after all. They hadn’t found out. Or, well, they hadn’t believed it was really her fault, that she was capable of kicking the ball that hard. And even if it was her fault, it was an accident. She hadn’t meant to hurt Cassie.
It was going to be okay. She’d make up for it. Maybe Ma could send Cassie flowers at the hospital.
She spun around to ask, but Coach was busy rummaging through the box of shin guards. Thom thought better of it and slowly turned away.
Copyright © 2020 by Van Hoang
Copyright © 2020 by Nguyen Quang and Kim Lien
