Defending Champ Page 2

  Terry Bradshaw’s was one.

  Ben Roethlisberger’s was the other.

  Since there was no bigger Steelers fan than Alex Carlisle, she knew full well that her team had won six Super Bowls in their history. Bradshaw had been the quarterback for four of them, back in the 1970s. Ben Roethlisberger had quarterbacked the team for the other two.

  Alex opened her mouth wide enough to swallow the ball whole.

  “How . . . both of them?!”

  “I know people,” her dad said, “who know people.”

  She jumped toward her dad and hugged him so hard she nearly knocked him over the arm of the sofa.

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” he said. “No tackle football in the house.”

  “Thank you so, so, so, soooooo much,” Alex said.

  “Autographs from our two champion quarterbacks,” he said, “for my championship quarterback.”

  She sat there for a few minutes staring at the football in her hands, occasionally gripping it as if she were about to throw a tight spiral down the field. She ran a finger across the signatures, still finding it hard to believe her dad had pulled this off. Perhaps it was a Christmas miracle.

  “You’re not done,” her dad said finally, and nodded at the envelope on the coffee table.

  When Alex ripped the envelope open, there was an official-looking certificate inside.

  FOR ALEX CARLISLE was printed at the top in block letters. Underneath, at the very bottom, Jack had signed his name.

  But at the center of the document, big and bold, were the letters IOU.

  “You owe me what?” Alex said, cutting her dad a curious glance.

  “Can’t tell you,” he said. “At least not yet.”

  It wasn’t like Jack to be so mysterious, and Alex was sufficiently stumped. She wondered briefly what sort of surprise he was planning but decided not to drive herself nuts trying to figure it out. If she knew her dad, it would be worth the wait.

  Instead, she got up and tossed the signed football to her dad, who stood over by the tree. He caught it and tossed it back, before falling back onto the couch for the second half of the game. Then they sat together, with the TV on, and Alex was as happy as she’d ever been.

  “A signed football and a surprise,” she said, the football beside her. “This is already the best Christmas ever.”

  “And it isn’t even Christmas yet,” he said.

  She turned away from the TV just briefly to glance out the window and watch the snowflakes drift down into their front yard.

  “All of a sudden,” Alex said, “I’ve got the feeling this year might be even more full of surprises than last year.”

  “The good kind of surprises, I hope.”

  “Totally.”

  Neither one of them had any idea.

  3

  Alex had invited her best friend, Sophie Lyons, over for a sleepover on New Year’s Eve. Gabe Hildreth and Jabril Wise, both football teammates, were her best guy friends. But Sophie was in a class of her own.

  When most of the other girls in their grade had turned their backs on Alex after she’d tried out for football, Sophie was one of the only ones who hadn’t. In fact, just the opposite. Sophie not only took Alex’s side, but fought on her behalf and supported Alex every step of the way.

  Sophie was captain of the cheerleading team at school. But during the last football season, it was as if her main job was cheering on Alex. Or at least that’s the way it seemed from Alex’s spot on the field.

  Sophie had just come back from a skiing trip to Vermont with her family over Christmas and was now home until school opened again in January. So it was a party for two tonight, both of them excited to stay up until midnight and toast the New Year with sparkling cider and noisemakers.

  They’d popped popcorn in the microwave and were eating it out of a big bowl between them on Alex’s bed. It was still a few hours until the ball dropped, so they filled the time watching funny videos on their phones and chatting about what they planned to do during the rest of the holiday break.

  “I know what I’m going to do,” Sophie said. “Train.”

  “You already train harder than anybody,” Alex said. “And you’re the star of your team.”

  Sophie just shrugged. “You’re never really done training,” she said. “There’s always room to improve. Plus I really want to make nationals this year.”

  It wasn’t the first time Sophie had mentioned this particular cheerleading competition. The one that took place annually at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando. Sophie thought her team was strong enough to make the cut this year for their age bracket.

  “People have no idea how hard we work,” Sophie said. “They think all we do is cheer at football games and shake pom-poms, but it’s so much more than that. We practice three hours a day, perfecting our routines, practicing stunts, tumbling across the mat. It’s a lot.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Alex said. “I could barely manage one afternoon of your ‘coaching.’ ”

  Sophie held in a laugh, but Alex remembered the day well. Toe-touches and high Vs and heel stretches—even just keeping up with the terminology was exhausting.

  They were getting low on popcorn, but that hardly mattered. There was more in the kitchen, and they both knew it wouldn’t be their last bowl tonight.

  “What do you mean by ‘train,’ exactly?” Alex asked now. “Is that different from practice?”

  Sophie nodded. “I’m back with my old gym coach, Mrs. Santos,” she said. “She’s been helping me incorporate more gymnastics into my cheerleading. My cheer coaches have even started letting me help choreograph some of our halftime routines.”

  Sophie beamed with pride. Alex wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but if Sophie’s expression was anything to go on, it must have been a pretty big deal.

  “That’s awesome, Soph!” Alex said. “You’re, like, the Simone Biles of cheerleading!”

  Simone Biles, they both knew, was one of the greatest gymnasts and Olympic athletes of all time. Even though she was only four feet eight, she went on to win thirty medals, including four gold in the summer Olympic Games. Alex’s dad had always told her, from the first time she started playing sports, that size absolutely mattered:

  The size of your talent and the size of your heart.

  Sophie had both in abundance. But the size of her dream was even bigger.

  Alex had her own dream, of course. One that’d required her to leave soccer, and one that involved coming back to it. Go figure.

  “If I keep getting better,” Sophie said, “so will our team. The other girls want the cheerleading championship as much as I do.” She smiled sheepishly. “Well, almost.”

  They had talked about putting on a movie while they waited for the ball to drop in Times Square, but ultimately decided against it. One thing was always true when Alex Carlisle and Sophie Lyons were together: they never ran out of things to talk about.

  Sophie tossed a piece of popcorn into the air, caught it in her mouth.

  “So my big New Year’s resolution is about the cheerleading finals,” Sophie said. “What’s yours?”

  “It’s not a goal, exactly,” Alex said, sitting up cross-legged on her bed. “More like an idea.”

  “I better be the first to know.”

  “Will you settle for the second to know?” she said. “ ’Cause I already told my dad.”

  Sophie blinked dramatically. “I suppose I can live with that.”

  Alex took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes,” she said. “My resolution is to be brave and be bold.”

  Sophie paused and tilted her head, as if in deep thought.

  “I knew it,” Alex said. “You think it’s weird.”

  “Then you obviously don’t know me at all,” Sophie said. “Because I think it’s awesom
e. In fact, I might borrow it and make it one of my own resolutions.”

  “Why not?” Alex said. “You’re always borrowing my clothes.”

  “Which reminds me,” Sophie said, “got anything new for me to try on?” She skipped over to Alex’s closet and started flipping through the hangers.

  “Only my old football uniform,” Alex said. “And something tells me you’re not gonna want to wear that around the halls.”

  Alex gathered up the last of the popcorn and shoveled it in her mouth. It was about time to microwave their second batch.

  “Speaking of football,” Sophie said, “what are you going to do about sports in the spring?”

  Alex took another deep breath and smiled. Having already had this conversation with her dad, she felt more comfortable this time telling Sophie her news.

  “I’m thinking about trying out for soccer,” she said, bracing herself for the response.

  Sophie’s eyes suddenly went wide. “Huh,” she said. “Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Honestly?” Alex said. “Neither did I.”

  “Spring soccer,” Sophie said.

  Alex nodded.

  “The team you left to go play football? The one that flat-out rejected you because you were brave enough to chase your dreams?” Sophie said. “That girls’ soccer team?”

  “I’m trying to leave the past in the past,” Alex said. “Kinda like beginning a new year. Starting fresh. New resolutions instead of old grudges.” She grinned. “Not my grudges. Theirs.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sophie nodded. “Well, I agree, holding grudges isn’t healthy, but those girls were really awful to you,” she said. “As a friend, I wouldn’t want to see you go through that again.”

  Alex nodded at the empty bowl.

  “Should we go make more?” she said to Sophie.

  “Not until we finish this conversation,” Sophie said. “Wasn’t one of the reasons you went out for football because you didn’t really love soccer? You said it wasn’t your passion.”

  “It wasn’t,” Alex said. “And I never got the same feeling from soccer that I did from being a quarterback. But . . . I don’t know. I miss it, I guess.”

  “What about Lindsey?” Sophie asked. “It would mean being on the same team with her again. And it’s not as if you guys were pals even before the whole football thing happened.”

  “It’s like you always say,” Alex said. “Lindsey gonna Lindsey. But I honestly don’t think the other girls are mad at me anymore. The last couple of weeks before break they were being a lot nicer.”

  “Everybody gets nicer around Christmas!” Sophie proclaimed.

  “Hey,” Alex said, “whose side are you on?”

  “Yours,” Sophie said, with her hands up in defense. “Forever. But as much as I know you love competing and being on a team, I also know that you hate drama.”

  “But you have to admit I did create some,” Alex said. “For the soccer team and the football team.”

  “Listen,” Sophie said. “Whatever you decide, you know I’ve got your back. But it’s New Year’s Eve. So we don’t have to decide this tonight, right?”

  Alex remembered her dad saying something similar on Christmas Eve. She didn’t have to make her decision now, but time was ticking. Like the countdown to a new year. She’d have to make up her mind someday.

  “You know what they say,” Alex said. “Ring out the old, ring in the new.”

  Sophie sighed.

  “Yeah,” she scoffed. “New drama.”

  They decided to FaceTime Gabe and Jabril, who were having a sleepover at Jabril’s house tonight. Before long it became a party of four, all of them laughing and talking at once, her three best friends in the world.

  Alex knew she wouldn’t have made it through football without them. It made her appreciate having them in her life, and on her side, even more. Of course, when Alex mentioned wanting to play spring soccer, Gabe and Jabril were both on board.

  “Alex Carlisle, king of all seventh-grade sports in Orville!” Gabe Hildreth said.

  “Wouldn’t it be ‘queen’?” Sophie said.

  “Whatever,” Gabe said. “Point is, this girl is on fire!”

  Sophie grinned. “Somebody ought to write a song like that,” she said.

  Somehow Alex and Sophie stayed awake until midnight, even though Alex could see her friend starting to fade with about a half hour to go. By then they’d gone through their third bowl of popcorn.

  Finally, they counted down from ten, watching the sparkling crystal-studded ball begin to drop on the TV in Alex’s room. Jack had given them two fancy champagne flutes, and Sophie filled them to the brim with sparkling cider. Right at midnight, they clinked their glasses together like they’d seen people do on television and toasted to the new year. Alex didn’t know why, but it felt a little bit like her birthday, as if it were time to blow out the candles and make a wish.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sophie fell asleep right away, but Alex was wide awake. Maybe from the fizziness of the cider. Or maybe because she had a lot on her mind.

  She lay there with her head on her pillow, staring up at the ceiling, and thought again about how lucky she was to have people in her life who loved and cared about her. Thought about how grateful she was to have gotten the chance to play football, to show herself and the whole town that she wasn’t just good enough to make the team, but to play starting quarterback in the championship game.

  That was last season, though.

  That was last year.

  She wanted her next season, this year, to be about soccer again. At least in the spring.

  Closing her eyes now, just a few minutes into the new year, she whispered, “Brave and bold” into the darkness, made a wish about her luck holding, and finally drifted off to sleep.

  4

  First day back at school after winter break.

  It was the same every year. You loved being off from school, then couldn’t wait to get back to school.

  Alex’s first class on Monday morning was English, with Mrs. McQuade. It was Alex’s favorite class, not just because it was all about reading and writing but because Mrs. McQuade made it fun.

  Alex still hadn’t made up her mind about soccer. But one thing she knew about herself was that she loved a challenge. It was all tied up with her desire to compete. And there was a part of her, a big part, that liked the idea that she could be a difference-maker. Someone who might tip the scales in the team’s favor if they made it to the league championship again.

  Lindsey Stiles was in Mrs. McQuade’s class. So were Annie Burgess and Carly Jones, the goalkeeper for the girls’ team, and Ally McGee, their star defender. Sophie was here too, along with Gabe and Jabril.

  Once they were seated and the bell rang, Mrs. McQuade had everyone go around the room and talk about something fun they’d done over break.

  When it was Alex’s turn, she said, “The two best things I did were celebrate New Year’s Eve with Sophie and watch football on TV with my dad.”

  From behind her she heard Lindsey Stiles mutter, “Do you wear your uniform and helmet when you watch?”

  Lindsey laughed then. But no one else in the classroom did. Alex gave a quick look over to Sophie, who raised her eyebrows as high as they could go and silently mouthed one word:

  Wow.

  Maybe, Alex thought, the other soccer girls weren’t following Lindsey’s lead the way they had last fall.

  “Let’s face it, Linds,” Gabe said from across the room. “The only time Alex needs a helmet when she’s not playing football is when you’re around.”

  At that, pretty much everyone in Mrs. McQuade’s class erupted with laughter.

  “Now, now,” Mrs. McQuade said, trying to settle everyone down. “It’s a new year, which means a good time for everybody to adjust th
eir attitudes around each other in a positive way.” She smiled. “At least when you’re with me.”

  Mrs. McQuade wasted no time diving into the semester’s curriculum. They were discussing their first reading assignment of the year, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Alex was only halfway through, but it was already becoming one of her favorite books. Right up there with The Princess Bride. Her favorite line so far was “Sometimes I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

  It was a little like football, Alex thought. Only she’d never thought of making the team as impossible. More like the season had been her own version of Wonderland.

  When class was over, Alex, Sophie, and Annie walked together toward history.

  “Don’t tell her I said this,” Annie said. “But Lindsey has got to let this thing go.”

  Sophie snorted. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “She acts like I ruined your whole season,” Alex said.

  “And guess what?” Annie said. “When we got to the championship game, the other team was just better that day.”

  Annie hadn’t just ended up being captain of the team but MVP too. When Alex was still playing, Annie had been the striker to her right. But when Annie moved over to play center middie, she played as if that had been her position all along. One of the things Alex had missed the most about soccer was playing alongside Annie. The two of them had made a great team, always anticipating each other’s moves, ready to pass the ball if the other was in better position to score.

  It was different with Lindsey, who’d played to Alex’s left. When she ended up with the ball, whether she had open field in front of her or not, you rarely saw it again. Her one big idea was to carry the ball to the keeper herself, like she didn’t believe in passing. Alex’s dad had once said that in basketball they called players like Lindsey Stiles “ball stoppers.”

  Nobody ever said it to her face, but some of the other players called her “Lindsey Styles.” She played as if a camera were following her every move.