Sabotage Season (14 page)

Jessi flicked a switch, illuminating the dark room.
Wow,
I thought, Pinewood sure was a fancy school. Instead of metal lockers there were open wooden shelves. Each one was labeled with the player's name, with a shelf on top that held their shin guards and cleats, and an open closet where their game-day jerseys hung, looking as if they had been professionally cleaned. Underneath were drawers for more storage space.

Jessi started flinging open the drawers and searching.

“No sunscreen!” she cried.

“That's because it's over here,” Frida said. There was a large table at the other end of the room. There were cases of water on top, and bottles of sunscreen. A big sign was taped to the wall over the bottles.
BURN IT UP ON THE FIELD, NOT ON YOUR SKIN!
it read.

Jessi reached inside her pocket and pulled out five little bottles of blue food coloring.

“Here you go!” She handed each one of us a bottle and opened the lid of one of the sunscreen bottles. She poured in some food coloring, closed the bottle, and began to shake.

“Hmmmm.” She frowned as she opened up her bottle to peer inside. “We might need to add some water to get it to mix better.”

She scanned the locker room. “Let's try this way,” Jessi whispered, nodding toward a short hallway. We each carried a bottle of sunscreen and followed her. Doors led to other changing rooms, but luckily we found the bathroom at the very end. Frida had reached to turn on the sink, when we all heard the sound of a door opening.

“Hello? Is someone in here?” a voice called.

Zoe started shaking, the sunscreen bottle trembling in her hand. My own heart began to race. We all looked at one another, eyes wide. Frida turned her head and pointed to a door at the far end of the bathroom, in the opposite direction from where we had just been.

We heard footsteps coming closer and a voice saying, “I could have sworn I turned the lights off.”

Jessi jerked her head in the direction of the door Frida had pointed to. We all moved as quickly and quietly as we could through the bathroom and out the door to the other side.

We stepped into a hallway directly in front of the Pinewood gym. The main entrance was only a few steps away. We all raced out the door, through the parking lot, and back to the safety of the bushes bordering Pinewood Park.

“That was close!” Jessi said, breathing hard.

I groaned. “But now we're not pranksters; we're thieves!” I held up the bottle of sunscreen. The other girls still held their bottles too. “We forgot to leave the sunscreen in the locker room.”

“We're not thieves if we didn't mean to take the bottles,” Jessi argued. “It was an accident.”

“Darn!” Frida groaned. “I so wanted to see Mirabelle turned blue!”

“I'm just glad this is over,” a relieved Zoe said. “And that we didn't get into any trouble. I'm not cut out for this revenge stuff.”

“I don't think I am either, actually,” Emma admitted. “I mean, it sounded like fun, but it was mostly terrifying.”

Jessi shook her head. “You guys are such chickens. I'm just sorry we didn't get to finish.”

“It was exhilarating,” Frida said. “Like being onstage.”

“If that's what being onstage is like, then I'll never join drama club,” I said. My hands were still shaking, I was so nervous. “That was a stupid thing to do.”

Almost getting caught made me realize what a big mistake this all had been. We could have all gotten suspended from the team, and then the whole team would have suffered. What kind of co-captain was I? I was supposed to be leading my team into victory, not into trouble.

“Let's get back to the trail,” I said firmly. “We need to focus on our game against the Atoms.”

“Maybe we could put the sunscreen where they might find it,” Emma suggested.

“Let's just leave them on the edge of the parking lot,” Jessi said. “I don't think we should go back there.”

Nobody argued with her. We put down the sunscreen and then we went back to the fitness trail. We actually ended up completing it just as Mrs. Dukes got back to the start of the trail, fresh from her walk.

“I should get you girls back to Kentville so you have time to eat lunch before your game this afternoon,” she said, looking at her watch. “How was the fitness trail?”

We all looked at one another.

“Um, invigorating,” Jessi replied.

“You can say that again,” Emma said, and Jessi nudged her with her elbow.

After our locker room scare and the fitness trail, we were all pretty worn out as we made our way to the minivan.

“Let's forget this ever happened,” I said, and Jessi nodded.

“Emma! Look out!” I cried, but it was too late. The ball soared inches above her head, but a distracted Emma didn't react in time. The Atoms were ahead, 4–1.

The Kicks were struggling on the Atoms' home field. The Atoms' attacks seemed to gain more strength as the game went on, and Emma, still shaken up by the events in the Panthers' locker room this morning, was not at her best. The Atoms defenders were also playing well, putting pressure on the Kicks defense. I'd gotten in a long shot that should have been a goal, but the Atoms goalie made a spectacular save.

The Atoms were clearly having their best game of the season. Too bad it had to be against the Kicks!

Coach pulled Emma out and put in Zarine instead. She successfully blocked an unexpected yet well-placed shot from an Atoms striker. Things seemed to be looking up for the Kicks when Olivia and Grace started several offensive sequences with good clearing passes, but the Atoms were there to block us at every turn.

In the end the Kicks just couldn't catch up. Our winning streak was over. We had lost.

I hung my head and placed my hands on my hips. Letting out a deep sigh, I began to calculate our chances for the play-offs. We still had a shot, even with this loss. But it meant we would have to beat the Rams at our game
next Saturday. If we didn't, the Kicks' chance at the trophy would be dashed.

“Great game, ladies!” Coach called to us. “The Atoms really made you hustle. You played terrifically, but they played better today. Sometimes that's just the way it goes. Don't let it get you down.”

After saying good-bye to the other Kicks, Jessi and I grabbed our bags and walked off the Atoms' field together. We made our way to the parking lot to meet our parents.

“This stinks,” Jessi said. “First our attempt to get back at the Panthers fails, and then we lose.”

“Well, maybe we could have played better, but the whole thing this morning—it never should have happened,” I said. “I let my emotions get to me, and I should have kept us from making that mistake.”

Jessi and I were walking along, both feeling down, when we heard someone call our names. We whirled around, and standing there was Mirabelle!

“I saw you coming out of our locker room,” she said with a smug grin. “And I know what you were doing!”

“Excuse me?” Jessi asked, her hands on her hips. “You have the nerve to come here and accuse us after everything you and the Panthers have done to the Kicks?”

“What?” Mirabelle asked. She sounded confused. “You're the ones who snuck into our locker room, and why? To steal our sunscreen? What kind of weird prank is that?”

I turned red. So Mirabelle did know about the sunscreen. I wondered what my parents would do when they found out. Probably ground me for a zillion years.

“Oh, really?” Jessi said in disbelief. “So sending out a fake e-mail, stealing Devin's soccer bag, calling the community center to give away our field during practice, tampering with the boys' soccer ball, trashing our banner, and writing ‘Loser' on Devin's jersey? That's what you call not having done anything?” Jessi was practically screaming.

Mirabelle looked genuinely shocked. “Somebody did all that to you guys?” Then her expression got angry again. “Wait, and you thought
I
did all that?”

“Of course we did,” Jessi shot back. “You know you hate the Kicks.”

“I do not hate the Kicks!” Mirabelle protested.

“Um, you did write ‘Bye, Losers' on the mirror when you left,” I reminded her. “And laughed pretty hard when the boys' team made fun of us at the dance.”

Mirabelle bit her lip when I said that, and then she looked away.

“Whatever,” she said, but she sounded hurt. “I just can't believe that you'd really think I'd do all that stuff, Jessi.”

“Well, I did,” Jessi replied.

Mirabelle looked at me. “You too, Devin?”

“Well, yeah,” I said slowly. “You and the other girls on the Pinewood team. Somebody stained my jersey Pinewood purple. And we even found a Pinewood bracelet right where our trashed banner was.”

“Right!” Jessi said triumphantly. She reached into her bag and pulled out the purple-and-gold friendship bracelet. “Here it is.”

“My bracelet!” she sounded shocked. “I haven't seen it since I gave it to Jamie.”

“Jamie from the Rams?” I asked.

“Right,” Mirabelle replied. “We became friends after being on the travel team together. Jamie is the one who suggested we check you guys out, at that game against the Eagles.”

“I saw you two in the stands that day,” Jessi remembered.

“Jamie said we should go, since you were doing so much better,” Mirabelle said. “You know, to size up our competition. That's when Jamie asked if I wanted to exchange friendship bracelets. I gave her my Pinewood one, and she gave me hers. It's red and yellow for the Rams.”

“Why aren't you wearing it, then?” Jessi asked, her arms crossed in front of her.

“I felt weird wearing the Riverdale colors,” Mirabelle admitted. “It felt disloyal to the Panthers. So I took it off. I haven't been wearing any bracelet since then. Can I have my bracelet back?”

Jessi looked reluctant to hand it over, and I didn't blame her. It was our only real evidence linking the Panthers to the sabotage.

“First answer me this. Why did you come all the way out to Adams today?” Jessi asked.

“I came early to practice this morning,” Mirabelle replied. “I saw you, Devin, Emma, Zoe, and Frida run out of the gym. Then later our coach was freaking out because a bunch of our sunscreen bottles were missing.”

“Did you tell your coach that you saw us there?” I asked, my heart beating fast.

Mirabelle shook her head. “I wanted to talk to you first, and I knew you had a game against the Atoms today,” she answered. “I guess . . . I might want to beat you on the field, but I didn't want you to get in trouble, Jessi.”

Jessi looked surprised. “You didn't?”

Mirabelle shrugged. “I don't know. The girls at Pinewood are really stuck-up. The team is supercompetitive. I guess I kind of miss Kentville . . . and you too, sometimes.”

Jessi looked like she was trying to decide whether Mirabelle was messing with her or not. I certainly had never seen Mirabelle be this sincere before.

“Thanks for having my back,” Jessi said.

Watching the two of them made me think of me and Kara. We'd been friends for as long as I could remember. Even if we stopped being friends, I knew she would always have a special place in my heart. I guess maybe Mirabelle felt that way too.

Jessi handed her back the bracelet. “I believe you. Sorry we tried to . . . steal your sunscreen.”

She gave me a look that warned me not to say anything about the real plan. I don't think she trusted Mirabelle just yet, and I didn't blame her.

Mirabelle shook her head. “That is, like, really lame revenge. But I guess it got our coach mad.”

“You guys playing the Vipers this afternoon?” I asked Mirabelle.

She nodded.

“Well, good luck,” I said, and I meant it.

“Thanks,” Mirabelle said. “Later.”

“That was weird,” I said, shaking my head.