Chapter 90

November 14, 2017

Dear Ms. Diary,

[Written November 15-16]

Getting permission for Charlize and Civia to attend classes with us was not too much of a hassle, although it was a good thing that Dad got us to school 20 minutes early. We introduced them to Mr. Pavletic, the teacher of our 1st Bell geography class. Charlize and Civia both seemed to enjoy the lesson, which was on the impact of the Silk Road on human geography. It was interesting, but it seemed like we barely glossed over the subject in a single session. While Civia was quiet, Mr. Pavletic asked Charlize a question and congratulated her on her response.

Lunch was great fun, as Meka and all the other seniors but Hope joined us. Civia introduced Charlize to those that hadn’t met her. Brittany and, particularly, Cera hogged Charlize’s attention for quite a few minutes early on, but everyone chatted her up over the course of the lunch period; Charlize certainly seemed to enjoy it. When we introduced our visitors to Mr. Jameson at his desk in our 7^th Bell history class, Civia spoke up.

“Hi, Mr. Jameson. My friends tell me that this is one of their two favorite classes. They were a bit bummed to miss so many of your classes because of soccer.”

He looked around at us with a slightly surprised reaction, and I felt my face heating.

“Um, thank you, Civia. I hope they didn’t put you up to that.”

“Oh, no. They’ve talked about this class frequently, and not just on the bus when we were headed to one game or other.”

“You were on the bus, too?”

She nodded and said, “Yes. I’m an assistant for Coach.”

“But you’re only in sixth grade.”

“Yes, but if the school board had made a different decision, I might have been a player on the team.”

Heather interrupted, saying, “Civia’s something of a phenom and may well be the best of us, despite that she’s only in sixth grade.”

Mr. Jameson again looked around at us, particularly at the blushing Civia, his eyes wide.

“Is that right? I’ve not heard of anything like that before.”

Heather briefly explained about feeder schools and high school sports and that there was a good chance that the school board would allow her to play on the team next year.

“Thank you, Heather ... and Civia. Perhaps I’ll try to make a game or two next year.”

When the final bell rang and while the class’s students began the process of leaving, Mr. Jameson called out, “Soccer team, please stay for a minute.” When the seven of us were at his desk, he looked at each of his students, then asked, “Was Civia right?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Gracey. “You usually make it very interesting, and your classes are light years better than our history class last year. Had we known ahead of time, we probably would have scheduled classes differently, as it seemed to us that it wasn’t fair to you that this is one of only two classes we have together. We actually discussed this when we were scheduling, but I’m afraid that our experience last year suggested that if we had to miss any class due to games, it would be fine to miss this one.”

“Thank you, Gracey ... and the rest of you. At first, it was quite annoying that nearly a quarter of the class wasn’t here on some game days, and I didn’t like you missing so much. However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that those missed classes seem not to have impacted your grades, as you’re all doing well.”

Liya responded, “We’re good students, Mr. Jameson. We spend a lot of time together, usually at Beth’s house, and we nearly always do our homework immediately after dinner, if not before. Our parents are big on education and learning; three of them are professors at the university. All of us are at least a year ahead in one or more subjects, all of us in math, with Heather, here, actually taking Calculus Two at the university this fall ... for credit.”

He quickly swiveled his head to look at Heather, asking, “Really?” When she nodded, he exclaimed, “Wow. That’s impressive.” He furrowed his brow briefly, then said, “Am I right in that your season is still going?”

“Yes,” I replied, “the state tournament starts this weekend.”

He nodded, then said, “Then, good luck in the tournament. And thanks.”

While we were all stretching, Coach explained the plan for practice, then had us do the usual warmups and sent us to do just a single lap before setting up the scrimmage. Rose was the added fourth fullback for the starting-D team, playing right center back. Their three midfielders were, left to right, Jess, Katie, and Gracey, with their front line consisting of Makayla, Addiah, and Jimena (left to right). The starting-O team’s two midfielders were Jules and Nicole, our back line consisted of Smythe, Marla, and Abby, and Mila was our goalie. Coach kept Lucia, Jordan, Susanna, and Taylor with her as subs that she sporadically put in on either team. Liya was given a whistle so that she could be the field ref, while Cera and Brett were line refs/ball chasers and Brittany was in charge of water and towels.

It was a lot of fun! Although Rhee and Charlize started out as left and right, respectively, center forwards, the play had them switching positions enough that they wound up playing about the same amount of time at each position. In fact, the whole front line was fairly fluid, with Civia being in the middle for a fair bit; even Heather spent a bit of time in the middle.

We played for a bit over an hour with a ten-minute break somewhere in the middle. The defense team won, 3-2, with Meka scoring once and Addiah twice. Meka’s goal was another blazing romp down the middle of the pitch. She intercepted a pass from Charlize to Rhee and quickly blew by me. She beat Nicole by the simple expedient of booting the ball past her to Nicole’s right and blowing by her on her left, then smashing a rocket from outside the box into the right side of the goal.

Interestingly, Charlize and Rhee scored our goals, with each getting the assist for the other’s goal. They started out a bit rough, but it took them only a little time to figure out how to share the striker position. I set up Charlize’s goal with a high pass to Rhee that she headed over Meka to Charlize who slanted between Rose and Meka and easily beat Hope on the open one-on-one.

All aspects of Rhee’s goal were spectacular!

It started with Makayla attempting a long cross to Jimena that Jules intercepted. She had trouble controlling the ball, giving Jimena time to pressure Jules. However, Jules beat her with an economical counter-clockwise Zidane roulette after which she began hauling upfield. She carried rapidly for 30 yards or so, getting about halfway into the starting D’s half. I had placed myself inside her as she approached Gracey in order to run a give-and-go. Jules faked the give, at which Gracey bit, then angled a bit left and continued upfield. As she approached Kim, Civia ran downfield, then curled around behind Jules, who made a sweet drop and continued upfield, nearly into Kim.

Civia headed right across the field with the ball but was jumped almost immediately by Katie. Civia beat Katie with a counter-clockwise roulette and continued across the pitch, with Rose shadowing her after she called a switch with Meka. Civia angled slightly upfield as Heather headed back downfield, but then turned to go across the field, shaking Rachel who stayed home at left back. As Civia crossed with Heather, she flicked the ball to her, and Heather began carrying to the left. The idea had been to shake Rose, but she had seen that coming so had stopped chasing Civia and immediately attacked Heather, who beat her with a clockwise roulette. After getting past Rose and heading farther right, she flicked the ball upfield to Charlize, who had come a bit downfield. Katie nearly blindsided her, but I called that out to her, so Charlize was prepared and beat her with a clockwise roulette and headed goalward, crossing into the box.