Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,47
given him a strange look, because he glanced down and said to the room, “I can’t wear shorts to teach algebra. At least, not anymore.”
“I wonder why,” Tina whispered to me. We took seats at the desks as Bobby stood up, hefting a large box onto his desk.
“I’m sorry, we’ll have to cancel practice today—the field is just too muddy,” Bobby said. “But I’m hoping I can brighten the day anyway.”
“The shorts would have helped with that,” Joanie muttered behind me.
Bobby patted the box and cleared his throat. “You’ve been playing like a real team,” he said. “And it’s time you looked like one.”
He reached into the box and pulled out shirts with “Powell Park” written across the chests in powder blue. The powder blue color was nice, if the words hadn’t been printed across a shirt that was the same yellow that the armpits of white T-shirts turn after you sweat in them a lot. But Bobby held one up proudly and tossed it toward us.
No one reached out to catch it, but it half landed on the edge of Franchesa Rotini’s desk. She pulled it toward her and politely said, “Thank you.”
“I hope you like them,” Bobby said, as he passed out the rest.
The word “hope” was weighted with an apology. He reminded me of Fred Farris, a boy with a skin condition who’d been my square dancing partner in PE last year. “I’m not contagious,” Fred had said about the warts on his hands, which had prompted me to hold his hands tighter, so he wouldn’t feel bad.
“There are a few different sizes in there, and some extras, in case anyone forgets hers on game day,” he continued. “You can trade each other for the ones you want.”
“They’re definitely attention-getting,” Tina said, using her genius way of phrasing things to bring a smile to Bobby’s face.
“We love them,” I added, clutching my number 15 and trying to compensate for the team’s bland thank-yous.
“Well, good,” he said, standing in what I’d come to think of as his coach pose: hands on hips and his feet planted shoulder-width apart. In shorts, coach pose made every one of his muscles, every angle and slope of his body, available for careful study. But it still worked even in long pants. “You’re going to need them . . .” He paused dramatically as he looked from player to player. “Because I also got us a game.”
A cheer went up from everyone at once. We jumped from the desk chairs, shrieking like we’d already won the game we’d just found out about. The team’s collective excitement surprised me, almost as much as my own did.
“We’re official,” Tina said, waving her jersey over me and Dawn Murphy, who actually was smiling, too.
“Who do we play?” Marie asked.
“Is it a school around here?” Arlene chimed in.
“It’s another high school girls’ team, the Wauwatosa Warriors. They’re just outside of Milwaukee,” Bobby said. “The only problem is, we have to play early morning, so I think it’ll be an overnight.”
“Yes!” Marie Quinn said. “Freedom!” Her somehow-not-rained-on blond hair swished as she grabbed Joanie’s and Arlene’s hands and spun them around.
Bobby held up a hand. “That is . . . if we can raise enough money for a bus and some of our lodging. We’re going to need to have a fundraiser. Any ideas?”
“I hate to say it, but candy bars?” Tina offered.
“Everyone is sick of candy bars,” Wendy countered. “The tennis team ruined them.”
“Homework help?” Dana suggested. She looked at everyone like this was a great idea.
“No one wants my help with their homework, believe me,” Arlene said.
“We could have a bake sale, or the boosters offered us the chance to work the next football concession and take a share, but I don’t know if either of those things will be profitable enough,” Bobby said.
“Well,” I said, “the cheerleaders hold a spring car wash to raise money for the next football season. But no one does a car wash in the fall. Why not us?”
“That’s brilliant,” Bobby said, drawing a frown from Dana that I enjoyed a little bit. “Who’s in?”
“I am!”
“Me too!”
“We don’t know how to wash cars,” Dana said.
“Soap, water, sponges,” Tina said. “How hard can it be?”
“Wisconsin, here we come,” I said.
Thirteen
Powell Park Girls’ Soccer Car Wash
Saturday, October 6
Doesn’t Matter If It’s a Boss Ride or a Beater,
If It’s Got Wheels, We’ll Wash It!!
When the day of the car wash arrived, we showed up looking less like a girls’ soccer team and more like