Wildcats, your honor we’ll defend,
’Cause when you’re a Wildcat, you’re a Wildcat till the end!
Mel shrugs off her varsity jacket and then crouches down before the duffel bag full of varsity jerseys at her feet.
She will slip on her own jersey first. Then she’ll fish out the numbers already claimed by the returning players and hand those out. Last of all, she’ll call forth each new Wildcat to choose a number from the jerseys that are left. Practical, efficient. Though, if it were Phoebe, she’d take them out with flair and reverence, like when Rafiki lifts up baby Simba and presents him to the pride.
Mel pulls back the zipper and bites her lip.
The varsity jerseys are made of heavy-weight polyester. They are white, slightly boxy, with short sleeves. Short sleeves are good for September games, when it’s still hot out, but by mid-October, the girls will layer long-sleeved shirts underneath their jerseys to keep warm. Their jerseys have navy numbers stitched to the back, “West Essex” stitched across the chest.
But what Mel finds in the duffel bag are a tangle of their practice pinnies. The ones Coach hands out for scrimmages. Flimsy mesh tanks in blue and white, damp and slightly musty. Mel doubts they’ve been washed once all week.
Mel is so suddenly dizzy she sets her hands down on the turf to steady herself.
Phoebe is waving her sparkler, singing, smiling. Mel catches her attention with a pained stare.
“Everything okay?” Phoebe says, stepping into the circle and crouching next to her, careful to hold her sparkler off to the side. Mel doesn’t have to answer. Phoebe sees for herself that there are no Wildcat jerseys in the duffel bag. “What the …”
Her teammates slow the fight song down to an eerie tempo. Mel glances up at them, and they immediately pick up the speed again, pretending not to see that something weird is happening.
“Sorry, girls. Just one second,” Mel announces, her voice high and sharp. She quickly zips the bag closed and walks out of the circle.
“Is everything okay, Mel?” Luci bites on the side of her finger, one foot on top of the other.
“Yup!” Mel says, without slowing down, feeling their eyes on her back.
“This is weird,” Phoebe whispers, at her side. “Is Coach saying we haven’t made the team yet? That we could still be cut?” Phoebe gasps and grabs Mel’s arm, pulling her to a stop. “Oh my God, Mel. Remember Becks?”
“Huh?”
“Becks Altiero!”
“Phoebe! I know who you mean!” Phoebe and Mel were sophomores when Becca, aka Becks, Altiero was a senior with long brown hair, blunt cut bangs, and a little gap between her front teeth. Becks was sweet as sugar in real life, but on the field, she was notoriously salty, something the girls attributed to having grown up the only girl sandwiched between four brothers. Not only did Becks have a mouth on her—and the uncanny ability to curse out a ref without him ever hearing—but she loved to showboat. Every time she scored a goal, Becks would bust out a celebratory dance move on her way to retrieve the ball. A twerk, a shimmy, a worm. You never knew what it was going to be. Her victory dances weren’t so much a way to annoy the opposing team (though they did) but an expression of Becks’ joy in playing the game. “What I don’t get is why you’re bringing her up now.”
“Don’t you remember? How Coach benched her for the last half of the season?”
“Vaguely? I thought Becks was having a dry spell.”
“No. It all started at one of our practices. Coach was demoing a defensive ball handling skill, and he picked Becks to stand in on offense. Except Becks wouldn’t let him steal the ball. She kept pulling it away from him and teasing him about it. At first Coach was laughing, but then he got hella pissed.”
“How do I not remember any of this?”
“I have no idea. But at the very next game, Coach benched her. And then the game after that, too. I think Becks even tried to apologize, but Coach pretended like he didn’t know what she was talking about.”
“Maybe Coach didn’t know what she was talking about.” Mel certainly doesn’t. “Anyway, that’s, like, an entirely different situation. None of us are trying to flex on him.”
“Yeah. That’s true.”
“It has to be a mistake.” They’d had a straightforward conversation. Yes, he’d hesitated. Yes, he’d wanted Mel to let him in on their secret Psych-Up traditions. But when it came down