Free Heads Up! by Matt Christopher Page A

bathroom, Coach Bradley called, “Take
     Eddie with you, just in case.”
    Edith “Eddie” Sweeny looked up, surprised. But she slid off the bench and joined Amanda.
    “What does he think is going to happen to you?” Eddie grumbled, shaking her head of fiery red hair. “Now I’ll miss theend of the game. Not that I was going to get in again anyway. He always subs Dale in for you instead of me. I don’t know why.
     I think I’d make a pretty good halfback, don’t you?”
    Amanda didn’t know what to say. Eddie was a good player, but she was hot-tempered sometimes. That could come in handy on defense,
     when the team needed someone to battle hard for possession of the ball. But on offense, one needed a cool head. A big part
     of the halfback’s job was helping set up offensive plays. Amanda wasn’t sure Eddie would be any good at that.
    So instead of answering, Amanda ducked into a bathroom stall and pulled off her old shirt. As she struggled into the new shirt,
     she said, “We better hurry and get back to the team to shake hands.”
    When Amanda emerged from the bathroom holding the old shirt, Eddie was frowning. She looked like she was about to saysomething, but didn’t. Instead, she looked at the shirt in Amanda’s hand.
    “Boy, I bet it hurt when you got hit,” she said finally. “Sure hope it doesn’t make you afraid of the ball.”

Chapter 3

    T he girls walked back to the bench in silence. Amanda felt guilty for not having answered Eddie’s question.
    But then again,
she told herself,
my mother always says if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.
    Amanda’s mother arrived shortly after the girls returned. As Amanda expected, her mother looked like she was about to faint.
    “Oh, my poor little girl,” she cried as she crushed Amanda in a bear hug. “I knew this game was dangerous. Why, oh why, won’t you take up ballet like your sister?”

    Amanda rolled her eyes. “Because I don’t like wearing tights and toe shoes, Mom. I like wearing shorts and sneakers. Now let
     go, you’re squeezing the stuffing out of me!”
    “The coach said you collapsed on the field!”
    “I fainted when I saw the blood,” Amanda admitted and instantly wished that she hadn’t.
    “Blood! What blood? Oh, my, there was blood?” Mrs. Caler was getting more and more upset.
    Coach Bradley stepped in.
    “Now, now, Amanda’s fine. She took a hit in the nose, so naturally she got a nosebleed. But the nose stopped bleeding right
     away, and she’s been perfectly fine ever since. Right, Amanda?”
    Mrs. Caler looked from her daughter to the coach and back again. She seemed to be calming down. Then Eddie stepped forward.
    “Here, Amanda, don’t forget your old shirt. Though I don’t guess you’ll be wanting to wear it again on account of how it looks.”
     She shook the shirt out right under Mrs. Caler’s nose.
    Mrs. Caler took one look, made a strangled noise in the back of her throat, and crumpled to the ground.
    “What did you do that for?” Amanda yelled, rushing forward to her mother. She patted her mother’s face gently, like she’d
     seen people do in movies.
    Eddie widened her eyes. “Gee, sorry. Boy, talk about ‘like mother, like daughter’! She passed out even quicker than you did
     when you saw the blood!”
    When Mrs. Caler came to, Coach Bradley insisted on driving her and Amanda home. “Your husband can come back for your car later,”
     he said when Mrs. Caler tried to protest. “Besides, it will give me a chance to convince you that soccer is just as safe as
     ballet.”
    “Hmph,” sniffed Mrs. Caler. She waved a hand at the bloody T-shirt Eddie was still holding. “You’ll never find a ballerina
     wearing something like that!” She wobbled unsteadily to the car.
    Eddie came alongside Amanda. “Your mom seems pretty upset. You don’t think she’d make you quit the team, do you?”
    Amanda looked at Eddie with surprise. “No, she wouldn’t do that. I