Free Playing With the Boys by Liz Tigelaar

Making this team is extremely difficult. Even the girls who get cut are still head and shoulders above most other high school players.”
     
     
    Lucy’s shoulders hunched forward as she stared at her slip-on Converse sneakers, the cool kind without laces. This wasn’t making her feel any better. She didn’t care about heads or shoulders or other high school players. She cared about her friends back in Toledo. She cared about her old bedroom. She cared about having her name on that list.
     
     
    “Lucy. You were hands down the best kicker on that field—the best female kicker I’ve ever seen.” She took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. “That’s why I have an idea.”
     
     
    The bell rang. It meant Lucy was officially late for bio. “I should go. . . .”
     
     
    “Don’t worry,” Martie said quickly. “I’ll write you a pass. I wanted to talk to you about something else. It’s about the football team.”
     
     
    Lucy’s eyebrows furrowed. She wrinkled her forehead.
     
     
    What did football have to do with anything?
     
     
    “The field goal kicker, Matt, went down with an injury—”
     
     
    “I know,” Lucy interrupted. “I saw. He tore his ACL or something.” She had no idea where Martie was going with this. “What does that have to do with me?”
     
     
    “They’re having a special tryout,” Martie explained. “And I think you should.”
     
     
    “Should what?” asked Lucy.
     
     
    “Try out,” Martie said simply.
     
     
    Lucy’s jaw dropped. “Try out for the boys’ football team? Are you kidding me?”
     
     
    “Think about it. You have a strong leg; your aim is perfect; you can kick the ball, what, thirty yards easy. That’s enough for most field goals.”
     
     
    Field goal? Football? Lucy couldn’t believe what Martie was proposing.
     
     
    “I’m a soccer player,” Lucy pointed out. “Not a football player.”
     
     
    Martie gave her the facts. “Did you know that in the NFL, eight of the top ten kickers were soccer players before they became football players?”
     
     
    “Uh-huh . . .” Lucy said, skeptically.
     
     
    “And that coaches have actually adapted how they have their kickers kick the football, so that they kick with the instep, like soccer players, rather than with the toe of their shoe?”
     
     
    “How many of the kickers in the NFL are girls?” Lucy asked.“I’m guessing none, because a girl can’t be on a boys’ football team. It doesn’t make any sense.” This was the craziest idea she’d heard since her dad said they were moving across the country.
     
     
    Martie shrugged. “A lot of things don’t make sense the first time you hear them. You know, like twice-baked potatoes or jumbo shrimp .”
     
     
    “Huh?” Lucy had no idea what Martie was talking about.
     
     
    “Never mind,” Martie said quickly. “Just know that girls all over the country are doing this. Even in college.”
     
     
    “They are?” Lucy considered, shocked that she was entertaining this thought for even a second.
     
     
    “Think about it,” Martie urged. “Please. Tryouts are tomorrow after school. Promise me you’ll sleep on it.”
     
     
    Lucy sighed. She wasn’t sure why Martie even cared. She’d left her off the soccer team, which seemed like such an easy, logical fit; now she was trying to force her onto the boys’ team?
     
     
    “Look,” Lucy began, “you don’t have to feel guilty—”
     
     
    Martie interrupted. “It’s not about guilt. It’s about putting you where you belong.”
     
     
    Where I belong, Lucy thought . Try back home, in Toledo, with Annie and everyone else—certainly not on a boys’ football team! Lucy couldn’t think of anywhere she’d fit in less. Maybe a men’s prison? Or a convent. . . .
     
     
    “I know it’s hard,” Martie continued. “New friends, a new school . . . but sometimes where you think you’ll fit in the least is where you may fit in the most. Really, Lucy,