Free Archenemy by Patrick Hueller Page B

really freakish. But when I realized I could jump higher than everybody else on the soccer field and hit headers to my teammates, I changed my mind about my calves. I think they’re awesome now—like a superpower. Eva seemed to agree.
    â€œI mean, those things are amazing,” she said.
    â€œI do what I can,” I said.
    We looked at each other for a second, both of us laughing. “I’m glad you missed the bus,” she said.
    â€œYeah?” I asked.
    â€œNow you can play soccer with me instead.”
    â€œIn those?” I pointed to her heels.
    â€œI’ve got my soccer bag.” She gestured to the lumpy, black duffel bag lying in the grass a few feet away. “Mom and Dad want to check out the church down the block soon, but I’m sure they can wait a little while for me. After all,” she said, showing me her best pouty face, “they don’t want their daughter to be the new kid with no friends, do they?” She was already walking over to her soccer bag, her heels sinking. Then she stopped and turned around. “Besides, there’s Skittles’s social life to consider too.”

I
    t’s weird to think that Eva and I might have never become best friends if she hadn’t stopped by the field that day. We might have never spent all summer together, playing soccer and hanging at each other’s houses.
    We might have never become archenemies.
    Really, the more I think about it, the more I wish Eva’s parents had brought her to church like they wanted to. We might have never become best friends, but at least we’d be on speaking terms.
    As it is, we played the first three games of this new season without saying a word to each other—which is pretty incredible, considering we play across from each other on defense. And considering we used to talk nonstop.
    During summer league, we even came up with a code. We told each other all the usual stuff, of course:
Get back!
and
Go left!
and
Line!
and
Man on!
But we also had two phrases of our own.
    Hey-o!
was one of them and meant, “I’m not open, so you shouldn’t even bother looking my way.”
    Whoop!
was the other and meant the opposite: “I’m wide open on the other side of the field if you need any help.”
    We heard an old lady using these phrases on the Fourth of July. She was sitting next to us on a hillside. Every time a new firework exploded across the sky, she’d yell, “Hey-o!” or “Whoop!” at the top of her lungs. She was being completely serious, so it would have been really mean to laugh at her—but that we couldn’t laugh out loud just made it funnier. She yelled other stuff too, such as, “Awesome blossom!” and every time she yelled, she leaned her chair back like she was trying to get a better view of the sky. During the grand finale, she leaned back too far and fell flat on her back. We helped her up and made sure she was okay, then laughed all the way back to Eva’s house. We decided then and there that we were going to find a way to use all the lady’s sayings on the soccer field.
    Unfortunately, we still had a bunch of sayings left to use by the middle of fall when we stopped talking to each other completely.

I
    t’s spring now. We’re playing the fourth game of the season, and Eva and I still haven’t said a single thing to each other. We’re playing Cardinal Creek, who luckily aren’t very good, because Eva and I have been really careless on defense all game. Twice we’ve let a Cardinal Creek player get behind us with only a bad pass bailing us out.
    Coach Berg is having a fit on the sidelines. “Communicate!” he keeps yelling. “Are you trying to cost us a goal?”
    â€œ
Ask Eva!
” I want to shout. After all, she’s the one who stopped talking to me first. But I don’t. I don’t see what good it would do. Coach Berg views the defense as one