Free Saving the Team by Alex Morgan Page A

The Panthers are gonna stomp on you!” Then everyone in the stands stomped twice, and the crowd cheered wildly.
    Our cheering section, over in the away-team bleachers, looked kind of pathetic. Mom, Dad, and Maisie were cheering us on. I noticed Maisie was triumphantly holding a juice box in her hand. Emma’s immediate family was there, along with a lot of uncles, cousins, and aunts, but all the Kims and their friends couldn’t compare to the number of people crammed onto the bursting Pinewood side of the stands. I was continuing to scan the Kicks’ cheering section, looking for Steven, when I felt Jessi nudge me in the side with her elbow. Of course she’d wanted the lowdown on the note as soon as class was over, so I had told her everything.
    â€œIs that Cody with Steven?” she whispered loudly.
    I spotted not only Steven and Cody but the rest of the boys’ soccer team too.
    Steven saw me and raised his hand, waving and smiling. Cody joined him. Jessi and I waved back. But no one else on the boys’ team looked happy to see us.
    â€œTheir coach made them come,” Frida said when she spotted the team. “A couple of the guys are in my Spanish class, and they were complaining about it today. I told them I didn’t want to go either, so they should just shut their traps.” Boy, was she grumpy.
    â€œWell, I guess we’ll just have to show them how awesome we actually are, right?” Jessi said as she lifted her chin and crossed her arms.
    â€œUh, sure,” I said. I thought Jessi’s crush was making her a little goofy. And a little forgetful of how our team had been playing.
    My stomach began to clench up. This time the butterflies brought a rock band with them. Not only did I have Steven’s eyes on me, but also what looked like the eyes of a million Panther fans. And I had to worry about Mirabelle and her lineup, too. I looked over at Zoe, who was standing next to me, nervously chewing on her nails. Her face was pale. She looked like I felt.
    â€œYou okay?” I asked. She barely nodded. I had to cheer her up, and myself, too.
    â€œSock swap!” I yelled. All the seventh graders came running, but once again Mirabelle held the eighth graders back, loudly calling us a “bunch of babies.”
    The seventh graders didn’t care, though. We all stood in a circle, and each of us handed a sock to the person standing on our left. Then we sat down on the grass and put them on the way Jessi had shown us, giggling the entire time. After we were finished, I touched my hand to my pink headband. I was ready to play!
    Just then the cheering intensified and the Pinewood team appeared. The Panthers jogged onto the field in three perfectly straight lines, wearing matching warm-up suits. “They can’t be middle schoolers,” I said. I flashed back to seeing Mirabelle for the first time, how intimidating she’d looked. The Pinewood team was like a pack of Mirabelles, a team of Amazons. No wonder she was friends with them. She fit right in.
    â€œDevin, let’s go,” Mirabelle called to me. It was the captain’s meeting at midfield. I rushed to catch up with her long strides. Three of the Panthers approached, all of them holding hands in solidarity. When Mirabelle saw that, she slowed down to grab my hand too. “Smile,” she whispered to me. Grudgingly I made myself put on a small smile. She is so fake, I thought as her hand clamped down on mine like a steel trap.
    â€œPinewood, call heads or tails,” the referee said, a coin in one hand and a ball tucked underneath his other arm.
    â€œHeads,” one of the Panthers captains said. Their uniforms were so pretty. All white with purple stripes running down the side. It looked like their uniforms had gold flecks on them too. Our blue away uniforms suddenly feltlike trash bags, especially mine, with its masking tape on the back.
    The coin came up tails. “We’ll defend