Free Saving the Team by Alex Morgan Page B

first,” Mirabelle said, without consulting me.
    â€œLet’s have a clean game,” the ref said. “Go ahead and shake hands, girls.”
    We cheerfully exchanged “good lucks,” and as we walked away, Mirabelle said, “I want to win.”
    â€œSure,” I said. We all did.
    â€œNo, you don’t understand. I need to win. Which means Emma can’t play.”
    I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
    Mirabelle stopped too. “You need to tell Coach that Emma won’t play.”
    Why single out Emma? There were lots of reasons our team wasn’t doing well, and it wasn’t fair to Emma to pin all the blame on her. The team needed to work together. It wasn’t one player’s responsibility. Maybe Mirabelle singled Emma out because she’s such good friends with Jessi, I thought. After all, Jessi had warned me that Mirabelle wasn’t nice to any of Jessi’s friends. My stomach knotted up. The butterflies were back, and this time they were doing some Olympic-level gymnastics. Imagining myself standing up to Mirabelle, and actually doing it, were two very different things. As she looked at me with her laserlike eyes, I almost crumbled. But I thought of what my dad had said to me and Emma’s excitement on the bus. I reached deep inside and found my courage.
    I stood up straight and looked Mirabelle dead in the eyes. “No way. Emma is playing. Her entire family is here. And she’s my friend. I won’t take her out of the game,” I insisted.
    â€œShe’s going to make us lose.” Mirabelle was practically shouting.
    â€œWe’re a team!” I shouted back.” How can one person make us lose? We win and lose together.” I held her gaze and didn’t blink. “Emma is playing.”
    â€œFine,” Mirabelle said angrily, stalking away. “You’re in charge of subbing her out when she messes up.”
    I let out a deep breath as I walked back to the rest of the team on the sidelines. I had done it! But it wasn’t over yet. I watched as Mirabelle got ready to assign starting positions, and I was ready to jump in if she left Emma out. All the forwards and defenders were eighth graders, except for Brianna. “Devin, Jessi, Emma. You three can play midfield. All right, let’s go,” Mirabelle said. She had listened to me! Standing up to Mirabelle had worked.
    Once the game started, however, it became clear that Emma was the least of our problems. Pinewood was just too good. After the kickoff one of their players streaked right through the middle of the field untouched. We weren’t even set up yet. Pass. Pass. Score. It was that simple for them.
    Mirabelle got our kickoff and tried to do the same thing. Pinewood’s players were much more disciplined than ours, though, and three of them swarmed her,forcing Mirabelle to kick the ball out of bounds.
    Their ensuing sidelines toss-in cleared a third of the field, the ball soaring right over Emma’s head. The Panthers were there, though, and they scored again. They didn’t just have first-rate facilities and uniforms—their play was first-rate too. Pinewood made us look like a joke.
    â€œJessi!” Mirabelle yelled when she managed to take control of the ball again. Mirabelle voluntarily passing to Jessi? She must have really wanted to win. Jessi was open on the flank, but she wasn’t paying attention to where the last Pinewood defender was. Instead of slowing down to prevent offsides, she sped up.
    The referee blew his whistle. “Offsides!” A scoring chance evaporated.
    Pinewood scored again on a corner kick. 3–0.
    Mirabelle was getting angry. You could see it on her face.
    â€œGet the ball, Devin!” Mirabelle screamed at me. I was trying! I managed to steal a pass. “Go, go, go!” Mirabelle yelled as I charged up the field.
    Where was I supposed to go with it? No one was open, and I was too far back to