Read Online Shutout by Brendan Halpin - Free Book Online Page A

goal. We were up 2–0 at the end of the first half, and I felt great.
    And then, in the second half, our offense collapsed, or else their offense woke up, but in any case, pretty much the whole half was played on our side of the field, and the shots just kept coming. My caffeine buzz from the gross orange drink was starting to wear off in a major way, and I felt a little sluggish. Even so, I managed to make four saves, including one penalty shot after Marcia got called for a totally unintentional handball in the box.
    So any game where you stop a penalty shot is a good one, right? Well, it would have been except that I let in two goals in between my four saves, and I guess I lost a step or something by the end of the game, because we lost when the other team got this incredibly cheap goal on a weak shot that came limping out of a crowd of players in front of the goal. I should have seen it sooner, and even seeing it late, I should have been able to get to it. And might have if I’d been more awake.
    When the game ended, I sat in the goal with my head in my hands. I couldn’t sleep at least partly because I was nervous about soccer, and the lack of sleep that came from being nervous about soccer had made me suck at soccer. It was like stuff just kept piling on.
    I had really wanted to prove that a mistake had beenmade, that I belonged on varsity. Not that I thought they’d move me up, but I wanted Geezer to see how good I was and know that she’d screwed up. Instead, all I’d done was confirm her belief that I wasn’t ready for varsity.
    Well, the good news was that Geezer hadn’t watched our game anyway. “Amanda,” Beasley commanded, “get up and congratulate the other team.”
    This was always the worst part about losing—like it wasn’t bad enough to get beaten, you had to go up to the people who’d made you look stupid and
thank them
for it.
    I could tell from the look on Beasley’s face that I’d hear a speech about how I’d be cooling my aching heels on the bench if I couldn’t conduct myself like a good sport, so I got up, got in line, and slapped the hand of every girl on the other team, muttering, “Good game,” even to the girl whose penalty shot I’d stopped, who greeted me with a friendly “You suck.”
    Still stinking of sweat and failure, we dutifully trooped into the bleachers with Beasley to cheer on varsity. I didn’t want to look like too much of a brownnoser, but I had actually brought a notebook and a pen in my soccer bag. I looked around to see if anybody else was taking notes. They weren’t, so the notebook and pen stayed in my bag.
    We cheered for the varsity. I know this is bad, but I did enjoy the fact that the varsity goalie had a worse game than I did. By halftime it was tied 2–2, but really they should have been up 2–0, because both of the other team’s goals were cheapies that could and should have been stopped.
    Lena hadn’t started, but they brought her in for the second half and she set the team on fire. I was proud to be herbest friend. You could see the hate in the other team’s eyes, because they had been paying attention to Courtney the whole first half and ignoring the wing, and now every time they turned around, Lena was streaking up the wing and crossing to Courtney in the center. They couldn’t take the ball from her and they couldn’t catch her—all they could hope to do was intercept the cross or stop the shot. (Which they actually could do from time to time because their goalie, unlike ours, could actually play.)
    The final score was 5–4. We cheered our lungs out, and it was fun, though it didn’t do much to take the sting out of our own humiliating defeat. It was also sort of painful to me, because I knew that, even with the horrible game I’d had, the margin of victory would have been bigger if I’d been in the goal. It was great