-3 Door's Down "Life of my Own"
"Come on Koby you're going to make me late!"
"Just a sec Mom, hold on! I can't find my jersey!" As she ran about her room frantically in search of her soccer jersey, Koby Simmons caught a glimpse of her alarm clock. "Almost 3:30? Man, I'm gonna be late too..." she groaned.
"Koby!" The shrill voice of her mother came screaming up the stairs of their small two floor house.
"Yes! Found it!" From underneath a pile of dirty launder, Koby unearthed her missing jersey. It was slightly wrinkled, but she didn't care. At the end of the game it was going to look a lot worse. The blond girl shoved the shirt into her Adidas gym bag and began sprinting down the stairs and out to the car where her mother was waiting.
"Finally," her mother muttered as she put the car into reverse and began backing down the driveway. "Are you sure that you have everything now?"
Nodding with assurance, Koby said, "Positive."
"Then where are your cleats?"
The assured look on Koby's face vanished as her mother spoke. "Oh no..."
Finally, five minutes later, after Koby had located her cleats, water bottle and socks, the car was on its way to Koby's high school, the Richmond School of the Fine Arts. Although the school's main focus was on the more artistic aspects of life, such as painting, music and writing, the sports program was one of the best in the state of Delaware.
"Oh man, I'm so late," Koby moaned as they pulled up to the brand new soccer stadium.
"You're late? I have a meeting in 10 minutes on the other side of Wilmington!" Koby's mother said, aggravated. "So I wouldn't worry about the 5 or so minutes you're late."
As soon as Koby had pulled her bag from the car, her managerial mother sped off quickly for her deathly important meeting.
"Geez, I didn't even get a good luck," Koby muttered as she jogged over to the bench where the rest of her team was waiting to warm up. "Sorry I'm late guys, I couldn't find my jersey..." she apologized breathlessly as she approached them.
"Don't worry," her friend Jane said, moving over so Koby could sit next to her on the bench. "Bill isn't even here yet. Neither is the other team. And the game is an hour away." Bill was their coach who was always ranting about punctuality.
"Oh good," breathed Koby as she tied her long red blond hair back into a tight ponytail. "I was afraid he'd make me run laps or something. I hate running."
"Good thing you're a goalie," one of her teammates cracked.
Smiling, Koby corrected, "Good thing I'm a goalie on JV. The varsity players have to run like, 3 miles every day, even the goalie. Poor Erin. Oops, here comes Bill. Time for me to act responsible like." Koby was the captain of the small junior varsity team and Bill had specifically charged her with the job of warming her teammates up before every game. "Line up guys, we're going to take a lap." Grinning evilly at the groans that surrounded her, she bounced off of the bench and began to jog around the field. "Hurry it up! You're making me look bad," she called behind her.
"We're coming, we're coming," was the collective response from the rest of the team.
So far the game had been a relatively tough one. The Tigers, Koby's team, were facing off against their all time rival, the St. Peter's Spartans. Normally not a lot of people showed up for JV games, but today the stands were packed full of students from both schools, some there to actually watch the JV game, some just getting good seats for the extremely hyped up varsity game, which was directly after the JV game.
The Tigers were currently winning, one goal to nothing, and time was quickly running out on the officials' watches, but Koby didn't let her attention wander. Already she had had to make several astonishing saves to keep the game a shutout. She knew from personal experience that the Spartans would not give up until the final whistle was blown.
If she had let her mind wander, she would have noticed two people that she had never seen before studying her carefully from the chain link fence on the right side of the field. They had only moved at half time, to switch goal sides when the teams switched goals.
She was not the only person who had never seen the two before. Not a single person in the stadium - which was filling rapidly - had ever laid eyes on the two before. They were strangers in a strange land. But one thing set them apart from most strangers.
They had a mission. A mission to find Koby.
With less than 2 minutes to go, Koby realized that there was a problem. The Spartan offense was playing stronger and faster than before, but the Tiger defense was beginning to slow and play sloppily.
"Come on you guys!" she called out to the defense. "The game's almost over! Keep it together!" But the other girls on her team were too tired to play their strongest, and the Spartans were creeping ever closer to the goal. Even though she knew she shouldn't, Koby began to get nervous.
Seconds after her feeling of nervousness hit her, a girl two times her size faked out the last defender and began sprinting towards the goal.
'Oh great, my weak point,' Koby thought bitterly as she set herself up to save the ball. 'I'm no good one on one.'
Staring the approaching opponent in the eye, Koby watched her face carefully for any sign of which direction she would choose to shoot. Often players glanced in the general direction of their planned shot right before shooting, but not this girl. This girl charged head on at the goal, a freight train with no brakes, staring right back at Koby.
'I will not be intimidated,' Koby told herself, although her body was screaming at her to run away. 'Ah geez, what to do, what to do.'
Koby had only split seconds to make her decision. Charge out and meet the girl halfway, dive at her feet and take the ball right out from under her or stand her ground and try to dive onto the ball once the girl had taken her shot.
'Once you commit you don't quit.'
A fraction of a second later, Koby saw her window of opportunity open wide. As she dribbled, the girl was letting the ball drift farther and farther in front of her. 'Oh don't be a chicken, go for it,' Koby ordered her body. 'Charge her.'
Lightening fast she sprinted out of the goalmouth and threw herself at the girl�s feet and onto the ball just as the girl was winding up for her shot. At the same instant Koby's arms wrapped around the ball, the huge girl kicked out and attempted to send the stolen soccer ball flying over Koby's diving body. Fortunately, Koby had snatched the ball out of the path her foot was following. Unfortunately Koby's stomach was now right where the ball had been.
As she pulled the ball into her chest, Koby felt the girl's foot connect squarely with her stomach with amazing force.
"Oof," she grunted as flashes of pain shot up her body and she saw bright lights. As if the foot to the stomach hadn't been bad enough, the girl still had more pain to administer to Koby. Caught off-balance when her foot had connected with a body, the girl tripped and fell over, right on top of Koby. Clinging to the ball for dear life, Koby was crushed beneath the girl two times her size for several agonizing seconds. She could barely breathe with the girl squashing her and the pain from the kick to the stomach. But still, the ball remained her grasp.
Three seconds later, as the girl was standing up, Koby heard the ref blow his whistle three times, signaling the end of the game. Painfully she stood up, gasping for air.
"Are you okay?" asked the girl who had fallen on her.
"Yeah, just winded. You kicked me pretty hard there," Koby gasped as she doubled over clenching her stomach.
"Sorry, good save though."
"Thanks. Great game." Koby reached out to shake her opponent�s hand, and moments after the girl had accepted Koby�s display of sportsmanship, Koby was surrounded by her teammates and coach who were all trying to find out what was wrong. "Just got the wind knocked outta me when she kicked me. And of course she had to fall on top of me and crush me." Still doubled over, Koby finally released the ball and started heading off the field.
"If you stand up straighter you'll be able to breathe easier." Jane was at her side, offering her help.
"Thanks, but I can't for some reason."
"Give it a try."
"Okay." Koby straightened her back up and took a deep breath. "You're right, it does help."
"See, told you so. Listen, I'll see you tomorrow. I can't stay and watch the game because my mom is having a cow about getting home at a reasonable time. Plus I have some major work to do for my English class. But excellent save."
"Thanks." Koby sat down on the bench, massaging her stomach. "You played a great game too. I was about to hit the girl who slide tackled you illegally. She nearly broke your leg!"
"I'm fine, don't worry. You did a good job of controlling yourself though. The way you ran over her to get to the ball was excellent. She went down, hard!"
The two girls laughed together and began packing their equipment away.
"Tell me how the varsity game goes, okay?"
"No problem. My mom is probably going to be at her meeting until midnight. Oh crap!" Koby exclaimed suddenly. "How am I going to get home?"
Jane shrugged. "Ask one of the varsity players for a lift? I dunno. If you're really stuck for a ride just find some way to call me. I'll nag my mom to pick you up. Now I gotta go. I see my mom and she doesn't look too happy."
Koby laughed, her blue eyes sparkling. "Don't worry about me. You better go before your mom decides to make a scene."
"Wouldn't want that!" Jane waved goodbye as she ran over to her mother, her brown hair flying in every direction.
Smiling to herself, Koby went back to removing her cleats, socks and shin guards and started stuffing them into the white gym bag. 'I'm glad I charged that girl,' she thought. 'Nothing ventured nothing gained.' Then she turned her thoughts to how she was going to get home. After all, she didn't know how long her mother was going to be at the meeting. "Guess I should try calling her," Koby muttered to herself as she zipped up the bag. "Hey, does anyone have a cell phone that I can borrow really quick?"
"Here you go." A cell phone was tossed lightly through the air to her open hands by a short haired varsity player. "Stick it in my bag when you're done."
"Thanks Katie." Koby flipped open the phone and dialed her mother's cell phone number. A few rings later her mother picked up.
"Diana Simmons," her voice came from the other end, curt and demanding.
"Hey mom."
Her mother sighed. She sounded quite exasperated. "What is it?"
"Is your meeting over yet?"
"No and from the looks of things it won't be for a couple more hours."
"So don't expect a ride home, eh?"
"Is that what you wanted? You pulled me out of my meeting for that? No, you aren't getting a ride home." Then she hung up, leaving her daughter open mouthed and without a ride.
"Man," Koby muttered as she stuck the cell phone back into Katie's bag, "no ride, no dinner, no one to watch the game with..." Thinking that she should take Jane's advice and ask a varsity player for a ride, she looked around for someone that she knew. Unfortunately all the varsity players were out warming up for their big game.
'Great,' Koby thought glumly. 'I'll have to wait until after the game to ask.' Shoulders slumping, Koby picked up her gym bag and headed for the stands. She was so lost in her thoughts that she walked right into a tall woman with shortly cut blond hair.
Apologizing profusely for not watching where she was going, Koby looked up to see who it was that she had run into and gasped.
Chapter 2
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