The Tryout

The whistle blew, and twenty kids raced across the field at Riverside Park. Jada stayed where she was. Her cleats felt glued to the grass, and her heart thumped like a drum. All summer she had practiced in her backyard, kicking a ball against the fence until the sun went down. Now Coach Rivera was watching from the sideline with a clipboard, and Jada could not make her legs move.

"Number fourteen!" the coach called. Jada looked down at the paper number pinned to the front of her practice shirt. Fourteen. Her cheeks burned, and a girl in a green headband turned to stare. Jada wanted to run to the parking lot, climb into her mom's car and never come back.

Then she remembered what her big brother, Marcus, had told her at breakfast. "Everybody gets butterflies at tryouts," he had said. "Even the best players feel them, and they play anyway." Jada took a slow, steady breath, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Her hands stopped shaking.

"Here, Coach!" she called, and she jogged out to the coach. The first pass came fast, and it bounced off her shin and rolled away. Jada chased it down, trapped it with her left foot and sent it back across the grass. Her pass was not perfect, but it reached her partner's feet. Coach Rivera wrote something on the clipboard. Jada did not know what it said, but she knew one thing. She was playing.