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But not as uncoer’s back

We are a tightly for shirts, shoulders into shoulders, and hips into hips Quinn says that in a ht people, and then the ball will get rolled down theShe briefed me on a lot of these rules on the way over, but when she said I’d be tackling people, she failed to eness of the people I’m meant to tackle

Behind me, another player puts her head down and ja She grasps a fistful of my T-shirt with one hand

"All set?" Quinn asks

"Uure it out" She starts jogging backward to the sidelines, where she grabs a ball "All right, let’s do this thing!"

Seconds later she’s rolling it between the two halves of the scru forward I have to scrarass tries to slip out fro, another rapid forward lurch, and so kind of collapses and dissolves at the same time, and I just stand there, dazed, as everyone else on the field runs away

"It’s your ball, Caroline!" Quinn shouts "Follow it!"

I spend the next half hour feeling like a very du, Hey, wait up!

Since I have two older sisters, this is, at least, a role I’et rid of it as fast as possible I a tackled Tackling also scares ht atto take her down, but then when the rab ineffectually at her shirt Because I suck

Still, it’s kind of fun Right up until the parking lot beside the playing field begins to fill with cars and a van that says Carson College on the side

Carson is a school about twenty-five e wo shorts

It occurs to me that perhaps Quinn made me wear a blue shirt for a reason

And that Quinn is, in fact, a lying liar who lies, and she’s airls who pile out of the van are so er

Also, they have a coach--a real, honest-to-goodness, grown-up faculty-by doesn’t even have proper shirts It’s just a club whose membership seems to consista few over

Whereas the members of the Carson team look like they ate rare beefsteak for breakfast The coach has a e but has a whistle and a clipboard and therefore looks farto think of a good reason to beg off

I have to study

Las Elsewhere

Right

I lacefor inspiration

But I find so else there instead

I find that it’s a perfect November day in Iowa

The sky is so blue, it hurts

The wind feels good onwith our players, Quinn’s talking to their coach, and everyone seems so happy

I have nowhere else I’m supposed to be today, and I realize suddenly that there’s nowhere else I want to be

I like this

I try to re co I liked--and I think of West at the bakery, his backward black hat and his white apron

I’d like to send hiby with Quinn, but instead I turn around and jog toward her so I can ask her to give me a better idea of what on earth it is I’et real

Half an hour later, Quinn is reat?" fro our asses kicked by the Carson tea at least 80 percent of the time

"It’s awesoh on hoesoood it feels to run, how solid the ball is when I catch it, how firet hit by a truck

Okay, fine, the truck is a person But she feels like a truck, and she knocks all the air out ofto breathe with these air bags that completely refuse to work I bend my knees and lift my hips up for reasons that are unclear toto mate with the sky, but it doesn’texciting happens, and no one’s paying attention to my death

A dark shape blocks ot the wind knocked out of you"

I’rateful, I could kiss hih