Kick It

The incident occurred at roughly 8:50 a.m. on August 15 and would be remembered by all the current and future occupants of Dover High School until the red track cracked and the blue turf faded with neglect—and, of course, that would never happen.

At 8:30, everyone began making their way across the turf to the players’ benches, grouchy that Coach Tiki had the varsity team start preseason on August 15 versus August 20, when the JV and freshman teams began training. With that in mind, you can only imagine the moods we were all in: short tempered and irritated over the fact that we had to put our soccer stuff on when the sun was just a hazy ball on the horizon and the rest of the girls who played soccer at DHS were still sleeping.

The turf lay at the bottom of the hill that sloped away from the hulk of a high school I’d been attending for three years now. The custodians kept the sixty-thousand-square-foot area in prime condition, and the blue rectangle’s lines always glowed ferociously white. The giant “DHS” in both end zones remained a brilliant light blue throughout all four seasons, and you could clearly make out the letters when standing in the junior lot a quarter of a mile away.

“Hey, B, I’ll actually pay you to go grab my shin guard for me.” I pointed to where it had fallen next to one of the Porta-Potties on the other side of the field, but Bianca only shook her head and gave me one of her signature heck no looks while simultaneously slathering sunscreen onto her pale arms. I’d been friends with Bianca Carlton (I always called her B) since fourth grade, and I’d yet to see her fair skin any other shade besides white, pink, or red.

The turf’s eight latrines had been baking in the sun all summer long and would remain in a line blocking the field’s only entrance until they were emptied out later in the day. At the moment, they sat stinking like truckloads of rotten-egg casserole, and unfortunately for me, when I’d streaked past them on the way to the players’ benches, my shin guard had fallen from my bag.

“Sam, Jord?”

My friends wrinkled their noses in response.

“Ave, you couldn’t get me to brave the Portas’ stench again for your seasons of GA,” Sam answered, tugging a piece of blue prewrap over her tan forehead and squinting her brown eyes. My friends were constantly trying to trade me their late seasons of Grey’s Anatomy for my copies of one and two, so Sam’s declaration really spoke to the atrocity of the smell.

Sam Minervi and Jordan Ruggero could not have been more opposite if they tried: Sam with Italian beauty (dark eyes, hair, and olive skin) and a boisterous personality; while Jordan had large blue eyes, blonde hair, peach skin, and was the most reserved out of our friend group.

B, Sam, Jord, and I were the youngsters in the group; a year behind our older best friends, Carla Andover, Hannah Kostandos, Megan Jamer, and Ashley Brooks, who I realized then, hadn’t shown up to the turf yet.

I got up and spun a full 360 degrees in an attempt to locate Car, Han, Meg, and Ash, hoping that they might save the day and fetch my shin guard for me, but I didn’t see them among the throngs of girls shoving their feet into soccer socks and cleats.

“Where are they?” Sam asked echoing my thoughts, her voice louder than necessary as usual. By now, our senior friends were the only ones not at the field.

Last night, Jord, Sam, B, and I had decided to leave Ashley’s house and get a good night’s sleep in our own beds, but Meg, Han, and Car had slept over. It wasn’t exactly a secret that all four of them would be starting no matter what, and us juniors had gotten annoyed when they started shoving the whole seniority thing down our throats, telling us they could walk the timed mile if they wanted to (which was obviously not true—Coach Tiki would sooner have them trade their jerseys for crop tops).

That being said, when I spotted Meg’s bright red hair bopping along in the driver’s seat of her ancient beat-up Suzuki Samurai with Han in the front seat and Ash and Car in the back, I nudged Sam’s tan shoulder.

“What the hell do they think they’re doing? I don’t think the janitors care if they’re our best players; they’ll break all of their legs for driving on that road,” B said, glowering at the approaching ’zuki and pulling her mass of brown curls into a poufy topknot.

One of the biggest rules at DHS forbade students from driving on the half-mile road leading up to the turf’s gate. If anyone was caught doing so, they’d find themselves either in a four-hour detention, suspended, or subject to the janitors’ wrath (the last being the worst of the punishments, since all the janitors were basically replicas of the giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk”).

“Doesn’t the ’zuki have a date with the junkyard this afternoon?” Sam asked, squinting at the vehicle and rolling up the short sleeves of her white Nike tee until two identical bunches of material sat like twin, shoulder pads near her neck.

That was right; Meg was finally scrapping her disaster-on-wheels since Mr. Jamer was getting a new car and giving his old Subaru to Meg.

“Yeah, she—oh no.” Suddenly, I realized what my senior friends were up to.

“Oh no, what?” Jordan asked, stretching out on the ground and using my lemon-yellow ball as a pillow for her blonde, Barbie-like head.

“They’re definitely trying to take a senior lap.”

Ten years ago, a group of senior guys had driven their cars down the turf road and had managed to unlock the gates before taking a slow lap around the track. Their story had spread like wildfire, but when the dean questioned the boys about their infamous ride, they simply denied the accusations made against them since there was no proof their glory lap had ever happened. Since then, loads of seniors had snuck onto the track, and everyone who made the drive lay claim to some serious bragging rights. It was kind of an unspoken tradition; I’m sure the staff knew about it, but as long as students didn’t leave a trace behind, the administration turned a blind eye.

“There’s no way they can do it, though. The ’zuki’s small, but not tiny enough to fit in between the gate and the first Porta-Potty in the line,” Jord said as we looked on at the vehicle that was still continuing forward, apparently unperturbed by the blocked gate.

I began tying my cleats then, paying no more attention to my senior friends, since it was obvious that their plan was foiled. Yet when I looked back up, Meg hadn’t turned the car around, and the ’zuki simply sat halted in front of the dark-green latrines. Just then, Nellie, Tamara, Tori, and Bailey, the blonde squad, as my friends and I called them, stepped inside the first four Portas in the row. I gagged; I would have rather licked the ground than enter one of the putrid confinements.

“What’s she doing?” B asked, her sea-green eyes transforming into slits while she pointed at our friends.

The ’zuki had gone reversing back up the hill, but Meg hadn’t turned the car around, even though there was more than enough room to do so. The rest of the varsity team had noticed us looking at the road, and everyone watched with vague interest as the little red car stopped again, now twenty feet from the gate.

“What the—” I started, not believing my eyes. The car had lurched forward all of a sudden, and the ’zuki now zoomed toward the narrow gap in between the turf’s gate and the first Porta-Potty in the line. Later, when asked what she’d been thinking, Meg simply shrugged and admitted that she really hadn’t thought much at all, in the moments before instigating World War III.

“Is she, like, trying to ram her way through?” Jordan gasped, her perfect pink lips a round O.