As soon as Zach and Zoe’s teacher, Ms. Moriarty, had announced she was starting an after-school lacrosse club, the Walker twins were the first to sign up.
“I didn’t know you two liked lacrosse,” Ms. Moriarty said, surprised. She’d been a star player in college and had always wanted to coach. Now was her chance to do it at Middletown Elementary.
“We’ve been waiting for a chance to play on a team,” Zoe said.
Zach nodded. “We’ve even got our own sticks.”
“I always knew you two loved sports,” Ms. Moriarty said. “I guess I just never asked if you loved mine.”
“You might not know it,” Zoe said, “but our dad is a huge lacrosse fan. On weekends he takes us to games at Middletown High School. He said if he didn’t play basketball when he was growing up, he would have definitely tried out for the lacrosse team as an attackman.”
“We called them attackers when I played,” Ms. Moriarty said. “And no, I didn’t know that about your dad. Everybody around here just knows him for basketball.”
Their dad, Danny Walker, was the best basket-ball player ever to come out of Middletown. When he was twelve, he’d taken his travel team all the way to the national championship for seventh-graders. After that, he became a star point guard in both high school and college.Despite his small size, he made it all the way to the NBA. Now he worked as a sports reporter on television, covering the kinds of great athletes he’d once been himself.
“Dad says that a lot of what he loves about basketball and soccer also applies to lacrosse,” Zach said.
Like his kids, Danny Walker had played all kinds of sports growing up. Now, because of his job as a reporter, he had to know everything about all of them.
“He always wanted to play the X attackman position,” Zoe mentioned.
Zach grinned at his twin sister. “I think he likes it because it sounds like one of the superheroes in X-Men,” he said.
“Well, he does sort of play like a superhero when he practices with us in the backyard,” Zoe said. “We’ve played so much out there, it feels like we’re already on a team.”
Ms. Moriarty smiled. “And now that we’ll have a lacrosse team of our own, I’ll take all the help I can get from you two.”
Usually there were ten players to a side in lacrosse. But Ms. Moriarty decided that, as the third-graders were playing for the first time, it would be best to start out with eight. The elementary schools they’d be playing against all had eight players, too. And, as it turned out, exactly eight third-graders signed up for the lacrosse club at Middletown: Zach and Zoe, Lily, Kari, Mateo, Malik, Jimmy, and a new kid, Oliver. Oliver had just moved to Middletown from San Francisco, where he had played for an All-Star lacrosse team.
Zach and Zoe suggested they call their team the Middletown Warriors, and everyone agreed. It was a name with special meaning for the Walker family. Not only had the twins used it for their league basketball team, but Grandpa Richie had also played for a Warriors team when he was young.
Their first practice took place that Monday. Everyone was excited to get started, especially Zach and Zoe. Because Zach, Zoe, and Oliver were already familiar with the game, Ms. Moriarty let them toss around a ball while she explained the basics to the others. Mateo, who’d never picked up a lacrosse stick in his life, volunteered to play goalie. After a few drills and some helpful tips from Ms. Moriarty, Mateo had shown good instincts in the space around the goal net called the crease. She agreed to let him stay at goal.
“Hey,” Mateo said after practice ended for the day, “I never knew lacrosse could be so much fun!”
All eight team members looked forward to playing together during the week. Zach and Zoe were interested in using what they knew about other sports and applying it to lacrosse. Just like their dad said.
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Lupica. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
