Scoring Grades by Nick Wilson-Thayer
The soccer ball was flying towards me, and I wasn't thinking about anything. My mind was completely blank, the ball was going in slow motion, and BAM!!! I kicked the soccer ball so hard the goalie had no chance... IT WENT IN!!!! The game winning goal goes to Isaac Rothman!!! I felt every hand touching me as I got hoisted up in the air. Sitting on my teammates’ shoulders I woke up to see that I was not hoisted up in the air, I didn’t score the winning goal, and most of all I’M NOT ON THE SOCCER TEAM!!!!!!!!!! UGGGHHHH!!! Me and my stupid dreams again. Who was I kidding, I’m never going to be on the soccer team. I rolled out of bed still in my PJ’s and slowly walked downstairs. “Hey honey,” my mom said as I just reached the bottom of the stairs. “How did you sleep?” “Awesome!” I said sarcastically. I sluggishly walked to the cereal cabinet and pulled out the cinnamon toast crunch. I grabbed the wet Lactaid milk I use for my lactose intolerant problems and walked towards the table like a zombie. “Hey” I abruptly said.“Why can’t I play soccer again?” “ If I told you once I told you a million times, you have to get your grades up before you try out for the soccer team,” my mom almost yelled. “Ok, ok,” I whispered. 30 minutes later I was on my scooter ready to go. I whizzed past my friends at the bustop, and said “See you at school,” On my way to school I tripped on my scooter and fell in mud. WOW my day was off to an awesome start. As soon as I walked in history class I knew my day was going to get a little bit better. Mr.K was handing out the history tests today and I knew if I got an A or higher I was allowed to tryout for the soccer team. I didn’t study that hard but I still knew that I was going to get a good score. Mr.K grabbed the set of papers and started handing them out. He handed them out to first Janie, then Hunter, then Joe. And so on, and so on, you probably get the point. And then he finally he came to my desk and said, “Study harder next time...” I didn’t know what he meant. I watched the paper slip on to my desk. I picked up
the thin cloud of awesomeness until I saw what was on my paper... And then it hit me, like a brick on the head, I saw my chances of being on the soccer team slipping away, I pictured myself in my dream being hoisted up in the air. I pictured myself scoring the winning goal. All of it slipping away.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!” “NO, NO,NO! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING. ALL THIS TIME TRAINING, PRACTICING AND HOPING THAT I WOULD JUST GET A GOOD GRADE!!!!!! ALL OF IT JUST A FRAUD!!!!!!!!! I HATE YOU MR.K!!!!!!!” I stormed out of the room, and slammed the door. I didn’t know where I was going to go so I just went home. When I got home my mom asked why I came home so early. I just said we got out early. It was just a simple lie. I went upstairs to my room to cry. When I woke up, it was half past 6:00 and I got out of bed and went downstairs. As soon as I got downstairs my mom burst into yelling. “ I called the school and they said there was no half day.” “ I know Mom” I whispered. “ I lied, its just something at school that I’m not very
proud of.” “Well it’s not an excuse to run away from school and come home and cry,” she yelled. I don’t remember anything else just lying in my bed sleeping waiting for the next day... The next day I knew was going to be better. I could feel it in my blood, I rolled out of bed and stared out my window. the sun was shining and nature looked beautiful. When I went downstairs my mom ran up to me like she had something really important to say “Guess what I have the best idea, We can make FLASHCARDS!!!!!!” “What?!? Flashcards are so lame Mom.” “No. See we can do flashcards and then you write down everything you got wrong and I’ll test you. If you get it right then I’ll give you a bag a candy!” she said excitingly. “I’m in!” I blurted. We worked all day. All night I wrote down everything I got wrong and eventually I got everything right. Maybe because the bag of candy sort of fueled me and made me do my best. The next day was pretty much the same. I got out of bed and sluggishly walked downstairs, got my cereal and 30 minutes later I was on my scooter ready to go. I met my friends at the bus stop as I did every day, I whizzed past them and said “See you at school”. I walked into history class and ran up to Mr.K as fast as I could. “Mr. K, Mr.K”, I yelled. But before I could say anything else he put his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a pink wad of paper, or as I like to call them “The Paper Of Death” (AKA Detention slip), He got a pencil out and wrote, “Disruptive to class and rude to teacher.” He handed it to me and said in the most bland voice ever, “After school, detention.” “Yeah whatever” I said. I was probably going to get another detention for that but I didn’t care at the moment “Mr.K I wanna retake the test, I wanna retake the test!” “Okay, okay” he said trying to calm me. “You can retake the test but you can’t be rude and disruptive if you don’t get the grade you wanted Isaac” “ I promise, I promise” I blurted! My hand trembled as I felt the clean white paper. Suddenly I forgot the answer to #7. “Oh my Gosh,” I thought sadly. “All this time practicing and I forget an answer, Geesh.” I thought. Then I did what everybody else would do. I guessed. I know guessing
isn’t the best way to figure out an answer, but believe me I am an expert guesser. I finished my test and walked up to Mr.K’s desk with pride. All I did until I got my test back was pray. Pray that I got a good enough score to be on the soccer team. I wasn’t listening to any other teacher or any other student or anything. I was focusing on my test score. The next day I ran into the room shining inside. Mr.K was handing out the test scores for the people who retook the test. There I was sitting at my desk looking at Mr.K about to get the grade that would change everything. As he walked up to my desk, I started to sweat.
I felt the smooth clean white paper wash my skin with air when it slid past me. I was focused so much I could see the hair on Mr.K’s hand as he slid the paper on my desk. Everything was in slow-motion and I could see the marker that bled through my paper that wrote my score. I turned the paper over to see that the score that was right in front of my eyes was an A+. “YESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed. My hand pumped up into the air in victory. “YES YES YES!!!!” I yelled. “I WILL NEVER DOUBT YOU AGAIN MR.K!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Mr.K smiled at me as I ran up to him and hugged him. In that moment nothing mattered. I was just hugging Mr.K and then I ran out of the room to put my name on the soccer team tryout list. Ok now I’m really sweating. I was standing on the soccer field right before tryouts. Then the captain of the soccer team came up to me and said, “Good luck wimp”. I have never been bullied before so I rolled my eyes at him and walked to the coach at the middle of the field. There were about 30 people there so I was getting a little nervous. “Ok guys we are first going to get started by some warm up stretches.” I tried to do a split but that epically failed. “No,no,no!” John the coach said as he burst out laughing. My cheeks turned fiery red with embarrassment. “Like this.” He stretched his leg to the left and then to the right. This went on for about 15 minutes. Let’s just skip to the juicy part. The next thing we did was work on some dribbling drills. He demonstrated how we should keep our head up to look for teammates that are open and how we should never dribble the ball too much in front of us because it would make it easy for the opponent to take it away. When it was my turn I dribbled way too much in front of myself and I didn’t look up, all the things he said NOT to do. The next thing we had to do was shooting. Over all shooting is probably my favorite aspect of soccer. I mean what’s not to like? You get to hit the ball as hard as you can right? So he demonstrated again how to do this and how to do that. Honestly all I wanted to do was get on with the tryout. When it came to be my turn I kicked the ball and it went flying and for all I know it is still going to California. “Uh... Good job?” coach John said in a voice trying to say that it was terrible without actually saying that. “Thanks...” I managed to mutter. Well shooting was basically a buzzkill, the thing I liked best about the sport just a buzzkill. The next thing we had to do was defensive drills like shielding the ball with our body to keep the opponent from getting the ball. When we all practiced it in a big semi-circle, the assistant coach Mike came around to try to steal the ball away from us and we had to shield the ball with our body. When he came up to me I was looking up at a cloud and when I looked down to see if my ball was still there it wasn’t. “Man...” I thought. I have got to get more focused if I wanted to get on the soccer team. The next drill we did was passing. The only the thing I don’t really like about passing was the fact that sometimes I can’t reach the person all the way. Passing went pretty well but now it was time to announce the players on the soccer team... I was sweating more than I have ever sweated. You don't need eyes to see that everyone was so nervous. Everyone was panting like dogs after they just ran a 50 mile run, and the
person who was the most nervous, most scared, and most sweating you can obviously guess was me. John started to read off the names that got on the soccer team.
Soccer Team Jacob Hunter (captain) Mason Will Noah Ethan Alex
Daniel Henry Caleb Adam Jack Cameron Isaac
“The rest came really close to making it but they are just not skilled enough.” “YESSSSSSSSSSSSS OH YEAH OH YEAH OH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I started twirling my hands in a circle as a little victory dance. “Don’t celebrate yet kids. You have a long season ahead of you, and you don’t want other people to feel bad.” “Sorry, sorry...” I started to say but I got cut off when a kid started bursting out crying. Great, just great. I came home and told my Mom the unbelievably awesome news. “REALLY!!! wait, stop pulling my leg Isaac. I mean it’s not like I ever doubted you or anything...” I raised one eyebrow “I really made it Mom...” Before I knew it it was the championship game against Sudbury. Then it all came down to this. We were tied in the last minute 5-5. Who was going to score...? Sudbury had the ball. They were on a roll but they were going to be stopped, and I knew who was going to stop them. I ditched my defender and quickly scanned the field to see who had the ball. I ran over to them and stuck my foot out. The ball popped out, and I didn’t hesitate for a split second. I ran to the ball and trapped under my foot. I pelted down the sideline with the ball. I passed it to Hunter and I ran into the box hoping to get a cross.Hunter crossed it, then everything became slow-motion. The soccer ball was flying towards me, I wasn't thinking about anything, my mind was completely blank, the ball was going in slow motion and BAM!!! I kicked the soccer ball so hard the goalie had no chance... IT WENT IN!!!! the game winning goal goes to Isaac Rothman!!! I feel every
hand touching me as I get hoisted up in the air, sitting on my teammates’ shoulders.
I pinch myself to make sure this was not a dream, and sure enough it wasn’t.
THE END