chapter 4

I hate this

I should have never entered the competition.

I could dance and sit pretty if they wanted me to, I could even make up great answers for the journalists. What I could not do was anything that required hand-eye coordination. Or leg-eye coordination. Or simply put: Any type of coordination.

"We will be playing our national sport today, ladies." Gwen announced. The other girls who were from Medora were already on the field, stretching away and talking to people who were walking by to sit on the stand. There were cameras all around the field, which would be capturing our every move, as well as the reaction from the royal family. They had a special little spot on the stand, surrounded by their security team.

The youngest brother looked to be the most excited, He was smiling and laughing towards the cameras until his mother tapped him on the arm, to which he immediately stopped talking and sat down in his seat next to Nathaniel. The princess seemed to be absent yet again,

"The sport is a mix of soccer and handball." Gwen said to us. "The point of the game is to score as many goals as you can. Now might I remind you, that though it is a competition, and winning would put you in a favourable light, it isn't everything. Keep your wits about you and remember that the world is watching."

Everyone took the explanation of 'it's a mix between handball and soccer' as a good way to describe the game. I, however, had never in my life seen a game of handball, and I only knew soccer from PE lessons, where I always made sure to participate the least that I could. Luckily for us, it was a charity contest, so there were some old professional players to help out the team.

"Are you any good at sports?" I asked Tessa as we walked onto the field.

"I ran track in high school, and I was a cheerleader." She answered. "How about you?"

"I, uh, rode my bike to school every day," I replied. "And I was pretty good at skipping PE class."

"Just try not to fall on your face." She said, giving me some solid advice. "Try not to stand out, just... Try to survive."

It was good advice and something that I definitely kept in mind when they made teams. They split us up in four teams. Two would be on the bench until a team scored. The losing team would then be put on the sideline and one of the benched teams would come back in. Eventually, the team that spends most of the time on the field won.

Our team consisted of me, two girls who were from Medora, Tessa and then three old players. The men were very nice to Tessa and I. One in particular was happy to hear Tessa’s sporty background, but his spirits dampened a bit when he heard about mine. 

"We'll try and keep the ball away from Jane." He announced to the team because apparently, he was our team captain. "Just run along with us and pretend to be into it for the cameras. They won't even notice that we don't pass you anything." He slammed his large hand down on the back of one of the other professional players. "He went his entire career without scoring."

This caused everyone to laugh, though I was still absolutely terrified. Sure, his plan sounded like a solid one, but they were basing it off of me being able to run and not fall flat on my face. I could make no promises on that.

At the sound of a loud horn, we all went up to the field. It looked like just a soccer field to me, with two goals on either side of the grass. It had one long bench on the sideline, where the non-competing teams would sit and wait for a goal.

"Even." Our team captain said to the referee. Another team captain also shouted 'even!', which forced the other two teams to be uneven. The referee then threw a dice into the air and watched it fall on the ground.

"Uneven." He announced. Our team captain groaned as though he had just been shot and signed us to sit down on the benches, while the two teams that had said uneven went to their goals.

"Who will be our first goalie?" He asked, looking each and every one of us directly in our eye. 

In the best-case scenario, you put your best goalie in first and stay there throughout the entire competition. But everything depended on the other teams and their performance.

I was so happy when one of the Medoran candidates tripped and fell over the ball, which was closely followed by two girls running into each other and crying like they had been viciously beaten. I at least now knew that I wasn't the only one making a complete fool out of myself.

The first goal happened two minutes into the game. Marissa, who was on the other team, managed to get by one of the professional players and kicked the ball in the goal. As always Marissa was very into it and loudly celebrated while the teams switched. Because we had shouted first, we would be on the field last.

The second goal only took one more minute. A professional player had gotten the ball under his arm like in a game of rugby and charged down the field. Most girls were smart enough to realize that standing in front of an angry bull wasn't a smart thing to do, and hurried out of the way.

My heart was beating at an insane rhythm when I walked onto the field. I did what the team captain, whose name was Brian, told me to and kept to his right flank. He shot with his right leg, so it would be easier to explain why I did not receive any balls the entire round.

The royal family was watching the new team with interest. I felt nervous knowing that they were watching, as well as the people online, but I at least comforted myself with the thought that they were probably looking at Tessa, rather than me. She gave me a reassuring thumbs-up, we had decided that she would be the goalie first, which I returned with a nervous smile.

To make my nerves far worse, I hadn't even thought of the stadium itself. Sure, there were many people here already, but to make matters worse they had a giant screen on the other side of the field, that captured our reactions and made it twenty times bigger. I could see my own nervous smile played back to me before it returned to the other team.

Marissa and the bull seemed to be getting along great. Brian had told us that that man, whose name was Eric, was a fierce competitor. But because we were new in the field we got the ball. And the game began.

Brian was swift with the ball but seemed to prefer football over handball. He kept it to himself until he was surrounded by the opposing team, where he kicked it to one of the Medoran girls on our team. Her name was Dominica, and she looked like she could be one of the former athletes, rather than our competition.

Dominica got far with the ball, until Marissa hooked her ankle, causing her to fall, and grabbed it with both hands. Brian told us that tackles were allowed when the ball was in the player's hand, and I could not wait to see Marissa get tackled.

She did not get past Tessa, who like me wanted to see Marissa fall on her face for once. Tessa however for some dumb ass reason threw the ball to me. I didn't manage to catch it, but I was closer than anyone else.

Okay. I can do this.

I gave it a small tap and managed to steer it over to Brian, who gave it one hell of a kick that caused it to land in the top corner of the opposing team's goal. Our entire team was ecstatic, and Brian rushed over to me.

"We're gonna use you more often." He quickly said to, giving me a high five that sort of turned into him holding onto my hand for a few moments. "You give me more of those passes and we win sweetheart."

Oh. Oh no. Oh no no no, they think I can actually do it now! I have made a huge mistake!

The team that got eliminated first came back with a vengeance, playing far more aggressively than they had done so before. Aggressive did not always mean better, however, and we were able to stop most of their attacks.

Like we had done so before, Tessa managed to stop an attack from the goal, and threw the ball to me, I gave the ball a smaller kick to start rolling further, because Brian wasn't exactly next to me this time, and ran after it, so I could pass it to him.

He seemingly came out of nowhere. One of the old players charged for me and threw me down to the ground harshly with his shoulder. The wind was completely knocked out of me as my back painfully made contact with the grass and the hard dirt that laid underneath.

For a moment I thought I couldn't breathe. When I was little I had fallen like this once and I couldn't breathe then either. The familiar panic washed over me until I took a deep breath and realized that everything was fine.

I heard angry voices yelling at the referee and at the player who had tackled me. Brian held out his hand and pulled me back on my feet.  "You okay?" He asked me, looking me over.

"I'm fine, I think." I answered, rubbing my hand over the sore spot on the back of my head. I could see half of the royal family on their feet in the stance, especially prince Sebastian seemed to be angry. I had done it, I stood out.