Jeff tackled the one with the ball and managed to get it away. The alien was between him and the next arch, so he tried a step over, but he tripped himself and stumbled. The alien laughed and shoved him, knocking him to the ground.
Suzy’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw clenched. That was her brother. More importantly, it was also, as her coach would say, ‘bad sportstmanship’.
Suzy ran forward onto the field. The aliens closest to Jeff were watching him nervously, muttering to each other. They barely registered she was there before she had taken control of the ball and was driving it toward the nearest arch.
It was heavier than she was used to, and smaller, but not by much. Three aliens nearby overcame their surprise and moved to intercept her. Suzy set her jaw and attacked.
Where Jeff’s step over had failed and tripped him up, Suzy’s was perfection. The first of the aliens swung left to meet her and almost tripped over his own feet as she angled suddenly right and flew past him.
The second alien had followed the first too closely, and as he stumbled awkwardly into Suzy’s abrupt charge, she shot the ball through his legs and was past before he could begin to react. Unfortunately, the ball rolled straight to the third alien, who boxed Suzy out, shielding her from the ball.
Suzy made a hard shoulder charge that stretched the limits of what her coach would have called, “good, aggressive play,” but the kid knew what he was doing, controlling the ball with his far foot until the first alien came around, and he could pass it away.
Suzy started to go after it, but the alien passed it back to the bigger group, who were all staring at Suzy. When she made a move to go for the ball, several of them held up a finger and said, “Ri,” warningly, but she thought they didn’t look so angry anymore.
An alien came out of the school and called, “Ju zothz guch nuqu tazth!” Several of them began talking in low tones, heads bent together. They pointed at Jeff, who was dusting off his shorts, then at her. Someone gestured toward the school, then toward the center of town.
One of them – Suzy thought maybe it was a girl because the tie of her shirt was a pretty blue that matched both her bracelet beads and her bright eyes – turned to Suzy and gestured to come over to her. Then she waved to the other kids and said, “Quth xuoqu, ggiqu jushu.” Three kids separated themselves from the group and walked over to the girl.
Defender Number Two, the one through whose legs Suzy had shot the ball, raised a hand and waved the others to him, “Quth xuoqu.” He looked a little sullen.
As three others joined this boy, Suzy gaped. They were splitting into teams! A third alien trotted over with his hand up and shouted, “Xuoqu obuziqu!” To this, the aliens of both teams reacted with an odd sort of a hissing, and several of them made a hand gesture like waving away a fly. One other alien joined this boy, the one who had finally gotten the ball from Suzy.
Suzy was eyeing this two-man team, wondering what their role could be in the game, when the girl with the blue eyes tapped her. Suzy jumped and whirled to stare at the girl, who was smiling at her cautiously. “Equ Shovuy,” she said pointing to herself. “Si thia zchuog Urcyew?”
“Uh...Suzy?” Suzy guessed.
The girl shook her head and shrugged, then pointed to the ball in front of her. “Si thia grib ziggush?”
Suzy grimaced, starting to panic. The girl – Shovuy? – seemed to sense this, and she put a hand on Suzy’s elbow and smiled.
At that moment, Suzy heard Jeff say, “So am I on your guys’ team?” He had walked over to the two-man group, who were shaking their heads and pointing to the other group. Jeff looked a little offended as he joined the other team.
Suzy wondered if she could ask for food now. But then she thought that might go over better if they made friends first, so she turned to her team and pointed to the ball, then to each of the arches in turn, her eyebrows raised. “Do you have to score through each arch in order?” She hoped the tone at least would get her question across.
There followed a few minutes of incomprehensible instruction. The only thing Suzy understood, or thought she understood, was that each teammate, including herself, was assigned to two of the arches on the field, and there was something about passing or not passing to the two-man team.
Then Jeff’s captain yelled something, and the game started.
Once they got going, a few things became obvious. One was that Jeff and Suzy were hopelessly ignorant of the rules, and the game was peppered with shouts of “Ri!” and shaking fingers of disapproval. Thankfully, another thing that became clear was that Suzy could handle a ball.
Several of the aliens were better – Suzy’s captain and both boys from the two-man team, in particular, were fantastic – but Suzy was fast and agile and fierce, and the ball kept finding its way to her. Jeff’s play was less polished, but he seemed to be trying to make up for it with sheer enthusiasm. And sometimes, Suzy thought grudgingly as he managed to kick the ball away from her, it worked.
As she fell into the rhythm of the game, she was surprised to find that through all of her angst, hunger, and exhaustion, she was enjoying herself.
And then, because nothing gold can stay, the game came to an abrupt halt.
A line of warriors stood watching from the side of the field. A line of warriors stood all AROUND the field,
