Excerpt: Sophie Washington: Mismatch

Chapter 1

Tryouts

I’m trying out for the tennis team with my friends, and I feel like I’m on my way to get a flu shot. This is my first time playing on an actual sports team, and I’m as jittery as a bucking bronco before the rodeo. 

“You need to move faster, Sophie,” says my best friend Chloe, “or we’ll be late.”

“Yeah, come on,” says my other bestie, Mariama. “You’re moving like your feet are glued to the ground.”

The three of us walk to Xavier’s athletic complex and turn left by the baseball fields. Our private school built the sports center that includes a track, tennis courts, and baseball and soccer fields two years ago, and everything in it is state-of-the-art.

As we push through the metal gate onto the tennis courts, I see the other girls who are trying out. My stomach feels tight, and my hands are so sweaty I almost drop my tennis racket.

Lindsey, Jacqueline and Kennedy, all eighth graders, talk like they’ve known each other since their Dora the Explorer days.

“This YouTube video is hilarious!” Kennedy says with a giggle as she shows the two other girls her cell phone.

“Let me see.” Lindsey pushes her long blonde bangs out of her eyes to get a better view.

“Hi, guys!” says Chloe as we walk up.

The three older girls don’t say anything, and Kennedy looks us up and down.

Chloe already appears like a tennis pro in her matching pleated, red, and white tennis skirt and top. Her shiny black curls are held back with a cute bow, and she carries a fancy new tennis racket. I’m guessing Mariama’s mom, a sewing expert, made the pretty pink shorts outfit she’s wearing that has interesting zebra print cutouts sewn in. Mariama’s family moved to Houston from Nigeria, Africa, last year, and she loves to wear clothes that show off her culture. I’m sporting our school’s P.E. shorts and tee shirt, and a baseball cap covers my two thick braids.

“Hey! That video must be interesting,” Chloe continues, not noticing the other girls’ cold stares. “Watcha looking at?”

“Something too grown up for a little sixth grader like you,” Kennedy says, breaking the silence. “It’s PG-13.”

“That’s a good one, Ken,” says Jacqueline with a laugh.

If some eighth graders said something like that to me, I’d want to curl into a ball and disappear, but Chloe doesn’t back down a bit.

“Sorry, nobody told us it was National Mean Girl Day,” she says. “Come on, Sophie and Mariama. Let’s wait over there.”

“See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya,” says Kennedy as we head over to the chain link fence that surrounds the tennis courts. The older girls turn back to scrolling through their phones.

“Wonder what her deal is?” I say to my friends.

“She thinks she’s ‘Miss It’ because she’s played tennis since third grade and is really good,” says Mariama. “She was team captain last year.”

“Well, with girls like that on the tennis team, no wonder not many are here for tryouts,” says Chloe.

“Yeah, they sure know how to make you feel unwelcome,” I say.

Most of the other middle school girls run track or play softball, so I heard that Coach Quackenbush lets practically everyone who tries out be on the tennis team. That’s good news for me because I can hit the ball back when it comes directly to my racket, but I’m not going to be bringing home a first-place trophy anytime soon. So far, there’s only us and the eighth graders here, so my chances of actually making the team seem high.

When Chloe suggested we try out, I was excited about playing on my first real sports team with my friends. New players are usually partnered up to play doubles at our school, and I figured I would be matched with either Chloe, Mariama, or our other good friend, Valentina. I even made up a cool, secret handshake that my partner and I can do when we make points.

“Too bad Valentina can’t tryout,” says Mariama. “She’d have told that mean Kennedy a thing or two.”

Someone spilled popcorn on the gym floor during our last home basketball game of the season a couple of weeks ago, just as Valentina, our cheer captain, was doing a front walkover. She slipped and crashed on the floor, spraining her ankle, and she has to wear a medical boot for the next six weeks. Now she can’t try out with us, and our friend group is uneven. If the coach doesn’t pair me with Chloe or Mariama, I’m not sure who I’ll be playing with.

While we wait for Coach Quackenbush to arrive, I notice Mackenzie Clark, another sixth grader, swatting a ball on the ground with her racket on the other end of the tennis courts. She’s wearing ear buds and has her back to us, so she probably didn’t hear what just happened with the eighth graders. 

I’ve never spoken to Mackenzie, because she’s not too friendly. Her skin is a ghostly white, her hair is styled in a short, spiky cut, and dyed a blackish blue color, and she sometimes wears black nail polish. Mackenzie keeps to herself, and she’s always in detention for being late to school or missing class. Her father owns a popular, fast food restaurant that makes really good hamburgers. Since she used to be chubby in elementary school, some of the meaner kids in our class started calling Mackenzie “Big Mac.” Unfortunately for her, the name has stuck even though she’s slimmed down as she’s gotten taller.

“Here comes Coach Quackenbush!” Chloe points out the short, bald man with turned out feet and a beige polo shirt. “Tryouts are just one day. I wonder if we’ll find out who are partners are at the end?”

Holding a clipboard in his hand, the coach waddles over to us with his lips puckered out.

“Welcome to the tennis team, ladies. All right, let’s get started.”

Tonya Duncan Ellis is author of the Amazon Best Selling, Readers’ Favorite “Five Star” rated Sophie Washington children’s book series, geared toward readers ages 8-12 and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI).
www.tonyaduncanellis.com
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