Field hockey! Field hockey was fine, but it wasn’t what I was training for.
Dad had already talked to the coach?
I flipped the envelope over and checked the postmark. This envelope had come a week ago! He’d already talked to the field hockey coach about me! I whirled around on Dad. “You never thought I was good enough! You never thought I could do it!”
I ran out of the house, furious. I wanted to talk to Peter, the only one left I could trust. When I got to his house, his mother told me he had gone to the rec center, so I headed there.
I found him shooting the soccer ball into the makeshift goals some guys had set up in the field. A little way off, Kate Dorset and her cheerleading crowd were practicing cheers. I noticed Jena was with them. Since when had she wanted to be a cheerleader? I supposed she needed new friends since I had more or less abandoned her for soccer practice.
“Hey,” Peter said when he noticed me heading toward him.
“The board turned me down,” I told him angrily. “My dad wants me to play field hockey. This is unbelievable!”
“Yeah, that stinks,” he said dully. There was something in his voice that was off, as though he was only half paying attention to me.
He was looking over my shoulder. I turned to see Kyle pulling up in a car with his pals Joe, Craig, and Ben, all of them on the soccer team.
Kyle’s glance darted my way for a second, but he made a conspicuous show of ignoring me. “Peter? You coming?” he called. “We only have the field for an hour.”
Peter looked at me apologetically. “I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah, you’d better,” I sneered bitterly. So much for his being the one person I could count on. “I know you’re still hoping Kyle’s going to offer you a spot,” I shouted after Peter as he headed toward Kyle’s car. “I know you’ve only been training with me to improve your own game, right?”
He turned to say something to me, but then changed his mind and got into the backseat of Kyle’s car. I had never felt more miserable and alone than I did right then. Everything had disappeared in a single morning.
As I trudged back across the field, Kate saw me and called out. “Hey, Gracie, want to go out for cheerleading? Oops! Sorry. Only girls can be cheerleaders.” All around her, her friends laughed hysterically and no one laughed louder than Jena.
It wasn’t my imagination. I truly did not have a friend in the world.
Fourteen
That night I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling trying to make sense of everything that had happened. What had Dad thought he was doing all these weeks? What had he thought I was doing?
Was it a joke to him?
Deep down I knew it wasn’t. He’d probably thought he was spending time with me even if it was all going to come to nothing in the end. It wasn’t the worst thing a father could do, I supposed.
I wasn’t ready to forgive him, though. He’d lied to me! He’d never believed in me at all!
I was so confused. Maybe what I wanted simply wasn’t possible, and that was the reason girls didn’t do it. Everyone on earth was aware of this but me, apparently. So what did that make me—some kind of idiot?
That had to be the answer. I was just plain stupid! I had believed that Dad had faith in me. I thought Peter was really my friend. I’d actually seriously thought that I could play on the boys’ soccer team.
The only one who had been straight with me all along had been Mom. She told me that not everything is possible, but I thought she was the stupid one. I knew better. Well, ha-ha. The laugh was on me. Poor old deluded Mom had known what was what after all. Girls just had to accept the crummy situation that was their lot in life.
With a light knock, Mom came into my room, holding the letter from the School Board. She might have been right, but I was in no mood to hear her tell me so. Turning away from her, I snapped, “Happy?”
She sat on a chair near my bed and didn’t speak for a moment. “This isn’t you,” she said finally, “sitting here when you could be fighting back.”
What? It wasn’t what I’d expected her to say, not at all. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t do anything, just lay there not moving.
“Soccer tryouts are Saturday,” she went on. “Do you want to be there or not?”
Slowly, I rolled over toward her. “But you don’t want me playing,” I reminded her.
“No,” she admitted, as though she was realizing it for the first time, “but this isn’t my choice.”
We looked at each other. Something big was happening between us but it was happening very quietly. She was saying that I could want something that she didn’t want for me—and she would respect my choice. It was major and we both knew it. But we didn’t know what to say or do about it.
Mom got up to leave, and then turned back. “Know what I wanted to be?” she asked.
“What?” I asked. It was odd to think of her as having ever wanted to be anything other than our mother or a nurse.
“A surgeon,” Mom said.
“You?” I asked with a laugh of disbelief.
Mom laughed, too, but there was sadness in it. Not exactly sadness, more like longing. It made me immediately sorry I’d laughed at her because in that moment I could see it was something that still mattered to her, a disappointment that hadn’t entirely gone away. She still wished she’d become a surgeon. How strange that I could know her all my life and not know something like that about her.
“Yes, me,” she said, sitting back down. “So now I’m a nurse because it’s as close as I could get.”
What was she saying to me? I wasn’t sure.
“If you want to limit yourself, fine,” she said. “But don’t let other people do it for you.” She kissed my forehead and left me there to think about what she’d said.
There were wide steps and pillars in front of the Union City Board of Education building. It was imposing, to say the least.
I’d dressed neatly in the kind of outfit I’d wear to church. In my shoulder bag was the letter I’d received. It was signed from a person named C. Bowsher. It was C. Bowsher who had said I couldn’t play on the boys’ soccer team, and C. Bowsher was the one I now had to convince to change his mind.
I was terrified. C. Bowsher was only a person, but he was a grown-up, official person with the power to keep me from doing the thing I loved.
Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I headed up those big steps into the dark, quiet, solemn building. There were lots of closed doors and no one around to ask for directions. I felt as though I was walking through quiet halls for a long time, but finally I came to a door with the words “Chairman Bowsher” typed on a card next to the door.
When I opened the door, there were two secretaries dressed in suits at the desk. The older one stood behind the younger one reading something the younger one was typing. “Excuse me,” I said, and my voice quivered. “I’m here to see C. Bowsher.”
“You are?” the younger secretary inquired.
At that moment I knew I should have called to make an appointment, but I’d been scared that Chairman Bowsher wouldn’t see me. I’d hoped that if I simply showed up, it would be harder to turn me away, that somehow I could make C. Bowsher listen to me. “I really need to see him,” I pleaded.
“Her,” the two secretaries corrected me at the same time.
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone in such a high position could be a woman. The shocked look on my face must have been comical because both of them smiled.
“I’m Connie Bowsher,” said the older of the two women, apparently not a secretary, as I’d assumed.
I didn’t want to be overly optimistic, but this was an encouraging development. Instead of some stuffy old man in a suit, at least I’d be talking to a woman. As a woman in a powerful position, she must have had to face attitudes about a woman’s limits all the time. Unintentional slights like a teenaged girl assuming she must be a man, I thought, embarrassed.
&nbs
p; I took the letter from my bag and handed it to her. “Can we discuss this?” I asked.
Connie Bowsher invited me into her office. She listened intently while I told her how much soccer meant to me, how hard I’d trained, how I was sure I could play alongside the boys without a problem. “Sure” might not have been the entirely accurate word, but I was trying to be as persuasive as possible.
She wanted to know what had made me feel so strongly about soccer. I told her about my family’s devotion to the game and Dad’s college background. I hesitated a moment before telling her about Johnny’s influence. It wasn’t easy to speak to a stranger about something so personal, but she had a kind face and seemed genuinely interested.
We spoke for nearly an hour. She said I had convinced her, but she couldn’t make a decision like this on her own. I would have to file an appeal with the School Board. “Our last meeting for the month is tomorrow,” she told me, coming out from behind her desk and walking me to the door. “If you can get me an appeal before five, I’ll present it to them.”
I smiled till my face hurt. What luck that Mrs. Bowsher turned out to be such a nice woman!
“I can’t promise you anything,” she cautioned.
I told her that I understood and thanked her for her time. I nearly danced out of the building, feeling so hopeful. And not only hopeful but proud of myself that I hadn’t simply accepted what the letter had to say.
My good mood disappeared as soon as I got outside and saw Dad standing at the bottom of the steps. He was not the person I wanted to see right then, when I was so elated by my accomplishment. Why did he have to come to ruin everything?
He misread my scowling face as I walked down the steps. “Couldn’t change their minds?” he asked.
That’s what he assumed, naturally! Gracie would once again fail!
I shook my head and delivered the shocking news: I had actually accomplished what I came here to do.
Almost.
Maybe.
“I have to file an appeal…by tomorrow,” I said, without looking at him.
“Want help?” he offered.
“From you?” I scoffed. “No.”
I had ridden my bike and now I stood at the rack unlocking it. Even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could sense somehow that he was walking toward me. What did he want? I wished he would go away! I had nothing to say to him.
“Gracie,” he began.
I wasn’t ready to listen. Maybe I would never be. I swung my leg onto my bike and rode away, leaving him behind.
Fifteen
I sat at my desk writing, scratching out several thoughts, and then trying again with different words. This appeal had to be the best thing I had ever written in my entire life.
No.
It had to be the best thing the best writer in the world had ever written. And I wasn’t the best writer in the world. In fact, writing wasn’t something I was even that good at. I didn’t have the patience for it.
But it was my last chance. Everything hung on this appeal. It had to be 100 percent convincing.
I tried to remember all the things I’d told Mrs. Bowsher, although I left out the part about Johnny. That wasn’t something I was willing to share with some panel of strangers.
I had done some research in the library and learned something I hoped would support my argument. It was called Title IX and it had been made a law six years earlier, in 1972. I had written down its exact words: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Although it didn’t seem to be talking about sports specifically, I knew that the teams at Columbia High received money from the government and that had to count as federal funding. I decided to mention Title IX at the end of my appeal. I figured it never hurt to have the law on your side and, besides, it sounded cool and official, like I knew what I was talking about.
Something thumped against my bedroom window. It made the hawk squawk anxiously. “It’s okay,” I said, soothing him and feeding him a cracker as I leaned forward to check out the window.
Peter was under my window throwing his soccer ball up to get my attention. What did that traitor want? Not that I cared. I had no time for friends who weren’t really friends.
Pulling down my shade, I turned from the window. It made me shudder to think that I had actually started liking Peter as more than a friend. He was nicer than Kyle, but he wasn’t really all that different. He’d just been using me for his own selfish reasons.
I couldn’t think about him for another second. He’d already wasted too much of the little time I had left to write this appeal.
The hawk made a funny little chirp and I looked at him. I remembered how I’d like to think that Johnny was in him. The idea had comforted me at the time, but now I didn’t think so anymore.
Johnny wasn’t inside the hawk. His spirit would never allow itself to be caged. Johnny was all around me. I could feel him when I played soccer and it was going well. It was as if I could hear his voice coaching me, believing in me, just as he had that day out on the rec center field when he’d believed I could kick that bottle off the post. With Johnny beside me, I’d done it.
Johnny had believed this hawk would fly again, and he’d believed I could play soccer against any boy. He’d bet five dollars that I could.
Sitting at my desk, I crumpled what I’d written before and started with a new idea. I decided I would tell the School Board about Johnny, after all. But I wouldn’t talk about his death. I’d tell them about what I’d learned from him, both on the soccer field and off.
I began to write: In many ways, I’m like the hawk with the broken wing that my brother Johnny rescued last summer. Suddenly writing wasn’t hard at all. Everything in my heart began to flow onto the page.
Mrs. Bowsher called right after her meeting to tell Mom that the Board had agreed to hold a hearing about my case. Dad came to my room to give me the news. I thanked him coolly. As soon as he left, though, I did a dance of joy all around the room.
Once I settled down, I reminded myself that there was still a long way to go. School Board meetings were held in the school auditorium. I had personally never been to one, but Mom had told me that they weren’t that well attended. I sure hoped this one wouldn’t be. I was nervous enough without the whole school staring at me.
Okay, I told myself, take it one step at a time. So far each step I’d taken had been a success. I could only hope the next one would be successful, too.
When I saw how well attended my particular School Board meeting was (during summer session, no less), it was pretty obvious that word had gotten out. The auditorium was packed with both students and parents. You would think I was asking to commit a federal crime instead of simply wanting to play a sport.
My whole family came. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about that. I was still trying to avoid Dad, and my brothers weren’t exactly on my list of favorites either. I now suspected they’d been in on the Gracie-can’t-really-do-this but-let’s-make-her-feel-good aspect of my training. I knew, logically, that I couldn’t really blame them. They meant well, but my feelings were still so hurt and I so resented their lack of faith that it was impossible to let my head rule my heart.
I was happy Mom came. At least I was sure one person there truly thought I should be fighting this.
The only other ally I was sure of was Mrs. Bowsher. She smiled warmly at me as I walked into the crowded auditorium and took a seat with my family in the front row. She sat at the center of a long table on the stage, flanked by six other School Board members, all men. A glance at them told me that they had copies of my appeal on the table in front of them.
There was a pretty impressive bunch of people who had come out to hear me make my appeal. Coach Colasanti was sitting onstage with the Board. So were Principal Enright and Mr. Clark. Coach Conners, the gym teac
her who ran the girls’ sports program at school, was also with them.
The members of the Varsity soccer team and their parents had come out. I figured they were there to object. Peter wasn’t among them. I wondered if he had come over the other evening to warn me. If so, I was glad I hadn’t spoken to him. Knowing they planned to be here would have made me sick with anxiety.
Kate Dorset and the entire cheerleading squad were there, too, including Jena, who I guess was planning on becoming a cheerleader in the fall. I couldn’t imagine what reason they had to attend, except that wherever the soccer team went, they followed. Maybe they were there to protest the outrage of possibly having to cheer for another girl. What a concept!
Mrs. Bowsher called the meeting to order. I wasn’t the only subject they had to talk about, but she put me first on the list and invited me to come to a table that was set up in front of the stage. A microphone had been set up, and I had to speak into it.
“Hello, my name is Grace Bowen and I am here to appeal a decision by the School Board ruling that I cannot play soccer on the boys’ team because I am a girl,” I began. I had never spoken into a microphone before, and at first I couldn’t get used to the sound of my own voice booming in my ears. I realized I sounded higher than usual and quivery because I was nervous.
Once again, it was as though Johnny were beside me. I could almost hear him whisper in my ear: See the target? Don’t look at the target. Keep your eye on the ball.
The target was the School Board. The ball was my appeal. And just as I had that day at the rec center, I needed to block out everything else around me and focus on delivering my appeal so that it would hit the target.
As I began reading the appeal, my voice grew increasingly steady. Even though the appeal was only two pages long, it felt as if it took forever to read. Then I came to the part I’d written about Title IX, and I knew I was almost to the end. “And finally,” I read, “Title Nine, the federal mandate, requires equal access to sports for girls.” I looked up at the Board. “Thank you.”