Going Places by Fran Hurcomb

emphatically.
    â€œYeah, I’m tired of losing to those little squirts,” added Daisy. “You know, I think we really could beat them if we had just a small miracle. Just a small one.”
    â€œWell, ladies, let’s go find our miracle,” said Curtis with a pump of his fist.
    â€œYeah,” we all yelled, as loud as we could.

Chapter Seventeen
    We filed slowly onto the ice and eyed the stands. There were a lot of people up there…probably a hundred or so. My mom was waving and smiling, and Mrs. Smithers had started chanting, “Go girls go.” Oh, this was so embarrassing.
    We ran through some shooting drills to get Alice warmed up. When the ref came on the ice, Curtis whistled us over to the bench. He was smiling from ear to ear.
    â€œWell, girls, maybe we’ll get our miracle.” We looked at each other and then back at him.
    â€œHow?” I asked.
    â€œHow many of you are here today?” Curtis asked.
    We started counting.
    â€œFourteen,” Alice said
    â€œTake a look at their bench.” We all turned and looked. There weren’t very many of them. In fact, a quick count came up with eight, including the goalie. Smiles started to spread across our faces. Only seven skaters. If we played our cards right, we might wear them out.
    â€œYou can do this, girls,” said Curtis. “Just skate their legs off.”
    We hit the ice. We were so nervous the first few shifts that we couldn’t do anything right. Opal gave the puck away right in front of our net, and despite Alice’s desperate leap, the score was 1–0 within the first minute. Then I lost the face-off, Sam tripped, Ruby and Opal collided and it was 2–0. This was going to be even worse than we thought. The stands were already quiet, except for Mrs. Smithers, who kept yelling, “Go, girls,” at every opportunity.
    But after a few shifts we started to settle down. Sam, Geraldine and I started passing the puck around, just like in practice, waiting for a good opportunity to take a shot. The Peewees were zooming everywhere, just trying to get their sticks on the puck. Opal and Ruby were solid on defense, and the boys couldn’t seem toget around them. Finally, at the end of the first period, Daisy intercepted the puck at center ice, and quickly passed it to Michelle, who flipped it over the sprawling goalie. It was in. We mobbed Michelle. In the stands, our parents went wild, just like we’d won the Stanley Cup or something. Curtis was grinning ear to ear.
    During the break between periods, while the pa system pumped out loud rock music, Curtis gave us a real pep talk. It really was possible that we could take this game. We listened to everything he said with new enthusiasm. The trick was to keep our shifts short, so that we were always fresh and skating our hardest. We had enough players that we could actually get a bit rested between shifts. We hit the ice with a loud cheer.
    The second period was tough. Those little guys were in good shape, and they weren’t going to give up any time soon. Since they were playing girls, there was no bodychecking allowed, but they were getting a bit desperate. Their biggest player, Josh Simpson, nailed Sam as she reached for the puck. Josh got a three-minute penalty for bodychecking. Sam was really slow getting up and skating to the bench.
    â€œAre you okay?” I asked.
    â€œOh yeah. I’ve had worse. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting it. I’m kind of getting used to not having to worry about body checks, you know?”
    â€œI know what you mean. It sort of makes me want to go out and check back, but the last thing we need now is a penalty.”
    We had worked on power plays a bit in our last practice. The Smithers girls made up the offensive line, while Opal and Ruby stayed on defense. We took the puck straight into their zone and set up a passing pattern with Michelle, who was the biggest and strongest, in