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    Above All Else
    Above All Else
    Above All Else
    Ebook110 pages1 hour

    Above All Else

    By Jeff Ross

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    About this ebook

    Del plays striker on his high school soccer team, the Cardinals, and they’ve gone almost three seasons undefeated. To Del, it’s just a game, but some of the players think winning is all that matters. When an ugly tackle results in a major loss for the Cardinals against their main rival, the Rebels, things get heated between the teams. That night, one of Del’s teammates has his ankle broken by an unknown assailant, leaving him unable to take part in the playoffs.

    As Del tries to figure out which of the Rebels’ players is responsible for the attack, his coach brings in a substitute player, and he’s actually really good. Is it just a coincidence, or did someone finally take the above all else mentality too far?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateMar 1, 2014
    ISBN9781459803909
    Above All Else
    Author

    Jeff Ross

    Jeff Ross is the author of several novels for young adults including several titles in the Orca Soundings and Orca Sports series. He teaches scriptwriting and English at Algonquin College in Ottawa.

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      Book preview

      Above All Else - Jeff Ross

      Megan.

      Contents

      chapter one

      chapter two

      chapter three

      chapter four

      chapter five

      chapter six

      chapter seven

      chapter eight

      chapter nine

      chapter ten

      chapter eleven

      chapter twelve

      chapter thirteen

      chapter fourteen

      chapter fifteen

      chapter sixteen

      chapter seventeen

      chapter eighteen

      chapter nineteen

      chapter twenty

      chapter twenty-one

      chapter one

      We got this one, guys! Jared Haynes said. Then he began slapping his shin pads in the quick way he did before every game. Next he would fiddle with his necklace before taking it off and looping it around itself three times. Finally, he would start pacing the room, his head bobbing from side to side.

      Number one, guys, Osmund (Oz) Clarke said on cue. It was as if they were reading from a script. Nothing changed game after game. Normally, I would have tried to get changed and out onto the field as quickly as possible. But as the season wound down, Coach Dolan had demanded that everyone remain in the locker room until the last second. No exceptions. The idea was that we came out as a team, so we would play like a team.

      The reality, however, was that I was forced to suffer through this garbage.

      Hey, Oz, Jared said, flicking a ball to him.

      Yeah, mon, Oz replied. Oz is half Jamaican, half white. If he were a coffee, he’d be heavily creamed. I’m on the other end of the color spectrum. My mother is Dutch, and my father’s family is Swedish. It’s as if the sun spotted us one day, then said, All right, that’s enough and never returned.

      What’s second place, Oz?

      Second place, mon?

      "Yeah. Second place."

      Last time I checked, second place was the first loser.

      Damn straight, Oz. They slapped hands as a portion of the locker room settled into a chant of losers, losers, Heighton ain’t no losers.

      These guys are going down, Oz said, standing up and thumping his chest against Jared’s.

      No doubt. The chanting moved to a steady, rhythmic We’re number one! I wished I could just get out of the room. It was ridiculous to watch. Sure, Heighton High’s soccer team hadn’t lost a match in almost three years. This was the final game of the season. I wasn’t on the team the first year, but I was the second, and I’ll admit, winning feels great. It felt like we were a part of something bigger than all of us. Going undefeated in any sport is unheard of. Somehow we had the right collection of players and, of course, the right coach. None of this dulled the pain of how annoying the whole winning attitude had become. It was as if we didn’t just expect to win, we deserved it.

      Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a huge believer in the end result of any game is to have fun. But all the fun was being sucked out of the games. And then there were the practices. I’d never spent so much time running drills, watching videos and endlessly lining up penalty shots in my life.

      But winning had become part of our culture, and losing was no longer an option.

      Personally, I blamed our football team. They sucked hard. They’d been sucking hard for years. So when the soccer team started on its incredible roll, the whole student body got behind us.

      We got this one, Del, Riley McCoy said. Riley and I had made the team together. We were two of only three sophomores who had broken in that year. The rest of the team was made up of seniors, all still around from that first flawless season.

      It’s not going to be easy, I said.

      Another perfect season, Oz yelled. Three in a row. Unheard of.

      Coach Dolan stepped into the locker room. Dolan, apparently, had played for some club in England before he found himself on the bad side of a tackle and permanently messed up his knee. He became a teacher and followed his wife here for work. That was three years ago. Exactly the same time that the team’s winning streak began.

      How are we today, lads? Coach said.

      Fired up, Coach, Oz said.

      Good on you. What do we have in the tank?

      Filled up, Coach! everyone yelled. Dolan demanded that we call him Coach. Never Mr. Dolan or Coach Dolan. Just Coach. It was like a secret handshake when you passed him in the hallway. What are we going to give?

      All we have and more!

      That’s right, lads. That’s right. I know you will. He put a foot up on one of the benches and took us all in. "Lads, we have a chance to do something special here today. No team has gone three straight seasons without a loss. I believe we can be the first. There’s no can or cannot here. Not only is losing not an option, it’s not even a possibility. Most of the players were nodding to this. Grinning. Getting geared up," as Coach would say.

      "Losing ain’t a word we even know!" Jared yelled.

      That’s right, Jared. That word isn’t part of this team’s vocabulary.

      Damn straight, Oz said. He and Jared high-fived one another.

      Lads, I don’t need to tell you that if we win today, we get a bye to the second round of the playoffs. We won’t have to play useless first-round stuff. But I want you to erase that thought from your minds. All you need to think about when you get out on that pitch today is winning. From the first second to the end of stoppage time, you are only thinking of winning. Nothing else matters. Now, let’s get out there and finish this season right. He clapped his hands, and everyone jumped up.

      Get a goal and you’re a hero today, Del, Riley said to me. You’ll go down in history.

      You too, Riley.

      I’m defense, Del. You’re a striker. The glory is all yours.

      We’ll see, I said as we ran through the door.

      chapter two

      It wasn’t exactly an ear-shattering roar that greeted us on the field, but it was something. There were about two hundred kids in the bleachers. Most of them got to their feet when we ran onto the field. It wasn’t like in those big games you see on TV where the team comes out of a tunnel or anything. We actually had to run across a regular suburban street to get to the pitch. But we did come up right between the two sets of bleachers.

      The Roland Hills Rebels were already out on the pitch in their blue-and-gold outfits. The gold sparkled in the late-day sun.

      They look like a glee squad waiting to audition for a talent show, Jared said. He was jogging onto the pitch beside me, his chest high. I could tell he was sucking his stomach in.

      Pretty fancy outfits, I said.

      Car-di-nals, Car-di-nals, the crowd chanted.

      We are going to massacre them, mon, Oz said. Most of the year, Oz said mon maybe twice a week. But his family goes to Jamaica every spring break, and he comes back sounding like he’s been possessed by the ghost of Bob Marley.

      The ref blew his whistle twice as we neared.

      I should have dropped the ball already, he said. The ref was this bald guy who worked at the hardware store one town over. He was way too serious about soccer. The game was supposed to start two minutes ago.

      Sorry, Jared said. He put his hand out, and

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