On Sunday afternoon, Sergeant Brown called.
“Hey, Kevin,” Sergeant Brown said. “How would you like to go to the Highland Middle School field and play some soccer? I’ve been working on my game.”
“Meet you in a few minutes.” I closed the front door and walked out with my best soccer ball in hand.
After our disappointing loss yesterday, I didn’t feel like doing much of anything, but maybe going to play with Sergeant Brown would cheer me up.
I kept replaying that penalty kick in my mind, wishing I could have made it and had a chance to hold that trophy. But after I woke up this morning, I knew it was no good to think of it anymore and tried to force it out of my mind. It wasn’t all bad, though. My life ended up a whole lot better than it was a few weeks earlier.
The trees outside had turned a Thanksgiving color. The leaves that fell littered the ground in wet clumps after last night’s rain.
When I arrived, Sergeant Brown was sitting on a park bench.
“How are you feeling?” he asked me.
“Pretty down. But I guess it’s not the end of the world. Especially after the way things started out with me in September.”
“I’m glad you can see that. When I was a senior in high school, my team went to the city championships in basketball. I was fouled with four seconds left on the clock. All I needed to do was make one of two shots and the game would be sent to overtime. And do you know what happened?”
“What?”
“I missed them both. Yeah, it hurt for a while, but it didn’t change who I was. Most people have stories like that, Kevin—it’s just a part of life. You can’t push your worries and bad feelings out to the side, because when you do that, you’re giving them a chance to grow and weigh you down. You have to move on.”
Hearing Sergeant Brown say that made me feel a lot better.
“Maybe now you’ll think before you do stupid things.”
Doing stupid things. That reminded me of something. “Sergeant Brown, I have a question to ask you. Whatever happened to the agency that was taking advantage of those immigrants? Christy said that they stopped using them and now Dolores is with a new agency that’s paying her more.”
“I called Mr. McNamara and persuaded him to fully cooperate in the investigation. Now that he knows me, I think he trusts me more. He even gave papers and pay records that can help us press charges.”
“So you got them?”
“Yeah, and we needed someone like Mr. McNamara to come forward. All the illegal immigrants were afraid of being deported.”
“So my detective work didn’t really help?”
“Kevin, the address that you gave us helped, even though you didn’t go about the right way of getting it. I told you, you’d make a good police officer someday.”
I looked up at him.
“Well, I guess you’re all straightened out now, aren’t you? You don’t need me hanging around anymore, bugging you.”
I was startled. My stomach fell as he stood up and kicked the ball. It missed my feet by a mile, and I went chasing after it.
A tall man playing baseball with his son smiled and then kicked the ball back.
“I think you need more work, Sergeant Brown. It looks to me like you still have a lot more soccer to learn.”
“Then I guess I’ll be sticking around for a long time.”
I smiled and kicked the ball toward him.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people:
Phoebe Yeh for being so patient and such a wonderful editor. I could not have done this without her.
Amanda Glickman at HarperCollins for keeping everything running smoothly.
Roberta Fox, attorney, who helped me better understand legal issues.
Mr. Tom Turnbull for not only being a wonderful soccer teacher but a life teacher.
Mr. Glen Kurz, a great English teacher and amazing wrestling coach.
Mr. John Cheddar and Mr. Don McDonald for helping instill discipline and being fantastic wrestling coaches.
My mom for believing in me.
My dad and brother for being so supportive.
Last and most important, I want to thank Walter Dean Myers for giving me this life-changing opportunity. I will always be grateful.
—R.W.
About the Authors
Critically acclaimed author WALTER DEAN MYERS has garnered much respect and admiration for his fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for young people. Winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award, five Coretta Scott King Awards, two Newbery Honors, and the first-ever Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, he is considered one of the preeminent writers for children. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his family. You can visit him online at www.walterdeanmyers.net.
When ROSS WORKMAN was thirteen, he wrote a fan email to his favorite author. When Walter Dean Myers wrote back and asked him whether he would be interested in writing a book, Ross was amazed—and incredibly excited. Four years later, Ross is seventeen and in eleventh grade at Westfield Senior High School. In addition to writing, Ross plays a sport every season: high school soccer in the fall, high school wrestling in the winter, and club travel soccer in the spring. He lives in Westfield, New Jersey.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
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Copyright
Kick
Copyright © 2011 by Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myers, Walter Dean, date
Kick / Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Told in their separate voices, thirteen-year-old soccer sta
r Kevin and police sergeant Brown, his mentor, try to keep Kevin out of juvenile hall after he is arrested on very serious charges.
ISBN 978-0-06-200489-5 (trade bdg.)
ISBN 978-0-06-200490-1 (lib. bdg.)
[1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Criminal investigation—Fiction. 3. Police—Fiction. 4. Soccer—Fiction. 5. Family problems—Fiction. 6. Mentoring—Fiction. 7. New Jersey—Fiction. 8. Youths’ writings.] I. Workman, Ross. II. Title.
PZ7.M992Kic 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010018441
CIP
AC
First Edition
EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062069573
11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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