Saving The Day

16

I walk down with Sarah to the bus. A few players are waiting inside the bus. I know I'm get all eyes on me. I put my bag in the space.  When I step on, and Sarah sits on a seat in the first row revealing me. All the chatter goes silent. I hear a little bit if whispers.

"quand avons-nous eu un nouveau joueur?" Someone asks, they probably don't know I know French. I just keep walking, and I find a empty row in the middle of the bus.
(When did we get a new player? ^^)

I see Nakita Parris walk into view and she looks around the bus. She spots me and starts to run over to take the seat next me.

"This is great! Welcome to the team" she tells me all smiley and energetic. I give her a smile.

"Wanted to steal this before Lucy got here" she tells me laughing. She likes messing with Lucy. I think Nakita and I will be good friends.

"elle est le gardien américain" I hear someone say in French behind me. It's funny how I know what they're saying but they don't know that. I'm probably going to hear a lot of them talk about me.

"They asked if you were the American Goalkeeper by the way, if you didn't know" Nikita tells me lowly. I chuckle. Lucy comes onto the bus and greets a few people. When she gets to us, she looks at us confused.

"What are you doing?" She questions Parris laughing.

"I got here first!" She responds to Lucy. She scoffs and takes the seat in front of us. She turns around to look at me

"And you let her?" She asks me laughing. I wrap my arm around Nakita.

"First come, first serve. Right mate?" I ask Nakita, and she nods smiling at Lucy. The 3 of us laugh. A few more players come on to the bus. We start to head out. I look out the window and take in France. It's really nice. When we get to the field, I take it all in. This is where I'll win the World cup this year. I grab my bag, and I walk with Lucy and Nakita. We go into the locker rooms. I look for my new number. I'm 31 for this team, which is like so far from my original number. I'm not going to complain though, whoever has #1 obviously beat me to it here. I put my stuff in the cubby. I take off the training jacket off. I grab my tape and I start taping my fingers and my wrists. A few players eyeing me, but I don't budge. I look to my right and I see Lucy tying her boots. I pull my hair back into a ponytail and I put on my black hair band. I grab my gloves and I walk to where it says the field is. I walk out and I make my way to the field and I see trainers and I see my new coach. I walk up to Jean.

"Finally great to have you here, how did you settle?" He asks me putting his hand on my shoulder.

"I settled just fine, don't mind if I start warming up early?" I ask him. He shakes his head. I walk to the other side of the field. I start doing stretches and I notice a few players are out warming up also. Sarah walks to where I am, and stretches with me.

"Have you ever played overseas?" She asks me. I look back to her because she's sorta behind me.

"I played for Arsenal" I tell her, and she nods. She was about to speak up but coach calls us to come over. We get up and walk over to the group of girls that surround coach.

"We have a new player on the team, Holland Reed. She will be one of our goalkeepers. Let's give her a warm welcome" He says clapping and the girls look to me and they clap. A French player I recognize, walks up to me

"Renard, I'm the captain. Welcome to Lyon" she tells me and offers to shake my hand. I kindly shake it back and give her smile. She's pretty tall, she could literally cover a post easily. She stands next to me as coach tells us what we're going to work on. He talks to the outfielders mostly. Putting them in groups of certain drills.

"Alright as for you goalkeepers, we're going to work on distribution and Top corners, and then we'll move on to other drills" he tells us, Sarah and Lisa. In this case, I'm the 3rd goal keeper. I walk with them to the otherside of the field, and I put my gloves on.

"Can you be a full back?" Lisa asks me with her German accent. I nod and I walk to the right side of the field just before the half line. Sarah does the same on the left. Lisa half volleys it to me, and I bring it down with my chest and I kick it back to her. We take turns after different distribution drills. I walk up to the goal line, and Le Sommer kicks to the right top corner, and I jump up and I punch it out to the sidelines. We take turns with one another. Afterwards they take my GPS tracker off my back. We take a break, and I sit on the grass and I drink out of a bottle.

"How's your first day?" Lucy asks me as she makes her way over to me. She sits in the grass next to me.

"It's great, it's just a different atmosphere" I tell her. I get hit in the head with ball and I turn around

"I'm so sorry, I was just trying to juggle the ball and I lost control" Nakita tells me, A few of the girls start laughing including me. I throw her back the ball.

"Do you want to go grocery shopping after?" Lucy asks me as she grabs my water bottle and drinks of it. I playfully scoff at her and she shrugs, she squirts water at me.

"You were looking a little hot" she tells me laughing. I playfully push her. We get back to training, and when I say I hate running I hate it but I gotta do it. We run with the outfield players. Lucy is running next to me. We're at the end of our lap and I seriously can't feel my legs.

"I race you to the end of the field" Lucy tells me. I love a good challenge. I nod and we start running, passing our teammates.

"Go Holland!" I hear someone cheer, and Lucy a just a foot away from me, when get to the end. I start to sprint. Lucy beats me though. I get on my knees and I move my body, and lay on the grass. Trying to catch my breath. I sit up a little.

"Good job babe, you almost had me" Lucy tells me laughing and offering me her hand. I take it and she pulls me up. We all cool off for a while. I talk to Le Sommer and Shanice. They're really cool people. We go into the locker rooms and I change into joggers and a t-shirt with Air Max's. I grab my bag and most of us walk to the bus. I put my bag in the luggage space. I walk into the bus

"Come come" Le Sommer tells me, I walk over and take the seat next to her. Other plays start to pile into the bus. Lucy takes the seat next to Shanice in front of us. We make our way to the apartments. I'm sure we're going to go grocery shopping.