"You're such a sore loser," some said as I stomped away.

"It's only a game," others told me.

While I wiped my sweat and tears, a parent or coach always burned me with, "Shake it off, kid. You tried your best." I shook my head at them all. Who really wants to hear "good try" and "you'll get 'em next time" after being embarrassed? Not me. No way.

I remember one day when I was at the park playing basketball against Eddie the bully. He pushed my teammates, lied about the score, and argued on every call. After his team won, I screamed "You're such a cheater!" and stormed off the court. On my way home, Eddie ran past me and stopped right in front of my house. "Don't you dare step on my property!" I warned.

He slurped the saliva in his mouth and tightened his lips.

"Don't do it!" I screamed.

With all his might, he unloaded the biggest wad of spit on my front lawn.

I sprinted over to his house, sucked a mouthful of air and sprayed spit all over my shirt. Eddie grinned devilishly as he walked past me and up his steps. I swiped the back of my hand over my mouth and stomped away.

Losing didn't hurt as badly that afternoon as it did during our first hockey season. I felt like somebody was spitting on my lawn everyday.

••••

As I walked down the ramp to the lunchroom, Dawn Miller stopped about 10 feet in front of me. She flipped her long, stringy brown hair over her shoulder. Then she crossed her muscular arms and looked down at me. I glared up at her beady brown eyes and refused to break my stride. When I barely brushed her shoulder, Dawn stepped back and yelled, "Look out!"

A few kids turned toward us. I said nothing.

"You'd better look out, Molly!" Dawn yelled. She glanced around for a lunch room monitor. A woman with a badge pinned to her shirt turned toward us. Dawn yelled to her, "Did you see that?" The woman stood up and started walking over to us.

"Give it up, Dawn," I muttered.

I continued clear past Dawn and took my place in the lunch line. I walked a little taller, proud of myself for not falling into Dawn's trap. When we were in third and fourth grade, Dawn and I used to be friends. We used to hang out and talk in gym class all the time. But when we hit junior high, the war began. Dawn didn't want to play on my team. She didn't talk to me except behind my back. And she picked on me most when I was without Wil, Penny, and Rosie, who were my true friends and the Ballplayers from Broadway Ave. While I was standing in line that day, I thought about how much I missed our oldest friend Angel, who was in high school. When Dawn raised her voice, Angel patiently talked Dawn out of causing more trouble. I always asked Angel how she kept her cool. She just shook her head and said, "The second you get mad, she wins."

I couldn't help but get mad especially when Dawn picked on people for the clothes they wore and what she thought they looked like. One day, she said my pink skin and stocky build made me look like a pig. I didn't get mad until she turned to my friend Wil, and said all her blubber made her look like a whale. Wil looked away pretending that she didn't hear Dawn. But when Wil threw out the rest of her lunch and pulled her sweat shirt over her body, I knew that Dawn had struck and injured again. When she turned to my friend Anita and called her a "long-neck geek" that was the last straw. My carton flew from my hand and chocolate milk smeared across Dawn's white turtleneck. Then I stood up and headed straight to the principal's office. Part of me was furious at the school bully, the rest of me was disgusted at myself for ever being friends with a girl like Dawn Miller.

"Don't let her get to you so easily," Angel always reminded me.

"I can't help it!" I shot back.

The worst was when Dawn stole homework and then watched silently as teachers reprimanded innocent kids for not handing in their assignments. When the teachers turned to Dawn, she always looked the other way without any sign of remorse. The only thing Dawn seemed to care about was a traveling hockey team she played on. I glanced at her red mesh hockey jersey and black sweat pants. Knowing it was her all-star jersey, I rolled my eyes. "I'm the best hockey goalie in the city," she always boasted. "I can even do the splits!"

So what if she could press her legs flat against the floor and I couldn't. Being so flexible didn't mean Dawn was any good at hockey or any other sport. The only two people who believed Dawn's claims of being a world-class athlete were her two sidekicks: Shelly and Nellie. Shelly was tall, full-figured and spoke with a squeaky voice. Nellie was short, skinny and had a voice deeper than my dad's. Every day they came to school with the same exact hair style. You could smell the hair spray and gel as they passed through the halls. "They have one brain between the two of them," I told my friends one day.

"No, they have none," Wil added. "Dawn took the one brain they had and now they're too dumb to know that they have nothing left."

Wil was right. If Dawn said to pull the fire alarm, Shelly and Nellie would ask what to do after they pulled it. While Dawn tormented kids, Shelly and Nellie stood on the lookout for teachers or adults. They used to whistle or clap different ways. They claimed it was their secret code of communication. I thought it was stupid.

"It's way over your head," Shelly squealed to me one day. "You wouldn't understand."

Dawn was always so predictable. After she tried to rope me into a confrontation during lunch that day, the queen bully then turned to a much easier target. Billy Flanigan sat at a table with a bunch of his friends. He laughed and joked around as he held his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I knew how much Billy loved peanut butter and jelly because he was my neighbor and I always asked him what his mom made him for lunch. I asked Billy a bunch of different questions just to get him to stop talking about fire trucks, which were his favorite things in the entire world.

"The fire department is getting a 1,000 gallon tanker with Hale pumps, a Detroit engine and 1,000 feet of hose," he began one day.

All the kids rolled their eyes when Billy started to talk about fire fighting. Some made funny faces and started to chuckle. "So what, Billy," Eddie told him one day. "Nobody cares about your fire trucks."

Billy's face turned fire engine red. "Don't listen to him or anybody else, Bill," I said as I scowled at Eddie. "They're just being jerks."

That day at school as I watched Dawn walk over to Billy's table, I had a feeling that she was up to no good. When Dawn sat down next to his best friend Paul, Billy's smile turned into a nervous frown. Dawn whispered something to Paul and he did not move. Dawn leaned in and elbowed him in the side. I clenched my fists. The second Paul reached into his pocket to pull out his money, I sprinted across the room. I weaved through a bunch of kids, but arrived too late. Dawn already had the money in her hand.

"GIVE IT BACK!" I yelled.

"Give what back?" Dawn said.

"You made Paul give you his money!" I said.

"I asked to borrow it," she said as she turned her palms up in the air. "I'll give it back."

"No, you won't," I said. "You're stealing!"

"Why don't you mind your own business?" she shot back at me.

"Give the money back," I stated firmly.

"Get lost, Molly," she said.

"Shut up!" I snapped.

"I'm sorry," Paul whined and I looked at him and his best friend.

"I told him not to give his money to her," Billy pleaded as his tears filled his eyes. "But he didn't listen to me."

I reached out and grabbed Dawn's hand. I wrapped my hands around her palm and tried to peel her fingers back from her clenched fist. I could feel the edges of the dollar bill, but she wouldn't let go. "GIVE IT BACK!" I said as we wrestled. "IT'S NOT YOURS!"

Dawn pushed me back and we began a shoving match. I felt a bunch of hands tugging my shoulders. "Let her go, Molly!" my best friend Penny said as she pulled me away. "You're gonna get in trouble!"

Wil stepped in and ripped me away from Dawn. "She's not worth it," Wil muttered to me. "Let's go."

"She stole money from Paul," I said.

"He gave it to me," Dawn claimed. "How's that stealing?"

A few lunch monitors came over and of course they were too late. I pleaded my case, but didn't get very far. All the monitors kept repeating was "get back to your seats!" Before I walked away, I reached into my pocket, took out my last 50 cents and tossed it on the table. "Don't let anybody do that to you again," I told Paul. "It's not right."

He shrugged.

"I tried to tell him not to do it," Billy explained. "I knew it wasn't right." Then his voice cracked.

"It's all right, Bill," I said. "It's over now."

Before we left, Penny reached into her pocket and tossed down another 50 cents. I looked up for Dawn and saw her cut into the snack line ahead of a group of angry kids.

"Let her go," Penny said.

"Yeah," little Rosie added. "She'll always be like that."

No words could help me understand Dawn Miller. All I had were angry feelings raging inside of me and I needed time to cool off. I waited in the lunch line with my friends as they laughed and joked around. After we picked up our trays of food and sat down, they started eating. I stared at Dawn as she sat down across the room. Dawn Miller had to pay for all the rotten things she had pulled at our school.

"We need to find a new sport," I told my friends.

"Why?" Wil asked. "We already play everything."

"The basketball season doesn't officially start until January," I said. "We have a whole month to do something else."

Wilma Rudolph Thomas, who was named after the track star herself, looked up at the ceiling and started to use her brilliant mind. I turned to our best friend, Shantell "Penny" Harris. Penny was Miss Sport of our city. Every kid, boy or girl, worshipped the ground she walked on. Penny had to be behind me on this one. "What do you say, P?" I asked.

"I've always wanted to play checkers," she said with a grin.

"A sport is an activity involving physical exertion," Wil said. "Checkers doesn't count."

"It works on your eye-hand coordination and your brain," Penny tried to explain.

We all shook our heads and kept thinking. Rosie Jones, the youngest of our group of friends looked up from beneath her cap with a wide grin.

"How about ping pong?" she asked. We laughed. "I'm serious," Rosie pleaded. "My brother and I play all the time."

"We need a team sport that we've never played before," I said. "Something we all can play together."

"What are you thinking, Molly?" Wil asked.

I grinned and said, "Hockey."

"We already play hockey," Penny said.

"Not street hockey," I said. "Ice hockey."

"What?" Wil gasped. Her blue-rimmed glasses slid down her nose. "You're crazy!"

"Why?" I asked. "What's the big deal?"

"Do you realize how hard it is to skate on slippery ice and hit that tiny puck with a funny shaped stick?" she said.

"So maybe we'll need a little practice," I added.

"Who are we going to play against?" Penny asked.

"My dad works with a police officer who coaches at a rink on the East Side," I said. "He'll get us into some games."

"I don't have any skates," Rosie mumbled.

"We'll get you a pair," I said.

Wil and Penny paused and looked at me suspiciously.

"This has to do with Dawn, doesn't it?" Wil asked.

"Not really," I said quietly as my eyes shifted away.

"Yeah, right," Penny said.

"All right," I admitted. "So?"

"What team is she on?" Penny asked.

"She's with the South Side Sharks," I said. "I think they all play on the same park district and traveling team. We can form a team and play against a bunch of teams."

"Do you think we'll be able to get a game against the Sharks?" Rosie asked.

"I hope so," I said. "I'm sick of hearing Dawn tell us how great she is all the time. Aren't you?"

Everyone agreed, but no one gave me a straight answer about forming a hockey team. I looked across the cafeteria and spotted Jessica Wilson, who happened to be a star figure skater turned hockey player.

"Jess will play with us!" I said. "She's really good!"

"I don't know," Wil muttered. "You think she's got time for us?"

"Yeah," I said. "She'll play."

"Maybe if we had some time to practice and we had Jess on our team," Penny said, "it might not be too bad."

As my friends kept talking about the possibilities, my confidence grew. "If I get Jess to play with us, do we have a team?" I asked.

Wil looked at Penny. Penny turned to Rosie. I smiled at all of them and clasped my hands under my chin.

Wil shook her head and said, "I'll say it one more time for those of you who didn't hear me earlier," Wil said loudly as she looked at me. "Hockey is not an easy sport!"

Just at that moment, Eddie Thomas, the king of all bullies at Lincoln School, passed our table. His black and gray hockey jersey was tucked into his blue jeans. Eddie stopped and smiled curiously at us.

"You are going to try to play hockey?" he asked loudly. Then he threw his head back in laughter. "That's a joke," he added.

I looked at Eddie and yelled, "Who asked you?"

"I am Mr. Hockey," he said.

"OOPS, I forgot," Wil said. "I thought you were figure skating still."

I burst into laughter and so did a bunch of kids around us. Eddie scowled as he turned to Wil and yelled, "Shut up four eyes!"

I stood up and said, "Get a life, Eddie!"

"You're just jealous," he said. "I know how to play hockey and you don't."

"Like it's that hard to figure out," I said.

Eddie saw our principal coming down the ramp, so he headed off in the other direction.

"Eddie may be a jerk," Penny said as he walked away. "But the hockey team he is on is good. I mean really good."

"I don't care," I said. "We're playing."

So what if Eddie and Dawn had played a little bit more than we played? So what if they were hot shot hockey players on good teams? "I hate traveling teams," I stated. "They always act like they're so much better than everyone else."

"Wait a second," Wil said excitedly. "We travel to games either on foot or on bus for most of our sports. I think the Broadway Ballplayers should be called a traveling team."

"Yeah," Rosie added.

"It's official then," Wil said with a proud smile.

The thought of wanting to be like Eddie and Dawn did not sound good to me. "I don't want to be called anything else but a team," I said. "The Broadway Ballplayers--that's it."

Then I looked across the room and saw Eddie stop at Dawn's table. Eddie started talking and then he stared over at us. Dawn then turned toward our table and started to laugh.

"I'm so sick of those two bullies," I said. "I want to bully bust this school. Just get rid of them all."

"I think we should worry about this hockey deal first," Penny suggested.

"You'd better go talk to Jess before Eddie and Dawn laugh us out of this place," Wil said.

"I hope Jess will play with us," Rosie added.

"She will," I said. "Trust me, she will."

••••

Later in the afternoon, Rosie raced down the hallway and stopped right in front of me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She looked both ways and then waved me closer. I leaned over as she whispered, "I heard from a kid in my class that Jess is playing on Dawn's team."

"What?" I asked in disbelief.

"Jess is playing with Dawn and The Sharks," Rosie repeated. "What are we going to do?"

"It can't be true," I insisted. "Why would Jess play with her?"

Rosie shrugged and said, "Maybe because they're good?"

I scoffed and threw my hands up in the air. This can't be happening! Jess can't skate with the enemy. She's got to play with us!

"Don't worry," I assured Rosie. "I'll take care of it."