The Walker twins, Zach and Zoe, were on different teams this season in travel soccer. But that was just fine with them. As much as they loved being teammates, they loved competing with each other in sports even more.
Most of all, they loved the start of any new season. It was their chance to see just how good they could be, and how good their teams could be.
Zach was playing on the Bears. Zoe was playing on the Lions. Their first official games weren’t until Saturday. So far all they’d done was have practice scrimmages, though the Bears hadn’t faced the Lions yet. But their coaches had promised there would be at least one scrimmage between the two teams, and maybe more, before Saturday.
“I can’t wait until we do scrimmage,” Zach said to Zoe. “Then I can show you some of the new moves I’ve been working on.”
“You think you’re the only one with new moves?” his sister said.
As soon as they got home from school on Tuesday, they ran out to their backyard and began kicking a ball around. Now that it was soccer season their father, Danny, had set up a net so they could practice their shooting. Even though neither one of them was a goalkeeper, Zach and Zoe would sometimes take turns standing in front of the net while the other twin tried to score. Danny Walker, who’d been a good soccer player himself when he was a boy, had always told them the best players were able to pass and score with either foot. Zach and Zoe always made sure to practice with both.
Danny said that was the way to play the game right. By now, the twins knew how important it was to their dad that they did the right thing in sports.
“I know all your best moves already,” Zoe said. “You show them to me all the time back here.”
“But you haven’t seen the ones I’ve been working on with the Bears,” Zach said.
Zoe was standing in front of the net.
“Okay, show me one,” she said. Then she grinned. “I promise not to tell my teammates.”
“Ha!” Zach said, throwing his head back.
He moved back toward their house then, pretending he was trying to split a couple of defenders as he closed in on Zoe. But as he approached his sister, he suddenly kicked the ball into the air with his right foot, as if lifting it over the imaginary defenders. It was almost like he was making a pass to himself. When the ball came down, he timed his next kick perfectly, and was able to blast the ball past Zoe and into the upper corner of the net.
“Nice! Zoe shouted.
Zach winked at her. “I’ve got more where that came from.”
They both loved playing soccer, mostly because of how much they both loved to run. Grandpa Richie always talked about what a streak of light Danny Walker had once been in basketball. But Zach and Zoe’s dad said that as fast as he had been, the twins were even faster.
They ran around happily now behind their house, all over the backyard, making long passes and short ones to each other. Finally Zach put the ball behind him, as if making a behind-the-back dribble in basketball, and pushed the ball to Zoe, who blasted a big shot of her own into the empty net.
“Gooooooaaalll!” she shouted, the way the soccer announcers did on television. Then she ran over to her brother so they could jump and spin and bump elbows and hips the way they did in their special high five. They always celebrated, no matter which sport they were playing.
When they came back inside the house, they were ready for some of their mom Tess’s homemade lemonade. She had left an ice-cold pitcher for them on the kitchen table.
But they noticed something else on the table beside the pitcher and two glasses.
There was a package addressed to Zach that must have just come in the mail. Zach looked at the front and back of the large envelope, but couldn’t find a return address. There was no way to tell who’d sent it.
“What’s this?” he asked aloud.
“Only one way to find out,” Zoe said. “Open it.”
Zach did. Inside was a soccer jersey just like the one he would be wearing this season with the Bears. It was white with orange stripes running across it.
Zach held the jersey up in front of him. It even appeared to be the same size as his jersey, with the image of a bear on the front.
“Why would somebody send me a jersey I already have?” he wondered.
Zoe picked up the envelope and looked closely inside. Then she turned it upside down to see if anything fell out. But it was empty.
“Did you leave yours at the field after your last scrimmage?” Zoe asked. “Maybe somebody found it, knew it was yours, and mailed it to you instead of dropping it off at our house.”
“No,” Zach said. “Mine’s upstairs hanging in my closet. Come on, I’ll show you.”
They ran up the stairs to Zach’s room. He opened his closet door. Sure enough, there was his jersey, hanging right where Zach said it would be.
They wanted to ask their mom about the package and the jersey inside. But when they walked into her room, they could see she was talking on the phone. She smiled, pressed the phone to her chest, and quietly told them she was talking to their cousin Anthony, who’d recently graduated from college.
Zach and Zoe went back down to the kitchen to have their lemonade. When Tess Walker had finished her call with Cousin Anthony and joined them, she nodded at the Bears jersey on the table.
“What’s your jersey doing here?” she said to Zach.
“It’s not mine,” Zach said, a hint of confusion in his voice.
“Somebody sent this to Zach in that package you left on the table,” Zoe said. “But we don’t know who.”
“I noticed there was no return address,” said Tess.
“So did we,” Zach said.
“And there’s no note inside explaining why somebody would have sent it,” Zoe said. “We checked.”
Their mom smiled then.
“You know what this sounds like to me?” she said, glancing at Zoe.
“A mystery!” Zoe said.
Zach just shook his head.
“Here we go again.”
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Lupica. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
