It was our senior year finally, and we were making history for the first time at our school. The Atrisco Girls Varsity Soccer Team had an outstanding record of 17-0-2! Finally, after so many years of hard work we were the ones making history, we were the ones winning and we were the ones automatically getting into the State Tournament. Since this year we were a 5-AAAAA school we were playing with the toughest teams in the state so we already new what we were dealing with when we played our Tournament match. The tournament was beginning the very first Saturday of November. Today it was Saturday October 23, realizing we only had a little time to get ready our coach scheduled practice for us the very next day.
It was 9:00am the weather was freezing, but we were outside getting ready to do what we love to do. Before we began our running for two whole hours, our Coach Eric quickly introduced us to a new transfer student that was going to start for the varsity team and play with us in State. We were very surprised that Coach Eric would just accept her like that without even trying out and let her play for state, but according to her records this girl was an outstanding soccer player. She has been playing since she was only four years old! So it was to our benefit, the girl came to introduce herself to the team. It was quite awkward and some of the girls started to giggle because her entire face and hair except for the eyes was wrapped and covered in a soft scarf-like cloth. You see this girl was from a small town called Arabi-Babilo or so she says, so it was a common custom to have your face wrapped like this. It was strange, but we quickly became used to it.
We introduced ourselves and the girl just kept staring at us with wide eyes, so very wide I never saw any eyes like this before. They were so beautiful though, it was a brownish-hazel color that made them look almost orange-green. We each said our names and welcomed her to the team, she just kept staring at us as if mesmerized. To cut off the awkwardness some bit, we began to get in line for our 10 minute warm-up. After that we began to play a game our coaches called, penny-tag. Were we put pennies in our shorts and chase each other around to tag them and pull it off. The new girl quickly got into the game and started giggling and having fun with us. She was hard to get because she was super fast. One of the fastest sprinters I have ever met. Not even our coaches were able to get her. Finally, Cinthia sneaked up on her and ended up tackling her over before she had a chance to get away. When she did that she accidentally pulled her scarf-like cloth off and revealed the girls face and hair.
We all got quiet as we were watching the girls reaction. She didn't let us see her face and she covered it, crying very loudly. A few minutes passed and we were finally able to calm her down, her she still covered her face with her hands though, but not her hair anymore. Her hair was so beautiful it was chocolate-brown and it fell in long-layered waves all the way down her back. We couldn't figure out why she would cover her face if her hair was that gorgeous. We finally begged her to please show us her face, and still with a little doubt she decided she had nothing to lose if she did show us her face. All of us, including our coaches let out a little gasp as the girl removed her hands from her face and showed it to us. Her skin was a strange greenish color, and we didn't even realize how long and slender her hands were. We all new what this meant, but no one was able to admit it out loud.
The girl looked so scared as if she made a wrong decision and she was about to get up and run away when I stopped her and asked her that what was her purpose of coming to this planet and joining the soccer team, especially our soccer team. She calmly told us that she is not here to harm us, she is here because in her planet there was no such thing as soccer, it was only on TV for professionals. She had watched the World Cup the summer of last year and she said she always dreamed of playing the sport she loves, and having a crowd watch her. So she came to us because she could see that we all had 100% of our hearts in Soccer and that we wouldn't judge anybody to play with us.
She said that she was glad that she made the right choice in coming that when she plays soccer with a group of girls she doesn't even know, she feels like family and that she can be accepted anywhere and right on fit in. She said we would make her dream come true if we let her play with us in State and after that she would go to her planet home back where she belongs as if she never appeared, and that she will be watching us from way out into space. We more than gladly let her join us. Finally, that Saturday we so eagerly waited for came up and we knew we were ready for it. Surprisingly Rio made it to State too and they were our opponents. The game ended with us beating them 5-2, and our little Alien Soccer star made two goals. It was late and the game ended, everyone left except the team and the coaches. Our Alien friend did as she promised, but before she left she hugged us and thanked us so much, she gave each of us a necklace, it was a soccer ball with our number engraved on it. On the back of the necklace was a little quote it said: "you can achieve anything you want, as long as you set your mind on it, love Stella" That was her name Stella, and we never knew until that last minute, and we knew exactly what she was referring too with that quote. We remained playing in state and we won the Championship it was the greatest year for us, but the biggest memory we all remembered was meeting Stella and the impact she brought to us.
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