Melody and Irene were enrolled in an outdoor summer youth volleyball league, much to their delight. They loved being outdoors because they played constantly, so their parents thought it was a perfect fit. Although they formally met with their teammates twice a week, once for practice and another time for game day, but they practiced all the time in the park where they met anyway.
They were 10 years old, but they had already showed promise with their fast grasping of the volleyball skills, such as overhand serving. The girls also had a way of making fast friends, which made up for being the odd ones out in their little circle of friends. It was their parents who encouraged them to break out of their shell. Most of the time they wanted to be partners in warming up and in partner drills, but they willed themselves to befriend their teammates. At first, they had a hard time remembering everyone's name, but they eventually became really good friends.
The second day of practice, the clinician asked them what their team name was. They decided to go with the Badgers because they thought it was a cool animal. The youngest team, who seemed like endless balls of energy, went with the Hummingbirds. The oldest team, who were all around 13, didn't really care about their names. The clinician kept pestering them for it, but they eventually came up with a cheeky team name: Kiss My Ace.
Their clinician, Christine or Chris for short, was probably a little older than Mycroft. She was really nice and relaxed. Apparently she played for about 5 years, so she had the experience to teach them the basics. The parents really seemed to like her since she was already in Uni, so she seemed to be responsible, but able to have fun with the kids. She treated the kids like they were all adults, which they thought was cool. Every day, once she demonstrated the drills that they would be doing for their time together, she left them to their own devices.
A lot of the player's parents were coaches, offering words of encouragement when it felt like they weren't making any progress. It got frustrating for them and they felt like giving up, but their coaches refused to let them. Instead, they would ask them to try again.
Chris flitted around, checking in with everyone. Melody got a little nervous when she was off to the side, watching with careful eyes. When she messed up returning the ball, her cheeks turned a bright pink and she started to walk towards the back of the line.
"Hey, come here," Chris offered with a smile.
Melody stood next to her. "Now, the key to returning the ball is stay low and on the balls of your feet. You'll be a lot quicker that way. Also, remember to keep your hands apart until right before you bump the ball. Otherwise you'll look like an awkward elephant." Chris did just that and Melody copied her. "Good. Now, try again."
Irene's mum tossed the ball off to the side and Melody returned it, surprised at how it actually worked. She high-fived Chris and skipped to the back of line. Irene grinned at her and walked into the court, ready to have her turn.
This continued for about 20 minutes until Chris' whistle pierced through the air. She yelled, "WATER BREAK FOR 10 MINUTES!" and walked off to make a phone call. Probably to her boyfriend, they thought.
Meanwhile, Melody and Irene practice bumping back and forth after drinking some water.
"Do you think we'll be able to play the older kids?" Irene asked.
Melody wrinkled her nose. "I hope not. I hate losing."
Irene snickered. "I saw Chris going over there a lot to help them. Some of them still have problems serving and bumping."
"Really?"
"They may be older, but I think they we could kick their butts."
"We're pretty good."
Chris' whistle marked the end of their water break and they returned to the middle court to learn about the next part of their day.
She had a big smile on her face. "So, I talked to the coaches. How would you all feel about a big scrimmage?"
Everyone started shouting at once, but the general consensus was that they really wanted to do it.
"Alright, alright," she laughed, "now it seems like there's an uneven amount of players to divide up the games evenly, so..." she paused for a dramatic effect, "how about the Badgers and the Hummingbirds combine to play against Kiss My Ace?"
The shouting intensified tenfold. Chris had to blow the whistle hard to get everyone to quiet down. "Alright, get onto your sides of the court!"
They scrambled to their sides and chatted excitedly to their coaches. Melody and Irene's team got on well immediately. The coaches encouraged them to call "Mine" all the time and to be on their toes. If there was one thing that they learned, it was that they didn't like it when the ball dropped. Glancing over at the other side of the net, the older team looked a little too confident for their own good.
The game started and it was clear from the beginning that the younger side had the edge. They were a lot quicker on their feet and were a lot more eager to get the ball than Kiss My Ace. This wasn't to say that they were totally incompetent at volleyball. They were good at serving, but being able to do a simple bump-set-spike wasn't their forte. Granted, they had the attitude that the ball would come to them with little effort on their part, which led to their downfall.
They had lost.
Badly.
As in the Hummingbirds/Badgers won two sets out of three.
The only reason that Kiss My Ace won the last set was because they had enough sense in them to pull it together and play a pretty good game.
Chris blew the whistle to signal the end of the game. Both teams lined up on the back line and then they high-fived each other.
"Great practice everyone! I'll see you next week," Chris shouted cheerfully.
Summer for the most part was kind of dull, but those days in the park were some of the best days for Melody and Irene.
A/N: So I may have inserted myself into this story *facepalm*
