BROOMBALL

THE CAFETERIA CONVERSATION was all about hockey again. Jade usually fit in with the sports crowd, but now she was the odd one out. She stared out the window and let her mind drift like the whirling snow to a soccer field in sunny California.

Hazel elbowed her in the side. “When are you going to get out on the ice, Jade?” Hazel turned to the others at the table. “Jade was a soccer star at her old school. I’m lobbying her to take up hockey.”

Back in California, the only ice was in tiny frozen puddles. Here in Minnesota, it seemed everyone skated like a pro by the time they got to kindergarten. Jade didn’t have skates, and she couldn’t make it to open skating time because she had to spend weekday afternoons babysitting Calvin while he toppled block towers and got crumbs everywhere.

She sighed. She’d have to wait months for spring to arrive, bringing new conversation topics and sports she could