I am kinda published! Sorta...

Hello again Interwebs, Its me here... And I have some exciting news for you! I wrote a piece for a local newspaper's "Pulse" page (a page for young writers/artists/poets to show off DEM SKILLZ!) and mine got in! WOOT WOOT. SO here it is, some things i had to tweak from the original because to put in bluntly, the sucked. I was also forced into writing some parts in it that me, as a free-spirited comedic writer, am not happy with. So yeah... If you want me to post the original, I can.. Just somebody for the love of all Jeebuses POST A DARN COMMENT!

ALSO, they totally spelled my last name wrong... :/

How to (not) be a water girl

A report of Golden Boot Rugby tournament from the world’s worst water girl

Alicia Moores, Grade 11

At McMaster University, an equally-confused friend and I stepped out of Rosie, the 1996 Nissan rust bucket my mum drives, and set out to find this magical “Field behind the Stadium” – the promised land. Luckily, I had a scarf to protect my sensitive skin from the razor-like wind.

Yellow socks on the horizon: the distinct trait of an Ancaster Royals rugby girl. We went over and helped set up camp. Soon enough, the yellow stockings multiplied and we had a whole team of fierce looking girls ready to kick some booty.

I was the newly appointed water girl for Ancaster High girls’ rugby. My (already genetically bad) knee had been rugby-practice injured the week before.

Leading up to the Consolation game at 2:30, I watched our loyal Royals do jumping jacks and a passing drill in which you practice passing the ball with two hands on the ball at all times (except for when throwing it) and get in the rhythm of keeping the ball close to you like it’s your newborn baby.

With the thrill of a recent victory still burning through their veins, the girls then began the pre- game psych-up.

I watched the socks organize themselves in a lopsided circle with arms reaching around each other, then scream “1, 2, 3 ROYALS!!”  Compared to the complex cheers of other teams, ours looks juvenile.  We need a new, more intimidating cheer like this one school also at the Golden Boot Rugby Tournament .  They start quiet and progressively get louder  -- “go, go, go, Go, Go, GO, GO, GO” -- and make the other teams feel like peeing.  

As the game began, the yellow socks set themselves up in an exploded scrum.   A scrum is one horde of girls pushing up against another horde of girls. 

Chaos. Organized, painful chaos is what rugby looks like to the untrained eye. Girls flying this way and that, hard hits, one million and ten scrums and the coaches screaming “RUCK OVER!  GET HER! GO GO GO!” I saw one of the mothers with her brows furrowed and her hands twining through her hair. I abandoned my water girl post to go help a sister out. The mother was watching her daughter get pummelled.  I took it upon myself to assure this worried momma that her cub was fine and that she didn’t feel all the hits, the adrenaline was too strong.

Halftime – my time to shine!  I’m thinking to myself “I got this,” when really, I don’t because, it’s me and I’m bound to mess something or other up.  I get up and my aforementioned bum knee (stubborn like the rest of me) locks in place and I stumble and then I just trudge over to the happy group of yellow socks… forgetting the water bottles completely.

At the game’s end, my failed water girl attempts were all forgotten and all the yellow socks were tired and turf-burned and very bruised but the faces of the girls wearing the still-up-high-and-proud socks had huge, silly grins on them.   We won 2-1.