Water Polo Wonders

• Zoe Barnett, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2017

Hi am Katie Barnett and I am an 11 year old water polo player playing in the u14s competition. It gets hard sometimes, everyone is older than me.
It was the Queensland trip when it started. I thought everyone was nice but I was wrong. I thought they were my friends at first but then I don’t know what kicked in jealousy, scared, or just their true personality. Well something happened, I know for sure.
It was the first day of the trip, they seemed like they were avoiding me. I thought maybe they were just a bit scared from staying away from home. Guess what they weren’t, they really did want to avoid me. And when that happens you just want to curl up into a ball and cry, but you can’t because everyone is counting on you to go out there and play the best you can. Apparently it is all about “playing as a team. Leave what happened outside the pitch and don’t play it into the game.” At least that is what we are supposed to do; they didn’t. I mean Annie was nice, Hayley was nice, Chelsea was nice and Demi was nice. Riley wasn’t, and neither was Elsey, Brooke, Sasha, Alana, even Carli.
The second thing they did was not pass to me in a game, not cheer when I scored a goal, always criticizing me to make themselves feel better. I mean Bindi our coach tried to fix it, always shouting out “Pass to Katie, Pass to Katie”; they “DIDN’T” hear her. I really thought it was the Water polo wonders Team but it was just the “Let’s leave everyone out because we think we are the best Team.”
One day Riley, Alana and Carli approached me. They came right up to me, about 2cm from where I was standing, looked me in the eye and said “You’ll never be as good as us. You’re the looser of the team. I can’t even think why Bindi picked you. Anyway why are you here? There are people out there way better than you. Why don’t you just give up now?” That left me shocked. I couldn’t prove that they said it and I couldn’t tell anyone either. Everyone thought they were so nice, but really they were just trying to be friends with everyone and then ditch them later for even better people. They would tease people just to make themselves look better.
What would I do? I walked straight up to them after they said that and said “Do you want to know why I am here? Do you want to know why I am in this team? Do you want to know why I haven’t given up yet? Well, yes I may not be as good as you, I may not be the best on the team, but at least I have a better attitude, determination and at least I don’t pick on people to make myself feel good.
That felt good.