Power+Plays

//Power Plays// by Maureen Ulrich
Booktalk by Chris MacLennan

Hi. My name is Jessie. I used to live in Saskatoon. My dad got a new job so we had to move. Now I live in a small city called Estevan. I hate it. Life sucks. I miss all my old friends. I especially miss all my friends from ringette. I was a star ringette player in Saskatoon. Of course there are no ringette teams in Estevan. There is just a really lame girls hockey team. Making new friends is next to impossible. Everyone here has known each other since Kindergarten. I did, however ,get a lot of attention from the boys when I first started school. I went out with a guy named Riley the first week and then switched to another boy named Jason the next week. I thought I was smart playing the field. A girl named Natalie came up to me and told me that this girl named Kim in my homeroom said I was a big tease and was leading the boys on. I dissed that girl Kim right in Natalie’s face. That was such a big mistake. It turns out that Natalie was Kim’s best friend and thanks to MSN everyone knew what I had said about Kim. Me and my big mouth. But really, my commnet wasn’t that bad. Now everyone has stopped talking to me and has started talking about me. And then things started to happen. My shirt found its way into the toilet during gym class, my stuff started disappearing, feet appeared in the aisle tripping me, and nasty notes were slipped in my locker. How could one little comment make Kim hate me so much? Then on Halloween night the worst thing of all happened.

Read page 20 “The front doorbell rings” to page 21 “There’s three”

I find out that Marsha the ringleader thinks I have been calling her names, thanks to Kim and rumors on MSN. Marsha and her gang steal all my dad’s liquor and decide to take me to some party with a bonfire. I am too scared of them to say no. I am babysitting my little sister Courtney who is upstairs listening to all that is happening. I know that she will be scared out of her mind when I leave, but I don’t know what else to do. That night I end up at the police station. I am in huge trouble when my mom comes to get me. I can’t tell the police, I can’t tell my parents, I can’t tell anyone because the gang has told me what they will do to me if I rat on them. There is one good thing that happens however. My mom convinces me to join the girl’s hockey team. It is really hard at first because ringette is really quite different from hockey, but finally I start to fit in. I start to like a boy named Mark who is also a hockey player. Then Kim joins the hockey team. She has her eyes on Mark too. I don’t know how much more I can take!

If you like hockey you will love this book. To find out what happens when Kim joins the team read Power Plays by Maureen Ulrich.