Ellie's POV
Hope is being a bitch to me again, so now I'm thinking of something that'll really piss her off. I was laying on my bed in the room I'm sharing with Emily when I thought about Jenny and her newborn named Terry. She gave birth only just 2 months ago and he's one cute baby. Both Jenny and Dave are apparently here in Vancouver with some of my other family members to watch the final tomorrow. I just hope Bruce isn't there since made some messed up comments when I mentioned to my parents about how us players aren't getting equal pay. Jeff is 100% behind my back when I told him about how some of us are discussing taking action.
Speaking of Jeff, he and I decided it'd be best to be just friends around 2 months ago. We pretty much fell out of love since he's always out touring a lot and when he's not, I'm mainly in a different part of the country with the Stingers for an away game or I'm somewhere else in the world with the national team. There's no hard feelings, and if one of us is having a hard time, we'll just call and have a talk. We still care about each other too, so in a way, it wasn't a messy breakup, it was just a mutual one.
The door opened and in came Emily, closing the door behind her before laying on her bed, phone in hand. While I thought about Jenny, I remembered her telling me about a prank she pulled once while on the road. It basically was her getting someone's keycard from the front desk, sneaking into that person's room, and hiding all of their belongings in the most stupidest and funny spots in the room. Just thinking about it makes me want to pull it on Hope.
I looked over at Emily, who was glued to her phone, "Hey, Em."
"Hm?" She looked up and turned her head towards me.
"Want to help me pull a prank against Hope?" I asked, a grin forming on my face
Emily's eyes widened at the mention of Hope's name and shook her head. I let out a sigh and rubbed my forehead, "Don't worry about her, if she bails me up I won't mention you were in on it. No way I'd throw you under the bus."
She stared at her phone screen for a moment, and started grinning. "Alright. I'm in."
I clapped my hands and stood up, "Cool. First things first, we need a keycard to Hope and Kelley's room. I'm sure Kelley will give us her one."
"You think so?" Emily asked in a cautious tone as we both walked out of our room.
"I'm sure." I reassured her, "Now, where is Kelley?"
"Follow me." Emily said and I followed down to Alex and Heather's room which was just down the hall. I knocked on the door and waited a few seconds before Heather answered the door. "Is Kelley here?" I asked her.
"Yeah. Hey Kel, Ellie wants you." Heather said and I heard some movement before Heather retreated back into the room when Kelley walked out.
"What's up?"
"Can we have your keycard?"
"What for?" Kelley asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"We want to pull a prank on Hope." I said with a mischievous grin.
Kelley started to chuckle and she took out her keycard from her pocket and handed it to me. "Be careful and don't get caught."
"Don't worry, we won't." I said, nodding.
Emily and I quickly moved to Hope and Kelley's room and used the keycard to open their door. We snuck in, making sure we were quiet, and started our mission to hide Hope's belongings in the most random places. "Right, you hide her phone and I'll hide her shoes." Emily said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"You got it." I said, and Emily snuck off to the other side of the room, while I went looking for Hope's phone. I found it on the bedside table and I grinned when I saw a great spot to hide it. I grabbed a nearby pillow and shoved the phone deep in the middle, making sure it was completely hidden. I then went through her bag and grabbed her shampoo, conditioner, and other toiletries and hid them in the kitchen cabinets.
Once we were done, we quickly made our way out of the room, locking the door behind us. We both high-fived and headed back to Alex and Heather's room, where Kelley was still in. "Mission accomplished." I said with a grin while I gave Kelley her keycard back.
"Nice. How long do you think it'll take her to find everything?" Kelley asked, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Not long, I'm sure." I said, and Emily nodded in agreement.
Kelley smiled, "Well, don't mention my name when she finds out it was you."
"I won't." I said and Emily and I said our goodbyes and left, huge smiles on our faces.
*******
"Hey, Taylor! Check this out!" Pinoe called out to me as I walked into the dining hall for breakfast. I made my way over to her and saw she had her phone, so she must definitely have a video or something to show me. "Look, I've shown Kelley and Alex this already. It's basically like a promo thing or something that's popped up on the Stingers website.
She pressed play on the video and footage of some our of games where there'd be us defending, players tripping and clips of goals being scored, fights breaking out while there was some sort of music playing, along with a narration.
"The Autumn Wind is a pirate,
Blustering in from sea,
With a rollicking song, she sweeps along,
Swaggering boisterously.
Her face is fierce and unyielding,
She wears her team's colors with pride,
A symbol of her strength and skill,
With a passion that can't be denied.
She growls as she storms the country,
A villain big and bold,
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake,
As she robs them of their gold.
The Autumn Wind is a Stinger,
Pillaging just for fun.
She'll knock you 'round and take you down,
And laugh when she's conquered and won."
The video stopped and I have to admit, that's pretty cool. Kelley was looking at me with a clear smile, "Cool ain't it? It's like we've got our own song in Oakland."
"Yeah," I said as I grabbed something to eat and sat down at the table, "I wonder who came up with it."
"I'm not sure," Alex says, "Most likely Al if you think about it."
Pinoe put her phone down and started eating her breakfast, "That old man? Wouldn't surprise me. He's got lots of quotes and slogans for your team, doesn't he?"
"What's the issue with that? I like the whole 'The fire that burns the brightest is the will to win'." I say.
"Or what about, um, 'Just win'. That one is pretty simple and straightforward." Kelley said.
Pinoe and the others shook their heads while they were smiling, and we ate our breakfast while having some different conversations about a variety of topics. Clearly the game is something everyone is thinking about, and I am too. We busted our asses to get here and we're all determined to beat Japan and bring home our 3rd World Cup. Jill will be expecting us to be focused, and ready to win.
Hope came in and sat at the table, her eyes locked onto me. If looks could kill right now, then I'd be already dead. She clearly knows I was the one behind hiding her things, but I'm not going to bother with her now, there's way more important things instead of me worrying about her.
Around roughly 2-3 hours later, all of us were at the stadium getting ready. We went out and had our warmups as the seats were filling up with fans, eager to see who would come out victorious in this match. Jill went over last minute preparations and gave us the Starting XI and the list of substitutions she'll make during the match. We all lined up in the tunnel, the nerves starting to kick in. Hearing the roar of the crowd, I took a deep breath as I felt my heart beating in my ears.
There were only 3 words that were in my mind, 3 words that Al told us before one of our NWSL playoff matches.
Just win, baby.