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Nimbus Publishing Limited

3660 Strawberry Hill St, Halifax, NS, B3K 5A9

(902) 455-4286 nimbus.ca

Printed and bound in Canada

NB1429

This story is a work of fiction, inspired by a true story. Names, characters, incidents, and places, including organizations and institutions, either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover and interior design: Heather Bryan

Editor: Penelope Jackson | Editor for the press: Emily MacKinnon

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: No girls allowed : inspired by the true story of a girl who fought for her right to play / Natalie Corbett Sampson.

Names: Sampson, Natalie Corbett, 1976- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana 2019016056X | ISBN 9781771087773 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Forbes, Tena—Childhood and youth—Juvenile fiction.

Classification: LCC PS8637.A53854 N62 2019 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

Nimbus Publishing acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.

Chapter 1

Last Skate

(August 1977)

“Tina! Are you packing?” Mom calls from downstairs.

“Yes!” I say, even though I’m not. I toss my tennis ball against the wall again and catch it when it bounces back. My next toss hits too low, and the ball bounces off the wall into an empty box on the floor. There are boxes everywhere: on my dresser, on my bed, on my desk, on the floor. They’re all open and half empty. Mom took a black marker and wrote labels on the side so I’d know what to put in each one: clothes, books, toys, stuffed animals. The tennis ball landed in one that says “shoes and boots.” Why do I need a whole box for those? I have no idea. I only have, like, two pairs of sneakers. And my skates, I guess. I put them in there too, since Mom didn’t label any boxes “sports equipment.”

Inside the box the tennis ball is wedged under my white figure skate. I lift the skate out. Heavy, the white leather is creased and lined around the ankle, and the blade flashes the light from the ceiling into my eyes.

I hear a knock on the open door and turn around. “Tina, are you packing?” Mom asks again.

“Yes, see?” I say, putting the skate back into the box.

Mom smiles, but she’s not fooled. She holds out her hand and says, “I’ll pack the tennis ball with our summer things.”

Busted.

I hand her the ball and flop back on the bed, arms crossed. Packing sucks. “Come on now, Tina, if you just focus you’ll get it done and then you can go outside with J. R.” She rests her hand on my head for a moment and I sigh. Kids outside are yelling, their sticks whacking against the pavement. I was heading out with my own stick and hockey gloves when Mom stopped me in the kitchen and asked if my boxes were full yet. Sucks!

I don’t care much that we’re moving; we’ve moved lots of times before. Dad says because he’s a lawyer for the government they get to move him wherever they need him. And now they need him in Yarmouth. I had to look on the map. It’s right at the most southern tip of Nova Scotia.

Our new place looks cool, I just hate the whole packing part. We went up before school to visit with Dad and see the house he found. I even got to pick out my room. The window looks out over a field with a pond in the middle. If it’s big enough for pond hockey, it’ll be great.

But I finally turned ten this year, so I get to play real hockey too. In the rink. On a team. With painted lines and fans and a scoreboard to count all my goals. I can’t wait. Real hockey, with real refs, not kids who just make up rules that help them win. Last year I wrote my Christmas list in September. The only thing on it was hockey skates. I told Mom and Dad, “If I can get hockey skates, it’ll be the best Christmas ever.” Everyone knows you can’t play real hockey in figure skates.

Mom walks by my door again and says, “Come on, Tina! Stop daydreaming and get moving!” I was thinking of gliding over real painted lines.

“I am!” I call after her and go to the dresser. Now that I’m ten, I’m tall enough to see my reflection in the mirror above the dresser. My hair is messy. Even though I keep it shorter, I’ve got curls going everywhere. I smooth it down over my head and pull it back—it’s almost long enough to put in a ponytail. Maybe I should grow it just a bit longer so I can tie it back? Or maybe I should just cut it shorter. In the meantime, I’d better get packing. I start with the top drawer, lifting my underwear and pyjamas into the box that says “clothes.” One good thing about wearing mostly sweatpants and T-shirts is they roll up tight for packing. I make sure my Star Wars T-shirts are on top so I can find them easier when I unpack.

The phone rings just seconds after we sit down for supper. “I’ll get it!” I yell and beat J. R. to the yellow phone on the wall. He punches me in the arm, but Mom doesn’t see it. She never sees it when he hits me. I pick up and say hello, twisting the spiral cord around the fingers of my left hand.

“Hello, Tina Marie, how was your day?” booms the voice on the other end. It’s like Yarmouth is a street we could bike to instead of a town half a country away.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, smiling. “It was fine. Did you register us yet?” He knows I’m talking about hockey, I ask him that every time he calls.

He laughs and says, “Not yet; the registration isn’t open. You’ll be the first to know when I do, okay? Maybe it won’t open until after you’re here, and you can come with me. Would you like that?”

“That would be far out!” I say, and it sounds like he might be laughing. Winter seems like forever away.

“Is your mother there? I have a few things I need to talk to her about.”

“Yeah, hold on,” I say and hold the receiver out toward Mom. “Dad wants to talk to you.”

Mom stands up and walks across the kitchen to take the phone from me. “Thanks, honey. Now go eat up.” She puts the phone to her ear and walks into the dining room. The spiral cord follows her, and I can see it jiggling a bit as she talks.

I cut a piece of chicken and plop it in my mouth. J. R.’s sitting across from me and Mom can’t see me from the other room, so I kick him under the table. I can be sneaky too.

“What was that for?” he says, potatoes in his mouth.

“Nothing.” I shrug. “How many days?”

J. R. rolls his eyes and shakes his head. His dark hair is floppy and bounces around. “One less than what I told you when you asked me last night. What’s the big deal, anyway? We’re moving to some crappy little town. You’ll be sorry when we get there and there’s nothing to do.” He thinks he’s so cool just because he’s almost thirteen. Too cool for a small town in Nova Scotia, too cool for me. Too cool for anything.

“What do you mean, nothing to do? There’s just as much there to do as here. I mean, there are kids there, so they have to have kid stuff to do.”

J. R. makes a face that says he isn’t so sure about that. He doesn’t want to move. He got really mad when Dad told us he was being transferred again. He even shouted, then ran off to his room and slammed the door. Later I heard him telling Mom and Dad that he didn’t want to leave his friends. I don’t care so much. I mean, my friends are all right, but all you need to do to make friends is play sports. Join a team and there’s a bunch of them ready to meet. Go outside with a ball and a hockey stick or a tennis racket and kids show up. That’s been true wherever we’ve lived; here in Toronto or before, when we were in Winnipeg.

Mom comes back into the kitchen and hangs up the phone. “Your dad said hello, J. R. He also said the renovations on the house are coming along nicely and it should be ready for us when we move out there. Isn’t that great?” I nod, but J. R. just shrugs, staring at his peas. “Finish up, kids. I have to meet someone at the rink. If you hurry, you can come with me and bring your skates.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I stuff some potato in my mouth, then say, “Oh, but my skates are packed!”

“Do you remember which box?” Mom says. I nod. “Well then, you can get them back out. I’m afraid that’ll be how we get along for the next few days.”

At the rink, I sit on the team bench to tie my skates. I pull hard on the top of the laces to tighten the boot. It took a while to break them in but now my hockey skates fit perfectly, hugging my foot and ankle. I wrap the laces around the top of each boot and double knot them.

Mom’s the head coach. She’s meeting with one of her figure skaters on the visitors’ bench while other skaters practice. I step on the ice, starting off slowly in a wide circle along the boards. I’ve done lots of lessons, but my favourite ice time is when I can do whatever I want. Even though it’s a figure-skating practice, I’m wearing my hockey skates and working on all the moves I’ve seen René Robert do when the Sabres play on Hockey Night in Canada. Backward skating is my favourite. With two side pushes and a C-cut, I can be flying. And since we’re on real ice, not a pond, I use the painted lines to know just where I am all the time. Usually I have to stick to one end, to stay out of the way of Mom’s students, but while she’s talking to some of them on the bench I can skate all the way around the ice. Flying. Maybe this is what a bird feels like.

By the time Mom calls me off the ice, my hair is wet against my neck. I practiced forward and backward, edges and circles and dekes. I know I have to work hard to get ready for the new season.

“Did you have fun?” Mom asks while we sit side by side and untie our skates.

“Yeah,” I say. “I go a lot faster in these.” I lift up my hockey skate. “The toe picks on figure skates get in the way.”

Mom smiles but doesn’t say anything. She used to try and convince me that figure skating was better than hockey, and that I should stick with lessons to get better at jumps and tricks. She loves figure skating, so I guess she doesn’t get why I don’t love it too. I mean I do, but not as much as hockey. When I play hockey on the pond with the other kids? That’s way more fun than doing twirls by myself. And if pond hockey is that fun, imagine how awesome it’ll be to be on a real team with plays and passing!

Mom stands up, her boots on and her skates tucked away in her bag. “Take a good look, Tina; I think this is the last time we’ll be here. I’ll be busy getting everything ready for the move until your dad comes home, and he only has a few days to drive back to Nova Scotia. I don’t think we’ll have time to skate again.”

I look up at the ice, the boards painted with advertising for local hardware stores and plumbers, the red and blue lines painted underneath the blade-scratched surface, the lights suspended from the frame and the dark scoreboard. Leaving is sad, but new places are exciting. Changes are always a bit of both.

Chapter 2

New House, New Net

(August 1977)

The drive from Ontario to Nova Scotia is super long. I bug J. R. until he finally agrees to play cards in the backseat if I’ll leave him alone. But he only plays one game and then quits. Then I try finding letters of the alphabet on signs and licence plates along the highway. The worst part of the game is when I’m stuck on Z and I just have to keep looking for a Zellers. When I get bored I bug J. R. again and we bicker until Mom or Dad turns around and tells us to knock it off. I read almost all of my new Star Wars novel. I try to draw pictures of the Flintstones, but they never turn out right. Sometimes I just stare out the window at Ontario farms changing to hills, and the St. Lawrence River running beside the highway. Highway signs start showing French names that I try to say. I only talk louder when J. R. tells me to shut up.

I’m wishing I had eaten all my lunch on the second day and wondering how long until supper when Dad says, “Look! Here we are!” I poke my head out the window to see flags lining the highway. Half are yellow with blue and red details, a big ship with open sails in the middle. Half are white with a blue X, a yellow and red shield in the middle where the lines meet. I remember when I studied the provincial flags in school I thought the New Brunswick one was kind of scary, with a lion in the sky attacking the ship. The Nova Scotia flag is pretty, the white and blue. The wind blows my bangs into my eyes. I push my hair out of my face and lick my lips and taste salt.

Later, Dad wakes me up, saying, “Tina, Tina, you’ll want to see this. We’re almost there.” I push myself up and look out the window. The sun is coming down, but it’s still light out. The car is moving slowly, and houses with large lawns and big trees slip by my window. The road ends, and Dad has to turn left or right. His blinker ticks as he turns right and then picks up speed again, passing a few shops and houses.

“Look there, kids, see that building up on the hill?” Out of the driver’s side, at the top of a mowed lawn, is a short, wide building with lights already lit.

“What is it?” J. R. asks, blocking his window so I can’t see. I scoot over behind Dad so I can look out better.

“That’s the rink,” Dad says, and I feel a buzz in my middle and a smile stretch across my face. The rink.

A few moments later, Dad steers the car gently off the road into a driveway. We bump and bounce over the uneven dirt path. Ahead our new house is lit up like it’s alive and saying, “Welcome home!” The minute the car parks I shove my door open and hit the ground running, but I stop short as I round the car and face the garage.

At the side of the house is a hockey net! Its red frame flashes in the light from the porch and the soft netting falls around it. We had to leave our old rickety net at home. The Sturges up the road gave it to us. It was falling apart when we got it and Dad had to fix it with duct tape, but it was still good enough to shoot on. Mom said it wasn’t worth transporting all the way to Yarmouth. I tried not to argue, but when she put it on the garbage pile for the movers, I had to look away so I didn’t cry.

“What?” I shout. I can’t help it. “Is it ours?”

“Of course it’s ours, spaz; why else would it be in our driveway?” J. R. says, shoving me in the shoulder as he passes me, running to the net.

I follow and run my fingers along the bumps the rope made on the crossbar. “Look, it has pockets!” I say, pulling on the net hanging from the corner. I’m learning how to lift the puck, and I can already get it off the ground sometimes. As I poke my fingers through the pocket netting, I imagine hitting the target with the puck, shot after shot after shot. Soon I’ll be able to do that.

“Well, we thought you’d like to practice before the season starts,” Dad says, and we turn to look at him. He’s standing beside Mom, his arm stretched around her shoulders. He’s a bit taller than Mom and has J. R.’s floppy hair. Mom has my blond hair. Usually Dad’s hair is tidy, but after our two-day drive it’s all messed up. “Being from away and all, you’ll both have to go in and show them you can play.”

He laughs, but it still makes a pit of worry turn in my stomach. I’m so excited to play hockey, I never thought I might not be good enough. What if kids here are way better than in Toronto? I was one of the fastest skaters there, but maybe here I’m not good enough to play on a real team. I’ll have to be sure to practice a lot before then.

“Come on now, kids, grab your bags. Let’s get inside and start unpacking,” Mom says, so I don’t have time to worry.

I go back to the car, pull my bag off the back seat and over my shoulder, and turn to face the house. I stop to look at the lit-up windows, my parents opening the door with the light spilling out onto the porch, the red-framed net standing beside the house. Waiting. I smile and follow my family inside.

Chapter 3

First Day of School

(September 1977)

It’s lucky I packed my Star Wars T-shirts right where I could find them, because that’s what I want to wear to school the first day. I usually don’t care about clothes, but I want the other kids to know that we had cool stuff in Toronto too. I get dressed and jump down the stairs, skipping every other one.

“Tina, be careful!” Mom yells from the kitchen, but I’m already at the bottom. I walk into the kitchen and sit in my chair. Mom already has the bowls and the cereal boxes on the table. “Good morning,” she says as I pour Life into my bowl. “Are you ready?”

“Yup,” I say. My voice sounds more sure than my belly feels. I’ve gone to new schools lots of times; I should be used to this by now. But I still feel kind of icky and nervous. I try not to let on, though. That’s one of the secrets: don’t let anyone know you’re scared.

J. R. comes into the kitchen behind my chair and messes up my hair with his big fat hand. “Jerk!” I say before I can stop myself.

“Tina, we don’t call names,” Mom says. She’s pouring her coffee at the counter and doesn’t see him mess my hair up. It’s almost impossible to make my hair tidy. I brushed it forever upstairs and now I’m going to have to do it again. I glare at J. R., but he just smiles at me when he sits down in his chair across the table.

“Cereal,” he grunts. I ignore him, so he stands up to reach across the table and grabs it himself.

“J. R. are you ready for your first day?” Mom asks. She brings her coffee to the table and sits down between us.

“Nothing to be ready for,” J. R. says and then shovels cereal and milk into his mouth. “This town is dullsville.” When he says that some milk dribbles down his chin and he wipes it with the back of his hand.

“That is not a great attitude to have,” Mom says. J. R. doesn’t say anything. Even he knows not to talk back to Mom. She keeps going though, talking to J. R. about attitude and appreciating different places. I don’t bother to listen.

When I’m done my cereal I brush my teeth. By the door I put on my shoes and pick up my backpack. “Bye, Mom!” I yell into the kitchen.

Mom comes to the kitchen doorway. “Wait for your brother,” she says.

“I know the way!” I say. I am not a baby who needs her big brother to walk her to school! I don’t need that to be everyone’s first impression of me when I walk into the schoolyard.

But Mom just says “Wait for your brother” again to let me know there’s no point in arguing and she’s not going to change her mind.

So I wait. It takes him a million years to brush his teeth and put on his shoes and he forgets two things in his room and has to go back up to get each one. By the time we’re headed out the door I’m sure we’re going to be late. Being late for your first day sucks.

“Remember, go to the office, they’ll show you where to go!” Mom yells after us as we walk down the driveway. J. R. ignores her, but I turn around and wave to let her know I heard her. “Have a good day!” she adds.

We walk down the driveway to the street. I’m almost running to keep up with J. R.’s long steps, but I’m not going to admit that to him. I just concentrate on keeping up. When we get to the road, J. R. turns to me and says, “See ya, sucker!” and takes off running. There’s no way I could keep up with him. If we were the same size, I bet I could beat him in a race, but his legs are way longer than mine.

“Jerk!” I yell after him. He doesn’t stop and I don’t really care. The school is down this road, turn left and then right, and down the next road. Super easy. I still walk fast, though. It’s a good thing I do, too, because when I get to the school the bell goes off. I stop for a second right on the edge of the yard. Lots of kids are running from all over to line up at the doors on the side of the building. I wonder which ones are in grade four. There are kids smaller than me and kids bigger than me but one line has kids that are mostly my size. I bet that’s them.

I watch them walk into the school then run to the front door where the office should be so I’m not late for class. When I go into the office
J. R. is waiting in a chair. He’s not sitting, he’s leaned back like he needs a nap. Mom would tell him to sit up properly. The lady behind the desk says, “You must be Tina,” and I look at her instead.

“Yes,” I say. “Tina Marie Forbes.” I hear J. R. sniff a laugh, but the lady and I both ignore him. Maybe she has an older brother too?

“Nice to meet you, Tina. I’m Miss Carlton, the secretary. You’re in Mrs. Boudreau’s class. I’ll show you and Robert where your classrooms are and introduce you to your teachers.”

J. R. grumbles, “J. R.” He hates correcting everyone about his name, but that’s no excuse for being rude.

“Yes, J. R. I’m sorry, I’ll learn it eventually,” Miss Carlton says and her voice kind of laughs. I like her already.

The school is way smaller than the one we went to in Toronto, so my classroom is easy to find. It’s just down the hall and around one corner from the office. The door is open and the kids inside are yelling and talking and walking around. I’m glad class hasn’t started yet—that means I’m not late. A teacher is sitting behind the desk, but when she looks up and sees us standing in the doorway, she stands and comes over. Miss Carlton talks first: “Mrs. Boudreau, this is Tina Forbes.”

Mrs. Boudreau smiles at me, but it’s not a real smile. She just sort of pushes her lips together. They don’t go up into her cheeks and her eyes stay kind of angry. “Good morning, Tina. We’ve been waiting to meet you,” she says. Her voice does not laugh like Miss. Carlton’s.

I wish I could go with them when Miss Carlton says, “Have a great first day, Tina!” and “Come on, Rob—J. R., your class is just down this way.” I’m stuck in the doorway. I should go in the classroom, but my feet don’t move and my knees are wobbly. The Life cereal in my stomach is doing backflips, like in the commercial when the cereal jumps into the pool of milk.

“Tina, you can sit there, beside Shari,” Mrs. Boudreau says. I look at the desks. Some kids are sitting in chairs, some are sitting on desks, some are standing in a group. I have no idea who Shari is or where she sits. My heart starts to beat faster and harder, but then a girl sitting beside an empty chair waves and smiles at me. She must be Shari.

I try not to stare right at her when I walk toward her, but I like to figure out a bit about people when I meet them by the way they look. Mom always says “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” but there are some things you can tell just by looking. Shari’s black hair is fancy, with half of it pulled back in a ponytail and the rest long. She’s looking in a red purse with white polka dots and a big red button on the front. I don’t know anyone my age who carries a purse. But she’s wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt. Hopefully that means she likes to do fun stuff at recess, like play Red Rover or soccer baseball. You can’t do those things in a dress, so if she was wearing a dress maybe she wouldn’t like them—but she’s not. Her T-shirt has a picture of Jaime Sommers on it. I like to watch The Bionic Woman too.

“Hi,” I say when I get to the desk. I put my book bag under the desk and sit down.

“Hi, I’m Shari,” she says. She puts her hand out for me to shake like we’re grown-ups. I shake it.

“I’m Tina,” I say.

“Where are you from?” Shari asks. That’s always the first question.

“Toronto,” I say. She looks a bit confused so I add, “That’s in Ontario.”

“Yeah, I know!” she says, but she sounds excited, not like she’s mad at me for thinking she didn’t know where Toronto was. “My aunt lives there. I went to visit her like two years ago? We went up in the CN Tower. Have you been up there? You can see everything up there. I asked Aunt Cathy if we could see Yarmouth from there, but she didn’t think so. Probably close, though.”

I only have time to nod and smile while Shari talks before Mrs. Boudreau is at the front of the class clapping her hands and asking us to all be quiet and sit down. I’m pretty sure Shari and I are going to be friends. It’s a pretty good first day if you meet a friend right away.