Rubbing sleep from her eyes, Laura stumbled out of bed. She pulled on shorts and a t-shirt, her pursed lips and flared nostrils broadcasting her mood. But once she'd finished a plate of her father's famous scrambled eggs with jalapeños and warm tortillas, she rushed to the closet to dig out her cleats. Could I really become a better soccer player? she wondered.
Laura ran to get a soccer ball from the garage, but her mother said, "We won't be needing that."
"Why not?" Laura asked.
"You'll see. Come on!" Her mother strode down the street with a tote bag over shoulder and a jumbo box of trash bags under her arm.
Frowning, Laura followed her mother to a vacant lot a few blocks from their house. Though the lot was certainly big enough to practice dribbling, it was also full of weeds, old tires, rusty beer cans, and take-out cartons. Laura raised her eyebrows. "You want me to practice here?"
Her mother handed her a big black trash bag and a pair of thick gardening gloves. "You do too much sitting around watching YouTube, mija," she said, pulling on her own gloves.

License information: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
MPAA: G
Go to source: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/laura-s-key