Megan Cordeiro played a soccer game that morning and, says her mother, she kicked butt.

That night, she was in Hasbro Children’s Hospital. She was told she had leukemia.

Teresa Cordeiro says her daughter cried. She had a teacher who had lost a daughter to leukemia. But she didn’t cry for long — 10, maybe 15 minutes.

“That’s how she dealt with it,” says Teresa. “She’d have a few bad moments, then be done. She did not feel sorry for herself.”

Tomorrow, Teresa and John Cordeiro will climb on bicycles with a bunch of friends in Marblehead, Mass. There will be family members, soccer coaches, Megan’s tutor and her primary care doctor.

The riders will ride 25- or 50-mile loops and raise a lot of money so that kids who face life and death issues much too young can hang on to their childhood in those hard, painful times. The riders will be part of the Tufts Medical Center’s annual Ride For Life to benefit the Floating Children’s Cancer Center.

Megan was only 11 when she died in June after a year-and-a-half of too many trips from home to hospital and back again. She was a kid who did what she did with determination, whether it was a math problem or a training exercise. She played soccer and basketball. She was a flute player and a dancer and a Girl Scout. She loved Grey’s Anatomy and had a thing for Patrick Dempsey.

She was a 21st-century girl with a very full schedule.

“She was a very determined young lady,” says Teresa. “She wanted to be on the Olympic soccer team. Put a challenge in front of her and she’d take the time to get it done.”

Even after she knew she was very sick, Megan took part in a walk for the Tomorrow Fund with her family.

There were hopeful signs after that horrible night at Hasbro on Dec. 30, 2006. The disease appeared very treatable. There was chemotherapy. Later, there was a bone marrow transplant from Megan’s sister Chelsea.

The first sign of trouble was a strange virus late in 2006 that doctors couldn’t figure out. There were infections. Antibiotics didn’t seem to help. Then came the blood tests that brought the bad news.

From soccer games and classes at Tiverton Middle School, Megan moved into the draining routine of treatment and testing and never being sure. And through it all, the Cordeiros developed a deep appreciation for the Floating Children’s Cancer Center at Tufts.

“They were wonderful,” says Teresa. “They were willing to take Megan and try to make her better.”

And she was better, for a while, after the bone marrow transplant. But in April, doctors found the leukemia had spread and Megan eventually died of kidney failure.

So tomorrow there is the ride in Marblehead, a way to turn the family’s tragedy into a way of helping the children who follow Megan to the hospital. The proceeds support programs aimed at letting kids be kids while they go through the terrible uncertainty of cancer treatment.

The Cordeiros do not plan to stop there.

“We’ll be involved with this for a while,” says Teresa. “We’re going to try to establish a memorial and a scholarship in Megan’s name.”

Next year, she thinks they will hold a ride in Megan’s name closer to home.

Tomorrow, the Cordeiros and friends will ride under the banner of Brave Little Bumblebee Megan. Bumblebee was Megan’s computer password.

For information on the ride, and supporting the cause, go to www.cycleforlife.com.

bkerr@projo.com