Kess asks for my ball before she asks whether I want to play.
That is how it usually goes. I have the only ball that doesn’t lose air overnight. The field belongs to the council. For practice, the goalposts are two coats. The council keeps the real match goals locked in the pavilion until Saturday. I am fourteen, and I own the middle of the game until somebody picks sides.
Then I am whatever place is left.
“Give it here, Beren,” Kess says.
“Am I in goal?”
“Ed is in goal. We need a reserve.”
I tuck the ball under my arm. “So I stand around while everybody else plays.”
“Ed leaves at half-time on Saturday. His little brother’s birthday. He told us last week.”
Ed lifts one hand from across the field. He is measuring the space between the coats with his feet. He does not look ashamed of having a brother.
Kess waits. She is our captain because she brings everyone together, remembers the dates and can run without spending the whole time talking about running.
My cousin Rui comes up behind me.
“I want a turn at forward,” she says. “I’m not being your ball collector again.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
“You were about to.”
The ball is warm where I have been holding it. I could take it home. Kess would have to find somebody else’s flat one. She might promise me the goal just to keep this one here.
But then every shot would come with the same thought: he made us put him there.
I throw it to Kess.
“Try me.”
We put the coats four strides apart. Ed shows me where the halfway point is and goes to talk to his brother, who has arrived to remind him about the cake.
The first shot rolls toward my left foot. I stop it and pick it up. Easy.
The next comes waist-high. It hits my hands, jumps between them and rolls behind me. Rui runs after it.
“The pass was crooked,” I say.
“It was a shot,” Kess says. “Crooked is allowed.”
She tries the same shot with Ed. He catches it. I wish he would show off or say something rude. He puts the ball down and asks what time we meet on Saturday.
Kess tells him. Then she tells me I can be the reserve if I come back tomorrow to practice.
“What if I get better than Ed?”
“Then we’ll find out when you do.”
That night I practice against the wall behind our flats. It gives the ball back too fast. I miss twice and send it into the bins. An old man opens his window and asks whether I am knocking down the building or just his head.
I carry the ball upstairs.
Rui knocks before supper the next day.
“Twenty minutes each,” she says.
“Each what?”
“I shoot. You keep. Then you pass to me and I practice running onto it.”
I want her to keep shooting until I get good. She wants to score in the match. We go down to the field with both ideas still in our heads.
Her first low shot goes past me because I wait for it to reach my hands. She points to the patch where it passed.
“You can move.”
“I know.”
“Then do it.”
We try it again. I get behind it this time. The ball still bumps my fingers, but my knees stop it running away. I can gather it before she comes in for a second kick.
Rui tries three more. I stop two. The third goes wide, and we argue about whether a wide shot counts as a save.
“It counts as my mistake,” she says. “You don’t need to own all the mistakes.”
When her twenty minutes are over, she turns toward the far coat.
“Along the ground,” she tells me. “Ahead of me. I can’t run onto a ball that’s already behind me.”
I want one more catching turn. I roll her the ball instead.
My first pass goes too far. My second is behind her. The third reaches the open space at the same time she does. She kicks without stopping. The coat jumps when the ball hits it.
She laughs. It is a loud, surprised laugh, and I want to make it happen again. I ask where she wants the next pass.
On Saturday, the metal goals are out on the field, with their white nets fastened behind them. Ed saves everything in the first half except one hard shot near the corner. Kess scores at the other end. We are one goal each. I warm my hands under my arms and watch the other team’s forward, Jani. He keeps sending the ball low when our defenders turn their backs.
Rui gets one chance but a defender reaches her before the ball does. She looks at me beside the goal. I know that look. Ahead of me.
At half-time, Ed pulls on his coat.
“See you Monday,” he says. “My brother picked a cake shaped like a train. It has to survive till I get there.”
Nobody asks him to stay.
Kess points at our goal. I go.
It is quieter here than I thought. When I played in the middle, someone was always shouting beside me. From the goal, I can see where our players keep going and where nobody goes at all.
Jani takes the first shot. It is high. I lift both hands, touch it with my fingers and fail to hold it.
For a moment I stare at my hands. Then Rui races back, gets between Jani and the ball and kicks it clear.
“Next one,” she calls.
She doesn’t have time to make me feel better. We are still playing.
The next shot is low, toward the side we practiced. I move before it reaches me. My knees stop it. I get both hands around it while Jani is still running.
Rui has turned upfield. There is a space between two defenders.
I roll the ball into that space.
She runs onto it. For three steps, nobody is near her. She shoots. The ball hits the post and comes back across the field.
I had been starting to cheer. I stop with my mouth open.
Rui runs after the rebound.
We lose two to one. Their last goal is a high shot I do not reach. I could say I wasn’t ready. I saw it coming. I jumped late.
Jani shakes hands with everyone because that is what we do after a match. He is pleased his team won. I shake his hand and let go.
Kess finds me letting air out of the ball with a grass stem. I don’t know why I am doing it. I stop when she sits on the low wall.
“Will you come to reserve practice on Monday?” she asks.
“Is Ed still first?”
“Yes.”
I scrape the stem along a crack in the wall.
“You need my ball.”
“We need a ball. We need a reserve too. I’d rather know who’s coming.”
She stands and calls Rui, who is still trying shots against the post. We all have to go home. The field gets locked at six.
On Monday I bring the ball with the air put back in. Ed is already warming up with Kess. Rui meets me by the coats.
“My turn to run,” she says.
I put the ball on the grass.
“Far side or near?”
“Far.”
She starts. I roll it ahead of her, into the empty space. This time, when she shoots, I am already moving back to my keeper’s place between the coats.
Loading comments…