Max the Golden Boot Read online

  “But Co-a-ach!” I dared to speak. “They’ve never lost. They played three games, two wins and only one tie. They are really good.”

  “Excuse me?” Our coach turned on his heels. “Did I give you permission to speak?”

  I stared at my feet. I knew he wasn’t done and that the worst was yet to come.

  “So you think, because they are really good, that we have an excuse for this disaster? Is that what you are saying?” he hissed.

  “N-no sir,” I replied.

  He pointed at me. “Max! The ball hog. You screwed it all up! Your big ego destroyed us today. Why didn’t you pass the ball to Joe or Brendan? They were in a position to score. They were dying to get the ball from you. But you decided to do it the hard way. You were only thinking of yourself and that hat trick you were trying to get. Am I right?”

  What was I supposed to say? I had scored two goals. And the third try didn’t work out. All I could do was dumbly nod my head. I felt terrible.

  He turned to the team. They knew he was going to lash out at me, which would take most of the blame off them, so they were relieved. “Because of Max here, we aren’t going to the championship. Because of him the Wild Soccer Bunch is!” he yelled. “A team that no one in this league has even heard of.” He turned again to me, “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  I obeyed. I lifted my head slowly, but I could barely see him in the steaming room. That’s why I blinked.

  “You have anything to say?”

  “But C-c-c-oach!” I whispered. “The red-h-haired boy with the thick glasses, he m-missed, too.”

  “D-did he, really, Max?” Coach Buckman said, mocking me. “You d-don’t say. Then why don’t you g-go play with h-him?!”

  Everyone laughed. Sure, I stutter when I’m nervous and people always make fun of me. I don’t care. I’m used to it. I just looked at him. I didn’t get it. I scored two goals. And we won the last three games where I scored a goal in each game. How good do you have to be to get appreciated around here? “Are you deaf?” he yelled, and his lava-colored, bald head looked like it was about to explode.

  So I got up, took my soccer bag—the most valuable thing I owned except for my oversized biker jacket—and stomped out of the locker room. By practice on Monday, Coach Buckman would calm down, and everything would be back to normal again. As normal as it could be. I knew him pretty well. He was predictable.

  “Oh, and before you leave, one more thing, Max. Don’t bother showing up for practice on Monday if you can’t stand this coach,” he said, jamming his fat thumb into his chest. Then he just smiled at me. But there was nothing good in that smile. It was a wicked smile, one that could chase you into your nightmares.

  I lost it.

  “You don’t have to worry, coach. I’m leaving the team. You won’t see me on Monday,” I said loud and clear. I wasn’t sure why I said those words and the minute they came out of my mouth I totally regretted saying them.

  I looked at him one last time, then over at my teammates, one by one. It was then I realized none of them cared. None of them would defend me or stop me. So I turned away from them all and walked out the door.

  A Surprise Offer

  I ran into the Wild Soccer Bunch and their coach just outside the locker room.

  “Hey, Max!” Josh greeted me as Kyle, their goalie, caught up with me on the other side.

  “Those two goals were fabulous, man!” he congratulated me. “Totally unstoppable!”

  I looked at him, completely dumbfounded. At least somebody noticed! He was about to say something else, but Kevin got between us.

  “Hey, Julian’s mom invited us over for dinner and whoever gets to Camelot before Larry gets there on his scooter doesn’t have to do the dishes. Get on your bikes, guys!” he shouted, patted Larry, the Wild Soccer coach on the shoulder, and grinned. “What do you think, Coach?”

  “I say Larry will be doing the dishes!” Josh said and the Wild Soccer Bunch laughed and rode off.

  “That’s what you think!” Larry shouted after them. “If I beat you, you won’t only be doing the dishes, you’ll be ironing my suit! Each and every one of you!” Then as fast as he could, he chased after his players. I watched them go. So that is what a real soccer team looks like. These guys were real winners. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and took off.

  I just didn’t know where to go. At home, my parents were only interested in whether I won or not. Their dream was that I become a soccer pro. I wanted to make their dream come true more than anything. But now what was I going to do? This was the third time I had been cut from a soccer team. And it was always for the same reason.

  “Hey! Max!” someone called.

  I turned around and there was Larry standing next to his scooter.

  “That’s your name, right? Max?”

  I nodded warily, waiting for the dumb comment that always came next. But Larry just pushed his red baseball cap back and said. “You’re a terrific player, Max. Don’t give up!”

  I swallowed hard. Since when are coaches nice to players? Then I started to wonder what this strange guy wanted from me.

  Danny, the world’s fastest right-winger, must have thought the same thing.

  “What are you doing, Larry?” It was more a warning than a statement. “The others are already way ahead of you.”

  Then he looked at me suspiciously.

  “Dang it, Larry! If you give us this much headway, it’s no fun!”

  Larry nodded.

  “Okay.”

  He cranked up his scooter and drove off. But he circled back to me and said: “Max, we practice every day at 4:30 in the Devil’s Pit. That’s in Brighton Park. You’re invited.” Then he raced off.

  Danny had hung back and heard it all. And he didn’t like it one bit. I thought at first that he liked me, so I waved at him. But he didn’t return the gesture. He ignored me, turned his bike on its wheel, and raced off real fast.

  I had a hunch he wasn’t going to have to do the dishes.

  Take Good Care of It!

  “So, what was the winning score today?” my father asked me when I came into the living room. I had wasted a couple of hours in the park before I finally decided it was time to face my family. My dad sat comfortably on the couch and my two brothers, Mike and Spencer, had spread themselves out on the carpet, watching a Champions League game on TV. My mother came in from the kitchen when she heard the question, and Mike and Spencer lifted their heads curiously. All ears waited for my reply. Were they interested in how we played the game? Did anyone care where I had been all day? Did they even wonder how I had played?

  “Two,” I said matter-of-factly and jetted off to my room.

  That got my father’s attention.

  “No, not so fast,” he said. “I want to hear how everyone did today at your games. Every detail,” he said. “Take a seat, Max.”

  I glumly plopped down in a chair.

  My father’s name is Joe. On his white van it says, “GOAL PLUMBING” and in smaller letters the slogan says, “We’re number one between the pipes!” My father was a gifted goalkeeper until he was injured when he was 18 years old. There is nothing more important to him than soccer, besides his wife and kids.

  My mom’s name is Lucy. My dad met her at a soccer game. She was rooting for the other team when he first met her. But after a long courtship, she switched sides.

  Although my father was a goalie, we all wanted to be field players.

  He pointed at Mike. “Mikey? You’re first.”

  My brother Mike grinned. “We killed Kensington eleven to nothing!” He played for the Chicago Lions in Division 8, although he wasn’t even seven yet.

  “Yeah, well, we won our game five zero,” Spencer added quickly. He was 12 and played for the Pullman Soccer Club. “I scored three of the goals and I played defense. Two headers from a corner kick, and one goal from half the pitch.”

  “Wow!” My father was impressed.

  “I scored five!” Mike bragg
ed “Five! And two of them with my left foot!”

  My father smiled proudly and my mother caressed Mike’s hair.

  “How about you?” my father asked. “Why only two goals? Did you win?”

  I swallowed. “It was a tough game. I was the only one who scored.”

  My father looked at me waiting for more.

  “The other coach asked if I wanted to play for them,” I blurted out.

  My father whistled through his teeth.

  “Wow. Did you hear that, guys? Teams are fighting for Max! Everybody wants him. I’ll bet the Furies will be next.”

  “Doubtful,” Mike said with a grin. “Max lost today. Three two against a younger team.”

  “I’m a year too young for my division, too!” I protested.

  Spencer dug into me as only a big brother can, as if he had been waiting for this moment his entire life. “You played like a five year old. You never passed once,” he said. “You really messed up and your coach was so mad he kicked you off the team.”

  My brother—the speaker of truth. No self-control. I was sunk.

  My father’s face went dark.

  “Wait a minute,” he interjected. “What did you say?”

  “Buckman cut him from the team,” Mike said, and Spencer added: “One measly pass from Max would have won the game. But as usual, he tried to do it all himself.”

  My father got up slowly. “Is this true?” he said between his teeth. “Max, I hope this isn’t true.”

  I could swallow, but I couldn’t lie. What was I supposed to say? “Yes,” I nodded. “T-they are right. I’m off the team.”

  “Again?” My mother was bitterly disappointed. “This is the third time, Max.”

  “Yes, b-but the other team is the Wild Soccer Bunch. T-their c-coach wants me to …”

  “You stay where you are!” my father thundered. “On Monday, you go to Mr. Buckman and ask him to take you back. You got that?”

  “B-but he doesn’t want to ever see me again!”

  “You better fix this, or you can forget about playing soccer!” my father interrupted. “Go to your room. Do your homework!”

  The room grew real quiet.

  On TV, somebody had just scored, but the silence in our living room overpowered everything. Everyone looked at me. I’ve seen my father’s eyes sparkle and smile and show unlimited pride. But not this time. They were tough and unforgiving. I looked to my mother for help, but she just shook her head in disappointment. No one understood. No one wanted to hear my side of the story. But what hurt the most was it seemed like no one liked me. I went to the room I shared with my brothers and tossed the soccer bag and my old oversized biker jacket against the wall and they fell to the floor with a THUMP!

  And that’s where I left them. When it got dark, they disappeared into the shadows and I couldn’t see them and that’s exactly how I wanted it. I could hear my mom and dad and brothers laughing in the other room. They were playing FIFA, just like they did every Saturday.

  When my brothers came to bed a few hours later, I hid under the covers and pretended to be asleep. Moonlight streamed in through a window and I could see my soccer bag clear as day. My father had given it to me on my birthday.

  “Take good care of it!” he said. “This is a pro bag. And I know one day you’ll make me proud and play for a pro team.” Back then I laughed and shook my head, but my father was serious. He took me by the shoulders and looked deep into my eyes.

  “I’m not kidding, Max,” he said. “You will. I’d bet the farm on it. If I had a farm.”

  He made me laugh. Back then, he used to make me laugh.

  “Ever since you touched a ball when you were two, I knew there was something special about you, Max,” he continued. “And one day, when you walk into that soccer stadium, you’ll remember this bag. And you will know that I believed in you. Always.”

  Back then he hugged me real tight, but no matter how much I wished him to do that now, he wasn’t going to. It hurt too much. None of them cared about me.

  I knew I was one of the best in the league. And I knew why the coach of the Wild Soccer Bunch invited me to practice—he wanted his team to win. And he needed a player like me. I knew that I had to accept his invitation.

  I Will Show You All!

  At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the next day, I pushed my soccer bag out the bathroom window of my afterschool program. I was leaving an hour earlier than usual and definitely not the way I usually left. I hit the ground and flattened out. It was an easy jump because the classroom was on the first floor. I army-crawled across the lawn, squeezed under the fence behind the custodian’s shed, and ran until I hit the street.

  To my right, the Stetson Avenue apartment buildings scraped the sky. I lived in building number nine on the ninth floor. When we moved in, my father promised that one day I would become the greatest number nine on the soccer field.

  Stetson Avenue was in Pullman, on the South Side of Chicago, and Brighton Park where the Wild Soccer Bunch lived was halfway across town on the West Side. It might as well be halfway around the world. When I stood there on the street corner, I thought for a moment that the Wild Soccer Bunch was out of reach, and my goal to be a great number nine was out of reach too. But I let these thoughts drift away. I told myself that I could do it. Somehow, I would do it. I would show them all.

  They can cut me off a team, but they can’t stop me from playing. I felt very determined as I marched to the subway.

  I had to take the green line to 16th Street, and then the orange line toward Midway. I had planned everything yesterday and got all the directions from Google Maps. I didn’t have a smartphone so I printed the directions. Ms. Witching, my grumpy old afterschool teacher, had helped me. Believe it or not, she was excited when I told her my plan. Of course, she wouldn’t like the idea of me ditching class to do it. And she wouldn’t be crazy about me going halfway across town. She never would have allowed that sort of plan. That’s why I told her a different plan—a plan where I was researching subway routes in order to write a story. I told her I wanted to write about a small boy living in Pullman who wanted nothing more than to visit his poor, sick grandmother who lived in Brighton Park.

  I swear, her jaw dropped to her chest, and for a moment, I was afraid she had seen through my story. But she liked it. Maybe she was shocked because it came out of my mouth. Who knows? Anyway, it worked miracles and she was happy to help me. She looked at my map and totally advised me which public transportation this boy, the main character of my short story, needed to take to make his way to the other side of town.

  First, she said, he needs to take the green line to 16th Street. Then switch to the blue line towards Cicero. Get off at the seventh stop, which is Forest Park, then change to the tram. “But your character has to be careful when he gets there, you hear? Only the 25 will take him to Brighton Park. The 15 turns around too early. Where does the boy’s grandmother live anyway?” she asked.

  “In the Devil’s Pit!” I blurted out.

  “Devil’s Pit … Devil’s Pit …” Ms. Witching murmured as she checked the street names on her desktop. She suddenly whipped around to me in a flurry.

  “In the Devil’s Pit?” she hissed. “Max, you’re kidding, right?”

  “I wouldn’t kid about something like this, Ms. Witching,” I said, totally innocent. “I mean, it’s my, I mean his, grandma!”

  “All I see is a big field there.”

  Perfect.

  “Maybe it’s an old map,” I said. “May I please be excused?” I started hopping up and down from one foot to the other.

  Ms. Witching got the hint. “Do you need to be excused?”

  I nodded my head desperately and plastered a real uncomfortable look on my face. Ms. Witching pointed a bony finger down the hall. “You know where the restroom is,” she snorted.

  Whew!

  You know the rest. I climbed out the bathroom window, across the lawn, under the fence, and onto the street. I took the green lin
e downtown, where I got off the train. I was nervous. There were so many people around me, all of them adults and all of them tall and serious. No one smiled. No one looked friendly. Whenever I tried to stand still to read a sign, someone bumped into me and shoved me away. I was frustrated and nervous, but I finally found the platform for the orange line. When I found it, I was so relieved, I didn’t pay attention to the sign that said Downtown. Or the sign that said Midway. They both disappeared in the usual fog that surrounded me. So I got on a train going in the wrong direction.

  I got off five stations later, the way Ms. Witching had told me, took a long escalator ride to the street and stood in the center of a huge square.

  This had to be Forest Park. I was sure of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay any attention to the big letters above the subway station or to the signs all around the square announcing: “Max, you are at Logan Square!”

  I couldn’t hear them. There was a lot of traffic noise. There was fog. When I think I’m right, nothing can change my mind. Have I mentioned that?

  I looked around for the tram station. I went from one street to another and soon discovered I had no idea where I was.

  I was hopelessly lost.

  The fog enveloped everything and it felt like I was in a cocoon. Shivers went up and down my spine, and fear crept up on me. Why didn’t I stay home? The afterschool program would close soon, and practice would start. I’d talk to Buckman, the bald-headed lava pot, and maybe he’d forgive me. Buckman loved to humiliate people. At least one of us had to crawl in the dirt before him at every practice, and usually it was me.

  Suddenly crawling in the dirt didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  Oh wait a sec, I was supposed to be done with all that negativity. I was proud. I was a winner. I was Number 9! And that’s how I ignored the shivers and with clenched teeth, marched on until I found a taxi stand. I walked up to one of the cab drivers who was sitting in his cab, reading a paper. “Excuse me! How do I get to Forest Park?” I asked and flashed him my friendliest smile. I learned how to do this from my teacher in first grade. But no one taught me about what happened next.