Zoe the Fearless Page 5

  “You’re the kind of girl who always thinks she’s right,” Roger worked up the courage to spit out.

  I gave him my snake-eyes. “It’s not about who’s right. It’s about what’s right.”

  With that, I threw the letters at their feet, spun around, and marched away.

  That night my dad and I sat in the living room on the new sofa that arrived couple of hours earlier. I had no idea what was going to happen next. I usually know because I’m usually the one who messes things up. But I didn’t do that this time. I was feeling oddly okay for the first time in a long time and when my father asked me how it went, I didn’t hesitate. “Great, Dad,” I said. “It went great.”

  “Were you scared much?” He asked.

  “Oh yeah,” I answered.

  “Well, then you did the right thing by facing your fears,” he said. “Gimme five.”

  I high-fived him and he laughed. “I’ll bet you anything Kevin and the rest are shaking in their boots right now, staring at those envelopes, totally clueless.”

  I kissed him good night and went to bed. And that night I had the best sleep I’ve had in a long, long time. And that’s how I knew I’d done something right.

  Tremors in Camelot

  My father was right. Larry had told him later that the Wild Soccer Bunch and he had gathered that night in Camelot, which was actually Julian’s treehouse. The way he told it, they all stared at the eleven envelopes lying on an old wooden barrel right in front of them, unopened. They called it the anvil, and they only used it when a terrible danger was threatening them.

  Dark expressions clouded their faces as they sat around the anvil staring down at the unopened letters. One of them looked like it had been opened and hastily resealed. The one with “Danny” written on it. That’s why Danny wasn’t looking at the envelopes. Instead, he squirmed and whistled Knocking on Heaven’s Door, which is what he always did to push away the fear.

  It was already dark when Kevin finally broke the silence. “Okay, we have two choices: burn them or open them.”

  “Burn them!” The words escaped Danny’s mouth. “I vote we burn them.”

  Kevin looked at him and nodded in satisfaction. “What do you think?” he asked the others. “Burn them.” “Yes, burn them.”

  “Let’s burn them!” Everyone seemed to agree. “And before we burn them, tear them to shreds.” Then everything was still.

  Kevin waited a few seconds. “Good,” sighed in relief. “It’s settled then.”

  Slowly he bent down to the anvil to collect the letters. Larry watched him carefully, then started clapping slowly. “Very impressive, guys!” He said in mock praise. “And guess what? You look like real champions. But tell me one thing – does it hurt?”

  Kevin balled his hands into a fist and Tyler squinted. Larry must have seen that; there was no way he could have missed it. But he didn’t care. He took Danny’s letter from the bunch and held it against the light.

  “You guys beat the Unbeatables, you jump from a bridge in the middle of the night into scary water; an international soccer star is so impressed with you, he buys you your uniforms, and you call yourselves the Wild Soccer Bunch. That’s quite a list of accomplishments. Until now. You get one little letter from a very nice girl who loves the game more than life itself – and you all turn into nervous Chihuahuas. Your fear beats you, and you’re too wrapped up in yourselves to do anything about it.”

  “All right, that’s enough!” Tyler and Kevin seethed.

  Larry just looked at them like they were little kids.

  “I’m not done yet,” he said. “I have one question: Why didn’t you do what Danny did?”

  Danny shrunk back and tried to hide, but Larry stopped him. “Knock it off, Danny. Hiding doesn’t become you. It so happens you were the only one brave enough to even open the letter. It doesn’t matter if you did it for other reasons; at least you had the guts to do it. Maybe a little of that courage will rub off on your friends. Maybe they’ll work up the nerve to read the letter before they stomp on it, tear it to shreds and torch it?” Larry cheered Danny on. But Danny just shook his head. “No, not in a million years. No way!”

  Larry shook his head, disappointed. “It’s that bad, huh? Wow. I guess I completely underestimated Zoe.”

  “You got that right,” Danny said under his breath, and that’s when Kevin couldn’t stand it anymore. “I’m not underestimating and I’m not afraid!” he yelled, snatching the letter from Larry’s hand and tearing open the envelope. A second later the letter was back on the anvil, now unfolded for everyone to read.

  Hello Sweetie-pies!

  Boy are you guys wild! At least that’s what I thought, until I met you. You look pretty tough on the outside, but on the inside, you are just a bunch of chickens who know how to spit. You know, I would have thought that playing the game the way you do, you would have learned some manners, but I didn’t see them out there on the field yesterday. Don’t you agree, Roger? Diego? Alex? Kevin? Danny?

  Well, it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t expect you to take another look at me. After all, I’m just a girl and since you haven’t figured out that we’re humans too, I wouldn’t expect you to give me another look. If you did, you might have to play by the rules and I don’t think you guys know how to do that, let alone be fair.

  Well, just the same, if you have a change of heart, you are cordially invited to my birthday party.

  I am hosting a soccer tournament in my backyard at the Creepy Castle, 1 Old Sutton Road, at 3PM next Sunday, the day before school starts. Please come if you regain your sanity. And bring some manners. In my house, we don’t treat people the way you treated me.

  Otherwise, spit on the invitations or whatever you boys do with scary envelopes and I’ll see you in P.E. when school starts. Have a nice day.

  xoxox,

  Zoe

  Silence fell over Camelot. But if you listened closely, you’d notice it was really loud. Loud as a Rolling Stones concert. Unbearably loud, to tell the truth, but in a frequency human ears cannot hear. The Wild Soccer Bunch could not hear the noise yet, but they could feel it. A thousand bats sent their calls out into the night and engulfed them. The ground shook and a tremor hit Camelot. The air was electrified with sparks of anger flying from one wild guy to the next. There was no need to utter a single word. They all knew. Finally the noise exploded when Kevin erupted, “She’ll pay for this! I swear!”

  Black Riders

  The next morning the moving van finally showed up with my black mountain bike. Nothing else mattered any more, and much to Grandma’s disdain – who had seriously hoped to have some girl talk with me and discuss how best to organize the kitchen shelves – I took off.

  I rode without thinking. I didn’t look right or left except when I came to corners. I just held my head high in the wind and raced through the streets. It felt good, and that’s why I didn’t see the danger lurking at every corner. They were dressed all in black, their faces hidden behind black hoods. I didn’t notice them until three of them were right behind me and I could hear the whirr of their mountain bikes on the asphalt. They were chasing me! When I looked back I saw their black hoodies and the black Wild Soccer Bunch signs on their handles. Boys. What is wrong with their brains? I sped up. I rode as fast as I could, trying to lose them, but they stuck to me like a shadow. My only chance was to head for home immediately. “Take the next left and then turn left again,” I thought, but I wasn’t quite sure because I didn’t really know my way around yet. But the fourth hunter was waiting for me at the corner, and number 5 was straight ahead, so all I could do was turn right. I had no idea where that street would lead, but I took it anyway. “Take the next right,” I thought, “then straight home.” But that wasn’t in the cards.

  At the next corner, and the next one, and the one after that, more black riders appeared, and they chased me through strange streets right into the “The Garden,” a bike park. There, the last of the eleven Black Riders was waiting for me.
They surrounded me like sharks in a feeding frenzy and no matter what I tried or how many neck-breaking tricks I dared, I couldn’t shake them. Every time I made a maneuver, one of the black riders would appear right in front of me, blocking my escape, and finally, even my one advantage – my fat back tire – didn’t help any more. I lost my balance and tumbled down the embankment.

  I jumped up immediately, but my bike was stuck underneath a tree trunk. I pulled and tugged, but I couldn’t get it out. Oh no! I panicked, when they all caught up and surrounded me. But before I could scream, they ripped off their hoods.

  “Get outta town! She’s got a Mongoose!” Roger yelled.

  “Yeah, and you see that back tire?” Tyler added. “You won’t even slip on ice with that one! Awesome!”

  But Kevin held up his hand, demanding silence. “Not bad,” he said dryly. “Really, I mean it. But it doesn’t quite cut it.”

  I stared at him. “You think eleven against one cuts it? You are more pathetic than I thought,” I said.

  Kevin’s face twitched for a few seconds. He couldn’t hide behind a glob of spit that time.

  “Okay!” he said and smiled gracefully. “We’re all looking forward to your soccer tournament.”

  It took me a second to process this. “Hold on. Are you saying you’re going to show up?” I asked. “You’re really going to come?”

  “Can a chicken spit?” Kevin shot me a knowing glance and I had to stifle a laugh.

  “We even bought you a birthday present, Phooey!” Kevin grinned, pulled a back-wheelie and turned around. A loud battle cry on his lips, he took the ramp and raced off. The others followed, easily navigating the hills and ramps of the park.

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “IT’S ZOE!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Every single last one of the Wild Soccer Bunch stopped and looked back. Even Kevin, Tyler, and Danny, who had already climbed the embankment above me, turned their bikes as if they were ponies and looked down upon me like a band of Indian warriors.

  I launched my bike, took the next three ramps fast and without stopping, and then I turned my bike around in a wheelie. For a brief sweet moment, I savored the stunned looks of the Wild Soccer Bunch. Then I calmly said, “I’m looking forward to the party, too. See you Sunday.”

  With a last glance at Kevin, Tyler, and Danny, I wheelied my bike like a horse and took off back down the hill leaving them in my dust. I felt fantastic. Lucky for me I didn’t turn around to see Kevin sitting on top of the embankment like a king on his throne. “I can’t wait,” he hissed. “This is not over yet.”

  Dead Center and Right in the Heart

  It was pouring rain that Sunday morning. When I came into the kitchen, Grandma was about to decorate my birthday cake with pink frosting. “What do you think your new girlfriends would like to drink?” she asked. “Cocoa or tea?”

  “Girlfriends?” I asked and looked at my father in confusion. He just shrugged. “I told her who was coming, but she didn’t believe me.”

  Grandma didn’t seem to hear him. “And what have you planned after the cake? At first I was thinking a little hide-and-seek or maybe a sack race? But since it’s raining we’ll have to play indoor games.”

  “Indoor games? Grandma, are you kidding me?” I repeated and sat down at the table. “How about spin-the-bottle?”

  Grandma, mortified, dropped the frosting. “Oh dear, dear, dear, child! Don’t you think you’re a little young for that?”

  “Yes, Grandma, I’m just kidding! I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I don’t have any girlfriends here in Chicago. Just boys,” I explained, grinning sheepishly. “So, I only invited boys.”

  “And whether they’re friends remains to be seen,” my father chimed in.

  I nodded agreement with dad as Grandma was lost in her shock.

  “Boys?” Grandma repeated in horror. “Spin-the-bottle? Scott-Francis, did you have anything to do with this? She’s too young!”

  “Don’t get all jiggy, Grandma,” I said. “We’re having a soccer tournament. In the backyard.”

  At first she looked relieved, then realized what I’d just said. “Wait a minute. Outside? In the rain?” Grandma plopped down in her chair.

  “Sure! In the rain. Soccer doesn’t mind the rain and neither do I!” I said, taking another look at her pink cake. “Oh, would you please change the color of the frosting? I want black.”

  “Black?” She said, flabbergasted. “Why in heaven’s name would you want black?”

  I grinned. “It’s the team colors of the Wild Soccer Bunch.“

  Grandma could only mouth the words and watch dumbfounded as I rushed out to get ready.

  And when she threw open the front door at 3 p.m. sharp to greet the Wild Soccer Bunch on our doorstep, she was speechless. The whole team arrived on their bikes, all clad in black. They didn’t even notice the rain and they cared even less about the dirt on their pants and hoodies and faces. “The Wild Soccer Bunch, I presume,” was all she said.

  Despite her sincere desire for a little girl tea-and-crumpets dress-up birthday party for her only granddaughter, Grandma knew this was not going to be it. This was going to be a battle: a battle between lofty dreams and old beliefs. A battle between a girl dreaming to go all the way to the U.S. National Soccer Team, and eleven wildly determined boys who believe that a girl’s place is in the playhouse and the beauty parlor, not on the soccer field. Now that is a contest.

  “Did you kids just crawl out from under a rock?” Grandma lamented, looking at each of the boys as if they just stepped out of a mud bath.

  “I wish,” Kevin said and the rest of the guys laughed. “We’ll meet you around the back, Phooey” he said as he spun his bike like a wild bronco and tore off for the side gate, followed by the rest of the Wild Soccer Bunch.

  “Phooey?”

  “Grandma, you are so uptight,” I said, closing the front door. “They’re shy. Cut them some slack. For now.”

  “I get it, the strong and silent types eh?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I replied. “Okay. Well, what do we do now? I admit I’m totally at a loss.”

  “What do you think? First we eat cake – and then we fight.”

  “Fight?”

  “Yes, Grandma, fight, the way you fought Muhammad Ali,” I explained and pulled her into the kitchen to get the cake.

  “What does Muhammad Ali have to do with the tea in China?” Grandma asked, trying to figure out what the heck I was talking about.

  “Grandma, did you or did you not want to become a heavyweight champion once upon a time?”

  Grandma blushed. It was the first time I’d ever seen her do that and at first I thought something was wrong, but she immediately said: “I was just a kid, then,” Grandma hesitated. “I didn’t know any better.”

  “Well, now you do,” I said. “Besides, you’re the only woman here. I need you to remember!” “Remember what?”

  “Remember everything I’m not supposed to do!” I said impatiently, pushing one of the black soccer ball birthday cakes into her hand. Then I took the other one and returned to my dark and sinister guests.

  They were amazed when they saw the two black soccer ball birthday cakes. And they were so sure of their victory that they ate every last crumb. Roger even ate five pieces all by himself, and with each piece his mood seemed to lighten. And his mood was contagious; he was telling jokes, and he even told Grandma about Mickey the Bulldozer and his slob friends the Unbeatables, and how they’d beat them in a match. It almost felt like a real birthday party.

  Then my father explained the rules. You’ll play two on two, in six teams and two groups. In each group the teams will oppose each other twice to decide the semifinalists. In the semi-finals, the winner of Group One will meet the runner-up of Group Two and the other way around. The winners of these games will meet in the finals.

  “Got it,” Kevin said dryly. “But who plays with her?” He pointed at me. “Except for Grandma, I don’t see
any other girls. And the way I see it, Grandma’s not only too old, but she’s also too pink.”

  “Old enough to teach you a thing or two, young man!” Grandma grumbled and pointed a finger at them and they backed up. My father stepped in, “There are eleven of you, right? Depending on the way you look at it, there is either one too many or one too few. Either way, one of you is going to play with Zoe. Who is it going to be?”

  “Good question,” Kevin shrugged and addressed his team in disbelief. “Any volunteers?”

  Danny was about to raise his hand when Kevin slapped it down.

  “What’s the matter with you? You’re on my team!” Kevin knew Danny was a little different than the others and had a crush on me. “Tyler plays with the girl,” Kevin decided, and put me with the one wild guy who disliked me as much as he did.

  “I’m not ‘the girl,’ Kevin. My name is Zoe.”

  “Right,” he said, shooting a quick look to my father. “We have something for your daughter,” Kevin said as if my name was unmentionable. “We bought her a present, and I’d like to give it to her now.”

  With that, he magically produced a pink package from his black backpack and gave it to me. “Thank you for that very sweet letter. We bought this just for you,” he said earnestly. “So you never forget who you are.”

  My mouth was glued shut and all I could do was nod. I had a bad feeling about this.

  I opened the package anyway. If you’ve learned anything about me you already know I live dangerously … and wild. I pulled on the pink ribbon, ripped off the pink wrapping paper and found a pink shoe box inside. “You sure you want me to open this now?” I managed to ask Kevin with a slight quaver in my voice.