Kevin the Star Striker Page 8

  “OK. Body contact is totally allowed? You got it!” he yelled. At that very moment, the Grim Reaper passed to Mickey the bulldozer. Julian stormed towards him and tried to get to the ball first, but he ran straight into Mickey’s elbow and it caught him in the right eye and he dropped to the turf like a sack of potatoes.

  “Oh, my bad!” The Bulldozer grinned, turned and thundered the ball towards the goal so hard that I had to pull my fists away or lose them.

  “Two!” Mickey’s grin widened as he looked at his watch. “Two to nothing in one minute. Looks like I overestimated you.”

  I had enough. I grabbed the ball and ran to the center mark myself.

  “Alex, you be goalie now,” I yelled. “Diego, you pass to me.”

  Diego obeyed and kicked off. I took the ball and dribbled off. I played them dizzy, that’s how mad I was. Humungous, Juggernaut, and Mow-down fell into the dirt behind me. That’s when Danny and Tyler yelled: “Come on, Kevin, pass!”

  But I was too angry. All I could see was Octopus, and behind him the Unbeatables’ goal.

  “Hey, Kevin! Pass!” Danny and Tyler yelled again. I saw them to my right and to my left, but I didn’t even consider it.

  That’s when the Grim Reaper slid into my feet from behind and mowed me down.

  “Foul!” I screamed and jumped up immediately.

  “Is that so?” Octopus laughed, and grabbed the ball. “We call that playing the ball.”

  He stepped back to run and then kicked the ball high all the way across the field. That’s where the Bulldozer was by himself against Julian and Alex. But Julian was no longer the Julian we knew. He did not only have a black eye, he was scared stiff. That’s exactly what Larry said would happen. He wouldn’t attack, and just a moment later Mickey the bulldozer lifted his arms and screamed: “Three!”

  The Unbeatables laughed at us and ridiculed us as we trotted back to our end of the field, deflated. And then it got even worse. We started fighting: “See what happens if you do it all yourself?” Tyler criticized me.

  “Leave me alone,” I snapped.

  “He’s right!” Danny growled.

  “Why don’t you try it yourself!?” I barked.

  Nothing worked, and although Alex stopped the next ball, we didn’t stand a chance. After the next attack, Diego was wasted and plopped down at the edge of the field. Our legs were made of lead and we felt as if we were playing on the muddy field down by the lake. We forgot everything Larry had taught us, and we wished he were here. But there was no way he would come. I called him a liar. “I don’t ever want to see you again,” I said, and now it was five to zero in favor of the Unbeatables.

  That’s when I heard Mickey’s mocking voice: “Halftime!” he said with a smirk, and gave us a break.

  Roger the Hero!

  We were too desperate and scared to notice we had two spectators. They had secretly followed us to the field. Now they were flat on their stomachs, hiding like Apaches on the warpath. They watched the game with bated breath through a hole in the fence, and when Mickey the bulldozer scored his first goal, one of them said to the other: “Tight! That’s what they get.”

  After the second goal, the other one said to the first: “Excellent! Shoot ‘em down.”

  And after the third goal, the first one even applauded enthusiastically. “Awesome! Don’t stop now!”

  But suddenly the second one jumped up and yelled:

  “No!”

  Josh looked up, surprised, but Roger clenched his fists.

  “No! We didn’t deserve that!”

  “We?” Josh asked dumbfounded. “There’s no ‘we.’ They kicked us out, remember?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t care. We didn’t deserve that!” For a moment Roger burned a hole in the sky with his gaze. Then he ran off.

  “I’m going to get Larry!” he yelled, and Josh watched him disappear.

  “And what am I supposed to do?” he wanted to know.

  “Get help!” Roger demanded, without stopping.

  “Help?” Josh asked. “For who? For what?”

  “Do I know?” Roger growled and kept running. “Just do it. We’re going to need a superhero!”

  Josh was at a loss, but shrugged and took off anyway.

  Roger had no idea where he was going, he just ran and ran. He ran straight to the field by the lake. He had no idea why. But when he got there, he could already see him from afar.

  “Larry!” he shouted. “Larry, we need you!” But Larry didn’t hear him. Roger ran over to him, but when he finally got there, all he could say was: “Snap!”

  There were at least fifteen empty beer bottles on the ground surrounding Larry.

  “You look like a fresh pile of you-know-what!” Roger mumbled. “Don’t tell me you drank all that …”

  Larry shook his head.

  “I poured them all out,” he said. “Apparently I tell too many tall tales when I drink.”

  “Can’t argue with that!” Roger said, relieved. “If you’re sober, let’s go!”

  “Go? Where?” Larry asked.

  “To the soccer field, what do you think?!” Roger yelled, but Larry just shook his head.

  “Dude! What’s this crud?” Roger demanded to know. “Josh and I were kicked off the team too, but did we put our heads in the sand? I think not. No, we decided to show them just how valuable we really are.”

  “Good for you!” Larry smirked. “But they won’t believe me anymore. I lied to them.”

  Roger smacked himself in the forehead.

  “Oh man! So what? They need you. If you don’t go now, the Wild Soccer Bunch is history.”

  Roger looked at Larry. Like a magnifying glass, his coke-bottle-thick glasses made his pleading eyes seem huge.

  “Please, Larry,” he tried one last time. “Do it for me. Those guys are my friends.”

  Larry turned around and looked out over the lake. Roger didn’t see the tears in his eyes, and that’s why he started yelling again. “Dang! Why didn’t you just drink this stuff? If this is it, you should have just guzzled it all down!”

  Roger wanted to run away, but he didn’t know where to go. So he just sat down into the grass, behind Larry, staring at his back. He stared and stared at that back as if he wanted to hypnotize him, and suddenly, Larry actually got up.

  “You’re right!” he said. “Let’s go.” Before Roger realized what was happening, Larry took off.

  Even Wilder!

  Meanwhile, Joey paced up and down the EL train station like a caged tiger. He was way too late. All morning he had waited for his mother to wake up. She had promised she’d come with him to the game. But then she didn’t come home until late that night with a strange man in tow. They were drinking and singing, and told Joey they were celebrating. But then they started fighting. And then his mother threw the strange man out of the van and took Joey in her arms instead.

  “Forget that jerk!” she told him as she drove toward the highway. “Tomorrow I’ll go meet your friends. They won’t desert you, will they?”

  “No,” Joey answered, “but if you keep driving I’ll desert them!”

  That seemed to convince her. She stopped the van at the parking lot of a grocery store just off the highway and went to sleep. The next morning, she wouldn’t wake up.

  He waited until it was too late, then he woke her up. But she just yelled at him. So he wrote her a letter.

  “Dear Mom,” he wrote. “I love you.”

  He stepped out of the van and ran to the EL station, and paced up and down until a train came that could take him to his destination. Then he ran to the soccer field, bumped into Kyle at the corner, and together, they hurried through the gate.

  And they stopped. What they saw was worse than a knockout punch in the first round. Mickey the bulldozer stood in front of his Unbeatables, telling them with broad gestures and loud laughter how unbeatable they were. Five goals in just seven minutes, and all of them he had scored himself. He had not felt this good in ages. Behind
him, we were down on the grass, staring at our feet. Julian’s eye was darkgreenblueviolet, Tyler held his ribcage, and I licked my badly scraped knee.

  Kyle and Joey sat down next to us in the grass.

  “Not quite going the way we planned, is it?” Kyle joked carefully, but the only ones who thought it was funny were the Unbeatables. That’s when Joey jumped up, fuming with anger.

  “We’ll see who has the last laugh.”

  Mickey the bulldozer exploded in laughter, holding his flabby belly. But then the laughter vanished from his face. His beady eyes glowed like lasers, shooting deadly glances above our heads. We turned around. Larry and Roger stood behind us. Larry’s poker face hurled Mickey’s lasers straight back at him.

  “I think Joey is right!” Larry said, as if he was carving his words in stone. In that very instant, a cloud darkened the sun, and Mickey the bulldozer instinctively stepped back.

  “Wow! Strong words,” he tried to save face. “Did you hear that, guys? What are we waiting for? Let’s finish them off!”

  “Hold it! Just one minute!” Roger chimed in and took two steps forward. “On one condition.”

  Mickey the bulldozer raised his eyebrow.

  “Condition?” he hissed.

  “Yes, condition!” Roger held his gaze. Then he took a deep breath. “The team that loses fixes Larry’s stand.”

  Mickey stared at him as if he wanted to kill him with his glare. But then his fat belly jiggled, made waves, and jiggled again, and then the Bulldozer snorted.

  “Dude!” he laughed. “Hold on to that thought!”

  The other morons joined in his laughter, and they walked to their side of the field, still snickering, when a battle cry cut into their laughter like a knife.

  “ONE, TWO, THREE WILD!” we roared, standing shoulder to shoulder in a circle. Then we stormed apart. I kicked off, passed to Alex, who played back to Tyler, who in turn tendered a dream pass to the right, just in time to find Danny running up the sidelines. He played to me and I passed on to Joey to the left. The Unbeatables were watching us, paralyzed like flies caught in a web. Joey jumped over Mow-down’s legs and passed back to me before Humungous could waddle over. I took a shot. The ball flew towards the high post. I was about to lift my arms in triumph when Octopus extended his tentacles and caught the ball effortlessly.

  We sighed, and that woke the flies from their sleepy paralysis. Octopus thundered his deadly goal kick towards Kong. Julian was right on him, but he was still scared. Kong left him in the dust and passed the ball to Mickey. The Bulldozer thundered at the goal, immediately. Kyle guessed the right corner. He flew, touched the ball with his fingertips and pushed it away. But unfortunately, he didn’t push hard enough. The ball bounced against the inside goal post and from there right into the goal.

  “Six!” The Bulldozer hollered and reached his arms towards the dark clouds.

  We trotted back, beaten, looking for Larry. He applauded.

  “That was great! Keep it up, men!”

  “You’re kidding!” I yelled at him. “We’re losing, six to zero!”

  Larry ordered me off the field.

  “You want to have that attitude; you can sit on the bench.”

  He replaced me with Diego for the attack.

  We attacked again, this time from the left. Joey passed to Diego, who passed to Danny, who took a shot at the goal. But the ball thundered against the post.

  “Not fair!” I yelled.

  “Yes, it is!” Larry countered. “You guys don’t believe in yourselves. Don’t you understand? Your opponents need to have respect for you. Tell that to Julian when you’re going back in now. He needs to really rattle Kong and Mickey. I’m not talking about a foul, you hear? The Unbeatables are better at that. And you have to pass back to Alex. Let him score the goal. Do you hear me?”

  I shook my head, but Larry smiled at me encouragingly. “Go on, get back on the field!”

  The fact that the Bulldozer scored his seventh goal that very minute didn’t seem to bother him one little bit.

  This time we attacked through the middle. Tyler ran with the ball directly towards the goal. Mow-down and Juggernaut teamed up against him. Humungous came from the left. But Tyler didn’t seem to mind at all. In the very last moment he passed to Danny on the right. He passed across the field towards the penalty spot. That’s where I plucked the ball from the air and stood, free, in front of Octopus. He waved his tentacles. He seemed bigger than the goal. But my feet were still itching. I wanted to score. That’s when I felt something behind me, and so I passed back with my heel. The Grim Reaper slid into me. I fell to the ground, but my pass had reached Alex with time to spare. And Alex the cannon thundered the ball toward the goal. Octopus threw himself into it, but when the ball hit his chest, he moaned and flew into the goal along with the ball.

  I don’t know who was more surprised, the Unbeatables or us. In any case, it took a while before we realized this was our first goal. It might have been seven to one, but to us, it was one to seven, and we ran into our half of the soccer field, cheering, getting ready for our opponent’s attack.

  Mickey the bulldozer grinned mockingly. Then he passed to the side to Kong. He ran forward, stormed past Alex and then further to Julian. But this time Julian did not avoid him. He hit a press ball against Kong’s foot. Kong, surprised, sidestepped to the left, and stopped abruptly. Julian stood in front of him again. Kong looked behind him and to the right and couldn’t believe what he saw. Julian was everywhere, waiting. Julian Fort Knox, our all-in-one defender, had come back to life. Before Kong even knew what was happening, Julian had the ball, passed it to Joey, who took the shot at the goal. Octopus flew towards it, but because he was more careful after Alex’s cannon ball, he fisted the ball. The ball flew towards me and I did my move, the famous “flip over bicycle kick.” Seven to two.

  It started to rain when the score was seven to four. The ground grew soft and muddy, and the Unbeatables were sliding around like ducks on an ice rink. But we had practiced on that kind of field for twelve days, and so we were dancing through the ranks of our opponents. I scored my third goal, a real hat-trick; Danny his second; and then Joey pounded the ball directly in the corner to make it an even seven to seven. Tyler, our number 10, reigned in midfield and was rewarded with a shot from halfway down the field. The ball kept flying and flying until it was caught by a gust of wind, which carried it all the way to the goal where it sank, unreachable for Octopus’ tentacles, directly into the goal. That was number eight. Now we were in the lead, and when Diego forgot all about this asthma and became the Tornado again, we scored number nine. We were lying in each other’s arms and we knew we had won. That’s when I lost the ball. I didn’t pass. I wanted to score the tenth goal so badly. As a consequence, Larry took me off the field. He put Roger in instead.

  “You can’t be serious!” I yelled at Larry. “Do you want us to lose?”

  Roger hesitated for a moment. He sure didn’t want to be responsible for losing. He was about to leave the field and go back to the bench, but Larry yelled “Go on Roger, get on the field! Without you they’d have lost long ago!”

  Then Mickey scored the Unbeatables’ eighth goal and left them only one goal behind. It wasn’t Roger’s mistake, but when Roger missed the opportunity for the winning goal, I jumped up. I wanted to curse him, but Larry’s glance kept me quiet.

  Then the Grim Reaper evened the match. It was nine to nine, and the next goal would decide the game. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I yelled at Larry: “OK, OK,

  I’ll pass the ball.”

  But Larry was still waiting. Roger had another sure chance, and again he missed the ball. After that only a miracle by Kyle could stop the winning goal by the Unbeatables. He fisted the ball out of the lower left corner with a nosedive. But the ball was still in play. We held our breath and our hearts stopped. Kong took the follow-up shot at the goal while Kyle was still on the ground. Then Kyle bounced up, pushed himself off with both arms and legs at t
he same time, transformed into Kyle the Invincible, and at the last moment steered the ball around the post.

  During the corner kick that followed, Julian bounced into the Grim Reaper and went down, injured. He had to leave the field, and Larry sent me in to replace him. But I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to play defense. I was Kevin, the forward, but Larry wouldn’t discuss it.

  So I did my best. Roger stumbled over the ball yet again, and then Kong came towards me. I swallowed hard. This guy was a real giant. But then I remembered what Julian would do in a situation like this. I approached him, slid right into him, hit the ball and jumped up. Then I ran. I ran and ran and dribbled around everyone who’d get in my way. I was Kevin, the master dribbler. And because I wanted to be the star striker on top of that, I didn’t pass.

  I ignored the calls from the others, until I stood right in front of the goal. Only Humungous and the Grim Reaper stood in my way. I grinned at them. I’d get around them, too. I didn’t care that our goal was without any defense and that there was nobody covering the Bulldozer and Kong. I would handle this right here and right now. That’s when I heard Roger. He ran behind me on the right. “Oh my God,” I thought! “You messed up three times already.” I played the ball past Humungous and wanted to play the ball through the Grim Reaper’s legs. But Roger yelled again: “Watch it, Kevin, on your right!”

  All I saw was the shadow. It was Mickey the Bulldozer himself. Like a crashing jumbo jet, he was sliding straight at me. That’s when I passed the ball to the right, lightning fast. Roger ran towards the ball and took aim with the wrong foot.

  “No, not with your left!” I yelled at him.

  But Roger didn’t listen. He was way too determined, and this time he actually hit the ball and thundered it into the net.

  WE WIN!

  We fell all over each other. Then we carried Roger on our shoulders and ran across the field with him. Only I was lying in front of the goal. I couldn’t believe it that Roger the Hero had really become our hero. That’s when Larry appeared before me and held out his hand.