Little's Losers (2 page)

We're walking home, Shay and me, when Shay says, “What am I going to tell Granddad?”

“What do you mean?” I say.

But I know what he means. He means he's afraid his granddad will be disappointed in him, letting in all those goals, and us losing again. I feel sorry for Shay — not that his granddad's unkind to him or anything — but the old fellow used to be quite a famous goalkeeper. That would be in the old days, mind you, about a hundred years ago. He's an old guy now. I think Shay said he turned sixty this year. So of course Shay feels he ought to be a good goalkeeper too, and that means not letting so many goals in. Good luck, with players like me on defence.

Speaking of families, don't even mention Steve's old man. One time Steve's dad came to watch, and of course Steve didn't score any goals and he went ballistic right in front of us. He's an important businessman — owns Maritime Aquaculture Enterprises — and his company was going to buy us new uniforms. Until he saw us, that is. After watching us lose 12–0 to Keswick Narrows, he told Mr. Cunningham he didn't want his company associated with a bunch of incompetent nincompoops like us (that's what he called us, really he did). You have to pity poor Steve. His dad expects him to be this awesome soccer player and to score lots of goals. Steve's always making excuses for the way he acts, saying he has high expectations and stuff like that.

I guess none of that matters now, with us finished for the season, and probably finished for good, with no one to coach us.

“I wish I was a good goalkeeper,” Shay says.

“You are a good goalkeeper,” I shoot back. “It's not your fault you let in goals with a slug like me as a defender. Remember that great save you made when I got pushed over?”

“But I let in at least three goals I should have saved. Like that first goal … ”

“Anyone can drop the ball, Shay.”

“Goalkeepers can't — and they certainly can't drop the ball in front of the other side's centre and then stand there looking at him while he says ‘thank you' and kicks it into the net.”

That really happened. Poor Shay.

“And that goal I let in when Jillian had the throw-in at our end and she tried to throw to me.”

“It wasn't your fault the ball went over your head and into the net.”

“Did you hear the St. Croix players laugh?”

Like I said — poor Shay.

I try to cheer him up. I tell him about a goalkeeper I once knew (I didn't really; I was just making this up) who let in so many goals he decided to kill himself. “So he goes to the railroad tracks and waits until he hears a train. Then he jumps on the tracks, and the train's coming straight towards him.”

I knew Shay would fall for it.

“What happened?” he asks.

“It went right through his legs,” I say.

“So he wasn't hurt, then?” Shay says.

Poor Shay.

We leave the bright lights of Main Street — that'd be the lights in the Main Street Convenience — and turn onto the street we both live on. It's called Riverside Drive, but the river is way over behind a mess of alders and bog, and it actually bends away from the street, so Riverside Drive isn't beside the river at all. I don't know why they call it that. But it makes about as much sense as Main Street being called Main Street when Brunswick Valley has only two other roads to compare it to. It'd make more sense to call it Just About The Only Street.

We arrive at Shay's house, where his granddad runs a flower shop out of the converted garage. A sign over the door says “Sutton's Flowers.” The flower shop delivery van is parked in the driveway.

“Granddad's probably in the shop,” says Shay.

As soon as we open the door, the smell of hundreds of flowers hits us like a summer rain shower. Although it's fall, I feel as if it's midsummer. I expect to see birds and butterflies flitting around. The shop is so packed with flowers of different sorts and sizes you have to weave through them to cross it. At one end is a small counter cluttered with papers and dried flower arrangements. Shay's granddad, Mr. Sutton, is behind it, arranging bunches of flowers.

“Hello, boys,” he says. “How did the game go?”

I look at Shay. His head is down and he doesn't answer.

“We lost, but Shay played really well in goal,” I say. I think of the amazing save he made when he threw himself at the St. Croix forward's feet and say, “He made a brilliant save. He made lots of brilliant saves.”

“How did you play, Toby?” Mr. Sutton pokes me in the stomach. He's always making little jokes about me being chubby — not mean jokes, but nice, kind ones, meant to make me keep on losing weight. “I expect you gave a … ” he chuckles “ … a
stout
performance.”

He laughs so much at his own joke that he has to sit down. I laugh, too. Shay just looks at us like we're crazy.

When he's recovered, Mr. Sutton says, “Never mind losing, boys. Someone always has to lose, and the important thing is to enjoy playing, and to play your best. Did you play your best?”

I look at Shay. His head is hanging again.

“I guess so,” I say.

Mr. Sutton says, “How about you, Shay?”

“I let in eleven goals,” he says bitterly.

Mr. Sutton puts down the bunch of flowers he's holding and squeezes Shay's shoulder. “I once let in
twelve
goals,” he says. “It was in Winnipeg in — let's see — 1970. It was in the old Pan-Canadian League, and I was in goal for the Maritime Athletics. We were playing the Winnipeg Blizzard. It was in a near blizzard, too, I remember. It was snowing heavily when the game started, and by halftime I could hardly see the ball. The first goal came after only two minutes, when one of our midfielders lost control of the ball and missed … ”

He sits down again, lost in the memory. Shay sits too, with his elbows resting on the shop counter and his chin in his hands, watching his granddad. I look from one to the other. They're a sturdy pair, not tall, but solid. I've seen Mr. Sutton in shorts and you should see the muscles in his legs. His hair is like a white mop, and he has a round, smiley face, with white eyebrows and sparkly eyes. Shay's hair is the same, except it's black, not white, and he has a round face, too. But it's not as smiley as his granddad's, and Shay's eyes don't sparkle as much. Mr. Sutton is still reminiscing about his days as a goalkeeper in England and in Canada. He's always reminiscing about soccer. He goes on for ages. It's quite interesting, usually, and I like to listen to him, but if I don't have something to eat soon I'll collapse.

I whisper, “I have to get home,” and tiptoe out. Mr. Sutton waves, and Shay mouths, “See you tomorrow.”

I go a bit further up Riverside Drive to my house. Some of the houses — the ones as far along the Drive as Shay's — have little gardens and bushes and lawns. Shay's granddad has all sorts of flowers growing by the path leading to his shop, just like you'd expect. But the further up the Drive you go, the less vegetation you see. It's mostly dirt, and if there's any colour at all, it comes from the few mangy trees, or more likely from old trucks rusting in yards. It's not hard to pick out my house. It's the one with the mangy trees
and
the dirt
and
the old truck. Some of the other houses have trucks, and some have dirt, and some have mangy trees — but only my house has
all
of them. I like the old truck in the yard. It won't win us a prize in the Brunswick Valley Best-Kept Garden competition, but I'm used to having it around.

My stepdad, Conrad, is in the yard raking leaves. I suddenly remember I was supposed to help him, but he doesn't say anything. Conrad likes raking leaves. He likes doing anything energetic. He has the sleeves of his flannel shirt rolled up, showing off his brawny arms, his Flames baseball cap pulled down over his thick black hair. Conrad's big and solid. Ma's big too, but she's not solid. In fact, she's what Conrad calls fleshy. Her tummy and her arms and her legs jiggle when she walks. She keeps saying she's going to eat healthier foods and get her weight down, like I've been trying to do, but each time she starts it doesn't last long.

Conrad stops raking and slowly smiles when he sees me. His grey eyes crinkle. “How'd the game go today, big guy?” he says.

“We lost again,” I reply.

“You should call yourselves the Brunswick Valley Maple Leafs,” he chuckles, and slaps me on the back.

At least my ma and stepdad don't have high expectations of me in soccer, like Shay's granddad and Steve's dad. Ma says, “That's nice, lovey,” whatever happens.

I go inside. Ma's in the kitchen getting supper ready.

“We lost again, Ma,” I declare.

“That's nice, lovey.”

“We lost eleven to zero, Ma.”

“That's nice, lovey.”

I know she's not listening.

“We lost fifty to zero, Ma.”

“That's nice, lovey.”

“We lost a hundred to zero, and all the rest of the team got eaten by crocodiles, Ma.”

“That's nice, lovey. Here's your supper.”

At assembly the next Monday morning, I'm daydreaming, as usual, while Shay, beside me, is sneaking glances at Julie.

I'm daydreaming about this movie I watched over the weekend called
Space Rebels
, about this group of kids whose parents get captured by aliens who are taking over Earth. The aliens don't bother to capture the children because they think they can't do anything to resist them. But the kids form a rebel group and fight the aliens. They lose in the end, but I liked it anyway. Although they lost, they never gave up, and everyone, even the aliens, respected them for trying.

When I started my daydream, Mr. Walker, the principal, was going on — and on — about how our little Brunswick Valley School was a family, and how all the students, from kindergarten to grade eight, were part of that school family, so all of us should look out for the others, and especially for the little ones. It's nice of him to say this, but he doesn't really need to because we usually do it anyway. After all, with only about two hundred and fifty kids in the school, we know one another pretty well.

Then something Mr. Walker says — about how one part of the Brunswick Valley School family is the soccer team — grabs my attention, so I tune out the space rebels and tune in the principal.

“The team did not have one of their … ” Mr. Walker sort of coughs, and goes on, “One of their better seasons, but despite this I'm pleased and proud to announce that they've made the provincial playoffs.”

I can't believe I'm hearing this. Neither can Shay, who's managed to drag his eyes from Julie, and is gaping first at me and then at Mr. Walker.

“Did I hear that right?” I whisper to Shay.

Ms. Watkins, the French teacher, standing at the end of our row, says, “Toby, are you talking?”

That's got to be one of the stupidest questions teachers ask. First, what am I supposed to say? No — I'm catching flies? And second, if
I'm
not supposed to be talking, then it makes it twice as bad if
she
starts talking, because now two of us are breaking the rules, and three times as bad if I'm expected to answer, because then I've got to talk some more.

“No, Ms. Watkins,” I say. “I'm catching flies.”

“I'll see you at recess, Toby.”

“It'll be my pleasure, Ms. Watkins,” I say, and turn my attention back to Mr. Walker.

“ … and the soccer team's first game will be against Keswick Narrows Memorial on Wednesday, at Keswick Narrows.”

I look at Steve and Randy and Silas. They can't believe what Mr. Walker is saying, either. They're shaking their heads and frowning. Randy is tapping his head, suggesting that Mr. Walker is going crazy.

“I'd like to compliment our soccer team on their fine effort at reaching the provincials … ” the principal goes on.

Everyone in the school knows we lost every game. I can hear students giggling at how ridiculous it is for us to be in the playoffs. They've been making up jokes about us all season. One of the more common ones is: “What do you call a Brunswick Valley soccer player with half a brain?” and someone answers, “A
gifted
soccer player.” Or how about: “Why do the Brunswick Valley soccer players carry lighters?” and the answer is, “Because they always lose their matches.” We've been more popular than knock-knock jokes this year.

Mr. Walker finishes, “ … and I'd like to ask the soccer team to stand and be recognized.”

He must be joking. There's no way I'm standing. It's embarrassing enough just sitting here with my head down while everyone is laughing at us. But before I can stop him, Shay promptly stands. Everyone is looking around, grinning and snickering, waiting to see the worst soccer team in the world. But all they see is Shay. The others, like me, wish they were invisible. Some of the younger kids start clapping, but they're soon drowned out by the howls of laughter. One group of grade seven students is chanting, in a whisper, “Lo-sers. Lo-sers.” Shay blushes and quickly sits down.

At recess, after Ms. Watkins has finished lecturing at me about talking in assembly, I go looking for Shay. I find him outside, watching a bunch of little kids playing dodge ball on the playground.

“What's up?” I say.

He doesn't answer. He's off in another world, the way he gets sometimes. He gets this glazed look in his eyes. I see it when we play soccer. It's not that he's not concentrating, like me. In fact, it's the opposite. He's concentrating hard on something I can't even see. It's as if he's in a secret soccer world of his own. I saw that look during the game against St. Croix, when he kicked the ball into the empty space and it rolled out of play — the time Randy got mad and made the crack about why didn't he just put the ball into orbit. I wonder whether Shay should have been mad at Randy and the others for not seeing the space the way he did.

Anyway, he's standing there with this faraway look in his eyes, and when he does speak his voice is far away.

“Look at the patterns those kids are making in that little space as they try and dodge the ball,” he says.

“Like what?” I say.

“Those three girls — look — they're making a triangle with equal sides.”

“An equilateral triangle,” I say, showing off. We learned this stuff with Mr. Cunningham in math class last year. I seem to remember Shay finding it dead easy, while the rest of us struggled.

“Now one of the girls has moved, and that's turned it into an isosceles triangle,” Shay goes on.

“Wha … ?” I sputter.

“A triangle with two equal sides,” Shay explains.

“So?”

“So it's changed the space around them. It's made space behind the girl who's moved. Now — look — it's gone scalene … ”

“Scalene?”

“Where none of the sides are the same.” Shay adds dreamily, “That's the best kind of triangle for making space.”

I don't know what he's talking about. All I see is a bunch of little kids running around while one hurls a ball at the legs of the others.

“ … Now another kid's there and — look — they're making a parallelogram … ”

At least I know that's a four-sided shape with the opposite sides equal and parallel.

“ … Watch what happens when two of them move in the same direction. There — they're stretching the parallelogram, and that makes space open at one end as they move.”

I've lost him now. I wait for Shay to come back to Earth. He's still watching, seeing shapes and spaces and patterns I can't see. When I get tired of waiting, I say, “You're a space cadet.”

“What?”

“Earth to Shay. Are you receiving me? Come in, Shay.”

“What are you going on about?”

He's back. “I said you're a space cadet.”

“Why?”

“Because you're always looking at spaces and shapes and patterns, and when you do, you get this funny, way-off look about you. Are you back on Earth now?”

“Funny.”

“Because if you are, there's something we've got to do.”

“What's that?”

“We've got to find out what Mr. Walker was talking about in assembly, about us being in the playoffs. It doesn't make sense. You don't lose every game and then make it to the playoffs. Besides, do you
want
to get beaten again — this time in the playoffs?”

“We haven't got a coach anyway. Mr. Cunningham got angry with us and said he was quitting, remember?”

“Right. So let's find out what's going on.”

We set off for Mr. Walker's office, talking about the provincial playoffs along the way. They're these games at the end of the regular season when the top teams from all the school leagues in the province are drawn to play each other in regional round-robin tournaments. Then the winners of the round-robin tournaments have a playoff to see who gets to represent each area of the province — southern, northern, central, and city. That's when things get tough. Whichever team gets to represent southern New Brunswick — it's never us, of course — usually gets blown away at the next stage, and if you draw one of the big city schools, you're in for a whipping.

We find Steve outside Mr. Walker's office. He's on the same mission as we are. Mr. Walker's door is closed and we can hear voices coming from inside. At first they're sort of muffled and we can't make them out — not that we're trying to — but then someone booms, “No. No way. I've had it with them.”

It's Mr. Cunningham. He's almost shouting, just like he does when he's coaching us. Correction: when he used to coach us.

We look at one another, embarrassed, wondering whether we should just creep away, when the door opens and we hear Mr. Walker say, “Please, Mr. Cunningham — Jeff — reconsider your decision. The kids deserve the chance to play.”

Mr. Cunningham hasn't seen us yet. He's glaring back into the office at Mr. Walker. “No. That's final. I told the soccer team I was done with coaching them and I'm not changing my mind. They can't play soccer and their attitudes stink. They're just a bunch of hopeless losers.”

He turns to go and sees us waiting in the hallway. We're frozen with embarrassment. Mr. Cunningham glares at us, snorts like a moose, and stomps off down the hallway.

“Let's leave,” Shay mutters.

Steve and I nod in agreement, but before we can sneak away Mr. Walker emerges, looking after Mr. Cunningham and shaking his head. He sees us and asks, “What is it, guys?” He sounds tired.

“It doesn't matter,” Shay says quickly.

We're shocked that Mr. Cunningham is so down on us. I knew we were bad, but …
that
bad?

“It can wait,” Steve mumbles.

I just nod.

“You came to ask me about something, and I'd guess it's about soccer, since you're all on the soccer team. Am I right?”

We nod, still too embarrassed and shocked to speak. Finally Steve blurts out, “How come we're in the playoffs when we didn't win a single game and we finished bottom of the league?”

“I thought that might be it,” says Mr. Walker. “This is what happened. Two teams had to drop out, one because the school couldn't afford a bus to get them to the playoffs, and the other because five members of the team were caught drinking at a school dance … ” Steve whistles in surprise, and Mr. Walker repeats, “Yes — five. Stupid, eh? Anyway, according to their school policy that means automatic suspension from all sports activities. Now they can't get a team together. That means you qualify, despite your — er — your difficulties this season.”

“You mean despite the fact that we stink,” I say.

“No,” says Mr. Walker, gently. “I mean, you've had your difficulties this season.”

“But if we're in the playoffs — who will coach us?” Shay asks timidly.

Mr. Walker shakes his head. “I got the call about the playoffs just before this morning's assembly. I didn't know Mr. Cunningham had resigned when I made the announcement. In fact, I didn't know until just now. I don't know who will coach you.”

“It doesn't matter,” Steve says. “There's no point in playing. We're no good. We'd only lose again.”

“Don't be too hard on yourself,” Mr. Walker chides. “It's always worth trying again. And you must care some, or you wouldn't be here now. Right?”

Steve shrugs.

Shay nods.

“We have nowhere to go but up,” I say.

“I'd coach you myself but I just don't have time now,” the principal adds, “and I have to be away at meetings through much of the playoffs. That wouldn't be fair to the team. But let me think about it. Come and see me tomorrow.”