Golden Game

by David Starr

  “I think I ate too many donuts,” Abbas repeated the same story he told Dylan on the bus. “I’m going to lie down for a bit.”

  Abbas took off his shoes and walked to his small bedroom just off the living room. Shutting the door behind him, he dropped his backpack onto the floor. The thing felt like it weighed a ton even though it only held his soccer cleats, his school planner and the permission slip.

  Abbas flopped onto his bed. The walls of his room were covered with posters of soccer players. They were all there: the Whitecaps, but also Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale from Real Madrid, Abbas’s favourite team.

  At Grandview there were kids from two dozen countries. But no matter where they came from they were either fans of Real Madrid or Barcelona. On the field they pretended they were Lionel Messi, Neymar, Gareth Bale or Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring the winning goal to win the league title, the EUFA Championship or the World Cup.

  It was Abbas’s dream to become the first superstar from Syria to play in Europe. He wanted it not for himself but for his mom. She had had a very hard life. Abbas wanted to look after her, to buy her a nice house, to give her everything she’d never had.

  Amira had lost a husband and two sons, Abbas’s dad and brothers. They’d drowned trying to leave Turkey, to go to Europe to make a better life for their family. Abbas wanted to make it for them as well.

  He slammed his fists down onto the mattress in frustration. The Top Flight Tournament was a golden opportunity. It could be the very thing he needed to take his play to the next level. Abbas should have been excited. Instead, he felt like throwing up.

  If he couldn’t get on a plane to fly to Toronto how on earth could he ever get on one to fly to Madrid, Barcelona, Paris or London? The answer was that he couldn’t. His dreams would never come true. He would be a failure.

  ***

  “I’m open! Pass the ball!” yelled Junior, streaking down Grandview’s dirt field toward the goal.

  “Here it comes!” said Abdul. He lifted the ball high into the air with a powerful kick.

  The ball bounced once. Junior chested it down to his feet and in one swift motion drilled it above Michael’s outstretched hands. The ball zoomed into the back of the net.

  “Abbas!” shouted Michael, booting the ball into the air. “It’s coming to you!”

  Just as the ball was about to land a siren started wailing. A fire truck pulled out onto Grandview Boulevard. Suddenly, for Abbas, the game, the field and the whole Grandview team seemed to disappear.

  Abbas forgot all about soccer. All he could see was a collapsing building and a street full of burning cars. The cries and screams of people filled his ears. Abbas put his hands to his head, trying to block out the terrible sounds.

  The images vanished almost as soon as they came. His head swimming, Abbas found himself back on the field. The sound of the siren was disappearing into the distance. The ball was bouncing on the ground in front of him.

  “What’s wrong, Abbas?” asked Alvin. “You just froze.”

  “Nothing! There’s nothing wrong!” From out of nowhere Abbas’s anger exploded. He shoved Alvin as hard as he could, pushing him down onto the dirt field. “Leave me alone!”

  “Abbas! You stop that!” Ms. Shirley, the noon-hour supervisor, ran over. “Come with me to the office right now!”

  In a daze, Abbas followed Ms. Shirley into the school, as the boys on the team watched in disbelief. Ms. Shirley walked Abbas into the office. “You wait while I get Ms. Bhullar.”

  “Abbas! What’s going on?” asked Ms. Bhullar, hurrying into the office. “Ms. Shirley said you pushed Alvin. Is that true?”

  At first Abbas did not reply. He just sat there, his body feeling numb. “I . . . I guess so,” he finally said.

  Abbas had no idea why he’d pushed Alvin, or what had happened to him on the field. He couldn’t have been seeing things, he couldn’t have. The burning buildings and cars, the screams, they weren’t real. Was he going crazy? Only crazy people see and hear things that weren’t there.

  “Getting into fights on the playground is an old habit I haven’t seen in a very long time,” Ms. Bhullar said. “I’m calling your mom. Something’s going on with you and I think you may need some help.”

  5

  Ms. Bhullar Knows What to Do

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the doctor’s?” Abbas’s mother had been in her English class a few blocks from the school. It took her just fifteen minutes to arrive at Grandview after getting the call from Ms. Bhullar.

  “I’m fine,” Abbas said as they walked out of the school. “I just have a headache.”

  “You haven’t been feeling good for a while. Not for at least a week anyway. Please, son, tell me what’s going on?”

  What’s going on?

  Abbas hardly knew how to answer that question. He was going crazy, seeing things that weren’t there. And then he’d hurt Alvin for no reason he could think of.

  What’s going on?

  Abbas didn’t understand it himself. How could he begin to explain things to his mom?

  “I just want to go home and get some sleep,” he said. “I must have the flu or something. My stomach hurts.”

  “Okay,” his mother said reluctantly. “But if you aren’t feeling better by tomorrow I’m taking you to the clinic.”

  As soon as they got home, Abbas went to his room and climbed into bed. His stomach did hurt, that wasn’t a lie. It had been hurting for days now.

  Abbas lay in silence for a while, falling asleep without knowing when he dozed off. It was almost eight o’clock when his mom opened the door and woke him up.

  “I got a call from Ms. Bhullar when you were sleeping,” said his mother.

  “What did she want?” Abbas asked.

  “She wanted to check up on you. And she asked me to remind you to bring the permission slip for the soccer tournament back to school on Monday. I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I found this.”

  Abbas’s heart sank when his mother held up a crumpled piece of paper.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “This is very exciting. You can see the Bayazid family, Victor and Gabriel and their parents!”

  “I can’t go,” Abbas said. “It’s the planes, Mom. I can’t even look at one. How can I fly?”

  “You were so young,” his mother said sadly. “I thought you’d forgot about what happened.”

  “I’ve been having terrible dreams since that car accident on Grandview. I think I’m going crazy.”

  Amira hugged her son tightly. “You’re not going crazy, Abbas.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Abbas had been carrying an awful weight in his heart. He felt better finally telling his mother. But still he felt helpless and scared.

  “You are going to go to that tournament,” his mother said firmly. “And you are going to see our old friends.”

  “I can’t!” protested Abbas.

  “You can and you will. You are going to go to that tournament. On Monday morning I will take the permission slip myself. Then we will sit down with Ms. Bhullar and tell her the truth. She will know what to do.”

  ***

  Abbas begged his mom not to sign the permission slip but Amira was having nothing to do with that. On Monday morning, as promised, she walked Abbas to Grandview Community School and greeted Ms. Bhullar on the playground.

  “May we speak for a few minutes?” his mother asked. Before he knew it Abbas was sitting in Ms. Bhullar’s office.

  “We lived in Turkey for several years before my husband and sons died and Abbas and I came to Canada,” Amira began.

  The principal knew that much about the sad events that led Abbas to Grandview. “The war in Syria is terrible.”

  “More than you can imagine,” said Amira. “The fighting was bad. But the worst thing was th
e bombing. That was why we left. I think that is also why my son has been acting strangely for the last week.”

  Abbas started to protest but Amira cut him off. “Abbas, she needs to know the truth so she can help you.”

  “Abbas was five when it happened,” Amira continued. “I was in the market with him, buying food when the sirens rang out. It was a very busy street, full of people, market stalls and cars. Just people going about their business. Then the warplanes came.”

  “That must have been very scary,” said Ms. Bhullar.

  “It was. We knew what that sound meant, and we started to run. But before we could go very far the planes dropped their bombs around us. There was fire, smoke, screaming people.” Amira’s voice was shaking. “Abbas and I hid in a doorway and survived. But we saw terrible things that day. We knew we had to leave Syria. We got home and told my husband what happened. We left for Turkey the next week.”

  “You remember this, Abbas?” Ms. Bhullar asked.

  “I don’t like talking about it,” Abbas murmured. He wished he was anywhere but Ms. Bhullar’s office. “Can I go, please?”

  “I didn’t think he did,” said his mother, ignoring the question. “Abbas was very young. I thought he’d forgotten until we went to the airport in Istanbul to fly to Canada. He took one look at the plane and started to cry and scream. I could barely get him into his seat. It was not a good flight for the people around us, I’m afraid.”

  “Flying to Toronto has made you think about those planes you saw, hasn’t it, Abbas?” asked Ms. Bhullar.

  “I guess,” Abbas said reluctantly.

  “Then there was a car accident on Grandview last week,” said Amira. “There was smoke and fire. When Abbas saw it he looked up into the sky for planes. I think it brought back the bad memories.”

  “I’m not crazy.” Abbas was feeling defensive. “I’m not!”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Ms. Bhullar said kindly. “How you feel makes perfect sense.”

  “It does?” Things didn’t make sense to Abbas at all. How could they make sense to his principal?

  “When people see something very scary or experience awful things it affects them. The word is trauma,” Ms. Bhullar explained. “It can be a car accident or losing someone close to you or any number of things. I wouldn’t be surprised if you are experiencing trauma right now. Tell me, Abbas. Since you saw the accident have you had bad dreams or scary memories that flashback to you at times? Have you felt angry for reasons you didn’t know? Or nearly gotten into a fight with a friend on the playground, maybe?” she said with a knowing look.

  Abbas was shocked. It was like Ms. Bhullar was reading his mind.

  “Maybe,” he finally said.

  “There is a condition called PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Have you heard of it?”

  Abbas’s face flushed. “No. And I told you I’m not crazy!”

  “That’s not what I’m saying at all,” said Ms. Bhullar calmly. “You have some symptoms of PTSD. It is very common among people who have seen scary things.”

  “I don’t have this disorder thing,” Abbas argued. “I’m fine.”

  Amira reached into her purse and gave Ms. Bhullar the signed permission slip to attend the Top Flight tournament. “Here is the form, just like you asked.”

  Ms. Bhullar turned to Abbas. “You are going to be getting on that plane and you will be going to Toronto with the rest of the team. We have six weeks to get you ready and we will come up with a plan to get you there.”

  6

  We’re all Scared of Something

  “Talk to the boys on the team,” Ms. Bhullar told Abbas as he stood to leave her office. “They are your friends. They’ve been worried about you.”

  “And say what?” said Abbas. It was hard enough talking about this to his mom and principal. What would his friends think?

  “Tell them you are afraid of flying,” said Ms. Bhullar. “You don’t need to get into the details. That’s your business. It will be enough to explain why you’ve not been yourself. They will support you.”

  “I can’t do that,” Abbas said.

  “I promise you it will go all right. Now go to class. Claude is the team captain, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Ms. Bhullar,” said Abbas.

  “Ask him to schedule a team meeting this lunchtime. He is just the person to help you with this.”

  He didn’t want to, but Abbas asked Claude to get the team together. They met, just the Grandview Eagles, in Ms. Jorgensen’s room.

  “Abbas has something he wants to say to us,” explained Claude. “Are you ready, Abbas?”

  Abbas wasn’t, but it was too late to back out now. “I want to tell you all I’m sorry,” he said, trying to find the right words. “I’ve been acting a little weird these days.”

  “You think?” said Alvin. He was the one who had been pushed by Abbas after all, and he was still upset.

  “Let Abbas speak,” said Claude. “This meeting is about solving problems, not getting mad at one other.”

  “I’m sorry, Alvin,” Abbas said, and he meant it. “It’s just that I’m afraid of flying. Since we found out about Top Flight I’ve been freaked out about getting on a plane. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I took it out on you.”

  “That’s why you’ve been like this?” asked Dylan. “We couldn’t figure out what was going on.”

  “I didn’t mean to be a jerk. But if you guys don’t want to be friends with me anymore I would understand. Especially you, Alvin. I know I used to get angry and into fights a lot. I thought I’d changed, but maybe I haven’t.”

  “Do you remember that first game against my old school Regent Heights?” asked Dylan.

  “Of course,” said Abbas. “We got beat 6–1. Our worst defeat ever. Your old friends weren’t very nice.”

  “Forget the score and forget Tony and Emmanuel. Do you remember what you told me when I ran off the field?”

  “Something like real friends don’t treat you badly?” said Abbas, trying to remember.

  “‘True friends don’t leave when things get tough. Friends support you.’ I remember every word you said. That’s when you told me about your dad and your brothers. That’s when you told me that we were strong because we all found ways to overcome the things we have lost. We are your friends.”

  “You need friends right now more than ever,” said Abdul. “We’ll help you get through this. Besides, you’re not the only one with fears. The thought of rats creeps me out. I hate them!”

  “I’m scared of heights,” said Alvin. “Flying is fine. But getting on a ladder or going up a tall building? No way!”

  “Clowns,” said Dylan. “The worst things ever. I watched this old movie on TV about an evil clown once. My mom said not to but I did anyway. I should have listened. I didn’t sleep for weeks.”

  “Snakes for me,” said Michael. “If I even see a picture of one I start to sweat. I imagine them jumping out of the picture and biting me.”

  As the boys on the team shared their fears with Abbas, he started to feel better, if only just a little bit. There was no way he was ready to tell the team why he was so scared of planes. But he felt as if he wasn’t alone anymore.

  “What about you, Claude?” asked Carlos. Everyone had shared their fears except their captain.

  “It’s nothing,” said Claude, looking embarrassed.

  “Come on, you can tell us,” said Dylan.

  “Okay. You promise not to laugh?”

  “We promise,” the boys all said together.

  “Monkeys,” Claude said, sheepishly.

  “Monkeys? What about monkeys?” Junior asked.

  “I’m scared of them.”

  “Who on earth is scared of monkeys?” asked Jun. “They are so cute and funny!”

  “Oh no, they are not,” said Claude. “
They’re dirty and scary and they make awful sounds. I got chased by one when I was a little kid in Congo. It bit me. I thought it was going to eat me.”

  “See, Abbas? We’re all scared of something,” said Dylan. “Now do we sit here all lunch talking, or do we get outside and play soccer? We have six weeks to go before the tournament and the only thing that scares me more than clowns is going all the way to Toronto and losing!”

  ***

  When he got home Abbas went online and looked up the Top Flight Tournament. He hadn’t known it was such a big deal. In it, thirty-two of the best soccer teams in the Greater Toronto Area competed until only one boys team and one girls team were left.

  He looked at the list of teams and there were the Grandview Eagles, the only team from B.C. The rest were from Markham, Brampton, Willowdale and other places he didn’t know. There was, however, one familiar and unexpected name.

  “Hey, Mom!” he shouted. “Come here!”

  “What is it?” Amira asked.

  “Hall United. That’s Victor’s school team,” said Abbas. “We’ll be playing in the same tournament!”

  “Very exciting!” said Amira. “Perhaps you’ll get to see him and meet up with his family. They were very close to us back in Syria.”

  “And maybe play him again too,” Abbas said hopefully. “And this time win.” The Vancouver Herons had lost in a shootout to the GTA Gazelles over March Break. Friendly tournament or not, Abbas didn’t like losing.

  Now there was Top Flight. This was a big deal, the most important soccer tournament he had ever had a chance to play in. He had to find a way to get on that plane.

  7

  Deportment Counts

  “Now that’s more like it!” shouted Mo as Abbas booted the ball into the net. The Grandview Eagles were practising after school. No one was working harder than Abbas. Since talking to his friends he had been able to play again. And more than that, he actually looked forward to it.

  Ms. Bhullar said she had a plan to get him past his fear of planes. Abbas didn’t quite believe her and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to get on that plane to Toronto. But he could worry about that later. For now he would just play the game he loved.