The Next Great Paulie Fink

by Ali Benjamin

  It wasn’t just him I wanted to punch, it was all of them. Every stupid Devlinshire kid. Heck, I’d have punched the Devlinshire Hills School itself in the face, which is weird, because a school doesn’t even have a face. But I wished Devlinshire had one, so I could punch it.

  None of us said a word as we walked. Not one word. We were quiet as we marched toward the back field and saw the crowd waiting: teachers, parents, kids, and all those Minis. Everyone started cheering when they saw us, which somehow made everything feel even worse.

  My hands were balled up into tight fists at my side, and my jaw hurt from clenching it so hard.

  Devlinshire was warming up, doing some sort of slow-motion skip in unison with a call-and-response. Their coach shouted, “Who’s gonna win?”

  All together, they shouted back, “We are!”

  And right smack in the middle of them was Paulie, lifting his knees and shouting “We are!” just like the rest of them.

  His we was our they.

  It felt like they weren’t just saying that Devlinshire was going to win this game, but that Devlinshire would always win. Like anything that would ever matter to us in our whole lives, they’d manage to take from us. Like it’s not enough to have all the money they could ever possibly want, they also had to have one of us.

  Talk about a double whammy.

  They also had a school that wasn’t going to close. Triple whammy.

  Not to mention they had uniforms and houses that they didn’t have to clean themselves and a ski mountain and rock stars and swimming pools and an unbeaten record against us.

  I’ll tell you, sometimes there are just too many whammies to count.

  The Kickoff

  It’s weird how quiet we are as we walk to the field. Unnerving, really. On the sidelines, I see my mom, wearing medical scrubs and clogs, a wool sweater as big as a blanket wrapped around her. She’s talking with Gabby’s grandma, and Mags, and some lady I don’t know. I can pick Timothy and Thomas’s dad out of the crowd; he’s got the same broad face as his twins. Glebus is there, passing out donuts to the parents. The younger grades are all there, too. Some of them are holding signs. Fuzzy’s sign doesn’t have any words, just lots of stick figures in green.

  I wave, and she waves back.

  On the other side of the field are the Devlinshire kids and their parents. They look different, those parents. A little shinier, almost, like they’re made from some different sort of fabric altogether. I see an older guy in a fedora and leather jacket—the rock star, maybe. But there’s no time to ask, because almost right away, Mr. Farabi calls us into a huddle.

  He reminds us of our positions. I’m up front with Fiona and Diego. Henry is in goal, and everyone else is somewhere between us. By now, Devlinshire’s moving into a huddle of their own, a tight circle of blue. With their heads together, I can’t see their faces. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell you which one is Paulie Fink.

  “I want you to keep the pressure on,” Mr. Farabi tells us. “Don’t be afraid of passing. But if you’ve got the ball in your possession and the field is open in front of you, run like crazy.”

  It’s kind of the most obvious advice in the world, but we all nod, because it’s the only thing we’ve got. And then the pep talk is over, and we’re all walking to our positions.

  Devlinshire takes possession of the ball almost immediately—some tall, lanky kid nabs it and passes it to a compact little guy, all muscle, who passes it right back. Those first couple of passes are slow-motion, casual. The Mitchell kids start to spread out. Then bam—everything changes. Lanky Kid gets the ball again, does a little quickstep, then flicks the ball behind him to some girl, and before we even realize it’s happened, the girl’s sprinting toward our goal at breakneck speed.

  “What the—” I hear Diego say. Then everyone’s chasing the girl, but it’s too late. She reaches our goal in seconds, passes the ball to an open space near the front of the goal. And that’s when that little guy, Muscles, comes from out of nowhere, hurtling toward the goal, arriving in the open space exactly when the ball does.

  He lifts his foot. Takes a shot.

  No way, I think. The game just started. It’s way too soon for anyone to score.

  The ball flies just out of Henry’s reach. It lands in the net with a soft whoosh. From the sidelines, I hear my mom shout, “It’s okay, Mitchell, you’ll get it back!”

  But we don’t get it back. In fact, it only gets worse from there.

  Interview: Yumi, Diego, Timothy, Thomas, Fiona, and Willow

  YUMI:

  It was brutal. That whole first half was a blowout, just utterly humiliating. No matter what we did, Devlinshire kept advancing.

  DIEGO:

  Every time one of them got the ball, I’d think, That ball is mine. I imagined getting it back, charging down the field toward the Devlinshire goal. And then I’d remember who was waiting for me there: Paulie Flipping Fink. It was like a kick in the teeth every time. By the time I regained my concentration, the player in blue had passed me and was moving down toward our goal like I wasn’t even there.

  TIMOTHY:

  It happened like that again and again. We had a couple of breakout moments—Diego and Fiona managed to take a couple of shots on goal. Diego actually scored about ten minutes in, evening out the score. But almost immediately, Devlinshire got another goal, pulling ahead to 2–1. And after that, Paulie stopped every attempt we made.

  THOMAS:

  But that’s the most infuriating part of the whole thing: Paulie was good in goal.

  FIONA:

  The kid deflected, caught, threw his body on the ball. Paulie Fink! Like, what the heck?

  WILLOW:

  That’s actually the very question Mr. Farabi asked after Paulie’s third stop. He threw his hands in the air and shouted, “Why the heck couldn’t he do that when he played for us?”

  FIONA:

  The whole thing made me feel like an idiot, I’ll tell you that. Like Paulie’s whole life here had been one giant prank. We thought that we’d been in on the joke. Instead, the joke was on us. I just got more and more furious. And when Devlinshire got a third goal just before the halftime whistle, I was the kind of mad where you just want to hurt someone.

  Shark Attack

  “Doing great, Mitchell,” Mr. Farabi calls as we come off the field at halftime. He’s applauding, as if we’re not getting thrashed. “You’re really looking good out there.”

  “We’re getting crushed,” mutters Diego. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  I’m expecting Fiona to start shouting at everyone, but when I look around, she’s nowhere near us. Instead, she’s marching fast to the far end of the field, past the goal.

  Something about the way she’s moving—with a determination that’s almost menacing—reminds me of a small, bloodthirsty shark.

  “Hey, Fiona,” calls Mr. Farabi. “Where are you—?”

  But by the time the question’s out of his mouth, Fiona’s arrived at the Paulie statue. She pulls her foot back and kicks it. One of the notes flutters to the ground.

  She pulls her foot back again.

  No, Fiona. Not in front of them. You can’t let Devlinshire know they’re upsetting you. I sprint toward her, and Gabby and Henry follow.

  “Jerks,” Fiona mutters as we arrive. Kick.

  “You stupid…” Kick.

  “Rich…” Kick.

  “Spoiled…” Kick.

  “Jerks.” Kick. Kick. Kick.

  The rocks that had been resting on the basketball hoop base, keeping the whole thing stable, tumble to the ground. The kickball face flops sideways, and the whole statue tilts precariously to the side.

  “Uh, Fiona?” Henry tries to make his voice sound light, like this is all sort of funny. “It’s kinda early in the game to break your foot, you know.”

  Gabby’s laugh is nervous. “Right? I mean, there’s a whole second half.”

  Fiona stops kicking. She takes a deep breath. In a very smal
l voice, she says, “He’s not even looking at us. We’re out there on the field with him and he won’t even acknowledge us, did you notice?”

  Gabby nods. “I noticed.”

  “He’s embarrassed by us,” Fiona says. “He’s got his new rich friends, and now we’re nothing to him. It’s like he thinks we’re nothing.”

  I could tell Fiona it might not be like that. It could simply be that he doesn’t know what to do, that he’s afraid of saying anything at all. But I have no idea what Paulie’s thinking.

  “And besides,” she continues, “what makes him such a genius, anyway? How come he’s a genius and I’m just a girl who gets in trouble?”

  Fiona gives the statue one final, hard kick. “I scorn you, scurvy companion!” she shouts.

  And now the statue isn’t leaning. It’s falling. A thought flashes into my head: Somebody had better prop that thing back up, or it’s going to come crashing down onto the goat pen.

  By the time the words are in my head, it’s already happening.

  The Paulie statue knocks out a section of the fence when it lands. The kickball face slides off, landing in the middle of the pen with a splat. The goats leap back, startled.

  For a moment, everything’s still.

  Then one of the baby goats takes a few curious steps forward. He nudges the deflated kickball-face, then takes it in his mouth. He wags his tail, like a pleased dog.

  That’s the last moment of calm before all hell breaks loose.

  Chaos

  If you’d asked me a few months ago what I expected to learn in seventh grade, capturing escaped goats wouldn’t have made the top five things on my list. It wouldn’t have made even the top five thousand.

  But that’s exactly what I learn to do next.

  As soon as the goats realize the fence is down, they’re off and running. They leap out of their pen and onto the soccer field, sending kids and parents and a retired rock star scattering.

  Glebus jumps into action. She points at Mr. Farabi and shouts that he needs to get the fence back up, fast. Then she starts commanding everyone else. “Toward the building!” she shouts. “Single-file line! Orderly, please! Younger kids first!”

  Then she whirls around to us. “Originals, you stay here.”

  Devlinshire players take off running toward the building, cutting in front of the little kids. Their parents follow, holding arms out like bodyguards.

  Only one kid in blue hangs back: Paulie. He watches us until his coach yells for him to follow. And then Paulie’s moving toward the school, too.

  Glebus runs over to us, out of breath. “Originals, I’m going to need your help catching the goats, okay? They know you. They trust you.”

  But by now, the animals are everywhere. On the playground a baby goat tries to scamper up the slide; he makes it up a few feet, slides back down, and then tries again. Another roots around in the sandbox. Two goats romp through the field, side by side, each holding part of a GO MITCHELL sign. Another bounds toward the statues, a strip of neon-green fabric between its teeth.

  So much for good luck.

  “You want us to chase the goats?” Gabby asks. “Now? In front of Devlinshire?”

  Glebus smiles. “You think those kids could catch a goat if they tried? Come on, let’s prove you know some things that they don’t.”

  Interview: Willow, Sam, and Lydia

  WILLOW:

  The next half hour was pretty much the most humiliating experience of my life.

  SAM:

  All our lives.

  LYDIA:

  At first everyone ran around chasing the goats without much luck. I caught the one who kept trying to scramble up the slide. But most of the goats ran away as soon as we approached them. So when Mr. Farabi finished fixing the fence, he called us over. He was like, “Originals, we’re going to have to work together.”

  WILLOW:

  Here’s what we had to do: One at a time, our class had to make a wide circle around each goat. Then we moved in slowly. Finally, when the circle was so tight the goat couldn’t escape, Mr. Farabi slipped a rope around the goat’s neck and walked it to the pen. Then we had to start all over with the next goat.

  LYDIA:

  We caught a baby goat near the sandbox, then a goat who was tearing up Paulie’s T-shirt, then another goat chowing down on one of our posters at the edge of the woods. We caught goats rummaging through the trash, nosing around through gym bags, and chomping up the notes from the Paulie statue. Even Henry’s fact book that he’d sacrificed was shredded.

  SAM:

  And the whole while, the news cameras were there, filming away.

  WILLOW:

  After who knows how long, the place was trashed, and there was only one goat left: the big ugly guy—for the life of us, we could not catch him. He crashed through Henry’s fort, knocking sticks everywhere. He ran into one of the goals, dragging it across the field. It wasn’t until he got his head stuck in a bucket that we could finally capture him.

  LYDIA:

  But by this point, we were exhausted. I remember Diego looked around and was like, “This place is a war zone.”

  WILLOW:

  And then Gabby was all, “And I think the goats won.”

  SAM:

  And that’s when we started to laugh.

  The Final Challenge

  We’re still cracking up by the time the Devlinshire kids are back on the field. It’s uncontrollable laughter, the kind where you don’t make any sound, where all you can do is hold your stomach and shake.

  The Devlinshire uniforms are unruffled. Their white shorts are still clean.

  I imagine what the scene must look like to them—all of us muddy and shaking amid all that mess—and it only makes me laugh harder.

  “New reality show.” Yumi’s laughing so hard she can barely get the words out. “The Next Great Goat Escape.”

  “It’s goat-geddon all over again,” Fiona says, doubled over.

  And instantly I know how to turn this game around.

  Two minutes later, everyone’s back in place—parents on the side, Devlinshire kids in their pristine huddle, Minis lining up to cheer, Glebus walking up and down the sidelines, apologizing to everyone for the interruption. Mr. Farabi is over by the fence, making sure it’s solid enough to hold the goats for the second half, which means that we’re without a coach. So I call everyone in for a huddle.

  “This is it,” I tell the other kids. “This is your final challenge.” They stare at me, not understanding.

  I glance over at the Devlinshire kids, a ring of sapphire. “The competition for the Next Great Paulie Fink is officially back on,” I say. “And the final challenge begins right now.”

  “Now?” asks Fiona.

  “Right now.”

  “In the middle of the game?” asks Diego. “No way.”

  “Most of us aren’t even in the competition anymore,” Sam says. “It was down to Fiona and Diego.”

  I glance at Gabby. “That happens, doesn’t it? The old contestants return to help the final contestants?”

  She nods. “Definitely.” But the Originals just look at me skeptically.

  “You put me in charge,” I tell them. “In fact, you begged me to be in charge. So I’m telling you: I’m going to get this school a new Paulie Fink, one that’s not a traitor. Someone who’s all ours. And I’m going to do it based on what happens in the next half of this game.”

  Nearby, the kids in blue shout, “Devlinshire!” before jogging onto the field.

  “Don’t you see?” I say. “Those Devlinshire kids think they know how this story goes: They think that they’ll win, just like last year, and just like the year before that. And they expect we’ll just go along with that story, play the part of the losers. But what if we refuse to play that role?”

  Suddenly it feels urgent, like there’s more than a soccer match at stake. “What if we decide to play a different game altogether?”

  “So we… don’t play soccer?” Yumi as
ks.

  “We play soccer,” I say. “But we play it our way. On our terms.”

  The ref blows her whistle. It’s time to take the field.

  “So what do you want us to do, Caitlyn?” That’s Diego.

  “Okay,” I say. “Do you remember Mini-geddon? The way Paulie won team tag when you were all so certain he was going to lose? He used the element of surprise. That’s… your challenge. Use the element of surprise in this second half.”

  Mr. Farabi’s done with the fence, and he’s jogging over now. “Originals, get out there.”

  “Just—create some chaos,” I tell them. “That’s literally what you all do best! It’s like, part of your—your arete, or something. And as for these Devlinshire kids…” I take a deep breath.

  “Caitlyn,” Mr. Farabi urges me. “Field! Now!”

  My words come out in a rush. “I know they have more of everything. But just because they have more doesn’t mean they are more. I mean, maybe all they are is…” I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to say something about how things aren’t always what they seem, how something can seem like strength when it’s really the opposite. Like a stone in your chest, or a fancy uniform, or a list of rules.

  “All they are is…,” I repeat.

  It’s Timothy who finishes my sentence. “Fusty nuts!” As soon as he says it, I realize it’s exactly right.

  “Fusty nuts!” his brother shouts, and takes off toward the field.

  Then everyone’s sprinting toward their places, chanting together, “Fus-ty nuts! Fus-ty nuts!”

  But where’s Fiona? I glance around. For some reason, she’s rooting through her gym bag. “Come on!” I yell at her.

  She’s barely on the field when the whistle blows.