Praise for Sports Stories novels:
“Lorimer is obviously succeeding with this series of action-driven novels which encourage young readers to ‘Get in the Game!’”
— Resource Links
Snow Soccer
David Trifunov
James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers
Toronto
For Charlotte, Georgia and Emery.
1
Between Two Olive Trees
Sarimah knew Hassan just well enough to feel sorry for him. She was planning to do something to him on the soccer field he would hate.
In every game they had played since his arrival at the Syrian refugee camp, Hassan had tried a slide tackle. Sometimes he got the ball. Sometimes he blocked a shot. Sometimes he knocked someone — usually Sarimah — to the ground.
Now, Sarimah had a plan. She found herself on the right wing with plenty of space leading to the goal. Hassan was playing centre defence and turned to chase her.
“Here I come, Sarimah!” he shouted.
Sarimah smiled and took two long strides down the wing. She could see Hassan start to slide. She dug her toe into the soft sand under the ball. She flicked the ball high into the air with her foot. Hassan could only watch as it arched above his head.
Sarimah stopped suddenly and Hassan skidded past her. Whoosh. He slid through the sandy field, out of bounds.
Sarimah caught up to the ball down the empty wing. The goaltender, Aamir, was alone. Sarimah faked a shot with her right foot to put Aamir on the ground in a dive. She cut hard to the left with the ball and kicked home the winning goal with her left foot.
“Gooooaaalll!” shouted Hamza, who was on Sarimah’s team. “We win! We win!”
Sarimah and the other kids gathered near the net to celebrate or console each other.
Sarimah glanced back over her shoulder. Hassan was marching toward them.
“Where did you find that move?” he said. “You have never done anything like that before.”
He dusted himself off, shaking sand from his hair. Sarimah had learned it was better to let him cool down on his own. She found a water bottle and then plunked herself down in the shade.
“Hassan,” she said, finally. “It took you a long time to walk all the way down the field from where you were.”
“Oooh,” Hamza said, “that was funny!”
“I bet you couldn’t even see my goal from where you were,” Sarimah, now smiling widely, continued.
Hassan raised his finger to speak. But no sound came from his mouth.
There were more snickers.
“I mean, I don’t blame you,” she said, trying to hold back her laughter. “You looked comfortable there, down on the ground.”
“Ah, she’s done it again,” Aamir said with a grin.
“I must have hit a hole in the field,” Hassan said. “I tripped and fell. It was unfair of you to take advantage of my injury.”
“Hee hee!” Hamza was laughing so hard it was all anyone could hear.
Sarimah stood up and put a hand on Hassan’s shoulder. She thought maybe he really was hurt.
“Hassan, that is awful. I feel bad.”
“Thank you, Sarimah. I was hoping some of you were going to check on me. But it is okay. I am fine, really.”
Sarimah knew he was upset. Even though Hassan was a rough player, he and Sarimah were friends. She started to feel bad.
“No, I am serious,” she said. “We came to this camp about the same time. Every day we watch for your mother and sister to come. I need you to be in good shape for them. I can’t start kicking you around on the soccer field.”
She stopped talking suddenly. She realized she shouldn’t be reminding Hassan of his family. He had made the trip to the Turkish camp with about seventy-five others from his village. But his mother had stayed behind to look after his sick younger sister and his grandmother. She had promised they would be right behind him. That was a year ago.
Sarimah guessed it was why Hassan got so angry playing soccer. Off the field he was much nicer. He looked at her and cracked a smile.
“Okay,” he said. He went to retrieve the ball from behind two olive trees. “We will have a penalty shoot-out to decide the real winner. Aamir, you’re in goal. We each get one shot. Hamza is first.”
Sarimah liked the idea. She counted twelve yards from the goal to mark the penalty spot.
Hamza shrugged his shoulders. He grabbed the ball — a gift from an aid worker a year ago — and tried to bounce it. They had patched and repaired it so often, it hardly moved once it hit the ground.
Hamza placed it on the spot. Then he took ten steps back and studied the goal.
“Oh, hurry already. The fighting back home is going to be finished by the time you shoot,” Hassan shouted.
Hamza began his run and tried blasting a shot up the middle. It went straight into Aamir’s belly. He caught it with a satisfying thud.
“Ha! Nice try! Who is next?” called Aamir.
Hassan stood at the penalty spot. He put the ball down. Then he picked it up and replaced it again two more times. Each time it rolled a little, he put it back in a different place.
Aamir pretended to fall asleep: “Zzzz.”
Finally, Hassan took two steps back and then sprinted forward. He hit the ball confidently, but it sailed wide to the left. “Nah!” he said in disgust, as a couple of Turkish camp workers went after the ball.
“That’s two!” Aamir said. “Let’s go, Sarimah.”
The camp workers threw the ball back to Sarimah and stopped to watch. Some of the other refugees had heard the laughing and decided to watch, too.
“Okay,” Aamir said. “If she scores, Sarimah is world champion.”
Sarimah put the ball down and stepped way back. She glanced at the bottom right corner of the goal before starting her run. Instead of shooting there, though, she hit the ball hard to the left. Aamir was already diving the wrong way and Sarimah scored with ease.
“Gooaall!” Hamza shouted.
Sarimah lifted her hands in the air and heard what sounded like cheering.
“Sarimah! Sarimah!”
She turned to see her father rushing toward her from across the field. He had never told her to stop playing football with boys before, but she was suddenly worried.
“Papa,” said Sarimah, “what are you doing here?”
“Come quickly,” her father said. He grabbed her hand and led her away.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Canada.”
2
Sponsorship Team
As flight 1121 from Toronto banked slightly to come in for the landing, Sarimah pressed her forehead against the window. Was there anything to see on the ground? Her ears popped and the airplane began to turn toward Saskatoon International Airport. She could suddenly see everything, but the ground was still flat. Sarimah thought it looked like someone had drawn the roads on the ground with a ruler. The highways stretched on forever in straight lines.
“Papa, where are the hills? Or the oceans?” she asked her father in Arabic.
He leaned over Sarimah’s mother, who was sitting between them in the middle seat. He peered out the window.
“We are in farmland,” he said. “Flat, so you can plant many crops. This is a wonderful place to live. There is so much here. We are lucky.”
Sarimah looked back down to the ground again. She thought it would have been lucky to see at least a mountain or a beach.
She kept staring out the window. She watched the ground speed under her until the airplane bounced slightly and rushed to
a stop.
Here we are, she thought. Our new home.
Sarimah and her parents were the last passengers to leave the airplane. A flight attendant motioned for them to stay. Then he had them follow him into the terminal.
“Welcome to Saskatoon,” he said.
He was not the last person to welcome them. More people smiled politely and greeted them. A woman who worked for the airline gave Sarimah a bag of candy. Sarimah eagerly opened and devoured about half the candy as her parents signed forms and shook hands with other adults.
Finally, after Sarimah’s parents had all their paperwork approved, a smiling airport worker motioned for them to follow him. He led them through sliding double-doors to where a crowd of people cheered. Sarimah looked around. Was there someone famous coming in behind them? But, no, everyone was watching Sarimah and her parents. Cameras flashed and someone started singing in Arabic. Sarimah realized that the group of about a dozen people was cheering for her family. She grabbed her mother around the waist and tried to hide.
A man walked up to her father and extended his hand.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum,” the man said.
Her father replied, “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.”
The translator said his name was Mohammed and introduced them to the group.
“These are your sponsors,” he told Sarimah and her parents. “They worked hard to bring you here. They will help you learn about Canada.”
Sarimah looked at the people more closely. She saw an older man and his wife dabbing tears from their eyes. Another older couple was smiling and laughing as they waved at Sarimah. Three more women stood off to the side without saying much. An older man was singing and dancing. He was holding a sign that said, in Arabic, “Welcome.”
Mohammed spent a few minutes speaking to the adults before turning to Sarimah.
“Everyone calls me Mo,” he said. “Your father says you speak good English.”
A scrunched-up smile spread across Sarimah’s face. She had to think of her answer before saying it. She was also trying to understand why anyone would call a man named Mohammed Mo.
“I am not that good,” she said.
“Good enough,” Mo said with a smile. He turned back to the sponsors. “Sarimah speaks some English,” he explained to them. “Some Syrian children — those in the big cities, anyway — studied English before the war. She will be a quick learner, from what her father tells me.”
Sarimah noticed that hidden in the middle of the group was a younger family. The man and woman looked about the same age as her parents. They stepped aside and a young girl walked forward.
Mo stepped beside Sarimah.
“This is Isobel. Izzy,” he said. “Her family owns the place you will be living at. You will be neighbours. She can also help you at school.”
“Call me Izzy,” said the girl, who looked the same age as Sarimah.
Sarimah could feel her face wrinkle again.
“Hello, Izz-he,” she said, slowly.
Mo laughed and the girls turned to him.
“I think she is having trouble with our nicknames,” Mo said. “Sarimah, Canadians love to use nicknames. It is a sign of friendship. You will get the hang of them.”
Izzy handed Sarimah a paper shopping bag. Sarimah peeked inside. There were two T-shirts, some socks, a pair of pants and a sweater. She reached into the bag and shuffled the contents around. There were more things in the bottom: a toothbrush, toothpaste, lip balm, hand cream, a brush and hair elastics.
“Thank you,” she said in English.
“I hope they fit,” Izzy said. “If you want to return them, the receipt is in the bag.”
The girls stood for a while not saying anything. The adults started to talk again, so Sarimah slid to the side, out of the way. She watched as Izzy did the same.
After what seemed like hours to Sarimah, they piled into a grey minivan and started the drive home. Sarimah sat in the third row next to Izzy. Sarimah sat on the right side and Izzy was on the left. The middle seat was empty. Sarimah’s parents were in the middle row with Mo.
Sarimah tried to follow along as Mo described what they were seeing out the window. But it was dark and she was tired. She had a hard time keeping her eyes open and didn’t see much until they arrived at their new home. Everyone piled out of the car and Izzy motioned to Sarimah to follow. Izzy took her around back, where a door led to the place Sarimah and her parents would live.
Sarimah walked through the door, up a short flight of stairs and into their new home. It was small, but clean and bright. A vase on the kitchen table held fresh flowers. Izzy opened the refrigerator door to show shelves stuffed with food. Sarimah stepped beside her and felt her eyes widen.
She spotted milk, and the vegetable drawers were crammed full of carrots, greens and red peppers. After that, though, she didn’t know what all the bottles and cans contained. Everything was so bright, especially a cake topped with orange icing and a picture of a smiling, cartoon rabbit eating a carrot. Sarimah wondered what if it was carrots or rabbits inside. She hoped it was carrots.
The two girls walked down a hall to Sarimah’s room. It had a bed and small desk. There was with a TV on top of a dresser. Sarimah saw there were already some books on a shelf by the window and a radio and lamp on a bedside table. Izzy picked up the remote control and clicked on the TV.
It came to life on a sports channel showing a soccer game.
“Ah!” Sarimah said, pointing at the screen.
Izzy looked at her. “You like soccer?”
“Football,” Sarimah said. “Yes. I like it. I play.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. Her eyes never left the screen. Izzy smiled, sat down beside her, and turned up the volume.
“I think we’re going to be friends,” Izzy said.
“This team is the Whitecaps,” Izzy said. “They’re from Vancouver. They’re playing the L.A. Galaxy.”
“David Beckham,” Sarimah said.
“Yeah, but he’s not playing anymore. Is he your favourite player?”
“No, I like Messi.”
Izzy jumped up from the bed. She skipped around Sarimah and ran into the hallway. Sarimah could hear her put on her shoes and leave the apartment. Her parents, Izzy’s parents and Mo were talking in the kitchen.
“Izzy, where are you going?” her mother asked.
“Be right back.”
Sarimah smiled. She was confused, but she could watch the game. Within a few minutes, she heard the door open again. Sarimah could hear Izzy taking off her shoes and running back down the hallway.
Izzy was now wearing a blue-and-white striped soccer jersey. She carried a poster. She put some thumb-tacks down on the dresser and unrolled the poster to show Sarimah. It said ‘Lionel Messi’ across the top and ‘Argentina’ along the bottom.
“This is for your room,” she said.
She held one corner and Sarimah stood up to grab a tack. They hung it on the wall and then stood back to see if it was straight.
“Perfect,” Izzy said. “Everyone at school likes either Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.”
“Your school,” Sarimah said, “do you like it?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s pretty good,” Izzy said. “We have some fun. It’s already November, so it might start snowing any day. That isn’t as much fun.”
“How much snow?”
“Probably a lot more than you’re used to. At least we can play snow soccer then.”
“Snow soccer?” It was two words that Sarimah knew. But the idea of soccer and snow weren’t making much sense together in her head. Was she tired from the trip?
“It’s great training for indoor soccer,” Izzy said.
Sarimah looked up at the TV as the announcers raised their voices. The player on TV missed the shot, so Sarimah looked back at Izzy. “Don’t you play soccer outside
on the grass?”
Izzy began laughing. “Oh, yeah, but it’s cold for a long time here. We have to play whenever and wherever we can.”
Sarimah looked at Izzy and smiled. That, she could understand. She decided Canada wasn’t so scary after all.
3
Class Presentation
Sarimah and Izzy stood up from their desks together. They walked to the front of the Grade 7 social studies class at Thornton Park School.
As she walked up the aisle, Sarimah glanced out the window. She noticed that grey clouds had blanketed the city since the morning. The snow can’t be far off, she thought.
Arriving at the front of the class, she was proud she could read the words on the whiteboard: “Saskatoon and Syrian refugees group presentations.”
Sarimah glanced down at the notes and newspaper clippings in her hands. One was from the day she had arrived in Saskatoon: Friday, October 1. Exactly one month had passed.
“When I met Sarimah at the airport, she was very shy and didn’t say much,” Izzy started. “Since then, we have become neighbours, classmates and friends. Her English is so good. She has worked very hard.”
Sarimah lifted a piece of paper and began reading her part. “I arrived from a refugee camp in Turkey with help from sponsors like Izzy and her family.” She concentrated on every word. “I was scared at first. Everything was different here. But Izzy helped me.”
They continued to take turns for about five minutes. Sarimah told the class that she had learned Izzy was born in Ottawa, but moved to Saskatoon when she was three years old. Izzy told the class Sarimah was born in Aleppo, a city of two million people, before the war.
“Aleppo is one of the oldest cities in the world,” Izzy said. “It is now almost all ruined because of the war. Sarimah and her family may never get to see their home again. They told refugee camp workers they would like to live somewhere peaceful. The workers suggested Canada.”
Sarimah paused as a lump in her throat started to burn. “Syrian people are peaceful,” she said, her eyes starting to fill with tears. She blinked and they ran down her cheeks. The teacher walked over to Sarimah with a box of tissues. Sarimah took one and dried her eyes. She cleared her throat.
Snow Soccer Page 1