Snow Soccer

by David Trifunov

  “I’m sorry. We saw some awful things as we escaped,” she said. “But I hope you get to see my beautiful city one day. I hope the fighting stops and you can see that Syria is more than just war.”

  Sarimah looked at Izzy, whose chin was shaking. Even their teacher was holding a tissue close. A little embarrassed by her tears, Sarimah raised her eyes to see her classmates. Most of them were leaning forward, listening closely as Sarimah talked about how the Syrian war had created the most refugees since World War II.

  Then someone laughed. It was a quiet giggle and whoever did it tried to make it stop.

  Sarimah spotted her classmates, Tamsen and Kaelynn, in the back row. They were leaning across the aisle and whispering to each other. The teacher noticed them, too.

  “Tammy and Kaelynn, I really hope you’re not talking about your soccer team,” the teacher said. “You can talk all you want during lunch-hour detention.”

  The whole class turned to look at the two girls. Sarimah was a little hurt. Their laughter had made her sadness seem silly. But if they were talking about soccer, she wanted to know more. She also wanted a blue-and-orange jacket like the one they both wore every day. It had a ‘Blizzard’ logo on the front. Sarimah knew Izzy had one, also, but didn’t wear it as much as Tamsen.

  Tamsen groaned and Kaelynn huffed. Sarimah could sense tension as everyone waited for their talk to continue. Finally, Izzy said they were finished. Sarimah was grateful to hear the school bell ring for recess.

  Sarimah and Izzy waited for everyone to leave before they returned to their desks to collect their books.

  “You are doing so well,” Sarimah’s teacher said as they left. “Your English is improving all the time. Just keep practising.”

  Sarimah and Izzy headed into the hallway to their shared locker. They were still wiping tears from their eyes as they arrived. But Sarimah was happy to have their talk finished. She put on her jacket.

  “Hey, neighbour,” Izzy said. “It’s pretty chilly outside. Hope you brought your hat and mitts. You ready for the snow?”

  Sarimah reached down and put her hand into the pocket of her winter coat. She pulled out a white toque with a green husky dog on it. From the left pocket, she produced her gloves and slipped them onto her hands. They headed for the double doors at the back of the school.

  “Yes, I can’t wait,” Sarimah said. “But what do you mean, ‘pretty chilly’?”

  Izzy pushed open the doors and a blast of icy wind hit them.

  “That’s ‘pretty chilly’.”

  “I see. I would say it is cold. Let’s run,” Sarimah said. “I might freeze like an ice-man.”

  Izzy started to laugh. “Snowman! Ah, never mind. I know what you mean.”

  “I have one thing to ask you, Izzy,” said Sarimah. “Why did those girls laugh? Were they really whispering about soccer?”

  Izzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, probably,” she said. “That’s all Tammy can think about. She’s already talking about what college she’s going to pick. She says she wants to make the Olympic team before she’s twenty.”

  Sarimah had never met anyone who hoped to play soccer at that level. She didn’t know someone so good went to Thornton. She felt proud of being Tamsen’s classmate. “Wow! That is amazing.”

  “Just don’t believe it. Tammy is good, but she’s not that good. At least, she isn’t yet. Maybe she’ll make Team Canada, but right now I’m not even sure she’s the best on our team.”

  Sarimah was confused now. She couldn’t understand why anyone would make up stories about playing in the Olympics.

  “I would like to see her play.”

  “Well, you can. She’s right there. C’mon, let’s go see for ourselves.”

  Izzy pointed over Sarimah’s shoulder to the soccer fields. “Let’s play?”

  There was a group of eight kids chasing a ball.

  “Yes, I guess so,” Sarimah said.

  She wasn’t sure about playing with others after what had happened in class. But she really wanted to play. Sarimah and Izzy jogged over to the soccer field.

  “Hey, listen up,” Izzy said. “Sarimah is finished with her English classes at recess. She’s free from the teachers!”

  “Just don’t put her on my team,” said one voice.

  Sarimah’s heart sank. She wanted to run back into the school. She recognized the voice as Tamsen’s. And she could tell that Tamsen was angry.

  4

  What Brings You Here?

  “Ohhhh-kay,” Brandt said. He was in Sarimah’s class. She could tell from his voice that the tension she had felt in the classroom had spilled outside.

  “You two can be on our team,” Brandt said to Sarimah and Izzy. “We are going that way.” He pointed with a mittened hand.

  Izzy and Sarimah moved over to their team’s side.

  “Hey, Tammy, isn’t your knee sore?” Brandt asked. “Are you sure you want to play?”

  Tamsen was holding the ball. She juggled it a few times on one foot and then booted it toward Brandt. It landed right at his feet.

  “Yeah, my knee is fine,” she said. “Even if it’s a bit sore, I’m still better than anyone out here.”

  Sarimah felt that Tamsen was talking about her. She did her best to ignore it. She didn’t care if Tamsen got into trouble during her talk in class. Sarimah had arrived in Canada a month ago. For most of that time, she had studied English at recess while everyone else ran around outside. But Sarimah was ready to have fun, finally. She bounced on her toes as the two teams divided the small field in half for a five-a-side game. Brandt put the ball down and kicked it toward her. She ran to meet it, controlled it and passed it backward to Izzy.

  Sarimah sprinted toward an open space and shouted for a return pass. Tamsen was behind her when Izzy passed the ball. It bobbled along the rough ground. Sarimah had to shield the ball. She kept possession and decided she would see how far she could go with it.

  Sarimah was moving up the left wing, with Tamsen and Kaelynn in pursuit. Brandt called for a pass in the middle of the field. Sarimah pushed the ball into a space in front of him where he was alone in the middle. He banged a hard, low shot that skidded past the far post.

  “Oh, great pass, Sarimah,” Izzy shouted. “Come on, Brandt, you should score those ones!”

  “I know!” he said.

  Sarimah moved back to midfield, where she expected the ball would come after the goal kick. She was studying her teammates on the field when something caught her eye. She thought it was cotton from someone’s coat or fluff floating past from a poplar tree. Then she saw another one. Suddenly, with no warning, the white flakes filled the sky.

  The other team kicked the ball up the field, but Sarimah didn’t notice. She was busy staring into the clouds. The snowflakes covered the ground with a thin white blanket in almost no time.

  She laughed as snowflakes landed on her nose and eyelashes.

  “Oh, it’s finally here! Winter has arrived,” Izzy said, laughing.

  The other kids stopped playing to gather around Sarimah.

  “You haven’t seen snow before, have you?” Brandt asked.

  “This is so pretty,” Sarimah said. “In Syria, the tops of the mountains have snow sometimes. But I have never seen it falling from the sky.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice now,” said Izzy. “But just wait a few months and it won’t look so pretty anymore. Especially when you’re shovelling it ten times a day.”

  Sarimah turned in a circle, her face still turned up to the sky.

  “Stick out your tongue and catch one,” Brandt said.

  Sarimah eyes lit up as snowflake after snowflake landed and melted on her eyelids and nose and tongue. She looked down and saw that everyone was watching her. Snow covered Izzy’s toque and jacket. Even her eyebrows had snow on them.

  “Do we have to go inside now?�
� Sarimah asked.

  “Nah. If we let the snow stop us, we’d never get anything done,” Izzy said.

  “Yeah, let’s go already,” Tamsen said. “Recess is almost over. I’m tired of this.”

  “It’s just some dumb snow,” Kaelynn said. “What’s the big deal?”

  Tamsen had the ball near midfield and kicked it high toward Izzy’s goal.

  “Hey, no fair!” Izzy said. “We were enjoying a perfect winter moment.”

  “The only perfect winter moment is when winter is over,” Tamsen said.

  Sarimah watched as Izzy and Tamsen chased the ball. They nearly disappeared behind the snow, which was falling now in a thick sheet.

  Sarimah followed down the field. She moved into an open area and called for the ball. Izzy hit it, but the ball barely made it to Sarimah. Tamsen was suddenly there. She appeared out of nowhere to challenge for the pass.

  Sarimah and Tamsen collided and bumped shoulders. Tamsen slipped a little and lost her footing. She skidded down onto one knee.

  “Ah! My knee,” Tamsen shouted. “Watch where you’re going!”

  Sarimah froze. She wanted to say she was sorry, but couldn’t find the right words fast enough.

  “You just fell,” Sarimah said.

  “I did not ‘just fall.’ You fouled me. This is just recess, you know.”

  Izzy and Kaelynn came running over.

  “Are you okay, Tammy?” Kaelynn asked.

  “Sure, whatever. Blame me, not the refugee. It’s never the fault of the refugees. Everyone is always taking their side,” Tamsen said, looking at Sarimah. “The refugees are getting everything. Well, I’m not going to risk playing with someone who gets everything she wants. What if I get injured and miss provincials? Izzy, you should stop, too. We can’t afford to get injured now.”

  Tamsen turned and stormed toward the school. Kaelynn followed close behind her.

  “I just tried to get the ball,” Sarimah said. “I think we just bumped lightly.” She tapped her finger to Izzy’s shoulder to show her.

  “It’s not your fault,” Izzy said. “Tamsen can get excited sometimes. Soccer means everything to her.”

  Sarimah knew Izzy was trying to be nice, but she could see the truth. If excited was the same as rude, Tamsen was the most excited person Sarimah had ever met. As far as she was concerned, nobody should be trying to make excuses for Tamsen.

  “You are friends, I know. But she is not being fair to me,” Sarimah said.

  “I know,” Izzy said. “But I have to look out for her, sometimes. I’ve known her since kindergarten. Plus, she’s my teammate.”

  Sarimah admired what Izzy was saying. Sarimah had friends who were important to her, too. But she wouldn’t let a friend act like that.

  “Football should be fun. School should be fun,” Sarimah said. “There are too many other things to get mad about. Tamsen doesn’t know how good she has it here.”

  5

  Snow Ball

  Sarimah bobbled down the stairs and out the door. She skidded slightly on the icy pavement outside. Izzy was waiting at the end of the driveway for their walk to school.

  Sarimah felt like she was ready to climb Mount Everest. Her puffy, dark grey coat with the red lining had a collar that hid her face. She had to keep pushing her scarf away from her eyes, but her slippery black mitts made it impossible to grip anything.

  Her winter boots felt two sizes too big. Her bulky snow pants made a loud whip-whip sound as she walked. It had to be 15 degrees below zero, but she was sweating under all her layers. Sarimah tried reaching up to scratch her head under her toque. But that was just as hard as adjusting her scarf.

  “You look warm,” Izzy said with a smile. “But you’re going to have trouble playing snow soccer in that outfit.”

  Sarimah tried to move her scarf, toque and hood away from her ears. She tried to move the scarf away from her mouth as best she could. But it had frozen from her breath and she could only push it down a little.

  “Will we play snow soccer today?” she finally said around her scarf.

  “Yeah, probably. It’s like a tradition or something. We play kickball when it rains and soccer when it snows.”

  “What happens if the ball gets cold?” she asked.

  “When the ball gets cold, it loses its bounce. We just kick it a little harder. It’s a great workout for your legs.”

  Sarimah couldn’t hear much except their boots crunching the roadside snow. “In Syria, there would be no school in this weather. If we got weather like this.”

  “We call those snow days! It has to snow a lot more than this for us to get a snow day here.”

  When they rounded the last corner to school, Sarimah’s eyes widened. In front of her, dozens of kids were slipping and sliding in the playground.

  About ten kids were playing street hockey. She laughed when she heard little girls yelling, “Tag, you’re frozen.”

  “When do they use those things on their feet?” she asked Izzy, pointing to the hockey players.

  “You mean skates? We have to build the outdoor rink first,” she said. “We usually do that just before Christmas, when it’s colder.”

  “But it is cold now!”

  Brandt appeared out of nowhere. He slid toward them, kicking up a wall of snow. “Hey, Sarimah, is it cold enough for you?”

  “Yes. It is cold enough for me.”

  Izzy and Brandt began laughing. Sarimah couldn’t help but smile, too, although she wasn’t sure why.

  The first bell sounded and they started toward the school. Sarimah glanced over at the soccer field. A thick blanket of snow covered it.

  “Do you play soccer at lunch break?” Sarimah asked her friends.

  “Of course,” Brandt said. “We’ll get some more people and have an even bigger game today.”

  Playing soccer in the snow was all Sarimah could think about during her morning classes. When it was finally noon, she grabbed her lunch from her locker and met Izzy in the cafeteria.

  “How has your morning been?” Izzy asked.

  “Good,” Sarimah said. “What do you do in the winter?”

  Izzy peeled open a yogurt container and grabbed a spoon.

  “Lots of different things,” she said, as she stirred. “Like I said this morning, we can’t let snow stop us, or we’d never get anything done.”

  “Do you still go outside to play?”

  “Of course. We can go out now and you’ll see. Nothing changes.”

  “Can we play soccer in the snow?”

  Izzy smiled. “How about right after we eat?”

  They wolfed down their sandwiches and tossed out their recyclables before heading back to their locker. Sarimah put on her snow pants, hat, scarf, jacket, mitts and boots. She followed Izzy to the soccer field. Kids had already packed down the snow in some places. The packed-down area in front of the goal nearest to the school was almost pure ice. But Sarimah could see that other parts of the field were untouched.

  Sarimah was stunned to see the same group of kids from the day before playing soccer in the snow. She shook her head. She didn’t know how anyone could play soccer on snow and ice. She glanced down at her boots and tried to imagine running in them. How could she kick a ball with them?

  Brandt came out of the school from a different door. He was carrying a ball. He tried to roll it to Sarimah, but it wobbled and bounced on the uneven surface. She stopped it, and realized she wasn’t going to be able to do anything with it, wearing all her winter clothes.

  She tried to flick the ball with her toe, but her boots were so big she just scuffed it forward.

  Izzy ran up and took a shot on goal. She hit it hard, and banged it right to Seamus, who was the goal-keeper. Seamus grabbed the ball with both hands. He punted it high in the air toward the left wing.

  Sarimah
watched as the ball sailed high. Then it started to fall. It was as if the ball was made of stone and someone had dropped it from outer space. Sarimah expected it to bounce high and roll down the field, but instead it hit a patch of deep, soft snow.

  Poof.

  Only the top half of the ball was showing. It looked like the yolk of a fried egg. Kids scrambled for it, but the snow was thick and they could only lurch a step at a time. Brandt got to it first, and kicked it loose from its icy trap. He sent it back up to Izzy, who passed it back to Sarimah. Brandt rejoined them, huffing and puffing.

  “Izzy, me and Sarimah will play on this side, with Seamus in goal,” Brandt said. “Everyone else is on the other team.”

  “Wait, we’re playing, too.”

  Sarimah looked behind her to see Tamsen and Kaelynn running up.

  “Is your knee better?” Izzy asked Tamsen.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. Plus, I didn’t like how the last game ended.”

  “All right, we have a game now,” Brandt said. “Tamsen and Kaelynn can go on that team, but we get Derek.”

  Sarimah stood in the back of the group, but she heard what they were saying. She knew Tamsen was back to prove something to her.

  Tamsen was wearing a short winter coat with boots that seemed half the size of Sarimah’s. Sarimah watched how easily she was able to walk through the snow.

  She can run in those boots much easier than I can in mine, Sarimah thought.

  The kids scattered and Sarimah found herself with the ball at centre field. She wasn’t sure how it was going to work. It was a big field, with just seven players per side. There would be a lot of running in the deep snow.

  Sarimah tapped the ball to Brandt and the game began. He passed it back to Izzy in midfield and then went for a run. Sarimah tried to support Izzy and find some open space for a return pass.

  Tamsen charged at Izzy, looking to block a pass or create a turnover.

  Sarimah saw what was happening and called for the ball. She pumped her legs hard, but her boots slipped on the ice and snow. She felt like she had forgotten how to run. It was like a bad dream in which she was running as fast as she could but not going anywhere.