Captain Awesome, Soccer Star

by Stan Kirby

The CAPE!

  That’s when it hit him.

  The idea.

  THE BIGGEST, MOST BIGGER IDEA.

  THE AWESOMEST, MOST AWESOME IDEA, EVER!

  Yes, Eugene would absolutely wear his Captain Awesome outfit for the first big Megabytes game next Saturday! There would be no stopping him if he played as Captain Awesome. He’d kick supergoals with his left foot and then superer goals with his right foot and then supererest goals with his left and right foot at the same time!

  The rest of the week was a blur of school, lunch, homework, and looking for evil. It seemed like forever for those seven days to pass, but by the next Saturday, Eugene was ready and, more importantly, so was his Captain Awesome outfit.

  Eugene secretly packed it into his backpack and grabbed the Turbomobile, the clear plastic ball Captain Awesome’s hamster sidekick, Turbo, used to patrol for evil.

  Warm-up drills got off to a great start! Eugene only tripped over the ball twice. The ball only hit him in the head once. And that was a stray ball from the other team.

  Eugene kicked it back to the Kickers and took a short break with Charlie to check them out.

  “They’ve got matching pants,” Charlie said.

  “Just like the Doom Legion of Smartypants in Super Dude No. 64,” Eugene said. “We can beat these guys.”

  “Okay, team! Gather round!” Coach McGillicudy called out. “We’ve got five minutes before the game against the Kickers starts, so listen up!”

  Charlie and the other members of the Sunnyview Megabytes jogged over to their coach. Everyone except for Eugene, that is.

  In a flash Eugene snuck from the group, raced behind the snack shed, and unzipped his backpack! Inside lay his only hope, folded rather nicely and smelling of springtime fabric softener: his Captain Awesome outfit!

  BREET-TWEET-TWEET!

  The referee’s whistle! The game was starting!

  Captain Awesome zoomed from behind the snack shed and ran onto the soccer field with the most heroic run in the history of heroic running.

  “Never fear, Megabytes!” Captain Awesome said. “Captain Awesome is here to lead our team to victory and score a million goals! MI-TEE!”

  But instead of being greeted with the adoring cheers of the crowd, Captain Awesome only heard the shrill sound of BREET-TWEET-TWEET!

  The referee held up a yellow card. “Yellow card!” he cried out, calling the penalty against Eugene. “Entering the field of play without permission. Also wearing a cape. No capes allowed.”

  Coach McGillicudy had to pull Eugene from the field.

  “But . . . but . . . I need my cape!” a stunned Captain Awesome explained. “I’m Captain Awesome!”

  “I don’t care if you’re Santa Claus,” the referee replied. “It’s the rules.”

  Eugene looked at his dad, his friends, and finally back to the referee. And then it dawned on him. This was no ordinary soccer official. The striped shirt, the loud whistle, and the cards of yellow and red should have been clues.

  If only I hadn’t been so concerned about scoring a million goals, I would’ve noticed sooner!

  Captain Awesome thought. Mental note: Next time only worry about scoring a half-million goals, so I can focus more on the very evil standing right in front of my face!

  This “referee” was really the evil Whistleblower, the superannoying supervillain with his Noisy Whistle of Annoyance and Ouch-That-Hurts-My-Ears-Ness.

  “Blow all you want with your mighty evil lungs, Whistleblower!” Captain Awesome said to the villain. “Nothing shall stop Captain Awesome from scoring the winning goal for all that’s good and true!”

  CHAPTER 6

  Game On!

  By Eugene

  There’s really no reason to ask who the best player was on the Sunnyview Megabytes.

  “ME!” Meredith would shout before you even finished the question. And the sad thing? She was right.

  Not only was Meredith the best player on the team, she was also the pinkest girl in all of Sunnyview, certainly the world, and maybe even the whole universe, including the craters of the moon.

  Eugene returned after removing his Captain Awesome outfit. Wearing his regular team jersey, he joined the two teams on the field, and the Westfield Kickers captain kicked off. Meredith controlled the ball and worked it downfield, dashing and darting between the Westfield Kickers players.

  “I’m open! Pass the ball!” Eugene called out.

  Meredith passed the ball to Charlie, who sent it to Marlo. She boinged it off her forehead, sending it back to Charlie who passed it to Meredith.

  “Over here! Over here!” Eugene called out.

  Meredith did a give-and-go with Sally, who passed the ball back, kicking it right past Eugene.

  Why won’t they kick the ball to me?! What’s with them?! Eugene was frustrated. Wait! Did I accidentally become invisible?!

  Eugene ran down the field, after the two girls, calling out, “I’m right here! I’m right here! I’m just invisible!” But then the stinky stink of something that stunk worse than not being passed the soccer ball filled Eugene’s nose.

  PEE-YEW!

  “Gaaah daaah baaaah waaah!” The evil sound of nonsense filled Eugene’s ears.

  There’s only one person that can sound that gobbledygooky, Eugene realized.

  There! On the sidelines! Queen Stinkypants was at it again! Her stinky diaper of evil was firing across the soccer field and caught Eugene in its awful odor! Not even the soccer fields of Earth were safe from her stink clouds and baby gibberish.

  Eugene stopped. It was impossible to run with his lungs filled with Queen Stinkypants Diaper Air. He pinched his nose, squinted his eyes and . . .

  BAM!

  The next thing Eugene knew he was on the ground, flat on his back, holding his stomach.

  He’d been hit by the soccer ball. Hard. In the glare of the sun he saw the outline of two faces staring down at him. Two very similar faces.

  If “mean” could put on a blue jersey and play soccer for ninety minutes on Saturday afternoons, you’d have George and Lulu Morris. Matching brown hair with pale skin and freckles, they were more like two twin bulldogs chasing an old, slobber-drenched tennis ball on the beach than two kids playing soccer.

  This explained why they were the all-star players for the Westville Kickers.

  “If you want to nap, I can get you a pillow!” Lulu said. They laughed and ran upfield, dribbling the ball and passing it between them.

  Coach McGillicudy called a time-out and ran over to Eugene. “You want to take a break for a little bit, son?” he asked.

  Eugene looked up and saw his dad’s face. The sun outlined his head like a halo.

  “Yeah,” Eugene mumbled.

  Eugene plopped on the bench next to Bernie Melnick, who had earned a reputation as one of the second grade’s greatest benchwarmers.

  “It’s nice here on the bench, isn’t it, Eugene?” Bernie asked. “This is a much nicer bench than the one for basketball, and lots more comfortable than the benches on the baseball field. Yep, for bench-sitting, the soccer field can’t be beat!”

  Bernie continued, completely unaware that the last thing Eugene wanted to do was to talk.

  “You did pretty well against the ready-steady-kick,” Bernie said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ready-steady-kick,” Bernie replied. “It’s the play the Morris twins are famous for. I heard from a friend of a friend of my cousin that the Morris twins once used their ready-steady-kick to knock a guy so far back in time that he became a pirate on a Spanish ship, true story!”

  But Eugene didn’t have time to think about the impossibility of going back through time from a soccer kick. Eugene was too busy sitting in stunned silence.

  Somehow Turbo, the hamster, had rolled his Turbomobile out of Eugene’s backpack and was headed into the middle of the soccer action! Turbo rolled under George’s feet as he tried to pass the ball to his sister. George tripped over the Turbomobile and c
rashed flat on his face.

  PLOP!

  “Ow! Muh hace! Muh hace!” George’s cries were muffled by the grass in his mouth.

  George jumped to his feet and spit out a mouthful of turf, totally unaware that Meredith had sped past him. Meredith dribbled downfield dodging the remaining Kickers. Charlie was open, and in a flash she passed the ball across the field.

  “Go, Charlie, go!” she yelled. “Take it in!”

  Eugene stood on the bench to get a better view. His heart pounded in his chest! This was even better than the time Super Dude scored a touchdown as time ran out to beat the Halftime Show-Offs in the Super Dude Bowl.

  Charlie dribbled toward the goal!

  “GO! GO! GO!” Eugene screamed from the bench!

  Charlie faked a pass to Marlo, freezing the defender in his tracks, then unleashed a massive kick!

  WHAM!

  The soccer ball sailed toward the net! The goalie dove! The ball skipped once on the grass and bounced off the fingers of the goalie’s outstretched hands!

  “GOOOOOOOOOAL!” Eugene shouted and fell off the bench. He jumped to his feet in time to see Turbo scampering for the sidelines.

  Way to go, Turbo! Way to go, Nacho Cheese Man! Eugene thought.

  The score may have read Westville: 1, Sunnyview: 1, but in Eugene’s mind it was Sunnyview Superhero Squad: 1, and Baron and Baroness Von Booger: a huge, big, fat 0.

  ZEE-RO!

  And the Von Boogers weren’t happy about it. The Baron glared at the Turbomobile with laserlike eyes. It was up to Eugene to rescue his sidekick from the twin terror soccer-ball-kicking feet of the Von Boogers. He leaped from the bench and ran toward his little buddy.

  “Get your laser eyes away from my hamster!” Eugene yelled.

  CHAPTER 7

  Tiebreakers

  of Doom

  By Eugene

  The Westville Kickers: 1, Sunnyview Megabytes: 1.

  No matter what planet you were from or what language you spoke when you spoke of these things, there was no denying that the score was tied!

  TIED!

  And ties were really the only things that were made to be broken. Especially if Sunnyview was going to win its first game of the season.

  The Kickers had the ball and brought it upfield, passing it from player to player like it was a hot potato traveling on a rocket.

  George had recovered from his horrible “grass-facing” and he kicked the ball to his sister. Evan Mason raced between George and Lulu and tried to steal the ball. The ball hit his shin guards and knocked him over like a bowling pin.

  PLOP!

  Lulu ran in and dribbled the ball away. She bolted for the Sunnyview goal and passed the ball to Russell Tater. Sally Williams tried to block it.

  She was fast. She was fearless.

  She missed the ball.

  Russell passed it to George, and without slowing down, he smacked it with his right foot. It was over almost as soon as it began.

  Goal.

  SIGH.

  Westville: 2, Sunnyview: 1. The tie score was history, thanks to the Morris twins, and Eugene felt a twisting knot in his stomach.

  BREET!

  And then the whistle blew.

  HALFTIME.

  The Megabytes headed to the bench, which Eugene and Bernie had been keeping warm for them. Eugene pulled Charlie from the huddle. “Listen,” he whispered to his best friend. “I’ve had a lot of time to . . . watch . . . the game and I discovered something pretty amazing.”

  “The soccer ball is a robot that’s mind-controlled by the double-brain powers of the Morris twins?!” Charlie asked.

  “Yes!” Eugene replied. “I mean, no. I mean, that’s what I thought at first too, but then I noticed an ice cooler near their bench—”

  Charlie turned to look.

  “Don’t look!” Eugene snapped. “They’ll know we’re on to them. I saw something like this before in Super Dude No. 26. Super Dude’s powers were slowly being sucked away by El-Sucko!, who used a powerful sucking ray hidden in a wedge of stinky blue cheese to rob Super Dude of his powers.

  “Baron and Baroness Von Booger must be using an evil sucking thingie to zap Captain Awesome’s awesome powers and make me, I mean him, trip over soccer balls.”

  Charlie gasped. “That was my second guess.”

  “If Captain Awesome is going to get back into the game and win it, I’ve gotta destroy whatever evil-sucking machine is in that cooler. It’s stealing my powers!”

  “What can I do?” Charlie asked.

  “I need a distraction.”

  Before Eugene could say another word, both boys yelled, “Super Sonic Scream!”

  “Good luck,” Eugene said.

  “Same to you,” Charlie replied, and took a deep breath. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the boy screamed and raced onto the soccer field waving his arms like a crazy duck who’d forgotten how to fly.

  But the diversion was perfect! No one saw Captain Awesome superjump across the field and land atop the Westville Kickers’ mysterious cooler of icy cold refreshments. . . .

  CHAPTER 8

  Showdown

  By Eugene

  “I know we’re down two to one,” Coach McGillicudy said at halftime. “But I’m really proud of the way you’re all playing . . . and . . . um . . . sonic screaming.”

  That was just one of the many reasons Eugene loved his dad: no matter how busy he might be doing other things, he always made time to give a little look of thanks to his son’s efforts to crush evil.

  “The Westville Kickers may be winning, but remember, the game isn’t over until the final whistle,” Coach McGillicudy continued. “And nobody unplugs the Megabytes!”

  “YEAH!” Coach McGillicudy led the team in the team cheer that he’d written.

  “Megabytes rah!

  Megabytes yo!

  Megabytes, Megabytes

  Yo-ho-ho! High-five!”

  The team high-fived.

  Thank goodness it wasn’t Dinosaur Delmer singing “Monday,” Eugene thought.

  BREET-TWEET-TWEET!

  Halftime was over. Eugene headed back to the bench, but his dad tapped his shoulder.

  “You’re going the wrong way, Eugene.”

  “But the bench is that way,” Eugene explained.

  “I know, but the soccer field is that way. You do want to play, don’t you?”

  Eugene looked into his dad’s eyes and his spirit soared! He gave his dad a quick hug, then raced onto the field, joining Charlie at midfield.

  “I really wish I had my cape right now,” Eugene whispered.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Charlie whispered back. “And you know what? That cape isn’t Captain Awesome, you are. I mean, even without my Nacho Cheese Man outfit, I am still Nacho Cheese Man. I have all the powers of cheese in a can, not my superhero outfit.”

  As Eugene watched, Charlie scooted across the field and took control of the ball. “Cheesy-yo!” he yelled.

  Nacho Cheese Man’s classic battle cry startled the Morris twins, allowing Charlie to break past them and head for the Westville goal.

  “Go, Nacho, go!” Eugene yelled and followed after him just in case someone accidentally passed him the ball now that he was no longer invisible.

  Charlie slid his foot under the ball and blasted it into the air. The ball curved! It arced around goalie Bingo Swanson, and bounced into the goal.

  YEAH!

  Westville: 2, Sunnyview: 2.

  TIED!

  AGAIN!

  But time was running out.

  Then a thought shot into Eugene’s mind: Charlie’s right! We’re not superheroes because we wear superhero outfits! We wear superhero outfits because we’re superheroes! I’m Captain Awesome with or without my cape, and I bet if I jumped as high as I can, I’d be able to leap over Baron and Baroness Von Booger and land in front of their goal! Then if anybody would just pass me the ball, it’d be an easy goal!

  Eugene crouched low and ju
mped as high as he could.

  “MI-TEE!” he yelled as his feet left the ground.

  The soccer ball smacked Eugene in the head.

  OUCH!

  As Eugene fell to the ground, it was as if the world started to move in s-l-o-w motion. The Megabytes and the Kickers watched as the soccer ball arced over the Von Booger twins’ evil heads. They tried to block it, but really, who could ever jump as high as Captain Awesome?

  The ball hit the ground, bounced once, sailed over Bingo’s head and hit the back of the net.

  GOOOOOOOAAAAAL!

  BREET-TWEET-TWEET!

  The clock ran out! The referee blew his whistle! The soccer game was over, and the Megabytes had won, 3–2!

  “You did it, Eugene,” Coach McGillicudy said, as he ran onto the field. “You scored the winning goal!”

  “MI-TEE!” Charlie said, which made Eugene’s smile even bigger.

  “Nice going, Eugene!”

  Did Meredith really say something nice to me?! Wow. She even used my real name? That ball must’ve hit me so hard I’m hearing things! Eugene thought and rubbed his head.

  The Megabytes raised Eugene on their shoulders and carried him off the field. The Morris twins stood in front of their goal, arms folded. They were too stunned to move, or maybe they were waiting for their laser eyes to recharge.

  It really didn’t matter to Eugene either way. He was filled with a joy and happiness that couldn’t be melted, even by the most zaptastic of lasers.

  But there was still one more thing for Eugene to do. He had to keep the game ball out of the hands of the Von Boogers. That prize now belonged to Captain Awesome and his Megabytes, and he wasn’t going to let anyone steal it from them.