A Different Game

by Sylvia Olsen

  It helps when Uncle Rudy says stuff like, “Don’t agonize over the last play, anticipate the next play.

  You’re the best you’ve ever been today, and you’ll be better tomorrow!”

  Sometimes Murphy doesn’t understand the words Uncle Rudy uses, so after practice he asks Mom how to spell the words, and then he looks them up on the computer.

  Ag-o-nize: to think about something intensely,

  usually in great detail and for a long time,

  before making a decision

  An-tic-i-pate: to imagine or consider something

  before it happens and make any necessary

  preparations or changes

  Once Murphy looks up the words, he knows exactly what Uncle Rudy is talking about. That’s the thing Murphy likes about Uncle Rudy—he doesn’t think things should come easy. He thinks if it’s worth having, you should have to work for it.

  Uncle Rudy also understands how the boys feel about leaving the tribal school.

  He says, “You’re going from what you know and what’s comfortable to what you don’t know and what feels scary. That’s okay. That’s called growing up. That’s called challenging yourself. Without a challenge, you will stagnate.”

  Stag-nate: to fail to develop, progress or make necessary changes

  What Uncle Rudy says makes it easier, but Murphy still feels a little worried about going to Riverside.

  Especially when it comes to the soccer team.

  “I think you’re ready,” Uncle Rudy says on the last Wednesday before school starts. “I know you’re ready. I am positive you’re ready. I absolutely have no doubt in the world that you guys are ready. You guys are the Formidable Four. Riverside has never seen anything like it.”

  The Formidable Four. Murphy rolls the words around in his head. The Formidable Four. The words sound awesome. All the boys hold their heads up and pump their chests out when Uncle Rudy shouts, “The Formidable Four. Riverside”— Uncle Rudy spreads his hands like he is making a grand announcement—“let me introduce to you the Formidable Four.”

  His enthusiasm is catching. The younger boys shout, “The Formidable Four! You go, guys!”

  All the boys are excited when they stand in a huddle and shout:

  What’s our name? Yeah!

  What’s our name? Yeah!

  Get ’er done and win the game!

  Goooooo, Riverside!

  Saying Riverside pumps the boys full of excitement. They run out into their positions faster than usual. Everyone except Albert. Although Albert looked excited when they cheered, Murphy is surprised by how slowly he runs to center field. Something has been different about Albert for the past week or so. Murphy noticed it first at a practice when Haywire ran right past Albert. Haywire can run fast, but no one can run as fast as Albert.

  The boys play the best game of the summer. Danny takes a couple of shots on Murphy that are harder than ever. But that only happens when he can get past Jeff, who plays defense like a trooper—he’s got his territory covered. Murphy guards the net like he’s protecting the Queen—no one’s going to get past him without a fight. Even Haywire and the others play like stars.

  “The Formidable Four. The Formidable Four!” they cheer each time a play is made.

  After practice Murphy repeats the words over and over. He loves the way they sound. There’s something about the words that make him feel bigger and better than ever. When he gets home, he looks up the word formidable on the computer.

  For-mi-da-ble: inspiring respect or wonder because of size, strength or ability

  “Formidable,” he says to his cat, Mousetrap. “The Formidable Four. That’s us, MT. What do you think about that?”

  Chapter Three

  “Good morning, Riverside students. I hope you are all settling into your new classes. There are a lot of announcements this morning, so everyone listen up.”

  Ms. Clarkson, the principal, has a scratchy voice that makes Murphy cringe, like when Mom stirs cheese sauce in a saucepan with a metal spoon. He ignores the principal until she says, “The first senior boys’ soccer tryout will be held on the upper field after the second lunch bell at twelve fifteen. Coach Kennedy wants me to remind you that only boys with full soccer gear will be allowed on the field. That means shoes, shorts, shirts and protection.”

  Jeez, Murphy cringes, does she have to mention protection right out loud on the announcements like that? Isn’t it kind of private? Then he thinks about Albert and the other boys. Murphy has his gear in his backpack, but what about them? At the tribal school, they had only needed a full set of gear when they played a game. How were they supposed to know about Riverside’s rules?

  After homeroom, Murphy meets Jeff in the hall. “Got your stuff?” he asks. “Did you know about the full set of gear?”

  “Yeah, I got it,” Jeff says. “And no, I didn’t know we needed it. I brought my stuff for pe—didn’t even think about needing the whole works for tryouts.”

  “What about Albert and Danny?” Murphy asks. “What if they don’t have their stuff?”

  Just then the two other boys race around the corner into the hall.

  “What are we gonna do?”

  Albert is out of breath. He doubles over, holding his sides.

  “We can’t even get on the field without a full set of gear!”

  Danny is starting to panic.

  “Wow, they sure take themselves seriously up here,” Murphy says. “They shouldn’t tell us we can’t try out just because we don’t have gear. That’s not fair.”

  “Yeah, it is, Murph. They can do whatever they want. That’s why Riverside is so good. They take soccer seriously,” Jeff says. He might be right, but he’s not being helpful.

  “Well, what are we supposed to do now?” Albert says. He’s got his wind, and he paces back and forth.

  “Go to class, that’s what,” Jeff says. “We aren’t allowed to stand around in the hall.”

  “But what about tryouts?” Danny says. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’ll figure it out at recess,” Murphy says.

  The boys disband and head to class.

  Murphy and Danny sit across from each other at the back of the math class. The room is full, but none of the other students look familiar.

  Murphy finds it hard to concentrate on the teacher’s explanation of fractions when the most important day of the year has just been totally ruined because of one stupid rule. He can’t try out if Danny doesn’t. They made a deal. They are a pack of four as far as soccer goes—the Formidable Four.

  Maybe it’s because he’s in math class and he’s thinking about fractions, but Murphy suddenly wonders, What if half or a quarter of us don’t make it? He shoves his thoughts into the back of his mind and starts thinking of ways to get Danny and Albert some gear.

  “Do you have your shoes?” he whispers to Danny.

  “No, but Albert does,” Danny replies. “I have shorts and a shirt, but neither of us has protection.”

  “We have to phone home and get someone to bring some stuff up here,” Murphy says.

  “Boys. Boys at the back.” Mr. Henthorn looks directly at Murphy. “Do you have something to share with the class?”

  “No, sir,” Murphy says. “Sorry, sir.”

  The teacher continues talking to the class, and Murphy tries to think of a way to make a call. He’s got no money. As far as he knows, none of the other boys bring money to school. The principal already said that students aren’t allowed to use the school phone except for emergencies, and probably no one else will think this is an emergency. And anyway, Murphy isn’t about to go to the office. That’s a place he wants to stay away from.

  “We need a phone,” he whispers again to Danny.

  “Great, who’s got one of those?” Danny says. He looks totally discouraged, which is just the way Danny is. If something doesn’t work the first time— he quits. It’s not a very good characteristic for a great soccer player. Murphy knows that, but there’s not
hing much he can do about it. Sometimes it’s impossible to get Danny to think positive, no matter how hard Murphy tries.

  “They don’t let us bring cell phones to school. Now what are we supposed to do?” Danny hisses through his teeth. “This is messed up.”

  Mr. Henthorn stops writing on the chalkboard and faces the class.

  “Did someone say something?” he asks.

  A few kids snicker.

  “I might as well forget the team,” Danny says without paying any attention to the teacher. “This place is too stupid.”

  “Excuse me,” Mr. Henthorn says. “If you boys don’t stop talking, I’ll have to separate you.”

  Murphy throws Danny a look that says, Be quiet.

  He waits until the teacher turns and begins to write on the board again and then whispers, “I’ll find a phone somehow.”

  The girl at the desk in front of Murphy’s has been looking across at Danny and turning her head sideways so she can hear what Murphy is saying. Before Mr. Henthorn finishes writing, she slips a note onto Murphy’s desk.

  I have a cell phone. You can use it at recess if we make sure no teachers catch us.

  Molly

  Murphy turns the paper over and writes:

  Thank you.

  Murphy

  He passes it forward. She scribbles something and sneaks it back to him.

  Meet me at the Region Street entrance as soon as the recess bell rings.

  Molly

  Murphy folds the paper and puts it in his pocket.

  “No problem,” he whispers to Danny. “It’s all good.”

  Danny frowns. He doesn’t know what just happened, but he doesn’t interrupt the class again.

  Murphy makes a plan: he’ll call Mom at the Band Office, where she works, and ask her to go home from work and get his old shoes and a couple of extra jockstraps. She can bring them up to the school at lunch.

  The old shoes will fit Danny, and no one will have to root around at Danny’s and Albert’s places. Mom will do it. Murphy’s sure of it. She’s as excited as any of them about the boys getting on the team.

  When the recess bell rings, Murphy tells Danny about Molly’s phone and his plan.

  “Go tell Albert that I’ll get all the gear we need for everyone. As long as Albert has his own shoes, we can make do with stuff I have around the house.”

  Murphy’s shoes will never fit Albert’s big feet, and he isn’t sure whether his jockstrap will fit him either.

  Albert stands head and shoulders taller than Murphy.

  But if it means he can practice, Albert will just have to suck it up.

  Danny takes off, and Murphy heads to the front entrance, where the girl from math class is waiting.

  “My name’s Molly,” she says with a laugh. “But I guess you know that already. And your name’s Murphy. I knew that before you told me. My dad told me that you and your mom moved back to the reserve last year. They used to be an item, you know.” She stops talking long enough for Murphy to wonder what she means. “Your mom and my dad—at least that’s what Dad says. Sounds pretty funny, eh? An item. Dad and I have seen you before, but I can’t believe we haven’t met each other until now. We live in town. Down by the arena. We just moved there from over the other side of the river.”

  “Really?” Murphy says. He’s not quite sure how to respond, so he says, “Like you say, I’m Murphy,” which sounds pretty dumb.

  “Oh, sorry,” Molly says. “I talk a lot.”

  You sure are right about that, Murphy says to himself. He thinks about a few other things he could say, but it’s hard for him to find a space in Molly’s constant flow of words.

  “Here.” She hands him her cell phone. “Go around the side of the building and make sure no one sees you. They take your phone and call your parents if you get caught. That happened to me a few times. Dad’s threatened to close my account.”

  Murphy can’t imagine Mom ever paying for a cell phone account for him.

  Mom is okay with picking up the gear and delivering it to the school by the second lunch bell at 12:15. It turns out that Molly knows a lot about Mom, stuff Murphy has never heard about. Apparently when they were teenagers, his mom broke her dad Richard’s heart when she dumped him. Richard moved away and married “The Blond Lady,” as Molly calls her mother.

  She left the two of them before Molly had time to get to know her.

  “I don’t even know what she looks like, other than that she’s blond like me. Dad doesn’t have even one picture. At least that’s what he says. Apparently she lives in New Brunswick somewhere. I’ll find her one day,” Molly says. “Dad says if I look in the mirror and concentrate on my eyes, and lips that I’ll see Mom in there somewhere. That’s a pretty lame way to see your mom, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” Murphy says when she stops to take a breath. “Pictures are all I get to see of my dad.

  Although Mom says I’ve got his ears and middle toes. Oh, and his light hair and pale skin.”

  Molly laughs. It’s more of a giggle than a laugh, and Murphy realizes he hasn’t had a girl for a friend since he lived in town.

  “Does that mean your dad has big ears?” she asks.

  “What are you trying to say?” Murphy frowns and pretends to be insulted.

  “I’m saying you don’t have little ears.”

  The two of them walk around the school looking for the boys, but they can’t find them. Murphy tells Molly about the soccer team, the tryouts and the Formidable Four.

  “We’re the best thing to come from the tribal school since Uncle Rudy,” Murphy says, trying not to sound too high on himself.

  “I know him,” Molly says. “He’s a friend of my dad’s.”

  Murphy struts in front of Molly, “We’re the fantastic Formidable Four from the Long Inlet Tribal School,” he says, beginning to feel comfortable.

  “You don’t look First Nations,” she says.

  “Yeah?” he says. “Well, neither do you.”

  Chapter Four

  “Where’s Albert?” Murphy asks when Danny and Jeff arrive at his locker.

  “He’s trying to fit into your jockstrap,” Danny says with a laugh.

  “Hey, it’s not funny,” Murphy says. “At least he won’t miss the tryout.”

  On the way up to the field, Albert walks behind the others.

  “What’s up with you?” Danny says. “Having trouble with that little jockstrap?”

  “Naw, it’s okay. This place stinks,” Albert says. “I can’t believe they make us wear full gear just for tryouts.”

  “Get over it,” Jeff says. “We’re gonna be on the team. That’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Danny says, and he turns to high-five Albert. “We’re the Formidable Four.”

  Albert ignores Danny and turns his back on his three friends. The rest of the boys who have come for tryouts are standing halfway down the field. They are close enough that Murphy can see every one of the players. There are a lot of them—tall ones, short ones, heavy ones, skinny ones. It’s hard to say just from looking who’s good and who’s not. All he knows for sure is that Riverside won the British Columbia Middle School Championship last year, and he’s starting to feel a little nervous.

  The four boys stand in a tight huddle. Now that they are getting a good look at the other Riverside players, they all seem worried. If only Uncle Rudy was here.

  “Hey, guys,” Jeff says. “Don’t forget we only have one rule.”

  Danny slaps Albert’s back.

  “One rule, cousin,” he says.

  “And what’s that one rule?” Murphy tries to sound like Uncle Rudy.

  The boys look at Albert.

  “Give ’er all you got!” he says halfheartedly.

  The whistle blows.

  “Over here, boys.” The coach hails them with his arms. “Welcome to the Riverside soccer tryouts. I’m Coach Kennedy. And these are my scouts, Miss Hansen and Mr. Paul.” He gestures at two young teachers stand
ing beside him.

  Everyone gathers around.

  “We’re going to have five games over the next two weeks. I’m going to count you off one-two, one-two to make teams. We’re going to play fifteen-minute halves. My scouts and I are going to watch you—closely.

  “We’ll get together at the end of the two weeks and decide among the three of us who gets on the team. No one is assured a spot. Players from last year have to show they are still interested—no shoo-ins, no slackers, no bad attitudes. Now let’s go: one-two, one-two…”

  The boys shuffle around, trying to position themselves so they will get on the same team. Danny and Murphy end up on one team and Albert and Jeff are on the other.

  “Ones at that end and twos at the other,” Coach Kennedy hollers. “Hold off a minute! I forgot. Keepers! Over here.”

  Murphy runs over to the coach. Two other boys join him. One is as big as Albert and looks old enough to be in high school. The other one is small like Haywire. At first Murphy figures that the big boy is going to be his toughest competition. But Murphy can tell that the smaller boy is the one with the confidence—and a confident keeper can be a good keeper, no matter what his size.

  “Bingo,” Coach Kennedy says to the big boy, “I want you to my left in net and you—what’s your name?”

  “Murphy.”

  “Okay, Murphy, you’re in net on the right. Ahmed, you will sit out to start. I’ll get Mr. Paul to sub you in later.”

  Murphy only makes one save before Ahmed replaces him. While he’s on the sidelines, he studies the players. He makes mental notes on how they kick, which ones are lefties, heavy shooters, fast runners, good ball handlers. It’s hard to keep track of which boy is which. The only ones he remembers are Albert and Danny and Jeff.

  In the summer it had seemed easy. The Formidable Four were going to be the best players Riverside had ever seen—as simple as that. Now, standing on the sidelines, Murphy knows it’s not going to be easy at all. The four of them are good, but so are a lot of the other boys.

  “Come on, you guys,” he says under his breath. “Good isn’t enough. We have to be great.”

  It’s hard worrying about the three of them as well as himself. But they’ve all got to make the team; that’s all there is to it. They are the Formidable Four. It will be a first. Uncle Rudy will be so proud. Murphy can’t even think about one or two of the boys not making the team.