Zoe the Fearless

by Joachim Masannek

  “Oh, hi Grandma! How sweet of you to drop by and wish me a happy birthday.” My sweet-talking voice was covered in chocolate syrup.

  Grandma scrunched up her face and grimaced. “Well, it was kind of hard to do, seeing as you’ve been sleeping most of the day away!” she snapped at me and gave me the once over, no doubt noticing my every fashion offense: tangled hair, soccer jersey, and my dad’s untied boots, which I wore because I couldn’t find my slippers. “I came to see my granddaughter, not some gross goblin!” Grandma turned up her nose. My father, who was sitting at the breakfast table, tried to avoid eye contact, but got hit by her glance of disdain and contempt. “Or do you somehow believe this critter that stands before us looks like a girl?” She didn’t let my father answer. Instead, she carried on: “No, Scott-Francis, this creature is practically a boy and I’m warning you here and now, you will completely ruin her without a woman in the house.”

  My father almost choked on his breakfast. Grandma was never one to mince words. Maybe that’s where I got it. Who knows? My father was too polite to argue and gently waved her off. “And who do you recommend, Kate?” My father teased.

  “Why, me, of course,” my grandma played along. “Rebecca would want nothing less.” Then she got real sad thinking about my mother and looked away so we wouldn’t see. “It’s been more than a year. And well, Rebecca’s gone, and now it’s up to us to make sure our little Zoe gets a decent upbringing. And you, Zoe, you can’t just straddle the fence all your life. Boys are boys and girls are girls and never the twain shall meet. Ahem. Until later in life, of course.” When she turned back to us, I could see she had been crying and she wiped a pesky tear from her face. “After all, I didn’t try to become a heavyweight champion, either.”

  “Phew! Lucky for Muhammad Ali!” I grinned, broke the fifth egg into the mixer and turned on the machine. Grandma was horrified.

  “Oh dear, dear, dear! What on earth are you doing?”

  “Fixing breakfast,” I answered dryly.

  “But it’s already on the table, Zoe!” Grandma complained.

  Yep. There it was. A pink birthday cake, courtesy of Grandma Kate. I had to think fast. I didn’t want to say what I really meant.

  “Hey! It matches your outfit!” Then I turned off the mixer, took off the lid, put it to my lips, emptied it in one long gulp, and a burp came out of me before I could stop it. “Excuse me,” I said.

  Grandma shot me a look. “I thought you’d dig pink,” she said. “Right?”

  “Sorry, Grandma,” I said. “But pink Barbie doll frosting is really not my thing.” I said this calmly and sweetly with the voice of an angel. It took Grandma at least 15 seconds – a new record – to answer.

  “Suit yourself,” she threw her head back, clearly insulted. “I suppose you won’t like your birthday present either.”

  “As long as it’s not pink,” I blurted out. Oops. What can I say? I was relieved. I slowly approached the present on the table, like it was my prey. I knew what I asked for and I knew dad said he was going to go out on a limb, but in my family things take weird turns all the time, so if I was getting dress shoes, I prayed they were not pink. I ripped open the present and inside was a shoebox; so far so good. Slowly, I opened the lid and looked inside and there they were: a beautiful pair of red soccer cleats.

  I was stunned. They were perfect.

  “Red, of all things!” Grandma shook her head. “And I’ll go to the North Pole before I return them, so you better fall in love with them right here and now! It was embarrassing enough buying them. Everyone looked at me funny!”

  I’m sure they didn’t. Grandma had a wild imagination like me. I looked at my father: “And she didn’t kill you when you asked her?”

  My father grinned and shook his head. “Nope. Not even a little torture. She might have put a curse on me, but I didn’t feel it.”

  I gave my father a smile of thanks, then said to Grandma: “Thank you!” I snatched the soccer cleats out of the shoe box and threw my arms around my grandmother’s neck. “You know what, Grandma? Sometimes you are the best grandma in the whole wide world.

  “You actually like them?” she asked me.

  “They are awesomazing!” She looked at me, confused, so I continued: “Exactly what I wanted!” She looked relieved.

  I hugged my grandmother as hard as I could and planted kisses all over her face. She looked at my father, perplexed.

  “So?” my father grinned back at her. “What’s it like being kissed by a goblin?” My grandma turned up her nose with a harumph and I laughed. “Depends on which one you think is the goblin.”

  “I’m warning you!” My grandma complained, but then she hugged me so tight that I could barely breathe.

  Close Encounters of a Different Kind

  The rain and fog of the night before had disappeared; Chicago gave me a beautiful and sunny fall day for my birthday. I felt fantastic and I couldn’t wait to go to the practice with the Wild Soccer Bunch. When it was finally a quarter to four, I got into my father’s car. I was wearing my brand new U.S. Soccer jersey and the red soccer cleats, and I was ready to jump out of my skin.

  Grandma sadly waved goodbye as if I was headed for some kind of death march, but I didn’t care. I knew better. I was headed for my first practice with a boys’ team. Let me tell you, I’d been waiting for this moment for years. It was finally going to happen and I couldn’t wait to get out there on the field and show them what I had. Yes, I couldn’t wait all right. Except when we got there, I froze and couldn’t get out of the car. I just stared at the gate of the wooden fence that kept the Wild Soccer Bunch from view.

  “Hey, are you okay?” my father asked at a quarter past four as I chewed my fingernails. I fidgeted and chewed for another five minutes and finally my father had had enough and he brought out the big guns: “How about I go with you? You know, just for moral support. I mean who wouldn’t be nervous and afraid …”

  “I’m not afraid!” I said, angrily cutting him off, not moving one iota. “I’m not …”

  “Sure, Zoe, anything you say,” my father answered dutifully, leaning past me and opening the passenger door. “But I’m coming with you if I don’t see you disappear behind that wooden gate in twenty seconds.”

  “Yes, Sir!” I nodded and looked at the second hand of the clock on the dashboard. After fifteen seconds, my right foot touched ground outside the car. “You sure they know I’m coming today?”

  “Yes, I called the coach myself,” my father assured me. “His name is Larry.”

  “Larry what?” I was biding time.

  “Not Squeamish or Monstrous, just Larry,” my father smiled. I loved this smile. It was his ‘I-got-your-back-no-matter-what’ smile. “Now get going. I’ll pick you up later in the afternoon.” And so, armed with my father’s smile and a thumping heart, I pecked him on the cheek and finally got out of the car. He pulled the door shut as I stood there, just in case I changed my mind, I guess. So I spun on my heel and walked through the wooden gate to face my destiny.

  As soon as I passed through the gate, for a very brief moment, I caught a glimpse of the Wild Soccer Bunch practicing on the field.

  Eleven boys, all in black with bright orange socks. This brief moment was enough for me to see what a good team they were. And when I said a brief moment, I meant a brief moment because in the next moment, the entire field went silent. I swear even the birds stopped chirping. Everyone and everything went totally still, as if time had stopped. Even the ball seemed to hover in the air above our heads.

  I felt like I was in the zoo. Everyone stared at me like I was some weird cross between a kangaroo and a crocodile. It felt familiar, because that’s how everyone has always stared at me my whole life. And so I was the first to get over it. I cleared my throat and bravely asked for Larry. Everyone else was still frozen in time. Seemed like they’d stay that way forever.

  “Hello, my name is Zoe,” I repeated. “My father called Larry and he said I could play with
you?”

  I waited. Then time jolted forward for a quarter of a second, and in that quarter of a second all eleven wild guys threw their heads to the left. I followed their glances and saw Larry for the first time. He was sitting on the grass, cross-legged, grinning at me.

  “Hello, Zoe,” he greeted me. “You’re late!”

  Time resumed and the laws of gravity kicked in and the ball plummeted to the earth with a whistle and hit one of the Wild Soccer Bunch, the one with the number 13, right on the head. Boing!

  “Hold it right there, Larry! You really know this girl?” Number 13 had returned to the living.

  “Sure,” Larry said. “This is Zoe. Zoe Burns. Didn’t I just tell you?” He got up and approached me.

  “Yeah, you said some words,” the boy snorted. “But, well, did you happen to notice she’s a — girl?!”

  “Very good, Kevin!” Larry mocked him. “Did you figure that out all by yourself?”

  Kevin, flustered, gestured with his hand, then spun to the guy next to him and said, “Danny, say something! Larry is about to put a girl on our team.”

  But Danny, the boy with number 4 on his back, didn’t say a word. For him, time also still stood still. I could almost hear the music. He stared at me as if I was Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one. To be honest, he didn’t look too bright at that moment.

  “Dude!” Kevin shouted. “This is bad luck, man. Like women on those old boats. It’s like a curse!”

  “Really?” Danny asked with a smile that made him look like he just got struck by a bolt of lightning.

  “Yeah! I’m pretty sure!” Kevin said. “Guys! Have you all lost your minds?”

  “Mind?” Danny grinned. “I don’t have a mind.”

  A boy with red hair and coke bottle glasses jumped forward. “Kevin is right. This is all wrong!”

  “You got that right!” the smallest one chimed in. “Wrong as in there is nothing right about it. Not since I joined the Wild Soccer Bunch! And that’s been like almost my whole life!”

  “Exactly!” The others chimed in, too, and finally one of them added, “Larry, I’m warning you! You let her join the team, I’m out.”

  Crystal clear and razor sharp, it hit me right in the heart. And this was from the oldest and the tallest of the bunch. And he was totally serious.

  “My brother Tyler is right!” Kevin shouted. “If she plays with us, we are gone.”

  It suddenly got quiet again. All I could hear was my heartbeat and Larry’s cap as he pushed it back to squint at me. Then he sighed, turned to the others and said, “Okay, okay! I get it, and I’m real sorry, too. I should have asked you first. I know doggone it, but I didn’t. I didn’t think you’d get so riled up over a girl. I thought you guys were beyond that. And well, now you see, I’m in kind of a bind here. Zoe’s dad and I go way back and I promised him that she could train with us. See if she liked it.”

  “See if she liked it?” Kevin asked. “What about us?”

  “What about you?” Larry asked. “What if she’s good?“

  “How could she be?” asked Tyler.

  It was right about here that I was thinking maybe the boys of Chicago were less evolved than the boys of Boston, but I kept my mouth shut. I was nine now and needed to act more grown up.

  “You gonna help me keep my word or not?” Larry asked.

  The Wild Soccer Bunch looked at him in disbelief.

  “But there’s rules against it,” Kevin said and all the other guys nodded in agreement. Everyone except Danny. “Aren’t there?”

  “Actually,” Larry said, “there ain’t.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Come on, give her a chance,” he pleaded. “If she can’t play, we send her home.”

  “And what if she can play?” Kevin asked. “Then what happens?”

  Larry shrugged. “Then we lose a perfectly good player, all because she’s a girl.”

  He shot me a glance, and then turned back to Kevin. “What do you say, Kev? All of you? Do we get past this? Or do we wait until next year when you’re a little more. grown up?”

  Kevin said nothing, but all the guys felt the challenge in Larry’s voice. I sure did, so they must have. Kevin looked me up and down. It made me nervous and I bit my lip, hoping it wasn’t already bloody. Kevin knew I was feeling kind of small then, I could tell by the way he looked me over and that’s when I knew I was in trouble.

  “Deal,” Kevin said, smiling at me like he had just signed my death sentence. “One practice, one tryout,” Kevin continued. “To make the team, you gotta pass the test.”

  Then he assigned teams.

  Boys Are Total Losers!

  Of course, I was on Kevin and Tyler’s team, the two guys who screamed the loudest to keep me out. Why does it always work out that way? The other members of my team were no better, believe me. There was Roger, the redhead with the coke bottle glasses. He looked like he had been through something traumatic with a stylist. Who cut his hair? Pre-schoolers? He couldn’t stand me, pure and simple. Josh, the smallest of the bunch, was a mean garden gnome, and Fabio, oh so gorgeous Fabio, was all business. Of course, he didn’t bother counting me in. “We are playing five on six,” he turned to Larry. “We get the ball.”

  Larry gave him a look, then just nodded. He didn’t say anything and I knew I’d have to get used to that. Coach Squeamish would have benched Fabio for bad sportsmanship. But I was no longer with the sweet Somerville Swallows. I was in the real rough and tough world of the wild, the world I had longed for my whole life. And this world wasn’t known for its manners and courtesy. Larry scratched his head and handed the ball to Fabio.

  “Okay! Let’s start,” Kevin shouted. “No more than three ball contacts per player. You get that?” he asked me.

  “I only get to touch the ball three times, including stopping and passing, right?”

  Kevin seemed surprised for a moment. But then he caught himself and got that mean look again. “Wow. You know your terms. Let’s see if you can play.” Point for Kevin. This was going to be tough.

  “Okay, Phooey, or whatever your name is. You’ll play left forward with Fabio and me.”

  “It’s Zoe,” I said. Of course, it had to be left, I thought. Why not just tie my feet together? But I was Zoe the fearless after all, and so I dutifully marched toward my position, seething inside. You wait, I thought. I’ll show you!

  I never even got the chance. Larry’s whistle blew and Kevin, Tyler, Roger, Josh, and Fabio played five on six. In other words, they played like I wasn’t even there. Even when I was absolutely free right in front of the goal and yelled like a crazy person, they just played around me. And worse, they scored every time, without my help. They made it very clear they didn’t need me. But I was still Zoe the fearless, and so I didn’t give up.

  “Bravo!” I applauded when it was five-zero for our team. “You guys are really chillax! I mean, I can barely tell you are scared of me! You’re doing a fantastic job of faking it.”

  The Wild Soccer Bunch just looked at me, then laughed. “You hear that, men?” Kevin and Tyler shouted, but I cut off their laughter. “I think they heard me loud and clear, but if they didn’t I’ll be glad to repeat it. Men. Or whatever it is you think you are.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’re not. We’re not afraid,” Roger said.

  “I think you are. I think you’re afraid I might be good.”

  Kevin laughed again. “You’re crazy.”

  “Oh yeah?” I snapped. “Then why didn’t you ever pass to me?”

  That shut them up.

  I looked over at Larry. He was amused to say the least and shot me a thumbs-up. That gave me courage. I couldn’t hide my delight. I had hit them where it hurt the most, and Kevin and the Wild Soccer Bunch were not only shaking in their cleats, they were boiling with anger.

  “Whatever.” Kevin accepted the challenge. “Let’s see who laughs last.”

  Then as soon as we started the game up again, Kevin passed the ball to me so
hard there was no way I could stop it. The ball bounced, and drifted all the way to the other side and the other team scored. Just my luck! My mistake led to their first goal. Kevin grinned so I turned my back on him, but I could still feel his gaze burning into my back. The same thing happened two more times. Even though it was never my fault, and even though Kevin, Tyler, and Fabio did their best to get me to mess up, I could feel my confidence getting knocked down with every shot. So when Tyler finally sent a perfect pass my way, I totally messed up.

  It was five-four when I finally got the ball in front of our own penalty box, but I was in such a tight spot, there was no way I could pass it. Joey, who plays as if he put a spell on the ball, Diego the tornado, and Julian Fort Knox, the all-in-one defender, surrounded me. I tried to break free, but the others just counted my ball touches – out loud. It was insulting. The best dribbling in all nine years of my life, but nobody cared. What was the matter with these guys? When I touched the ball the fourth time, Larry whistled and the other team got a free kick. At that moment, Alex jogged up front. Josh explained that Alex “the cannon” was the man with the hardest kick in the world. He left no room for doubt. He pounded the ball into the net so hard it toppled over. Five-five. Tie score.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” Kevin shouted and applauded. “Great playing, Phooey!” “Zoe,” I said dryly. “Right. Five-zero to five-five – in less than five minutes. A new record, right, Larry?”

  Larry just rolled his eyes. The others roared with laughter. Kevin stepped up to me and whispered so only I could hear, “Get lost.”

  Let me tell you something. I was totally ready to get lost at that moment, but Kevin must have seen the pain in my face because he backed down and decided he wasn’t done with me. “What the heck, men,” he yelled mockingly. “It’s not her fault. She’s a girl.”

  That’s when Danny stepped in, “Let’s give her another chance. We can decide the match in penalty kicks just like we always do.”