My Life as a Stupendously Stomped Soccer Star

by Bill Myers

  Chapter 7

  Let the Game Begin!

  I got to the stadium just in time to suit up and run onto the field with my incredibly professional team.

  The good news was, I was still the world’s greatest soccer player.

  The bad news was, I still had my seventh-grade body, which, as you may recall, isn’t always the strongest (or most pain-resistant).

  My first problem came when my fellow players slapped me on the back:

  “Okay, Wally!” (K-Bamb)

  “Here we go, Wally!” (K-Slap)

  “Let’s do it, Wally!” (K-Slam)

  These, of course, were followed by the usual reactions of my falling face-first (K-Splat!)

  K-Smash! K-Smooch!

  onto the field and being run over by other players.

  But it wasn’t that bad. After eating the daily minimum requirement of turf (at least I was getting enough greens in my diet), I was ready to go.

  We got the ball at the kickoff and headed downfield.

  One of the halfbacks passed it to me, and I must say I was brilliant.

  I did everything . . . I dribbled, I faked, I headed, I bicycle-kicked. And after four or five minutes of these amazing feats, one of my teammates had an even more amazing idea:

  “Hey, Wally, why not try moving it downfield!”

  I told you these guys were pros!

  And so I got the chance to do it all over again— kicking, dribbling, faking.

  Finally, I got into the box and tried something even more exciting . . . getting slide-tackled, getting face-elbowed, and getting body-

  K-SLAMMed

  onto the ground.

  Now, I don’t want to say the other team played dirty, but I kept asking myself why their uniforms were striped with prison inmate numbers stenciled on the back.

  (And don’t even ask about all the watchdogs and jail guards surrounding the field.)

  “Who are those guys?” I groaned as they dumped whatever pieces of my body they could find onto a stretcher.

  “They’re the Penitentiary Players,” the team doctor answered.

  “They’re from a prison?!” I cried.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  I relaxed ever so slightly.

  “They’re from lots of prisons.”

  I tensed ever so muchly. “WHAT?!”

  “It was your manager’s idea,” the doctor said as they carried me to the sidelines. “People are paying tons of money to see death-row inmates play you in soccer.”

  The good news was, the doctor had me back on my feet and in the game in no time.

  The bad news was, the doctor had me back on my feet and in the game in no time.

  “Are you really sure I’m ready?” I shouted over my shoulder. “I mean, really, really, really, really sure?”

  “Don’t worry,” he yelled back. “We’ve put calls into organ-transplant banks across the country. They’ll have replacements waiting for you just as soon as you finish the game.”

  Little did he know the game was about to finish me.

  “Wally,” a teammate shouted, “heads up!”

  I spun around just in time to see the ball coming at me. It was a perfect setup for a header. The goalie was out of position and there was no defense around me—well, except for one mountain of muscle flying at me sideways with his cleats pointed straight at my chest. Steel cleats which, I might point out, had been filed to some very sharp and very long tips.

  Very sharp and very long steel tips that looked like they were about to perform some very deep and painful open-heart surgery.

  Being a little short on medical insurance, and being the incredible superstar that I am, I did what any incredible superstar short on medical insurance would do:

  I dropped to my knees and screamed:

  “MOMMY!”

  Of course, Mommy was still in Switzerland.

  And the big bruiser with the killer cleats?

  Well, the good news was, those cleats never found me.

  The bad news was, all 372 pounds of Bruiser’s personal prisoner poundage

  K-WHAM!

  stagger-stagger-stagger

  (Gee, I think now would be a good time

  to pass out for a day or two.)

  K-THUD

  did.

  “So how’s it going, sniff?”

  Though he was all stuffy-sounding, I didn’t even have to open my eyes to recognize the voice.

  “Not so good,” I groaned.

  “Hmm, I wonder why, cough-cough. Oh, ledt me guess, maybe because God knows whadt He’s doing after all?”

  (I just hate smart-alecky overactive imaginations, don’t you?)

  Finally, I pried open my eyes and saw . . . nothing. No bright lights, no horses, and, as far as I could tell, no tooth plaque.

  “Where are you?” I asked. “What are you this time?”

  “I’m your house.”

  “My house? Houses can’t talk!”

  “Righdt, and like horses and tooth plaque, sniff, can?”

  “Do you have a cold?”

  “Not a coldt, but—a-h-h-choo!—allergies.”

  “What’s a house doing with allergies?”

  “Wally, if you were a house, where wouldt your head be?”

  “I don’t know . . . in the attic, I guess.”

  “Very goodt. And have you seen how much, cough-cough, dust is in your attic?”

  I slowly nodded, getting his point.

  “So,” he asked, “are you finally learning thadt God knows whadt’s best? Thadt there’s a reason for everything He does?”

  Now, the way I figured it, I had two choices. Admit I was wrong, or figure out a way to fix the few problems that had come up and—

  “Few problems?!” the voice interrupted.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You thoughdt it, sniff.”

  “Who said you could read my mind?”

  “Who saidt overactive imaginations can’dt?”

  (I just hate know-it-all overactive imaginations, don’t you?)

  “I heardt that!”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “I’ll admit things aren’t running too smoothly. I had no idea all that money would make my family nuts.”

  “Or all that power wouldt ruin Wall Streedt . . . or all that fame wouldt ruin Opera . . . or—”

  “All right, all right,” I said, scrunching up my brows. “Just let me think a little.”

  “Uh-oh, now we’re in, sniff, dtrouble.”

  “Shh!”

  “Who you telling dto shh, cough-cough? Why, without me you wouldn’t have any superhero stories. Facdt is, you wouldn’t even be writing these weird books, which, I mighdt poindt oudt, are getting weirder and weird—”

  “If you don’t be quiet, I’ll imagine you don’t exist.”

  “Whadt??”

  “You heard me.”

  “You can’dt use your imagination to imagine your imagination dtoesn’t exisdt.”

  “Says who?”

  The house grew strangely quiet, except for some stuffy wheezing. Apparently, I’d made my point. I continued to think, slowly forming a plan.

  “You know,” I said, “all those things that have happened would still be okay, if . . .”

  “If whadt?”

  “If there was no way for people to get hurt.”

  “Come, wheeze-cough, again?”

  “If there was no way for people to get hurt, Wall Street could still have all that power, Opera could still have all that fame—”

  “And you’dt still be on that soccer field playing.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So what do you think?”

  “I think that last dtackle did you some serious brain damage.”

  I ignored him. I’d made my decision. “So that’s what I want,” I said.

  “Whadt?”

  “No pain.”

  “For you?”

  “For everyone. Starting midnight tonight, no one in the entire world will
ever feel pain again.”

  “Are you, cough-wheeze, sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure.”

  “Oh, brother . . .” He sighed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Idt means buckle in, ’cause you ain’dt seen nothin’

  AHH-CHOO!

  yedt . . .”

  The sneeze woke me up, and I turned over on my side to look at the alarm clock. It read:

  11:32

  I had half an hour before the changes would go into effect. And so, with nothing else to do, I reached for Ol’ Imax, stared at the giant screen in front of me, and got back to work on the superhero story.

  Chapter 8

  No Pain, No Brain . . .

  When we last left our hefty, hunky chunk of a hero, Pudgy Boy was being thrown into the prison for the perpetual puffy.

  Here he is put on a strict diet of water and water——which isn’t so bad when you consider the various methods that it can be prepared. I mean, there’s fried water, barbecued water, water tartare, and his favorite...a thick slab of broiled water smothered in creamy, luscious, melt-in-your-mouth, you-guessed-it, water.

  Unfortunately, there is no dessert (after all, he is on a diet). But since the calorie-counting cop/chief likes him, he lets him lick the back of a postage stamp.

  Yum!

  The rest of the time he’s being forced to buy workout DVDs that he will never watch, stylish workout clothes that he will never wear, and listen to motivational tapes telling him if he doesn’t look like a toothpick, then he has no business being alive.

  But where have things gone so terribly wrong?

  What sort of secret beam is Boney Boy broadcasting into everyone’s brain to convince them that the tiniest fraction of flab means the most major of failures? Granted, people should watch what they eat and everyone should exercise, but what has made everyone so nuts?

  These are the humble thoughts haunting our hero’s head as he hunkers in his cell gnawing on what’s left of his mattress. (Hey, even dieters need their fiber.)

  Then suddenly, out of the blue, he hears:

  “Are you really giving up so easily, Pudgy Boy?”

  Our hero’s head snaps up, and he looks at his TV screen to see...

  Ta-da-DAAAAA!

  (After all these books,

  don’t make me tell you what this is.)

  Could it be? Yes, it is he! It is the one, it is the only...

  Ta-da-DAAAAA!

  (Well, okay, but just for the newbies...

  it’s bad-guy music, all right?)

  “Boney Boy,” our hero gasps, “what are you doing there?”

  “I’ve always been here, you overweight offender of all that is evil. How else do you think I’m controlling the world?”

  “You’re doing this to the world through TV? That’s your secret weapon?”

  “Of course. By controlling all the TV shows and making all the actors and actresses look like human x-rays, I can convince the rest of the world to feel like fabulously flabby failures.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, yes. And if you don’t hurry up and do something, this will be the first superhero story where the superhero becomes a superfailure. But then again, since you’re overweight, you probably already are.”

  “Already are what?”

  “A failure.”

  And that, dear reader, is all the motivation Pudgy Boy needed.

  In a flash, he’s on his feet, racing to his jailhouse window.

  In a flashier flash, he’s whistling out a secret code.

  In a flashier flash than that last flash, his Blubbermobile races around the corner and

  SCREECHes

  to a complete stop outside his prison cell....

  Well, not a complete stop. There is still that lingering

  jiggle-jiggle-jiggle

  of the car’s body....(Why else would they call it a Blubbermobile?)

  Finally, the trunk pops open. A giant hook with an attached rope shoots out and grabs the bars of the window. (It’s a good thing he paid extra money for that “100,000 Miles or One Jail Breakout” warranty.)

  He gives another whistle. The Blubbermobile drops into first gear and races forward, laying a patch of

  SQUEEEAL

  rubber while taking a sizable portion of the

  CREAKKK

  K-Rash

  krumple, krumple, krumple

  jailhouse wall with it.

  After stopping by the prison post office for an extra roll of stamps (he’s in the mood for some munchies), he races to the Blubbermobile and easily slips in. (Proof that the water diet works.)

  He hits the Bad-Guy Tracking Button (sold at Good-Guy Stores everywhere), and it immediately starts

  Beep-beep-beep-beep

  tracking the signal to Boney Boy’s secret TV station.

  Immediatelier than that last immediately, it shows the location of the secret hideout, which is...(sorry, I can’t tell you, it’s a secret).

  But Pudgy Boy knows and that’s all that counts.

  Having finished off the stamps, our hero drops by the nearest 6/101/2 (it’s a low-budget story, I can’t afford 7/11) and grabs a dozen candy bars, a jar of pickles, a pack of sugar doughnuts, and, of course, a diet soda.

  Then, quicker than you can say, “Well, what do you know, we’re finally going to have a showdown between the good guy and the bad guy,” our hero lets out a hearty

  BURP!

  (must have been those pickles)

  Now, fueled by more calories than a human being ought to eat in a lifetime (or two), he races for Boney Boy’s lair.

  Who knows what dangerously diabolical diet our dastardly dude will dish out next?

  Who knows if our hero will ever learn the importance of eating a well-balanced meal?

  And, most important, can you really barbecue water?

  These and other mindless messages march through his marvelously mindless mind when——

  Suddenly, I looked up from Ol’ Imax’s keyboard. Was it possible? My entire body had stopped hurting, just like that.

  Amazing. I felt absolutely no pain from the afternoon’s game (or any of my other mishaps). How weird!

  I reached out and lightly banged my hand on the nightstand.

  Nothing.

  Cool.

  I banged it harder.

  Still nothing.

  Cooler yet.

  I glanced at my clock and saw the reason. It now read:

  12:01

  All right!

  I settled comfortably back into bed. Imagine, I’d just created a world with no pain. I mean, no offense, but why had God invented such a terrible thing in the first place?

  It didn’t matter. The point was, I’d fixed it.

  Unfortunately, in just a few hours I was about to discover what a fix my fix had put us in.

  I woke up the next morning to hear a strange

  ZZZZZZZZT . . . ZZZZZZZZT . . .

  sound.

  Leaping from my bed, I staggered into the hall to see Carrie on her hands and knees, crying.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It’s Collision,” she sobbed. “She keeps sticking her nose into the electrical outlet.”

  I looked past her to see our family cat. Her fur was smoking and her eyes were dazed, but she just kept on

  ZZZZZZZZT . . . ZZZZZZZZT . . .

  electrocuting herself.

  “It makes no sense!” Carrie cried. “It’s like she can’t feel the pain so she doesn’t know to stop.”

  But, of course, it made perfect sense . . . at least to me. I had created a world without pain. And since pain could no longer warn Collision, it would soon be a world without

  ZZZZZZZZT . . . ZZZZZZZZT . . .

  Collision.

  “Make her stop, Wally!” Carrie pleaded. “Please, before she kills herself !”

  Only then did I realize that I might have made a minor mistake. There might actually be a reason to feel pain. At least in
our kitty’s case.

  Unfortunately, there were a few other cases as well.

  Like when I was flying to the soccer stadium for our game.

  It was the weirdest thing, but when I looked out of the helicopter window, I saw the cars below purposely

  SCREEECH . . .

  K-rashing

  into one another.

  “What’s going on down there?” I shouted to the pilot.

  “Just your morning traffic jam.”

  “But they keep smashing into each other!”

  “Yeah, it makes it more interesting.”

  “Interesting??” I shouted. “What about getting hurt?”

  “Hurt?” he asked.

  “Yeah, what about all the pain?”

  “There is no pain,” he called back.

  I looked out the window, and sure enough, he was right. People were dragging themselves out of their cars with broken arms, broken legs, and your general, all-around broken bodies. But instead of rushing to the hospital for help, they just stood around pointing and shouting at one another.

  “Somebody has to do something!” I yelled.

  “Why?”

  “Everybody’s getting hurt!”

  “I told you, nobody gets hurt,” he shouted back.

  “They don’t feel any of that?!”

  “Not a thing.”

  “But they could be dying!”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it happens, we’re not sure why.”

  But I was sure. Just like with Collision, pain had a purpose. It was to warn us that we’d hurt ourselves; it was an alarm telling us to go get fixed.

  I couldn’t stand to watch anymore. The scene below was just too awful. So I reached for the TV remote and surfed channels until I found a wrestling match. Sure enough, there was my old buddy, Opera. Maybe watching him would take my mind off all the junk that was happening below.

  Unfortunately, things were no better with him.

  Instead of jumping on little old ladies, he was jumping on everybody!

  That’s right, people were standing in line begging

  That’s right, people were standing in line begging for him to jump on them. And he did. One

  K-SMASH!

  after another

  K-SMASH!

  after another.

  It was terrible. Worse than the traffic accidents. Because instead of just pulverizing the spectators (who crawled out from under him laughing and bleeding), he was also pulverizing himself.