Soupy Saturdays With the Pain and the Great One (4 page)

Before I could tell her she’ll never be able to read my mind, Justin blurted it out. “I want to play goalie and Jake wants to play any position
but.”

The Great One said, “No problem. Tell your coach. You’d think he’d
want
someone else to play goalie since you’ve lost every game.”

“But the coach is his father,” I said.

“So?” the Great One looked at Justin. “Just tell him it’s not fair that your friend gets to hog the best position.”

“
Just tell him?
” Justin asked.

“Duh …” the Great One said. “How is he supposed to know if you don’t tell him?”

Justin looked at me. I looked back at him.

At our next game I gave Justin the goalie jersey and the goalie gloves.

“What’s going on?” Soccer Doc asked when he saw Justin.

Justin said, “It’s not fair that only Jake gets to play goalie.”

Then everybody else on our team chanted, “We want to play goalie too!”

Soccer Doc shook his head. He took off his glasses. He wiped them on his shirt. Then he took a deep breath and said, “All right. We’ll take turns playing goalie.”

“And all the other positions too?” I asked.

Soccer Doc looked right at me. I could
feel my heart beating. Finally, he said, “Why not? We’ll take turns playing everything.”

The team cheered.

Soccer Doc was surprised. He smiled for the first time.

We still lost the game 4–3 but we had fun playing. I even scored a goal. My first. And Justin was a good goalie. Except when he stopped to watch a bird, or a squirrel, or the clouds go by.

The Great Pretender

The Great One can’t ride a bike. She doesn’t want anyone to know. Especially her friends. “What person in third grade doesn’t already know how to ride?” I asked her.

She said, “I could ride if I wanted to. But I can go faster on Rollerblades—or a scooter—or a skateboard.”

“You don’t have a skateboard,” I reminded her.

She has a bike. It’s blue. It sits in the garage, waiting for her to learn to ride it. “There’s no hurry,” Mom said last week. “Abigail will learn when she’s ready.” Mom’s been saying that for more than a year. Still nothing.

Sometimes I catch the Great One looking at it. One time I caught her touching it. “It’s so easy,” I told her. “You just get on and pedal.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” she said. “If I felt like it I could hop on and ride better than you!”

I laughed because I know that’s not true.

I’m not supposed to tell the Great One’s friends she can’t ride a bike. “Some things are private,” Mom said.

“Some things stay in the family,” Dad said.

The Great One said, “If you
ever
tell my friends I can’t ride a bike I will
never
speak to you again!”

“Is that a promise?” I asked.

She threw Bruno at me. “And I’ll tell all your friends you still sleep with a stuffed elephant!”

“So?” I said. “Dylan sleeps with fifty stuffed animals.”

“But does he chew on their ears?” she asked.

“I don’t chew on Bruno’s ear!” I shouted.

“Then how come it’s wet and slobbery in the morning?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I’m never going to tell her about Bruno’s ear.

On Saturday I was riding my bike in front of our house. The Great One was blading behind me. “Ha, ha! Abigail can’t ride a bike!” I sang as I flew by her. “Abigail can’t ride a biiiike!”

“Shut up, you little twig!” she yelled.

“Twig?” I called, zooming around her. “What’s a twig?”

“A stick!” she yelled. “And that’s what you are. You’re a little stick! I could break you in half if I wanted to.”

“You’d have to catch me first,” I called, racing up the street.

Later, the Great One’s friends rode their bikes over. Emily called, “Hi, Abigail—we’re riding to Sasha’s house. Want to come?”

“Sure,” the Great One said. “But my bike is being fixed.”

“Still?” Kaylee asked.