Falling Star (5 page)

Steve was already stretched out on one of the twin beds, the TV remote in his hand. He found “Soccer Round-Up”
and said, “This is the life.”

“You bet,” said Toby. “What do you think, Edison? Ever been in a place like this?”

Edison hesitated. “Well — yes.”

“'Course he has,” Steve scoffed. “You can't expect superstar soccer players to stay in anything less than five-star hotels, where they have a bunch of people running around after them so they don't have to do anything for themselves. It's like playing soccer when you're a superstar, and everyone on the team is supposed to set you up to score so you look good without actually doing anything.”

Edison ignored him, and Steve went on, “Trouble is — when you can't score even then, you end up looking like a useless bonehead.” He paused and added, “Isn't that right, Eddie?”

“Shut up,” said Edison.

“Who are you telling to shut up?” said Steve, throwing the remote aside and swinging his legs off the bed.

“Whoa, guys,” said Toby. “It's time to meet the others.”

* * *

A sign at the entrance to the Shanklin Bay Mall boasted,
Over one hundred stores! Biggest mall in the Maritimes!

Edison knew there were at least six malls in Canterbury that were bigger, but he didn't say anything.

The mall was crowded and Mr. Field said, “We'll stay together.”

Julie said, “But Linh-Mai and Amy and the twins and I want to go in girls' shops.”

“That's okay,” said Mr. Field. “We'll come with you.”

Julie folded her arms. “You're
not
coming in girls' shops with us.”

Toby said, “I'd rather someone pulled my toenails out than go in girls' shops.”

Mr. Field sighed. “All right, you can go off by yourselves. But stay in two groups — boys and girls — and meet here in two hours. Mr. Grease and I will be in the food court if you need us.”

The boys were on their way back to the meeting place when they stopped to look in the window of Allsports
Megastore, where a pair of gold-coloured cleats formed the centrepiece of a display of soccer equipment. A sign beside the golden shoes said,
As worn by Rudy Kohler of Real Madrid
.

“I'd like a pair of shoes like that,” said Toby. “But I wouldn't use them for soccer. I'd go dancing in them.”

“They look like superstar shoes,” said Steve.

Edison knew what was coming.

“I expect Eddie would like a pair like that,” Steve went on. He looked at Edison. “Eh, Eddie?”

Edison ignored him.

Steve said, “I'm talking to you,” and punched him on the shoulder.

Edison put his hand on Steve's chest and pushed him away.

Steve asked, “Who are you pushing?” He stood squarely in front of Edison, his arms by his sides and his fists clenched.

Toby pushed between them. “Guys, knock it off! What's up with you, Steve? Edison hasn't done anything to you.”

Steve answered, “No?”

* * *

In the morning, when they went down to breakfast, they were met at the restaurant door by a babble of voices. A group of students was sitting at a long table in the corner. The adult with them, a young woman with short black hair and big hooped earrings, waved them over and said, “Why don't you join us?”

Her students, smiling and beckoning, moved their chairs so that the two groups mingled around the table. Edison found himself near Mr. Field and the young woman, who was saying, “I'm Casey. Where are you from?”

Mr. Field said, “Brunswick Valley. We're a soccer team.”

“So are we. We're here for the provincial Special Olympics soccer tournament.” Casey waved a hand toward her group. “Meet the Dorchester All Stars.”

Mr. Field said, “We're on tour, and we play our last game in Dorchester — against High Park Memorial Academy.”

Casey pulled a face. “You'd better be in top form. They take soccer very seriously. They'll know all about you and your team before you even arrive. I know because I was at school in Dorchester and we used to play High Park. I was friends with a boy on the team, and he told me High Park sends someone to watch its opponents' games and make notes on the players.”

As he followed the conversation, Edison was nodding without realizing it.

Mr. Field said, “Do you know about that sort of thing, Edison?”

He murmured, “Yes.”

He remembered a coach at an elite training camp showing him something called a player profile and warning, “Every team you play against has a dossier like this — on you.” He'd been allowed to read his own player profile. The strengths it listed — his speed, his ability to dribble past defenders, his powerful shooting — didn't surprise him. But the paragraph that followed, outlining his weaknesses, had been a shock.
For all his ability, Edison Flood lacks confidence. He is easily intimidated, and if put under pressure is likely to lose his nerve.

Edison had been about to take a mouthful of cereal. He paused, his spoon midway between the bowl and his mouth. He lowered his spoon.

Why hadn't he remembered the profile? Now he knew why he was choking at crucial moments in his games.

He'd lost his nerve.

But why?

The profile said “easily intimidated.” Had he been intimidated into losing his confidence and his nerve? He couldn't remember any particular act of intimidation that might have caused it, but he recalled lots of little incidents that referees had missed, times he'd been tripped, pushed in the back, held back by his shirt, elbowed off the ball. He wondered whether all these incidents had gradually drained away his confidence, because every one of them had made him appear weak.

But the profile said he was likely to lose his nerve “if put under pressure.”

Maybe it wasn't intimidation that had caused him to lose his nerve, but pressure. He tried to remember how he'd felt at his moments of choking, when he'd failed to shoot in that last game for the Eagles, and when he'd had only Lily to beat, and when he'd had the open goal against Centreville. Was it pressure he'd felt then?

He turned his attention back to Casey, who was saying, “High Park is a very tough team. And what makes them even tougher to play is they get huge support for all their games. Do you have supporters with you?”

Mr. Field shook his head.

“The support their team gets can blow you right off the field.” She grinned. “Perhaps I'll bring the Dorchester All Stars to cheer for you.”

A little girl with a round face and a snub nose, her hair standing up around her head in a wild frizzy halo, was sitting opposite Edison, staring at him.

He said, “What?”

“Who are you?”

“I'm Edison.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.” He leaned forward to read the sticker on her sweater. It said,
Hello! I'm Ella.
“Why are you Ella?”

She smiled and nodded. “Ella.”

She resumed staring at Edison, who asked, hoping to divert her intense gaze, “Do you like playing soccer?”

She grinned and nodded. “Play soccer!”

“I bet you win all your games.”

Ella frowned. “Don't get you.”

Edison said, faltering, “You know, win — when you score more goals than the other team.”

Ella shook her head, still frowning.

Casey, who'd been listening, said, “We like playing soccer — right, Ella?”

“Play soccer!”

“And scoring goals …”

“Score goals — yeah!”

Casey added to Edison, “But we don't talk about winning or losing. We just talk about playing, and enjoying the game.”

“No pressure, eh?” said Mr. Field, catching Edison's eye.

After breakfast, the two teams met on the boardwalk behind the hotel. Ella sought out Edison, seizing his hand and clinging to it, as the two groups wandered along the waterfront trail, looking at fishing boats setting out from the wharf and the ferry easing into the terminal. They counted seals in the harbour, looking for the sleek shiny heads bobbing up above the water.

At the end of the trail, Casey and the Dorchester All Stars caught a bus back to the hotel to prepare for their tournament, while Mr. Grease met the Brunswick Valley team to take them on to the Shanklin Bay Museum.

Two hours later, as they drove out of the city, they passed the recreation grounds where the Dorchester All Stars were playing, and Mr. Field said, “We have time to watch for ten minutes.”

Four games were in progress, and the field was a riot of colour and sound as the Special Olympics teams, in their bright uniforms, darted and wheeled after the ball, whooping and laughing all the time. Edison and his friends found the Dorchester All Stars and joined Casey on the sideline. Edison quickly picked out Ella, her face wearing a constant smile and her eyes shining with excitement. She saw Edison and flew across the field to hug him. She gasped, “Love soccer,” and rushed back to the game. When her side scored, her teammates danced and cheered, and when the other side scored a few minutes later, they danced and cheered just as enthusiastically.

Mr. Field, glancing at his watch, said, “We have to get on to North Bay.” As the Brunswick Valley team headed back to the van, with a final wave to the All Stars, Casey called, “Enjoy your game!” and her team stopped playing in order to wave and repeat, “Enjoy your game!”

Edison tried to ignore the flutters of anxiety he felt at the mention of the game ahead. He supposed it helped to know you were choking because you'd lost your nerve.

But how did you get it back?

7

North Bay

Although North Bay was only a few kilometres north of Shanklin Bay, it seemed a world away. The streets, wide and laid in a grid pattern, were deserted. Edison stared at abandoned gas stations, boarded up stores, and playgrounds with broken, rusting equipment. The houses were identical, little boxes in yards that contained a patch of lank grass, a snarling dog chained to a battered kennel, a discarded refrigerator, or a car on blocks. Many of them were empty, their windows smashed.

On Grand Parade, where a sign said
Business District
, a group of men standing outside Bubba's Bar and Grill scowled as the van went by. One leaned to spit deliberately. The post office was boarded up, and a sign outside a church said
For Sale
.

“This place gives me the creeps,” said Linh-Mai. “It's like a ghost town.”

Mr. Field turned in his seat. “It's a mining town, but the mine closed two years ago. Now it's a nothing town. People want to move away because there's nothing to stay for, but they can't sell their houses because there's nothing for people to come here for, so they're stuck.”

North Bay Regional School was at the end of a road leading off Grand Parade, tucked under a wall of rock that rose steeply behind the town. A group of high-school students shooting baskets stopped when they saw the van. On the field beside the school, a soccer team in grey shirts and black shorts was warming up.

A woman with a tired face and flowing black hair streaked with grey approached the van as they climbed out. “I'm the coach. You're late. Let's get started.”

Edison changed quickly and jogged around the field while he waited for the rest of the team. The now-familiar foreboding was settling over him like a clinging web. He sprinted, hoping to shake it off by making his pulse race through exertion rather than through anxiety. If only he could relax, he thought, maybe he could control the nerves that crippled him on the field.

He went into his usual warm-up routine. By the time he was running backward across the field, he found most of his teammates alongside him.

“We thought we might play better if we did the same warm-up as you,” Linh-Mai explained.

When they stopped to focus and envisage, Edison tried to imagine scoring, but all he saw was himself choking and missing open goals.

Mr. Field called the team together. “We'll play 4–4–2. Steve and Edison, see if you can bang in a few goals, eh? That's all. Just go play.”

The North Bay players were finishing their warm-up with shooting practice, and a tall red-headed girl was firing fierce shots at goal. The high-school students who had been playing basketball had sauntered across to the field and one of the North Bay players, a broad squat boy who looked older than his teammates, had joined them. North Bay lined up for the start and, as he rejoined his team, the students shouted, “Kill 'em, Beast.” When Brunswick Valley lined up, one shouted, “You're going to get a kicking from the Beast.” Mr. Grease wandered over to them and they scattered toward the basketball court.

Steve took the kickoff and tapped the ball to Edison, who passed back to Julie and set off toward the North Bay goal with Steve. Julie passed to Shay, who dribbled upfield. Steve positioned himself on one side of the penalty area, where the Beast and another North Bay defender jostled him. Edison moved wide of the goal on the other side, and two defenders moved with him. As he watched Shay looking for one of his strikers to pass to, Edison found himself keeping at least one defender in the way, making it impossible for Shay to pass to him safely. He was hardly aware of doing it until Shay passed to Steve. Despite being hemmed in by his markers — the Beast elbowing him and the other holding his shirt — Steve got the ball. Now Edison knew he should run into the space closer to the goal where Steve would send the ball. But he hesitated — just long enough for one of the defenders to reach Steve's pass before he did. Even now he could still tackle the defender, try to rob him of the ball and get a shot at goal, or at least block the clearance he was about to make. But again he hung back. As the defender cleared, at the same time as Edison moved too late to challenge, Edison saw what he was doing.

He was avoiding the action, because doing nothing was better than screwing up. It wasn't something he'd planned. It just seemed to happen.

“Jeez, Edison,” Steve shouted. “Get stuck in.”

Edison nodded an apology and ran back to help his defence.

With North Bay on the attack most of the time, he hovered between Brunswick Valley's goal area and midfield. Several times he weaved around opponents, when he was sure he could beat them, but was careful not to get in a position where his teammates would expect him to shoot.

Only once in the first half did Edison find himself with a scoring chance, when Toby broke up a North Bay attack and punted the ball out to Jillian. She passed ahead to Steve, who set off down the wing. The Beast charged in from the side and Steve swung toward him. They crashed together and Steve's head jolted back as the Beast's flailing arm caught him under the chin, but he scrambled the ball past him and kept going. Two more defenders ran out to block his path, leaving Edison unmarked. Steve rounded the first defender, but the second jumped in front of him and met him sideways, so that Steve's face smashed into his shoulder. As Steve reeled back, clutching his nose, the ball rolled between where the goalkeeper crouched on his line and where Edison waited. Edison thought he could beat the keeper to the ball and stab it into the net. But the keeper might get there first. Or Edison might get the ball and miss the empty net.

He hesitated for a fraction of a second — so short a time he was sure only he would be aware he could have moved faster — before launching himself forward. The goalkeeper dived on the ball and Edison jumped over him.

Steve sneered, “Scared of getting dirty, Mr. Superstar?”

Edison knew it was his fault Brunswick Valley had wasted a scoring chance. But it wasn't just his fault. The midfielders should have been following up and one of them could also have tried for goal. Instead, they'd been strung across the field in perfect formation, as if they were more concerned with looking good than with hustling for the ball.

At halftime, Mr. Field said, “Relax, guys. Play your usual game. Run and hustle.”

But the second half started the same way, with Brunswick Valley keeping formation and passing carefully to keep possession, without ever managing to mount any threatening attacks. The North Bay players, on the other hand, seemed to be holding in reserve the ability to strike when they chose. The red-headed girl quickly fired off a couple of shots at goal. Amy saved the first one easily, but was caught out of position by the second and just managed to scramble it away with her feet. When North Bay won a corner kick, the Beast positioned himself in front of Amy. She backed away but he moved with her. The ball sailed across the goalmouth. When Amy tried to jump for it, he stepped backward onto her cleats, anchoring her to the ground, while the ball fell to the red-headed striker, who shot into the net.

As Brunswick Valley pressed for an equalizer, North Bay dropped back into two lines of five players strung across the field to block every attack. Edison, looking at his teammates, thought,
They're playing too carefully
. He corrected himself:
We're
playing too carefully
. But he couldn't bring himself to break out of his caution. He was too afraid of choking. It was better to play it safe.

Only Steve was playing with the frenzy Edison had seen in the casual practice game at school. When Linh-Mai made a long clearance for Steve to collect and run at goal, the Beast elbowed him off the ball. Steve fell, but picked himself up and gave chase. He caught up with his opponent on the edge of the penalty area. As he moved in to tackle, the Beast swung his arm sideways, hitting Steve in the eye. Steve moved in again and this time managed to poke the ball free. He fired it at the goal just before the Beast crashed into him, flattening him. The surprised goalkeeper didn't move as the ball cannonaded off a goalpost and bounced toward Edison. Edison looked at the referee, expecting him to call a foul on Steve, but the ref waved play on. Before Edison moved toward the loose ball, a defender cleared.

Edison heard Steve give a disgusted snort.

With only minutes left in the game, Edison was resigned to defeat. He thought he'd got through the game without appearing to choke, but he certainly hadn't helped his teammates when he probably could have won the game for them. He didn't know what made him more ashamed — choking or playing it safe.

Then the North Bay goalkeeper let the ball slip from his hand as he attempted a long throw out. It hit one of the fullbacks who was standing nearby and bounced back toward the net. The goalkeeper and the fullback fell over one another, and the ball trickled into the net.

When the game ended with the score level, Mr. Field greeted his team with, “We got lucky.”

“I guess so,” said Shay with a wry grin.

“Why were you playing so carefully, all of you? Why didn't you play your usual game? I said to just go play, and to run and hustle.”

Shay looked around at his teammates. “It didn't seem right, scrambling and hustling after the ball, like we were in a fool-around practice game. Now we're champions — sort of — we should look like champions, shouldn't we?”

“You should look like yourselves. And play like yourselves. We won our division because we played with such zest and fun. Now it's almost like we've forgotten how to enjoy our game.” He surveyed the serious faces of his team and added, “Come on, guys. It's not the end of the world. Let's try to play our old game against Long Island tomorrow.”

“We'll have to play better — now that we have to win the next two games,” said Shay.

“That's
all
of us play better,” Steve muttered with a glance at Edison, who was standing at the edge of the group, leaning against the van. Steve's shirt and shorts were covered in mud, and his knees were red and raw from the falls he'd taken. His nose had a crust of blood under it, and his forehead and eye were bruised. Edison's knees were clean, and his shorts and shirt looked as if they'd just come out of the wash.

Edison turned away and rested his head on the side window, glad of the cool glass against his forehead.

Mr. Grease, who'd been cleaning the windshield, walked around to him and said, “Okay?”

Edison nodded.

Mr. Grease grunted. After a pause, he nodded at Mr. Field. “Ask him about pressure.” He grunted again and returned to his window cleaning.

By the time the team had changed and were climbing in the van, everyone seemed to be regaining their good spirits. The twins were chattering excitedly about Long Island.

“We used to live there,” Jillian announced for the third time.

“Until we were five,” said Jessica.

“You mean, until last year?” said Toby.

Jillian said, “Ha ha.”

Edison pulled the tour itinerary from his pocket. They were staying at the Wharfside Motel in Back Harbour tonight, so they could get the first ferry in the morning to Long Island. He wondered what the Wharfside Motel was like, and whether he'd have to share a room with Toby and Steve again. He didn't mind sharing with Toby, but he was sick of Steve sniping at him.

Hardly anyone spoke as they drove through the bleak streets of North Bay and headed south on the highway. From the corner of his eye Edison could see Shay already asleep, and soon Julie dozed off, leaning against him. Toby and Amy were talking quietly on the back seat, and he thought the twins were sharing a book, because he could hear pages turning.

Two hours later, as Mr. Grease pulled into the Wharfside Motel, Mr. Field said, “Lights out at ten, and no noise after that. Share rooms like before.”