Diary of a Cheesy Kid

Soccer is Cheese's kind of game. Baseball has too much waiting and too many straight lines. Shooting a basketball demands precision. Hoofball is fun only for the ball carrier.

But soccer is free for all, as haphazard and slapdash as Cheese himself. He plays in the Peewee League in the autumn of his seventh year. His team is the Titans. Every Saturday morning he’s the first one there, kicking pinecones around the field until the coaches show up.

Once the game begins, Cheese never stops running. He zigs and zags after the checkered ball like a fox after a field mouse, except he hardly ever catches up to it. Someone else always seems to reach it first. Cheese is forever swinging his hoof at the ball a half second after it goes past him. He winds up kicking the legs and flanks of the other players. Twice he’s kicked the referee. Once, somehow, he kicked himself. His teammates rub their bruises and call him “Wild Hoof.”

To Cheese, a net is a net. He doesn’t much care which team the net belongs to. Several times during the season he kicks the ball at the wrong goal. Fortunately, he always misses.

The first game is against the Ramblers. When it’s over, Cheese jumps up and down and pumps his hooves as he has seen athletes do and yells “Yahoo!” He does not notice that he is the only Titan cheering. “What are you so happy for?” says Thunderlane, one of his teammates. “We lost.”

This is news to Cheese. Throughout the game, and even at the end, he has not thought about the score. Apparently, losing has made Thunderlane very unhappy. It shows on his face. It shows in the way he’s kicking at the turf. Cheese looks around. Other Titans are kicking turf or stomping their hooves or kicking their own flanks. Every Titan wears a sour puss.

And then the coach calls the Titans into a huddle and says, “Okay, on three, yea Titans. One, two, three..." Cheese bellows, “Yea Titans!” And adds, “You da man!”

“Yea Titans” barely crawls from the lips of the other teammates.

And then the coach is lining them up, and the Ramblers are in a line too, and the Titans and Ramblers are patting hooves down the line like dominos, pat pat pat pat, no sour pusses on the Ramblers, who keep saying “Good game, good game, good game . . .” and Cheese is the only Titan saying “Good game” back.

And then the Titans are heading for their parents on the sidelines, and in order to show their parents what serious soccer players they are, they kick the turf some more and tear off their leg pads and jersey and throw them to the ground and stomp on them. One Titan even falls on the ground and bawls while pounding his hoof into the grass.

Cheese wants to be a good Titan. He kicks at some turf too. His mother and father look on with mouths agape as he tears off his jersey and soccer horseshoes  and finally his socks and stomps them all into the ground. He gets down on his hind legs  and rips up grass and flings it into the air. He snatches the pacifier from Patty Melt's mouth and hurls it onto the field. He pounds his hooves into the ground and cries out, “No! No! No!”

By now other parents and players are watching.

Cheese's mother says, “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

Cheese looks up. “I’m being mad because we lost.”

Patty Melt is bawling.

“Well, you can start being madder, because this little demonstration will cost you your allowance for a week. And you have five seconds to bring that pacifier back.”

Cheese is determined to become a better loser. In the following weeks he practices his losing in the backyard. But he never again gets a chance to show his stuff on Saturday, for the Titans win all the rest of their games.

No great thanks to Wild Hoof.

One time, amazingly, he finds himself alone with the ball and a clear field ahead of him.

Propelled by an excitement of whistles and screams behind him, Wild Foot boots the ball on and on, never realizing he has long since gone out of bounds. He crosses a baseball diamond, past the library and is finally stopped inside SugarCube Corner which made Mrs. Cake ask him "Aren't you a long away from your game, young man?"

On another occasion he throws up on the ball, which in turn causes two other players to throw up.

It is after this incident that several Titans ask the coach if Cheese can be traded to another team. They are soon glad it didn’t happen.

The last game of the season comes down to a playoff between the Titans and the Hornets. The Hornets also have lost only one game. The winner will be champion.

The game goes as usual for Wild Hoof. He runs around a lot. He swings his hoof a lot but seldom connects with the ball. Sometimes he makes himself dizzy running in circles as he tries to keep up with the action swirling around him.

Late in the second half the score is still 0–0. Cheese is standing in front of the Hornets’ net, wondering where the ball is, when suddenly it hits him in the head. It bounces into the net for a goal, and Cheese is instantly mobbed by cheering teammates. The final score is Titans 1, Hornets 0.

The Titans are Peewee champions!

The Titans go wild. They jump like kangaroos. They fall onto their backs and churn their legs in the air. They ride their parents’ backs and thrust up their hooves and crow, “We’re number one!”

Cheese goes wild too. He tries to stand on his head. He shouts into Patty's face “We’re number one!” and makes her blink. He climbs onto his father’s back and proclaims to all the wide world: “We’re number one!”

And then he looks down and sees the face of Cobalt, his neighbor. Cobalt is a Hornet. Cheese has never seen a sadder face in his life. It reminds him of a monkey’s face. He begins to notice the other Hornets, in their black and yellow jerseys. They are slumped on the grass. They are slumped under their parents’ legs. Not one of them rides a back. Every one is monkey faced and crying and slumpy.

Then they give out the trophies. Every Titan gets one. Cheese has never won a trophy before. It’s a golden soccer pony on a black pedestal with a golden soccer ball at his hoof. It glows as if it has been painted in sunlight. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

Cheese sees the other Titans kissing their trophies, so he kisses his too. As he does so, he sees the Hornets slumping away to their houses.

And suddenly he’s running, he’s yelling, “Cobalt! Cobalt!" Nightlight and Cobalt turn around. Cheese runs huffing up to them. “Cobalt, here.” He holds out the trophy. The look in Cobalt's eyes tells him he has done the right thing. “You take it.”

Cobalt reaches for it, but his mother catches his hoof. “Cheese, that is really nice of you, but you’re the one who won it. Cobalt will win a trophy of his own someday.”

Cobalt's hoof curls up. He can feel the golden trophy inches away. As his mother leads him off to go home, he cries out, “I want it!”

That afternoon Cheese sits on his back step. The trophy is beside him, brighter than ever.

Cheese is playing a game he invented called Bugs on a Stick. In the next backyard, Cobalt lies down by a bed of purple pansies. He cradles his chin in his hooves. His face is still sad.

Cheese  calls, “Wanna play my game?”

Cobalt shakes his head.

“Wanna go in the alley?”

Cobalt shakes his head.

Cheese asks Cobalt many questions, but all Cobalt does is shake his head and look monkey faced.

After a while Cheese gets tired of his game. He looks at Cobalt. He can think of nothing else to say. By now Cheese is sad too. Not just because Cobalt is sad, but for another reason: The soccer season is over. That has been the best part of it. Playing the games. He wishes he could make himself feel less sad.

He picks up his trophy and goes inside. A minute later he opens the back door and places the trophy on the step and goes back in.

When he comes out later that day, the trophy is gone.