The 1^st Grade Soccer Team

by Chris Vanderzee

Us first graders would walk onto the playground like gladiators entering the Coliseum ready to play the second graders in soccer. We would use those big red dodge balls that stung like one thousand bees if they ever smacked your skin. Those soccer games were like warfare to us. The second graders would look at us with menacing grins and then would propel the balls high into the air with their feet. The balls would then plunge back to earth, landing either in our goal or on our heads, but that wouldn’t stop us. We’d get up, wipe our hands on our pants, run over to a ball and boot it back to their side. Of course, they would stop it with ease and fire it back at our goal. It was a ceaseless onslaught of playground madness. To anyone of the moms on playground duty, we must have looked like savages. Then the bell would ring and we all would stop immediately. It was like someone just flipped a switch and turned us all off. We would line up politely in front of the school doors, waiting to enter. Going to class was like being in the eye of a hurricane. In silence we would pass each other in the halls, each of us secretly looking forward to the next chance to beat the other in that fanciful game we liked to call soccer.