Free Little's Losers by Robert Rayner Page A

tell Mr. Walker he doesn’t want the team playing if Miss Little is coaching … ”
    â€œMr. Walker won’t give in to him.”
    â€œHe’ll have to if the parent council tells him to. And not just that. He can keep Steve from playing, which means we’ll lose our top goal scorer.”
    â€œCorrection,” says Shay. “We’ll lose our only goal scorer.”

10 Thrilled ... and Scared
    A week later, we don’t know whether to be thrilled or scared. Both, I think — thrilled one minute, scared the next.
    We’re thrilled because we beat Westfield Ridge 3–0 . Now we’re in the elimination stage of the provincials, where the winner gets to represent southern New Brunswick in the regional finals.
    We’re scared as well as thrilled because our opponents in the next round will be — you guessed it — St. Croix Middle School. Not only have we never beaten St. Croix, but they also tease and bully us on the field, and their supporters taunt us from the sidelines. We remember last time we played them. We remember every chant of “Lo-sers. Lo-sers,” and the elbows and kicks and trips.
    Linh-Mai’s not thinking of the next game. She’s never played against St. Croix, after all. She’s still fixated on our surprise win against Westfield Ridge. She’s also still fixated on Steve.
    â€œYour first goal — that was a stunner,” she says to him.
    Steve doesn’t seem to hear. He’s been in a sulky mood since his dad discovered that Miss Little is our coach. He’s so afraid his dad will pull him off the team that he didn’t even tell him about the Westfield Ridge game.
    We’re in the cafeteria and it’s lunchtime and crowded and noisy. The daily special is spaghetti with meat sauce, which is always popular, and although the cafeteria ladies are serving it up as fast as they can, there’s still a long lineup. I was late getting to lunch because Ms. Watkins kept me after French class for daydreaming. She said I couldn’t spend my life daydreaming. I said I couldn’t daydream in soccer because I had let the team down, and I couldn’t daydream at home because it stopped me from doing the chores, so school was the only place I had left to do it. Ms. Watkins shook her head and said, “Oh Toby.” I said, “Yo, Ms. Watkins,” and she let me go. I got the last place at the long table where the rest of the team was. After we’ve eaten, there is time to talk about our recent victory over Westfield Ridge.
    We knew before the game started that Westfield Ridge had only managed a tie with Pleasant Harbour the day before, which meant that if we beat them, we’d win our round-robin group and go through to the elimination round. On the other hand, if they beat us, they’d go through, which is what everybody expected to happen, including us.
    The kindergarten rule we practised before the game was Keep Things in Their Proper Place. We didn’t understand what that had to do with soccer until Miss Little repeated, looking right at me, “Keep Things in Their Proper Place.”
    â€œOh. Are we the things?” I asked.
    Miss Little nodded and said, still looking at me, “Keep Things in Their Proper Place means keep your positions. It means no daydreaming and no wandering around.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said.
    She ruffled my hair and recited, “Everyone struggles and it’s a disgrace — when things are not kept in their proper place .”
    â€œJeez, Miss Little, where do you find this stuff?” I asked.
    The game was held at Westfield Ridge. It’s a town between Brunswick Valley and the city of Saint John, and most of the people who live there go into Saint John for work. It’s all malls, subdivisions, and golf clubs that don’t allow you in unless you wear the right clothes and shoes. We’ve played Westfield Ridge before, so we know