6

When you have a soccer tournament in the afternoon, there is no time for anything else. You have to prepare yourself mentally and savor the emotion calmly. Every gesture becomes important and must be perfect. The moment I love best is when I put on the thick socks, which slowly caress your shins, like an ancient suit of armor, like the leggings of a medieval knight.

The opponents today are from the fourth year, the B squad, a class of spoiled brats. We must bury them. Pirates against the FlyBoys. The outcome is certain, but the body count is still unknown. We will slaughter as many as we can. The Astroturf on the field that has seen three generations of players titillates every fiber of my being. And here we are shining, on this autumn afternoon, still warm, in our red jerseys bearing a skull in the center with Pirates written underneath. We are all here: Niko, Curly, Rod, and Sponge, who looks more like a bulletproof door than a goalie. We have the right attitude. This makes all the difference in the world. The others are full of pimples, and more than FlyBoys, they look like CryBoys.

They don’t even have time to realize who they are dealing with when we have already left them in the dust by two goals. Niko scores a goal, and I the other one. Two real pirates inside the penalty zone! One of us always knows where to find the other, even with our eyes closed, back-to-back, like two brothers. While I feel thrilled by my precise kick to the unreachable corner of the goal, I notice that Silvia is seated, watching the game with other schoolmates: Erika-with-a-k, Electra, Simo, Eli, Fra, and Barbie. They are talking among themselves, like always. Girls couldn’t care less about the game. Only Silvia applauds my goal. I send her a kiss, like the champion players who thank their fans. One day, it will be Beatrice sending me that kiss. I will dedicate my most beautiful goal to her, and I will run toward the spectators to show everybody my jersey that declares, “I belong to Beatrice.”