Keeper by Mal Peet Page A

the camp passed much as the first one had. I worked at the bench with Estevan, except when the two of us were wrestling with the greasy hydraulic guts of one of the giant, yellow machines. And the end of each day was the same also: the jolting ride back to the town, arriving as the last of the plaza players were giving up the square to the darkness; wolfing down the meal; falling asleep exhausted in my hot, small bedroom.
    On Saturday, after we had lined up for our pay, Estevan presented me with something in a plastic shopping bag. I was standing with my father.
    ‘Come on, then, son, open it.’
    ‘What is this, Señor Estevan?’ I asked.
    Estevan shrugged, glinting his gold tooth at me. ‘Take a look.’
    Something soft, black, folded. I spread it out, and it was a new sweatshirt. On the back was a big white 1. On the front, Estevan had used some kind of white paint to draw a crude little picture of a leaping jaguar. My very first uniform. I did not know what to say. My father and Estevan were grinning at me like two monkeys. Then I became aware of another person standing behind me. I turned; Hellman was there, already dressed in his perfect referee’s stripes.
    ‘Just because you have been given the number 1, this does not mean you have earned it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, put it on. We have a game to play.’ ”
    “When we got to the red dirt field, there were already many men waiting to watch the game. I was confused and embarrassed when some of them applauded me as I walked to the goal in front of the Camp team’s supporters.
    I was trembling. Not because of the crowd and what they were expecting of me. I was trembling on account of the spectator I could not see, and what he thought of me wearing the number 1 shirt. I walked around the back of the goal pretending to check the net. Was there, by one of the supports, a tall space where the air was colder and somehow denser? Perhaps. Or maybe what caused the shiver to run through me was remembering our last meeting in the forest — the fear and hatred that had overcome me and had brought the Keeper to his knees. That moment had changed everything. We had moved on to a different level, the Keeper and I. I did not know how, exactly. It was something that I could only feel, like a cold discomfort in my stomach. I wasn’t even sure whether he was there at the goal with me as my friend or my enemy. All I could do, the only thing I could possibly do, was play well. And go back into the forest the next day.
    I stood in the goalmouth while Hellman blew on his whistle and the teams got into some kind of shape.
    Our team was not the same eleven players who had played in the last game, but our goalscorer was there. Jao the Butcher was not mended enough to be part of the Loggers’ team. His place had been taken by an older man, a very tall man. The Loggers had decided that maybe I could be beaten in the air.
    And that is how they tried to defeat me. A great many high crosses, some of them good, came in at me. Most of them were floated across by a short, bristle-headed player. He was right-footed but played out on their left wing, which puzzled me at first. Then I realized why he was there. He was good at fighting his way to the goal line and putting in his cross with the outside of his right foot, so that the ball curved away from me as it came over. When this happened, I had only two choices. I could try to force my way through the bodies in front of me and take the ball in the air. Or I could wait on my line for whatever kind of shot found its way through the mob of players. I didn’t like either option, and I still don’t. You have little control over what happens. Once, I had to punch the ball clear of the tall man’s head with my left hand, which is the worst and most desperate save a keeper like me can make. But I managed to stop every shot that was on target, including one that deflected off the thigh of one of my defenders, so that I had to switch my weight and