Midnight Soccer

“Look, dad!” Bucky picked up a flat, round thing with curved edges. One of the people had left it in the grass.

“Don’t chew on it!” laughed Shadow. “You’ll ruin it. Watch.”

The big buck held it loosely in his teeth, and flipped it out across the yard. All the fawns laughed with delight and bounded after it. Ellie was still too small to have much coordination, but she was in there with the rest. Shadow laughed again. Suddenly Digger, the raccoon, one of Snoot’s kids, ran out and grabbed the disc and disappeared into the bushes. But Lum, his youngest sister, dived in and must have taken him by surprise, for she immediately burst out from the other side and tumbled across the grass with the disc in her paws, or teeth, or paws, or …. how was she holding that?

The fawns leapt after her, and the chase was on. When they got close, she turned under them, and got among their clumsy feet, until they got tangled and fell in a heap. Finally Holly and Misty reached in, grabbed the disk for the deer, and flipped it over to Skit. With a little practice, the does had it moving among them fairly reliably, with an occasional mid-air theft by Bucky or even Ellie.

Shadow began thinking. What about a tournament?

“Yes, you will. And don’t fluff your tail at me like that!”

Snoot, the raccoon, was not happy. This youngster was getting more and more independent. Did he not appreciate all they had done for him?

Wif read his mind perfectly. “Sweet, he’s grown. Let it go.”

Young Digger stood defiantly across the catfood dish from them, having just cleaned it out. He settled his tail down. Sort of. Best he could. Best he wanted to, anyway.

“Thanks, Ma. Listen. There’s a place under the barn, suits me fine. Can I settle in there? You mind, Pa?”

It was fine with Ma, and would be fine with Pa once Ma got through adjusting his attitude. She wanted no incidents here. You heard of such, occasionally, when fathers and sons lived in the same cave too long. It could get bad. And then you never could live it down. The cats would snicker, the possums leered at you and whispered, and even the bluejays would never let it go. Better to separate.

So Digger began spending his days under the barn, and Snoot and Wif had a little more room under the deck with the younger ones, Spoot and Lum. Probably they would have this same conversation with Spoot, when the weather turned cold. Lum would stay until some he-coon took a shine to her, and took her wherever.

Problem was, how to share out the catfood. When the cats had rudely emptied one of the bowls, and what was left was only in one bowl, that was too close for two males to be sharing grub. It would take a while to work out the routine.

Meanwhile, Digger better be nice. I’m still bigger.

But not for long, he suddenly realized, watching Digger amble across the yard.

Stink, living under the barn with his family of possums, decided to challenge the raccoons to a soccer game. Things were entirely too quiet.

“Snuffle!”

She came from the deeper hole, cool and quiet in the afternoon heat.

“Are those kids sleeping again?” Snuffle looked in on Scratch, Bump, and Scrappy, all sound asleep.

“Yes, dear. What is it?”

“I’m up for a soccer game. I’m going over to get in their faces and issue a challenge. When the kids are up, feed them, and we’ll be ready to play when the people all go inside tonight.”

She sighed. When Stink got set on something, there was no turning the river. That long, pink, hairless tail would get stiff, and she knew brick walls would come down before he would change his mind. Mamma warned her.

Snoot, the raccoon, was not eager to see Stink. Ever since Stink moved his family of possums back under the barn, Snoot’s son Digger had moved off somewhere else, and seemed to have a permanent case of Bad Attitude. Even though Digger wasn’t living under the deck with them again, they crossed paths regularly about the yard, and he was just not a happy muncher. Had a thorn stuck under his attitude, somewhere, and it kept him cross.

“Snoot!”

Sigh. “What is it, Stink? Those cats finish the cat food again?”

“Nah. Too early in the day for that! You know, one day we should just all huddle around those bowls as soon as Gardener leaves, and just finish it all off. Just to put the itch under their collars, you know?”

Just what he needed. His son acting grumpy, and all the cats mad at him as well.

“OK, I give. What is it?”

“I hereby challenge you to a game of soccer. Mine against yours. You can choose the field, or the ball, and I get to choose the other.”

Snoot considered. It would be fun. Raccoons are generally quicker than possums, although you couldn’t always count on that. They seemed to have an afterburner in there somewhere, and when smell came to stink, so to speak, they could really move. But Snoot’s opinion was that they had no real control at that point, that it was an emergency gear that simply carried them away from wherever they were. Could be wrong.

And it might help the general situation with Digger. He loved to play the game. This could brighten his attitude. Couldn’t possibly make it worse, actually.

“When?”

“Tonight. At moonrise. The people will be inside by then.”

“Do we have a ball?”

“I pushed one under the azaleas a week ago. I don’t think they’ve noticed, so it should still be there.”

“All right. From the fish pond to the swing. I’ll tell everyone.”

“Tell them whoever loses can’t eat cat food for a week!” laughed Stink, as he headed back to the barn.

Late that evening, the two families emerged. The Possums sauntered out from under the barn, and the Raccoons casually wandered out from under the deck. After a few minutes, Digger came in from the creek. They started with the cat food bowls on the deck, of course, as a pre-game warm-up and social activity. They had to convince a couple of stragglers to move on – who did those cats think they were, anyway? – in order to get to the left-overs.

When everyone was full, or when the bowls were empty, Stink made his way to the azaleas, and brought the ball to the back yard, bumping it along in front of him. If the people ever see us doing this, we will have blown our cover in a big way!

A cat on the porch saw this, and decided something was up. He went around mentioning it to the other cats, who all then drifted casually towards the back yard.

Whisk had gone up the tree by the fish pond, and noticed the gathering. He chattered to Jumpy, Flyer, Hop, and Slip, “Hey, we got something goin’ on here!”

Streak heard it. “Shorty, come on!”

Stink bumped the ball out in front of the pond. The possums gathered loosely about. “Scatter out, towards the swing. I’ll get it to you,” he said quietly. They spread out, more or less in that direction.

Snoot and Wif positioned themselves in front of the swing, out a ways from it, and sent the kids forward to try to intercept the ball and knock it into the pool.

Without waiting for a signal, and hoping the raccoons weren’t ready, Stink suddenly spun around and whacked the ball with his tail. It bounced off Scratch, who had not moved very far away yet, and careened high in the air. The possums waited. They aren’t very good at looking up, so they just assumed eventually gravity would do its part, and they would be back in the game.

The raccoons stood on their back legs, looked up, and watched the ball. They saw it land in the crotch of a large branch, and lodge firm. They also saw the squirrels perched further out on that branch, who began laughing at their misfortune.

“Whisk!” shouted Snoot. “Give us a paw!”

Whisk thought about it. When was the last time the raccoons had done him a favor? Hmm, give me a minute, I’ll remember any time now … umm … can’t quite think of it.

“What can I do for you, big guy?”

“Whisk. Do you mind?”

“And that would be in return for … for … I’m having trouble remembering. Could you give me a clue?”

Scrappy, the youngest possum, had a bad case of attention deficit disorder when it came to squirrels. He had had enough, immediately, and the conversation, if it followed the typical squirrel dialog protocol, would last a while. He headed for the tree.

“Really, Snoot, I’d like to help. I’m eager to help. What was it you needed?” He nervously eyed the trunk of the tree, where Scrappy was beginning to climb. “Um, what … what was it?”

Snoot decided he liked the situation as it was now developing, and that he would enjoy letting it play out. “Let me think on it for a minute, Whisk. I’m sure I can remember.”

Scrappy had reached the branch, and moved out onto it. The squirrels were looking for someplace they could jump to. He reached the ball, and nudged it with his head, pushing it free. It fell onto the field. He looked at the squirrels for a moment, as they quivered on the end of the branch. “That’s one.” He turned, and slipped back down the tree, to the great relief of the unhelpful furballs he left behind.

The ball had bounced once by the time Spoot had it in his paws.

“What are you doing?” shouted the possums. “You can’t hold the ball.”

The raccoon looked at the ball, and looked at his paws, and looked at them. “Apparently I can.”

Well, what could you say to that? The problem was, of course, that he could and they couldn’t. So much for the rules. What else might be negotiable?

Scratch decided to find out. He launched himself, in a rambling, casual sort of way, at Spoot, and knocked him rolling. The ball bounced towards Snuffle, who whacked it towards the swing. Snoot stretched out and grabbed it. “Oops! Sorry,” he said, and let it drop. He started pushing it across the yard, downhill towards the pond, with his head. Of course, one of the young possums immediately whacked it away with his tail and another one set up to knock it back to the swing.

“Time out!” called Wif.

“Been about ten minutes!” shouted Bump, as he took another swing at the ball.

Wif groaned. There were certain disadvantages to playing games with possums. Certain disadvantages to doing anything with them. Having a conversation, for example. One of her favorite sports was to ask a certain kind of question, when chatting idly with the possums. Like, “What do you think, can you cry under water?” Or, “If the people make corn oil from corn, and vegetable oil from vegetables, what do they make baby oil from?”

Back to the current problem – how to pause the game.

“That means stop playing!”

“Oh. Why?”

“Because we need to talk. Gather up, team!” she shouted to the family. When they huddled together, she said, “They can knock it around with their tails. We can’t do that. What can we do?”

“We can grab it and carry it,” suggested Bump. “I know you’re not supposed to.”

“Yeah, you can’t do that.” It was Snuffle. The possums had gathered right up with them, and were listening.

“Please,” Wif said to them. “This is a private conversation. It’s called a huddle. It’s when one team gets together to talk about how they can play better. The other team isn’t supposed to hear.”

“Why not?”

“So we can surprise you, that’s why.”

“Oh, thank you. How thoughtful. Come on, possums let’s go … what is it? … huddle.”

The possums gathered together.

“Excuse me, Snuffle?”

“Yes, Wif.”

“Could you move everyone a little distance away? You’re standing on my tail.”

When the groups had separated a bit, the raccoons continued trying to figure out some legal way they could compete with the whacking of the possum tails.

Meanwhile, the possums had decided to huddle as well.

“So, what do we do?”

“We talk.”

“About what?”

“About how to play.”

“We know how to play.”

“About how to play them.”

“We know how to play them. We just whack it, and it goes through the swing. When they catch it, we fuss, and they are overwhelmed with guilt and put it down. And when they push it, we knock it away, and whack it again.”

“Is that it? That’s all there is to it?”

“I think so. Anyone else have any other ideas?”

Silence.

“OK, let’s go.”

“Bump is asleep.”

“Scrappy, wake Bump up.”

“Scrappy’s asleep.”

“Scratch?”

Silence.

“Snuffle, I think it’s over. What’s that called?”

“Forfeit.”

“That’s not a good thing, is it?”

“No. You tell them. I’m taking the kids to bed.”

Stink ambled over to the raccoons. He listened for a while, as they tried to figure out some way they could avoid losing. “I have an idea,” he said. They all jumped. No one had heard him come up.

“What’s that, Stink?”

No one really wanted to hear his ideas, but when Stink wanted to say something, the very shortest way through the conversation – by far, the shortest path – the path that would actually allow you to make it to dinner that evening – or at least, by the next evening – was to simply ask what he wanted to say. And listen. And not comment, and then excuse yourself. If you refused to listen, or argued, or … well, almost any other course of action … Stink would sulk for weeks. Maybe years. There was one instance when … well, the sulk over that one was currently at 3 years, 7 months, and 8 days.

“Yeah, tell us, Stink.”

“We could just forfeit.”

They were stunned. It was actually a good idea. It was relevant. It was concise. It would solve the problem. It was an offer.

“We accept.”

“We accept.”

“We accept.”

And so it happened. The raccoons won the first Last Annual Midnight Soccer game, and the possums went home to bed. The raccoons were more given to celebration than to sleep, and when Snoot woke up three days later with a headache that would split the atom, he could not remember what had happened.

Eventually – when his headache settled down enough that his family could speak to him – he made the whole thing an extended entry in his life’s work, “The Annotated and Illustrated History of Rivendell, As Observed by Snoot the Raccoon and His Wife Wif (that’s redundant, she told him, but he didn’t care) and Recorded for Poserity (that’s Posterity, she told him, but he didn’t care) and For the Future Generations” (that’s redundant, she told him, but he didn’t care).

The Frisbee tournaments sponsored by the deer eventually became the game of choice in the moonlit hours, and Wif never missed the soccer.