Happy to offer Chapter One of my recently published middle-grade readers (8-12/13) novel, "The Goal of the Game," laying the foundation for an inspiring story of self-discovery--a young soccer player's journey to dealing with the increasing pressures of America's $40 billion youth sports culture (NYT, July, '25. Enjoy.
© Copyright 2025 Harvey Araton
Chapter One
AS SOON AS Mom’s sneakers hit the steps leading up to the second floor with a thumpity thump, I knew that could mean only one thing. She wanted me downstairs, and now.
She was impatient. But I was hiding.
“Z, we’re running behind,” she called out. “Are you all dressed?”
I was, almost.
My brand new uniform--light blue shorts and shirt with white trim--had been washed and ironed by Mom for our U-13 fall season-opening game. The shirt was tucked into the shorts that were inches too long.
But that was because I was inches too short.
I had always been what the nasty kids at school would call a shrimp, a midget and, according to one really nasty kid, a future horse racing jockey.
But as I said, I was dressed, almost, except for my color-matching socks and black cleats that were scattered on the carpet. I sat on my bed, facing the window that looked out on our front yard with my bare feet dangling.
I stared at the socks and cleats as if I couldn’t remember what to do with them. Like I hadn’t been repeating the same game-day routine since I was in kindergarten, tying my own fingers into knots instead of the laces.
“Do you hear me up there?”
Mom, again. I took a deep breath, leaned back with my elbows resting on the bed and yelled down: “Just need another minute. Have to go to the bathroom.”
What, I thought, was one little lie as I was trying to figure out how to tell her the cold, hard truth?
“OK, sweetie.”
I knew what “sweetie” really meant, a clear sign of Mom trying to be calm. But she wasn’t. Not her thing. Especially when it came to game-day soccer.
“Do what you have to do but remember we have a long ride and there might be traffic and you know that we absolutely can’t be late.”
When Mom put it that way, that was exactly what she meant.
“We” were a team within the team.
I was the starting center midfielder, our most creative playmaker--at least in the opinions of my teammates. Well, actually, my former teammates.
Mom never stopped reminding me of my value to the team, especially when she could tell I was struggling with my emotions. Which had been more often than I liked to admit. Then she would just say what she knew I needed to hear.
“Your father is so proud.”
I have to admit: that usually was enough to get me going again.
But besides being my number one cheerleader, Mom was also parent-manager, keeper of the practice balls and the player photo I.D. cards. Nobody could step onto the pitch for a league game until she had handed them to the referee and he or she gave us all a once over.
In my case, that usually meant taking a closer look because I could have passed for someone’s little brother who had wandered over from the sideline.
Mom being manager, that was why we had to leave at least an hour early for road games, given the possibility of a traffic jam caused by an accident or construction.
Or, even worse, a delay to deal with a Melanie crisis.
At any moment, my kid sister could announce that she was hungry, or had to go to the bathroom, or felt really, really sick and might have to throw up--hopefully, for everyone’s sake, outside the car.
I remembered at least two times that she didn’t consider everyone’s sake.
Mel was ten, almost three years younger than me, which was too young to be left alone when we had to leave home on Staten Island. A few times Mom let her stay with a friend. Most of the time she wanted us together.
“Time together is very precious,” she would say, stretching out very to verrry.
It took me a while to figure out what that meant but Mel wasn’t old enough yet to realize that Mom was really talking about Dad.
Mel hated soccer. She refused all of Mom’s offers to play in the K-kickers program for kindergartners, and then again every summer before school started.
The joke was on Mel. She still was dragged along to many of my road games. And now those drives were about to get even longer after we had become a select team and joined the North Atlantic Premier League.
Our road trips could now be as much as two hours away, north to Connecticut, or south to Delaware. When I first heard that, I got a little bit of a stomach ache myself.
Mom insisted that these were the sacrifices we had to make in order to play at “such a high level,” against the “very best competition.” Except now our opponents weren’t the only strangers; so were most of my teammates.
When I complained about that after our first U-13 practice, Mom patted the top of my head and said, “You just keep playing your game, making your great passes. We were one goal from a State Cup title last year and we’ve picked up some really good players.”
That much was true. I guess if there is one thing the world has no shortage of is “really good young players,” each one with a parent or two happy to burn the tread off their tires for the sake of their kid’s soccer career.
Our team, by the way, is called the Staten Island Soccer Academy Rock. A weird name, I know, but Staten Islanders have the even weirder habit of referring to the island as “the rock.”
By the end of sixth grade, last spring, we also happened to be our academy’s highest-ranked boys team. We’d cracked the top fifteen for the North Atlantic region and were fifty-seventh in the entire nation.
Mom couldn’t stop talking about that but I had stopped listening.
***
BEFORE MOM could call out to me again, I knew I couldn’t stall any longer. I vaulted off the bed, pushing up with my hands, hopped over the cleats, socks and shin guards and walked slowly and quietly down the stairs, as if I intended to sneak out the front door.
The thought had crossed my mind. But I was barefoot. And where would I go?
So I turned right, walked through the dining room, into the kitchen, where Mom was putting a lid on the container with the orange slices, about to load them with the Gatorade bottles into the cooler. Mel was sitting at the table, fiddling with the iPad Mom always hoped would keep her quiet in the backseat of the car.
In the chair beside Mel sat Mom’s cousin, Mike Watson. He was reading the New York Times, which he brought, usually with a bag of bagels, because we only got the Staten Island Advance, which was for local news. They even wrote a story on us when we had almost won that New Jersey State Cup that Mom couldn’t stop talking about.
Mike was a psychologist at Staten Island University Hospital, where Mom also worked as an art therapist in a children’s clinic. Mike was divorced, and didn’t have kids, and dropped by our house most Sunday mornings.
Mom said she felt sorry for him because he had to live alone after he and Aunt Judy got divorced a few years ago. But I was old enough now, just a few weeks from my thirteenth birthday, to guess that Mike felt sorry for Mom after what had happened to Dad.
Mom’s blue eyes went straight down to my bare feet. She looked confused.
Then annoyed.
“May I ask, young man, just what in the world you are doing? Where are your cleats?”
“Upstairs,” I said.
“And I guess the most obvious question would be: why?”
Mel continued to stare at the iPad but Mike looked up--newspaper in one hand, coffee mug in the other, eyeglasses halfway down his nose.
I took a deep breath. I had dreaded this moment because I knew how it would upset Mom. It wasn’t the coolest thing to be doing on game day, opening day, and right before we had to leave.
In fact, it was pretty selfish. But after tossing and turning for most of the night, and with this pit in the middle of my stomach that felt like a humongous meatball, I finally had to do something.
The words spilled out.
“I don’t want to go,” I said.
I could hear my voice rising. Which sounded to me like I was scared. Which I was.
I waited for Mom to say something, anything, but she just stared at me with her mouth open.
So I said: “I don’t want to play.”
Mom was still speechless.
A little more defiantly, I said, “I’m not playing.”
And that was it. I apparently had just quit a sport that for most of my life had meant the whole world to me.
Published by köehlerbooks TM 3705 Shore Drive Virginia Beach, VA 23455 800-435-4811 www.koehlerbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.
To read more about the book in USA Today, click the link:
https://www.usatoday.com/.../the-goal-of-the.../88107402007/
To order the book, which targets ages 8-12/13, click the link:
https://www.amazon.com/.../B0FNSP.../ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0...
© Copyright 2025 Harvey Araton
Chapter One
AS SOON AS Mom’s sneakers hit the steps leading up to the second floor with a thumpity thump, I knew that could mean only one thing. She wanted me downstairs, and now.
She was impatient. But I was hiding.
“Z, we’re running behind,” she called out. “Are you all dressed?”
I was, almost.
My brand new uniform--light blue shorts and shirt with white trim--had been washed and ironed by Mom for our U-13 fall season-opening game. The shirt was tucked into the shorts that were inches too long.
But that was because I was inches too short.
I had always been what the nasty kids at school would call a shrimp, a midget and, according to one really nasty kid, a future horse racing jockey.
But as I said, I was dressed, almost, except for my color-matching socks and black cleats that were scattered on the carpet. I sat on my bed, facing the window that looked out on our front yard with my bare feet dangling.
I stared at the socks and cleats as if I couldn’t remember what to do with them. Like I hadn’t been repeating the same game-day routine since I was in kindergarten, tying my own fingers into knots instead of the laces.
“Do you hear me up there?”
Mom, again. I took a deep breath, leaned back with my elbows resting on the bed and yelled down: “Just need another minute. Have to go to the bathroom.”
What, I thought, was one little lie as I was trying to figure out how to tell her the cold, hard truth?
“OK, sweetie.”
I knew what “sweetie” really meant, a clear sign of Mom trying to be calm. But she wasn’t. Not her thing. Especially when it came to game-day soccer.
“Do what you have to do but remember we have a long ride and there might be traffic and you know that we absolutely can’t be late.”
When Mom put it that way, that was exactly what she meant.
“We” were a team within the team.
I was the starting center midfielder, our most creative playmaker--at least in the opinions of my teammates. Well, actually, my former teammates.
Mom never stopped reminding me of my value to the team, especially when she could tell I was struggling with my emotions. Which had been more often than I liked to admit. Then she would just say what she knew I needed to hear.
“Your father is so proud.”
I have to admit: that usually was enough to get me going again.
But besides being my number one cheerleader, Mom was also parent-manager, keeper of the practice balls and the player photo I.D. cards. Nobody could step onto the pitch for a league game until she had handed them to the referee and he or she gave us all a once over.
In my case, that usually meant taking a closer look because I could have passed for someone’s little brother who had wandered over from the sideline.
Mom being manager, that was why we had to leave at least an hour early for road games, given the possibility of a traffic jam caused by an accident or construction.
Or, even worse, a delay to deal with a Melanie crisis.
At any moment, my kid sister could announce that she was hungry, or had to go to the bathroom, or felt really, really sick and might have to throw up--hopefully, for everyone’s sake, outside the car.
I remembered at least two times that she didn’t consider everyone’s sake.
Mel was ten, almost three years younger than me, which was too young to be left alone when we had to leave home on Staten Island. A few times Mom let her stay with a friend. Most of the time she wanted us together.
“Time together is very precious,” she would say, stretching out very to verrry.
It took me a while to figure out what that meant but Mel wasn’t old enough yet to realize that Mom was really talking about Dad.
Mel hated soccer. She refused all of Mom’s offers to play in the K-kickers program for kindergartners, and then again every summer before school started.
The joke was on Mel. She still was dragged along to many of my road games. And now those drives were about to get even longer after we had become a select team and joined the North Atlantic Premier League.
Our road trips could now be as much as two hours away, north to Connecticut, or south to Delaware. When I first heard that, I got a little bit of a stomach ache myself.
Mom insisted that these were the sacrifices we had to make in order to play at “such a high level,” against the “very best competition.” Except now our opponents weren’t the only strangers; so were most of my teammates.
When I complained about that after our first U-13 practice, Mom patted the top of my head and said, “You just keep playing your game, making your great passes. We were one goal from a State Cup title last year and we’ve picked up some really good players.”
That much was true. I guess if there is one thing the world has no shortage of is “really good young players,” each one with a parent or two happy to burn the tread off their tires for the sake of their kid’s soccer career.
Our team, by the way, is called the Staten Island Soccer Academy Rock. A weird name, I know, but Staten Islanders have the even weirder habit of referring to the island as “the rock.”
By the end of sixth grade, last spring, we also happened to be our academy’s highest-ranked boys team. We’d cracked the top fifteen for the North Atlantic region and were fifty-seventh in the entire nation.
Mom couldn’t stop talking about that but I had stopped listening.
***
BEFORE MOM could call out to me again, I knew I couldn’t stall any longer. I vaulted off the bed, pushing up with my hands, hopped over the cleats, socks and shin guards and walked slowly and quietly down the stairs, as if I intended to sneak out the front door.
The thought had crossed my mind. But I was barefoot. And where would I go?
So I turned right, walked through the dining room, into the kitchen, where Mom was putting a lid on the container with the orange slices, about to load them with the Gatorade bottles into the cooler. Mel was sitting at the table, fiddling with the iPad Mom always hoped would keep her quiet in the backseat of the car.
In the chair beside Mel sat Mom’s cousin, Mike Watson. He was reading the New York Times, which he brought, usually with a bag of bagels, because we only got the Staten Island Advance, which was for local news. They even wrote a story on us when we had almost won that New Jersey State Cup that Mom couldn’t stop talking about.
Mike was a psychologist at Staten Island University Hospital, where Mom also worked as an art therapist in a children’s clinic. Mike was divorced, and didn’t have kids, and dropped by our house most Sunday mornings.
Mom said she felt sorry for him because he had to live alone after he and Aunt Judy got divorced a few years ago. But I was old enough now, just a few weeks from my thirteenth birthday, to guess that Mike felt sorry for Mom after what had happened to Dad.
Mom’s blue eyes went straight down to my bare feet. She looked confused.
Then annoyed.
“May I ask, young man, just what in the world you are doing? Where are your cleats?”
“Upstairs,” I said.
“And I guess the most obvious question would be: why?”
Mel continued to stare at the iPad but Mike looked up--newspaper in one hand, coffee mug in the other, eyeglasses halfway down his nose.
I took a deep breath. I had dreaded this moment because I knew how it would upset Mom. It wasn’t the coolest thing to be doing on game day, opening day, and right before we had to leave.
In fact, it was pretty selfish. But after tossing and turning for most of the night, and with this pit in the middle of my stomach that felt like a humongous meatball, I finally had to do something.
The words spilled out.
“I don’t want to go,” I said.
I could hear my voice rising. Which sounded to me like I was scared. Which I was.
I waited for Mom to say something, anything, but she just stared at me with her mouth open.
So I said: “I don’t want to play.”
Mom was still speechless.
A little more defiantly, I said, “I’m not playing.”
And that was it. I apparently had just quit a sport that for most of my life had meant the whole world to me.
Published by köehlerbooks TM 3705 Shore Drive Virginia Beach, VA 23455 800-435-4811 www.koehlerbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.
To read more about the book in USA Today, click the link:
https://www.usatoday.com/.../the-goal-of-the.../88107402007/
To order the book, which targets ages 8-12/13, click the link:
https://www.amazon.com/.../B0FNSP.../ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0...
