Swine Not: A Novel Pig Tale - By Jimmy Buffett & Helen Bransford Page 0,4

soccer world called Spiderwoman. Six feet tall, with arms that could reach across the goal, she had gone seven games without allowing a score. But that day her record had been broken — by me. The furious Moonwalkers coach began screaming on the sidelines, and his team responded. They came roaring down the field with a vengeance, sending Moccasin defenders flying. They had taken out Connie, our goalie, in the process of tying the game. Now we were headed for a tiebreaker with the “Goonwalkers,” as we called them.

Our pet pig trotted all the way to the end of the field, sporting a custom-made face mask to protect her tender snout. My sister had designed it. Rumpy took her place in front of the net as the opposing team continued to laugh their heads off. Like everyone else, they underestimated her abilities, and it would cost them.

Spiderwoman was back in form and made four dazzling saves, but Rumpy was just as brilliant. She knocked every shot astray of the net. The last striker for the Moonwalkers approached the ball as if he were going to kick it into low earth orbit, but at the last minute, he lobbed a high, arching shot. A collective gasp came from the Moccasin players and fans. They watched in horror, knowing that our goalie (who stood all of two feet, eight inches high) was far beneath the rainbow-shaped path of the final ball.

Agony turned instantly to ecstasy as Rumpy somehow bounded skyward and put her front shoulder between the net and the ball. It bounced harmlessly out-of-bounds.

Seconds later, I put a nasty spin on the final shot and collected my second goal against Spiderwoman. We won the game and were crowned champions of the Alabama / Tennessee Coed Soccer League. Next thing I knew, I was on the shoulders of my teammates, and Mom and Maple were dancing in a circle with Rumpy and the rest of our fans. Manny Brown, the owner of Manny’s Moccasins Shoe Store, accepted the trophy, and we shook hands with the Goonwalkers as they shrugged by us, mumbling, “Good game.”

The coaches were at the end of the line. My mom extended her hand to the opposing coach, but he walked by as if she didn’t exist. I knew Mom, and I knew something was going to happen. You did not insult her or her pig and expect to walk away unscathed.

She waited for the man to put some distance between them. Then she dropped the ball she was carrying. “Hey, Adolf!” she yelled, and as the man turned toward her, she let go with a wicked shot that sailed just above the ground. Steadily it rose until it hit him, as the TV announcers say, “directly in the groin.”

“That’s for the bloody cheap shot at our goalie,” she said as she watched the man rolling on the ground in pain.

“Vait until next year,” the man gasped. “I’ll get you for zis.”

“I doubt that you’ll have the chance,” Mom said.

That night, after the party in the pizza parlor, I asked Coach Mom what she meant by her last words to the Moonwalkers coach.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied casually. “Just another one of my wild ideas.”

In that synchronistic blink only twins know, Maple and I were instantly on the same wavelength, thinking collectively that when Mom said “nothing,” she really meant “something” — and we smiled.

CHAPTER 3

Learning to Play the Angles

BARLEY

I REALLY HATE voice mail. That’s what I get when I call my dad to tell him about a game. He calls back, of course, and he always promises that one day he is going to take me to see my favorite player, Darryl Meacham, who plays for Real Madrid in Spain. But by the time he calls, it is past both my bedtime and the initial moment of glory that I wanted to share with him. Dad is usually several time zones away from Tennessee.

As usual, I left him a detailed message about the game and the goals. I also told him about Mom’s little postgame stunt. I knew it would make him laugh.

I used to get real mad about Dad leaving, but that is how I became such a good soccer player. At first, I took my anger out on the ball. I would kick and kick and kick until I thought my leg would fall off. Then I started getting good and began kicking with both feet, and then I started to figure out the angles and how