"You deaf?" Albert hollered. "You got trouble hearing plain English, white boy?"
"Hey, man," Jeff said. "Murphy's my cousin."
"You know how to play soccer?" Albert said.
"Not really" was all Murphy could say.
Murphy's mother has just moved him and their cat, Mousetrap, back to the reserve in Port Alberni. Although he belongs to the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, Murphy is sure that he won't fit in, and he worries about Mousetrap, who has always been an indoor cat. When a bunch of local boys drag him to their soccer practice, put him in goal and pelt him with balls, he believes that his worst fear has come true. However, he seems to be discovering a new talent at the same time. And perhaps he has misjudged. Being a light-skinned city boy thrust onto a reserve far from the city is not easy, but maybe Murphy has what it takes.
Sylvia Olsen has many sources of inspiration for her children's writing. Her mother and mother-in-law have more than two hundred grandchildren and great-grandchildren between them! Sylvia has lived in Tsartlip First Nation for almost thirty years. She works as a First Nations community development consultant. Sylvia is the author of three other novels for children and teens: No Time to Say Goodbye and The Girl With a Baby, both published by Sono Nis Press, and Catching Spring, her first book with Orca.