PARADE OF CHAMPIONS
Shellie Zacharia

Behold, behold, coming across the front lawn, the Parade of Champions, whistles please, kazoos and trumpets and triangles ting-tinging, gather ye confetti while ye may, toss, laugh, toss, here they come, giggle and circumstance and clap, clap, louder everyone, louder, it is them, in all their splendor, the Louis Sisters, Street Tennis Champions of America. See the one, the one with a colander on her head, carrying her racket like a guitar, that’s the older sister, she’s eight, and the other one, the one with a catcher’s mask atop her head, wearing sunglasses and carrying her tennis racket upright like a torch, she’s seven, and she’s the one humming, she hums so her lips tingle, her throat tickles, she hums a song she’s learned in school, “Oklahoma!”, since her music teacher likes show tunes, and the song has nothing to do with the Parade of Champions, but she likes it, waving wheat, smelling sweet. The older sister air-guitars with her racket, and her song, which she sings in her head, is a song she really doesn’t know, it is an amalgam of sound, it is loud and similar to the music she hears coming from the next-door neighbor boy’s bedroom window. The two sisters spy on him sometimes, they peer in his window and watch the boy on his computer, the boy on the phone, the boy lifting weights, the boy kissing his girlfriend, his hand on her breast, he cups it like it is too much for him and surely she will break if he lets go, and today, at the Parade of Champions, hoorah, hoorah, the older sister sings one of his songs because maybe she has a crush on him, even though he’s older by years and years, and the two sisters march across the lawn, back and forth, back and forth, getting ready to play the final match in their ten-game tournament, which started last Sunday when they found two tennis rackets in the hallway closet, along with an old Ouija board and a ripped-up, vinyl Twister mat, and suddenly it becomes their sport, street tennis with costuming, black cowboy hat, gauzy scarf, red cape, mismatched socks, and today, for the championship, a colander, a catcher’s mask, and names, names created just for today, names created over breakfast, the power breakfast of champions, slices of salami and cinnamon rolls, chocolate milk, energizing, the sisters agree, and then they announce their names: Queen You Can’t See My Serve It’s So Fast is the younger sister, she picks her name first and then the older sister, not to be outdone, announces she will be Supersonic Speedster of Mythic Proportions, the Mythic Proportions part being an addendum, something she hears her teacher say all the time, so that when it is time for her to proclaim her championship name, she says, “And I am Supersonic Speedster,” and she sees her sister roll her eyes, and she pauses, adds, “Of Mythic Proportions” and her sister’s eyes stop rolling. And then after breakfast, after their grand namings, they put on their game-day costumes and the two head out the door to the lawn where they parade, they high-step, waving at the crowd, and then they stand, rackets by their sides, they hear the hoots and claps, they hear “Go Queen! Go Queen!” and “Win this one, Supersonic!” and the two girls smile, they shake hands, and what they don’t know is that the neighbor boy is at his window watching, and he is smiling, remembering when he and his brother used to play Greatest Catches in the Universe, and his girlfriend, who is standing next to him, is smiling, because she’s remembering Fabulous Circus, the girlfriend and her two best friends doing somersaults and handstands, throwing tasseled batons high in the air and spinning, spinning and stopping just in time to catch the falling batons, and she too can hear the wild cheering, the applause, it goes on and on until the Louis Sisters step onto the street court, and then all is silly quiet so the game may begin.