A short story

The smallest country in the world (and its national team.)

I wrote this for a McSweeney’s collection for young people, a few years ago. The collection has a very long title. Feel free to call it ‘Noisy Outlaws’. The story was inspired by the national football teams of San Marino and Gibraltar, whose players take to the field knowing that the most likely outcome is a heavy defeat. Champina, the fictional country in which this story is set, is smaller than either of them. If your household contains a young sports fan, then maybe there is fun here for all the family. It was once broadcast on NPR, and apparently a few people phoned to ask where the country was. To clear up any doubt: it existed only in my head.

SMALL COUNTRY

I was six or seven when I found out how small our country was. I was the last one to know in my class. The teacher pinned a big map of Europe up on the wall, and showed us the countries around us – France, Switzerland, Italy. And I put my hand up and said, Where are we? Where’s Champina on the map? And everyone, even the teacher, laughed at me.

“You can’t see Champina on the map, Stefan,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re too small.”

“But we must be there somewhere.”

“Of course we are. But you can’t see us,” the teacher said.

“How can you not see a whole country on a map?” I asked her.

I could feel my ears getting red. The other kids knew something I didn’t, I could tell.

“Do you know why we’re called Champina?” the teacher asked me.

I shrugged. “No. I thought it was because we were champions of something.”

All the other kids laughed again.

“And what would we be champions of?” said the teacher. “No. ‘Champ’ is French for field. We’re called Champina because our whole country is no bigger than a field. Champina used to be a field, until we built the village on it.”