Can't I Just Kick It? Read online

  For all my friends at Forest Fields Primary School, Nottingham, but especially to Amritha Kaur, Hadia Sajjal, Mahfuza Parvin, Mujgana Hussainy, Sangeeta Kaur and Ms Sarah Rennie.

  Many thanks also to Karmjeet Kaur, for her good advice.

  The Team

  Megan “Meggo” Fawcett GOAL

  Petra “Wardy” Ward DEFENCE

  Lucy “Goose” Skidmore DEFENCE

  Dylan “Dyl” or “Psycho 1” McNeil LEFT WING

  Holly “Hols” or “Wonder” Woolcock DEFENCE

  Veronika “Nika” Kozak MIDFIELD

  Jenny-Jane “JJ” or “Hoggy” Bayliss MIDFIELD

  Gemma “Hursty” or “Mod” Hurst MIDFIELD

  Eve “Akka” Akboh STRIKER

  Tabinda “Tabby” or “Tabs” Shah STRIKER/MIDFIELD

  Daisy “Dayz” or “Psycho 2” McNeil RIGHT WING

  Amy “Minto” or “Lil Posh” Minter VARIOUS

  Official name: Parrs Under 11s, also known as the Parsnips

  Ground: Lornton FC, Low Road, Lornton

  Capacity: 500

  Affiliated to: the Nettie Honeyball Women’s League junior division

  Sponsors: Sweet Peas Garden Centre, Mowborough

  Club colours: red and white; red shirts with white sleeves,

  white shorts, red socks with white trim

  Coach: Hannah Preston

  Assistant coach: Katie Regan

  Star Player

  Tabinda “Tabs” Shah

  Age: 9½

  Birthday: 7 May

  School: Mowborough Primary School

  Position in team: mainly midfield

  Likes: mendhi parties, hanging out with friends, school

  Dislikes: Dad doing stuff without

  telling me

  Supports: Liverpool

  Favourite player(s) on team: Megan and Petra

  Best football moment: when Megan got the team together

  Match preparation: I try to do breathing exercises and warm up properly

  Have you got a lucky mascot or a ritual you have to do before or after a match? Not really. I’m too busy trying not to be ill! I get quite nervous.

  What do you do in your spare time?

  I help Mum and Dad in the garden centre, watch TV or play on the Wii with my cousins.

  Favourite book(s): Chips, Beans and Limousines by Leila Rasheed

  Favourite band(s): JLS

  Favourite film(s): Up

  Favourite TV programme(s): Jinx

  Pre-match Interview

  Hello. My name is Tabinda Shah. I’m in Year Five and I play midfield for the Parrs U11s. My dad’s family are from Gujarat in India and my mum’s are from the Punjab in India, but I’m from Mowborough in England!

  I am going to write about the early part of the season. We’ve played four games and have somehow found ourselves at the top of the table, but as our coach, Hannah, keeps telling us, we mustn’t let it go to our heads. It’s funny she should say that, as you are about to find out…

  Anyway, here’s the table. Go Parrs!

  Your friend,

  Tabinda

  The Nettie Honeyball Women’s Football League junior division

  1

  It was a wet Saturday morning in late October and we had won a corner against Lutton Ash Angels, the dirtiest team in the league.

  “Tabs! Get in there to help,” Hannah shouted from the touchline.

  Reluctantly I left the safety of an empty midfield and jogged towards the goal area. My heart began thudding in my chest. I didn’t like it over there. It was too busy. Too cramped – even Megan had raced from her goal to lend support. The Lutton Ash defenders loomed above me like skyscrapers, blocking my view. I couldn’t see a thing, and it wasn’t until someone called out “Incoming!” that I even knew we had taken the corner.

  “Mine,” Shell, the Angel with the nasty hair-pulling habit, declared. I shrank back, hoping Gemma would do her usual wonderstuff and nod it in, but Megan turned to me, rain dripping down her face. “Jump for this one. It’s got your name on it,” she ordered.

  “OK,” I said, my voice coming out in a tiny squeak.

  As if by magic, the towering defence parted, and there was the ball, zooming like a rocket straight towards me. My skin prickled with sweat.

  “Jump!” Megan repeated. “Jump, or you are out of the team.”

  I’d already had several warnings about my bad attitude. Shocked, I screwed up my eyes, steeled myself and jumped. But nothing happened. Some invisible force was holding me down. I tried again, but exactly the same thing happened. I couldn’t move.

  Just then a familiar voice said, “Tabinda! For goodness sake!”

  I blinked. My reflection in the mirror blinked too as my daydream evaporated and Mum removed her hand from my shoulder. She wagged the hairbrush at me. “Don’t fidget. I haven’t finished getting all the lugs out yet.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She returned to the rhythmic brush strokes that had sent me into a stupor, but I kept my eyes wide open this time. It was bad enough that I’d be playing Lutton Ash for real in two hours; I didn’t need my worst fears to grip me now. What I needed was a distraction. Quick. “Is my hair as long as yours was when you were my age?” I asked.

  “Nope. I could sit on mine,” Mum said with an extra hard pull that made me yelp.

  “Ouch! Mum! Pull much harder and my eyes will shoot out.”

  “As if.”

  “I’m not even kidding. My eyes will shoot straight from my head into the wall, then bounce off and roll about on the floor like bloodstained marbles. They’ll roll and roll, getting grittier and grittier and dirtier and dirtier. Then when I put them back in, I’ll only be able to see crumbs and bits of hair. People will call me Yeti Eyes for the rest of my life.”

  Mum stopped brushing. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. I’m just rambling to take my mind off something.”

  “Let me guess. Bloodstained marbles. Yeti eyes. That something wouldn’t be the Halloween party, would it?” She reached over my head to the wicker basket on the windowsill and swapped the brush for the long-tailed metal comb. A second later her silver bracelets began clacking against each other as she started to carve – I mean, divide – my hair into three sections.

  “Not exactly,” I told her.

  She smiled, not believing me. “Remind me again how we got lumbered with hosting a Halloween party in the garden centre?”

  “It’s not a Halloween party. It’s a team-building exercise that happens to fall on Halloween,” I corrected.

  “Remind me again how come we got lumbered with hosting a team-building exercise that happens to fall on Halloween in the garden centre?” she repeated.

  “Because the function room at the club was already booked and Dad offered. And it’s not the whole garden centre, just the grotto.”

  “Hmm. The same grotto that’s due to be full of artificial Christmas trees any day. And did Dad offer to clear that grotto up afterwards?”

  “We’ll clear away,” I told her as she began the plaiting proper. “It’s part of the whole team-building thing. We dress up. We bring food. We have fun. We clear away afterwards.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “See what?” Dad asked, emerging from the kitchen and putting Mum’s coffee down on the windowsill.

  “We’re talking about next week,” I told him.

  “Can’t we just focus on this week first? Like hurrying up with the hair stuff.”

  Mum rounded on him. “Excuse me. For your information, the ‘hair stuff’, as you call it, is a vital part of the pre-match preparation. Isn’t that right, Tabinda?”

  Mum looked a
t me, waiting confirmation.

  “Absolutely,” I told her.

  “See.” She sniffed. “And even though she will end up looking as if she’s crawled through a hedge backwards by the time she gets home, I like to think I’ve made some small contribution to her footballing career.”

  Dad sipped his coffee. “Fine, fine. Whatever you say. Just hairy up,” he said, making me and Mum groan.

  2

  If Mum’s pre-match preparation was plaiting my hair, Dad’s was doing my head in. “So how many goals are you going to score today, Binda?” he asked, reversing down the long drive that separates our house from the garden centre. “Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “Seventeen? So likely!”

  “I’ll settle for two, then.”

  “I’ll settle for just surviving,” I mumbled as we joined the main road.

  Dad frowned. “There you go again. Being negative. I was exaggerating with sixteen, but two is not beyond you. Two is do-able.”

  I took a deep breath, hoping Dad wasn’t going to start putting pressure on me. I was anxious enough, and my stomach was already beginning to churn.

  “You know your problem on that team?” he asked.

  “No, Dad.” I sighed.

  “You are over keen to pass the ball.”

  “I kind of thought that was the idea.”

  “Yes, yes – but there are times when you look as if you can’t wait to get rid of it. You need to assert yourself more. Run with it. Dribble with it.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said, wrapping my arms round my tummy as we passed the sign for Lutton Ash. Only another three miles. Three short little miles and less than sixty tiny minutes to kick-off.

  “And when you are in the area, don’t automatically set it up for one of the others. Make your presence felt. Have a shot. If you miss, you miss…”

  Sweat prickled my forehead. “Yes, Dad.”

  “Relax more on the ball…”

  I stopped listening. I couldn’t take anything in any more. My stomach was really aching now. Unlike Megan, who’s famous for being tense on match days, my nerves don’t disappear once the whistle goes. My butterflies grow and grow during the match until they’re as huge as Queen Alexandra’s Birdwings, the largest species of butterfly on the planet. I get so bad that there are times when I think I’ll throw up on the pitch. In fact, I did throw up once – when we were playing Lutton Ash Angels, funnily enough.

  Do you want to know why I get so tense? It’s in case I have to do a header. Yep. A header. That daydream I had while Mum was brushing my hair wasn’t random. Being forced to head the ball really is my worst-case scenario.

  Don’t ask me why. I know they’re easy. I know they don’t hurt. I know they’re part of the game. It’s just that when I see the ball hurtling towards me at head height something snaps and I panic. I’d rather be chucked in a bath full of rats any day than do a header.

  I haven’t told anyone about it – especially not my dad. He’d be on the phone to Hannah like a shot, asking her to give me individual coaching as a “small favour”, or something as equally embarrassing. He thinks that because he sponsors the team he can ask for special treatment. He’s always doing it. I overhear him sometimes: “Oh, and, Hannah, before I hang up, I just wondered if you’d thought about playing Binda out wide on Saturday? I think that’s her natural position…” Or “Perhaps Binda could start the match tomorrow, rather than coming on later?” It makes me die.

  I’m sure Hannah thinks I’m a total spoilt brat. I know for a fact Jenny-Jane does. I hate it. I do not want to be singled out because my dad pays for stuff. I’d rather just hang out in the background, with my sad little secret, thank you very much.

  Besides, I’ve managed OK so far. If a high ball comes towards me in open play, I make sure I back-pedal so fast that it’s chest height by the time it reaches me. Or I pretend to go for it and accidentally-on-purpose kind of miss and let it sail over my head. There’s no reason why I can’t just carry on like that for a few more months – or years – is there? I do enjoy playing otherwise, and it’s not as if I’m useless. Hannah and Katie often shout “Good feet! Good feet, Tabs!” when I’ve got possession. Good feet. That’s what matters, isn’t it? The game is called football, after all.

  3

  Hannah was telling Jenny-Jane off when I joined them. “I don’t care what you think, JJ,” she was saying to her, “it looks silly.”

  Reluctantly Jenny-Jane pulled her black shorts lower so the waistband wasn’t under her armpits. “Stupid pink shirt,” she muttered.

  I pretended not to hear and darted quickly past. That stupid pink shirt was another reason I was trying to keep a low profile. Dad had chosen it. I’d told him that just because it was the colour of his favourite sweet pea didn’t mean it would be popular with everyone else. Had he listened to me? No. Had I been the one to get it in the neck at the start of the season from JJ and one or two others? Yes. Cheers, Dad. That helped me fit right in.

  “Morning, Tabs,” Katie said, making me jump.

  “Morning.”

  “All right?”

  Not really, I wanted to say. I feel lousy. I feel sick. I feel scared. “Yes, great thanks,” I said instead.

  To warm up, we all set off in a huddle across the wet and soggy grass. It was always miserable weather when we played this lot. It was like an omen or something.

  As everyone chatted, I tried to concentrate on gently breathing in and out to settle my nerves, but the conversation kept coming back to the Halloween party and therefore to me.

  “Is it OK to bring sausage rolls?” Lucy wanted to know.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Only Mum asked me to ask you. She thought it might be rude to bring them, with you not eating meat.”

  “We don’t eat much meat at home, but the party’s in the grotto, so it’s no problem. We serve ham paninis and things in the cafe.”

  “Cool.”

  Holly was next. “Will there be a sharp knife to cut cake?”

  “I can ask.”

  “Tracie and me are baking a Halloween cake we found in a magazine. It’s got this special gungy black icing that takes ages to mix, and dozens of sparklers.”

  “Sounds lush.”

  “Oh, by the way, we’ll need matches to light the sparklers.”

  “Matches. Right.”

  “How dark will it be?” Amy then asked.

  “What? The cake?”

  “No, the grotto. I need it to be uber dark for my costume to work.”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with Dad.”

  “OK. But remember, uber dark if you get a choice.”

  “Uber dark. Got it.” I nodded.

  “What are you coming as?” Nika wanted to know.

  “I could tell you” – Amy smiled, tapping the side of her nose – “but then I’d have to kill you. It is brilliant, though. Mum ordered it online from America.”

  “We’re coming as skelebones,” Daisy and Dylan chimed in from behind me. “Darwin’s spent hours cutting our ribs out.”

  Sausage rolls. Gungy icing. Rib-cutting. None of this was helping my stomach much.

  “The pitch will be heavy and slippery today,” Hannah told us after we’d been through our warm-up routine and drills. “So be careful. Amy and Hols, I’ll have you at the back for starters. Mark up well, but steer clear of any fifty-fifty tackles. I don’t want any injuries – especially as we’ve got the Grove Belles next week…”

  “And the Halloween party,” Dylan chipped in. “We’re coming as skelebones.”

  “And the Halloween party,” Hannah said with a roll of her eyes. “Nika, Gem and Tabs, I’ll have you three in the middle, with Eve up front. OK?”

  I was in the starting line-up. Dad would be really pleased. My stomach wasn’t so sure. Inside it, the Queen Alexandra butterflies – or Queenies, for short – were rehearsing for Strictly Come Dancing. They kept swapping from the jive to salsa and back again.

  “Play the ball f
orward as much as you can,” Hannah continued, looking at me, Nika and Gemma, “but don’t take any risks if they come at you. We don’t want any accidents.”

  “What if they foul us?” Amy asked.

  “Keep calm and carry on. Play to the whistle.”

  “But the referee’s that Shell’s dad!” Holly said.

  We all turned. Sure enough, the ref was giving his daughter a quick hug before marching across to the centre spot. He caught us staring at him and tapped his wrist as if to say, “Look sharp.”

  “Play to the whistle,” Hannah repeated.

  As we took up our positions, Megan’s mum yelled, “Come on, you Parsnips!” at the top of her voice. Then the skies really opened – before Shell’s dad had taken the whistle from his lips, the rain was bouncing off my hair and dripping down my nose. It was an omen. I could feel it in my skelebones.

  4

  Despite my bad feeling we were 5–0 up by half-time. Lutton Ash just couldn’t put two passes together and spent more time shouting at each other than playing football.

  During the break, the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds. I felt a little more cheerful as Hannah swapped us round. I was put on for Gemma in central midfield. Yikes! I was nowhere near as good as Gemma, but I suppose Hannah thought she could risk it with us being so far ahead. Dad – who always liked to eavesdrop on the half-time talk – leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Use it as an opportunity to show what you can do.”

  “Yes, Dad.” I sighed.

  Actually it was Shell who used it as an opportunity to show what she could do – like foul a lot. Within seconds, Daisy was sprawled out on the grass. Daisy being Daisy bounced straight back up again. The ref didn’t blow for a foul, of course, and Shell ploughed on.

  I ran back to defend, marking up a blonde-haired girl who kept shouting, “To me! To me!” Shell ignored her and hoofed the ball upfield to no one in particular, where it struck Holly on the arm. The whistle blew immediately. “Hand ball. Free kick,” Shell’s dad announced.