So What If I Hog the Ball? Page 2

  I headed round to the smaller pitch behind the clubhouse. This pitch, where we trained, wasn’t in as good nick as the main one, but I liked it better because the high hedges on two sides secluded it from the council estate behind, making it private and peaceful.

  I began to jog round it. The breeze against my face, and the way my chest filled with energy when I ran, made me feel light and free and giddy. I broke into a sprint, my legs pounding along the side of the field, my arms brushing the hedge as if they were high-fiving every leaf.

  After that I practised ball control with the tennis ball. I always carried one with me – ever since Megan lent me her book on Michael Owen, and in it he said to practise with a tennis ball because after that a real ball seems easy. And you know what? The bloke was right. Know what else? Pelé used a grapefruit. Weird or what?

  Football, football, football. Love it, love it, love it.

  While I practised I listened out for cars arriving, and as soon as I heard the first one I belted towards the car park, guessing it would be Hannah and Katie. They chuckled when they saw me. “Here she is. Miss Keen!”

  “Our early girly!” Katie teased.

  “Shurrup,” I said, automatically following them to the storage shed, where I helped to haul out all the equipment.

  “What’s new, then?” Hannah asked, passing me a stack of cones.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Good. That’s the way we like it, eh?”

  “Yup.”

  Soon everyone else began to arrive. We’d already had a few practices during August, but this was the first one that everybody would – or should – turn up to now the summer holidays were over. Megan and Petra bowled up first, followed by the rest of the squad, all talking nineteen to the dozen. I just let it go over my head. I’m not that interested in small talk. It’s a waste of time when we could be playing football.

  “Calling JJ! Come in, please!”

  I blinked as Megan waved a hand in my face. “What?” I asked.

  “Dur! We’re comparing new teachers. Five words to sum yours up.”

  Mr Upton flashed into my head. “Aussie, beard, never wears socks,” I said.

  “What’s he called?” Tabinda asked.

  “Mrs O’Shea,” I replied, giving the name of the teacher I would have had if I’d still been at King John’s, and leaving Tabinda with a puzzled look on her face. Well, there’s no point advertising the fact I go to a pupil referral unit, is there? None of this lot would understand.

  “Gather round, troops. Loads to get through,” Hannah called out.

  As everyone formed a rough circle, Daisy and Dylan started doing impressions of aeroplanes. Trust them to muck about from the start. I saw Holly nudge Dylan to pack it in. Dylan looked up at her and nodded, then nudged Daisy. Their arms dropped obediently. Nice one, Holly. It was then that I noticed how much taller she was. She dwarfed the twins. Dwarfed Amy Minter next to her – and they’d been the same height before the summer. Holly was taller and … I frowned … thinner. Where had all her chubby bits gone? That was no good. How was she going to shore up the defence without some bulk about her?

  I turned to find Minter gawping. I gawped right back. She hadn’t changed. She still thought she was Hannah Montana, with her just-so shiny hair and mouth caked in lip-gloss. Yuk. I almost wished our Billy was there to see her; he’d know we weren’t all laddie-lasses then.

  Next to Minter was Nika, babbling away with Lucy, Eve and Gemma. I automatically glanced down to see if she was wearing the boots I’d given her during the summer tournament at Sherburn Sands. She was, and I felt chuffed. Brendan had nicked them for me ages ago, but they were miles too big so I’d swapped them with Nika’s. Hers were well tatty, but they fitted a treat and that was all I cared about.

  After that I turned my attention where it belonged – on Hannah. Best coach in the world. Fact.

  “Nice to see you all again.” She beamed at us. “Are you all set for the new season?”

  “Yay!” everyone cheered.

  “Excellent! New season, new start and, all being well, new away strip. Isn’t that right, Tabs?”

  Tabinda, whose dad sponsored the team, bent to flick something off her knee. “Uh-huh. It should be here on Saturday.”

  “Cool. So everyone make sure you get to Gorby Road in plenty of time to try sizes out, especially as half of you have shot up so much. What’ve you been doing, Wonder? Standing in fertilizer for six weeks?”

  Holly flushed. “No,” she said.

  Another coach might have carried on teasing. Gary Browne, who trains the boys’ Under 10s team, for one. I watch them sometimes to check out their drills and I’ve heard him; he’s vicious. Not Hannah, though. She’d already moved on and begun swivelling her hips from side to side in preparation for the warm-up. “I hope you’re all fit, because we’re going to up the ante over the next few weeks. Reinforce everything we did last season, but introduce new skills too…”

  Katie (runner-up best coach – fact) took over the spiel. “We want you to start thinking for yourselves more. To develop your own instincts, not just for the ball but also for each other. Football’s a team game. There are seven of you on the pitch at a time – seven parts of a whole.”

  “Like days of the week?” Petra asked.

  “Something like that.” Katie smiled. “The other thing is we feel it’s important that none of you gets too entrenched in one position, so we’re going to mix it up a bit, especially in midfield.”

  I frowned. Mix? What was this sudden fascination everyone had with mixing? First Mrs Kelly, now Katie. One mention of targets and I was walking out.

  I wasn’t the only one who took offence. “Mix it up? Oh! Even us?” Daisy asked. “Please don’t mix it up or we’ll be really mixed up and highly muddled again.”

  “We like the wing game,” Dylan added, looking flustered. “It makes us skippy.”

  “Maybe not you two, then, but everybody else,” Hannah said. “So, are we ready, girls?”

  “We’re ready!”

  “Excellent. Spread out…”

  And then we began. Warm-ups followed by drills in small groups. Things like quick passing and short passing. Dodging with the ball. Running and changing direction. All good stuff.

  We finished off with a six-a-side match, and I hit the side netting once and shot wide twice.

  “You could have crossed it!” Eve called out to me a couple of times.

  “I will next time,” I called back.

  Our team won five–three. My legs ached like mad by the end, but I didn’t care. I’d enjoyed every second, even though it had gone faster than a blink of an eye.

  “Not bad, not bad,” Hannah told us. “Your fitness levels aren’t too dreadful. You should just about survive on Saturday without collapsing. Right, let’s warm down…”

  My heart sank. I always hated warming down. It meant the session was over and I had to go home again.

  5

  You don’t want to know about the rest of my week. It was just the same old stuff – got up, went to prison, came home, ate, kipped. I won’t pretend I did what Mrs Kelly asked and mixed more, but I did stay out of trouble. At King John’s I’d have been given a gold medal for that.

  Back home, Billy kept out of my face and I kept out of his, though there was a massive fight between him and Brendan on Thursday night – but I was upstairs watching Total Wipeout, so I don’t know what it was about.

  And that was it, more or less, unless you’re desperate for information about what meals I had and how many times I wiped my nose – in which case, get a life. So I’m going to cut to Saturday, the important part. Hixton Lees v. the Parrs. 10.30 kick-off. Wicked.

  Just so you know, I always get a lift in Hannah’s car to away matches – we don’t have a car. (There’s no point since dad lost his licence.) I was so hyper when Hannah picked me up; I couldn’t sit still for one second. “So, what do you reckon? Us to win?” I asked, leaning forward and resting my arms on
the back of Katie’s headrest.

  “Who knows?” Katie replied, slotting in a CD. A screechy woman’s voice belted out, with Hannah and Katie making it ten times worse by joining in. What a racket!

  “We’ve got to win. That fluky fourth goal they got last time should never have been allowed,” I told them. “That number 21…”

  Katie twisted round and tapped my elbow. “Forget past grudges, JJ. Fresh season, fresh start. Just focus on what we said at training, about playing as a team.”

  “Yes, boss,” I said, leaning back and letting them get on with their head-banging.

  Football, football, football. Love it, love it, love it.

  Hixton Lees’s ground is similar to Lornton’s in that it’s smack in the middle of a village. Hannah and Katie wandered over to talk to their oppos, and I went to find the changing rooms. I was surprised to see Tabinda’s dad standing by the door, a massive smirk on his face. For a second I wondered why – then remembered the away kit.

  “Ah! Jenny-Jane! Just the person I wanted to see,” he said.

  “Me?”

  “You indeed. Don’t tell her I’ve told you this, but Binda’s been a little worried about what you’ll think of the new strip.”

  “Worried? Why?” I asked.

  “My point exactly! I’ve reassured her that you and the others’ll be as delighted with it as I am! In you go! Let me know what you think. When you’ve got changed I’d love a shot of you and Binda together, if you don’t mind. For the website.” He pulled a digital camera from his pocket and began pressing buttons.

  “You want Minter for photos,” I told him. “She’s the poser.”

  I pushed open the door to find Tabinda sitting on the bench. She was leaning forward and fastening her boots. “Oh,” she said, looking alarmed when she saw it was me. “Hi, JJ.” She stood up. “W-what do you think?” She held her arms out from her sides.

  I didn’t reply. I wasn’t ignoring her, I just couldn’t speak. My voice box had been karate-chopped at the sight of the new pink away shirt. That’s what I said. Pink. Pathetic pink with “Sweet Peas Garden Centre” written in huge black letters across the front. The socks were pink too. The shorts were black, but as far as I was concerned that was too little, too late. The damage was done. No wonder Tabinda had been worried. I’d have been a quivering wreck.

  She tugged nervously at her socks. “I know w-what you’re thinking,” she stuttered. “I tried to persuade Dad to go for purple or something, but he wouldn’t listen. This is the nearest shade he could get to ‘Gwendoline’, his favourite sweet pea.”

  I heard the door open behind me, and Hannah went, “Ah!” and Katie went, “Tabs! You look ace!”

  But Tabinda was still waiting for me to respond. “Dad says to tell anyone who’s not happy that an Italian team called Palermo play in pink and so do loads of other teams – men’s and women’s.” When I still didn’t say anything she looked pleadingly across at Hannah and Katie.

  “Don’t apologize, Tabs,” Katie said, striding across to the bench and picking up one of the cellophane packets dotted around the benches. “I think it’s lush.”

  “As I told your dad, there’s no danger of your getting lost in the fog in this!” Hannah added.

  I was so shocked that they already knew about this disaster that I found my voice again. “You can’t be serious!” I gasped. “You are going to make him take them back, aren’t you?”

  Hannah looked at me as if I’d said something outrageous. “Of course we’re not asking Mr Shah to take them back. They’re just the job. No one else in the league plays in this colour.”

  “Course they don’t! It’s football, not sissy cheerleading!”

  “Don’t be like that, JJ, please,” Katie told me.

  Like what? Like anyone in their right mind? “Well, I’m not wearing it. I’d rather die first,” I said and slumped down in the far corner, waiting for everyone else to arrive.

  Like at practice, they all seemed to turn up at once. From my corner, I watched eagerly for reactions, especially Megan’s. Megan was the captain. She had clout. She’d put an end to this. First, her jaw dropped, like I knew it would. Then she grabbed Petra’s shoulder, as if to stop herself from fainting. Even better. “Pink? Say it ain’t so, Tabby, say it ain’t so!” she wailed.

  Tabinda hastily went through her Gwendoline-Palermo twaddle again. To my amazement Megan let go of Petra, nodded and said calmly, “Oh, OK. Fair enough.” Fair enough? FAIR ENOUGH? She couldn’t be serious! Not Megan – she hated girly stuff as much as I did.

  Lucy, Eve and Gemma weren’t so impressed either, judging from their expressions, but they did the same as Megan; just shrugged and got changed. Course Minter nearly wet herself with joy.

  “It’s soooooo dreamy! I adore it!” she squealed.

  “Me too,” Holly gushed. I was really beginning to worry about her.

  “Come on, JJ. Time to get ready,” Hannah told me when she noticed I was the only one still in my tracksuit.

  “I’m not wearing that. I’ll just wear my normal strip,” I said as calmly as I could.

  Hannah shook her head. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I said so.”

  I glanced round. Everyone was staring. Waiting. Tabinda had her hands over her face as if she couldn’t bear it.

  “Come on, JJ. It’s not the colour that counts – it’s what it stands for, right? Us. The Parrs. It’s no big deal,” Megan said.

  “Says who?” I asked, still miffed at how she’d given in so easily. Then I saw why. It was all right for her. She was the goalie. She got to wear yellow. How appropriate.

  There was a silence in the changing room; it had built and built without me realizing. You could have heard a pin drop, but I didn’t care. I would not play in pink. Like I said, I’d rather die first.

  Hannah began ushering everybody towards the door, glancing briefly at me over her shoulder. “JJ, if you don’t get changed you’re on the bench – either that one you’ve glued yourself to, or the one outside. Up to you.”

  I didn’t move a muscle.

  “Oh, here we go again,” I overheard Eve say to Gemma as she lined up.

  I ignored her and focused on Hannah, hoping she’d smile and say, “Oh, come on, then, I’ll let you off this time,” but she didn’t say anything else, just turned and nodded to Daisy, who was nearest the door. “Let’s have you all out on the field now, girls,” she said.

  And they all trooped out, leaving me to it.

  We won four–one. Apparently. I don’t know who scored. It’s hard to see play when you’re three hundred metres away and there’s a brick wall with a muddy window in front of you. I didn’t feel like joining in the conversation on the journey back, either. There was what you might call a bit of an atmosphere. Hannah tried at first. Asked me if I’d “come round yet” like I’d been in a coma or something.

  Katie was a bit more understanding, saying she knew how I felt. “I’ve never been a girly-girl, either, but at the end of the day it is just a colour…”

  That was where she was wrong. Pink wasn’t just a colour. Not to me, at any rate. It was much more than that. The trouble was I didn’t know why it was much more than that. So I just sat there, confused and fuming at the same time.

  When they dropped me back at the house, I said thank you very much for the lift and got out of the car, without waving or standing there for ages wishing I could live with one or other of them like I usually did.

  I couldn’t even make myself look out of my bedroom window when I got in. I kept the curtains shut and sulked right through to Monday.

  6

  Monday was never going to turn out well, so when Mrs Law dumped a box full of beige-coloured solid shapes on my table and Ronnie the scab-picker with it, I knew it would end in trouble.

  “What I’d like you two to do is to identify as many of these shapes as possible. If you get more than six, you’ll win an award,” Mrs Law trilled.


  “What award?” Ronnie asked instantly.

  “Ooh. Let’s see. How about five points towards a McDonald’s voucher each?”

  Big wow, I thought, but Ronnie wriggled in his seat. I got the impression he was up for it. Let’s face it, a Big Mac had to be better than what he’d been snacking on so far.

  He glanced sideways at me. “You going to write ’em down, then?” he asked bluntly.

  “Nope,” I said. I wasn’t in a writing mood. I was in a foot-tapping mood. I do that when I’m unsettled. Tap my feet. Shuffle round. Get agitated. I ignored Ronnie and the box of shapes and thought back to what had happened on Saturday instead. Pink. Of all the colours…

  “Stop it,” Ronnie grumbled, picking up a cuboid, staring at it blankly for a second, then putting it back down again.

  “Stop what?”

  “With yer feet.’S annoying.”

  I kept tapping. Four–one. Four–one. So Megan hadn’t kept a clean sheet, then. I bet that number 21 scored for Hixton. Bet you anything. She wouldn’t have scored if I’d been playing. No chance. I’d have marked her closer than Blu-Tack on a poster, I would. My feet tapped harder and harder as I became more and more frustrated. Why did Gwendoline have to be your favourite sweet pea, Mr Shah? I’d checked them out on my computer and there were loads of other varieties he could have gone for that weren’t pink. Windsor, for instance. Windsor was a decent claret colour, like Burnley played in, or West Ham.

  It was ages before I became aware of a sort of “grrr” ing near me, like the sound a dog makes when it sees the postie coming down the path. The “grrr” ing was coming from Ronnie. “Pack it in, ugly. Or else,” he said through clenched teeth when I scowled at him.

  It wasn’t the “ugly” that got me. I am ugly. So what? It was the “or else”. Our Billy says “or else”, and it’s like being told you’re going to get a smack but not knowing when. I hate that. I’d rather have the smack right then and get it over with.