We're the Dream Team, Right? Page 3

  “You’re fine, Eve. I can take it,” Dad reassured her.

  “Have a sandwich,” I said, sliding the bread mountain Dad had made towards her.

  “And behave,” she chided herself, going for the cheese and pickle.

  “‘Behave’? Hey, Eve, chill. This isn’t school, you know,” Dad told her.

  “I know that! It’s way too posh here to be my school.”

  I winced. I wished she would stop going on about how “posh” we were. It’s not like she lived in a hovel.

  “Good. Glad that’s sorted. So how was the match?” Dad asked.

  I caught my breath. What did he have to ask that for?

  “It was OK until the snow ruined everything,” Eve moaned.

  “Have another cheese-and-pickle,” I said, chucking a sandwich on top of Eve’s plate. “Hey, do you want to help me revise after lunch?”

  She nodded, and I congratulated myself on my quick thinking. Revision! Of course! It wasn’t even an excuse. I really did need to revise. But my relief was short-lived.

  “I scored a hat-trick,” Eve told my dad.

  “Yeah? Nice one,” Dad replied. “How many’s that so far this season?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Already? Impressive.”

  “Gemma’s not far behind; she’s on thirteen.”

  I gawped at her. What part of “no football” didn’t she understand?

  “Thirteen?” Dad repeated.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He looked across at me, waiting for an explanation he had no chance of getting. “That’s amazing for a sub…” he said, a note of puzzlement creeping into his voice.

  I jumped up, hoping Eve would follow my lead – but I couldn’t catch her attention.

  “A sub? Gemma?” she said. “No way, dude! She’s our star player. Even the opposition coach asked if she was Marta in disguise today.”

  I swear the floor tiles cracked beneath my feet at that moment.

  “Marta? The Brazilian player?” Dad asked. Confusion had replaced puzzlement in his voice, and I was beginning to shake as if there was a real earthquake taking place in the kitchen.

  “Eve…” I said, but my voice was nothing more than a squeak and she didn’t hear. She just kept blathering on, making things worse and worse.

  “Marta. Yep, she’s that good,” Eve told him. “As you’d know if you came to watch her now and again instead of going fishing!”

  Oh no. “Eve…” invisible me pleaded again.

  “I mean, choosing fishing over watching the Coaches’ Player of the Season play football. What’s that about?”

  Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Unaware of what she’d started, Eve ran her finger around the pickle juice on the edge of her plate as she waited for an answer – but dad was lost for words. When she saw his dazed expression she glanced across at me and her hand flew to her mouth. “Ooops! I just talked about everything you told me not to, didn’t I? Sorry.”

  Sorry? It was way too late for sorry. The mousy voice scampered off into the distance and what came out next must have reverberated along the whole of Castle Heights. “Eve Akboh!” I screamed at her. “You are the biggest blabbermouth I’ve ever met and I hate you.”

  Bomb detonated, I turned and fled upstairs.

  7

  Normal people would have left me to stew after an outburst like that, but Eve doesn’t do normal. She followed me upstairs, didn’t even pretend to knock on my door but came straight in and plonked herself right down beside me on my bed. “Well, this isn’t awkward,” she said after a few moments of utter silence.

  I just glared at the zigzag patterns on my rug.

  “Shall I sing the Hurst’s kitchen jingle?” she asked.

  “No,” I grunted.

  There was another pause. “I knew I’d blow it,” Eve said and let out a deep, juddering sigh.

  I glanced sideways at her. She was staring ahead, her hands tucked under her armpits, her back rigid. “Look, Eve…” I began, trying to think of a way to explain why I’d reacted that way, but my head felt too spongy to muster anything. “Eve,” I said finally, “It’s not you; it’s me.” She didn’t seem to hear. She just continued staring at the snow falling outside my window. “Really,” I added.

  After a while she snapped to. “It’s OK. You don’t have to make excuses for me. It’s my own fault.”

  “It’s not…”

  “It is. I know you’re like a seriously private person and inviting me here was a big deal for you, but I got carried away. You asked me not to talk about football but I didn’t listen, did I?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.

  “It was just that your dad seemed OK with it. He mentioned it first…”

  “I know.”

  She shrugged. “But so what? I still shouldn’t have gone on about it. Pastor Kouamo is always telling me we’ve got one mouth and two ears for a reason. Now I know why.” She stood up. “I’d better leave you in peace.”

  I cleared my throat and stood up, too. “OK.”

  “Can I just ask you one thing first?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you really hate me? Because new research shows that hating people can seriously damage your health. Your teeth fall out and everything. I read it in the paper.”

  Despite her making light of it, I knew Eve wanted a serious answer to her question and I cringed with embarrassment. “Of course I don’t hate you. I’m so sorry for saying that. I like you loads. We’re the Dream Team, right?”

  “Cool,” she said, looking around as if trying to drink everything in for one last time. “Do you think Kriss would mind taking me home? I figure by the time we get across town my mum might be back. And even if she isn’t I’ve got my key.”

  A few minutes ago I’d have jumped at that suggestion, but now I just felt crummy. How could I let her go home to an empty house after how I’d behaved? I couldn’t let her leave like this, thinking she was at fault for something that had nothing to do with her. What sort of team-mate does that?

  A sensation I usually only had on the pitch gripped me; it was daring me, urging me on. I grabbed her hand. “I want to show you something.”

  “Is it another bathroom?”

  “No, it’s something else.”

  “Pity,” she said. “I’m pretty jazzed about your bathrooms.”

  8

  We returned downstairs, calling by the kitchen on the way. Dad looked up. “Everything OK?” he asked, worriedly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I thought I’d show Eve the den.”

  His eyes met mine and I gave him a watery smile. “Sure,” he said, a catch in his voice. “Go ahead.”

  “We’ll talk later?”

  “I’d like that.” He nodded.

  Eve, who didn’t have a clue just how momentous that exchange was, bent to give Caspar a pat.

  “Come on,” I said, leading her through the kitchen and down the stairs off the utility room.

  “Is this where you keep your millions?” she joked as she followed me down.

  “Indeed,” I replied, no longer hypersensitive about everything she said. “Mind the gold nuggets don’t fall on your head.”

  Of course there weren’t any gold nuggets, or gold anything, unless you counted the gilded trophies and shields in the display cabinet on the far wall, but Eve missed them and homed in on the retro jukebox fitted above the American-style soda bar in the other corner. “How funky is this!” she gushed, sliding along the red leatherette seat and gurning at her reflection in the chrome trim.

  “Not half as funky as these,” I said. From a cupboard above her I pulled down a small selection of scrapbooks and took a deep breath. “OK, Eve. You’re always going on about how much you love the sports pages of newspapers. Check these out.” I slid the top scrapbook towards her and opened a page at random. It showed a picture of two players rising for the ball. I tapped the black player. “Know who that is?”

  “No.”

  “That’s my d
ad,” I said.

  “No way!” She laughed. “No way.”

  “It is. I swear.”

  She pressed her nose up against the page until it was almost touching the clipping. “He looks so different.”

  “It’s the flat stomach. And the hair.”

  “You’re not kidding.” She peered more closely at the photo of Dad’s shorn, almost bald head connecting with the ball. Then she looked at me. Her eyes agog, she pointed to his shirt. “Gemma, that’s a West Ham shirt he’s wearing.”

  “I know. It was one of his clubs.”

  “He was that good?”

  “Yes. He could have played for England.”

  “Don’t lie!”

  “He could. He was selected but … but it didn’t work out.”

  “So he must have been really, really famous?”

  “Not really famous. Like Joe Cole or Carlos Tevez,” I said to prevent her getting too carried away. “But he was pretty well known. People stopped him in the street and wanted his autograph. Things like that.”

  “Wow! And did you have a mansion and fifteen Ferraris?”

  “No, but we were well off,” I admitted. “The house in London had a swimming pool. When we sold it we had enough to buy this house and to put money into Hurst’s Kitchens.”

  “A swimming pool? Dude! I wish I’d known you then. I love swimming.”

  “I was only little. I don’t remember it much, really.”

  “So how come you ended up in boring old Mowborough? The most exciting thing that ever happens here is that the traffic lights change!”

  “That’s exactly why we’re here,” I told her. “The more famous Dad got, the less of a private life we had. And after…” I had been going to say “after what happened” – but I stopped myself. There was only so much I was willing to reveal in one day. What I’d told her so far was more than anyone in Mowborough, apart from Amy, knew. “After a while,” I continued instead, “we got tired of the paparazzi following us everywhere. Jumping out of bushes and pushing microphones in our faces. I hated it. Lizzie was older and handled it better, but I became really clingy and timid. I would cry every time we had to go out of the house. Mum and Dad were really worried about me.”

  For the second time that day Eve clamped her hand over her mouth. “That’s why you hate having your photo taken!” she gasped.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Amy told me it was because you used to be a child model.”

  I laughed. “As if!”

  She shook her head. “This makes much more sense. It must have been scary.”

  Scary? Try terrifying, I thought. I cleared my throat. “So to cut a long story short, Dad packed the football in and we moved to Mowborough. Not just because of the traffic lights,” I said, trying to make Eve smile. “Mum’s from here and still had family in the town: my grandma and grandad Hurst. Grandad founded Hurst’s Kitchens and Mum built it up and took over when he retired.”

  Eve frowned. “So Hurst isn’t your dad’s name?”

  “No. It’s my mum’s last name. My dad’s is Merrin-Jones.” I opened a page in the second scrapbook at random and pointed to a caption beneath one of the team shots.

  “Oh yeah!” Eve paused. “So why aren’t you Gemma Merrin-Jones, then?”

  “My mum and dad aren’t married. They’re not into stuff like that.”

  Of all the things I’d told her so far, that seemed to surprise her the most. She managed a short “Oh.”

  “I’m so glad I have Mum’s name,” I said, more to myself than to Eve. “It’s made it easier to stay in the background.”

  “And if your dad stays home all day it makes it easier still.”

  “He does go out,” I said, not wanting her to think Dad was a prisoner. “It’s just my football I keep him away from, really.”

  “Because you’re worried that people will recognize him and it’ll all kick off again?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But I don’t get why he doesn’t know how skilled you are. Why haven’t you told him?”

  A lump came to my throat as I remembered the hurt expression on Dad’s face earlier. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I figured that if he thought I was useless he wouldn’t mind so much that I didn’t want him to come and watch. You know what football-mad dads are like. They get so serious about it. You just have to listen to Holly’s dad and Megan’s—”

  It didn’t sound nearly so convincing when I said it out loud and I expected her to pick me up on it, but instead she had a sad, faraway expression on her face, and I realized she was thinking of her dad. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

  Her face cleared immediately. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got two big brothers; that’s like a full dad.” She cocked her head to one side. “One more question, though, before I go and pinch all your body lotions. If football’s caused all these problems for you, why did you even start playing it?”

  I broke into a grin. “Now that is your fault.”

  “Mine?”

  “Uh-huh. You and your nagging.”

  “Nagging? Me? Never. Akbohs don’t nag.”

  “Not much they don’t. That time at after-school club when you went on about this girl called Megan and this girls’ team she was getting together and how it would be such fun if me and Amy came, too. In the end Amy said, ‘Let’s go or she’ll never shut up.’”

  Eve laughed. “But I was right, wasn’t I? It is fun?”

  I nodded. “It’s more than fun. It’s—”

  The tune of Jingle Bells cut me off before I could finish. “It’s from Mum,” Eve said and began to read out loud. “‘Home safe and sound, honeybunch’ – that’s me – ‘but car kaput. Can you ask Gemma’s parents to order you a taxi?’” Eve wiggled her eyebrows. “Gemma, honeybunch, could you ask your dad to order me a taxi?”

  Dad wouldn’t hear of it. “No way,” he said, unhooking his car keys. “Nothing’s going to get up and down Toff’s Hill in this weather apart from tanks like mine.”

  Eve beamed. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  The journey to Eve’s was so different from the one coming. Eve didn’t stop asking Dad questions about his career, or telling him about mine, all the way to her house. This time it was Dad who was the stunned one. I didn’t know which tore me up inside the most: the way his eyes kept darting towards mine for permission to reply every time Eve asked him a question about his career or the pride and astonishment in his voice when she told him about me. It made me realize for the first time how tangled up everything had become.

  After we’d dropped Eve off, I told Dad everything: about me, about the Parrs, about the best matches and the worst matches, about winning the Coaches’ Player of the Season. I was trembling when I got to that bit. I knew how much it would have meant to him and Mum to have been there with all the other parents. I remembered how I’d forced Amy to promise she wouldn’t tell them I’d won it. Now, sitting in the car with him, my fibs all seemed childish and pointless.

  The paparazzi had long since lost interest. Nobody had recognized my dad in Mowborough for years. It was time to move on.

  “Dad,” I said as we almost reached the summit of Toft’s Hill. He had stopped to give way to an oncoming car.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was wondering…” I hesitated. My throat felt prickly.

  “You were wondering?”

  “When we get home, will you go through the scrapbooks with me? Talk me through your days with West Ham and everything?”

  “I’d love to,” he said.

  “And would you … would you like to come and watch me play next week?”

  He stalled the car and had to yank the handbrake on to stop us rolling backwards. I took that as a yes.

  9

  The snow fell and fell all over the weekend and the following few days. Schools were closed and Toft’s Hill became a ski slope. Mum couldn’t get to work and Lizzie couldn’t get to college. I didn’t mind. It was fun being at home as a family fo
r once and it meant I could have a proper discussion with Mum and Dad about the Parrs.

  “Does this mean I don’t have to pretend your dad’s the world’s keenest angler any more?” Mum asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “In front of Eve, anyway.”

  She stroked my head. “I’m glad you told her. That’s a big step forward.”

  “I’m glad I told her, too.”

  Dad gave my Coaches’ Player of the Season award a final polish. “There,” he said. “You can put it on your windowsill instead of that stupid telescope.”

  “I can put it next to the stupid telescope,” I replied. I wasn’t ready to let go of my lookout post just yet.

  By Thursday the weather had eased. Temperatures rose, and while the fields and hills behind us remained wedding-cake white, the snow on roads and pavements had turned into that yucky sludge. Everything began moving again and we were told at school on Friday that the entrance exam would go ahead as planned.

  I woke up on Saturday morning feeling much calmer than I’d expected. I even managed two warm croissants with apricot jam for breakfast. Afterwards, while I was upstairs brushing my teeth, Lizzie pressed her lucky keyring into my hand. “Pongy got me through my exams; he’ll get you through yours,” she told me.

  I stared at the tiny koala bear in my palm and felt a little overwhelmed. For Lizzie to think my exam was as big as hers was mega. “Thanks, Lizzie,” I said, trying not to drip toothpaste foam on him. “He’s cute.”

  “Any time, sis,” she said, pulling on her thick winter jacket as she prepared to catch the bus into town. Mum and Dad were both coming with me to St Agatha’s, so she had to make her own way to Hurst’s. “Hang on to him as long as you like.”

  “Cheers,” I told her.

  Downstairs, Mum and Dad were both pacing.

  “All set?” Mum asked.

  “All set,” I said.

  They didn’t talk a lot during the journey. I think they were more nervous than I was.

  “I wish I hadn’t given up smoking for New Year,” Mum muttered as we approached the grounds.