Has Anyone Seen Our Striker? Read online

  “I hope so,” I said. My legs were shaking. I needed her near by or the tent pegs would be back, I just knew it.

  After a guy from the district league welcomed us all, we had team photos taken. It wasn’t until we headed back to our pitches I realized that Gemma wasn’t the only one who hadn’t appeared. Nor had the Belles.

  An official hurried over to Hannah. It turned out their minibus was stuck in traffic because a lorry had spilt timber over the carriageway. “Wooden you know it,” I said.

  Everyone groaned. “I’m nervous. It’s the best I can do!” I protested.

  Our opposition finally arrived at half past two, by which time all the other matches were well under way. Their coach, Layla Hodge, demanded at least another half an hour to prepare, but the official gave her ten minutes tops, so an argument broke out. While all that was going on, Lucy started yanking my arm. “How come she’s stripping off?” she wanted to know. There, bang in the middle of the Belles’ huge squad, was Bend it like Becky. She was shrugging out of her tracksuit top and brushing down her pristine white Belles shirt. “I thought she was with the centre of excellence?”

  “Looks like she came back.”

  “Unbelievable,” Lucy muttered. “Absolutely unbelievable.”

  19

  We were already tense, so when word spread that Bend it like Becky was playing, it really threw us. “Thank goodness I’m not on first,” Amy said. “She’s like a tank!”

  We started badly and were punished for it. Becky scored twice in the first five minutes and another player almost grabbed a third. Megan was fuming. “Mark up, then!” she shouted to Lucy and Holly.

  That was easier said than done. I don’t know how long Becky had stayed in the centre of excellence but it had honed her skills no end. She was so fast and so quick on the turn. She was hard, too, lunging in with fearsome sliding tackles to win the ball back if we dared hold possession for more than a minute.

  Her team-mates tried to follow her lead, especially the girl with the red fringe who had stopped Nika’s goal last time, but her tackles were much clumsier and more dangerous. The ref pulled her up about them several times – although he resisted JJ’s “advice” to send her off.

  “Fall back to support, Evo,” Hannah told me, making a sweeping motion with her hand.

  I did as I was asked. Hannah wanted us deep, so that the scoreline didn’t get worse. We began to block and were able to intercept their passes and move the ball about better, but with six of us in defence it meant we weren’t creating many opportunities to score. Then, right on half-time, the Belles got a third goal with a diving header Megan had no chance of saving.

  We couldn’t help feeling gloomy at half-time. Megan was raging about Bend it like Becky and demanding a full enquiry. Hannah and Katie just shrugged it off. “She was dropped from the centre of excellence. She’s eligible,” Hannah said.

  While they all argued I glanced across the field to give Mum and the bros a quick wave. My heart soared when I saw Kriss and Gemma were with them. I looked around for Amy, but she was walking towards the loos in the opposite direction. I flew across the pitch and grabbed Gemma’s arm. “Come and say hello to us.”

  “I don’t want to interfere…” Gemma began, pulling back.

  “You’re not interfering. This is your team. It’ll give them a boost seeing you.”

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  Her eyes filled with panic but I was panicking too. “Please, Gemma. For me. I play better when you’re close.”

  She relented then. “OK,” she said.

  Hannah was beginning her team talk but broke off as we approached. “Now, then, superstar,” she said.

  Gemma flinched. “I’ve only come to watch. Hope that’s OK?”

  “Course it is,” Hannah said as everyone tried to hide the disappointment in their faces. “The rest of you just go out there and enjoy yourselves. You are awesome and that’s all that matters. Right, then. Amy, you on for Eve, OK?”

  “If you insist,” Amy said and started stripping off.

  JJ’s head swivelled round but I stepped in before she had chance to say anything. Even if Amy was a girlie-girl who fainted at the sight of a free kick she was as much of a Parr as the rest of us and deserved the same respect. “Gimme some skin, girlfriend,” I said loudly, high-fiving her. “Now go kick some butt.”

  She grinned. “OK, I’ll go kick some butt.”

  No word of a lie, Amy scored soon after. I don’t know how. I think it was an accident as the ball rebounded off her shin. Gemma and I laughed so much as JJ just stood there, mouth open. She was the first one to congratulate her, though. “Nice one, mush,” she told her.

  We had a stupendous spell after that. Nika and JJ were outstanding and Becky and Red Fringe were getting frustrated. “Stay on ’em, then!” their coach demanded.

  They couldn’t, though. Nika and JJ were linking up so well. “JJ’s not retaliating at all against that girl’s tackles!” I pointed out.

  “That’s because I’ve told her I’ll thump her if she does.” Katie laughed.

  As if to reward her restraint, JJ scored with a beautiful volley from outside the box. Yes! You should have heard our spectators cheer. “How’d you like them apples?” JJ told Red Fringe as she walked back to the centre spot. Two–three. Game on!

  As the whistle blew, Gemma made a heartfelt sound – something between a sigh and a groan – and I knew she wanted to play. Really, really wanted to play; as much as me, as much as JJ, as much as Megan, but when I slid my arm through hers I could feel her shaking and I knew she wasn’t ready yet.

  “You’re being really brave,” I said quietly.

  “It helps having Dad here,” she admitted, glancing across at him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It must do.”

  Neither of us spoke for a while and then I was swapped in for Petra. “Stay up front this time,” Hannah told me. “Tell everyone to go for it.”

  “Yes, coach.”

  I gave Gemma a quick hug, high-fived Petra and took a deep breath. This was it. The last twenty minutes of football with the Parrs. I decided I wouldn’t spend it worrying or wishing things could be different. I’d just enjoy it. That was the plan anyway – until something awful happened.

  Nika had been running on to the ball when Red Fringe took her legs out from behind her. She flew in the air and smacked to the ground with such force everyone winced. The girl apologized and was given a talking to by the ref, but poor Nika was in tears as she limped off. My mum and Megan’s mum, being nurses, dashed over to attend to her.

  “It’s yours, Eve,” Hannah told me.

  This time I didn’t miss that penalty because when I looked around for my partner she was there. I took that ball and buried it. Three–three.

  Petra was called back on. Without Nika, though, we had lost some of our strength in the middle and Bend it like Becky was soon running the show again.

  Not long after my equalizer they had a corner. Becky took it and everyone in the crowded goalmouth rose. I was further back, so I saw exactly what happened next. The ball was coming fast at head height. Megan jumped up to punch it out but as she did she clashed with one of their forwards. The sound of cracking skulls reverberated around the ground and we all ran across to help them.

  The Belles player was crying and rubbing the back of her head. Megan was crouched, her bandana all skew-whiff, one hand on the ground to steady herself. Petra knelt beside her. “Megan, are you OK?”

  Megan nodded slightly but we could tell something was wrong. She was rigid.

  “Megan,” Petra said again, a catch in her voice.

  I bit my lip. Why wasn’t she responding?

  The referee was looking concerned. “Come on, pet. You’ll either have to get up or leave the pitch,” he coaxed.

  Megan turned her head slowly, as if every movement was a struggle. She glanced up at him through pain-shot eyes. “I aren’t leaving,” she said, despite the rest of us gasping in shock
. Her face was covered in blood: her nose was gushing bucketfuls of the stuff.

  The ref waved us all back so that Hannah and Katie could get to her. “Off you come. We can’t have you playing in this state. You know the rules,” the ref said.

  “Rules suck!” Megan declared as she unstrapped her gloves and handed them to Holly.

  Everyone in the crowd began clapping as Megan left the field, but we were shaken. Megan was our talisman, our general. What would we do without her? I could see that Petra was trembling. Next to her, JJ was kicking lumps out of the pitch and Holly looked nervous as she strode towards the goal. On top of all that we were a player short. Lucy clapped her hands together. “Come on, Parrs. It isn’t over yet.”

  “Exactly. I don’t hear no fat lady singing!” I joked, trying to sound upbeat. “We can do this!”

  “We can now,” Amy said. “Eve, look.” I turned and she nodded towards the touchline. It was like a scene from an action film. My mum was kneeling next to Nika, applying an ice pack to her ankle, Megan’s mum was trying to stem the flow of blood from her daughter’s nose and Gemma was pulling a Parrs shirt on. I rubbed my eyes, like they do in cartoons just to double check I wasn’t seeing things, but no, it was definitely happening. Gemma was getting ready to play.

  “Ready?” the ref asked as Hannah called for the swap to be made.

  “Ready?” Hannah asked Gemma.

  Gemma nodded. “I’m ready,” she said.

  You think I’m going to say that when Gemma came on something magical happened, aren’t you? You think I’m going to say that, with her back on the side, we played like we’d never played before? You think I’m going to say that Gemma was beyond brilliant and made Bend it like Becky look average? You think I’m going to say that Gemma scored the winner in the last minute and we all leapt on her and nearly squashed her flat and Amy and I cried our eyes out?

  Well, I’m sorry but that didn’t happen.

  It wasn’t the last minute, it was the last but one minute. Get your facts right, dude.

  Final Whistle

  There’s more! Despite Gemma’s show-stopping performance there was no time to celebrate. We had injuries to our people, people. Nika was fine — she had a bruised and swollen ankle but nothing too serious. Poor Megan’s nose, though, had a hairline fracture. “Stand back, stand back,” the nurse in A&E told us as we all crowded round to look. (And I mean all. Luckily, A&E was quiet and Mum knew the duty staff, so we were allowed in.)

  Megan, emerging from behind the treatment-room curtain, her nose swollen beneath two neat strips of dressing, beamed at us. “So who wants to polish it first?” she asked.

  The nurse frowned, thinking she meant her nose, but of course we all knew what she meant and you do, too. The Nettie Honeyball Cup, of course!

  Hannah handed it to her. Our brave captain lifted it above her head and we all cheered and started singing: “We’re on our way to Wembley dar-da-dar-da…” And do you want to know the best bit? Gemma was singing it louder than any of us.

  So that’s it. The end of season two and the end of the road for me as a Parr. We did look into Lucy’s idea of forming an Under 12s team but the rules change too much at that level. Under 12s play eleven-a-side on a full-sized pitch with offside and all that. Some of us could have coped with that but not all, so we decided not to try. It’s not the end of the story, though. No way, dude.

  There’s still plenty going on.

  There’s the presentation evening for a start. You’d have to be crazy to miss Amy telling you about that next. Then you need to find out about Megan’s plans for the Parrs’ new season and what happened to me, Lucy, Gemma, Nika, Amy and Holly.

  By the way, you know that saying “every picture tells a story”? Well, I figured that every fixture tells a story, too, so instead of chucking my fixture list in the bin after the final I smoothed it out and slid it into my achievements box. It reminds me that no matter how gloomy things seem at the time there’s always a light at the end of the players’ tunnel! To quote Mr Glasshouse: “Am I right or am I right?”

  Your friend, always,

  Eve xxx

  Helena Pielichaty (pronounced Pierre-li-hatty) has written numerous books for children, including Simone’s Letters, which was nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and the popular After School Club series. A long-standing Huddersfield Town supporter, there are few who could write with as much enthusiasm about girls’ football. A local girls’ under 11s team helps with the inspiration and tactical know-how, but Helena has been an avid fan of women’s football for many years. It clearly runs in the family: her aunt was in a women’s team in the 1950s and her daughter has been playing since she was ten (she is now twenty-six!). Helena lives in Nottinghamshire with her husband and has two grown-up children.

  The Girls FC series

  Do Goalkeepers Wear Tiaras?

  Can Ponies Take Penalties?

  Are All Brothers Foul?

  Is An Own Goal Bad?

  Who Ate All The Pies?

  What’s Ukrainian For Football?

  So What If I Hog the Ball?

  Can’t I Just Kick It?

  We’re the Dream Team, Right?

  Has Anyone Seen Our Striker?

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  First published 2011 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2011 Helena Pielichaty

  Cover illustration © 2011 Sonia Leong

  The right of Helena Pielichaty to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-5019-7 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk