We're the Dream Team, Right? Read online

  I really, really wish I could tell you that. Only I can’t. I can’t even tell you that the euphoria lasted for days because it didn’t – it didn’t even last until the end of the match. Why? Eve Akboh, that’s why.

  After our conversation, Hannah and I walked back to the touchline for the start of the second half. Hannah made some changes. “OK, girls, just keep doing what you’re doing. Let’s see … Minto, you look perished. Warm up. I’m putting you on for Gemma.”

  “Me?” Amy said, shivering. “I can’t. I’ve got terrible growing pains.” She doubled over and started groaning.

  Jenny-Jane spat an orange pip out of her mouth. “Forget her. She’s a waste of space. Leave Gemma on. She’s ripping ’em to shreds.”

  “Shut up, JJ! I am not a waste of space,” Amy told her.

  “Prove it,” JJ retorted.

  Hannah tutted. “OK, OK. I don’t want any domestics! JJ, you’re on for Gemma. Minto – get your growing pains under control. You’re on in ten.”

  “If you insist,” Amy replied and offered me a stick of gum.

  “No, thanks,” I said, “I want to go and talk to my dad.”

  “You’ll be lucky.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She nodded across to where before half-time, Dad had been standing alone. Now there was a small crowd of five or six teenage boys around him. I recognized two of them as Eve’s brothers, Claude and Samuel, but I didn’t know the others. Eve was there, too, talking away ten to the dozen.

  “Oh,” I said, feeling deflated. Alarm bells didn’t quite go off at that moment – Claude and Samuel did sometimes come to watch Eve play and occasionally some of their friends did too – but I’d so wanted to talk to Dad on his own.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Amy asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We strode arm in arm around the perimeter of the field. I told Amy what Hannah had said. “That’s cool, if that’s what you want,” she said. “Hey, if you get really good I could be your agent. I fancy myself as the next Karen Brady.”

  “You fancy yourself full stop,” I told her.

  “Oooh, cutting. I’m not so sure I’m liking this new sarcastic streak, girlfriend.”

  I started to giggle, but when we reached the huddle around my dad, I stopped, feeling self-conscious, especially as Eve looked so startled to see us.

  “Oh!” she said. “Are we on again?”

  “No, we’re resting,” I told her.

  “And I’m growing,” Amy added.

  Sam and Claude turned to me, but the other boys continued chatting away to Dad.

  “Hiya, Gem,” Samuel greeted me, a broad smile on his face. “I hear you’re on fire today.”

  “Hello,” I said, loosening myself from Amy as I tried to edge my way to Dad. The three other boys seemed reluctant to let me through, but Dad noticed and sidestepped around them.

  “OK, fellas,” he said. “It was nice meeting you. I’m just going to talk to my daughter for a minute, OK?”

  “Sure,” one of the boys replied. “We’ve got to head off anyway. It was cool meeting you, Kriss.”

  The others nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “Really cool.”

  “Wicked, man.”

  I relaxed a little. Good. They were going. But one of them, a tall boy with his hoodie pulled tight around his face, stayed put. “Yo, Kriss. Before we go, is it OK to have a photo of you?”

  I tensed and Dad automatically did too.

  “No way, Marlon,” I heard Eve say as she realized what was happening.

  Amy went further. “Don’t you dare!” she barked and made a grab for his camera.

  “Butt out!” Marlon told her, trying to push her away. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It is if you’ve been through what she’s been through, you meathead!” Amy yelled at him.

  But it was too late. The damage was done. Maybe if the flash hadn’t gone off, I wouldn’t have reacted so badly – but as soon as he pressed the button that was it. The light in my eyes, the scuffle all around me, the cries and the commotion were exactly, exactly like when I was four and being led out of that flat by the police and into the pack of photographers after the ransom had been paid.

  15

  Yes, that’s right. The ransom. That thing kidnappers ask for when they take someone against their will. They’re all the rage in the football world. Players’ families are easy targets, even ones like mine who weren’t in the superstar league.

  I was lucky. My kidnappers only held me for two days and they didn’t hurt me. They gave me sweets and toys to play with. They let me watch CBeebies because they knew it was my favourite. Funnily enough, that was how the police caught them afterwards. I hadn’t told them I liked CBeebies; I hadn’t told them anything. It was my nanny who’d given them that information when she’d helped set it up. My nanny. Isn’t that awful? So now you have it. The real reason I’m so weird about people knowing about my private life and why I couldn’t even fill in the player profile properly at the beginning of this story. The real reason my dad stays at home all day is so I know exactly where he is if I need him.

  “I knew telling Eve was a mistake,” Amy said the next day. She was pacing up and down my bedroom floor while I sat huddled on my bed. I was still in my pyjamas, even though it was late afternoon. “I knew she’d blab. As soon as I saw the gang go up to your dad at half-time, I thought, uh-oh, here we go…”

  I rubbed a hand across my stomach. It ached. I hadn’t eaten all day, but the thought of food made me feel sick. “It was the flash … if it hadn’t flashed I’d have coped better, but everything came back…”

  “Well, dur! It would for anyone who’d been kidnapped. It’s called trauma. Just wait until we see Akboh at after-school club on Monday. Just wait.”

  “No, Amy. Don’t say anything to her. Promise me.”

  “What?”

  “Seriously. It’ll only make things worse.”

  “So what are you going to do? Act like nothing happened?”

  “Me? I’m not going to do anything. I won’t be there.”

  Amy stopped pacing. “’Scuse me?”

  I slid down from my bed and strode across to my telescope. I peered through it for the twentieth time that day, turning it first in one direction, then in another. “I’m not going to after-school club any more. I’m not going to football, either.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because those boys will have told their mates. Their mates will tell their parents. Their parents will know someone in the press…” I blinked as my view of the electronic gates went black until I realized Amy had put her hand over the lens. “Don’t,” I told her.

  “Hey! I’m supposed to be the drama queen around here, not you, so stop it,” she said. “And no offence, but even the Mowborough Mercury isn’t going to turn up to cover a story about a girl who gets jumpy about having her photo taken.”

  I straightened up and returned to my bed. Mum, Dad and Lizzie had spent all day trying to convince me of the same thing. Dad had pleaded with me not to undo all the progress I’d made, but it was too late. I was back where I’d started, as jittery and clingy as ever. “Maybe you’re right,” I said to Amy. “But I’m still not going to after-school club and I’m not going to football.”

  “OK, I’ll let you drop after-school club but you can’t drop football. You love football. You’re brilliant at it. Even I know that.”

  “Don’t you see? That’s the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It means I get singled out. It means I get attention. ‘Merrin-Jones kidnap girl to play for England.’”

  “England? Get you!”

  “I’m just thinking ahead to what might happen. Newspapers love that kind of stuff. They’ll bring it up every time I’m interviewed and I just know I wouldn’t be able to hack it.” I frowned as something occurred to me for the first time. “Do you know what?”

  “What?”


  “Eve did me a favour. Telling her brothers about Dad gave me a peep into what I might have let myself in for if I’d joined a centre of excellence.” I shuddered, remembering what I’d agreed with Hannah.

  Amy opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind and shoved a letter under my nose instead.

  “What’s that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I couldn’t help grinning at that. “Fibber. It’s got the St Agatha’s crest on it.”

  “Has it? I never noticed.”

  “Not much.”

  “It came yesterday,” she admitted. “Mine, too.”

  I stared at the envelope. “I should wait for Mum and Dad.”

  “They kind of already know.”

  I glanced closer and realized that the flap was unstuck and slightly torn.

  “They didn’t want you even more upset – you know – in case…” Amy explained.

  “So I’ve passed?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And you did?”

  She lifted her chin in the air. “Of course. My funky new boots are being dispatched as we speak.”

  I set the letter to one side. There wasn’t much point opening it now. “Cool,” I said, remembering the wall around the school. “Really cool.”

  Final Whistle

  OK, I’m going to bow out here. Sorry. I know it’s an abrupt way to end, but I stopped going to football after the Greenbow match, so there’s not much more I can tell you about what happened after that. I did ask Megan if she wanted me to get Amy to fill in for me, so there wouldn’t be a gap in the Parrs’ history, but she said it was fine: Eve would do it. It was her turn next on the rota apparently; she’d just have to start a little earlier, that was all.

  Amy thought it was wrong for Eve to take over when she’d caused so many problems, but I don’t see it that way at all. I’m glad Eve is the one following on from me. It feels right, me passing to her just like I used to on the pitch. After all, we’re still the dream team, right? And I know Eve will make a brilliant job of it; she’s confident and comical at the same time. I wish I could be more like her. I’m more of a work in progress.

  Anyway, I’d better be off. I’ve promised Dad I’ll go with him when he takes the dogs out for a run. From the sounds of all the barking going on downstairs that means NOW!

  Wrap up warm,

  Gemma xx

  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?

  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 978-1-4063-5017-3 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk