The Trophy Trap

by Emma Laybourn

  Chapter Five

  Friday morning came. Abby dressed carefully for her big day in assembly. She even put on matching socks.

  She knew that Liam had been into her room since she replaced the trophy. She had taped a hair across the bottom of the doorway every time she went out. And twice it had been broken.

  But that was all right. Both trophies were still where they should be: she could feel them, one in the box and one in the carrier bag. Liam hadn’t guessed a thing.

  Now she emptied her rucksack onto the plastered carpet in a shower of pencil tins and reading books. Flinging open the wardrobe door, she pulled out the trophy with a sigh of satisfaction.

  She unpeeled one carrier bag. She put her hands into the second bag to lift out the trophy...

  ...and shrieked. Not just like a steam train; but like a steam train that is heading at a hundred miles an hour, with no brakes, towards a tunnel that has been bricked up.

  Abby leapt backwards, frantically shaking her hands. She couldn’t stop screaming.

  Mum shot into the room.

  “What is it? What have you done this time?”

  Abby could not speak. Shuddering, she flapped her hands at the carrier bag.

  Mum peered inside. “Oh, good heavens,” she said. “Are you trying to breed worms now? You’ve a good crop of them there, I must say.”

  Then her voice changed. “Abby – this is the trophy! You filled the trophy full of compost!”

  “No,” said Abby; or rather, she tried to say it, but her voice would not come out. Abby never cried. She didn’t like crying; it made her feel so helpless that it was as bad as being sick. So she did not cry. But the effort of not crying meant she could not speak.

  Instead she kept shaking her hands, trying to get rid of the terrible feeling of wet, worm-wriggling, slug-infested compost that she had thrust her fingers deep into. There were still a few startled wood-lice clinging to her sleeves.

  Liam put his head around the door. “Everything all right?” he asked innocently.

  “No, it is not,” sighed Mum. “I’m sorry, Liam, but Abby has taken your trophy and filled it with compost.”

  She looked at Liam. Then, her eyes narrowing, she studied Abby. “At least, I assume she has. Abby, how did this trophy get into your wardrobe?”

  Abby just looked back at her, still speechless.

  “I see,” said Mum. “So it was you. Liam, would you mind? I’m going to be late for work.” She handed him the trophy.

  “I’ll clean it out,” said Liam. Even in her state of shock, Abby thought he looked strangely flat for somebody who had just won.

  Because he had won. There was no doubt about that.

  She had to walk to school empty-handed. And she had to sit through prize assembly with her head held high, trying to ignore Maya’s frequent looks and sniggers.

  “When are you going up to get your trophy, Abby? Are you next? Is it now?”

  Eventually Abby was reduced to kicking her to shut her up. And that meant she got a reprimand from Miss Hill, in front of the whole school, instead of a gleaming, silver trophy with her name on it. Abby wished she could scrunch up the day like a spoilt page in a project book, and throw it in the bin.

  By the time she got home she had formed many possible plans for revenge. None of them seemed terrible enough for what Liam had done to her.

  When she walked in, the trophy was on the mantelpiece in the living-room. The sight of it made her feel sick.

  “You’ll have it next week,” said Liam.

  “Next week is too late,” announced Abby in a voice of doom.

  “You can have it tomorrow,” said Liam. “Once I’ve taken it to football.”

  “Football? What for?”

  “I said I’d show it to the team before the match.”

  “Do what you like with it,” said Abby. “Paint it green and stick it on your head. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You can have it tomorrow after football. That’s a whole day early. I promise.”

  But it was too late to promise anything, thought Abby. Too late for him to try being nice.

  That wasn’t to say she wouldn’t take him up on it. And once she’d got that trophy off him, he wouldn’t get it back. Maybe she’d go along and grab it before he even played his stupid football match... Selfish two-left-footed drongo muppet.

  She had an idea.

  It seemed like such a brilliant idea that she turned it over and over in her head, looking for flaws. There were plenty. But they didn’t matter. She couldn’t waste such a beautiful, immaculate revenge.

  While Liam was raiding the biscuit tin downstairs, she crawled into his room to look for the old football boots under his bed. They were still there, complete with the dusty label: WERE YOU LOOKING FOR THESE?

  “Yes,” said Abby, “thank you.” She crawled out again with two left boots. The commando crawl was not really necessary, but it made her feel like she was on a military campaign.

  She decided she had better not use her bedroom this time. Mum had had words about the carpet. Apparently a chisel would not do the trick. So she took everything down to the garage and unloaded it onto the ping-pong table.

  This time she was careful. Cracked or not, she didn’t want her table ruined. So she found a piece of plastic sheet to spread on it while she stirred the plaster of Paris in the large, already heavily-plastered mixing bowl. When the mixture was suitably squidgy, she poured it into the football boots.

  She squeezed in as much as she could. The plaster oozed through the lace-holes and erupted somewhat disgustingly from under the tongue. She put the boots down on the floor to set while she practised her backspin and her topspin. It was getting there.

  When they were dry, she planned to sneak the boots into the boot bag in the corner of the kitchen. Liam would never check them. He never cleaned his boots. They just went to and from the football field getting more and more caked in mud until he finally grew out of them. Which was quite quickly, these days.

  There was just one problem, she thought, as she spun ball after ball. The boots were now much heavier than before.

  But she had thought of a way round that as well.

  “I am ingenious!” sang Abby. “I am the ingenious one and only ping-pong champion! I’ve made you a trophy trap that you’ll never forget. You’ve got it coming, buster!”

  Her backspin was perfect. She started to lob. Dunk dunk dunk, went the balls against the roof, followed by a trail of little dunks as they bounced around the garage. She kept lobbing until the space was full of flying ping-pong balls like giant, friendly hail.

  To their gentle percussion, Abby began to sing John Brown’s Body at the top of her voice. It had a good, loud, stirring chorus for a ping-pong ding-dong sing-song.