There she stood, in the middle of the pitch, with her arms dangling next to her and her eyes fixed on the horizon. She looked ecstatic, as if she were seeing something from another dimension.
“What a magnificent sunset!” she exclaimed after a while.
And the sky did in fact look gorgeous. Fred Ferocio, however, did not give a fig.
“I don’t know what planet you come from, but we are training in order to win a match that will take place next month. And if we continue like this, we will get thrashed by the other team. They have a real coach, one who shouts, who criticizes and who tells his players what to do and even what to eat.”
Fred was all het up. He paused for a second to regain his breath, and then he continued: “Do you know Reginald Robust makes his players drink a special drink twice a day? Someone told me about this. It contains yak milk, raw eggs, protein powder, vitamin granules and some sort of Chinese root.”
We were devastated. We had been having a good time, but we had forgotten about the important event ahead: the match against the school from Blueberry Bay! Fred might be cut out to take them on, but not me. Nor Billy, or Fiona, or…
“Yak milk? Hah! They can drink gorilla milk, for all I care. Nothing beats smalalamiam!” declared Miss Charlotte with great confidence.
Smalalamiam! We had forgotten all about it.
Miss Charlotte extracted a bottle from her bag. Billy had earned the right to have the first taste. He took a gulp. Then another. And another.
“And?” asked Laurence.
Billy wiped his mouth and said: “This is the best drink I have ever had!”
Chapter 4
I Love You Lots, Anatole
At the weekend I spoke to my cousin Marie. She wanted to know everything that had happened with Miss Charlotte. Marie promised she and her dad would be at the last match of the season. Even though they live hours and hours by car away. She was absolutely desperate to see her friend Charlotte again – and to give her back a precious object, she added mysteriously.
Marie admitted that Pauline Pesky had rung her up at home after meeting Miss Charlotte in her office. Luckily Marie had a day off school, so she was the one who picked up the phone. Had her mum or dad answered the call, PP would have discovered she had been had.
Our headmistress was very worried. Not only did Miss Charlotte’s appearance inspire little confidence, but the new coach had said some odd things at their first meeting. When PP had asked her what the secret of success was, she had replied: “Spling!” When Miss Charlotte had left the office, PP looked the word up in her dictionary, only to discover it does not actually exist!
When I spoke to Marie, I explained that PP was not the only one to ask questions about Miss Charlotte. Some parents had seen her having a picnic on the lawn in front of the church, in the middle of town. No one else had ever dared to have a picnic there! And Miss Charlotte had done more than just tuck into a sandwich in the main square. She had spread out a chequered sheet, placed a pretty vase with flowers next to her, lit a few candles and put out various dishes. All the passers-by stopped and stared, but she did not seem to notice.
After lessons on Monday, Billy and I changed into our football kit as quick as a flash and went to the gym. It was raining too hard to play outside. When we opened the door, we heard Miss Charlotte’s voice. I thought she was talking to PP. But when we got nearer we discovered our coach was deep in conversation with… her football!
“Do you think they will understand? Yes, you are right. We just need to give them time.”
Miss Charlotte sighed and stroked her football with her fingertips.
“I love you lots, Anatole,” she added. “But I do miss my beautiful Gertrude…”
I heard some people chuckle behind me. Other pupils had come in and heard Miss Charlotte talking to Anatole. I was embarrassed for her. But Miss Charlotte did not seem to mind a bit.
“I am so happy to see you!” she cried out. “So is Anatole. We were just having a nice chat.”
“A chat with your football?” Fiona asked.
“Of course. It is the best way to get good at the sport,” Miss Charlotte replied.
“Is that so? Well, I happen to think that you have to be completely bonkers to talk to your football,” Fred blurted out scornfully.
It seemed Miss Charlotte had the power to block out any attempts to mock her. She beamed a smile at Fred before announcing: “Today every one of you will get to know your football.”
She opened a big bag and took out dozens of footballs.
“Enjoy!” she shouted with a happy voice.
This time our coach did not train with us. She sat herself down in a corner of the gym and took a book out of her pocket. When I happened to get close to her, I heard her pronounce these strange words: “Ah, how the snow has snowed! My window is a garden…”
That did not make any sense. But Billy, who happened to walk next to me, explained that Miss Charlotte was reciting a poem. By the Canadian poet Émile Nelligan. Billy Bungalow is a such a boffin! And Miss Charlotte is anything but boring!
Chapter 5
The Famous Professor Martinonini
An hour later, most children had given their ball a name. Martin and Eric played with theirs as if they were hacky sacks. Others were playing keepie-uppie using their chests, heads and backsides. Lying on their backs and chattering away, Fiona and her friends passed a ball to each other with their feet. And Laurence, who goes to circus lessons, was juggling three balls at the same time.
The funniest of all were the conversations.
“Kick Bilbo my way!”
“Catch King Kong for me, will you?”
“Let me bring Phoebe back to you.”
“Have you seen Wilfred?”
The atmosphere was hilarious. And the weirdest thing of all was that Potato – that is what I called my ball – seemed more and more familiar. I almost found it normal to talk to it.
We were really having a ball when a hysterical scream rang out through the gym. It sounded like the scream of someone falling from the hundred-and-ninety-second floor of a skyscraper.
It was PP. Accompanied by Fred. The traitor! He had gone to look for our headmistress so she could see the rather unconventional training methods of Miss Charlotte for herself.
“Are you all hopping mad or what? Stop this circus right now!” the headmistress roared.
All the children who were present at the training session stopped in their tracks. The headmistress looked around the gym and her eye caught Miss Charlotte sitting in the back with her nose stuck in a poetry book.
“You! You are an impostor… I mean, an impostress… Erm, anyway, you are not a real coach. Or I am the tooth fairy!”
We all felt anxious. She was about to sack Miss Charlotte!
But Laurence saved the day with an improvised speech in defence of Miss Charlotte.
“My dear headmistress,” he started, sounding super-serious and ever so polite. “You may be a little worried because we are speaking to our footballs. But it’s nothing to worry about! Miss Charlotte’s training methods are very, very, very… modern! They have recently been developed by the famous Professor Martinonini from the University of…”
He hesitated. But PP was so astonished that she did not notice.
“…the university of Rome, in Italy,” Laurence continued. “The idea is to develop an… intimate relationship with your ball. To perform better. In order to… win!”
For a second, PP hesitated. Fortunately, Laurence had been clever enough to use two key words: perform and win. In the end, PP muttered some excuses, wished us good luck in our training session and vanished.
Fred was furious.
“You got your way this time, but PP will be back. And next time she will want to see a training schedule.”
“A training schedule? That’s
too bad, because we don’t have one…” Miss Charlotte admitted, turning towards me.
My mates noticed that Miss Charlotte was looking at me. All eyes were on me. Did they really think I of all people had a solution?
Suddenly I had a revelation. What we needed was a strategy. Like in a game of chess. And strategy is my forte. I don’t know how Miss Charlotte had figured that one out, but never mind.
“Billy and me, we will take care of the training schedule,” I announced, wondering if it was really me who had spoken.
Someone laughed out loud.
“Jeremy Catastrophe, the expert in strategy!” Fred Ferocio said in a mocking voice.
Normally I would have felt really hurt by this insult. But this time I followed Miss Charlotte’s example. I built an invisible wall between Fred and myself. And to my great relief, his taunts did not hurt me any more.
Chapter 6
Pass Tadpole to Mexico
“You must be out of your mind,” Billy complained all the way to my house.
I did not let that discourage me.
“You, Billy, are going to write a fake training schedule. Something like Reginald Robust’s, with tons of exhausting exercises. Got it?”
“Sure, but what about you?”
“I will come up with a plan that will work for a team of rubbish footballers like you and me. A stra-te-gic plan!”
It was a cool idea, but after an hour of racking my brains I still had not come up with a brilliant strategy. I could just picture Fred Ferocio’s laugh as he shouted: “Jeremy Catastrophe! What about your strategy? Jeremy Catastrophe! Have you ever seen anything so stupid?”
I also had to think about my dad. If I do not find a way of improving my game before the last match of the season, he will humiliate me in front of a huge crowd. I know he will, because I know what he is like. It would not be the first time either.
At matches my dad always gets really worked up. I am not sure he is even aware of it. He will start shouting: “Get a move on, Jeremy! Don’t just stand there daydreaming! Make a bit of an effort, for crying out loud!”
After a while, it gets worse. He begins to holler:
“No! Not like that! That was rubbish!”
My dad’s words always stick in my head for a long time afterwards. Especially that one word: rubbish, rubbish, rubbish, rubbish…
I was beginning to have that feeling in the pit of my stomach I get when I am scared or worried. But then I thought of Miss Charlotte. I was wondering what she would come up with. I imagined her beaming smile and pictured her jumping up and down on the pitch with excitement and talking to Anatole. I remembered us talking to our King Kongs and Kiwis in the gym. And then, at last, I had an idea.
I talked it through with Billy. He burst out laughing. But then, immediately afterwards, he congratulated me.
“You’re a real genius, Jeremy.”
The next day I presented my plan to my teammates when we were all assembled on the pitch.
“Our objective is simple. We have to destabilize the opponent, distract them, make them lose concentration… and make them forget we want to score goals.”
They all looked at me like I had lost my mind. Except Miss Charlotte. Her eyes, which are as blue as the sky, gave me courage.
“Those who can will entertain the other team. When we were getting to know our footballs, Eric and Martin, for example, kept on doing tricks as if they were playing with hacky sacks.”
I gave some more examples. I had seen Fiona balance a ball on her head. When Miss Barbie is not too busy swooning in front of Fred, she takes dance lessons. And I had been amazed at the juggling prowess of Laurence and his Tadpole. That’s what he calls his football!
“So you want us to do some circus number, is that correct?” Fred grumbled.
I reassured him: “You, Fred, will be playing football. Don’t you worry about that! Everyone knows you are the best. We could not do it without you. The aim of my strategy is to help you score more goals.”
Fred opened his eyes wide and his jaw dropped, so that he looked like a guppy at feeding time.
“But around you, it will be like a circus, with people dancing and acting. From now on, we will call ourselves using the names of our footballs. And we will speak in code.”
There was one more element we needed for it to work. Thinking about the last lesson we had had that day – geography – I explained:
“Let’s say that our goal is… the Arctic, right here, at this end of the field. And our opponent’s goal is the Antarctic, in the south, at the other end. In between the two, there are the Americas. Over here we have North America, which is closer to the Arctic. So our half of the field is North America. The other half is South America. All we need to do is learn some of the names of the countries and remember where they are on the map. So when Fiona shouts ‘Pass Tadpole to Mexico’, we will know where to shoot the ball. But the other team will be totally confused!”
All the players applauded when they heard my plan. All the players except Fred, obviously.
“Woah! Wait a minute!” our star player said.
I immediately felt that something was wrong.
“Can Mr Jeremy the so-called expert in strategy perhaps explain the method he is going to use to select which players will play in the match?”
It was as if Fred had just poured icy water over us. In my head it went: rubbish, rubbish – you are rubbish, Jeremy. I had completely forgotten that for a normal game of football you need eleven players. Not one more.
Ever since Miss Charlotte had started coaching us, the number of players had almost tripled. She had accepted Billy, Nadia, Fiona, Eric, Monica and lots of other children on the team. Some played very well. Others less so.
Thanks to Miss Charlotte, all the players had a good time and everyone felt like they were part of the team. But on the day of the match, only eleven of us could play. There was nothing we could do about that. Those are the rules.
We turned to our coach. It was up to her to come up with a solution. And to be honest, I didn’t see how it could be solved!
Miss Charlotte did not say a word. And yet she did not seem to be at all disheartened.
“So, Miss Celery Stick, what are we going to do?” said Fred, challenging Miss Charlotte. “Do we dress up the players we don’t need as ghosts? Do we cover them in invisible paint?”
Miss Charlotte burst out laughing. As if Fred had told her the best joke in the world.
“No, no… Let’s see. It’s very simple. There is a great solution.”
We were all hanging on her lips. What would she come up with this time? Miss Charlotte was waiting for us to guess the answer. But no one had one.
“The day of the match we will organize a draw to select the players. A bit like bingo or the lottery!” she declared, raising her shoulders and putting her hands up, as if to say: we could have thought about that earlier.
Chapter 7
A Bit of Spling, Please
A draw! We were shocked.
“I have a better idea,” Fred announced. “We pick the best eleven players… and sack the coach!”
All eyes were on Miss Charlotte again. She was neither angry nor insulted. She continued stroking Anatole and calmly looked at us.
“So, what’s it going to be?” Fred asked. “Shall we select a proper winning team or get trounced?”
“That depends on what we want the most,” Priti said. “Do we want to win the match or do we want everyone to get a chance?”
We all started to speak at the same time. Opinions were divided. Eric pointed out that the idea of a match really is to win.
“If not, it would be no different from a training session,” he blurted out.
Most of the players seemed to agree. Fred saw his chance to have a vote. Miss Charlotte still was not saying anything.
/> In front of me, Billy was nervously chewing on a toffee. I had noticed he had been eating a lot less of them lately. I also knew he had been going for runs in the morning since he joined the team.
Billy did everything he could to improve his game. He dreamt of being given the chance to play. The same was true for Nadia, whom we all called the flea because she was the smallest pupil of the class. Thanks to Miss Charlotte, Nadia had discovered she had a real talent for football.
“Why don’t you say something,” I asked our coach.
She gave a start. It was as if she had been somewhere far away. She looked at us with her sky-blue eyes. Then she began to talk.
“Anatole and I have won lots of trophies,” she began. “Is that not true, Anatole? But one day, something happened… And we understood. That is all.”
“What happened?” Laurence wanted to know.
“And what was it that you understood?” Fiona added.
“We understood that the most important thing is to have spling,” Miss Charlotte explained, ignoring Laurence’s question.
A number of pupils shouted in chorus.
“To have what?”
Miss Charlotte giggled.
“Spling is… enjoyment. The pleasure of playing. A passion for football. The joy of giving it your all. And not just so you can win. The goal is to play well.”
There was something exciting and at the same time comforting in the words of our coach. We were spellbound.
“For me and for Anatole,” Miss Charlotte continued, “the best team is not the one which scores the most goals. It is the team that has the most passion, the most enthusiasm, the most positive energy.”
“Sure, sure. Enough of speeches now,” Fred interrupted. “It is time to vote.”
We held a secret vote so that no one would be embarrassed, and we all wrote down what we wanted on a little bit of paper. Then Priti and Monica counted the votes.
The New Football Coach Page 2