by Theo Walcott
‘I’m no good. I’m too small and my glasses might fall off and get broken. This is my street. Bye.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ TJ called after him. Rob was the oddest boy he had ever met, but he couldn’t help liking him. He jogged the rest of the way home, squeezed past the piles of boxes in the hallway and found his mum in the kitchen. They had only moved in three days before.
‘How was your first day?’ she asked. ‘There’s no food in the house, I’m afraid. Dad’s picking up a takeaway on his way home. He won’t be long. You can start unpacking the stuff in your room.’
‘Actually, Mum,’ TJ said, ‘I was wondering if you knew which box had the football in it?’
‘Football?’
‘They’re all crazy about it at school. I want to practise. And I need to learn to do headers properly.’
‘Try the box with the garden stuff. And change out of those clothes. The washing machine won’t be working till tomorrow.’
TJ found the ball and took it into the back garden. There was a brick wall at the end. He threw the ball against it and headed it back again, trying to keep his eyes wide open, like Rob had told him. It wasn’t as hard as he’d expected, although he still wasn’t sure he’d want to head one of Jamie’s crosses.
He headed the ball a few more times, just to make sure he’d got the hang of it. Then he started kicking it, trying to keep it bouncing. That was easy, so he began to use both feet, left then right. He was so absorbed that he didn’t notice his big brother, Joey, come into the garden. He jumped when Joey spoke.
‘Hey, pretty impressive, little brother. I didn’t know you could do stuff like that.’
‘Me neither,’ said TJ. ‘I played football at school today. I went in goal. I saved’ – he paused, trying to remember Rob’s stats – ‘seventeen shots. I’ve decided to be a goalie. It’s cool.’
Joey laughed. ‘Or you could be a juggler, doing stuff like that. Come on, Dad’s home. It’s time to eat.’
They went inside and found their dad dishing out curry. ‘Hey, TJ,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’
‘It was great,’ said TJ. ‘I made friends. And my teacher is brilliant.’
‘You don’t have to pretend, TJ. You know we wouldn’t have sent you to Parkview if Hillside had had room.’
‘Honest, Dad, I liked it.’
‘Well, you make sure you tell us if you have any problems, OK? If there’s trouble I’ll be in there like a shot.’
‘It’s fine, Dad, really.’ TJ suddenly remembered how close he’d been to trouble that day and felt a little shaky.
‘TJ’s started playing football,’ Joey said, changing the subject. TJ looked at him gratefully.
‘Yeah?’ said his dad. ‘Excellent! We’ll go out back after we’ve eaten and I’ll show you a few moves.’
Joey groaned and raised his eyebrows at TJ. They had both seen their dad’s moves before. ‘I don’t think so,’ Mrs Wilson said. ‘You have to finish Lou’s bedroom, remember?’ Lou was TJ’s sister. She was fifteen. ‘And when you’ve done that, there’s all these boxes.’
*
TJ unpacked boxes for a while after they’d eaten, but when they’d all had enough, and were sitting on the sofa watching TV, TJ slipped out into the back garden again. He’d remembered that first pass that Tulsi had hit to him on the playground that morning. How had she made it curve like that? She’d somehow used the outside of her foot to make the ball spin and move in the air. He kicked hard, trying to just catch the edge of the ball, but it spun away uselessly into the flower bed and TJ found himself lying flat on his back. He stood up and tried again. This time the ball flew straight at the wall, bounced off and smacked him in the face.
‘Third time lucky,’ he told himself, wiping the mud from his cheek. He placed the ball carefully and worked out exactly where he wanted to strike it. This time, his foot connected perfectly. He watched the ball swerve through the air, and trapped it neatly as it returned to his feet. That was good, he thought, but it was just one time. He needed to be able to do it every time.
He began to practise.
CHAPTER 5
‘WELL, NOW,’ SAID Mr Wood the following morning. ‘I’ve noticed that some of you are very keen on football. I think it’s about time this school had a football team, don’t you?’
Tulsi put her hand up. ‘But Mr Wood, we haven’t got anywhere to play. How can we have a team?’
‘We’re going to have to think about that,’ Mr Wood said. ‘I’ve got a few ideas, but meanwhile I want to start training. We’ll have to use the playground for now. It’s not ideal, and we won’t be able to practise tackling, but at least we can make a start. We’ll have our first training session tomorrow night after school. Sign up here if you’re coming. And there’s a letter for you to take home.’
He pinned a piece of paper to the wall.
There was a knock on the door and a teacher TJ hadn’t seen before came in. She was young, with straight, dark hair and a lopsided smile. ‘Hello, Mr Wood,’ she said. ‘I’ve come for Rob and Shahnaz.’
‘Who’s that,’ TJ whispered to Jamie, as Rob and one of the girls stood up to leave.
‘Miss Berry. She does stuff with kids who need extra help. You know, reading and stuff.’
‘But Rob’s clever. I saw—’
‘Be quiet over there. We’re ready to begin.’
TJ bent over his book. He remembered what his dad had said. He needed to keep out of trouble.
At the end of the day there were only five names on Mr Wood’s list. Tulsi, Jamie, Rafi, TJ and Danny. ‘Why did Danny have to go and put his name down?’ asked Jamie disgustedly.
‘It’s a good thing he did,’ Rafi said. ‘We need everyone we can get. And anyway, he might be good.’
‘Good at kicking people,’ replied Jamie.
‘You see,’ said Tulsi. ‘It’s pointless. I knew it would be. If you want to play football, you should join a team like mine.’
‘There must be other people,’ TJ said. ‘Hey, Tommy,’ he called to the red-headed boy who was just leaving. ‘Don’t you want to come?’
‘Nah,’ said Tommy. ‘Concrete’s for skateboards, not footie. And you won’t have much of a team with five people. Especially if one of them’s Danny.’
‘What about you, Rodrigo?’ TJ asked. ‘You’re from Portugal. Portugal’s good at football.’ He didn’t expect Rodrigo to reply, because Rodrigo hadn’t spoken a word all day. TJ felt sorry for him. It was bad enough being new. It must be a whole lot worse if you couldn’t even speak English.
But Rodrigo’s face broke into a smile when TJ said ‘football’. ‘Football,’ Rodrigo repeated. ‘Football good.’
‘Hey,’ said Jamie. ‘You can talk, Rodrigo. Great!’
Mr Wood came back into the classroom.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, looking at the list.
‘Rodrigo might come,’ Rafi said, ‘only I don’t think he understands.’
Mr Wood waved a piece of paper. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I’ve just had this translated into Portuguese. Here, Rodrigo, give this to your mum.’ He showed Rodrigo what he had written, and Rodrigo nodded happily. ‘Now, you lot. Get off home. And make sure you tell people to come to training.’
Rob was waiting for TJ outside. ‘Sorry, Rob,’ TJ said. ‘I can’t walk home with you. We’re going to the park.’
TJ had asked Mum and Dad at breakfast. His dad had offered to come along to show them his moves. TJ hoped he’d been joking.
‘I’ll come and watch,’ Rob said.
‘Great,’ said TJ, but Tulsi groaned.
‘We don’t want him hanging around,’ she muttered to Jamie, but Jamie shrugged.
‘I don’t see why he can’t come if he wants,’ he said. ‘It’s a free country.’
‘I’ll go in goal,’ TJ said, when they reached the park. They piled up their bags for one goalpost. The other was a bench. Rob sat down close to TJ and pulled out his notebook.
‘We’ll play th
ree and in, OK?’ said Rafi. ‘All against all.’ He put the ball down and hit the ball at TJ, who instinctively volleyed it away over the heads of the others, just as he’d been practising in the back garden. They all raced off into the distance.
‘Pretty good,’ Rob said, making a note in his book. ‘Nice technique. You might need to get your knee over the ball a little more if you were shooting, of course, but excellent for a clearance.’
Rafi had reached the ball first and he was now dribbling it off among some trees near the park entrance. Jamie had given up chasing him, but Tulsi was running after him and yelling that the ball was out of play.
‘Why don’t you come to training?’ TJ asked Rob, but Rob shook his head.
‘I’m going to do the stats,’ he said. ‘If Mr Wood manages to get a team together, you’ll need someone to analyse the performances. I might even write the match reports.’
TJ was about to argue when two boys and a girl rode up on bikes and stopped in front of them. One of the boys was very short, about Rob’s height, but much wider, with braided hair.
‘Do you want a game?’ the boy asked, as Tulsi and Jamie got back, both of them out of breath.
‘OK,’ Tulsi said, ‘but there’s only three of you.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said the girl. ‘We’ll have a rush goalie. We’ll thrash you anyway.’
TJ couldn’t help noticing that they all had expensive trainers on their feet. ‘Where are they from?’ he asked.
‘Hillside,’ said Jamie. ‘They really think they’re something, don’t they?
TJ nodded. He’d been to visit Hillside with his mum and dad, before they’d found out that he couldn’t go there. It was on the edge of town, with big grassy fields and modern buildings. He looked at his new friends and realized that he was glad that he had gone to Parkview instead.
‘Look out,’ said Rob. ‘Here they come.’
CHAPTER 6
IT DIDN’T TAKE TJ long to learn the names of the kids from Hillside. The little round one was Kelvin, the tall skinny boy was Slim, and the girl was Krissy. They shouted to each other all the time. Krissy passed to Slim, and Tulsi and Rafi both ran to tackle him.
‘No!’ Tulsi yelled at Rafi. ‘Get over there and mark the other one.’
It was far too late. Slim controlled the ball neatly and passed to Kelvin. He simply clipped it to one side of Jamie where Krissy was running at top speed. She took the ball in her stride, touched it once, and blasted it past TJ, who didn’t even have time to move.
‘Goal!’ said Rob, scribbling fast in his notebook. ‘Right-footed drive to the top right-hand corner. Assist from Kelvin. Bad luck, TJ. You had no chance.’
TJ rolled the ball to Jamie. ‘Give it here,’ said Rafi, running up to him. ‘Come on, Jamie.’
‘Get rid of it!’ yelled Tulsi, who had raced to the other end and was waiting by the Hillside goal. ‘Clear it, Jamie!’
Jamie panicked as Kelvin raced towards him. He whacked the ball as hard as he could and it rocketed away towards the gate. Then it hit a lamppost and rebounded to land at Krissy’s feet. She passed to Slim, who passed to Kelvin, who shot the ball past TJ.
Tulsi, Rafi and Jamie were all shouting at each other now.
‘You can’t just stand by their goal!’ Jamie yelled at Tulsi. ‘How can anyone pass to you all the way over there?’
‘Someone with a bit of talent, maybe,’ said Tulsi. ‘Someone who looked where he was kicking it.’
‘We’re off now,’ said Krissy. ‘Thanks for the game.’
TJ watched them skid out of the gate. ‘It looks like we need quite a lot of training,’ he said to Rob, who was still writing.
‘Hillside do have one of the most successful school teams in the area,’ Rob said, without looking up. The others were busy having an argument. ‘They were runners-up in the league last year. Krissy Barton scored eighteen goals.’
‘How do you know all this stuff?’ TJ asked.
‘The results are all on the Internet,’ Rob said. ‘It’s easy. Only it seemed a bit pointless when we didn’t have a team. But now it could be very useful.’
‘Not if we don’t find some more players,’ TJ said. ‘And not if the ones we’ve got don’t stop fighting.’
When TJ got home he handed the letter to his mum. ‘Training tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘We might be getting a school team.’
‘Cool,’ said Joey. ‘Can we come and watch?’
‘We haven’t got many players yet. It might be rubbish.’
‘I’ll try and make it myself,’ Mr Wilson said. ‘It sounds like you’re going to need some supporters.’
After lunch the next day, Mr Wood asked Tulsi and TJ to come to the classroom.
‘I might need some help,’ he said, holding up a silver key. ‘Mr Burrows has given me the key to the PE store, so we can fetch out some equipment for training tonight, and we can see what we can find to make break times more interesting. First problem. Where is it?’
‘Easy,’ said Tulsi. ‘It’s at the end of that corridor there. Next to Mr Coggins’ room.’
They looked down the dimly lit corridor. At the end, a single fluorescent light was flickering. Mr Wood led the way, but as he reached out to put the key in the door a tall figure in a brown coat emerged from the caretaker’s room, making them all jump.
‘What do you want then?’ Mr Coggins demanded.
So far TJ had only glimpsed the caretaker in the distance, sweeping up leaves in the car park. Below his shiny bald head he had an enormous red nose and bulging, red-rimmed eyes.
‘PE equipment,’ Mr Wood said cheerfully, and Mr Coggins gave a hollow laugh that turned into a long, wheezing cough.
‘Just you be careful how you open that door,’ he warned them. ‘I’m not responsible if you hurt yourselves, all right?’
Mr Wood turned the key and pushed at the door. ‘There seems to be something in the way,’ he grunted, pushing harder. Behind them, the caretaker laughed again. ‘Come on, you two. Give me a hand.’
They all shoved together and suddenly the door burst open. Broken hoops, flat footballs and leaking beanbags cascaded onto the floor. Mr Wood reached round the corner and flicked a switch. Inside the little room they saw a mountain of old wire baskets and broken equipment.
‘Very dangerous,’ said Mr Coggins. ‘I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.’
‘We’re not going in,’ Mr Wood said. ‘We’re going to take it all out. Tulsi, TJ, go and fetch your friends. We’ll put it all in the corridor and sort it into things we can use and things that Mr Coggins can chuck in the skip. OK, Mr Coggins?’
Mr Coggins stared at Mr Wood for a moment. ‘Fill my skip with all this rubbish?’ he said finally. ‘You can’t do that! And I’m not having my corridor filled up neither. We’ll see what the boss has to say about this. Don’t you touch a thing till I get back.’
CHAPTER 7
‘QUICK,’ SAID TULSI to the others on the playground. ‘You have to come. There’s going to be an enormous row.’
They rushed back through the school and found Mr Wood, Mr Coggins, Mr Burrows and Mrs Logan all standing in the narrow entrance to the corridor. ‘I need PE equipment,’ Mr Wood was saying. ‘We can’t train without it, and if we don’t train we can’t have a team. Most of this stuff should have been thrown away a long time ago. Look at it!’
‘What’s all this about football training?’ Mr Burrows asked, looking worried. His suit was old and crumpled, and it looked as if he’d spilt half of his breakfast on his tie. ‘Football’s always causing trouble around here. Broken windows. Neighbours complaining.’
‘Exactly,’ Mrs Logan sniffed. ‘Why only yesterday I had to talk to a boy who—’
‘I thought perhaps if I taught the children some skills then they wouldn’t cause trouble,’ Mr Wood interrupted, to TJ’s relief. ‘And if we gave them something to play with on the playground, maybe break times would be a little calmer.’
Mrs Logan turned suddenly and saw the
children waiting. ‘You children, outside please. Right now.’
They walked a few steps and saw their classroom door standing open. Jamie pointed, and they all slipped inside. They could still hear the teachers quite clearly.
‘I’m impressed by your enthusiasm, Mr Wood,’ Mr Burrows was saying. ‘I just hope you won’t be too disappointed. You’ll be very lucky if anyone at all comes to your football training. And please, try not to upset the neighbours.’
‘What about my corridor?’ demanded Mr Coggins. ‘What about my skip with all this rubbish?’
‘That’s what your skip is for, Mr Coggins,’ Mrs Logan said. ‘I shall come and watch this football training,’ she told Mr Wood. ‘Just to make sure that everything is done properly.’
As soon the teachers had left, TJ and his friends went quickly out onto the playground, where Mr Wood found them a few minutes later.
‘All sorted,’ he said. ‘Mr Coggins is finding us a trolley. Come on, you lot.’
They passed out the things that Mr Wood excavated from the storeroom to Tulsi, who heaped most of them on the trolley as Mr Wood called out ‘Rubbish!’ over and over again. The room was nearly empty when Mr Wood said, ‘At last!’ and held up a blue-and-black striped football shirt for them to see.
‘Inter Milan,’ said Rob. ‘It’s a pity about the holes.’
It was true. All the shirts that Mr Wood pulled out of a big cardboard box were full of holes. ‘Mice, I think,’ he said gloomily.
‘Or rats,’ said Tulsi with a shudder.
‘Still,’ said Rob, ‘there are some proper footballs. And some shin pads. And some cones. And even some training bibs.’
‘Hey,’ said Mr Wood, brightening up. ‘Well spotted, Rob. Excellent. We’ll get these footballs pumped up. Grab that box of skipping ropes too. And those small balls over there. We’ll give them to the little ones for break times.’
‘It’s still no good,’ Tulsi whispered to TJ as they planted seeds for their science project that afternoon. ‘It’s still only us going to training.’
But Rodrigo surprised them. When the bell went at the end of the afternoon, he pulled out an orange football shirt with a blue collar.