by Rhys Jones
Oz retrieved the ball, and as he did, something caught his eye, a movement on the edge of the small copse of trees in the very middle of the park. It was hardly even a glimpse, but he could have sworn he’d seen something dark and elongated move back into the woods. He picked up the ball and stared, but there was nothing there anymore. By the time he got back, Ruff was sulking at one end of their makeshift pitch and Ellie was busy moodily plucking at blades of grass at the other. Oz was quite glad when Ruff’s dad pulled up in his van. Mr. Adams was a tall, thin man with flyaway hair the same colour as Ruff’s and a lopsided grin. He knew an awful lot about football and was unfailingly enthusiastic.
“Hey, Oz,” he said as he got out of the van to help Ellie with her backpack. “Been giving them a bit of extra coaching?”
“What’s the news on Millie, Dad?” Ruff asked hopefully.
“Millie can’t play. It’s definitely chicken pox. She looks like a current bun. And Bashir can’t make it. He’s had to go to Sheffield to his cousin’s wedding.”
“Sugar,” muttered Ellie.
“But that means…” protested Ruff.
“Yes, I know. You’ll just have to share goal-keeping duties this week, okay?”
Ruff and Ellie both groaned.
“We’ve got no chance at all against the Skullers now,” Ruff moaned, looking crestfallen.
Ellie gave Oz a half-hearted wave as she got into the van and Ruff clambered in next to his dad. “See you tomorrow, Oz,” she muttered. But then, catching sight of the strange look on Oz’s face, she added, “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing,” Oz said mischievously. An idea had sprouted in his head and was rapidly taking hold. “I’m just waiting for your usual question, that’s all.”
“The one you always say no to?” Ellie said. “What’s the point?”
“Maybe one day I’ll say yes,” Oz said.
“What does that mean?” Ruff said exasperatedly. “Do you want to play or not?”
“Well, since you’re short of a goalie, why not?”
There was a long, frozen moment as first Ellie’s jaw, quickly followed by both Mr. Adams’ and Ruff’s, clunked open.
“Really?” Ellie squealed.
“I reckon I could do with the exercise,” Oz grinned.
Everyone in the van started talking at once.
“We’ll have to register you—”
“The goalie jersey is bright green—”
“Stop standing there like a buzzard—”
Ten seconds later, Oz was bundled into the van and Mr. Adams roared around to Magnus Street.
“I should be back by about half past twelve,” Oz said to a flummoxed but smiling Mrs. Chambers as he emptied his kit bag looking for his gloves.
“What’s brought all this on?” she asked breathlessly, reaching into the airing cupboard for socks and shorts.
“They need my help,” Oz said, shrugging.
* * *
The park where Ellie and Ruff and all the other teams in the league played on Sunday mornings had ten pitches. The team all gathered behind one set of goalposts and listened to Ruff’s dad giving instructions. Since it was a mixed league, there had to be a minimum of five girls in each team. Oz knew two of the other girls on his. One was Sandra Ojo, whose voice he’d recognized even before seeing her, and the other was Lottie Barnes. Of the boys, there was Niko, whom he knew, too, but the rest of the players were new to him.
“Now, as you know, we’re a bit low on reserves today, but Oz here has stepped in to lend a hand. He’ll be playing in goal for us,” said Mr. Adams as they gathered at one end of the pitch.
The rest of the team gave Oz half-hearted waves and a few “all rights” and “wotchas,” but all in all they looked like a defeated team before they even went on the pitch.
“I know you must be downhearted after last time, but today is a fresh page,” said Mr. Adams. “And you never know what’s going to happen until you try. I want close marking on their front three; we’ll play the ball wide when we can to Ellie on the left and Lottie on the right. They’ll take the ball forward and get some crosses in, okay?”
Everyone nodded.
“Right, follow Steve and we’ll get warmed up.”
Steve, one of the other dads, took the team off to the side and started some warm-up drills. Oz was given a bright-green goalie shirt, which did, indeed, look brand new.
“That’s because Bashir doesn’t ever do anything to get it dirty,” Ruff hissed as Oz commented on its condition.
As he pulled his head through, Oz could see the Skullers all laughing and joking on the far side behind the other goalposts. They wore black and white quartered shirts and looked very confident. Oz was on the point of joining the others for the warm-up when Mr. Adams grabbed him gently by the elbow.
“A quiet word, Oz,” he said. “No one is expecting miracles. Just do what you can and, more importantly, enjoy yourself. Their big centre forward is a bit of a donkey, but he is the league’s top scorer. He likes to take on goalies—always feints left and takes the ball right. Just remember that. Oh, and thanks for helping out.” He gave Oz a clap on the back, smiling broadly.
Oz nodded, trying to quell the butterflies doing loopde-loops in his stomach, and went to join the others. Ten minutes later, they were running on for the start of the match. Ellie and Ruff had gone very quiet, and Oz had never seen them both so nervous.
“By the way, what are we called again?” Oz yelled to Ruff, who was in midfield.
“Leckwith Lions,” Ruff called back. “It’s the name of our sponsor.” Ruff pointed to the front of his shirt, where the words “Leckwith Building Supplies” were emblazoned across his chest. Oz had one last look around and blew air down into his gloves. The goalmouth was bigger than the ones they played with in school—full size, in fact. But it was the same size as the one he’d drawn on the wall at home, and so he knew its dimensions well enough. It was the Skullers to kick off and, with the ball at his feet in the centre circle, Jenks looked up and for the first time saw who was in goal opposite him. He called to Skinner and pointed at Oz. Then, loud enough for everyone to hear, Jenks called out,
“Hey Skinner, they’ve got Chambers in goal. They must be desperate.”
“Definite hat-trick for you, then, Jenks.” Skinner let off a hyena snigger.
The referee blew his whistle for the start of the game. There were twenty-five minute halves in this league, and the first five of Oz’s new amateur career were pretty frantic. The Skullers laid the ball back to Jenks, who immediately sent a long, floating shunt up the middle towards Oz as a tester. Oz balanced himself and took the ball cleanly ten yards in front of goal, and was delighted to hear a cheer from the supporters and even more delighted to see the look on Jenks’ face as his teammates rounded on him for wasting possession.
Oz ran forward and thumped the ball downfield. After their drubbing a few weeks before, the Lions had clearly done their homework and were close marking the Skullers’ attack. Even so, Oz found himself having to catch two crosses and parry one long-distance shot bound for the top right-hand corner of the net, all in the next ten minutes. But through hard work and Oz’s skill, the Lions kept the Skullers’ forwards at bay for the whole twenty-five minutes.
At halftime Mr. Adams, grinning from ear to ear, gave Oz a segment of orange. “Oz, I had no idea you could play…I mean, I knew you could play, but…where have you been for the last two seasons?”
“Practising,” Oz said truthfully.
“Well, keep it up. You’re having a stormer.”
The second half started much like the first, with Oz tipping a shot over the bar and leaping to cut out a cross meant for the number nine’s head, as well as diving low to save a neat shot from the Skullers’ left wing, a small but very nippy girl called Natasha Stilson who Oz knew vaguely from his year. She sent Oz a flashing smile as he got up, mud-splattered from the save.
Skinner, who had spent most of the first half niggling away at
Ruff by pulling on his shirt and calling him names whenever the ref’s back was turned, suddenly began to play very dirty. After one particularly blatant foul, in which Ruff’s legs were taken from under him and which earned Skinner a booking, Ellie had had enough. At the next stoppage, she ran back to Oz.
“Next time you boot the ball up-field, send it towards Skinner.”
“Okay,” Oz said, noting the dangerous glint in Ellie’s eye.
The chance came three minutes later, when Oz caught a back header from his fullback and thumped the ball up towards Skinner. It bounced once and Skinner leapt to head it up to his inside right. But just as Skinner jumped, Ellie flew in from her wing and launched herself at the ball. If anyone had any doubts that she was into taekwando, they were pretty certain of it a second later as she connected with the ball in a perfect bicycle kick. Unfortunately for Skinner, she did so two feet away from his head, sending the ball careening towards Skinner’s face at full force.
Oz heard the collision, which sounded remarkably like a ten-pound haddock connecting with a wet marble slab, even from where he stood, forty yards away. Skinner did a Titanic, rolling on the floor and clutching at his ear and making a noise like a cross between an injured cat and a bellowing antelope. He didn’t stay down for long, however. Five seconds later he was running around the pitch, screeching like a demented owl and clutching the side of his face, where his ear had already swollen to twice its normal size. It took all of Oz’s willpower not to roll about on the ground, he was laughing so much. Skinner was mercifully taken off, but not without glowering at Ellie.
When play had resumed, and with no one on the pitch but Oz watching, Ellie stopped on the touchline next to Skinner and did a shadow taekwando move which earned howls of complaint from the Skullers’ supporters. But when the ref turned around to look, Ellie was long gone, chasing after the Skullers’ fullback, the epitome of innocent enthusiasm.
As the second half wore on, something happened to the Skullers. Their failure to score was causing them a great deal of frustration, and they began blaming each other for simple mistakes. Jenks and the centre forward, especially, seemed not to get on and more than once ended up shouting at each other and calling one another very unpleasant names, until the referee had to intervene and warn them. After Jenks sent one too many long balls skittering over the dead ball line, irritation boiled over in the Skullers’ team. The centre forward ran across the pitch and stuck his face belligerently close to Jenks’.
“What the hell was that? I’m not a bleepin’ greyhound, you know.”
“No, more like a bleepin’ snail.”
They began pushing and shoving each other, and some of their teammates ran across to separate them. Oz thought about waiting for them to sort themselves out, but then, as he lined up for the goal kick, saw Ruff waving frantically in a big open space on the left midfield. Oz didn’t hesitate; he launched a loping pass straight to Ruff, who immediately sprinted forward into the Skullers’ half. The altercation between Jenks and the centre forward had pulled two other Skullers’ players out of position, and Ruff had seen the gap it had left. Some slick passing got the ball to Ellie, who slipped it between the fullback’s legs and got to the goal line. A cross was on, but instead Ellie pulled the ball back to Lottie Barnes, who was unmarked at the edge of the penalty area. Lottie controlled the pass cleverly and shot. The ball dipped low, bounced once and flew over the Skullers’ despairing goalie into the back of the net.
One-nil to the Lions.
The team went wild. The spectators on the touchline went wilder. They were hugging each other and shouting, while on the other side of the pitch the Skullers’ supporters stood about in shocked silence. Furious, the Skullers coach took Jenks off. He left the thunder-faced centre forward on and ordered his team to go on all-out attack. They flew at the Lions in the last five minutes, but Oz was on a roll. He somehow caught and parried and deflected everything they threw at him.
But there was one more throw of the dice left. With a minute to go to full time, and with the Skullers pushing everyone forward, the Lions’ fullback lost his footing and Natasha Stilson broke down the left wing and passed to the centre forward, who had made a run from deep. Suddenly there was no one between the big number nine and the goal, except, of course, Oz, who charged out to challenge. The centre forward was tall and rangy, and came straight at Oz, keeping the ball skilfully at his feet. It looked certain to be one-all. All the Skullers’ number nine had to do was beat Oz and slot the ball home, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to risk a shot from that far out. The safest way was to dribble the ball in.
Oz, however, had other ideas. He kept coming out, right to the edge of the box, blocking the goal as best he could but keeping his eyes on the ball all the time. Just before he got to Oz, the number nine took the ball left, but Oz, instead of diving, feinted left and went right at exactly the same time as the centre forward drove in that direction. Oz felt the ball hit his stomach and grabbed at it with both hands. A collision was inevitable, and the centre forward’s momentum took him right over Oz and sent him sprawling.
There were immediate shouts and appeals for a penalty, but the referee shook his head and the whole of the Skullers team ran after him, protesting, followed by the Lions, who were doing exactly the opposite. What was clear to the referee was that Oz had played the ball, and it was the centre forward’s bad luck to have been behind it and to have fallen over the goalkeeper.
Oz had enough sense to stay down on the floor as the ref, who’d had more than enough of the Skullers’ followers by now, blew the final whistle. Oz got up, blinking mud from his eyes, and saw a movement behind his goal near some changing rooms. It looked like someone, seeing that Oz was looking and not having expected it, had stepped back behind the edge of the building. That someone had been wearing a very familiar-looking red and black coat, just like Lucy Bishop had worn the day before. Oz wiped his eyes properly with his sleeve, but when he looked again the figure had gone.
There was a noise on the pitch behind him. He turned and saw, to his utter astonishment, that the whole of the Lions team—plus the thirty or so parents and supporters—were all running towards him, telling him that he’d had a brilliant game, cheering and laughing as if they’d just won the FA Cup final. Two seconds later, mothers were kissing him and fathers and brothers were clapping him on the shoulders, while Ellie and Ruff kept saying to their teammates, “Told you so. Told you he was really good.” Meanwhile Oz, bemused and mud-covered, basked in and tasted something that he had never tasted before.
Glory.
And with it came a very strange feeling indeed. It took a while for it to sink in, but eventually Oz realised that he had not felt as happy as this for a long, long time. But it was while he waited for Ruff and Ellie afterwards that the best thing of all happened. It was Ruff’s turn to collect the flagpoles and Ellie’s to sort the shirts, and they were both busy loading the kit into a big van with “Steve’s Roofing Services” written on its side, when Oz wandered over to stand next to Ruff’s dad’s van to wait. He leaned on the bonnet, picking the grass and mud from the bottom of his boots. Mr. Adams joined him and cleared his throat.
“Oz, the way you stood up to that bullying number nine today was…well, it was bloomin’ magnificent. It’s made my season, it really has.” Mr. Adams shook his head. “I didn’t know your dad, and I am truly sorry for what happened to him. But I know that, if he’d been here today, he would have been really proud of you. Really proud.”
He held out his hand. Oz took it and looked across at the now-empty expanse of pitches and said quietly, “I think he probably was here.”
Mr. Adams nodded, sniffed and turned away to stare at a seagull on the goalposts so that Oz had time to wipe the moisture from his eyes. Just as well, because two seconds later Ellie and Ruff appeared, red-faced and grinning.
“I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Ellie said animatedly. “I can’t wait to walk into registration and see Jenks’ and Skinne
r’s faces.”
“I never thought we’d ever beat them,” Ruff said in a voice still resonating with shock.
“Well,” said Mr. Adams, “like I said. A bit of self-belief is all you need.”
“And Oz,” Ellie said.
“And Oz,” Mr. Adams agreed, nodding.
“What a brilliant buzzard day,” Ruff said.
* * *
They dropped Oz off outside Penwurt, but he didn’t get out until they’d finished singing another chorus of “We are the Champions,” which Mr. Adams had played half a dozen times on the way back. Tired but content, Oz waved them off and turned to walk through his gate just as the first spots of rain drifted down from the lowering sky. Oz looked up to see clouds moving in quickly from the west. There was a damp and icy wind of change in the air.
The police car was parked unobtrusively at the side of the house, out of view of the road. Oz stopped, frowning as something cold and unpleasant did a somersault in his stomach. Oz didn’t like police cars turning up because, in his short and troubled life, he had learned that their occupants were rarely the bearers of good news.
Oz used his key to open the front door and called to his mother from the hall. She emerged from the dining room, looking serious.
“Mum? What’s going on? Why are the police here?”
“They’re here to see you, Oz,” Mrs. Chambers said.
The cold thing in his gut did another unpleasant sloshing manoeuvre. He had no idea why the police wanted to see him, and his mind cast about for possible reasons. Did it have something to do with school and Badger Breath? Could you be arrested for getting one hundred percent on a maths test? His mind buzzing, he only half-heard what his mother was saying, but he managed to tune in when he heard a name he recognised.
“…a break-in at an antique shop. Garard and Aldred, I think they said—”
“Garret and Eldred?” Oz asked, his voice rising.
“Then you do know it?” his mother asked earnestly.
“Yes, but…”