“I know,” I whispered. I dropped my head to hide the stinging in my eyes and quickly darted through the gap the crowd had made, running to catch up with Dad and Harry.
Harry had stormed straight past our car and was headed out towards the main road. We shouted after him, but instead of waiting he broke into a run. I tried chasing after him, but my studs held me back and by the time I’d bent to undo the laces, Harry was already out of sight and Dad was papping his horn, yelling at me to get into the car.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I clipped in my seatbelt with shaky hands. “Why is he running away?”
“Why? Why?” Dad asked, his face set hard. “Because, among other things, I told him I wasn’t going to sit in the car half the night waiting for him to come out of a party and then drive all the way back to Bicester! That’s why.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that!”
We could just see Harry in the distance, pelting down the quiet street which had council houses on one side and old people’s bungalows on the other.
“Where’s he going?” Dad muttered as we followed. About a hundred metres on, just after a bus stop, we caught up, and Dad told him to get in the car. Harry shook his head, panting. “Get in!” Dad repeated, but Harry just started walking off again.
Something broke inside me then. I felt so, so angry with Harry, and I’d had enough. I’d had to leave my football game at a crucial time. Megan was injured and Holly couldn’t kick far and Amy was wearing silly boots and poor Daisy was marking Billy Whizz … and why? Because of him! My dumb, selfish, miserable brother!
I unbuckled my seatbelt and told Dad to stop the car. Then I jumped out, even though I only had socks on my feet, and started chasing Harry. “What’s the matter with you, Harry?” I yelled. “Why are you being so foul?”
He stopped abruptly, turned and folded his arms. “So I’m foul! Big deal!” he said, oh-so cockily.
“It is a big deal!” I shouted at the top of my voice, shoving at his arms so that he almost lost his balance and ended up in the hedge behind him. “It’s a big deal to me, because you’re making me hate you and I shouldn’t hate you! I should like you, like Eve likes her big brothers!” I shoved him again. “And you should like me! And you should look out for me! But you don’t! You just make fun of me, and it’s not fair because I need you to look out for me more than ever now Mum and Dad have split up!” Tears were making my eyes blurry, so I could see not one but about six Harry heads. They all had surprised expressions on their faces.
“Need me? What do you need me for? As long as you’ve got your football or netball or tennis or some other crummy sport, that’s all you’re bothered about.”
I gawped at him. “Are you serious? Even if I played for England in ten different teams and in ten different sports, it wouldn’t be the same as having a big brother on my side!”
“Whatever,” Harry said, but his voice didn’t sound quite as sneery.
A woman pushing her baby in a buggy said “Excuse me” and sidled past. I swallowed and turned back towards the car. Dad was standing there, looking sadder than I’d seen him in a long time. “I want to go home,” I told him.
“We can’t…” he began.
“We can!” I said. “I don’t want to spend the day traipsing around Mowborough or in the car driving to Bicester with him. I want to go home.”
“Lucy, it’s different now…”
I felt sharp tears spring up again. “I don’t care!”
“Lucy, love…”
“No! You and Mum promised that our lives wouldn’t change that much when you split up, but they have! Loads! Harry was never this horrid before. You were never this tired. Mum was never this bossy and I was never this … this … muddled up.” I turned back to Harry. “That’s why I like football. Hannah says ‘Mark number 7 or 8 or whatever’ so I mark number 7 or 8. I don’t have to write a list to remember a thousand things about it. I just mark. I can handle that. I can’t handle this.”
Harry nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.
I turned back to Dad. “I want to go home,” I repeated.
Reluctantly, Dad called Mum on his mobile, telling her how upset I was, so she agreed to let us come back. I nodded and slid into the back of the car.
By the time we got home I had stopped crying but I still felt wound up.
At first, when she saw I had calmed down, Mum was really cross, accusing Dad of giving in to us and ganging up on her. “It’s two days out of seven!” she ranted, pacing up and down the living-room floor. “And I’m not exactly living the party lifestyle during those two days either, you know.” Her hands fluttered over the pile of ironing she’d been doing.
“You always say that, Mum!” I told her. “But it’s two of the best days. The days when we’re supposed to chill out.”
“So chill out! I’m not stopping you! How you all spend the weekend is up to you. But you’ll forgive me for needing a break too, won’t you? Or am I not allowed one?”
There was a long pause. Dad glared at the carpet, his jaw doing its clenching thing. Harry mumbled, “I knew she’d be like this.” And I said, “No.”
“Pardon me?” Mum asked in her most fearsome PE teacher’s voice.
I looked her in the eye, remembering what Eve’s mum had told me about being a single parent. “No,” I said, more loudly this time, “you don’t get a break. Neither does Dad. When you have kids that’s it. Twenty-four-seven. You’re stuck with us. Sorry if you don’t want us. I don’t want Amy Minter on our football team, either, but I’m stuck with her. That’s life.”
Mum’s eyes watered. “Of course I want you! I love you both very much. It’s just having the weekend free lets me recharge my batteries.”
I took a deep breath. I needed to explain properly. “I know! I get it! I’m not saying you have to look after us at weekends instead of Dad. I’m just saying we need to be able to come home sometimes. I hate … I hate having to wear my footy shorts underneath my jeans all day because I can’t get changed properly. I hate eating out all the time. I hate Harry hating watching me play football – it puts me off…”
“And I hate missing out on stuff all my mates are doing,” Harry mumbled, coming to stand next to me. “Nobody in my year spends all Saturday and all Sunday with their dad, except the freaks. No offence, Dad – you’re cool, but, you know…”
“I know, I know,” Dad replied.
“And, Mum, I admit I’ve been giving you a hard time lately, but you just don’t listen … like the other night…” Harry continued.
It was as if we’d both turned on a tap and couldn’t turn it off again. Poor Mum’s eyes got wider and wider, until she slumped down in the armchair opposite Dad. “And there’s us thinking dividing the week up like this seemed the simplest way!”
Dad nodded. He seemed too dazed to speak.
“But it’s not, is it?” Mum sighed. She turned to us. “Harry, Lucy, go and make us a pot of tea, will you? I want to talk to your dad alone for a few minutes.”
Harry and me must have been the slowest tea-makers ever. We waited ages and ages before we even put the kettle on to boil, with me going to the kitchen door every two minutes to listen to how their voices sounded. “They’re talking so fast!” I whispered to Harry.
“At least they’re talking and not blowing a fuse.”
“Yeah,” I said, “not like some people I could mention.”
He blushed. My big brother, Harry, actually blushed! “Soz. Didn’t mean to be such a wally earlier … you know … at the match.”
“S’OK. Just don’t do it again.”
“Or else?” He grinned.
“I’ll set Jenny-Jane Bayliss on you.”
“The bolshy one?” (So he had noticed someone on the pitch!)
“Yep.”
“I hear you.”
A few seconds later Mum stuck her head round the door. “Lucy, where’s your fixture list?” she asked.
“On the pinboard in
my bedroom,” I said, and she disappeared again.
Then Dad stuck his head round the door. “I thought you two were making a pot of tea?”
“We are,” I said.
“Get on with it, then. I’m parched.”
Harry carried the pot in on a tray and I brought biscuits – chocolate fingers arranged like sun rays, with a jammy dodger in the middle.
“Right,” said Mum, my fixture list in her lap, “we’ve worked out a solution.”
“We hope,” said Dad, slurping his tea. He had a huge grin on his face and for one tiny, tiny, tiny second I thought he might be going to say that he was coming back to live with us again – but Mum soon squashed that idea.
“Not every weekend, but some weekends … especially those where you have a Sunday fixture, Lucy, I’m going to go away for the weekend.”
“Where?” I asked, anxious now that she might be upset and leave us for ever.
“Oh, I don’t know. A nice spa somewhere with friends from the department … Auntie Laura’s in Leeds, maybe … London … Edinburgh. Wherever I fancy! It’ll be nice to have a complete break.”
“Oh,” I said. “OK.”
“And I get to stay here,” Dad said, dunking two chocolate fingers into his cup.
My heart leapt at that! “What? You’ll sleep over?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So we can watch Gillette Soccer Saturday together?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I get a lie-in?” Harry asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“And we can have mates round?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sorted!” we said together. I turned and high-fived Harry. He high-fived me back with such a clout it stung like mad, but I didn’t mind. In that instant all the bad atmosphere that had been swirling round over the past few weeks just vanished.
“I’m going to get changed,” I said, “and then I’m going to phone Megan and find out what the score was.”
“And then the three of us will go out to Pasta Roma,” Dad said, “and leave your mum to the ironing.”
“Thanks a bunch.” Mum grinned.
“Unless you want to join us?”
“I just might,” she said.
Final Whistle
I am gutted to report we lost to the Tembridge Vixens four—two in the end. They equalized just before half-time, and in the second half that Ninja scored a hat-trick, with Gemma pulling one back a minute before the final whistle. Holly was given Parsnip of the Match, though, because apparently she was wicked in goal — the Vixens could easily have netted six or seven if she hadn’t pulled off some mighty saves by punching the ball out left, right and centre. “She could take up boxing, no fear,” Megan said, laughing.
Nobody mentioned the incident with Harry, but Eve told me that if I ever needed to talk about brothers or cheesy feet (she said they were the same thing), she’d be there for me. That’s a true team-mate for you.
Luckily Harry’s been amazing since the new weekend arrangements started. He even comes to watch me play sometimes … without being bribed. Miracles do happen.
Dad’s happier, too. He told me the highlight of his week is watching Gillette Soccer Saturday with his favourite daughter, then watching Hot Fuzz with his favourite son, while sitting in his favourite chair. He can google away without Mum breathing down his neck, too. Oh! That reminds me. Nettie Honeyball. It turns out Nettie is a legend in women’s footballing history. She was one of the first women ever to get a ladies’ football team together. It was called the British Ladies’ Football Club and was based in London and founded in 1895. Yes, 1895! In your face, boys who think girls began playing in 2001 or something. Eat Nettie’s shorts!
Daisy and Dylan McNeil are going to continue the story of our first season. They’re going to concentrate on the cup run. That should be good! Knowing Dylan and Daisy, it will be upside-down or written in Elvish or something. Good luck!
Truly yours,
Lucy Skidmore xxx
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?
Has Anyone Seen our Striker?
Do Shinpads Come in Pink?
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-four!). Helena lives in Nottinghamshire with her husband and has two grown-up children.
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 2009 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2009 Helena Pielichaty
Cover illustration © 2009 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 978-1-4063-4259-8 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
Are All Brothers Foul? Page 5