Is An Own Goal Bad?

by Helena Pielichaty

  Something even more strange happened when he dropped us off. The match hadn’t even started. It turned out it didn’t begin until half-past ten after all. How peculiar!

  “OK, let’s have you warming up. Once round the field, girls,” Katie called out, and we all trotted round like ponies.

  “I’ve hardly ever done this bit before,” I said to Daisy.

  “Me neither.”

  “It’s good, isn’t it? I can see all the cobwebs on the hedges.”

  Then we had a gather round. Hannah did the chatter for this part. “Right, girls,” she said, “it’s quite a special one today. As you know, if we win this we go top. Lose, and Furnston do. Of course it’s not the end of the world if we do lose…”

  “Want to bet!” Megan laughed.

  Hannah wagged her finger at her, then continued, “But if we win it will give us an advantage going into the final match. It won’t be easy, though. The Diamonds have had a women’s team affiliated to the Furnston Brewery for years; they’re well respected. When the Parrs play them we always know we’re going to have a tough game, and the Diamonds junior squads are no different. So … out of respect … we’re going to play the diamond formation…”

  She then showed us all a mathsy diagram on her clippyboard and started talking – but then I remembered our clippyboard, because Daisy was meant to be making notes for the report. “Did you bring our clippyboard?” I whispered to her, but she didn’t answer so I had to ask louder, and she frowned at me and shook her head and said shush. So I just thought, fine, be like that and sucked my hair.

  “OK, I’ll have Hols and Lucy at the back; Gem, Nika and JJ in the middle; and Eve up front to start. Remember, if you’re not on the ball, fall back to help out in defence. Good luck, Parsnips!”

  Then we did this cuddle thing where we all put our arms round each other’s shoulders like we were doing a big whisper about someone and Meganini said, “Can we do this?” and everyone shouted, “Yes, we can!”

  Daisy, Amy, Petra, Tabinda and me waited by the bottles for our turn. I wanted to link arms with Daisy, or do our clapping song, but she said she couldn’t because she had to concentrate and she walked away from me and went to stand all by herself. So I watched on my own, but no one put a goal in the netty-box, which meant I couldn’t do my aeroplane.

  When the lady stoppy-starter blew her whistle for a tea break, everyone was so excited, even though it was nought–zero. “Wonderful stuff! You are playing brilliantly!” Hannah told us all.

  “But you all need to play out wide more; use the wings,” Katie added.

  Then Hannah began the swaps. I like this bit and I stood nice and straight and quiet so she might pick me. “OK, Nika, you have a rest now; Tabinda, you go and hold that central midfield position. Amy, you go on for JJ … and…” She paused and looked at me. “Dyl, you can go on for Holly.”

  Standing nice and still worked! “Super!” I said.

  “She’ll never keep up with their number 10…” Holly began.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  Holly scowled and stomped off to talk to her father, who is a man of medium height, no beard and a tummy that looks like the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  My twin gave me a huge hug and said, “Good luck.”

  I was doing very well indeed until I got confused. One second we were going one way, then the next another. My legs were galloping like all the king’s horses and all the king’s men and there was a lot of shouting. It was coming from many places and I didn’t know who to listen to and my head felt full and fuzzy.

  “Keep your eye on the ball, Dylan!” someone shouted. I turned round and couldn’t believe it – the ball was coming straight at me!

  “Clear it, Dylan! Clear it!” another voice yelled. I tried. I kicked it hard – but it hit a Diamond on her stripy socks and bounced straight back at me, so I thought I’d try another direction and this time I twisted, kicked and whacked it. The ball zoomed as fast as a hare and even though Meganini stuck her boot out, my ball still went under her leg and into the netty-box. The Diamond girls were cheering and high-fiving each other and all the Parsnips were looking at me in disbelievingness.

  Then the whistle blew and Hannah was waving at me. “You come off now, Dyl,” she said, and Jenny-Jane came running on, but she didn’t tig my hand or anything.

  Hannah patted my shoulder when I walked over to the toothpaste track. “Don’t worry about the own goal,” she told me. “These things happen, even to the pros.”

  “Is an own goal bad?” I asked.

  “Well, it’s not brilliant,” she said.

  Even though Hannah smiled when she said it and didn’t look one bit mad or anything, my tummy felt a bit churny, so I went to join my beloved twin and she gave me a hug and explained about the own goal still counting.

  There were no more goals by the end so that meant it was one–nil to the Diamonds, who shouted, “Three cheers for the Parsnips! Hip-hip-hooray…” And then Meganini shouted, “Three cheers for Furnston!” and all my teamies did hip-hip-hooray. I liked that bit because it’s what girls in Mrs Enid Blyton’s wonderful books about Malory Towers would do, but Holly gave me a sour-lemon look when I shouted too loud and my stomach felt churny again.

  6

  In which Daisy McNeil tells you about her granny’s tactics and her eventful time at training

  Mum and Dad waited until Sunday morning to grill me. They caught me alone in the kitchen just as I was going to take the biscuit tin upstairs for Dylan and me. “So let me get this straight,” Mum said, yanking the tin away from me and setting it down on the table. “It wasn’t Hannah on the phone on Friday but your granny, and the match didn’t start at half-nine but at half-ten?”

  “Yep,” I replied.

  “And Granny paid for the minibus weeks ago?” Dad asked.

  “Yep. She was thinking ahead.”

  Mum began pacing up and down the kitchen floor. “I’m not happy. I’m not happy with this at all!” She went over to the sink and started banging dishes around. “Jim, you’re going to have to talk to Susan. This is getting beyond a joke now…”

  “I know, I know,” said Dad, tugging at his beard.

  “Don’t tell Granny off. She was only trying to help,” I said.

  “Help!” Mum fumed.

  “It was an important match. I had to make sure we got there on time.”

  Mum stopped pacing and looked at me. Her eyes were more worried than angry. “Look, Daisy, I have to tell you I’m thinking football might not be such a good thing for you to do after all.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I approved at first, because girls playing football is excellent for gender equality, but I think it’s making you anxious and competitive.”

  “It’s not!”

  Dad joined in then. “I’m totally with your mum on this, Daisy. Look at what happened yesterday. Nothing’s so urgent that you have to lie to us.”

  “It wasn’t a lie; it was a tactic. Granny says without tactics you’re doomed in this family.”

  “Did she, now…” Dad said in a low voice.

  “She did. She says the male McNeils are notoriously disorganized and would be late for their own funerals.”

  Mum tutted and Dad said, “Everybody’s disorganized compared with your granny, Daisy. She ran the house like an army camp when I was little. I remember once we were packing for our summer holidays in January! No kidding. That’s why I want my own family life to be more chilled out.”

  “Quite,” Mum agreed.

  I screwed up my face, remembering everything Granny had told me to say if Dad brought up the early packing story. “And he will, Daisy. Trust me. He brings it up at every opportunity…” I took a deep breath. “Well, there’s a time to be chilled out and a time to be on time. And when you’re part of a team, it’s a time to be on time.”

  “Well, we were on time and you still didn’t get to play!” Mum pointed out.

  “That just shows you don’t k
now anything about football,” I said, snatching the biscuit tin and hurrying upstairs.

  Mum and Dad didn’t say anything again about alarm clocks and minibuses, but later that day a man from Mowborough Motors came out and fitted a new battery and some things called spark plugs in Chutney, and on Monday we were on time for school and on Tuesday we were on time for training.

  Training is in Darwin and Declan’s school sports hall now because of winter. I like having training there, because the hall is huge and I love the squeaky sound your trainers make when you run on the shiny floor. Today I didn’t try to make the floor squeak, though, or shout louder to make the hall echo. I was too excited, because I’d written a report that would thrill Megan so much. I couldn’t wait to hand it in at the end of training.

  First we joined in a circle, doing stretches. I had Dylan on one side and Tabinda on the other.

  “OK,” Hannah said, standing opposite us, “space out and make wide circles with your arms. Like windmills.”

  “Ouch! Watch it!” I heard Holly say. Dylan was on her right and must have hit her.

  “Can’t help it! I live in a windmill. I’m an expert at windmill arms,” Dylan told Holly.

  “I’m glad you’re an expert at something,” Holly said in a mean way.

  “She’s talking about my own goal, isn’t she?” Dylan asked me.

  “I think so. We’d best keep away from her tonight,” I told her. That’s what dinner supervisors always tell us to do at school if someone’s mean to us – though it’s quite hard when you’re supposed to be passing the ball to them in a three.

  By the end of training Dylan had only bumped into Holly once more, and that was when we were tidying up. Dylan had put a ball up her T-shirt, pretending she was having a baby, and she swung round and knocked Holly’s arm. Holly didn’t say anything this time; she just walked off in a huff.

  When we’d warmed down, Hannah clapped her hands and said, “Good session, girls. Awesome. You work harder than half the senior team!”

  “Sad but true!” Katie laughed.

  Then we went to sit on the benches for a talk. I tried to sit near Megan so I could tell her about the report, but Megan’s highly popular and I could only manage four places to her left.

  “So, we’ve got a league match against the Cuddlethorpe Tigers on Saturday…” Hannah began.

  She talked about that for a bit, then Megan put her hand up. “Can we talk about the cup run now?” and I thought, “Yes, please,” and half stood up to go and get my epic report, but Megan was pulling something out of her rucksack so I sat down again. “It’s just I’ve got the updated table here. I printed one off for Daisy and Dylan with the match report, and I did a few spares if anybody wants one.”

  “OK,” Hannah said.

  As Megan began handing sheets round I felt a little bit put out. So she’d printed out Hannah’s report already, before I’d even had a chance to show her mine. “Here you go!” Megan said with a big smile on her face as she reached us. “Saved you a job!”

  “But Daisy’s…” Dylan began, but I nudged her to stop because I had just realized something. The way Megan had pulled those reports out of her bag was just how Granny had pulled the box of Tetley tea bags out of her handbag that time. Megan hadn’t printed out those match reports because she was super-thoughtful. She’d been thinking ahead, just like Granny did! So that was why she’d been calm and kind about the Greenbow game and unruffled about us only being there for half of the match against Lutton Ash Angels.

  Megan wasn’t bothered one bit whether we delivered our reports on the cup run! She had Hannah’s reports anyway!

  I felt a lump come into my throat the size of a coconut and quickly dropped my head to pretend I was engrossed in the table. Around me, people began muttering. Here’s the table, in case you want to mutter too:

  “We’ll never catch Furnston!” Holly groaned.

  “We’re still second,” Eve pointed out. “Always look on the bright side.”

  “It’s not disastrous. Furnston play Greenbow next and we play Misslecott, so if Greenbow beat Furnston and we beat Misslecott, we’ll both be on nine points…” Megan noticed.

  “Then it’s down to goal difference! Cool!” Eve said.

  “Not going to happen,” Holly said. “No chance.”

  I wanted to keep listening, but Dylan cupped her hand over my ear and started whispering, “Why didn’t you tell Megan about your report?”

  I pulled away from her and shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Dylan tapped Hannah’s website report. “It does. Yours is heaps better. Hannah really uses the word ‘awesome’ too much, you know.”

  “What was that?” Hannah asked, glancing towards us when she heard her name.

  Luckily we didn’t have to explain, because Holly had her hand up and wanted her attention. “Hannah, can I ask you something?” she said, her mouth small and tight as a winkle. Something in the way she glowered at me and Dylan when she asked made my heart beat faster.

  “Sure, Holly. What is it?”

  “I was just wondering why you let Dylan play on Saturday?”

  Suddenly all the chattering on the benches stopped. “What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

  Holly, knowing everyone was listening, hesitated, then sat up straight. “Well, when it’s an important match my dad says you should always field your strongest team, unless there’s an injury.”

  Hannah looked quite cross. “I’m afraid your dad’s doing what a lot of parents tend to do. He’s comparing our level to a professional level.”

  “At any level, Dad says. Bringing Dylan on cost us the game. That own goal was totally avoidable.”

  Katie frowned. “Anyone can score an own goal, Holly. It’s par for the course in defence. At any level.”

  Holly’s face had turned pink but she wouldn’t back down. “I know that, but … well, Dylan wasn’t even trying to clear it. She turned round and had a shot!” Holly glared at Dylan. “Admit it, you did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

  I felt Dylan hitch closer to me and I reached for her hand. There was a horrible silence. Nobody said a word. Nobody. I felt the back of my legs prickle, because I knew then that they all agreed with Holly.

  Only Hannah stood up for us. “Well, you must remember the twins are the youngest…”

  “That’s not why they do it, though, is it? I know loads of Year Threes who act more maturely than they do…” Holly looked straight at Dylan. “I’m not trying to be mean, Dylan, honest I’m not, but even tonight you mucked about instead of trying harder to make up for Saturday. You just don’t seem to be bothered.”

  “Bothered! Hovered!” said Dylan in a silly voice.

  “See?” Holly said, throwing her hands up in despair.

  My hands began to tremble. Granny had warned me this time would come. The time when we’d have to explain. “And it’ll be better coming from you than from your sister,” she’d said. I took a deep breath and stood up. Dylan leapt up beside me and I held onto her fast, to show I was still on her side and that I needed her. “May I say something?” I asked.

  “Course you can,” Hannah said.

  “I just want to say that … I just want to say that Holly’s right.”

  “Am I?” Holly asked, looking up with a surprised expression on her face.

  I nodded. “Yes, you are. Dylan does mess about sometimes. I do too, but usually it’s because we get muddled, and when we get muddled” – I paused, trying to remember how Granny had explained it to me over Christmas – “instead of being sensible and telling people we’re muddled … we act giddy to hide it…”

  “That’s so true! We do!” Dylan exclaimed.

  “And that annoys people…”

  “My friend Ellie tells me I’m annoying every day,” Dylan said proudly.

  A few people laughed and that broke the tension in the room.

  “But we don’t do it on purpose,” I continued. “Granny says we’re dyslexic and probably a b
it hyperactive, but Mum doesn’t want us being labelled like cheese so we don’t know for definite what we are.” I focused on Holly. “But we do both love football and we are trying … especially on the time thing…” I turned to Megan. “And I know you think we’re rubbish at remembering the reports, too, but I did do a proper one this time – one that Leicester Ladies would understand. It’s in my bag.”

  Megan bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Daisy.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Holly said. Her face had turned redder than a bowl of ripe strawberries. “I thought you were just messing about because that’s what you did. I didn’t … I didn’t know there was a reason for it. My friend Lauren’s dyslexic. She has special blue glasses to help her read and everything…”

  “We might not be dyslexic. We’re very good readers, but we do have some things that match the dyslexia thing, like the twaddly spelling and not being able to take in loads of instructions all at once. It’s only what my granny thinks, though…” I said quickly because behind me I could hear the door opening and closing as parents came to collect us. Mum would not be happy if she overheard. “Anyway, that’s why we mess up,” I said in a whisper. “If you want us to drop out of the team, we will. We might be dropping out anyway, because of our self-esteem damage.”

  “Oh, you can’t drop out!” Tabinda cried. “It wouldn’t be the same without you! Who would lead the singing?”

  “Too right! We need the psycho twins on the team!” Eve laughed. “We’re the envy of the league!”

  “Every team should have some!” Petra nodded.

  Then, before we knew what was happening, every Parsnip but one jumped off the benches and piled round us, hugging us and rubbing our heads with their knuckles. As I came up for air, I saw only Holly had held back. “Come on, Hollybolly Woolcock!” I called out. “Party time.”

  Her face broke into a grin. “OK!” she said, and joined the best group hug ever.

  “These girls!” Hannah said to Katie. “What are they like?”

  7

  In which Miss Dylan McNeil explains the wing game using her best vocabulary (and football words always found in dictionaries)