by Holly Webb
“Kick it back, Ben!” yelled his friend Sam, from the other side of the playground.
Ben booted it towards them, but he wasn’t really concentrating, and the ball shot sideways and landed in a group of girls who were doing a complicated skipping game.
“Hey!” one of them, a girl from the year above, shouted. She glared at him and kicked the ball back, hard, and much more accurately than he had.
It hit Ben in the stomach, leaving him panting. He hadn’t fallen over but he looked silly, standing there with his eyes all round and his breath coming in little gasps.
Everyone laughed, and Ben went slowly red, a dark, purplish flush that burned across his cheeks.
“Are you all right?” Sam came over and picked up the ball. He looked embarrassed.
Ben nodded. “Yes,” he said huskily. “I just missed – I didn’t mean to kick it into those girls.”
They were still laughing. He could see them giggling, and talking to each other behind their hands. The one who’d kicked the ball looked triumphant, and faintly nervous at the same time, in case he told.
Sam sighed. “Come on. Come and play with us.”
Ben nodded. He quite liked playing football. He just hadn’t felt like it earlier; he’d been too busy thinking about the builders. He followed Sam back towards the group of boys, who were watching impatiently.
Somehow, it wasn’t a good game. No one passed to him very much, and he tripped over James and scraped the side of his leg. James didn’t even say sorry properly, he just rolled his eyes and mumbled something.
Even Sam glared at him when he accidentally scored a goal in between the wrong pair of school jumpers. Ben was quite glad when the bell rang.
Some of the boys in his class kept glancing over at him during literacy. James’s friend Kurt, and Leo, who was always telling people that his dad used to be a professional footballer, sat on the other side of Ben and Sam’s table. They kept looking at him, and then at each other, and whispering stuff behind their hands.
Ben was certain they were all talking about him, and how rubbish he was. It was very hard to concentrate on the comprehension work they were supposed to be doing. He wanted to ask Sam what was going on, but something stopped him. Sam wasn’t whispering with the others, but he didn’t seem to be talking much to Ben either. Sam just kept looking down at his work – not muttering jokes in Ben’s ear or complaining about how mean Mrs Pearce was, like he usually did.
Ben’s class were on the second sitting for lunch, so they went straight out into the playground, the boys racing ahead. Kurt and Leo and James spilled out into the grassy area, squabbling over a football. As the others came up, James snatched it and glared around. He usually ended up in charge of the lunch-time games – just because he was big, and loud, and nobody really liked arguing with him. And he was very, very good at football. He played for a proper team, and he always seemed to have his picture in the local paper that came through the door.
“You’re on my team,” he told Leo, and elbowed Kurt. “You can pick the other team.”
Kurt folded his arms and stared at the ten or so boys crowding around them. Ben hung back, thinking he’d probably get picked last, and not wanting to look as though he minded.
James and Kurt squabbled their way through picking the teams, until everyone but Ben had been chosen. Ben shifted from foot to foot, and wondered if he should say anything. Remind them he was there, perhaps? Maybe it was just that he was standing behind Sam. Except now he wasn’t, because James had picked Sam almost first.
“Ummm…” he murmured, waving a hand shyly. “Um, whose team can I go on?”
James and Kurt exchanged glances. “You can’t,” James said flatly. “You’re not good enough to play.”
Ben gasped. It felt like being hit with that football all over again. He could hardly get the words out. “But – but—” he stuttered, and the other boys smirked.
“You’re useless,” Kurt added. “We don’t want you in our game.” He sniggered. “Even those girls are better than you.”
“Hey…” Sam murmured, staring at the ground. But that was all he said, even when Ben looked at him beseechingly. He’d always thought Sam would stand up for him. He would have done, if someone had said something like that to Sam. In fact, he had, back at the beginning of the year, when Sam couldn’t get his head round fractions. James and the others had been laughing at him and calling him thick because he had to stay in at lunch for extra lessons with Mrs Pearce. Usually Ben wasn’t very good at thinking up quick answers, but Sam had been almost crying, and it had made Ben furious. He’d told James to shut his face, and who cared about fractions anyway? James had been so surprised that he actually had shut up, although it didn’t last for long. But it had given Sam time to feel better, which was what mattered.
“Get lost, Ben,” James said. Ben could tell that he was really enjoying himself. “You’re in the way.”
Ben gave one last look at Sam, but Sam was still ignoring him. He wouldn’t even look up. So Ben walked away, like he’d been told to. It was hard even to do that. He felt so upset that his legs were shaking.
Ben walked over to the wall at the edge of the playground and leaned against it, trying to look as though that was what he really wanted to be doing. What he actually wanted to do was cry, but he wasn’t going to give James and Kurt the satisfaction. It was hard not to, though. The crying was balled in the middle of him, sitting in his throat, and it seemed to be getting bigger and bigger.
He sniffed, loudly and defiantly, and looked round for someone else to go and play with.
The problem was that all the boys in his class were playing football – every single one of them. Ben was quite friendly with some of the girls, but not enough that he could just walk up to a gang of them and join in with whatever they were doing. So as not to look as if he had nothing to do, Ben walked briskly round the edge of the playground, hoping to find someone he could hang around with. And so he could get far enough away from the football game to blow his nose. He really didn’t want the almost-crying to be obvious.
“Hey, Ben!” Cassie chirped as she raced past him with one of the other girls from her class dashing after her. Tag – he wasn’t bad at that. He wasn’t the world’s fastest runner, but he was OK.
Ben almost yelled after her, to ask if he could play, but then he stopped himself. Playing with his little sister? Who was still in the Infants? And all her little girl friends? He could just imagine how James would make it sound. Ahhhh, little baby Benny. Playing with the little girls. Why don’t you wear one of your little sister’s dresses tomorrow, Ben?
He couldn’t.
“Are you all right, Ben?” Mrs Pearce was on playground duty, and she actually sounded quite nice. She was a lot stricter than any of the teachers they’d had before, and she made a huge fuss about work being neat and homework getting handed in on time. But sometimes she was fun – she liked art, like Ben did, and she always admired his pictures.
“I’m OK,” he muttered.
“Not playing football?” Mrs Pearce asked, gazing thoughtfully across the playground at the other boys.
Ben shrugged. “Didn’t feel like it.”
“Mmmm.”
He had a feeling that Mrs Pearce knew exactly why he wasn’t playing football, and she didn’t like it much.
“Do you want to go and help Mrs Lake with the cutting out for this afternoon?” Mrs Pearce suggested, and he glanced up at her in grateful surprise. “It won’t be all that exciting, but I bet she’d like a hand. Tell her I sent you.”
Ben nodded and hurried off inside. It was a lucky rescue, and he knew it. But he couldn’t spend the rest of the week’s lunch times lurking in the classroom with the teachers.
“Dad…”
“Mmm?” Dad didn’t sound as though he was properly paying attention. He was frowning, and Ben guessed he’d be
en in the middle of something for work before he came out to fetch them from school.
“Do you think you could teach me to play football better? This weekend, maybe? Tomorrow?”
Dad blinked. “I didn’t think you were all that keen on football.”
Ben shrugged. “I like watching it. But I’m no good at playing.”
“Don’t worry about it, Ben. It doesn’t matter if you’re not great at football. You can still have a lot of fun kicking a ball around anyway. You’re better at swimming. And running; you’re a good runner. I’d stick to those if I were you.”
“Yes, but…” It was hard to describe what had happened at lunch time – for a start because Ben still really didn’t want to talk about it. It was making him want to cry even now, all this time later.
“What are you talking about?” Cassie had suddenly darted back to them from further up the road, where she’d been walking with her friend Maia.
“Nothing,” Ben said, flushing scarlet again. It was bad enough Cassie having millions of friends and never being shy and being good at practically everything while he felt useless, without her actually knowing about it as well.
Dad looked down at him, as though he’d finally noticed something wasn’t right. “You OK, Ben? Was it not a good day?”
Ben shook his head. Not with Cassie listening. “Just boring. I’m fine. What’s for tea?”
“They’ve dug a massive great big hole in the garden!” Ben said to Cassie, turning round from the window. “Look!” He’d changed out of his uniform into a T-shirt and jeans – it was still really hot, even though it was the end of September. He’d happened to look out at the garden as he dragged the T-shirt over his head.
Cassie came over and looked out. “What’s that for?” she said, gazing at it. “Why do they need a hole?” She gave a little gasp and grabbed his arm. “Maybe they’re burying treasure! I knew they were pirates.”
Ben shrugged. He was still sure she was wrong, but he just didn’t feel like arguing. Being miserable was very tiring.
“Let’s go and ask them.” Cassie hurried out of the door. He could hear her thundering down the stairs, calling, “Les! Les!”
The builders were packing their tools away – they were storing some of them in the shed at the bottom of Ben and Cassie’s garden. Dave was pushing a heavy wheelbarrow up the garden while Les stacked things away.
Ben stopped by the hole, staring into it and wondering what on earth it was really for. Cassie hurried across the grass, shouting to the builders.
“What’s the big hole for? Are you burying treasure? Have you got lots? Are you going to leave it here? Will you make a map so you don’t forget where to come and dig it up?”
Ben saw Dave and Les exchange a grin as they locked up the shed and walked back towards the hole, with Cassie skipping backwards before them.
Dave shook his head thoughtfully. “No, that’s not where we’re burying our treasure.”
Cassie glared triumphantly at Ben – so they did have some! “What’s the hole for then? Please can you tell us? It is our garden!”
Dave nodded slowly, importantly. “Good point. You probably ought to know anyway, so you’re sure to stay away from it.”
“Definitely,” Les agreed.
“What is it?” Cassie begged.
“It’s a bear trap.”
Ben and Cassie gaped at Les. Ben had been expecting the builders to tease them with some sort of pirate story – he was pretty sure that Les had heard what Cassie was saying about him and had sung that sea shanty on purpose. He was enjoying being a pirate.
Ben certainly hadn’t expected bears.
Cassie was enchanted. Bears were even better than pirates. Didn’t she have seventeen of them lined up along her bed? “A bear trap for bears?” she whispered.
“A bear trap for bears,” Dave agreed solemnly. “See you on Monday then,” he added. “We’re off home now.”
“You can’t go!” Cassie shrieked. “You have to tell us about the bears! What sort of bears is it for? Big ones? Do they come in our garden? Will we see them?” She frowned. “What if one gets in the trap this weekend when you’re not here? What do we do with it?”
“Feed it some sausage rolls,” Les told her. “Everyone thinks bears like honey, but actually, what they really want is a nice sausage roll.” He looked at the hole thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps we’ll cover it up, just for the weekend. So you don’t get stuck with a hungry bear.” He went over to fetch a piece of board that had been leaning up against the fence.
Ben was peering into the hole. It didn’t really look deep enough for a bear. Not a big one, anyway. A small bear might fall in it and not be able to climb out… He shook his head crossly. It was all made up anyway. The builders were just teasing Cassie. He was far too big to be taken in by stupid stories.
Dave grinned at him. “Don’t believe me, do you?” he asked as he helped Les lay the board over the hole.
Ben shook his head and frowned. “No.” He’d imagined bears in the garden, but that’s all it was. Imagining.
“Oh, Ben!” Cassie sounded horrified.
Dave shrugged. “You will. You’ll see one, one of these days. You just keep an eye on those trees at the bottom of your garden. Full of bears, they are.”
From then on, Cassie watched the garden for bears, spending hours perched on the bedroom windowsill, staring out at the trees. She told all her friends at school, and they believed her – so much so that Maia begged and begged to be allowed to sleep over and watch for bears too. Cassie and Maia almost stopped being friends when Cassie said that they were her bears, and she had to see one first. Maia even came and asked Ben if it was true and whether he really did have bears in his garden.
Every morning when Cassie got up, she ran downstairs in her pyjamas to check the bear trap, but they’d never caught one.
“Clever bears, yours,” Dave said, shrugging, when she asked him about it. “Too clever to be caught. Maybe you ought to bait the trap if you really want to catch one.”
Cassie reported this to Ben. She knew he didn’t believe in the bears, but she needed him to help. She didn’t like sausage rolls, and Dad knew that perfectly well. So she couldn’t go asking him to buy any – even if he believed that she’d started liking them, then he’d expect her to eat them.
“It took ages to make him remember I hate sausage rolls,” she told Ben. “I’m not having them in my packed lunch for years and years. I just want them for the bear trap. So will you ask him to get some when we go shopping? Please?”
“How are you going to explain it when they’ve all gone from the fridge?” Ben asked.
Cassie smiled persuasively at him. “We’ll just tell Dad you ate them. Please, Ben? I’ll give you two of my mint humbugs.”
Ben thought she’d forget that the next time she got sweets, but he agreed anyway. Officially, he didn’t believe in the bear story. But there was something about the way Cassie watched so faithfully, sitting on the windowsill every evening as the garden darkened and the shadows spilled out from the trees, bringing the possibility of bears with them… It made Ben want to catch one too.
It was the night they baited the trap that Cassie saw one – or she said she did. Ben was falling asleep, listening to Dad tapping away on the computer in the next room. Cassie was supposed to be in bed as well – Dad had already read them a story, and the lights were out. But she’d sneaked out of bed to watch for bears again, sure that tonight the sausage rolls would tempt the bears closer to the house. She’d laid a trail, leading right up to the trap.
Cassie’s scream brought Ben awake again in a split second. He sat up in bed, gasping.
Cassie was kneeling right up on the windowsill, her hands pressed flat against the glass. “I saw one! I saw one! I really did! Oh, look, he’s running away, he must have heard me.”
&n
bsp; Dad opened the bedroom door and came in looking worried. “What happened? Did you have a bad dream? Cassie, what are you doing on the windowsill?”
“I saw a bear! It was eating the sausage rolls, Dad. I knew it would.”
Dad picked her up and cuddled her. “Just a dream, sweetheart. Get back into bed, it’s late.”
“Oh, but I want to see him again…” Cassie murmured as Dad wrapped her duvet round her. But she was almost asleep, Ben could hear it in her voice. Perhaps she’d been asleep all the time – Dad obviously thought so.
She must have dreamed the bear…
“So what did it look like?” Ben asked her, scuffing through a pile of leaves as they walked along under the trees in the park. Dad had finished a big job, and suggested an afternoon out. He said he was sorry he’d been so busy, and that they deserved lunch at the café by the canal. They loved walking along there – the canal ran along one side of the park, and there were always boats moored there.
“Big,” said Cassie slowly. They hadn’t had much time to talk about the bear without Dad around, but now he’d bumped into someone whose accounts he did, and had stopped to chat. “It was just – big.”
“Is that all?” Ben said disappointedly.
“It was dark! I couldn’t see much. It was big, and slow. Until it ran away when I screamed. It was quite fast then.”
“I bet it wasn’t a bear. It was probably the cat from next door.”
“It was not! It was much bigger than that. Loads bigger. And furrier. A cat!” She rolled her eyes disgustedly.
“Don’t go too near the water!” Dad called, catching them up. “Wow, lots of boats moored up today.”
They all loved looking at the boats. Cassie liked the painted decorations, and reading the names, but Ben always imagined living on one. Particularly now. If you woke up in a different bit of river every morning, how could you possibly go to school? Break times were getting worse. He still wasn’t allowed to play football, and James and Kurt had started to say he was useless at whatever game they played. He wasn’t often allowed to join in. Sometimes Sam pulled him into a game without anyone saying anything, but mostly Ben just had to watch.
