by Danny Scott
The boys gulped down water and ate their slices of orange.
“Catch your breath and think about how we’re going to score our next goal.”
The coach’s words floated past Calum. There were moments in the first half where he had wanted the ground to swallow him up. No one would have noticed, he thought.
“Nice job, Museum Boots,” Jordan said, with orange all over his chin. He was going to say more but something over Calum’s shoulder stopped him.
Ruff!
Calum felt two little paws on his leg. And then heard a familiar voice.
“What’s the score, Cal?”
Calum’s mum and dad and Leighton – they were all there!
“We’re losing 2–1,” he said.
“That’s not bad… hey, what’s up?” his mum said, looking worried.
“Nothing, it’s just…” Calum wanted to explain how he hadn’t played well. But seeing his parents and Leighton made it seem less important somehow.
Then Calum spotted Erika on the sideline with her mum. She bounded over.
“Hey, Calum, great job out there!”
“Not really, but thanks anyway,” he said.
“Do you want my advice… as a goalie, I mean?”
Calum nodded. He would take all the advice he could get at this point.
“Their goalie keeps rushing out. If you get a chance, wait for him to dive and just take it round him. Easy, right?”
Calum smiled. “Erm… yeah. Cheers.”
Erika smiled back. “Good luck!”
Seeing Leighton, Erika and his parents had loosened Calum up, boots and all. He ran back on to the pitch, ready to forget the first half and start again.
17
Caleytown Pounce
“Come on, Calum!” Calum’s dad shouted from the sidelines as Muckleton got the second half underway. Leighton barked.
“Is that your dog?” Stark sneered at Calum. “My dog would squash that little rat.”
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight…” Calum heard himself repeating one of Mr Aziz’s sayings, “…it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
But Stark just screwed his face up and jogged off.
Since his ‘goal’, Jordan was now a header machine. Anything that came into the box, he jumped at and headed it away. If a jumbo jet had flown into Caleytown’s penalty area, Jordan probably would have leaped up and nodded it out of the box.
Still, it was keeping Muckleton at bay.
Jordan’s umpteenth clearance looped through the air towards Calum.
Our of the corner of his eye, Calum saw Leo scamper up the wing. There was no time to lose.
He leaned back, spun on his left foot and volleyed the ball, first time. It flew over his own shoulder, over Stark’s head and into Leo’s path.
“Great pass, Calum!” he heard his mum shout.
Calum felt instantly lighter and faster as he turned and ran up the pitch, leaving Stark to mark the fresh air behind him.
Leo drove forward with the ball only to be met by a Muckleton defender. Leo slowed, did a step-over to his left, making it look like he was going outside him, then flicked the ball towards the goal-line with his right foot, leaving the defender sprawling. The crowd cheered.
Racing forward, Calum realised he had company. Muckleton’s two tall central defenders had him well covered. He didn’t fancy his chances of winning a header against either of them.
Instead, Calum hit the brakes at the edge of the Muckleton area. The defenders stumbled forward a few yards before they realised.
Leo saw the space open up and grinned as he passed the ball to Calum for a shot.
With his head down, Calum kept his eye on the ball and struck through it as sweetly as he could.
The ball rocketed through the air, thirty centimetres above the ground, until…
SMACK!
It hit the back of the net to level the score at 2–2.
The keeper didn’t even move.
“YEEHAW!” Leo shouted. He jumped on Calum and rode piggyback for a few metres.
“Well done, Calum! Well done, Leo!” yelled Mr McKlop from the sidelines.
An American voice yelled, “Great job, Calum!”
Calum couldn’t believe it! He’d scored his first goal for a real team. All he could think of now was how much he wanted to score another one!
It was game on.
18
The Final Minutes
Calum’s equaliser seemed to wake Muckleton up like an alarm clock.
Only some last-minute tackles from Janek, more clearing headers from Jordan and a fingertip save from Ravi kept Caleytown’s opponents from taking the lead again.
Calum felt like his team would never get out of their own half.
“There’s only one winner now!” Stark said to Calum as he ran forward to join another Muckleton attack.
Calum scowled at Stark’s back. He felt frustrated being stuck up front. But Mr McKlop wouldn’t let him track back and help out the defence. Saying that, the last time he had gone back Muckleton had scored.
So Calum could only watch as Stark played a lovely pass to Barclay, their striker.
There didn’t seem to be any real danger, but Barclay cleverly back-heeled the ball into the space behind Caleytown’s defence.
Stark burst past a surprised Jordan and Janek, and took the ball in his stride.
Ravi came sprinting out, his quiff shaking with every bounce. He dived bravely at the midfielder’s feet but was easily sidestepped…
Calum put his hands on his head. He could hardly look.
With Ravi flat on his back, Stark just needed to pass the ball into the goal.
A grin spread across Stark’s face. He leathered the ball like he wanted to rip a hole in Caleytown’s net for daring to equalise.
To Calum in the centre circle, it looked like the ball was sailing in until… CLUNK!
…it glanced off the near post and… CLUNK!
…it bounced off the other post and…
…straight to Jordan’s feet.
“Nooo…” Stark shouted with his hands on his head.
“Yes!” Calum yelled. Caleytown were still level.
Jordan, surprised to suddenly have the ball at his feet, spun round and toe-poked a pass to Lewis in midfield. Lewis turned into space and dribbled over the halfway line.
Muckleton quickly closed him down, but Lewis kept his head and picked out Calum on the edge of Muckleton’s box.
As the ball arrived, time slowed down. Calum could hear his own heart beating. It was now or never.
19
Calum’s Big Chance
Calum had his back to goal.
Muckleton’s defender was so close, Calum could tell he’d eaten cheese and onion crisps before the match.
To get away from his marker, and the smell, Calum gently flicked the ball past the defender’s left-hand side and spun round him on his right.
“Huh?” the defender said, spinning like a clumsy ballerina as Calum met the ball behind him. He was through on goal!
Muckleton’s tall, thin keeper came out to meet him. He had such long arms and legs it was hard to see the goal at all.
Calum waited and hoped Erika was right.
Right on cue, the keeper threw himself at Calum’s feet to claim the ball. Calum jinked to his right, dribbling the ball just past his fingertips.
But the goalie’s hand caught Calum’s ankle and made him stumble. By the time Calum had recovered his balance and got the ball back under control, he was wide of the goal.
To make matters worse, the defender he’d beaten had charged back and was sliding towards the goal-line to block his shot.
Off balance, and from a tight angle, Calum breathed out, drew his leg back and chipped the ball into the air, over the sliding defender…
…and into the far side of the goal!
It was 3–2 to Caleytown!
Calum wheeled away from the goal and looked for Leo. He couldn�
��t see him…
BOOF!
Calum almost got a face full of Astroturf as Leo rugby-tackled him in celebration.
“Yeeeeessss!”
“What a finish!”
“Ya BEAUTY!”
The Caleytown players piled on top of Calum. They looked like a bunch of bananas in their yellow strips.
“That’s enough now, lads,” the referee said as he came over to break up the party. “The game’s not finished yet.”
The Caleytown players picked themselves up and were jogging back to their half when Calum felt a hard slap on his back.
“Good goal, Museum Boots.” It was Jordan.
Calum didn’t have time to respond. Muckleton had already placed the ball on the centre spot and kicked off…
PEEP, PEEEEEP, PEEEEE-EP!
Now the game was over. Caleytown had beaten their rivals 3–2!
Calum couldn’t stop smiling. Neither could Leo.
“I reckon you’ll get a mention on Scotland Stars for that, Museum Boots,” said Leo.
“You think? They’ll have to talk about your step-over too.” Calum said. “That was class!”
They walked off the pitch with their arms round each other’s shoulders. Mr McKlop, Calum’s parents, Leo’s dad, Erika and her mum were clapping on the sidelines.
“Great game, Caleytown!” said Mr McKlop. “We’ve still got some work to do but that was an excellent team effort.”
“Well played, Cal! What a goal… what goals!” Calum’s dad appeared beside him and ruffled his hair.
“Thanks, Dad.” Calum smiled as Leighton jumped up on his leg.
“Down, Leighton,” Calum’s dad said. He looked down at the boots Mr Aziz had given Calum. The front of the left boot had opened up like a clown’s mouth.
“Why aren’t you wearing your plimsolls?”
“We’re not allowed to play football in plimsolls,” Calum said, more to the ground than his dad.
“Oh… right… well, I guess we’ll need to get you some new boots then,” he said.
“Really? Thanks!” said Caleytown’s number nine, with a big smile on his face.
Calum’s feet were sore from his stiff old boots, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for his team’s next match – and to read the match report.
If he could score two goals in museum boots, think what he could do in a brand new pair of astros.
Copyright
Young Kelpies is an imprint of Floris Books
First published in 2016 by Floris Books
This eBook edition published in 2016
Text © 2016 Danny Scott. Illustrations © 2016 Floris Books
Danny Scott and Alice A. Morentorn have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 to be identified as the Author and Illustrator of this work
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the prior permission of Floris Books, Edinburgh
www.florisbooks.co.uk
The publisher acknowledges subsidy from Creative Scotland towards the publication of this volume
British Library CIP data available
ISBN 978–178250–2–722
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