Ten

by Shamini Flint

  Nurhayati being on the team makes all the difference.

  The other kids want to play too so we have no problem fielding an eleven-a-side team. In fact, we have so many volunteers, the team has subs on the bench now!

  Football might not be cool when I play it, but when Nurhayati is kicking the ball gingerly – like it’s a porcupine and not a ball – the girls are prepared to believe it might be fun.

  I don’t mind. At least we have a team. And I’m still the best player.

  Besides, Nurhayati is an only child so her dad gives her everything she wants.

  And he wants her football efforts to be taken seriously.

  First, he donates kit.

  It’s amazing – I persuade Nurhayati to ask for blue shorts, yellow jerseys and white socks. The silly creature wants something in pink but I explain to her carefully that it won’t impress the boy down the street who is almost certainly a Brazil supporter.

  ‘How do you know that?’ she asks suspiciously.

  ‘Everyone who knows anything about football supports Brazil,’ I explain.

  She’s not sure whether she believes me but in football-related matters I have the upper hand.

  We get the blue shorts, yellow jerseys and white socks. We look fabulous, like a real team.

  I wish Dad could see me in my new kit. Mum loves it. Rajiv shrugs and pretends he doesn’t think much of my football uniform but I bet he’s secretly impressed.

  Amamma is horrified. She says, ‘Already I cannot show my face in town because your father has run away and now this …’

  Nurhayati’s dad wants the school to take his daughter’s new-found passion for football seriously.

  He wants us to play matches against other girls’ teams.

  There aren’t any.

  The other schools don’t have girls’ football teams.

  But Nurhayati’s dad isn’t the owner of the biggest company in town for nothing.

  He arranges an interschool tournament and offers ten thousand ringgit (that’s what you call money in Malaysia) to the school that wins.

  All the schools in Kuantan form girls’ teams right away.

  Ten thousand ringgit is a lot of money. There are head teachers all over Kuantan dreaming of new desks and chairs and textbooks and school buildings.

  I am so excited. I feel like I’ve been picked as a member of Brazil’s squad for a World Cup. I hope Nurhayati’s crush on this boy lasts long enough for us to take part in this tournament.

  Dad has stopped calling.

  I find Rajiv smoking a cigarette by the monsoon drain when Mum is out at work.

  ‘What are you doing? Mum will kill you!’

  ‘I’m old enough to do what I want.’

  ‘Rajiv, you’re fourteen.’

  ‘I’m the man of the house now.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Just because Dad lives in England does not mean you’re the head of anything.’

  Rajiv shrugs. He sucks in a lungful of smoke and coughs loudly.

  A cluster of small drain fish scatter in alarm but the tadpoles, fat blobs with small tails, stay where they are. The monsoon drain only has a few centimetres of water at the bottom. But when the rains come it flows like a river – without it we would be up to our knees in water in the living room for half the year.

  I say, ‘Dad leaving didn’t have anything to do with us.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  I sit down next to him. I wish I dared to have a cigarette. I am so angry inside I would just love to do something that is totally, completely, absolutely against the rules. But cigarettes are bad for your health and future professional footballers have to be very careful about keeping fit.

  So do hockey players.

  ‘You need to keep healthy for your hockey.’

  ‘I don’t care about hockey.’

  I’m really shocked. That’s like me saying I don’t care about football. It really isn’t true either. Rajiv is just upset because he’s the only kid who doesn’t have a dad to come and watch his games.

  I know how he feels.

  My football tournament is next week and Dad won’t be there to see me. Can you believe it? My first competitive game ever and Dad won’t be there.

  We haven’t spoken for so long, Dad and I, he doesn’t even know about Nurhayati’s dad organising the event.

  I feel tears trickle down my cheeks.

  ‘What’s up?’ Rajiv asks, looking away so that I won’t be embarrassed.

  ‘Dad won’t be at my game either.’

  Rajiv takes his cigarette out of his mouth and chucks it in the drain. I watch the lit end fizzle out. The tadpoles come over to investigate.

  ‘I’ll come to the game,’ says Rajiv.

  He puts an arm around my shoulder. It’s the first time he’s done something like that in his life.

  He says again, ‘I’m the man of the house and I’ll come for the game.’

  ‘I hope the tadpoles don’t get poisoned by your cigarette,’ I say, to hide how touched I am.

  It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining. The sky is a deep blue with clouds like puffs of white cotton candy. There is a stiff, swirling wind blowing. I hope it doesn’t interfere with my putting in well-timed crosses from the wing.

  Mum drives us to school. For a change she doesn’t almost hit anything so I can concentrate on being terrified.

  Rajiv sits in the front with her. He’s grinning with excitement. For this whole week, he’s called me ‘Zico’.

  Not ‘Maya’ or ‘Hey you’ or ‘idiot’, but Zico.

  He’s a much better brother now that Dad is gone.

  I’m dressed in my Brazil look-alike kit. To my immense, heart-bursting pride, I’ve been given the number ‘10’ jersey – the numbers were stuck on yesterday.

  I’m not sure that scoring the winning goal in a World Cup final could feel better than having a number ‘10’ jersey – the same number that Zico wears, the same number that Pelé used to wear. Even Maradona wears ‘10’.

  To be honest, I’m not sure that the other girls know how important the number ‘10’ is. But when Nurhayati’s dad, who is now our unofficial coach, asked me if I wanted the number, I knew that he understood what it meant.

  I think it was really nice of him not to give it to his own daughter. It would have been silly, of course. She’s an awful player. But on the other hand, it’s his tournament, his kit, his prize money and his kid. I’d have understood if he felt that Nurhayati should have the shirt.

  ‘Hey, Zico – you excited?’ asks Rajiv.

  I nod. I don’t dare speak because my heart is in my mouth and I don’t want it to fall out.

  I clutch my football under my arm and we make our way to the hockey pitch. We’re playing on a hockey pitch with hockey goals because Nurhayati’s dad thinks the crowd might get bored waiting for a ten-year-old to run the length of a football pitch. He might be right.

  We’re playing at our school, so we’re the ‘home’ team. I see lots of parents I don’t recognise though – ‘away’ supporters, I suppose.

  There are banners and flags and balloons.

  There’s a ‘phut phut’ sound in the air and I look up.

  It’s Uniform Romeo, Dad’s old plane, flying in circles overhead with thick clouds of colourful smoke trailing behind. It looks wonderful. Nurhayati’s dad must have hired the new owners of the flying club to put on a show.

  Poor Dad. The minute he sells a business, someone else makes money from it.

  I really miss him today.

  The self-proclaimed ‘man of the house’ is squinting at the plane too. He slaps me on the back.

  ‘Time to warm up, Zico!’

  Things begin to go wrong when we get pitch-side. The team is there but no one looks happy.

  Sok Mun is sitting on the ground holding her ankle with her goalkeeping gloves.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask.

  Nurhayati says, ‘She’s twisted her ankle.’

  S
ok Mun takes one hand off her ankle to wipe away the tears that are streaming down her cheeks.

  Her ankle is twice its normal size.

  ‘I was just warming up and I fell over,’ Sok Mun says.

  Nurhayati’s dad arrives with an icepack and some bandages. We watch him strap up her leg. He helps her to her feet. She stands on one leg, takes off her gloves and says, ‘I’m sorry – I can’t play.’

  Nurhayati’s dad says, ‘No, you can’t play. There’ll be other tournaments, Sok Mun. You can watch the game with your mum and dad now.’

  Sok Mun says, ‘Good luck,’ and smiles at us. Then she hobbles towards the stands.

  We watch her go in silence.

  We don’t have a goalkeeper.

  We don’t have a goalkeeper.

  We don’t have a goalkeeper!

  WE DON’T HAVE A GOALKEEPER!!

  Fortunately, I am only screaming in my head because otherwise we wouldn’t have a goalkeeper or a midfielder when I get dragged off to the funny farm.

  Nurhayati’s dad says, ‘We don’t have a goalkeeper.’

  I catch his eye. I suspect he feels like screaming too.

  The thing is, we have a lot of substitutes now that it’s cool to play football in our school because Nurhayati does. But we don’t have a spare goalkeeper. That’s because most of the girls, including me, just want a chance to score the winning goal in the final. Also, a lot of the girls don’t like the idea of being in the firing line when kids are taking pot shots at goal from all over the pitch. Quite a few of my teammates have only recently stopped squealing when the ball gets to them.

  The other teams are warming up and laughing and waving to their parents in the crowd. We sit glumly in a circle.

  Suddenly, I spot Batumalar. She is sitting in the stands with her dad.

  I remember him flailing his arms when he was telling me that she was good at football.

  I remember that I kept meaning to ask her to join the team.

  I remember that I was too afraid to be her friend.

  I remember that minorities have to stick up for each other.

  I grab the goalkeeping gloves and leap to my feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asks Nurhayati.

  ‘I think I’ve found us a goalkeeper!’

  I run up to the stands and wave the gloves in her face, ‘Batumalar, Sok Mun is injured! Will you be our goalie?’

  Batumalar refuses point blank. She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at the ground while shaking her head furiously.

  Everyone in the crowd is watching us and wondering what’s going on.

  Even under her dark skin, I see that Batumalar has gone brick red.

  Her dad says something to her in Tamil. I have no idea what it is.

  Then he says, ‘You have to try.’

  I understand this bit of Tamil because my aunts are always telling me I have to try some new dish they’ve cooked because ‘How will you know whether you like it or not if you don’t try?’

  Batumalar is still shaking her head.

  For the first time in my life, I try to speak Tamil to a stranger. I say, ‘You have to try.’

  She looks gobsmacked.

  I guess she didn’t realise I could speak Tamil. Or maybe I said something like ‘You have to stand on one foot while squawking like a chicken.’ I don’t know.

  Either way, she grabs the gloves and stands up.

  Her dad stands up too and gives her an awkward pat on the back. He’s beaming with pride.

  I feel so jealous of her and her dad I almost grab the gloves back.

  Batumalar and I are not a minority of two. I’m a minority of one: the only kid who doesn’t have a dad at the tournament to cheer her on.

  But then I hear Rajiv yelling, ‘Hurry up, Zico. What are you waiting for?’

  I grab Batumalar by the hand and we race down to the pitch.

  We win the first game 9 – 0. I score six of the nine goals and Batumalar pulls off two fine saves.

  She is an absolutely magnificent goalkeeper. A complete natural. She springs from one side of the goal to the other like she’s …on springs! She can reach the top corners. She’s a Peter Shilton – solid, dependable and an amazing athlete. She has great composure too. She seems so calm and large. The other team gives up almost before taking a shot. I don’t blame them.

  At the other end, the goalie is a small ten-year-old wishing she was somewhere else. If the ball comes towards her, she moves out of the way. It’s mean of us to put nine goals past her. As Dad might say, ‘It’s like shooting fish in a bucket.’

  I wish I hadn’t thought of Dad.

  The way the tournament is set up, there are two groups and the top two teams in each group will go through to the semifinals.

  We’re winning all our games by five goal margins. We are certain to finish top of our group.

  But on the other side of the draw there is a team from Beserah Girls’ School doing really well too.

  It soon becomes clear that the final will be between us and them.

  I watch them in their semifinal. I wonder whether the teachers have cheated and snuck some boys into the team. I stare hard. They look like girls. They have ponytails and some of them are quite pretty.

  They don’t score as many goals as us but they defend well. It’s like watching Germany. They’re even wearing black shorts and white tops.

  I’m getting really nervous. They might beat us. They’re good enough.

  Nurhayati’s dad announces the final. It will be between my school and Beserah, the two unbeaten teams in their respective groups. Twenty minutes each half.

  The winning team will receive ten thousand ringgit for their school.

  Nurhayati’s dad drops his bombshell.

  The best player of the final, as chosen by him and the headmistresses of the two teams, will win a trip to England for the Brazil-England friendly at Wembley Stadium next month.

  I can’t believe it! A trip to England … to Wembley!

  If I win …

  I’ll get to visit Foyles …

  I’ll watch Zico ‘live’…

  I’ll get to see Dad!

  Right there and then, I know it has to be me.

  It’s a close game.

  We can’t score because they have excellent defenders.

  They can’t score because their strikers are ordinary … and we have Batumalar.

  At half-time the score is still 0 – 0.

  Nurhayati’s dad is worried. He doesn’t really want his money to go to the other school. But he’s not sure what to do tactically. He’s not a professional coach, after all. And we’re doing our best.

  Rajiv comes down to the pitch. He pats me on the back. He says, ‘Message from Mum …’

  I look at him in surprise. What could Mum have to say about the game or our tactics or anything really? She substituted herself with a rose bush when I was practising. Maybe she just wants to wish me luck.

  Rajiv says, ‘Mum said to remember that they’re all just rose bushes.’

  I look at him and grin.

  They’re all just rose bushes.

  When the whistle blows for the start of the second half, I pick up the ball in my own half and take them on.

  I feint left and nutmeg the first defender. The ball rolls right between her legs.

  For the second, I dip my left shoulder and go right. She’s left standing.

  Two more defenders come at me. I slow down like I’m not sure what to do and then accelerate between them. They crash into each other behind me.

  Their best defender is closing in. I shield the ball with my body. My back is to goal. I roll the ball onto my foot, do my keepy-uppy thing for a couple of bounces and then flick the ball over her head and mine. I swivel round and I am past her with a clear shot at goal.

  The keeper looks terrified but she comes out to narrow the angle.

  I raise my foot like I’m going to put every bit of strength I have into the shot. She flinches. I tuck
the ball into the corner of the net.

  1 – 0.

  The crowd goes wild. I see Rajiv and Mum jump out of their seats in excitement.

  I feel like I’ve just scored the winning goal in the most important tournament of my life.

  Maybe I have.

  It’s ‘backs against the wall’ time. The other team is pouring forward. They have no choice. The only thing between the two teams is my goal.

  They seem stronger than us and fitter. Some of my teammates can barely run anymore. Nurhayati is just wandering around in a daze. Not even the presence of the boy she likes in the audience is enough to keep her going – she’s that tired.

  Only Batumalar is keeping us in the game. She is performing heroically. Tipping shots over the bar, pushing attempts onto the posts. Can she keep it up?

  I have given up trying to widen our lead or anything like that. I’m playing so deep in defence I’m like an extra goalkeeper except that I can’t use my hands.

  Their best striker gets the ball.

  She’s running in on goal.

  Nurhayati sticks out a leg and the striker skips over it.

  She hits a thunderous shot.

  Batumalar just manages to get a hand to it.

  The ball rebounds into play.

  The striker and I lunge for the ball.

  She gets there first.

  I get there second.

  She gets the ball.

  I get the player.

  It’s a penalty.

  I can hardly believe what I’ve done. There are only two minutes left in the game.

  Two minutes!

  What was I thinking?

  I should have realised I couldn’t get to the ball in time and concentrated on staying goal-side of the striker. I’d have narrowed her angle for the shot and Batumalar would have done the rest.

  I’ve just conceded a penalty two minutes from the end of the game.

  And for once it’s not happening in my head.