Own Goal

by Tom Palmer

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Tom Palmer is a football fan and author. He visits schools and libraries every week to talk about reading, writing and football.

  It was reading about football that helped Tom to become a confident reader. He now has the job of his dreams: travelling the world to watch football matches, meeting players, then writing stories about them.

  He lives in Yorkshire where he likes to be with his family, watch football and run.

  You can find out more about Tom – and talk to him – through his website: www.tompalmer.co.uk

  Books by Tom Palmer

  The Foul Play series (in reading order)

  FOUL PLAY

  DEAD BALL

  OFF SIDE

  KILLER PASS

  OWN GOAL

  For younger readers

  THE SECRET FOOTBALL CLUB

  The Football Academy series (in reading order)

  BOYS UNITED

  STRIKING OUT

  THE REAL THING

  READING THE GAME

  FREE KICK

  CAPTAIN FANTASTIC

  TOM PALMER

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2011

  Text copyright © Tom Palmer, 2011

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-141-95822-4

  For my lovely sister, Sarah

  CONTENTS

  Part One: England

  Friday

  Glory Supporter

  School Project

  Party

  Saturday

  Going Away

  Underground

  Trouble

  Sunday

  Sunday Lunch

  Monday

  Theo and Charlotte

  Silver Car

  Tuesday

  Sam Roberts

  Wednesday

  City vs Forza

  Part Two: Italy

  Tuesday

  Another Country

  The Villa

  Friend or Fo?

  The Image

  Trapped

  Drowning

  Dinner with Mum

  Night Boat

  Sea Monster

  Wednesday

  Forza FC

  First Half

  Second Half

  Fo

  Fo’s Cronies

  Certain Death

  Live from Forza FC

  Football Superhero

  Part Three: England

  Thursday

  Fame

  Friday

  Hero

  PART ONE: ENGLAND

  FRIDAY

  GLORY SUPPORTER

  ‘Who are you? Who are you?’

  Danny was walking down the long corridor that ran the length of the main building at school when he heard it. The chanting of a football song. One he knew well.

  But he carried on walking. Although he was the only person in the corridor that morning, there was no reason to think it was being aimed at him.

  ‘WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?’ It came louder now.

  Danny looked round this time to see three figures at the far end of the corridor. He knew who they were immediately. Theo Gibbs, from the sixth form. And his two mates, Andy and Ryan. Now what?

  Ignore them?

  Shout something back?

  Just stand there, like he was now?

  They wanted to get a reaction out of him: he knew that much.

  A second chorus started up.

  LET’S ALL LAUGH AT CITY.

  LET’S ALL LAUGH AT CITY.

  NA NA NA-NA.

  HA!

  NA NA NA-NA.

  HA!

  Danny wasn’t surprised. He had been expecting this kind of thing to happen sooner.

  Everyone at school knew he was a big City FC fan. He’d been a season-ticket holder long before City had become one of the best teams in Europe. And anyone who was a City fan was going to get stick this week.

  When things like this happened you just had to walk away. That’s what Dad would argue.

  So Danny started to walk.

  But he did not walk away from Theo and his cronies. He went towards them. And he knew exactly what he was going to say. That was because he knew exactly what they were going to say, even before they’d said it.

  He stopped when he was a metre away from them.

  ‘All right, City fan?’ Theo said. He was medium height, thin, with black hair.

  Danny gave a tight-lipped smile, but kept quiet. Situations like this were weird for him. Normally he would avoid arguments, both at home and here at school. He liked a quiet life and he was generally a very calm person, barely ever in trouble.

  But when it came to City FC it was different. When it came to City FC it felt like it wasn’t him who was being insulted. It was an insult to his football club and its thousands of supporters. That was why he was ready to stand his ground. That was what made this different.

  Especially when the insult came from Theo Gibbs. Because Theo Gibbs supported the team Danny hated more than any other.

  Forza FC of Italy.

  ‘Looking forward to a beating on Wednesday?’ Theo asked.

  This was it. The reference to next week’s match that he had been waiting for.

  ‘Not a beating …’ Danny said calmly.

  ‘What? You think City can win against the best team in the world?’ Theo sneered.

  ‘I do,’ Danny replied, glaring at the sixth-former.

  Theo exploded with laughter.

  But Danny still said nothing. He had done what he had wanted to do. Faced down Theo Gibbs. Kept calm. Done his duty to City. He turned and
started to walk away. Even though he knew there was more to come.

  ‘We are so going to take you apart,’ Theo started again. ‘Four or five–nil. We are better in every department. Our keeper. Our defenders. Our …’

  As Theo went on, Danny reflected on the game next week.

  City FC versus Forza FC in the Champions League semi-final. An English team versus an Italian team.

  So why was it, then, that so many people supported Forza FC in this school? It was crazy. It did Danny’s head in. But there was no escaping it. People were obsessed with Forza. Even Emily, Danny’s sister, liked them. And she hated football. It was crazy enough when people here preferred to support the bigger English clubs, seeing as they had such a good team in their city. But to support a foreign team?

  It didn’t make sense.

  ‘… and you know who is going to score the goals?’ The sixth-former left his question hanging in the air, knowing it would vex Danny. ‘You do know, don’t you?’

  Danny stood with his back to Theo. Now he was angry.

  ‘Roberts. Your ex-player, Sam Roberts.’ Danny could hear the smile in Theo’s voice. ‘Roberts knew which was the best team. And that’s why he left City for Forza. Do you miss him?’

  Inevitably, with the mention of his former favourite player, something snapped in Danny. He turned and marched back down the corridor towards Theo. Fast.

  He noticed the sixth-former widen his feet. Like he was expecting a fight.

  And Danny wondered. Could he? Would he? Should he … hit Theo Gibbs?

  He breathed in and out. Deep and long. Just like he always did when he wanted to calm himself down – or, at least, stay in control.

  And, when he reached the sixth-former, he stood right up in front of him and looked him directly in the eye.

  ‘Will you be there?’ Danny said calmly.

  ‘What?’ Theo’s voice had weakened.

  ‘I said, will you be there?’

  Theo shrugged. ‘No need.’

  ‘Will you be there?’ Danny insisted.

  ‘I said, there’s no need – I can watch it on TV.’

  ‘Wearing your facsimile Forza shirt and drinking out of your facsimile Forza mug with your facsimile Forza blanket on your knee …’ Danny said.

  ‘No,’ Theo said, stepping back very slightly, showing Danny he was rattled.

  ‘No, you won’t be there,’ Danny said. ‘But I will be. Like I am week after week after week because I am a proper football fan and you are a glory supporter.’

  And, with that, Danny walked away, the corridor silent.

  But it would not be his last clash with Theo Gibbs. Not by a long way. And the next encounter would be sooner than he expected.

  SCHOOL PROJECT

  Danny was pleased to see Charlotte already sitting in the classroom as he pushed through the door. And very pleased to see her look up at him and smile.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ she asked, her dark eyes fixed on him.

  Danny pushed a couple of chairs out of his path, slumped down in his seat and pulled a face.

  ‘Theo Gibbs,’ he said.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s a …’ Danny held back the word he had ready in his head to describe the sixth-former. ‘You know.’

  ‘He’s all right,’ Charlotte said.

  Danny took a breath while trying to conceal his frown. Charlotte thought Theo was all right? Great. That just about topped it all off.

  ‘Are you coming to the party tonight? At Cal’s?’ Charlotte asked, not at all aware that she’d irritated Danny. ‘Did he invite you?’

  Danny shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He felt insular, not really sure he wanted to go to a party. A night at home might suit him better, the mood he was in. There were bound to be more people at the party who called themselves Forza fans. It was like a disease had struck, some terrible virus. Hundreds of people, all supporting Forza, like Theo. And they’d be on his case. He knew that. He wanted to avoid them.

  But he didn’t want Charlotte to think he was boring, so he was relieved to see their media studies teacher, Mrs Page, come into the room and hear her raise her voice to start the class. He’d think about the party later.

  ‘Today …’ Mrs Page shouted, waiting for near silence. ‘Today we are going to start our class work profiles that will count towards your final GCSE result.’

  The volume in the room dropped to zero.

  ‘As we discussed last week,’ Mrs Page continued, ‘each of you needs to choose a person to create a profile for. A living person. Someone you admire? Like Barack Obama, perhaps. Or an author you like to read: Stephenie Meyer, Roald Dahl, Jeff Kinney. Someone like that. Or we said it could be someone controversial. Someone you maybe don’t like. Now you’ve had some time to think about it, I’d like to hear your ideas.’

  Danny looked at Charlotte. ‘Who are you doing?’

  ‘Lady Gaga. What about you?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Danny said, shrugging.

  Mrs Page picked on people in the room, asking them who they were going to profile.

  ‘Jacqueline Wilson.’

  ‘Robert Pattinson.’

  ‘Katie Price.’

  Danny barely listened to the names his classmates suggested. He was too busy thinking about Theo. And Charlotte. And Forza FC. And how it made him sick so many people supported them. He could feel an anger building in him. Anger towards Forza FC. Towards their owner, Salvatore Fo. Towards their fans. And he knew why: he felt vulnerable. If City lost to Forza, he’d never hear the last of it. From dozens of people.

  His classmates were still reeling off their heroes.

  ‘Kurt Cobain.’

  ‘Jeremy Clarkson.’

  ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants.’

  The class exploded with laughter. Danny didn’t join in. He was deep inside himself now.

  ‘Danny Harte. Who are you choosing?’

  Mrs Page had selected him seeing that he was not concentrating on what he should be, pouncing like a predator.

  And Danny, without thinking – remembering Mrs Page’s remark Someone you maybe don’t like – had decided.

  ‘Salvatore Fo,’ he said. ‘The owner of Forza FC.’

  The more Danny thought about it, as he walked home from school, the more he wanted to get started on this new school project. He was going to find out about Forza FC’s owner. The bad stuff. And he would put it all in his profile and then online, so everyone could read it.

  All the little pieces of information he knew about Fo were coming together in his head.

  He already knew Fo was dodgy. Seriously dodgy. Danny had read about it in World Soccer magazine and on the Internet. Fo had Mafia connections. There had been several court cases for corruption and stuff to do with bribery. And he went out with women young enough to be his granddaughters.

  This was actually going to be fun. Now that Danny had an outlet for his rage, he knew he was going to be all right. Now he had a mission. And that mission was to show everyone at his school and everywhere else what a dodgy man Salvatore Fo was. And to stop so many people supporting Forza FC.

  At home, Danny opened the front door and sprinted upstairs so he could get his thoughts about the school project into his notebook before he forgot them. He didn’t say anything to his parents, who were talking in the kitchen with the door closed.

  Danny went into his bedroom. A large desk dominated the room. And back on the wall there was a huge notice board with maps and lists and pictures pinned to it. This room was more than a bedroom to Danny. This was his nerve centre. The place where he recorded crimes and tried to solve them.

  Because, as well as football, Danny Harte had another passion: detection. Trying to get to the bottom of thefts, disappearances and murders consumed his life.

  In the last year he had solved a string of crimes related to football. He hadn’t done
it all on his own. Charlotte had helped. A lot. But his main partner – in crime solving – was his friend, a football journalist on the local newspaper, Anton Holt.

  Holt had access to players, to information, to City FC. And now – bizarrely – Holt was going out with Danny’s sister. But that was another story.

  As he sat down at the desk and started making his notes about Salvatore Fo, Danny heard his parents’ voices through the floorboards. Voices that were getting louder. Much louder. It was not a normal discussion. In fact, there were few normal discussions in the house these days. Everything seemed to end in an argument.

  He couldn’t make out the words. But he could tell that his parents were both angry.

  Danny put his pen down, opened his bedroom door and stood at the top of the stairs. He wanted to hear them more clearly.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ his dad’s voice asked.

  ‘I’ve told you.’ That was his mum.

  ‘Not yet. You have to wait.’

  ‘I know I have to wait. But I’m sick of waiting. Sick to death.’ His mum’s voice was getting louder again.

  ‘Just until the summer. We can all cope with it better then. After Emily’s A-levels and Danny’s exams.’

  Danny had absolutely no idea what was going on. But it didn’t sound good.

  And then he heard his mum scream, ‘I can’t wait until the summer! I am cracking up. I have to get out. Out!’

  Her voice was so hard, so shrill, that Danny didn’t register to himself that he had walked down the stairs, along the hall and had pushed the kitchen door open.

  He stood facing his parents.

  He had nothing to say. He wasn’t even thinking.

  Silence followed. An empty, useless, pathetic, stupid silence.

  Danny looked into the kitchen.

  His mother was just standing there staring at him, tears running down her cheeks. Danny was struck again by how different she was these days. She had been going to the gym, losing weight, learning Italian. And she looked different.