Angels

by Meredith Badger

  ‘Jinxy jinx,’ Luke yelled again.

  Lola turned around to glare at him. Just as she turned, she saw Joey put his hand over Luke’s mouth. It actually worked. Loudmouth Luke was quiet for a change. Joey gave Lola a nod, and she nodded back.

  She faked to the left, and kicked. The ball flew swiftly through the air, straight past Bonnie, and landed exactly where she wanted it to – in the net.

  ‘Fluke!’ Luke called out.

  Lola smiled as Joey quickly whacked his hand over Luke’s mouth again.

  Her second kick went in. And her third. And her fourth.

  Luke had stopped calling out. His mouth just hung open, like he was ready to catch flies with it.

  Lola shot him a fake smile as she lined up the ball for her last goal. This was the one she needed most.

  It felt like everything was going in slow motion. Lola’s foot met the ball. The ball rose into the air. Lola leant her body to the side, as though she could somehow help direct the flying ball. It looked like it might be heading too far to the left. She couldn’t watch. She closed her eyes!

  ‘You go girl! Go Angels captain! Five out of five. You’re a star.’ Bonnie thumped Lola on the back.

  ‘Well done!’ Lucy joined in, grabbing Lola’s hand and raising it into the air. Lola looked from side to side at her friends. She beamed at Lucy and Bonnie. At that moment, she felt like she belonged!

  The bell rang. Most of the Angels and the Devils walked off for class. Lola had noticed Luke slinking off, too. He was yelling instructions to the rest of the Devils, and trying to bounce the ball off his knees while he ran.

  Lola grinned, and did a little karate chop in the air to celebrate. It was like Luke had suddenly realised that the Angels were actually talented. It certainly looked like he was nervous now!

  Sophie walked over to Lola. Her head was bent down. Suddenly, Lola felt sorry for Sophie. She’d done really well, too.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Sophie said. ‘You were great.’ She was being really nice, but she did look a little bit sad. Lola couldn’t help wondering if she would have been so nice if Sophie had won the shoot-out.

  Suddenly, Lola had an idea, and just thinking about it made her feel good.

  ‘How about you be vice-captain?’ she said to Sophie. ‘We could make up our game plans together. Maybe you could come over to my place after school so we can get started?’

  Sophie’s face lit up. She looked great when she smiled. ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘I’d love that! Thanks, Lola.’

  ‘Are you coming?’ Annabelle asked, rushing back to get Sophie. ‘Mr Stavros gets really grumpy if you’re late to class.’ She pulled Sophie away by the hand.

  ‘I’ll catch you guys up,’ Lola called. She picked up the soccer ball and started walking behind them. Sophie looked back. She gave Lola a cross-eyed look that made her laugh out loud.

  Lola knew exactly what Sophie meant by making that face. Annabelle really bossed Sophie around sometimes! So far, Annabelle’s attitude had made it quite hard to get to know Sophie.

  But now, Lola felt like that was about to change.

  ‘Every time I think about the soccer match, I get butterflies,’ Lola said, flapping her arms about like a butterfly.

  Sophie giggled. ‘You’re lucky,’ she said, ‘I get big ugly moths bumping around.’ She tapped her hands on her chest to demonstrate.

  Lola laughed as she opened her front door. The smell of Rex’s baking drifted out. It felt good to be alone with Sophie. Lola loved being around all of the Angels, but when she was just with Sophie, Sophie seemed to lose her shyness.

  ‘Hello there, Loles … and who do we have here?’ Rex asked, smiling at Sophie.

  ‘I’ll tell you if you give us some of those chocolate-chip biscuits,’ Lola teased. Rex smiled and handed them each one of his fresh biscuits.

  Lola took a bite. ‘Mmmm,’ she said. ‘This is Sophie. She’s going to be the vice-captain of the Angels soccer team. And I’m the captain!’

  As soon as she’d spoken, Lola wished she could get the words back. She had planned to be casual and cool. But now Rex was yelling. ‘Hey, Will, come here! Lola has some news!’

  Lola bit her lip as Will raced in the back door from outside.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ he asked, munching into a triple-biscuit sandwich.

  ‘I’m the captain of our soccer team,’ Lola said happily. ‘And we’re going to play a huge match against a whole team of boys!’

  Suddenly Will looked like he was going to choke on his biscuit sandwich. ‘But isn’t your team all girls?’ he asked.

  Lola swallowed her mouthful. ‘Yeah,’ she said. Will raised his eyebrows. Lola knew that look very well. He might as well just say that Lola’s team didn’t have a single hope in the universe of beating an all-boys team.

  Lola took a deep breath. This wasn’t at all how she imagined Will would react to the news that she was captain. He had hardly paid any attention at all!

  ‘Hey, save some for me, you greedy guts!’ Patrick Lee bounced in the back door, banging the fly-screen door shut. Patrick was one of Will’s best friends. They did karate and soccer together.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, grabbing a handful of biscuits.

  ‘Ah, I live here,’ Lola replied, rolling her eyes. But then, she realised that Patrick wasn’t talking to her. He had just spotted Sophie.

  ‘Hi, Patrick!’ Sophie said.

  Lola and Will exchanged surprised glances. ‘You guys know each other?’ Lola asked. Sophie smiled. ‘Patrick was at my old school,’ she said.

  Suddenly Patrick was laughing. A bit of chocolate-chip biscuit flew out of his mouth. ‘I haven’t been able to eat pumpkin since our last school camp,’ he said, shaking his head.

  Lola was amazed to find that Sophie was laughing really loudly. She didn’t seem shy at all.

  ‘My friends and I played a joke on Patrick when we were on camp,’ Sophie explained between giggles.

  Lola smiled. It was funny to think that Sophie and Patrick knew each other. She’d never really thought about Sophie’s life before she came to their school. Suddenly, her new friend seemed more interesting than ever.

  ‘So, what’s this about a soccer game?’ Patrick asked. Lola and Sophie explained about the Angels and the Devils.

  ‘Cool,’ Patrick said. ‘Will and I can come down to the oval after school tomorrow and give you a proper, professional training session. Cos we’re like, pretty hot players, you know!’

  Lola smiled. Patrick Lee had a lot of confidence. Sometimes she wondered if he really felt that confident or if he was just joking. But Patrick and Will had played soccer for a long time, and she was sure they could give the Angels some tips, even if it did mean they had to put up with Patrick’s big head!

  Lola and Sophie looked at each other. Lola could tell by a little smirk on Sophie’s face that Sophie was trying not to laugh at Patrick.

  ‘Sounds good, Patrick,’ Lola said.

  Sophie nodded. ‘Yep, sounds great,’ she agreed. ‘Would you like me to bring oranges … or do they remind you too much of pumpkin?’

  This time, both the girls laughed out loud. As Lola cracked up, she noticed Will’s eyebrows rising again.

  But this time, she totally ignored it.

  ‘We are going to look so much better than the Devils,’ Annabelle said, as she handed out the matching pairs of white shorts and pink singlets.

  ‘Yep, and all of you owe Annabelle’s mum twenty dollars,’ Chloe said. ‘Which is a bargain, really, because these costumes are just gorgeous.’

  Lola looked at the clothes, and then out onto the oval. Will and Patrick were out there doing warm-up sprints.

  ‘Um, maybe we can save these for the real game?’ she said hopefully.

  But Chloe and Annabelle were on a mission. ‘Into the change rooms, Angels,’ Annabelle said bossily.

  Lola sighed. She thought that Will would probably give her a hard time for wearing these outfits. But she also knew t
hat Annabelle would give them an even harder time if they didn’t!

  The Angels crowded into the change rooms. Lola covered herself with a towel, and pulled on her pink singlet.

  ‘I can’t wait until we beat the Devils,’ Annabelle said, pulling on her shorts. ‘They are all totally painful!’

  ‘Except for Joey,’ Lola said. She remembered how Joey had whacked his hand over Luke’s mouth to stop him teasing her during the shoot-out. That had been a really nice thing to do.

  Annabelle popped her head out of her singlet. ‘Ooooh, somebody’s got a crush,’ she teased.

  Lola looked at Sophie. Sophie winced.

  ‘And anyway, you can’t like a Devil,’ Annabelle continued. ‘The Devils are our arch enemies!’

  Lola felt the blood rush to her face. She had no idea what to say.

  Sophie cleared her throat. ‘Actually, Belle,’ she said, ‘we don’t have to hate the Devils to win the game. In fact, I get along pretty well with Luke. I know he can be annoying sometimes. But we did a project together during Art Week, and he’s a really cool drawer. We ended up getting the best marks in the whole class. And he wasn’t even being a pain …’

  ‘Eeeew,’ Chloe called out.‘You couldn’t possibly like Luke! How gross!’

  ‘Soph, do you like Luke?’ Annabelle demanded, putting her hands on her hips and staring at Sophie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t mean I like like him …’

  But it was too late. All the Angels except for Lola started singing:

  Sophie and Luke,

  sitting in a tree.

  K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

  Lola scratched her head. She was surprised that Sophie liked Luke. But it wasn’t really fair of everyone to tease her. She just wished that she hadn’t said a word to anyone about Joey. Then none of this would have happened.

  Sometimes it felt like the Angels weren’t a proper team at all! She wondered whether the Zebras or the Super Stars had these sorts of problems.

  ‘Are you guys coming or not?’ Patrick’s voice echoed through the change rooms.

  Lola looked around at the Angels. Annabelle had a funny look on her face. Sophie looked embarassed. And the rest of the Angels just looked like they were dressed up as strawberry-and-vanilla ice-cream cones!

  ‘Shall we go?’ she asked.

  Lola felt a bit silly walking out to the oval dressed in pink and white. But Chloe and Annabelle seemed proud of their uniform. As they skipped ahead, Lola stayed close to Sophie.

  Suddenly, Bonnie took a tumble into the mud. Her white shorts were splattered with brown. Lola couldn’t help wondering if she’d fallen over on purpose. But at least Sophie was smiling again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Lola asked Sophie.

  Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s just that sometimes I wish Annabelle would …’

  ‘Hey, Soph. Are you coming back to Will’s after this to practise some more?’ Patrick asked, bouncing a soccer ball as he spoke. His hair was all spiked up with gel.

  Sophie smiled. ‘Well, I’d like to …’ she began.

  But suddenly, Annabelle was standing right next to them.

  ‘No, Sophie can’t go over to Lola’s,’ she said, sounding hurt. ‘She’s coming over to my house for dinner.’

  Patrick shrugged, then he kicked the ball over to the goals and ran off after it. ‘When did you go to Lola’s?’ Annabelle asked, sounding cross. Without waiting for an answer, she added quickly, ‘You didn’t even tell me about it!’

  Lola swallowed. She felt weird about having invited Sophie over now. It seemed like she was supposed to ask Annabelle’s permission first.

  ‘Um, last night we just had a little meeting about the game plan for Saturday’s match,’ Lola explained.

  Annabelle tilted her head to the side. Then she put her arm around Sophie’s shoulder and gave her a big squeeze.

  ‘She’s my cousin,’ Annabelle said, as though she owned Sophie the way you might own a doll.

  Lola nodded. Of course Sophie was Annabelle’s cousin! Everyone in the whole school knew that. But did that mean Sophie couldn’t have her own friends as well?

  As Annabelle lifted her arm away, Lola thought she heard Sophie sigh.

  ‘Come on, you guys. Move it!’ Will yelled. A soccer ball flew through the air. Sophie sprung into action. She lobbed the ball over to Bonnie. Bonnie leapt in the air and headbutted it towards Lucy.

  ‘Nice work,’ Patrick called out. ‘Now get into your positions, Angels!’

  Soon, the ball was flying around the oval, and Lola forgot about everything except for soccer. The practice was excellent. Even Chloe and Annabelle got a kick. Annabelle was really improving.

  With a bit more practice, Lola thought she might be pretty good.

  Then Will taught them all a new move. Lola concentrated as she tried it out. She played the ball from one foot to another, keeping her back towards the attacker. By the end of the practice, even Will struggled to get the ball off her!

  ‘Well Angels, good luck for the big match tomorrow!’ Patrick said, when practice was over.

  Lola nodded. ‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated with a shiver. ‘Only one more sleep!’

  ‘Just remember to …’ he bounced the soccer ball off his head, down to his feet and then kicked it through the goal. Lola knew he was showing off. But she didn’t mind. Will and Patrick had been a big help.

  As they walked back to the change rooms, Annabelle caught up with Lola and Sophie. ‘That was really cool,’ Annabelle admitted. ‘Thanks for getting your brother to coach us, Lola.’

  Lola looked down at her dirty runners. ‘That’s OK, Annabelle,’ she said.

  Suddenly, Annabelle stopped walking. ‘So, Sophie, you are coming to my house tonight with your dad, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘You can’t skip Friday night fish and chips!’ Annabelle tucked her hair behind her ears and waited for Sophie to answer.

  Sophie rubbed her temples as though she had a headache. ‘I don’t know …’ she said, ‘it’s just that Lola and I have a few ideas, and the soccer match is tomorrow.’

  Lola watched Annabelle’s face closely. Her eyes were all squinty and Annabelle looked like she might cry. But then she coughed loudly. It sounded really fake.

  ‘I think I’m getting the flu,’ she said. ‘I might not even be able to play in the soccer match tomorrow.’

  Lola watched as Annabelle walked off. Then Lola leant in and whispered to Sophie, ‘You can’t choose your family.’ As soon as it came out of her mouth, she felt mean.

  But Sophie just rolled her eyes. ‘Belle’s OK, really,’ she said. ‘She just wants to look after me … maybe too much.’

  Lola sighed. ‘I guess you’d better go to her place tonight. You know, to make sure she doesn’t come down with the flu.’

  Sophie shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess I’d better,’ she said softly. ‘Sorry, Loles.’

  Lola smiled at her new friend. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Just make sure Annabelle turns up tomorrow!’

  Lola could hardly believe how many people had turned up to the game. There seemed to be hundreds of parents and kids and teachers wandering around the oval.

  In fact, it looked like half the country had come to watch the sporting challenges. Even some of Sophie’s old classmates had come – their school was planning to do their own Team Terrific project!

  Lola sat between Chloe and Sophie as they watched the Zebras play the Super Stars in a softball match. So far, she had spotted lots of kids she knew. She could see Maddy and Erin from Chloe’s class over on the courts, practising their netball throws with Dale. Their team, the Thunderbolts, were playing the Dogaroos.

  Lola’s best friend Abbey waved from the other side of the oval where she was sitting with Will and Patrick.

  But so far, Lola hadn’t seen Annabelle. Every time she thought about her, her heart skipped a beat. If the Angels didn’t have a complete team, they wouldn’t stand a chance against the Devils.

/>   ‘Annabelle is definitely coming, isn’t she?’ Lola asked Sophie for the tenth time. She had to speak loudly, because the crowd was so noisy.

  Sophie shrugged. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘We sorted things out last night … at least, I thought we did.’

  Lola breathed deeply as Nicole hit another fly ball for the Super Stars. The crowd cheered wildly. Nicole had certainly been the star of the Super Stars.

  As Lola watched she let herself imagine that she might be the star of the soccer match. In front of Will and Patrick, and this whole huge crowd! What if she was really amazing? What if the Angels won, and everyone carried her on their shoulders?

  ‘Mum washed all our singlets last night,’ Chloe said, interrupting Lola’s thoughts in a very croaky voice, worn out by all the yelling she’d been doing. ‘And she sewed these on,’ she added, pulling the singlets out from a pink sports bag.

  Lola gasped. The singlets looked incredible. Chloe’s mum had sewn a pink number on each one. And above each number, printed onto the singlet, was the word Angels!

  ‘Wow, Chloe!’ Lola said. ‘These are awesome!’ She really meant it, too. ‘The singlets look really, well, professional.’

  Chloe beamed back at her. ‘They do look good, don’t they?’ she said. ‘Here’s your one, Loles.’

  Lola turned over her singlet. She got to have number fourteen! Lola held her breath. Fourteen was her lucky number. She only hoped that it would bring enough luck to win the soccer match!

  ‘And my mum washed the shorts,’ said a voice. ‘Bonnie’s needed to be soaked for ages!’

  Lola turned around to see who was speaking. ‘Annabelle! I’m so glad you’re here.’

  Annabelle smiled. ‘We got caught in traffic,’ she said. ‘But of course I’m here!’

  Sophie and Lola pulled Annabelle down to sit between them.

  ‘Way to go, girl!’ Lola said, giving Annabelle a little punch on the arm. Sophie joined in on the other side. Soon, all three of them were giggling and punching.