Llama United

by Scott Allen

  Cairo puffed out his chest with pride. ‘That, I can do.’

  ‘That’s great! Welcome to the team, Mr Physio,’ said Tim, shaking Cairo enthusiastically by the hand.

  Cairo started to do an unnecessary warm-up routine, which included five star jumps, two feeble press-ups and one awful sit-up, which made him cry out in pain, as though it was the toughest thing ever. ‘I think I’ve identified a bit of a problem boss,’ he puffed as he began jogging on the spot.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Tim, his eyes fixed on Goal Machine, who had just powered home an incredible header.

  ‘Well, as you know, I’m no football expert, but where’s your goalkeeper?’

  18

  THE KEEPER

  Cairo was right. Despite the best efforts of Tim and McCloud, the most crucial position on the pitch remained unfilled. They’d put all ten llamas in goal, but none had shown any interest in stopping a ball being shot at them. They either ran out of goal to chase the ball, leaving an empty net, or ducked out of the way. To be fair, being a goalkeeper isn’t fun. You get really muddy, everyone shouts at you when you make a mistake, and if your team score you are so far away you can’t really celebrate. This is why I always played inside right. That’s a position from a long time ago. I suppose you would call me an attacking midfielder now.

  ‘Have you tried Ludo in goal?’ asked Cairo, pointing at the big black llama.

  ‘Ludo has no interest in the ball or the game,’ replied Tim with a sigh. ‘He just stands there – looking down the road.’

  Cairo rubbed his chin. ‘Remember I told you about guard llamas, and how they like to protect things?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Tim with a shrug, pretending he hadn’t forgotten . . . which he had.

  ‘Well, maybe he’d guard the net, if you asked him nicely?’ Cairo suggested.

  ‘Why me? You’re the llama expert.’

  ‘Ah, but he likes you,’ replied Cairo. ‘You’re easily his favourite.’

  ‘Am I?’ said Tim, secretly pleased Cairo had noticed this.

  ‘Of course. When he is not looking down the road, he is always glancing back to see where you are.’ Cairo smiled and ran off to collect Ludo from the side of the field.

  Tim stopped McCloud’s how-to-dish-out-a-crafty-kick-on-the-opposition-striker-during-the-first-corner-of-the-match session and explained the Ludo plan. McCloud frowned and crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed.

  Once Ludo was in front of the net, Cairo joined Tim and McCloud on the edge of the penalty area they’d marked out around the goal.

  ‘Right then,’ said McCloud. ‘Let’s see if this one can stop any of these.’ He smashed a low ball into the corner of the net. Ludo watched casually as it rolled past him.

  ‘Hmmmmm. Maybe that was too hard for a first-timer,’ continued McCloud, as he lightly tapped the ball towards the other corner of the net. Once again Ludo watched the ball creep past him.

  ‘OK, let’s try one right at him,’ said McCloud firmly. Tim could sense McCloud was getting frustrated now. McCloud smashed the ball straight at the llama and unsurprisingly it hit him square on the chest and bounced away. Ludo snorted loudly in disgust and trotted out of the net and back to the other side of the field.

  ‘I don’t think he’s much of a goalkeeper,’ said Cairo unhelpfully.

  ‘Ach! Red Lichties!’ shouted McCloud, booting a cone towards a huddle of llamas nearby. ‘We are going to get knocked out in the first match because we can’t find a goalkeeper. All this work for nothing.’

  Tim was just working up the courage to tell McCloud off for kicking a cone, when he noticed Ludo doing something out the corner of his eye. ‘Look at that!’ he exclaimed, pointing at the huge black llama, who was sprinting down the field to stand in front of the llamas who’d had the cone kicked towards them.

  ‘Of course!’ exclaimed Cairo. ‘He needs something to guard, something alive! Not a goal. That’s not real to a llama, but he will protect the other llamas. Quick, let’s get one in the back of the net and test it out.’

  McCloud grabbed the unsuspecting Barcelona, who seemed to be in the middle of an attempted moonwalk, and led him to the back of the goal.

  ‘OK, let’s try it now,’ said Tim, and he fired a shot straight at Barcelona. The ball powered through the air – Tim had hit it really well and it was bang on target. It was just about to strike poor Barcelona, when Ludo sprang into action, diving across the goal to knock the ball away with its head. What a save!

  McCloud tried it again and the result was the same, another brilliant save.

  McCloud, Tim and Cairo stood there, totally stunned for a few seconds, and then burst out laughing and cheering.

  ‘We’ve done it laddies, the final piece of the jigsaw!’ cried McCloud with a laugh as he high-fived Tim and Cairo before grabbing them both in a massive hug.

  But Tim had one thought nagging away at the back of his mind. ‘We’ve still got a problem,’ he said, struggling out of McCloud’s embrace. ‘We can’t leave Barcelona in goal for Ludo to protect. We need him in defence.’

  McCloud squinted into the distance. ‘Aye, that is a problem. We’ll have to find something else for Ludo to guard.’ He rubbed the side of his face for a good few minutes before a wicked grin flashed across his face. ‘Why don’t you go in goal, sonny?’

  Tim frowned. ‘What? I’m not doing that, it’ll hurt.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ said the Scotsman encouragingly. ‘Your llama pal will save every shot. Go on, give it a try.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea. I might even have a shot,’ said Cairo, rubbing his hands together with glee.

  Tim dropped his shoulders and stomped over to the goal. He knew this wasn’t going to be fun.

  ‘You’ll stop this won’t you, Ludo?’ said Tim to the llama as he walked past. Ludo didn’t react – he was busy nibbling on a huge dandelion.

  McCloud fired in a powerful piledriver from the edge of the area. Tim could hear the ball making a high-pitched singing noise as it flew through the air then, WHACK . . . it hit him smack bang in the face. His nose decided this really wasn’t a fun game and exploded with blood. Ludo, who hadn’t moved at all, looked at Tim like he was the biggest idiot in the world for standing somewhere where balls were being kicked at him and carried on munching his dandelion.

  Tim let out a yelp and grabbed his bleeding nose as Cairo ran across to him with a handful of dirty-looking tissues. It was his first proper job as team physio and he was excited. He did an unhelpful ‘nee-naw-nee-naw’ ambulance noise as he ran.

  ‘Maybe putting you in goal isn’t the best idea,’ said McCloud thoughtfully from the edge of the area. ‘We’ll have to think of something else.’

  Cairo slowly wiped the remaining bits of blood from around Tim’s nose. He wasn’t really concentrating. Every dab was getting slower and slower; he was clearly thinking about something else. ‘Of course,’ he said, clicking his fingers. ‘I knew it! I knew it!’

  ‘Knew what?’ mumbled Tim through a wad of bloody tissues.

  ‘We’ve got a sheep back at the shelter.’

  ‘A sheep?’

  ‘Guard llamas will protect sheep; we can just stick it in the goal. Wow, I am brilliant sometimes.’ Cairo gleefully patted himself on the back.

  ‘And you couldn’t have thought about the sheep before I got my nose bashed in?’ Tim’s whole face was still buzzing from the whack, and he was a bit annoyed that Cairo was busy congratulating himself while he was in so much pain.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry. Sometimes my genius ideas do take a bit of time to get to the front of my brain.’

  Tim sat down and lay back on the grass, holding his nose as high as he could to stop the nose bleed. A shadow appeared over his head. It was McCloud.

  ‘What you doing on the floor, sonny?’

  ‘My nose hurts,’ Tim whined.

  ‘No time for noses; they are overrated,’ the Scotsman roared. ‘Go and get that sheep.’

  19

&nb
sp; MOTORWAY

  Tim and Cairo had to wait until the next day to get the sheep, as it was getting dark. Then Tim had to go to school, which made it seem like the slowest day ever. He learned about peaches, and which sauce goes best with them. The whole school voted for mint sauce, including Fiona, and they all laughed in his face when he suggested that cream was the normal option. They called him ‘mouldy cream boy’ for the rest of the day.

  Cairo was feeding a tortoise a massive lettuce leaf when Tim finally got to the animal shelter. There was a tiny nibble mark on one edge of the leaf.

  ‘I’ve been feeding Clive this lettuce for five hours now,’ Cairo sighed, nodding at the tortoise. Clive is a big name for things with a shell. Every single lobster in the world is called Clive, which is incredibly confusing. Shout ‘Clive’ at a tank of lobsters and they’ll all turn round. ‘But he seems happy enough, so I’m OK with it.’

  ‘That’s great,’ replied Tim, not really listening. ‘Have you got the sheep then?’ He had been thinking about it most of the day and was keen to see what it looked like. As I’m sure you’ll know, most sheep look exactly the same, but Tim had never seen one close up and he was really excited about it.

  Cairo put the lettuce leaf down, just as Clive was about to take his biggest mouthful of the day. ‘She’s in our field round the back. Come with me.’

  Cairo’s ‘round the back’ was very different from what you and I would call ‘round the back’. The field was about a mile away, across a boggy marsh that Tim nearly lost one of his school shoes in.

  Scrunched in one corner of the long thin field were five black-and-white cows all sitting down as though they were on holiday in Spain. At the very far end was one solitary sheep looking very, very grumpy. The main part of the field was dominated by two angry-looking goats, who were patrolling it like guard dogs.

  ‘So, we ignore the goats,’ said Cairo in a nervous sing-song voice, as he hurdled the fence in one bound. ‘We ignore the goats . . . we don’t look at the goats . . . nothing to see here, goats. Just two boys crossing your field. Ignore the goats, Tim. Don’t look at the goats. Whatever you do, don’t look at the goats.’

  Tim followed closely, almost clipping the heels of Cairo’s mismatched wellingtons. Being instructed to not look at the goats made him want to look at the goats even more. He tried to focus on the back of Cairo’s head instead.

  After a very stressful couple of minutes they finally reached the sheep.

  ‘She’s called Motorway,’ called Cairo. ‘’Coz we found her by the side of a motorway, covered in soot and exhaust fumes. She was pretty much all black by the time we got to her.’

  ‘She doesn’t look very happy in this field.’

  ‘Nah, she doesn’t. We think she might miss the roar of car engines charging past. It’s too quiet for her here.’ Cairo gave the sheep something orange out of his pocket, probably a carrot – I couldn’t quite see. I was distracted by the goats.

  ‘Hello, Motorway,’ bellowed Cairo at the top of his voice. ‘How are you today?’ He turned to Tim. ‘You say something, but make sure you shout. She likes that.’

  ‘Er . . . lovely weather we are having, eh, Motorway?’ Tim shouted.

  Both Cairo and Motorway gave Tim a funny look.

  ‘We are going to take you to help our football team,’ Cairo bellowed. ‘Motorway, you are going to play a vital part in the team.’

  ‘She’s only going to stand in the net,’ muttered Tim.

  ‘Sssssshhh,’ hissed Cairo, pulling Tim to one side. ‘Don’t say things like that! She thinks she’s a princess.’

  ‘A princess?’

  ‘Yes. If you want her to help us you have to treat her with respect, bow and do other things you would do with a princess. She’s very elegant.’

  Tim looked at Motorway. She didn’t look very elegant to him. She looked like a sheep. Although he did notice that despite being in a really muddy field, she was very neat and tidy – not a speck of dirt on her and her hair was bright white.

  ‘You’ll get on well with my little sister; she thinks she’s a princess too,’ yelled Tim to Motorway.

  Cairo pulled a purple silk scarf from one of his many pockets and carefully tied it loosely around the sheep’s neck. ‘Now, Motorway, if you’d be so good as to follow us to meet the other members of your football team, that would be very gracious of you,’ shouted Cairo. ‘But once again, everyone, we are ignoring the goats. Tum-tee-tee . . . ignoring the goats.’

  Motorway followed Cairo at a leisurely trot, with her head held high as though she was acknowledging an invisible crowd that were clamouring to see her. Tim followed but every time he went ahead, Motorway would give him a piercing stare, forcing him to drop back.

  So the whole of Tim’s long walk home was looking at the backside of a sheep, whilst desperately trying not to look at the goats.

  If you’ve ever had the misfortune to stare at a sheep’s bottom, you’ll know it’s an unpleasant experi—

  OH NO! I LOOKED AT A GOAT!

  20

  PRE-SEASON TRAINING

  The qualifying rounds of the Cup started in late August, so Tim, Cairo and McCloud spent the whole summer training the llamas and Motorway. It was tough going, but they were making real progress. Motorway’s presence in the goal worked perfectly. Ludo could think of nothing more important than protecting her from being hit by the ball. If occasionally he was beaten he would fume outwardly, spit on the floor and dig his feet into the ground, making him even more determined not to let another goal in.

  Cairo made the goal look like a palace for Motorway, with purple ribbons, bunting that he’d coloured in with a gold pen, and a plush cushion. He’d even brushed Ludo’s hair all smart so he looked like her butler. At first Ludo didn’t enjoy this, but after Tim brushed his own hair into the same style to show it was OK, the big llama agreed to the change with his now customary nod.

  The draw for the opening rounds of the Cup had been made, and Llama United were playing at home to a team called Brocket Town. In these early stages of the competition it wasn’t much of a surprise if you’d never heard of the opposition. The league teams didn’t join until the first round in November, while the biggest teams only started playing in the third round in January. Brocket Town could have been from just down the road or on the Scottish border for all Tim knew. To be honest, I’ve no idea where Brocket is either.

  There was just one small problem. Nobody apart from McCloud, Cairo, Cairo’s mum and the Gravy family had any idea that Llama United was actually a team of llamas. Most people thought it was just a wacky name for a new up-and-coming team. White Horse FC had even agreed to let them play their home matches on their pitch. It would bring in welcome extra money from supporters coming to the ground, both through the turnstiles and in the bar and burger stand during the match.

  The family had really pulled together as the new season drew closer. Monica, Beetroot and Cairo’s mum, Molly, had come up trumps with the kit. It was a purple stripy top that the llamas would wear over their hindquarters like a coat; they all had numbers stitched on the side. Beetroot had also drawn up plans for some stripy Llama United scarves. Apart from all the sewing, she’d been incredibly busy with her llama fitness regime. She was up first thing every morning warming up the llamas, testing their stamina levels and checking their sprint times. She regularly provided McCloud and Tim with complicated spreadsheets full of times and distances. The two girls, Dasher and Lightning, were easily the quickest over a hundred metres, while Smasher was the toughest when it came to the long runs. He never seemed to get out of breath.

  Monica built a really cool website called llamaunited.com with loads of information and pictures about the team and the family, which they planned to launch after the first match so they wouldn’t give away the big secret. Frank also seemed to be a bit happier. He had struck a deal with White Horse FC to get some of the money from the ticket sales for the home Cup matches. He knew it wouldn’t be a lot, but it might help kee
p the bank from taking the farm away for a few more weeks. He’d also read up to chapter four in his beekeeping book and built two walls of Fiona’s princess castle.

  Even McCloud had done his bit. He’d bought himself and the boys a huge pile of chewing gum to chomp through during the match. Chewing gum seems to be the main thing modern football managers do these days while they are in the dugout or technical area, along with pointing, clapping, hopping up and down, tearing at their hair and dancing . . . well, perhaps not dancing.

  So what had Fiona been up to? Well, she was in the thick of all the action, the boss of all the projects, although she didn’t ever do any actual work. She pointed, made suggestions, had opinions, shook her head, folded her arms and told everyone how to do things better. She also drank a staggering amount of juice, because nobody was keeping an eye on how many times she went to the fridge.

  21

  LLAMA UNITED V BROCKET TOWN

  The sun was shining as Tim, Cairo, Frank and the llamas drove up to the back of White Horse FC stadium. Frank had borrowed Molly’s animal transporter, which she’d said they could use for the duration of the cup run. Molly was generous like that.

  Tim could feel his stomach flipping over and over with a mixture of nerves and excitement, while his hands were unusually sweaty. McCloud was waiting in the car park with the doors to the ground wide open. He didn’t want anyone to see the llamas before kick-off, just in case someone complained and they weren’t allowed to take the field. There are always busybodies that go out of their way to ruin everyone’s fun, and McCloud didn’t want to encounter any of these types before the llamas had even got their kit on.

  White Horse FC was expecting a bumper crowd for the first match of the Cup . . . of about forty-five people. Which was at least ten more than usual; four of them being Beetroot, Monica, Fiona and Molly, all of whom had never been to a game before. Actually Molly had once seen an international friendly, but it was a very boring 0 – 0 draw, so she’d wiped it from her mind.