Has Anyone Seen Our Striker?

by Helena Pielichaty

  “You think so?”

  “I know so!” She beamed.

  As it turned out, Megan was right, something big did happen, at training the next evening. Unfortunately, I don’t think it was quite what she had in mind.

  I had arrived early. “You all right there, Evo?” Hannah greeted me as soon as she saw me. “Katie and I are just going to have a quick meeting. We’ll be in the storeroom if anybody needs us.”

  “Roger that, coach,” I replied.

  A minute later Holly, Nika and the twins arrived, followed by Mr Cutts the caretaker. “Who’s in charge round here?” he asked. “Someone’s car alarm’s going off and it’s sending the missus nuts.”

  I padded across to the storeroom to fetch Hannah and Katie. The door was ajar and I was about to knock when something about the way Hannah and Katie were talking held me back. “You have to tell them,” Katie was saying in an anxious tone.

  “I can’t!” Hannah replied. “You do it.”

  “It’s better coming from you.”

  “Maybe we should leave it?”

  “Han, we said we’d do it this week, so let’s do it. They’ll be fine. Winning on Saturday will have given them a boost.”

  “You’re right,” Hannah whispered. “I’m dreading how they’ll react, though.”

  I frowned. React to what?

  The door flew open before I had a chance to look innocent. “Eve!” Hannah said, her cheeks turning pink.

  “Um … a car alarm is sending Mrs Cutts nuts.”

  “Mrs Cutts went nuts years ago.” Katie chuckled. “I’ll go and sort it.”

  Hannah put her arm around my shoulder. “Come on, then, Akky. Let’s get cracking.”

  Well, of course I couldn’t have cracked an egg after that. I was too distracted, wondering what they were dreading so much.

  We had our drills as usual but when it was time to play our match at the end, Hannah clapped her hands and called for our attention. “Right, girls, warm down, then I need you all over to the benches, please.”

  “Warm down? Aren’t we having a match?” Lucy asked.

  “Not tonight. I need to talk to you all about something instead,” Hannah said.

  The whole of my spine tingled. Here it comes, I thought.

  Hannah definitely had something important to say. I could tell from the way she was sitting, her arms clasped round her knees, thumb-tips tapping against each other. I sat up straight, alert and curious. “Could those of you who are going to secondary in September raise your hands?” she asked. Holly, Amy, Lucy, Nika and little old me shoved our hands in the air. There would have been another hand but … you know. “Yep. That’s half the team ineligible for the Under 11s league next season. The first thing we should talk about is that.”

  “We need new players,” Tabinda said.

  “We could ask around,” Megan suggested. “That’s how we got the team together in the first place. Just by asking…”

  Lucy raised her hand again. “Couldn’t we all just become an Under 12s team? I don’t want to leave the Parrs.”

  I stared at Lucy in admiration. That’s what you call a genius idea. No wonder she was always top of the class.

  “Well, it’s a possibility, I suppose,” Hannah replied. She paused and glanced across at Katie. “Thing is, whatever happens, Katie and I can’t coach you.”

  It took a second for eleven brains to ask the same question: did she just say what I thought she said? Then, when the brains all said, “Yes, she did,” there was uproar.

  “We’re really sorry,” Hannah continued hastily. “We’ve loved every second with you all but we can’t take you any further…”

  “Why not?” several people asked at once.

  Megan, sitting opposite me, looked as if she’d been kicked by a kangaroo. Hannah addressed her when she replied, “Because I’m going to teacher training college in September and Katie’s backpacking across Australia. Neither of us is going to be here.”

  “We wanted to tell you now,” Katie continued, “so it didn’t come as a shock at the end of the season and to give you a chance to decide what you wanted to do next.”

  Jenny-Jane decided what she wanted to do next. “I might have known you’d bail out on us!” she yelled, walking backwards in fury towards the exit. “I might have known! How come all the best people leave and the ones you can’t stand never do? Eh? How come?”

  I glanced across at Amy. Exactly, I thought.

  4

  Parrs v. Cuddlethorpe Tigers (away)

  As you can imagine, the atmosphere before kick-off at the next match was so subdued you’d have thought we’d all been tranquilized. Jenny-Jane was the worst, choosing to stand apart from everyone and scowl for Britain.

  As for the match itself, it makes me cringe to think about it. We were so bad! Bad at the back, bad in midfield and bad up front. Bad, bad, bad. Hannah and Katie kept looking at each other in despair, knowing their news had hit us hard. Even easy-going team-mates like Nika were affected. “What are you doing?” she snapped when I ended up alongside her for the umpteenth time, leaving the left wing empty.

  I looked around, confused. Gemma would have instinctively switched sides, but Nika and I didn’t have the same connection. “Um…”

  “Go back to your own bit!”

  But two minutes later I was treading on her boots again. “Eve! Go away, will you!” she hissed.

  Hannah tried to make a joke of it at half-time. We were a mere four–nil down then. She put her hand against her forehead and squinted into the distance. “Hello? Has anyone seen our striker?” she asked.

  I resented being singled out. OK, I’d been rubbish but no more rubbish than anyone else. Without thinking, I put my hand against my forehead and went, “Yes … she’s over there waiting for a decent cross into the box!”

  I didn’t mean it and I wouldn’t have said it if I’d known Nika was right behind me. She just carried on towards the pile of coats and bags but she must have heard.

  “That’s not like you, Eve,” Katie said.

  Tell me about it.

  In the second half they subbed me for Amy.

  “What?” Amy said. “Me? You’re putting me on?” She had to be the only player I knew who didn’t like coming off the bench.

  “Her? You might as well put a lump of lard up front,” Jenny-Jane spat.

  “Her” gave JJ a “haughty princess” special. “Don’t you dare compare me to lard! If I am anything from the world of fats and spreads I am Olivio, thank you very much,” Amy declared and swept on to the pitch. Despite myself I grinned. That was a quality comeback.

  There was no quality comeback from the Parrs, though, and we let in another three goals. Megan threw her gloves to the ground in disgust and stormed off at the end of the match, not talking to any of us.

  When I got home I couldn’t bear to write that score on the fixture list either so I did what I did last time and folded the sheet over. The trouble was there was no extra match to add this time. The list was shrinking. And not in a good way.

  GROVE BELLES (AWAY)

  SOUTHFIELDS ATHLETIC (HOME)

  CUP WEEKEND – NETTIE HONEYBALL CUP SEMIFINAL GROUP “A”:

  TEAMS TBC TEMBRIDGE VIXENS V. PARRS

  LUTTON ASH ANGELS (HOME)

  5

  On Monday, I bumped into Megan in the music cupboard again. This time we were both as glum as each other. “All right?” she asked despondently, wheeling her trolley into the corner next to mine.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “S’pose.”

  We both sighed at the same time and turned to leave, only to find the door blocked by Mr Glasshouse, our head teacher. “Ah! Excellent. I couldn’t have hoped for two more reliable assistants.” And he began reading from a list in his booming voice. “I need maracas, castanets and xylophones for Noisy Worship. Any idea where they are, girls?”

  I wafted a hand towards the plastic tubs by the wall. “Over there, sir. Do you want me to pass them
across?”

  “Thank you,” he began, then stopped. “What’s the matter? You both look like you’ve lost a pound and found a penny, as my granny used to say.”

  Megan and I exchanged glances and shrugged.

  “Let me guess. The beautiful game was not beautiful over the weekend?”

  I handed him the box of castanets. “Got it in one.”

  “Heavy loss?”

  “Seven–nil,” Megan grunted.

  “Everyone loses now and again, Megan. Look upon it as a learning experience.”

  “Whatever.” It was plain she was in no mood for teacher-talk.

  “It’s not just that we lost, Mr Glasshouse; it’s why we lost,” I told him and explained about Gemma and Hannah and Katie (although I left out the bit about why Gemma had dropped out of the team. I just said she was our best player).

  He was a bit more understanding then but not much. “Hmm. That is bad luck but it’s par for the course these days. Players leave. Coaches leave. All you can do is pick yourself up and get on with it.”

  “But when players leave they’re usually replaced by other players. Same with coaches. We’ve got nobody!” Megan complained. “Not that anybody could replace Hannah,” she added. To my astonishment her bottom lip began to tremble.

  Mr Glasshouse pretended to drop the box of castanets in shock. “What’s this? Megan Fawcett upset because of a couple of minor mishaps? Where’s the girl who challenged me to put her in the school team because she wanted to be keeper for England? Where’s the girl who set up her own team? Where’s my feisty Fawcett?” Megan’s cheeks turned the colour of her hair as Mr Glasshouse continued. “You’re the captain. You should be rallying the troops, not crumbling under a bit of pressure. Am I right or am I right?” He strode off, forgetting his maracas but calling out over his shoulder, “IT Suite’s free at break.”

  We both watched him stride across the hall, then Megan turned to me, her eyes glinting. “You heard the man. IT Suite at break! Team meeting. Tell Nika and Lucy.”

  “Roger that, captain,” I said, saluting her.

  Given that she’d had hardly any time to prepare, Megan did a brilliant job of rallying. When I arrived in the IT Suite with Nika and Lucy half an hour later she was already pacing up and down the small space between the computer consoles like an army general. She immediately apologized for her behaviour on Saturday. “I was out of order storming off like that. I let you down and I let myself down.”

  “We were all as bad,” Petra reasoned.

  Megan nodded. “I know. That’s what I want to talk about.” She glanced across at me. “Losing players and coaches is par for the course. We just have to get on with it. Gemma might come back, but if she doesn’t we’ve got Nika, JJ and Tabinda in midfield, who are as skilled as anyone in the league. As for Hannah and Katie…” She paused as her voice broke. “At least we’ve got them until the end of the season. Throwing the towel in now is no way to thank them for all they’ve done for us.”

  “Done for us? Like dumping us, you mean?” JJ grunted.

  Megan stopped dead. “Don’t even go there, Bayliss. They’ve done more for you than anybody, so I’d zip it if I were you.”

  JJ looked so startled at being told off by someone who, let’s face it, is usually soft with her, that she didn’t utter another word. Megan took up her pacing again. “I know we’ve lost a bit of spark lately but we can still go out on a high, can’t we? I don’t mean winning the league or the cup – I’m not bothered about stuff like that any more – I just want us to be united for our last few matches…”

  “Especially when one of the last few matches is against Grove Belles,” I said, remembering my list. In case you don’t know, the Belles are our nemesis team. We’ve only beaten them once and that was at the beginning of the season when they were adjusting to the loss of their experienced players such as Bend it like Becky. A lump came to my throat. That would be the Parrs next season. Adjusting without me.

  “Not the Ding Dong Belles!” Dylan called out. “When? When?”

  “This Saturday,” Megan replied. “No way are we going to let them walk all over us. We’ve got to play well against them. For Hannah and Katie.”

  “For Hannah and Katie!” Dylan and Daisy repeated and began racing around the room until Mr Glasshouse turfed us out for making too much noise. Cheek!

  6

  Megan’s fighting talk cheered me up so much I arrived at after-school club singing my favourite jingle from a Dr Pepper advert. I sang it all the way through setting up the baking table for Mrs Rose and I was still singing it twenty minutes later when Amy arrived.

  “Someone’s happy,” she said as she passed by on her way to the book corner.

  “Someone is!” I beamed, forgetting we weren’t speaking.

  She must have forgotten, too, because she hesitated, then pulled out a chair and sat next to me. “So what’s with the singing?”

  “I’m feeling inspired,” I told her and filled her in about the meeting.

  Her face dropped. “Great. The Mowborough Massive strikes again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t suppose you lot think that I might like to be involved in your little team-talk meetings?”

  I scowled. “How can you? You go to a different school.”

  “So what? That’s not my fault, is it?” she said with an annoyed flick of her hair. “It’s not just me. Holly feels the same. You lot are always so cliquey.”

  “No we aren’t! We don’t normally hang out together at school at all. I don’t even talk to Lucy and Nika that much and we’re in the same class. But this is different, isn’t it? We’re in an emergency situation.”

  Her tone softened then. She hitched closer. “You mean with Gemma?”

  “More Hannah and Katie,” I admitted.

  “Oh. Of course.” For such a short sentence she managed to put an awful lot of sarcasm into it.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, growing annoyed. “I miss Gemma as much as you do, you know. More, probably.”

  “More? How’d you work that one out? She’s my best friend, not yours.”

  “Not on the pitch, she isn’t,” I mumbled.

  “Really? You’ve got a funny way of showing it.” With that, Amy took herself off to the book corner and ignored me, not just for the rest of the afternoon but for the rest of the week.

  So much for Megan’s dream of a united team.

  7

  Parrs v. Grove Belles (away)

  On Saturday morning, I dressed quickly and trundled down the stairs, still yawning. Ashtonby is miles away, so it’s an early start. Mum, as usual, was already up and asked what I wanted for breakfast. “Cereal’s fine,” I muttered, not feeling particularly hungry. Mum frowned. She likes breakfasts to be of the cooked variety.

  “Eve?”

  “Mum?”

  “You’ve got a face as long as a ski slope. I hope you aren’t still fretting over this thing with Gemma? Because what happened wasn’t your fault. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Try telling Amy Minter that, I thought.

  “It isn’t,” Mum repeated. “Now, porridge or beans on toast?”

  I sighed and opted for beans on toast, and after that it was rush, rush, rush while Mum tried to finish a thousand jobs before setting off. By the time we arrived at Ashtonby we had only minutes to spare. “I’m sorry I can’t stay to watch,” Mum apologized. “Asda calls.”

  “No worries.” The way I was playing, the fewer witnesses the better.

  She gave me a massive hug and wished me luck.

  “I’ll need it,” I told her and hurried across the grass to join my team-mates.

  Because I was late, Hannah had left me out of the starting line-up and I found myself stranded on the touchline with Petra and Amy. I didn’t mind Petra, but I hadn’t spoken to Amy since our exchange at after-school club, and judging by the determined way she was staring ahead that wasn’t about to change any time soon.<
br />
  Petra squeezed my arm tight. “We’d better do well,” she agonized. “Megan is going to be unbearable if we don’t.”

  “I know. She’ll probably haul us in for another meeting,” I joked.

  “And you can’t have too many of those, can you?” Amy muttered.

  “We’re off! We’re off!” Petra squealed before I could tell Amy to get lost.

  With that I focused on the pitch.

  We started brightly enough. “Well in!” Katie kept shouting as we fought for every ball. The Belles kept pressing, but Holly and Lucy were defending well and Megan had that defiant look on her face that said “Score if you dare.”

  “We are stormin ’em!” Petra grabbed Amy’s arm.

  “Hello? Trying to text,” Amy told her.

  Petra rolled her eyes at me but I just shrugged. What Amy did was none of my business.

  Although there was no doubt we were playing a hundred per cent better than last week, we kept losing the ball in midfield. Nika, Tabinda and JJ were trying hard but they didn’t have Gemma’s ability to prise open the defence. Still, the half ended nil–nil, which was impressive, considering. Hannah was delighted. “Awesome! Awesome!” she kept repeating. I smiled. Hannah would think we were awesome if we lost 20–0. That’s why we all loved her.

  I was selected for the start of the second half. “Eve on for JJ,” Hannah ordered. “Amy on for Tabs, Petra for Holly.”

  Perhaps the Belles had been given a blasting by their coach at half-time, or maybe they knew Hannah’s everyone-gets-a-go policy, too. Either way, they came out roaring and scored within two minutes because their striker was able to swerve round Petra more easily than Holly and so slot the ball beyond Megan’s reach. “Head up, Meggo! Push on, Parrs, push on,” Katie urged as we walked back to the centre spot.

  We pushed on. I fell back into midfield to support them but I wasn’t much use. The tent pegs for feet had returned. When a great goal kick from Megan landed near me I couldn’t budge. “That’s yours, Eve!” Katie shouted. Luckily, Nika decided it was hers, got to it before their defender did and worked it all the way to the edge of the box before their number two, a lanky girl with fair hair and a bright red fringe, tackled her and booted the ball out for a corner.