Are All Brothers Foul?

by Helena Pielichaty

  “Bum,” Aisha said to me.

  “Sorry,” I said, trying not to grin too much.

  But then we – or, if I’m honest, I – blew it. They had a goal kick after another of our near misses. The goalie wellied the ball any old how, but it landed flukily right at the feet of their dark-haired midfielder. She dribbled the ball forward and crossed it low into the box. I had Aisha pegged back, and Holly was blocking another of their players – but their number 21 was totally unmarked. As she got herself into striking position I saw Jenny-Jane hare towards her with such a fierce look on her face it worried me.

  “Don’t foul her, JJ!” I shouted, scared we’d give away a penalty if she did – and Jenny-Jane reared back long enough for the Hixton player not only to shoot but also to score.

  “Yes!” Aisha yelled and did an impressive cartwheel.

  Hannah made the final substitutions soon afterwards. Both Jenny-Jane and I were brought off.

  “Sorry,” I said to Jenny-Jane. “I just thought…”

  “Yeah, well, you thought wrong, Miss Perfect!” she muttered.

  The final score was four–three to them.

  Hannah tried to cheer us all up during the warm-down. She went round each one of us telling us how well we’d done. “Lucy – excellent defending again this week,” she said to me, but I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole. Nika won the Parsnip of the Match trophy. At least she deserved it.

  MATCH FOUR

  Teams:

  Parrs U11s (Parsnips) v.

  Southfields Athletic

  Date & venue:

  Thursday 20 September

  at Dale Field, Southfields

  Kick-off:

  18.00

  Attendance:

  11

  4

  This match was on a Thursday evening. That meant Dad wouldn’t be around to take me, and Mum couldn’t either because she had a Year Nine parents’ evening. To make things even more complicated, I also had a netball match straight after school.

  I don’t do complicated; it unsettles me. Luckily Eve plays netball, too, so she said her mum would pick us up after the match and we could have tea in town on the way to Southfields. Mum arranged to fetch me from Eve’s house afterwards.

  Then there was all the Harry stuff. To be fair, it was complicated for Harry, too, because he was in Year Nine, and Mum would be tied up talking to all the parents about their kids’ progress in PE, so she wouldn’t be able to go round asking about her own son’s progress in everything else. That meant either Dad had to come from Bicester after work to do it, or she would just have to ask about Harry in the staffroom later. Harry told Dad not to bother coming because he didn’t care what the stupid teachers thought of him anyway, but Dad said in that case he’d definitely be attending.

  To make it clear for everyone, Mum wrote all the arrangements down on the whiteboard in her study, and that helped. There were two columns: one for me, one for Harry.

  I copied my instructions down on a piece of paper and folded it into my jotter, just to be sure, including the bit about reminding Dad to pick us up on Friday. Deep down I knew Dad would never forget something as important as taking us to Bicester for the first time. I knew he was really looking forward to showing us his new flat. Writing everything down took ages. You’ll see why when you look at the list.

  Thursday 20 September

  After-school arrangements

  The netball-match bit was easy-peasy. We drew six-all, and Eve was happy because she’s goal shooter and scored four, and I was happy because, well, as you know, I loooove playing sport!

  The journey into town was cool, too. Mrs Akboh made us laugh by telling us about a man who’d come into A and E with a pan stuck on his head and peas all down his neck.

  “No way!” I said. “How come?”

  “I’ve learned never to ask,” she replied.

  “Oh.”

  “But speaking of dozy things, we’re meeting Samuel and Claude in McDonald’s. I hope that’s OK with you, Lucy? They wanted to watch Eve play.”

  Samuel and Claude are Eve’s brothers. “Sure. I’d like to meet them.”

  “They’d like to meet you, too. Your dad was one of their favourite teachers.”

  “I get that a lot.” I beamed.

  “I bet you’re missing him.”

  I nodded and felt a lump come to my throat.

  “How’s your mum?” she asked swiftly.

  “OK, thanks. A bit tired.”

  “I hope you’re helping with the chores?”

  “Every night,” I replied. “I set the table for dinner and unload the dishwasher.”

  “Sounds like me!” Eve interrupted. “Only I get to iron my own clothes too. Isn’t it divine?”

  Mrs Akboh pulled up outside McDonald’s and pinched Eve’s cheek. “And I appreciate it, Evie-girl. Being a single parent is full-on twenty-four-seven. We mums need all the help from our chicks we can get.”

  I remembered then that Eve’s dad had died when she was little. At school she always talks about him as if he were still alive, so I’d never thought of Mrs Akboh as being a single parent, too, like my mum and my dad. There’s more of them out there than you realize!

  “Chicks? Do I look like a chick to you?” Eve complained. “Am I covered in yellow down? Am I so cute you want to bite my head off? I don’t think so.”

  “Evie, stop talking and get walking,” Mrs Akboh told her.

  Claude and Samuel had saved us a corner table by the stairs. I knew straight away they were Eve’s brothers: they both had the same wide, brown eyes and funky hairstyle as Eve – long straight cornrows tied in a neat knot at the back. I wished my hair was curly like theirs and could be done like that.

  It was fun just eating and chatting, but halfway through our tea a gang of teenagers came clattering down the stairs, screeching and pushing each other and swearing like mad. Samuel stopped mid-sentence because he couldn’t be heard, and my heart stopped mid-beat when I realized that the gang member doing the most screeching and pushing and swearing was my brother, Harry.

  I was so surprised to see him I shot up out of my seat, making Eve jump. “Harry?” I called after him. He didn’t hear, so I rushed after him before he could leave. “Harry!”

  One of the girls he was with nudged him in the back. “Haz, someone wants you.”

  He turned, his face lit up and happy in a way I hadn’t seen for ages. Then he saw me – and it was as if there’d been a power cut. “What do you want?” he snapped.

  “I … you should be at Homework Club.”

  The gang round him burst into laughter. “Harry, you naughty boy! You should be at Homework Club! Why aren’t you at Homework Club? Hang your head in shame!”

  “Shurrup!” Harry told them.

  “You’ll miss Dad, won’t you?” I asked, trying to ignore the others. I didn’t recognize any of them apart from the two girls. They were the ones who’d blown kisses at Harry the last time we were in here.

  What I said made them all laugh even more. “Aw! Harry’s missing his daddy! Poor ickle Harry.” One of the boys pulled at Harry’s cheek and wobbled it.

  Harry brushed his hand away angrily. “Back off, Arron!’ he told the boy. By now Harry’s face was deep red and I was feeling more and more uncomfortable. He narrowed his eyes at me. “FYI Dad’s not coming. Something’s” – Harry paused to bend his index fingers into quotation marks – “‘cropped up’, so butt out, OK? And keep out of my face – or else!”

  I blinked and tried not to well up. Harry was never usually this mean to me.

  Mrs Akboh patted the back of my hand as I sat down, and Claude let out the loudest burp ever. His eyes flew open before his mum could tell him off. “Sorry! I didn’t mean it, Ma! It came out louder than I planned!” he protested, hooting with laughter and high-fiving Samuel.

  “Are all brothers foul?” Eve asked me.

  I twisted in my chair to see if Harry was still around, but he’d disappeared. “I guess,�
�� I said, drawing circles in the spilt salt on the tabletop.

  The incident with Harry upset me quite a bit. I kept replaying it over and over in my head, seeing his angry face and narrowed eyes, so many times that it wasn’t until Eve nudged my arm that I realized the car had stopped and we’d arrived. “Calling Lucy Skidmore! Calling Lucy Skidmore! Come in, please!” Eve laughed, wiggling her fingers in front of my face.

  “Sorry!”

  We piled out of the car and looked around. Dale Field, Southfield Athletic’s ground, was just that. One field with one pitch bang in the middle. To our left was a drab grey changing block with rusty bars over the window. It made Lornton FC look swanky.

  “I remember now” – Claude sniffed – “we’ve played here. Watch out for dog mess on the pitch.”

  “Nice,” Eve replied, hiking her kit bag over her shoulder.

  “Come on,” Mrs Akboh said, “you girls had better get changed.”

  “We’ll carry out a pitch inspection,” Samuel said and walked off with Claude.

  I shook myself to get focused for the match. Forget Harry, I told myself. Think football.

  The away team had to change in the kitchen, which was full of stacked plastic chairs and smelled mouldy. “I like what they’ve done to the place,” Eve joked as we joined the others.

  “It’s so scutty!” said Amy, sniffing the air. “We’ll probably catch MRSA or something.”

  “Keep your voice down, Amy,” Hannah warned her. “It’s not the club’s fault. There’s not a lot of money around here.”

  “Obviously,” Amy muttered.

  Hannah zipped up her tracksuit top and rubbed her hands together. “OK, everyone. Thanks for coming mid-week; I know it’s difficult straight from school. Everyone get here without any hassle?”

  I bent to fasten my boots properly and sighed. If only!

  “Katie’s got to work tonight, so it’s just me, but she sends her love and says she expects a text at seven o’clock telling her you played brilliantly. Deal or no deal?”

  “Deal!” we chorused.

  “That’s the ticket, girls! Just a word about the pitch before we go out there. As you’ll notice, the far side slopes down onto a road. There’s no fencing, and I don’t want to see any of you running after the ball down there? OK? Daisy? Dylan?”

  “Yessir,” they replied.

  “Leave it for one of the adults to fetch. Right, then. Let’s go and get those three points.”

  Hannah chose me as one of the starters, thank goodness. I was glad to be given a chance to get going right away so that I could run off Harry’s nastiness. “Defence OK again, Lucy? You played a blinder last week. Mark their number 10.”

  I nodded. Fine by me.

  Number 10 had short, light brown hair and was wearing the captain’s armband.

  “Hi,” I said, thinking I’d be friendly to her like Aisha had been to me.

  She looked at me glumly. “Hi,” she said.

  I did a quad stretch to keep warmed up. “Are you … er … looking forward to it?”

  “To what?”

  “Playing.”

  “Not really. We’ll only get thrashed again.”

  “You might not,” I said. “We haven’t won yet either.”

  She bucked up then. “Haven’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Right,” she said and rolled up her sleeves. “Oi, you lot, we’re in with a chance – this lot ain’t won yet neither!” she called out in a booming voice that carried all the way across Dale Field.

  Cringe! I didn’t dare look around to see what the reaction to that was!

  “Whenever you’re ready, Crystal,” the ref called.

  “Any time,” a chirpy Crystal replied.

  I needn’t have worried. This might sound mean, but we’d have had to have our legs tied together to lose to Southfields. They were just not very good at holding onto the ball, or doing anything with it when they did have it. Most of their kicking was so wild the ball ended up on the road more than on the pitch, and in the end one of the parents stayed down there, hidden in the dip, for the whole match.

  Eve, as lone striker, scored two in the first three minutes, and Gemma and Nika one each a few minutes after that. “Thought you said you was rubbish,” Crystal muttered to me as the ball was set up on the centre spot again.

  “No, I said we hadn’t won yet.”

  “Huh!”

  It ended seven–nil to us. “Oh well, we didn’t do too bad in the end,” Crystal said with a shrug during the three cheers. “We lost twelve–nil to them Vixens last week.”

  “We lost nine–nil to the Belles.”

  “Oh Gawd!” Crystal said, drawing her finger across her throat and going cross-eyed. “I’m throwing a sickie when we plays them!”

  Back in the changing room, Eve was awarded Parsnip of the Match. She was so funny about it! “Me? Seriously? Me? Little old Eve Akboh? Oh, I can’t possibly accept!” she said, snatching the statue from Hannah’s hand. “But now that I have, I’d like to say a few thank-yous. First of all, thank you to my feet for scoring the goals today. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you to the grass for…” She stopped and sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

  “Is this part of the speech?” Daisy asked.

  “Thank you to the grass for growing,” Dylan said helpfully.

  Eve shook her head, her nose wrinkling. “No. Something smells gross…”

  We all began sniffing. She was right. “Uh-oh. Boot check, everyone,” Hannah instructed.

  Guess who’d trodden in dog poo and trailed it into the changing room? Amy Minter. She was furious! “My new boots!” she kept shrieking, staring at the brown-caked soles in disgust. “They cost a fortune! I’m so going to sue!”

  Hannah wrapped the boots in a sheet of old newspaper and then put them in a carrier bag. “You’ll still have to take them home with you, sweetheart.”

  Poor Amy. It wasn’t a very nice thing to happen – but it was funny. Every time Eve and I started talking about it on the way home, we cracked up laughing. “I’m going to sue!” Eve kept repeating, as she polished her trophy with her sleeve. “I’m so going to sue!”

  Mum picked me up from Eve’s at about half-past seven. Harry was in the back of the car. “Hi, everybody,” I said, still giddy from laughing so much. Harry twisted away as soon as he saw me and stared out of the window. I gave Mum a hug because she looked exhausted. “Hello, best mum in the world,” I said. “How did parents’ evening go?”

  “Oh, it went fine,” Mum said, her voice as sharp as a papercut, “considering your brother has had me out of my mind with worry all evening.”

  I drew back. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he decided not to go to Homework Club and didn’t bother to tell anyone, so when your father arrived he didn’t know where Harry was and nor did I.”

  “But Dad couldn’t come,” I mumbled.

  “Oh, that’s what Harry told you, is it?” Mum growled.

  “And I told you that’s what Dad told me!” Harry growled back.

  I swallowed hard as my stomach cramped. Why did the beginning and end of every match have to be like this? Why couldn’t everything be fun, like with Eve’s family?

  MATCH FIVE

  Teams:

  Parrs U11s (Parsnips) v.

  Cuddlethorpe Tigers

  Date & venue:

  Sunday 23 September

  at Lornton FC, Low Road,

  Lornton

  (home match)

  Kick-off:

  11.00

  Attendance:

  19

  5

  This match felt different. For a start, it was on a Sunday and I was coming all the way from Bicester for it. We’d had to get up so early to get to Lornton (half-six to be out by half-seven), and that hadn’t helped on the grumpy front with Harry. Not that he could have got much grumpier. Things were still tense from the parents’ evening on Thursday, and they’d become even more tense when w
e arrived in King’s End the next evening and Harry had seen Dad’s new flat.

  “Is this it?” he asked in disbelief as soon as we’d stepped inside and dumped our bags on Dad’s bed, which was in the only room.

  “There’s a separate kitchen and bathroom,” Dad pointed out.

  I have to say, like Harry, I felt a little disappointed. From the outside it had looked as if Dad had a huge old house on three storeys, and I had got all excited thinking I’d have loads of rooms to explore, but it turned out he only had part of the building, on the ground floor, and I wasn’t allowed up the stairs because other people lived in that bit.

  “So this is the lot?” Harry asked again, frowning. “No garden? No spare bedroom?”

  “This is the lot!” Dad said, a brave smile on his face. “Small, but cosy.”

  “I like it,” I fibbed.

  “It’s adequate,” Dad said. “And it’s cheap. It means we don’t have to sell the house, so you can all stay in Meadow Crescent.” He looked at Harry when he said that.

  “What, so all three of us have to sleep in here? You’ve got to be kidding!” Harry fumed.

  “Don’t worry – the sofa turns into a bed, and I’ve got an inflatable mattress for one of you. No one has to share.”

  “It sucks!”

  “I’ll sleep on the mattress,” I said quickly, hoping Harry would stop grumbling then.

  “‘I’ll sleep on the mattress,’” Harry mimicked. “Tch! You’re such a creep, Lucy.”

  That kind of set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

  The journey to Lornton on Sunday morning seemed to take for ever, especially with everyone being fed up. It wasn’t until Dad turned into Low Road and I saw the clubhouse that I brightened. Holly waved to me as we crossed the grass, and it felt good to know I had people I could talk to who would answer me nicely instead of making me feel bad for even opening my mouth. “I’ll go and get ready, if that’s OK,” I said to Dad.