Can Ponies Take Penalties?

by Helena Pielichaty

  I felt my hopes rise. “Would Mum agree to that?”

  “She might,” Charlotte replied, but I could tell she was not a hundred per cent confident. Or even one per cent.

  I felt my hopes drop right back to where they belonged. “She won’t. You know she won’t. Not if it’s between show jumping and football. No way.”

  Charlotte chewed her bottom lip. That meant she knew I was right.

  “Nice try, though,” I said.

  “How’s everyone else getting to Ashtonby?”

  “Cars, I suppose.”

  “Well, why don’t you ask Megan if you can travel with her?”

  You know that sound the microwave makes when it’s finished zapping a ready meal to death? That “ping” sound? That’s what my brain did then. Ping! I’ll repeat that so you get the full effect. Ping! “That’s a brilliant idea, Charlotte!” I said and reached for the toast and jam. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

  5

  At school, I cornered Megan while she was on pencil-sharpening punishment. Miss Parkinson gives rubbish jobs like that to people all the time. I can’t remember what Megan did to deserve the pencil punishment. She probably breathed out at the wrong time or something. I get the feeling Miss P. would love to have been a teacher in Victorian times, swishing her cane around and tugging her pupils’ ears. I am so glad I only have one more day in her class.

  “Course we’ll pick you up,” Megan said when I told her about my problem. She finished sharpening the final pencil, then blew the shavings into the bin. “Hey, why don’t you come on Friday night and sleep over?”

  “Oh, bless yer dear heart!” (Can you tell we’d just watched the end of Oliver Twist?)

  “It’ll be wicked.” Megan grinned. (Guess who’d doodled all the way through?)

  “Truly, it shall.”

  “And Jenny-Jane will be staying too.”

  Talking Dickens went straight out of the window then. There was a long pause before I replied. “Er … will she?”

  “Yes. I asked her last night after training.”

  “Oh.” Trust Jenny-Jane to muscle in the second I’d gone. The longer training sessions meant I didn’t go back to Megan’s Auntie Mandy’s to wait for Mum any more. Obviously someone did, though.

  “She was telling me about her horrible—”

  “Horrible what?” I interrupted. “Tackles?”

  Megan looked up and shrugged. “Nothing. Never mind. Hey, if you come too it means we can play three-and-in down the park!”

  “Yeah!” I said, putting as much enthusiasm into my voice as I could.

  “Cool! And you can help me with my goalkeeping. Katie said I need to…”

  “If you two have finished your little chat, I’d like to take the register,” Miss Parkinson called across.

  Megan turned to her. “It’s not a little chat, Miss; it’s about football. That makes it a big chat. Of national importance, probably.”

  It’s a good job it was our last day in Miss Parkinson’s class because I had the feeling Megan would have been sharpening pencils for ever otherwise.

  6

  So the summer holidays began. The minty bits of that are no school and longer in bed of a morning but the not-as-minty bits are not seeing friends and especially not seeing Megan. Living in the countryside is great for fresh air and all that nature stuff, but it sucks for hanging out with friends. When I hear people at school saying they’ll call round for each other I’m really envious. Calling round for my mates involves at least twenty thousand texts and five phone calls!

  Still, at least I had the tournament to look forward to – especially as Megan’s mum had said no problem to me being at Megan’s the night before for the sleepover. Then there was training on top. Yes! Bring it on!

  By the time the following Tuesday arrived, I was so excited about going to football practice I was practically bundling Mum into the car. “Come on! Giddy up!” I told her, thrusting the car keys into her hands. I find she responds better if I use horsey terms.

  “Well, I really don’t know where this love of silly football comes from,” she protested. “Now rugby I could understand … or cricket … but football…”

  I didn’t tell her it wasn’t silly football I loved but the silly people playing silly football.

  7

  As soon as Mum pulled up in Lornton FC’s car park, I unclipped my seatbelt and shouted “Smell you later!” before dashing towards the field. “Hello, Parsnips!” I yelled, throwing my “just-in-case” top down on the other “just-in-case” tops and water bottles again.

  Megan, doing keepy-uppies, looked up and grinned. “Thirteen … fourteen … I’m glad you’re here! Loads of people are missing. Fifteen … sixteen…”

  I looked round and realized she was right. Holly was standing next to Nika, and next to Holly was Tabinda. Lucy and Gemma were chatting together by the goalposts – but that was it. There were only seven of us. Even Jenny-Jane was missing, and she always comes. I tried not to feel glad but I couldn’t help it; at least I could pair up with Megan in peace.

  “Oh well … I’ll just have to run twice as fast!” I said.

  Megan laughed and called a halt to her keepy-uppies. “Yeah! Me, too!” She tucked the ball under her arm and walked with me towards Hannah.

  We stood in a small circle while Hannah took the register. “Right then. I know Eve and Amy are on holiday, but does anyone know anything about the twins?”

  “They’re just arriving,” Holly said. “Late as usual.”

  We all turned to see the McNeils’ orange camper van swing into the car park. The middle door was drawn back and first Daisy, then Dylan jumped out, whooping and yelling. “Wait for us! Wait for us!” They sprinted towards the field, but turned when someone called from the van and a bag was tossed onto the ground. “Och! Hoots mon! Ma boots mon!” Daisy cried and went back for them.

  “What about JJ?” Hannah continued.

  “Do you want me to go and see? She only lives over there,” Megan said. She pointed to the row of houses that backed onto the playing field. I knew the one with the England flag hanging in one of the bedroom windows was Jenny-Jane’s.

  “No,” Hannah said, “we’d better crack on.”

  “I don’t mind going to check.”

  “No worries. I’m sure she’ll come if she can,” Hannah said and clapped her hands. “OK, girls, let’s warm up. In a line, please…”

  “I wonder where she is?” Megan asked me as we all spaced out along the touchline.

  “No idea.”

  We began to jog, and all reached the halfway line in a perfect row.

  “Excellent,” Hannah complimented. “Keep together. Always be aware of one another’s pace and positioning…”

  “She said she was coming when I saw her yesterday,” Megan mumbled.

  “Sorry?”

  Megan glanced towards the houses again. “When I called round for Jenny-Jane yesterday. She said she was coming.”

  I felt a small lump in my throat. “How come you called round for her yesterday?” I asked. I’d been really bored yesterday. I’d even practised the clarinet without being forced into it by Mum.

  “And turn!” Hannah instructed.

  “We were watching the Parrs doing extra training.”

  “Oh. I thought they’d stopped – I thought that’s why we had longer…”

  “They had, but they’re touring Ireland for a week in August, playing other women’s teams pre-season, so they have to get up to match fitness.”

  “Oh,” I said as Megan twisted away from me and I twisted away from her. “I didn’t know that.”

  “And again!” Hannah repeated.

  “I always watch them if I can,” Megan said as we faced each other again.

  “Oh.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Well, I didn’t know Jenny-Jane did, too.”

  “Does it make a difference?” Megan asked.

  “No, of course not!”
I replied. I admit I may have sounded a bit shirty when I said that.

  Megan picked up on it straight away. “Huh!”

  “Huh what?”

  “You’re doing it again!”

  “Doing what?”

  “Being funny about JJ.”

  “Now bend and touch the ground!” Hannah said.

  “Funny?” I said as Megan’s head disappeared. I bobbed down a beat later. That meant we were out of sync the rest of the way.

  Me (to Megan’s trainers): “I’m not …” – bob – “… funny …” – bob – “… about her.”

  Megan (to top of my head): “OK …” – bob – “… if you …” – bob – “… say so.”

  Me (to trainers): “I think …” – bob – “… she’s OK … It’s just…”

  Megan (to my nose): “Just what?”

  Me (to Megan’s knees): “Nothing.”

  Megan (to my nose again): “Nothing much! You are such a fibber.”

  I opened my mouth in surprise, then closed it again. Megan had never called me a fibber before. Not in a serious voice like she meant it. Never ever!

  I couldn’t dwell on it, though, because Hannah brought us together to tell us about the first drill.

  We had to grab a ball each and line up behind the cones. I lined up between Megan and Holly and looked at my feet, one foot steadying the ball as instructed.

  “Five quick toe-taps!”

  We did five quick toe-taps.

  “Now I want to see you all dribbling between the cones. Off you go,” Hannah directed.

  I did my best – this was basic – but Hannah still told me I needed to keep the ball closer to my feet. “If you kick it too far ahead it makes it too easy for the opposition to nip the ball away,” she said.

  I turned to Megan on my right and sighed. “Maybe I should stay and watch the Parrs train in future. I might learn something!”

  She dribbled back to the touchline, stopped and then grinned at me. “Oh, Petra, do me a favour!”

  “Do you a favour?”

  “Don’t be such a fake!” she said. “It’s obvious you only want to come and watch the Parrs because I said JJ did.”

  “I never!”

  “Keep moving, you guys! No time for gossip!” Hannah called across.

  Megan set off upfield again, head down, eye on the ball, dribbling between the cones with ease. I just stood there, staring after her. First I was a fibber and now I was a fake.

  In the short match at the end I made a mess of every ball that came near me. I either whacked it into orbit or passed it to someone on the opposite side or missed it altogether. “Come on, Petrasaurus, wake up!” Daisy told me as I sent her a clod of grass instead of the ball.

  It will come as no surprise if I tell you I did not give training even a five or a six out of ten this time. More a three-point-one.

  8

  I spent a couple of days in a bad mood, thinking about Megan calling me a fibber and a fake, but by the end of the week I was over it. In fact, if that policeman hadn’t come to the house when he did, I’d have turned up at training the Tuesday after and everything would have been minty. If that policeman hadn’t come.

  I was in the middle of tidying my bedroom when he arrived. I was arranging my books in alphabetical order on the windowsill, and was just deciding whether Cliff McNish should go before or after Colin McNaughton when I glanced out of the window and saw a police car pull up outside our main gate. A police officer with grey hair and a craggy face got out of the car and began walking towards the front door.

  The last time a policeman had come to our house it was for a house-to-house inquiry about a murder in Saddlebridge. It had been the first murder there in over a hundred years – that’s almost back to Victorian times. Maybe there’d been another one? I ran downstairs as fast as I could and almost broke my neck on the flex from the Hoover. “Mum, Mum, it’s the police!” I gasped dramatically just as the doorbell rang.

  Mum switched the vacuum cleaner off and told me to calm down. “It’ll just be Derek,” she said. “Go and let him in.”

  It turned out she was right. It was “just” Derek. I don’t know why I was surprised Mum knew the police officer by his first name; she’s lived round here all her life so she knows everybody. Mum made Derek a cup of tea while I fetched the biscuit tin. I hovered around, but she did this thing with her eyebrows, which she does when I’m in the way so I knew I’d better scram.

  I found out straight after he’d gone why he’d visited, though. “Right,” Mum announced, rummaging in the key box we kept behind the fridge freezer. “Action stations.”

  “Why?”

  “Derek’s just told me the Bayliss brothers are back. That means I’d better start locking up all the sheds and outhouses again.”

  “Why? Who are they?”

  “Who are they? Brendan and Billy Bayliss, Lornton’s own mini crime-wave, that’s who. Burglaries and break-ins have plummeted since they went to jail, but they’ve been let out three months early. Typical!” She strode outside towards the first shed, where she kept all her gardening tools and equipment.

  “Did you say Bayliss?” I asked.

  “I did. They live opposite the football ground in Lornton.”

  It had to be Jenny-Jane’s family. See, I knew there was something fishy about her!

  “Villains through and through, the lot of them. Their dad was a bad ’un. And their grandad. It runs in the family,” Mum fumed. She yanked open the shed door and began searching in the wheelbarrow for the discarded padlocks. “Every Bayliss who’s ever lived in Lornton has had a police record, man and boy.”

  “Really?”

  “Their mother must be very proud!”

  I frowned at first, wondering why she would be – then realized mum was being sarcastic. “Oh.”

  I followed her round while she locked and bolted every hut, outhouse, barn and shed. At the stables, she warned Charlotte to make sure any valuable tack was out of sight. It scared me a little, seeing how serious Mum was taking PC Just-Derek’s news.

  9

  Of course, I telephoned Megan to tell her what had happened. “… and Mum says they’re villains through and through,” I finished, pacing up and down our entrance hall, “so please be careful if you visit Jenny-Jane’s house, won’t you? And hide your purse.”

  There was a pause at the end of the line. “That’s so judgemental, Petra.”

  “Why?”

  “Jenny-Jane isn’t like her brothers!” she replied. Her voice was really cold.

  “I’m not saying she is,” I began, though if I’m honest I suppose I had been. “I’m just telling you in case you didn’t know and they pinched something… or something…”

  “Of course I knew! I tried telling you about her brothers once, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  I stopped pacing and frowned. When had she done that? I didn’t remember.

  Not that Megan gave me a chance to remember. “And yes, they are as bad as your mum says,” she conceded, “but it’s nothing to do with JJ.”

  “I guess.”

  Personally, I wasn’t so sure. I had this picture of the Bayliss family all sitting together in the kitchen, a mountain of stolen goods on their table, with Billy (I imagined him to be like Fagin in Oliver Twist) saying to Jenny-Jane, “Have whatever you want, our kid. That MP3 player’s a beaut. Got it off this woman down town…”

  Megan soon put me right. “For your information, they’re horrible to Jenny-Jane; they bully her all the time.”

  That took me by surprise. “Do they?”

  “Yes, they do. She was really gutted when she found out they’d been let out early.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think of to say. I now had this picture of Jenny-Jane being offered the MP3 player and shaking her head. “No way!” she snarled at Billy, who in my head I had swapped from Fagin to the even creepier Bill Sykes.

  Megan’s voice was still icy cold. “Do you know why she wasn’t at training
on Tuesday?”

  “No.”

  “They wouldn’t let her out because she answered them back. They blocked the door every time she tried to escape.”

  “Oh.” I went from disliking Jenny-Jane to feeling really sorry for her in an instant. Her life sounded miserable.

  “Would you want to live with people like that?” Megan asked, her voice rising higher and higher. It does that when she gets worked up about things. I knew I’d really upset her with what I’d said about Jenny-Jane, but I hadn’t meant to. I had only wanted to warn her.

  “No, of course not, I’d hate—” I began, but she didn’t let me finish my sentence.

  “Me neither; that’s why I’ve invited her to stay at my house. She needs to be calm before the tournament.”

  “Course. I’ll be extra—” I would have said “nice”, if I’d been given the chance.

  “I’ve got to go,” Megan interrupted again. “I’ll call you later.”

  OK, I thought, staring at the phone. I shook my head and turned, about to finish off tidying my bedroom, when the phone rang again. “Five Gate Farm,” I said.

  “Petra? It’s me, Megan,” Megan said – as if I wouldn’t know her voice anywhere.

  “Wow! Is it ‘later’ already?”

  “I’ve been thinking … I think it’s best if I cancel the sleepover.”

  Megan said it so quickly I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. “Really?”

  “Really. You know how stressed I get before a match, and I think if you and JJ are together it would just make me worse.”

  I felt my stomach clench. She was cross with me – and I didn’t blame her! “No it wouldn’t. Now that you’ve told me about her brothers, I understand more. I’ll make an effort.”

  Megan sighed. “You say that now, but I’d just be on edge all the time, in case. Let’s just leave it.”

  “But…”

  “Let’s just leave it, please?”

  “OK,” I agreed, “if that’s what you want.”

  “It is.”

  “There’ll be other sleepovers,” I said, trying to sound perky, even though I’d been really looking forward to staying at her house, especially as I knew Mum and Charlotte would be so uptight the night before Applehampton. Jenny-Jane wasn’t the only one who could do with a calm atmosphere.