Do Shinpads Come in Pink?

by Helena Pielichaty

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re really keen on him, aren’t you?”

  “I think I am, babe.”

  “And is he really keen on you?”

  The blush deepened. We’re talking cherry wood here. “I think he is.”

  She turned and smiled, her eyes all faraway and shiny. The last time I’d seen her look like that was in the January sales when she found a Gucci handbag with seventy per cent off. Wow! My mum had fallen in love and I’d missed it. This was major.

  At home there was a round-robin email from Hannah telling us the presentation evening had been brought forward to 4 p.m. from 7 p.m. We thought we should have the U11s separate from the Seniors, so we could spend more time with you all, she wrote.

  Normally, I’d have written a chatty reply but the thing with Shane and my mum had thrown me, so I just sent her a quick, OK!

  I spent the next day focusing on Shane’s visit. When Mum was in the gooey stages of a relationship she tended to get a bit carried away. I knew from experience suppers led to sleepovers and sleepovers led to moving in. There had been two moving-ins in my lifetime and both were disastrous. First came Jim with the bitter ex-wife who kept turning up at the shop and calling Mum awful names. Then there was Rick with the three kids. He was all right but the kids were a total nightmare, especially when they stayed at weekends and during holidays. They wrecked my wardrobe. It took me weeks to get my separates colour coordinated again.

  So you can’t blame me for being a little wary of Shane. I knew he didn’t have an ex-wife or any kids but there had to be something bogus in his background, and if there was, I needed to know about it.

  When Wednesday evening came I grilled that guy good and proper. This is what I found out:

  He is 37 and a Capricorn.

  He runs a printing firm called Monaghan’s with two branches in Mowborough – one on Penrith Street and one on the industrial estate.

  His last name is Monaghan (see above!).

  As well as his sister Kay, who’s an administration assistant, he’s got another sister called Rachael, who makes silver jewellery.

  He’s seen Coldplay fifteen times.

  He takes one sugar in his tea and none in coffee.

  He doesn’t always wear capri pants (phew).

  He seemed to want to find out as much about me as I did about him. For every question I asked he returned serve. “So your mum was telling me you play football, Amy?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You should come with me and Ash to the NEC on Saturday. There’s a massive event on called Grassroots. We went last year. It’s great.”

  I didn’t even hesitate. “OK.”

  What better way to get to know the guy than to spend a whole day with him?

  Of course the committee were devastated when I told them I couldn’t make the first rehearsal. When I say devastated, I mean hacked off. “But it’s all arranged,” Eve complained.

  “Sorry. It’s just not … convenient,” I said and left it at that. I am as open as anything about most subjects but when it comes to Mum’s boyfriends I like to keep things private. After what happened with Jim and Rick you can hardly blame me.

  9

  Getting to Know You

  An Amy Minter Special Feature

  My first dilemma that Saturday was what to wear. After about forty changes I decided on the Parrs away shirt. I never, ever wear sportswear if I’m not actually playing a sport – it’s so not the look for me – but I decided to make an exception. Go me and my ability to dress appropriately for the occasion. “Aw. Sporty Spice,” Mum said when I went downstairs to the shop to wait.

  Shane arrived just as Mum was opening up. I was tidying the Powdered Egg range – that’s this retro 1950s stuff little kids look adorable in – but I kept sneaking glances at them while they chatted across the counter. Although their conversation was well boring it was obvious they were dying for a smooch. “I’ll go and wait in the car, shall I?”

  “It’s the black Laguna,” Shane called after me. “Tell Ash I’ll be one minute.”

  There wasn’t anyone in a black Laguna but there was a boy with scraggy hair in jeans and a burgundy-and-navy-striped football shirt kicking a ball against the wall near by. I presumed this was The Neph.

  I cleared my throat, planning to introduce myself, but before I had a chance the boy did something weird. As the ball rebounded off the wall, instead of kicking it again he caught it on his laces. For a while he balanced it there, perfectly still, his arms outstretched and then – don’t ask me how because I’m sure I never blinked – the ball was cradled in the curve of his neck. He did that about three times.

  “That’s so clever,” I told him. He stopped, turned and scowled at me. “I’m Amy,” I said quickly. “I’m coming with you today?”

  He managed a shrug.

  O-kaaay, I thought, not entirely surprised by the lukewarm reception. I mean, I was gate-crashing his buddy time with his uncle. I tried again. “I like your team colours. Do you play locally?”

  “What? You think I play for Barcelona?” he scoffed and gave me the kind of look Karren Brady gives the contestants on The Apprentice when they’ve said something really, really stupid. He turned his back on me and started pounding the ball against the wall again.

  How rude! As I sent a thousand mental daggers into the back of his shirt, I peered at the name written on it: Messi. Huh! What a perfect nickname given his hair.

  “Right, then!” Shane said, careering round the corner, a huge grin on his face. “Party time!”

  The journey was tortuous. I sat in the back and it was football, football, football all the way. Shane did his best to involve me but I wished he hadn’t. It soon became obvious I didn’t know anything about the sport and he had to lower the bar until finally we arrived at stuff I could answer. “What’s your team called, Amy?” Yes, that low.

  “The Parrs.”

  “What league are they in?”

  “Nettie Honeyball.”

  Ashley snorted. “That is such a made-up name.”

  “Excuse me, she was totally real,” I told him, quoting bits I remembered from the website about her organizing one of the first women’s matches.

  Shane whistled. “Eighteen ninety-five? That long ago? Well, I never knew that. And who are your favourite female players today?”

  Busted! Again! I so wanted to reel off a list of names but I didn’t know any. “Gemma Hurst and …um … Lucy Skidmore.”

  “Sure it’s not Betty Offside?” Ashley asked.

  “Oh, now I remember where I’ve seen you before. Weren’t you on the Comedy Store last week?” I said.

  That shut him up for about two minutes but I was so out of my depth I needed a lifeboat. When they started talking about the last Women’s World Cup and how excellent it had been I pretended I was texting. Unfortunately I couldn’t text real people. All the real people were in a singing rehearsal I was now so wishing I’d attended.

  We arrived at the NEC about half-past eleven. The place was heaving and we were in the ticket queue for ages. “Quick, Uncle Shane. He starts in two minutes,” Ashley said, jabbing the programme we’d picked up at the entrance.

  “Who does?” I asked.

  Ashley turned to me, a smile on his face for once. “Billy Wingrove.”

  “Who does he play for?” I asked, expecting him to roll his eyes and say, “Don’t you even know that?” But he was quite civilized.

  “No one. He’s a freestyler.”

  “A what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Tickets bought, we followed the herd into the main arena. There were loads of stands all down the sides displaying all sorts of things from new kits to football nets to power drinks. I perked up. It was like a shopping mall for football fans. Bliss! Maybe I could find Hannah and Katie’s presents here?

  But Ashley made it clear he wasn’t here for the stands. He led us through to where the crowd was thickest until we pitched up at the front of a
roped-off area. Inside it were two men in thin long-sleeved jerseys and football shorts, hands behind their backs, legs slightly apart, each with a ball on the ground next to him, waiting to start. “Oh, Jeremy Lynch is with Billy today,” Ashley gasped. I’m guessing that was meant to mean something.

  Before I had time to ask which was Billy and which was Jeremy, music started blasting out of the speakers near by and the men began performing. In perfect synchronicity they jumped, juggled, flipped, twisted and turned with their ball so fast my head hurt. Sometimes they did exactly the same trick side by side – like maybe rolling the ball from their foot to their knee and then spinning their bodies round so they were bouncing the ball from their heel to their calf. A second later they’d be sitting back to back, their quick feet passing the two balls quickly back and forth over their heads so they crossed mid-air without colliding. These men were like acrobats or seals or acrobatic seals even. Whatever they were, their skills were impressive.

  I glanced across at Ashley. He wasn’t smiling and nodding in admiration like everyone else. He was just staring. Staring and concentrating so hard. He’s trying to memorize it, I realized. When the exhibition ended and everyone clapped he just stood there.

  “Billy and Jeremy will be signing copies of their new DVD in one minute,” someone announced.

  “Are you going to buy it?” I asked Ashley.

  “I’ve already got it,” he said. His adoring eyes followed the men as they made their way to the dump bin where all the DVDs were stacked.

  “He practises every day. It drives Kay potty.” Shane laughed.

  Ashley turned to Shane, his eyes shining. “You’ve got to practise. How else are you going to get any good at it? Freestyling takes just as much skill as playing football. More, probably. A lot of footballers can’t do what Billy does.”

  When I heard that my whole body tingled. “Really?”

  “Really. I mean a few can. Ronaldo and Naymar are ace, but it’s more an exhibition thing really. For doing in front of a crowd at a big match and stuff.”

  “Do … can girls freestyle?” I asked because I had this idea growing in my head.

  “Yeah. Of course. Laura Biondo’s good and so’s Robyn Clancy.”

  I grinned. That was all I needed to know. “Ashley,” I said, “will you lend me your Billy Wingrove DVD?”

  That night I watched the DVD all the way through, becoming more and more excited as the idea I’d had at the NEC grew and grew. I was going to end my days as a Parr on a high after all. I was going to freestyle my way into Megan’s hall of fame. Not just Megan’s but everyone’s, including the mighty grump herself, Jenny-Jane Bayliss.

  “Did you have a nice day?” Mum asked as she came in to kiss me goodnight.

  “I had a brilliant day,” I told her.

  10

  Project Ambition

  Amy Minter Shows U How 2 AIM HIGH

  Next morning I leapt out of bed raring to go. Ashley told me it had taken him months to perfect the trick he’d done in the car park (called a neck catch B.T.W.). I had two weeks. No time to lose.

  That was when I realized the flaw in my plan. I didn’t have a football. I mean, why would I? I sighed and watched the Billy Wingrove DVD again, miming some of the moves with an invisible ball instead. I must have looked hilarious.

  During breakfast Mum asked how I wanted to spend Sunday. “Aren’t you seeing Shane?” I asked.

  “No,” she said then hesitated. “Amy?”

  “Mum.”

  “You know the other day when I said I was keen on him?”

  I reached across for seconds of granola. I needed extra fuel if I was going to be laying down some freestyling moves. “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t get carried away, will you? I don’t want you choosing bridesmaids’ dresses or anything.”

  “Oh, I know that.”

  “You do?”

  “For sure, babe. He hasn’t seen you without make-up yet.”

  “True.” She laughed and began sifting through yesterday’s post. “Bills, bills, postcard, bills, bills, bills.”

  “Who’s the postcard from?”

  Mum flipped it over. “Chico and Luisa.”

  “Who?”

  “Carlos and Rosa’s grandchildren. The postman’s messed up again.”

  “I’ll take it!” I said, grabbing the postcard as I remembered something.

  Five minutes later, I was in my bedroom with Chico and Luisa’s yellow-and-black plastic football, borrowed from the toy box Carlos kept for them for when they visited. I decided to concentrate on perfecting my keepy-uppies first so I rolled up my bedside rug to give myself max floorboard space.

  Keepy-uppies are pips. Anyone can do them, right? I’ve watched Eve and Gemma do them before matches and there’s nothing to it. All you have to do is bounce the ball about on your foot or your knee or your head and keep it off the ground. Only in my case, keeping it off the ground meant sending it from my foot to my knee to my dressing table or my lampshade or my window. One attempt clattered into the mantlepiece and knocked my favourite photo frame on to the marble hearth. Luckily the glass didn’t break but I had to spend the next five minutes clearing away all my breakables and reassuring Mum I wasn’t trashing the place. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” I told her when she stuck her head round the door to see what all the noise was.

  I didn’t get the hang of keepy-uppies at all and went to bed feeling disheartened. If I couldn’t even do the basics I had no chance of putting on a performance for the Parrs in less than two weeks’ time. What had I been thinking? Amy Minter, freestyler? Free-faller more like.

  But as I tried to get to sleep that night I kept seeing Jenny-Jane pirouetting around the function room and remembering Megan missing me out of her hall of fame speech. A determination burned in me. I would do this. I would master keepy-uppies if it killed me. I sat up and reached for my alarm, setting it for an hour earlier than normal.

  Over the next couple of days I tried sooooo hard, but by Wednesday I still couldn’t manage more than two knee bounces in a row no matter how often I watched Billy “show-off” Wingrove’s stooopid DVD. In desperation, I called round at Miro’s to ask Carlos for help but he laughed and said his football-playing days were over. Shane was busy in the evenings helping his sister Rachael design a special booklet for her new range of jewellery so he was no use either.

  Of course, the obvious people to teach me were under my nose at after-school club but that was a no-no. This had to be a surprise for them as much as for Megan and co. Besides, at after-school club I was too occupied playing catch-up with the song. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to just sing it. We had to change all the lyrics to make them personal to the Parrs and dance as well. My team-mates never can do things by halves.

  Soooooooooo that only left one person I could think of: Ashley.

  I plucked up the courage to call him on Thursday. At first I pretended I just wanted to chat about his hero Billy Wingrove but then I came clean and told him how I had been rubbish at football and wanted to make amends. “So this would be like my last chance to impress them,” I told him.

  I waited, cringing inside, expecting him to tell me to bog off. But he didn’t. “Sure. Why not?”

  “Sunday?” I suggested quickly before he changed his mind.

  “Can’t. Can do Saturday morning.”

  I chewed my lip. On Saturday morning I was meant to be at Eve’s. I couldn’t miss two rehearsals in a row, could I? But my keepy-uppies were pathetic. They had to take priority. I’d just have to promise to put in tons of overtime on the song midweek. They’d understand. They were my buddies, right? “OK. See you Saturday morning then, Messi. Thanks.”

  “Messy?”

  “That is your nickname, isn’t it?”

  He snorted down the phone and hung up. What was that about? Boys!

  You know I said the committee would understand about me missing Saturday’s rehearsal? I was wrong.

  Eve glowered at me. “Amy, how
exactly are we meant to practise the song without you? The dance routine was totally out of balance last week. We had to put a cushion where you were meant to be.”

  “Was it a stylish cushion?”

  “Amy!”

  Ah. Not a good time for a wisecrack, then. I had to think of something convincing quickly. “Hello? Buying Hannah and Katie’s present. When else am I supposed to do it?”

  “Maybe straight afterwards? I could come with you then,” Gemma offered.

  Holly smiled. “I could too.”

  “Me three,” Eve added.

  Well, that excuse worked. I pretended to be outraged. “Are you kidding me? I can’t get presents of that magnitude in half a day!”

  “Well, whatever you get had better be spectacular then, that’s all I can say,” Eve said.

  11

  “The Only Real Failure in Life is the Failure to Try”

  – found on Amy Minter’s Calendar of Inspirational Quotes

  Ashley arrived promptly at the shop on Saturday morning at ten o’clock. “Come upstairs,” I told him – he was looking seriously out of place among the babygros. Mum gave us a silly little wave as we left. I hadn’t told her why I’d invited Ashley round. I just said we were hanging out. By that she thought I meant I had a crush on him and had been humming “Amy and Ashley sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g” since Thursday night. Parents can be so immature sometimes.

  The first thing Ashley did when we got to my room was to laugh his head off at my ball. “What’s that?”

  “A cabbage. What’s it look like?”

  He shook his head and slipped off his backpack. “Good job I’ve brought mine.” It turned out Carlos’s ball was way too light and that was why it had been hard to control. Ashley’s football was more like the ones we used in matches. “Right,” he said, dropping it at my feet and standing back. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  Not a lot, was the answer, even with the right equipment.