We always seemed to be looking for Bryce Flavel. Before the school holidays, after the Legend of Tennis presentation, we’d been looking for him when he suddenly popped out of nowhere at one end of the library.

Now we were back in the same place, again looking for our missing friend.

‘Bryce?’

‘There he is,’ said Bubba, pointing to the deepest and furthest part of the library.

We raced over. Well, okay, we didn’t exactly race over, but we hustled and bumped our way across as fast as we could go with Mrs Lee, the library staff member on duty, watching us over her glasses.

‘Bryce! C’mon, you’re supposed to be goal umpiring the first game in fifteen minutes.’

Jack and I were toey. The end of the Legend of Tennis presentation meant that we’d had to wait a whole month without competing in any sport. But now that June has arrived it is the beginning of Legend of Football month. Four beautiful weeks of football: drop-punts, tackles, goals on the run, screamers, smothers, mud, and more screamers.

But we needed a goal umpire.

‘C’mon Bryce, let’s go,’ I said.

Bryce looked at us with this stupid, surprised look on his face.

‘Guys, look at this.’

He obviously hadn’t taken in a word we’d said.

‘It’s a copy of the floor plan of the second level. The library. The–’

‘The what?’ Mrs Lee loomed over us.

‘The floor plan for our new house, Mrs Lee,’ piped up Bubba, looking serious.

‘Oh? Really? Well, let’s have a look then,’ said Mrs Lee.

‘Yeah, look, there’s a corridor for indoor cricket and a mini theatre for all the sport we’re going to watch, and a–’

Mrs Lee was looking interested. Bryce had his hands carefully placed over the writing at the top.

‘Hmmm, very nice, I’m sure,’ she said.

‘Well, what’s keeping you guys, anyway?’ asked Bryce, folding away the plans. ‘There’s a game of footy to be won.’ Everyone just stood there. ‘Well? Isn’t there?’ asked Bryce.

We stepped past Mrs Lee, then walked quickly out of the library.

‘Bubba, you’re probably never gonna break clear of a pack and put on a burst of speed, but boy you can think quickly on your feet. Nice going,’ said Jack.

Bubba wasn’t sure whether to look pleased or annoyed, but his good nature soon settled on pleased. ‘Thanks, Jack.’

Luci and I had heard this weird noise in the library about a month ago while we were researching Wimbledon during the Legend of Tennis competition. The noise had seemed to come from behind the rows of books at the back of the library.

We’d told Bryce about it, who’d soon discovered an amazing thing. There was one more window on the outside library wall than on the inside; well, one more window that you could see, anyway.

Bryce started to talk about the plans again.

‘We need to find an older plan,’ panted Bryce, trying to keep up with us as we headed towards the oval. ‘That floor plan ends at the far wall, where the sports books are.’

We jogged on, only half listening. ‘This is stupid! Stop!’

We hit the brakes and turned to look at Bryce.

‘Either everyone is really thick around here or there’s a conspiracy going on. There’s an extra window up there. And no one seems to care!’

I had one eye on the oval where the other guys were warming up. Jack was scuffing at the dirt and Bubba was still catching up. Bryce looked exasperated.

‘Well?’

‘Bryce, tonight we look into this big time. I’m gonna talk with our footy coach and see if he can get us a look at some old maps or something. Okay?’

Bryce was looking doubtful.

‘But first, we’ve got a footy match to play,’ I said.

‘And win!’ Jack added.

We set off again, just as Bubba caught up to us.

‘Hey!’ he panted, before jogging on after us.

There would be three footy matches played during the Legends of Football competition, each against another school. For the first time, I was going to be playing on the same side as Travis Fisk – acknowledged professional bully, general bad guy and very good footballer.

This was going to be weird. I had beaten him on the beach to win the surfing and then done the same on the cricket field. The third and most recent Legends sport was tennis, about a month or so ago. Jack won that one, but I managed to progress further than Fisk in that, too.

He hated me. Luci reckoned I was the one big threat to him becoming the Sandhurst Legend of Sport. We’d made him eat sand during the Legend of Surfing and he had fought back the way only Travis Fisk could. He’d almost killed poor Bubba in the nets during the Legend of Cricket. Then he’d strung Bryce Flavel up a tree before the Legend of Tennis series. Who would he pick on next?

Sandhurst had a good reputation among the local schools as a tough football opponent. But there were rumours going around about how good the other schools were this season.

Someone had even sprayed graffiti on one of the school fences – something about Wetherhoods ruling. No one had wanted to tell me about the Hoods. That’s what the kids from the school on Wetherhood Street were called. They were obviously a scary bunch.

Then there was Ascot College. They were so good, it was rumoured that AFL guys scouted around for talent during their training sessions and games.

And finally, there was the team we were playing today: Scornly. Jack told me they were the weakest of the teams. But looking across the oval at some absolutely enormous Scornly kids warming up made me think otherwise. Then again, size isn’t everything.