“Come on, Calum!” Calum’s dad shouted from the sidelines as Muckleton got the second half underway. Leighton barked.
“Is that your dog?” Stark sneered at Calum. “My dog would squash that little rat.”
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight…” Calum heard himself repeating one of Mr Aziz’s sayings, “…it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
But Stark just screwed his face up and jogged off.
Since his ‘goal’, Jordan was now a header machine. Anything that came into the box, he jumped at and headed it away. If a jumbo jet had flown into Caleytown’s penalty area, Jordan probably would have leaped up and nodded it out of the box.
Still, it was keeping Muckleton at bay.
Jordan’s umpteenth clearance looped through the air towards Calum.
Our of the corner of his eye, Calum saw Leo scamper up the wing. There was no time to lose.
He leaned back, spun on his left foot and volleyed the ball, first time. It flew over his own shoulder, over Stark’s head and into Leo’s path.
“Great pass, Calum!” he heard his mum shout.
Calum felt instantly lighter and faster as he turned and ran up the pitch, leaving Stark to mark the fresh air behind him.
Leo drove forward with the ball only to be met by a Muckleton defender. Leo slowed, did a step-over to his left, making it look like he was going outside him, then flicked the ball towards the goal-line with his right foot, leaving the defender sprawling. The crowd cheered.
Racing forward, Calum realised he had company. Muckleton’s two tall central defenders had him well covered. He didn’t fancy his chances of winning a header against either of them.
Instead, Calum hit the brakes at the edge of the Muckleton area. The defenders stumbled forward a few yards before they realised.
Leo saw the space open up and grinned as he passed the ball to Calum for a shot.
With his head down, Calum kept his eye on the ball and struck through it as sweetly as he could.
The ball rocketed through the air, thirty centimetres above the ground, until…
SMACK!
It hit the back of the net to level the score at 2–2.
The keeper didn’t even move.
“YEEHAW!” Leo shouted. He jumped on Calum and rode piggyback for a few metres.
“Well done, Calum! Well done, Leo!” yelled Mr McKlop from the sidelines.
An American voice yelled, “Great job, Calum!”
Calum couldn’t believe it! He’d scored his first goal for a real team. All he could think of now was how much he wanted to score another one!
It was game on.