Jamie didn’t know why he felt this compulsive urge to find out more about Mr Hansard; he certainly didn’t have it with any of his other teachers.

There was just something about the way that Hansard had treated him, been so harsh on him right from the beginning, that didn’t seem to make sense.

Jamie turned on the computer and checked his inbox.

It was completely full of emails from Dillon. It was the same every weekend.

As he scanned the inbox, Jamie couldn’t help but laugh. Dillon literally couldn’t spell.

 

 

Jamie closed down his account. Then he opened a search engine. He typed in the letters HANSARD. For a second, for some odd reason, he wondered if he was doing something wrong. What would Hansard do if he found out that Jamie had been snooping around, trying to find out stuff about him?

Jamie cleared his mind; even Hansard couldn’t tell him what to do on his own computer. He pressed the search button.

Hundreds of links came back, practically all to do with politics. Jamie was in the wrong area.

He would have refined the search by entering Hansard’s first name but he didn’t know what it was. Mr Hansard’s first name was as big a secret as the code for the Queen’s safe.

Instead, Jamie typed in “Hansard”, but this time he linked it with the word “teacher”. It was, he realized, the only thing that he actually knew about Mr Hansard – that he was a teacher.

This time far fewer links came back and, as soon as he saw the top one, Jamie knew he was in.

It was a newspaper story with the headline “Hansard Lifts the Lid on Cup Win”.

Jamie clicked the link. It took him to an old article from the Advertiser from six years ago.

Jamie read the story. . .

 

 

“Huh!” said Jamie to himself. He was amazed. Not only had Mr Hansard won the Cup before, but he’d done it playing with wing backs!

Why hadn’t he told Jamie and the rest of the team? Maybe Jamie would have shown him a bit more respect. One thing was for sure: if he asked Jamie to play wing back in their Cup Final, there would be no more arguments.

Jamie chucked his sponge ball against the wall. He couldn’t wait for the Cup Final. Especially now he knew that Hansard had won it before.

He looked at the picture of Hansard in the article. He’d hardly changed in the six years since it was taken. That was the good thing about going bald, Jamie realized – your hair didn’t go grey.

Jamie was just about to close down the article when his eyes settled on the caption underneath the photo of Hansard. He had to read it twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. The caption read:

 

The first coach to lead Kingfield to an Interschool Cup win, Hilary Hansard.

 

Jamie almost fell off his chair. He was laughing so much! Hilary Hansard! No wonder he never told anyone his first name. Hilary was a girl’s name!

*

Jamie couldn’t wait to call Ollie to tell him about Hilary Hansard. He knew he’d love it too.

He was just on his way downstairs to get his phone when the doorbell went.

“Hello,” Jamie heard Jeremy say, opening the door.

“Hi,” said a voice that sent distant bells ringing in Jamie’s subconscious. “Is Jamie in?”

“He’s upstairs,” said Jeremy. “Can I ask who you are?”

“Of course you can. I’m Ian . . . his dad.”