CHAPTER 16

‘FIRST OF ALL,’ Mr Wood said when they’d finished their warm-ups, ‘I hope none of you paid any attention to that TV report. Ebony played very well, but it was a team performance, and that’s what we’ll need to win the tournament. I’ve arranged some fixtures for our B team and I’ll be choosing that team today as well. So you’ve all got plenty to work for. Now, take a ball with your partner and work in a ten-metre square. One of you dribbles and shields the ball, the other one tries to win it. Dead simple. Off you go.’

TJ was working with Rob. ‘We do this sort of thing on the playground all the time,’ said TJ. ‘Why’s he making us do it now?’

‘Maybe because you’re rubbish at it,’ said Rob, sneaking a foot around TJ’s defences and tapping the ball away from him. ‘Go on, then, get it off me.’

Rob hunched himself over the ball like a crab. Then, when TJ committed himself and tried to tackle him, Rob flicked the ball up onto his foot and over TJ’s head. ‘I’ve been wanting to try that for ages,’ Rob said, laughing. ‘I saw Paco Sanchez doing it on the Internet. What do you think?’

‘I think you should let me have a turn at dribbling,’ TJ said, as Rob fended him off expertly once again.

‘You give up then?’ said Rob. ‘You’re admitting I’m better than you?’

Rob took his eye off the ball for a second and TJ darted in and stole it away. ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I fooled you.’

They were still laughing when Mr Wood called them together. ‘It’s an important skill,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve coached you to move the ball quickly, but there are lots of times when you just need to hold onto it. We’ll be playing against top teams and in a close game it’s crucial that you can keep the ball and give other players a chance to find space for you to make a pass. Now, before we play five-a-side we’ll have a little game of pig-in-the-middle. Three circles, two players in the middle of each, and you all have to play the ball first time with your weaker foot. We’ll be watching, so no cheating. Oh, and if you’re in the middle when my whistle blows you have to show us your best dance move for ten seconds!’

By the time they finished the game, everyone was laughing, and TJ had learned at least ten dance moves he would never have thought of. ‘Some of those moves were seriously bad,’ laughed Rafi, as Mr Wood organized them into teams.

‘Yeah, but did you see Jamie? He can actually dance!’

‘Maybe he should do it in a match,’ replied Rafi. ‘When the other team are taking a penalty. That would really put them off!’

‘Get a move on, you two,’ called Mr Wood. ‘You’re on this pitch here with Tommy and Danny, and Jamie in goal. You’re the Greens.’

‘Hey!’ said TJ. ‘This should be fun.’

‘You can play against this lot,’ Mr Wood continued. ‘Ebony, Tulsi, Leila, Rob. Diane – you go in goal.’

Rob laughed and pulled on a blue bib.

‘You know what?’ he said to TJ. ‘I reckon we can beat you.’

‘Hi, TJ,’ called a girl’s voice from the other side of the fence. TJ looked up and saw his sister Lou. She was with Matt, Jamie’s brother. TJ suddenly felt nervous. If he got beaten by a team with four girls in it, Lou would never stop going on about it. Not ever. And he knew that the girls were good. With Rob laying on passes for them they might even be very good.

Tulsi kicked off, and Ebony played the ball back to Rob. Tommy went to tackle him, but even Tommy wasn’t going to get the ball off Rob. He turned away and laid the ball back to Leila, who curved a pass forward to Ebony. She took the ball in her stride and then pulled it back to Tulsi in midfield. TJ tried to get a tackle in, but Tulsi had already released the ball back to Rob, and . . .

TJ couldn’t believe it. He’d lost Tulsi! One moment she’d been there, and now . . . Where was she? Then he looked round and saw her. At the same moment he saw the ball flash past him, saw Tulsi hit it first time, and almost at the same instant, saw it crash into the back of the net.

Mr Wood stood on the touchline and applauded. ‘Great teamwork, Blues!’ he said. ‘Keep it up! Let’s see you come back at them, Greens.’

‘We can’t lose,’ TJ hissed at Rafi. ‘My sister’s watching.’

‘You’d better do something brilliant, then,’ grinned Rafi. Jamie rolled the ball out to Danny, and then it was at TJ’s feet. He gave it inside to Rafi and set off on a run down the wing, but as he chased after Rafi’s return pass he was astonished to see Tulsi running beside him. He just managed to reach the ball first, but he couldn’t get a cross in. He turned and shielded the ball from Tulsi, desperately looking for someone to pass to. Rafi and Tommy both called for it, but they were both marked. I have to get past her, thought TJ, and he tried to fool Tulsi with a swerve. But she knew him too well. She took the ball away from him and snapped off a pass to Rob, who instantly hit it upfield into the path of Ebony’s curving run. Jamie managed to save her shot, but only just. At the end of the game the score was still 1–0 to the Blues.

‘What’s up, TJ?’ Rob asked him, as they put the equipment away. ‘You’re not still worrying about being beaten by girls.’

‘No,’ replied TJ. ‘And they had you on their side anyway. That makes a big difference.’

‘What then?’

‘Tulsi and Ebony are both fantastic. They played really well together, especially with you giving them passes.’

‘So?’

‘Well, I’d been thinking that if Tulsi got back in the squad then some of the time I’d play up front with Tulsi, and sometimes with Ebony. But there was another possibility that I hadn’t thought of. Mr Wood might want Tulsi to play up front with Ebony. Some games I might not even play at all.’ He got changed in silence. It could actually happen, he thought. Even if I’m playing well Mr Wood might decide it’s better to play the others. He might drop me.

And suddenly, for the first time, he really understood how Tulsi had been feeling.