On The Ball

Emma Jacks had never run so much in her life. Her chest heaved and her legs ached. She wasn't sure she could keep running and keep kicking the soccer ball at the same time. But she had to. She was right by the goals and a goal would put the girls in front of the boys. Just as Emma thought she would have to stop, one of her best friends, Hannah, sprinted up beside her.

‘Em, here, pass the ball!' yelled Hannah.

Emma kicked the ball and it shot across the field. Emma thought she had kicked it straight to Hannah
so was surprised when she saw Oskar running in the opposite direction with the ball. Emma's heart sank: she had kicked the ball to Oskar.

‘Bad luck, Em,' cried Hannah as she chased after Oskar.

Bad luck nothing,
thought Emma.
I just can't kick straight! Oskar was miles away from Hannah!

But there was no time to think about that now. Isi was down the other end of the field and had skillfully taken the ball back from Oskar. She was now powering back up the field towards Emma. Isi kicked the ball to Hannah, who was running fast. Just as Dougall caught up, Hannah kicked the ball towards Emma.

‘It's yours, Em,' she called. ‘Head it into goal. You can do it.'

I can?
Emma tried to get ready. She watched the ball. She watched it coming towards her, high in the sky, in front of the goals. Emma got ready to jump. She closed her eyes. She could see it all in her mind: she was going to jump up and meet the ball and, with just a little nudge of the head, she
was going to guide it into goal. Well, that was the plan. Somebody should have told Emma's head the plan.

Emma jumped up, aiming her head at the ball, waiting for contact. No contact. She turned her head and watched as the ball sailed past her and back onto Oskar's boot. Oskar ran, then passed it to Edvard, who kicked into the far goal.

Ms Tenga blew her whistle. Boys 1, Girls 0. Boys ecstatic. Emma not impressed.

The goalie threw the ball back into play for the girls. Isi took it but was soon tackled by Edvard. Isi did well to get the ball free but she couldn't control where it went and she kicked it to an empty part of the field. The closest girl to the ball was Nema who, unfortunately, seemed to be re-plaiting her hair.

‘Nema,' shouted Isi, ‘the ball! Nema, get the ball. It's the round thing coming towards you!'

‘Oh, what, this?' said Nema, picking up the ball.

Ms Tenga's whistle blew.

‘Foul. Boys' ball,' cried Ms Tenga. ‘Nema, you can't pick the ball up with your hands. You have to
kick it with your feet.'

‘Oh, sorry Ms Tenga,' said Nema who then in a low voice muttered so her teacher couldn't hear her, ‘stupid rule, stupid boys' game.'

Edvard took off with the ball but, just as it looked as if the boys were going to score another goal, Hannah swooped in and took possession. She quickly passed the ball to Emma, who was waiting on the side. Emma ran a bit further up the field before passing to Isi, who shrugged off Oskar and kicked it high to Cat, who was right in front of goal. Cat leapt up, as if she was about to take off, and with a perfect header, she sent the ball into the goal.

Ms Tenga blew her whistle again. Girls 1, Boys 1. The girls leapt all over each other in delight. Emma was thrilled and almost forgot about her missed header.

There was time for just one more play. They were still close to the girls' goal so Emma was hopeful they'd score again.

Callum threw the ball in for the boys. He was
aiming for Edvard but Isi, seeing what Callum was doing, snuck in front and took the ball. Callum tackled hard but Isi managed to kick the ball to Hannah, who only just beat Edvard to it. Again Hannah kicked the ball up high towards Emma.

‘This time, Em,' Hannah shouted, ‘head this one in.'

Emma went up again. She stretched her neck and pushed with her head. Contact. The ball flew through the air. It went high, much too high, over the goals and out of bounds.

Ms Tenga blew the whistle.

‘Bad luck, Emma. Good try,' cried Ms Tenga. ‘Great game everyone! That's it for today. Now quickly into the changing rooms.'

Everyone rushed off, except Emma was a bit slower than the others. She was angry with herself for missing both those headers. She felt she had let the team down. Hannah must have noticed her friend looking sad and came up and put an arm around her.

‘Cheer up,' she said.

Then Isi bounded up to them. Isi was, as always, excited.

‘How fun was that!' she exclaimed. ‘And we nearly won. Those boys were so sure that they would beat us by heaps and it was a draw. Yay us!'

‘Yay you, maybe,' said Emma. ‘I can't believe I missed two headers. Maybe I shouldn't try out for the school team.'

‘No, you have to,' cried Isi. ‘How cool will it be if we all play together? And this year, the team is going to have proper shirts with our names on them! You have to be in the team Em, you just have to be!'

‘I have to get into the team first,' said Emma glumly.

‘Why would anyone want to be in the soccer team?' said Nema, who had walked up alongside them. ‘It's a boys' sport.'

Ms Tenga was coming up behind the girls. She must have heard their conversation.

‘Don't be silly, Nema, soccer is one of the largest girls' sports in the world. And don't be so hard on yourself, Emma. You played really well today.
Headers take a lot of practice. Keep trying, stay on the ball and you could really shine.'

Emma blushed.
On the ball. Gee whizz, lemonfizz, I should be good at that,
she thought.

And she should. After all when she wasn't Emma Jacks, schoolgirl and not very confident soccer player, she was Special Agent EJ12, code-cracker for the under-twelve division of the secret agency
SHINE.
And a secret agent always had to stay on the ball.

Emma Jacks was pretty much your normal, everyday schoolgirl. She went to school (her favourite subjects were maths and art), she liked sport (particularly gymnastics), she loved spending time with her friends (sometimes too much email time, according to her mum) and she loved animals and chocolate, animals more than chocolate. She thought she might be a vet when she grew up, although her brother Bob didn't think she would ever grow up,
which gives you an idea of how irritating Bob was.

Emma worried about things sometimes, normal things. Sometimes she worried about friends (and mean girls not being friends), sometimes she worried about school and quite often she worried about whether she would be able to do something properly. Like soccer. So, Emma Jacks was pretty normal, very normal in fact—except for the spy thing. Except for being one of
SHINE'
s best secret agents.

SHINE
was a worldwide secret organisation that stopped evil plans, particularly those of the
SHADOW
organisation.
SHADOW
was as bad as
SHINE
was good and they seemed to be always launching new evil schemes.
SHADOW
used secret messages to send instructions to their agents and they were always inventing new ways to make sure those messages couldn't be intercepted or decoded.

Luckily,
SHINE'
s agents were very good at cracking new codes and foiling
SHADOW
plans. Agents like EJ12. She enjoyed looking at the code
and picking the clue within it, finding the thing that would let her decode it. This was a problem she enjoyed—and she was good at it. She had a good head for secret messages and codes. She was pretty good at the mission too and was awarded lots of points in the
SHINE
Shining Stars, the Spy of the Year competition.

She just wished she had a good head for soccer as well.