Sleepover Club Goes For Goal! (4 page)

By the time Wednesday afternoon came round I was a bag of nerves. As I was leaving for the gym, the others stopped me.

“Good luck!” said Rosie and Fliss together.

“Hope you make the team!” smiled Frankie.

“I’m sure you will.” Lyndz gave me a reassuring squeeze of my arm.

I felt a bit choked to be honest, but I didn’t let them see that. I just said, “Thanks, I’ll do my best,” and headed for the gym.

As soon as I was changed I went into the gym, expecting the usual boys and maybe a few of their friends to be there. I couldn’t believe how many people there were! It looked like some of the guys had brought along their entire families – including the cat! (No, that’s not quite true. Ryan Scott’s dog
was
there, but Mr Pownall made his brother take it home when it started weeing over some of the equipment.) Looking round at all those people, I kind of wished that I’d asked someone along to watch me. Even Molly the Monster would have been better than nobody.

“Ah, Kenny.” Mr Pownall ran over to me. He
looked a bit flustered. I guess he hadn’t expected so many people to turn up either. “There’s something I’ve got to…”

I’m afraid I didn’t hear what he said next because out of the corner of my eye I noticed some more people entering the gym. I was sure that I recognised that coat, and that hairstyle – and those hiccups.

“You came
!” I flew over to where Frankie, Rosie, Lyndz and Fliss were standing.

“Boy am I glad you’re here!” I told them. “I thought I was going to have no-one cheering me on.”

“What makes you think we’re here to see you?” asked Fliss, eyeing up Ryan Scott.

Frankie must have seen my face fall. “She’s only joking, idiot!” she laughed, punching me on the arm. “We wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Look, I’m really sorry that I’ve been a bit of a dipstick lately,” I muttered.

“Hey, hic, forget it,” smiled Lyndz.

“Look, you’d better be going,” said Rosie. “Mr Pownall seems to be calling everyone together.”

“See you later!” I called as I ran to the other end of the gym.

“Break a leg!” shouted Fliss.

I turned to see the others shoving her and telling her to be quiet.

“Ow!” Fliss was squealing. “I thought that’s what you’re supposed to say …”

Some things never change!

It’s funny how five minutes can change the way you’re feeling. When I joined the rest of the guys who were trying out for the team, I wasn’t panicking any more. In fact I felt really positive and confident. Mr Pownall explained that we’d be doing our usual training exercises and then playing a full game. He said that he’d be watching us all closely and at the end of the hour he’d be announcing who he had picked for the team. I couldn’t wait to get on with it.

“Kenny,” he called me towards him. “I don’t know if you were listening earlier, but you do know that…”

THWACK! A ball landed smack in my left ear. It didn’t half hurt. I turned round and saw Ryan
Scott smirking like anything.

“Sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “It was an accident, honest.”

“Well just be more careful in future!” Mr Pownall told him crossly.

I was
furious.
I bet Scotty-chops was trying to knock me out or something, just so I wouldn’t be in the team. Well, it was going to take more than that to stop me.

I got the ball and dribbled it past Ryan, calling, “Come on then, get it off me!”

Mr Pownall shouted, “Kenny… Kenny… Oh, I’ll tell you later!”

Then he blew his whistle and we started on the exercises.

I know that I shouldn’t say this, but they were really quite easy. I mean, it was the same stuff we do every week, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone. But the way some of the boys played, you’d think they’d never even
seen
a football in their lives before. I mean, they were just so BAD! Even Danny McCloud seemed to be put off by all the noise the spectators were making, and that’s just
stupid. Have you ever seen a professional footballer go to pieces in front of a big crowd? Of course not, they love all the attention – and so do I! I played the best I’d ever played in my life. It really helped when I looked across and Frankie, Lyndz and Rosie were going wild with their cheering. Even Fliss looked as though she was letting her hair down – a tiny bit!

When it came to the actual match I was on
fire.
I mean, I was just so hot I couldn’t put a foot wrong. Danny, Ryan and I were on the same team and all our practising together really paid off. We could sort of tell where the other person was going to pass the ball; it was like telepathy or something. We played a blinder, and by half-time (which in five-a-side matches is after six minutes) we were three-nil up and we’d each scored a goal.

“We’re all bound to get in the team at this rate,” Danny said as we were changing ends. “And if we play like this in the competition, I can’t see anyone beating us, can you?”

Scotty and I had to admit that we did appear pretty invincible.

The second half got even better. Neil Hughes in the opposite goal let his brain go walkabout again and kept handling the ball outside his area. We were awarded four penalties. We had this arrangement before the match that we’d take it in turns to shoot penalties. The other boy on our team, David Harper, said he wasn’t bothered. I think he was a bit intimidated by us actually. Anyway, I ended up taking two of our penalties. What do you mean, did I score? Of
course
I did! Scotty-chops missed his though, which was a shame. No, I genuinely felt sorry for him about that.

By the end of the match, the score was 7–2 to our team. We’d played out of our socks, and we were as high as kites when Mr Pownall called us all over to announce the team. The gym had been going wild, but as soon as Mr Pownall said that he was ready to make his announcement it went deadly quiet.

“In goal, we’ll have Alex Brown…”

We commiserated with Neil Hughes and told him “better luck next time”.

My heart began to thump and I prepared
myself for hearing my name next.

“The rest of the team will be Ryan Scott, Danny McCloud, Bobby Brook and…”

My name had to be next, it just
had
to be. I could hear Frankie and the others chanting “Kenny, Kenny, Kenny!”

“… Charlie Acres. And the reserves will be…”

I couldn’t believe it. I was better than all the others on the pitch and he hadn’t even picked me to be in the team. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a reserve.

“… Dean Sullivan and Michael Blackwell.”

I wasn’t even down as a
reserve
! What had I done wrong?

It was Ryan Scott who piped up first.

“But what about McKenzie, sir?”

“Yeah, she’s the best player here,” agreed Danny. “After me and Ryan of course!”

Frankie, Fliss, Lyndz and Rosie came flying over. “Why haven’t you picked Kenny?” they demanded. “She played a blinder.”

Mr Pownall held up his hands to silence everybody.

“I tried to tell Kenny before the trials, but she didn’t listen to me,” he explained.

I looked at him blankly.

“I couldn’t pick you because girls aren’t allowed to play in a boys’ team. No mixed teams are allowed. It’s the rule. I really am sorry, Kenny.” He sounded quite upset himself. “If you can find enough girls to form your own team, then you can enter the competition. What about that?”

He was smiling at me but I had to turn away. I could feel big tears welling up in my eyes and I wasn’t going to let anyone see me cry.

“I’m really sorry, Kenny,” Danny McCloud mumbled as he walked past me.

“Kenny, I don’t believe it! You were brilliant out there!” Frankie grabbed me and gave me a big hug.

“Yeah better than the boys – by miles!” agreed Rosie.

“Well it doesn’t matter now does it,” I muttered, “because I’m a girl and it doesn’t matter how well I can play.”

I headed for the changing room, where I’d left my bag.

“Don’t be like that,” said Frankie when she caught up with me. “You heard what Mr Pownall said. All you need to do is find some other girls who can play football, and then you can enter the competition too.”

“And where am I going to find four girls who can make up the rest of my team?” I asked. “They don’t exactly grow on trees, you know.”

I put my head in my hands. I’d dreamed and dreamed of playing in that competition, and now it had been snatched away from me. I glanced up and the others were all looking at me full of concern.

“Hang on a minute!” I shrieked, suddenly coming to life. “There are four of you! We could start our very own five-a-side team!”

“Oh no!” laughed Frankie, shaking her head. “No way!”

You didn’t think I’d let them get away so easily, did you? Of course I didn’t! Once I have a plain in my head, nothing, but
nothing
, will make me give up on it. Especially where football is concerned. But at the same time I knew that I had to tread pretty carefully. Football had just nearly split us up after all – the last thing my friends needed was me ramming it down their throats again. So I decided to play it cool.

“Sorry guys,” I apologised. “I know that football’s not your thing. It was silly of me to even think we could form a team. Forget I even mentioned it.”

“Don’t worry, we will!” sniffed Fliss.

But at least Lyndz and Rosie looked as though they might just be giving it some thought. I don’t know what Frankie was thinking – she’s hard to figure out sometimes.

When I’d changed, we all sneaked out of the back of the gym so that I wouldn’t have to face Ryan Scott and the others.

“At least you’ve got us!” Frankie whispered, squeezing my arm.

Yes, but did that mean that they were prepared to drop everything to form a five-a-side team? Somehow I doubted it. But I was convinced that all it needed was some of my famous McKenzie persuasion, and soon they’d be
begging
to play football in the competition with me. What I needed was a plan!

I mulled it over all evening, and by the next morning I knew exactly what I had to do. But first I had to face the boys.

“Come on Kenny, we’re waiting for you!” shouted Danny McCloud as soon as I got into the playground.

“Nah, I think I’ll give it a miss, thanks,” I called back.

He just shrugged his shoulders.

“I never thought I’d see you passing up the chance to play football,” Frankie shouted as she ran towards me.

“There’s not much point now, is there?” I muttered sadly.

“That’s a silly attitude,” she warned me firmly. “You can’t give up on something just like that.”

“Well, unless I miraculously turn into a boy overnight, I don’t see how I’m going to play in the competition, do you?”

“You could disguise yourself,” she suggested.

“Get real, Frankie!” I laughed. “You’ve been watching too many films.”

The others soon joined us. But Fliss might as well have been on Mars for all the attention she gave us. She was too busy watching Ryan Scott playing football. Does that girl need a brain transplant or what? But it did present me with an ideal opportunity to put Phase One of
my plan into action.

“He’s pretty good, isn’t he?” I asked, going to stand with her. “He’s actually quite nice too, once he’s playing football. There’s a whole different side to him that you’ve never seen.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but you only ever see it when you’re playing football with him,” I told her seriously.

“I bet he’s still annoying though, isn’t he?” asked Rosie, who had joined us.

“Only some of the time!” I laughed. “On the football pitch he actually listened to what I had to say for once. I had this amazing feeling of power over the boys when they realised that I had more idea about tactics than they did.”

My plan certainly seemed to be working, because Fliss and Rosie were still chatting together about boys and football when the bell went.

I didn’t have to wait too long before I could put Phase Two into operation: our next netball practice on Friday, to be precise. We all got there early, and I just happened to get my hands on a ball before Miss Burnie, the
teacher, appeared. I started kicking it about and soon the others joined in. Every time Lyndz took a shot I yelled, “Great shot Lyndz!” or “I wish I could do that!”