Читать книгу Sleepover Club Goes For Goal! - Fiona Cummings, Louis Catt - Страница 4

She turns, she shoots, she scores! Yeeaah! Kenny for England, Kenny for England! Whoops, sorry, I didn’t see you there. Blinding shot, wasn’t it? But what do you expect? I am a footballing genius after all!

Actually, I’m just getting in a bit of practice before the others get here for a kick-around. Why are you looking at me like that? Yes I do mean the rest of the Sleepover Club, what’s so strange about that? But of course, you don’t know do you? Cool! I’m going to love telling you about our latest Sleepover adventure. You’re never going to believe it. Never in a million years!

As you know, I think that football is the best game in the world, and I can’t understand people who don’t. But it seems that the others thought I was the one who was weird. Now I suppose I can understand Fliss for having that attitude because, well – she’s so girly, basically. I mean, mud and Fliss just don’t go. She complains when it’s cold. She complains when it’s wet. And there’s no way that you’d get her running about outside in a skimpy pair of shorts messing up her hair. The only good thing about football as far as Fliss is concerned is David Beckham. And the only reason she knows about him is because she’s seen posters of him in stupid girly magazines. As I say, I sort of see where she’s coming from, but the others? I just don’t understand them at all.

Take Frankie. She’s my best mate and you’d think that she’d agree with me about the most important thing in my life, wouldn’t you? Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. She says she can’t see the point of football at all. But that’s just crazy, because she plays netball and she thinks that’s OK. And football’s the same, isn’t it? Apart from the fact that you kick the ball – and you have goals instead of nets – and the pitch is bigger… Look, what I mean is, in both games whoever scores the most wins, right? So basically they’re the same. Everybody thinks that Frankie is some brainbox or something, but if you ask me, sometimes she can be really dumb!

Rosie’s the same. Her brother Adam is crazy about football, but all she does is wind me up by calling me a hooligan. Just because I go to watch Leicester City with my dad. As far as she’s concerned, it’s as though every single football supporter goes around beating up old grannies in their spare time. My dad’s a doctor for goodness sake, and he’s not violent at all. He never even shouts out anything rude at a match. And sometimes Leicester City play so badly they deserve to be shouted at, believe me!

The person I really can’t understand though is Lyndz. She goes to football matches with her grandad and her brothers sometimes. We all sit together. She loves going. I know she does, because she gets all excited and jiggles about in her seat. You ought to hear her when someone scores a goal. But in front of the others she always pretends that she’s not that interested. You just can’t work some people out, can you?

But really, the fact that I love football so much has never been that big a deal. It’s just a fact of life that the others accept. Or at least, that was the case. All that changed when the notice appeared at school.

Now you should know that as soon as a new notice goes up everybody crowds round, as though it’s some really important event. I know, I know, it’s a bit sad isn’t it? Well anyway, one Monday, there was this big crush in the corridor at the end of lunchtime break.

“Looks like there’s a new notice up!” said Frankie, elbowing her way to the front of the crowd.

“Hope it’s something exciting!” Rosie shouted, joining her.

Fliss, Lyndz and I didn’t want to feel left out, so we got some serious elbow action going and worked our way to the front to join the others.

There was a bright spanking new notice up, but somehow the others weren’t impressed. As soon as Fliss read it she turned away in disgust.

“If I’d known it was going to be so boring, I wouldn’t have wasted all that energy!” she sniffed, and pushed her way back out through the crowd again. The others followed her. But it was one of the best notices I’d ever read, so I stayed there a bit longer just staring at it. It said:

FIVE-A-SIDE PRACTICES

Wednesdays 3.30 – 4.30pm In the School Gym with Mr Pownall

EVERYBODY WELCOME

“Brilliant!” I yelled, and ran to join the others back in Mrs Weaver’s classroom.

“I don’t know what you’re so excited about, Frogface,” sneered Ryan Scott, who had followed me in. “Mr Pownall doesn’t want soppy girls trying to play football. It’s a boys’ game. You’d just be wasting your time if you turned up.”

“I know you can’t read, Spotty Scotty,” I snapped back at him, “so I’d better tell you that Mr Pownall has written ‘everyone welcome’ and underlined ‘everyone’. So he must mean that he doesn’t mind if no-talent wasters like you turn up. And he’ll certainly be pleased to see talent like mine – whether I’m a girl or not.”

“Yeah, right McKenzie, in your dreams!”

“Ryan Scott, why are you always the last one to find your place?” Mrs Weaver suddenly appeared. “Is there something wrong with your chair? Does it bring you out in a rash? Please enlighten me.”

Ryan Scott blushed beetroot red and sat down. But not before he’d given me a really filthy look. I love it when he gets told off like that, he just can’t handle it.

When we’d all settled down to some maths, Frankie whispered to me:

“I think Scotty’s probably right, you know. I bet Mr Pownall doesn’t really expect any girls to turn up to his five-a-side practice.”

“Well, he’s going to be surprised then,” I told her with a grin, “because I’m definitely going.”

“You’ll only embarrass yourself,” warned Fliss from the other side of the table.

“And whose side are you on?” I asked. “As if I couldn’t guess.” I started to chant, “Felicity loves Ryan, Felicity loves Ryan!”

“Shut up!” hissed Fliss. It was her turn to do an impression of a beetroot. She and Ryan Scott certainly have a lot in common!

“Laura McKenzie!” Mrs Weaver said sharply. “I hope there’s a very good excuse for your outburst.”

“Sorry, I just got a bit carried away,” I apologised. “Maths always does that to me. I must be allergic to it!”

“This allergic reaction probably explains why your maths book is always in such a mess,” said Mrs Weaver crisply. “I think the cure for your complaint is extra maths homework. I think you’ll soon find that you’re not allergic to it any more. Would you like to try that?”

Mrs Weaver was looking at me and everyone else was falling about laughing.

“Actually, I’m feeling a lot better now, thank you,” I mumbled.

After that I kept my head down and got on with my work. I thought that if Mrs Weaver caught me talking again she just might carry out her threat and I couldn’t face that. I nearly cracked when Ryan Scott started flicking bits of rubber at me though. He was dying to get me into trouble and I was dying to bop him one. But I didn’t. I kept cool and promised myself that I’d teach him a lesson at the five-a-side practice.

It was quite a relief to get outside at break time. I did a few cartwheels on the grass next to our classroom, then went to join the others. They were all standing around watching Ryan Scott kicking a ball about with his mates.

“Aw, come on, we could do better than that!” I moaned. “They’re useless.”

“They look pretty good to me!” said Rosie.

“All right then,” I reasoned, “if you come to the five-a-side practice you’ll soon be good enough to join in with them.”

“Uurgh, we wouldn’t want to!” Frankie shuddered. “I couldn’t think of anything worse. Stupid football AND horrible boys. Gross!”

Frankie just wasn’t being reasonable, but I wasn’t giving up yet.

“You wouldn’t mind spending more time with the boys at the practice, would you Fliss?” I asked. She was going all moony-eyed looking at stupid Ryan Scott.

“Leave it out Kenny!” she snapped. “I can’t play football and everybody would laugh at me. I have enough of that with you lot!”

“Ah, diddums!” we all yelled, and grabbed her so hard in one of our group bear hugs that soon she was squealing for mercy!

“What about you, Lyndz?” I asked when we finally let Fliss go. “You’ll come to the practice won’t you? It’ll be fun, honest!”

Lyndz didn’t look too sure about that.

“I don’t think so Kenny,” she replied. “I promised Mrs McAllister that I’d go down to the stables after school on Wednesday. She’s got a show the next day and I said I’d help to groom the horses.”

“You and your horses!” I grumbled. I’d kind of been banking on Lyndz coming with me.

“Hey, what about you, Rosie?” I then asked. “You’re good at sports. Wouldn’t you love to show those boys that we’re just as good as them?”

“Well, yes,” said Rosie slowly.

“Thanks Rosie, my great mate!” I slapped her on the back. “I knew that you wouldn’t let me down!” I scowled at the others, especially Frankie.

“Hang on a minute, Kenny,” said Rosie. “I only said that I’d like to teach the boys a lesson. I don’t think I’ll be doing that at the five-a-side practice though.”

“What do you mean?” I yelled.

“Look, it’s all right for you,” Rosie explained. “You’re always playing football, so you know what it’s all about. We don’t. I can’t even kick a ball for my dog. The last thing we want is to show ourselves up in front of Ryan Scott and his stupid mates. They’ll never let us forget it. I’m afraid you’re on your own on this one. Sorry!”

I couldn’t believe it. My so-called friends were all going to let me down.

The whistle blew and the others ran inside. It was our turn to choose books from the library and they were all excited about which ones they were going to borrow. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the practice on Wednesday. It felt a bit funny knowing that I’d be going on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t scared or anything. I do tons of stuff by myself outside school. It’s just that we usually do school-based activities all together. It would have been a laugh having the others there, that’s all. As it was, it looked as though I would have to stand up for Girl Power on the football pitch all by myself!