The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-Off (7 page)

‘You look very excited,' said Mum.

It was eight o'clock on Saturday morning. I was pacing up and down in the hallway, carrying my football. Normally at that time I'd be watching TV. Saturday mornings were one of the few times I could watch TV without being hassled by Mum about it.

‘Do I?'

I probably wouldn't have used the word excited. I might have said nervous, or maybe scared to death. I was carrying the football because part of me thought that if I could
just touch it for long enough, then I might get slightly better at the game. Another part of me knew that was stupid.

‘Is something happening today?'

We'd discussed telling our parents about the Big Match. Noah was in favour of it. He said that they would come to support us, and that would mean we wouldn't get kicked around too much by the Dockery Gang, and we probably wouldn't get bashed or squished or pushed around after the game at all. Those were definitely good things – I mean, not getting kicked, etc.

But there was one big thing on the other side of the balance. If our parents came, then Dockery would say that we had to get our mummies and daddies to come and look after us, poor ickle wickle babies deedums deedums.

I'd rather get thumped than have to listen to that, and Jamie and The Moan agreed with me. So we outvoted Noah.

‘Nah, nothing, Mum,' I said, back in our hallway. ‘We'll probably kick a ball around later on.'

That was true, sort of. I didn't like telling lies to Mum, which meant I spent a lot of time trying to put things the right way.

About half an hour later Noah came round. Sometimes we didn't need to ask to know what the other one was thinking. I could tell from his face that he was as worried as me. We had some toast together in the kitchen. Noah's parents were quite nice but they sometimes forgot to give him meals, so he often ate at our house.

After the toast we went and collected Jamie and The Moan and went to the den. Just then it seemed like the best den in the world, safe and dry and brilliant in every way. It made us all sad.

‘This might be the last time we ever get to hang out in here,' said Jamie.

Usually I'd have made a speech about how things weren't so bad, but I didn't
have it in me today. I think me not saying anything was a bit of a shock to the Gang. Maybe that's why Noah said what he said next, which was even more shocking.

‘We should eat our stash,' he said.

‘Our stash' meant our stash of sweets, kept in a black shoe box. We'd collected them over a few months. They were supposed to be for emergencies, like if there was a war or something. Eating our stash was very symbolic, which is when one thing stands for another thing and it means more than you think at first.

The big box of sweets, hidden in a hole in the floor covered over with a piece of carpet, was sort of the soul of the Gang. As long as it was still there, the Gang was still alive. Without it the Gang was like a dead body. The stash of sweets was even more important than the den. We could always build another den, but when our sweets were gone, well, that was it, they were gone. Unless we bought some more, that is.

With a heavy heart I moved the carpet and got the box out of the hole. Everyone gathered round as I opened the lid. We all looked at the pile of goodies. Whenever we bought some sweets, we were meant to save something to put in the box. I suppose we all cheated a bit, because it's quite hard not to just eat all your sweets when you buy them, but the box was still pretty full. With the shiny wrappers and gold paper, it looked like a box of pirate treasure.

I shared them out. It had looked like a pretty good stash when you saw them all together in the box, but when it was split between the four of us, it didn't seem that much. Just a couple of handfuls of chews and fruit pastilles and broken-up blocks of chocolate and not even a whole packet of crisps each.

That was symbolic too. The Gang was like the stash of sweets. Quite impressive all together, but a bit rubbish when you looked at the separate parts.

Still, eating sweets always cheers you up a bit, and we even began to think that, with Luke and Oliver and Carl on our side, we might have a chance of beating the old estate kids.

It was then that we heard the rapping of a stick on the outside of the den. Bad news, we all thought. And we were right.

‘Who is it?' I shouted.

‘Me,' said a voice we knew all too well.

‘Oh no,' groaned The Moan. ‘What does
she
want?'

‘Probably to rub salt in our wounds,' said Noah.

We all crawled outside to see.

Jennifer was there, holding a big stick. I thought for a second that her plan was to whack us with it, probably as a way of making us weak for the Big Match, like when Delilah cut off Samson's hair so he
became rubbish at fighting, which is a story we did in RE. Up until then Samson was really cool, and slayed – which means killed – about a million Philistines, who were the baddies, with various weapons, including his bare hands and the jaw bone of an ass, which is a donkey and not your bum.

I walked forward to talk to her, as I was still the Leader for the time being. I kept an eye on her stick, in case she made a sudden swipe.

‘What do you want, Jennifer?'

Her hair wasn't in its usual volcano shape today, and it actually looked quite normal. It went down instead of up, which, if you ask me, is the right way for hair to go.

She threw her stick into the bushes. At first, when I saw her hand move, I thought she was going to whip me with it, so I stepped back, which wasn't very cool. But if there's one lesson I've learned in life it's that you can't be cool all the time.

‘You know Carl?' she said.

‘Of course we know Carl. He's playing in our team today, so we should know him.'

‘He isn't.'

‘Isn't what?'

‘Playing in your team today. Or ever, probably.'

I found it hard to understand her face. I didn't know if she was enjoying this, or was actually trying to help us.

There were cries of surprise and alarm from the boys behind me.

‘What do you mean?' I said. ‘He
is
playing for us. He came to our practice – I mean training session – yesterday. He's our best player.'

‘It's all a trick,' said Jennifer.

‘What?' I replied, but I was beginning to have a rotten feeling inside me even before Jennifer answered.

‘He's only pretending to be on your team. It's all so Dockery can find out what your plans are, and when you all turn up at three o'clock, Carl's going to go and play for
Dockery's team. And it means you'll only have six players, and they'll have seven.'

‘The evil sneaky swine,' said Jamie. ‘I knew it was too good to be true.'

‘They'll know all about our Christmas tree,' said The Moan.

‘You're not lying, are you, Jennifer?' I asked, but I knew it was true. Everything started to fall into place.

‘I do not tell lies,' she answered, sounding very high and mighty.

‘That's true, she doesn't,' said The Moan, but he didn't mean it as a compliment. ‘She never covers for me when I'm in trouble.'

I glanced around at the boys. They looked really, really depressed about this news.

‘Let's say it's true then. But how do you know about it?'

‘My friend Sarah is friends with his sister's friend, Fiona.'

‘Eh?'

‘I just heard, OK?'

‘Why are you telling us this? Is it because you want to gloat?'

‘No.'

‘Ha!' said The Moan. ‘She doesn't even know what gloat means.'

‘I do so, stupid boy! It means being happy that someone else is sad, and then you make fun of them. And no, that isn't why I'm telling you.'

‘Why then?'

‘They were going to cheat. I didn't think it was fair. Especially as they're all bigger than you anyway. I hate things that aren't fair.'

‘That's really nice of you, Jennifer,' I said. And I meant it. ‘I'm really sorry about . . . you know.'

‘Are you?'

‘Yeah. I should never have made you show us your bare bum. I should just have said there were no girls allowed.'

‘But why are there no girls allowed?'

‘Why? But . . . but . . . I don't know, really.'

I was going to say that stuff about girls tidying up your den and making your action figures wear frilly dresses, but I realized that Jennifer wasn't that kind of girl. In fact, for all I knew for sure, there weren't any girls who would do all that.

I looked round for support from my gang, but they were all hanging their heads. I could understand why.

‘What are you going to do about the game?' Jennifer asked after a while. She'd probably got bored with waiting for me to say something.

‘Well, we can either not turn up, or play anyway, with six men.'

Jennifer started laughing. ‘Six men! Ha, you mean six boys.'

‘You always say “men” in teams. You'd probably say men even if you had girls.'

‘And you can't get anyone else to play?'

‘Too late now.'

Jennifer was looking at me in a funny way.

Then I had one of my ideas. It was probably the craziest idea I'd ever had, and that was saying something.

I turned to the Gang. ‘We need to have a talk in the den,' I said to them. Then I turned again to Jennifer.

‘Wait here a minute, will you?' I said it in my nicest voice.

‘What's all this about?' asked Noah when we were inside.

‘I'm going to ask her.'

‘Ask who?' said Jamie.

‘Jennifer.'

‘Ask her what?' said The Moan.

‘If she wants to play.'

‘WHAAAAAAT!' The shout came from all of them together.