The Great Gold Robbery (19 page)

And with that all the players ran out the door, through the players’ tunnel, and out into the tremendous noise in Wobbley Stadium.

Doctor Proctor (aka Hamish MacKaroni) and Lisa (aka Ockolmes) sat down next to Krillo on the bench by the sideline.

“Where are the other substitutes?” Doctor Proctor asked.

“What substitutes?” Krillo asked. “You don’t think we can afford to pay people who don’t play, do you?”

“What if someone gets . . . uh, injured?” Lisa asked.

“They’re not allowed to get hurt,” Krillo said. “Could you quit bugging me now so I can concentrate?”

Ibranaldovez was standing in the middle of the field, ready for the kickoff, but looking down at Nilly.

“Seriously?” he sneered. “You’re going to
play
? I thought you were the mascot. I’m going to have to pick you out of my cleats after the game.”

And then, at exactly forty-three seconds after four o’clock, forty-three seconds later than planned, a whistle blow started the big World Cup finale.

THE GAME CLOCK had just passed forty-three minutes when Krillo moaned in despair, because this couldn’t be happening. Chelchester City had had the ball the whole time and
they had made two offside goals, three goalpost shots, eighteen corner kicks, and the bookmakers were giving them five-hundred-to-one odds of winning. In other words, it was a miracle that the
score was still 0–0. Ibranaldovez shot, and Krillo leaped into the air with excitement on the sideline as the ball bounced off the crossbar. Krillo came back down again on the very end of the
bench, flipping it up and launching Lisa into the air so that she landed again with a little “Hiccup!”

“Two minutes until halftime,” Krillo said, mostly to himself. “If we can just keep it 0–0 until then! Please, oh, please!”

The Rotten Ham ’n’ Potatoes goalkeeper passed the ball to Nero Longhands.

“Get the ball out to that little redheaded guy!” Krillo yelled.

“Beckadona Hamarooney Sherl,” Doctor Proctor said.

“Whatever. Just get him the ball!”

Nero tried, but it wasn’t so easily accomplished, this feat. First he had to gain control of the ball and then send it where he wanted it. Not to mention all these guys dressed in blue all
over him all the time. They were really pushy! But now he saw the little redheaded boy who’d been standing in the center circle for the whole game, waiting for the ball. Yes, that little
Beckumoonie Shirley or whatever his name was had even lain down in the grass for a while when Chelchester City was giving them their worst. The little guy had plucked a blade of grass, stuck it
between his teeth, and lain down with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the blue sky.

Nero aimed for the little boy and kicked at the ball, but ended up kicking the turf just behind it instead. And suddenly his leg was in Ibranaldovez’s legs.

“Tackle!” Krillo yelled.

And Nero lunged forward, shut his eyes, and tackled Ibranaldovez.

Which is to say: He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d tackled Ibranaldovez.

Apparently he’d tackled the air where Ibranaldovez had just been standing a second before, because when he opened his eyes again, he heard a roar of cheering from the stands and saw
Ibranaldovez on his way back with his hands up in victory. It might have just been an accident that Ibranaldovez happened to step on Nero’s hand as he went by.

“No!” Krillo screamed. “No! No!”

“Well, well,” Doctor Proctor said.

The teams each moved back to their sides of the field again. Rotten Ham put the ball on the midline and waited for the referee to blow his whistle and start play again. Nilly yawned, spit his
blade of grass out, and walked over to the ball along with his teammates.

“Watch this,” Doctor Proctor told Krillo, who’d pulled his sou’wester down over his face.

But Krillo wasn’t watching. Instead he was staring at the inside of his sou’wester, dreaming that he was back on his krill-fishing boat in the Antarctic Ocean, teeth chattering as
they hauled in the net, pulling yet another big catch onboard. He should have stuck with that! Not come to this gloomy country where everything was sorrow and . . .

Thunk!

. . . miserable . . .

Whistle!

. . . wretchedness?

Judging from what Krillo could
hear
as he stared at the inside of his sou’wester, there was cheering. Not as loud as before, but if he wasn’t mistaken, he thought he heard a
guy named Tony singing something like, “Toes, my Toes, you’re not exactly England’s rose . . .”

He opened his eyes and saw a pile of players wearing white. Eventually a little redheaded guy crawled out of the pile and ran over to the stands, blowing kisses to the crowd, both the ones
wearing blue and the ones in white. And Krillo also saw the world’s best soccer player’s eyes about to pop out of his head.

“From midfield!” MacKaroni, the new ball boy, cried excitedly. “Did you
see
that?”

And then, with a score of 1–1, the referee blew his whistle and it was halftime.

“YOU JUST HAVE to do that one more time,” Doctor Proctor whispered to Nilly as Krillo spoke, diagrammed, and pointed to the whiteboard in the locker room.

“I know, but I’ll never get the ball,” Nilly said. “The only time would be at the kickoff after
they’ve
scored!”

“Be patient,” Lisa whispered. “We have to win! We’re heading straight to the airport with the trophy from here!”

“Yeah, about that,” Nilly said. “Did you guys get the fake trophy from Madame Tourette’s Wax Museum?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lisa said. “I’m going to have it in my suitcase, and I’ll be waiting in the players’ tunnel right after the game. And you remember what you
have to do?”

“Yep,” Nilly said. “After I accept the adulations of the crowd for having more or less single-handedly determined the outcome of the World Cup final with my fantastic shot and
the ladies are begging me for kisses and—”

“Get to the point!” Lisa said.

“Yeah, sure. Holding the trophy, I will be carried to the locker room on the shoulders of my teammates, and as we enter the players’ tunnel—”

“I’ll turn off the lights,” Doctor Proctor said.

“And in the darkness, Nilly will toss the trophy down to me,” Lisa said. “And I’ll swap it out, toss the fake trophy back up to you, and put the real one, which is made
of the Bank of Norway’s gold, into the suitcase.”

“Then we catch the first flight home to Oslo,” Doctor Proctor said. “And get home just in time so that the trophy can be melted back down again into a gold bar, put back into
the vault, and the inspection will go off without a hitch.”

“And I will be carried through the streets of Oslo on people’s shoulders as girls throw red roses at me and burst into tears when they realize that I can’t marry them all
unless the king passes a new law that says that I, Nilly, am actually allowed to marry—”

“LET’S GET ON WITH IT, THEN!” Krillo yelled. “And don’t wait too long to start trouncing them, please!”

Nilly certainly had no intention of doing that.

NO, NILLY HAD no intention of waiting at all. Because Rotten Ham had the kickoff in the second half.

Nero Longhands nudged the ball to Nilly, who stood ready, his foot raised.

Thunk!

“I made a little adjustment last night, you know,” Doctor Proctor (aka MacKaroni) told Krillo.

Whistle!

“I moved the heel, which is actually designed for chopping wood, up to the toe of the shoe.”

Whoosh!

“Really smart, huh?” Doctor Proctor said.

It was 2–1 Rotten Ham! Cheers erupted in the tiny Rotten Ham fan section and the players once again buried Nilly under a pile of sweaty bodies.

Nilly emerged from the pile and once again ran toward the stands, blowing kisses left and right. He thought he even noticed some of the blue-clad female spectators looking like they really
wanted to blow kisses back to him, but of course they didn’t dare for fear of how the other blue whiners would penalize such disloyal behavior.

Nero patted Nilly on the head. “I’m sure I’ll be able to get you the ball a few times,” he said. “We’re going to win this!”

“Definitely,” Nilly said, concentrating on pulling off a rather decent moonwalk over the grass, which is no small feat when you’re wearing one hand-stitched boot and one soccer
cleat. When the cheers subsided and they were ready to let Chelchester City kick off, Nilly heard a voice right by his ear:

“Is that your sister, that ugly girl on the bench over there?”

“Hey, no one calls Lisa ugly!” Nilly said, turning around.

It was Ibranaldovez. He was sneering down at Nilly. “Your sister is the ugliest girl I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of girls. She’s uglier than the village I come
from at low tide, and that’s ugly! And dumb! She’s dumber than one of those trees you put in your living room around Christmastime, what are they called again? Whatever. Those trees are
really, really dumb, and that’s how dumb she is. At least. No, actually, she’s even dumber. Ha-ha! Did you hear that? She’s dumber than one of those tree-thingies! And ugly! Did I
mention the part about low tide back home? Why’s your face so red, huh?”