T.J. and the Penalty (4 page)

‘What did I tell you?’ Marshall said. He’d been watching from the side with Mr Wood and the Wanderers first-team coach. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t get in the way of that one, Phil. Nice one, TJ! I couldn’t have hit that better myself.’

‘You’re doing a great job with these kids, Johnny,’ the first-team coach said to Mr Wood, with a quick glance at TJ. ‘It looks like you’ve got some real talent there. But we have to get on now. I’ll see you later.’

For nearly an hour the kids from Parkview watched the Wanderers team training.

‘Dexter Gordon smiled at me,’ said Tulsi, with a dreamy expression on her face.

‘Yes, well, now you’ve all had a good rest,’ Mr Wood said, ‘we’re going to do something called a beep test.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jamie.

‘It’ll tell us exactly how fit you all are,’
replied
Mr Wood. ‘And then we can plan how to get fitter. It’s easy. All you have to do is run between those sets of cones. You time your runs to match the beeps, and after a while the beeps will start getting faster. When you can’t keep up, then you stop and we give you your score. Off you go!’

TJ soon found himself running comfortably in time to the beeps, and so did a lot of the others. But as the beeps began to speed up, people started drop out. Jamie was dragging his feet. He was falling behind. ‘You can do it, Jamie,’ said TJ. ‘Keep going. Breathe!’

But it was no use. Two more beeps and TJ heard Mr Wood saying, ‘You’re out, Jamie. Come and sit down.’

TJ turned with the beep and saw Jamie bent double, gasping for breath. Next time he turned, the beeps had speeded up again and he was starting to breathe a little faster himself. More and more kids dropped out,
until
only TJ and Tulsi were left running. TJ glanced across at Tulsi. She hardly seemed to be making any effort. TJ’s legs were beginning to feel like lumps of wood. At the next turn he was late, and Mr Wood yelled, ‘Come on, TJ, you have to catch up.’

He pushed his legs as fast as they would go, and at the next turn he was exactly in time with the beep, but now he saw that Tulsi was running away from him. He kept telling his legs to move, but they wouldn’t. It was like running through treacle.

‘That’s enough, TJ,’ Mr Wood told him. TJ collapsed on the ground, as Tulsi carried on, running, turning, faster and faster. And at each turn, everyone cheered.

Finally Tulsi was forced to stop. ‘Great work, Tulsi,’ Mr Wood said, as they all walked back to the bus.

‘How did you do that?’ TJ said. ‘I thought I was faster than you.’

‘You are faster,’ Tulsi said with a grin. ‘But you can’t keep going as long. Statistics don’t lie, do they, Rob?’

‘You are officially the fittest in Year Six,’ Rob said.

‘And we all know who’s unfit,’ said Danny spitefully.

Jamie just walked on ahead of them. TJ hoped he hadn’t heard. He knew that Jamie really was doing his best. He just needed a little help, that was all.

C
HAPTER
6

‘WE HAVE TO
do
something, Tulsi said after school. They were standing in the playground – Tommy, Rodrigo, Rafi, Tulsi, Rob and TJ. Jamie had walked off without saying a word.

‘It’s not just that he eats too much,’ Rafi said. ‘It’s
what
he eats. All those potatoes and chips and pies.’

‘And puddings,’ said Tulsi. ‘Don’t forget the puddings. I’ve been round to Jamie’s house. They always have afters. Steamed
puddings
with custard and banoffee pie and—’

‘Don’t,’ interrupted TJ. ‘You’re making me hungry.’

‘Just imagine what it must be like for Jamie,’ Tulsi said. ‘And then when he gets to school there’s Mrs Hubbard piling his plate up so high he can hardly carry it.’

‘So, come on then,’ said Tommy. ‘You’re so clever. You think of something.’

‘Yeah, what do
you
eat that makes you so fit?’ asked TJ.

‘We eat vegetables mostly. And rice and beans. And fruit. My mum’s a really good cook. We don’t ever have chips.’

‘Fish,’ said Rodrigo. ‘I eat fish.’

‘Hey, Rodrigo!’ TJ said. ‘Brilliant English.’

Rodrigo smiled. ‘Fish good,’ he said, and he licked his lips then smacked them together, making them all laugh.

‘You know what?’ Tulsi said. ‘We all eat
different
kinds of food. Maybe if we gave Jamie some recipes . . .’

‘It’s Jamie’s mum who needs the recipes,’ said TJ.

‘Yeah, and Mrs Hubbard,’ agreed Rafi. ‘Just imagine if she cooked nice curries, and rice . . .’

‘And chapattis,’ said Tulsi.

‘Fish!’ said Rodrigo triumphantly.

‘And pasta with tomato sauce,’ said Tommy. ’My dad taught
me
to cook it so Mrs Hubbard could do it easily.’

‘It’ll never happen,’ Tulsi said, shaking her head. ‘Mrs Hubbard has been cooking the same things as long as I can remember, and I bet Jamie’s mum has too. Unless . . .’

‘What?’

‘Maybe we could have a day at school. A food day. No, a
world
food day. I bet my mum and dad would make something for it.’

‘Like they did when we fixed the pitch,’ said Rafi. ‘It was brilliant.’

‘My dad could make lamb and peas,’ TJ said, then his face fell. ‘But Jamie ate double helpings of that. He stuffed himself. It’s not going to work. He’ll just eat more.’

‘No,’ said Tulsi. ‘It’ll work. He didn’t do himself anything like as much damage filling himself with lamb and peas as he does with sticky toffee pudding. We’ll show everyone there’s loads of nice things you can eat that don’t make you fat.’

‘We could have football too,’ said Rob, who had been thinking hard. ‘A mini World Cup, food, football, fitness and fun. How about that?’

‘Genius,’ said TJ. ‘I mean, it can be part of our football project, can’t it? The World Cup will be Geography and we’ll be doing Food Technology too.’

‘And there’s lots of science,’ added Rob.
‘I
bet Mr Wood will love it. Let’s go and ask him.’

*

Rob was right. Mr Wood
did
love the idea, and so did their head teacher, Mr Burrows. ‘Just the thing!’ he said when Mr Wood took them to see him. ‘You go ahead and organize it, Mr Wood.’

TJ’s dad was excited too, when TJ told him about it that evening. ‘I’ve been thinking, though, Dad,’ TJ said. ‘It’s going to take more than a World Food Day to get Jamie fit.’

‘It sounds like
you
need to be fitter too,’ his mum told him with a smile. ‘I’m very impressed that Tulsi beat you in that beep test.’

‘And Dad could lose a bit of weight as well,’ laughed Joey.

‘Says who?’ Mr Wilson looked down at his stomach. Then he shook his head and laughed. ‘I suppose you’ve got a point,’ he
said
. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Why don’t we all go running together in the evenings? The Wilson family and any of TJ’s friends who want to come. Especially Jamie. He’s a great lad, and it would be a shame if he wasn’t in the team.’

‘Not me,’ said Lou. ‘I’m fit. I go dancing.’

‘Me neither,’ laughed TJ’s mum. ‘I’ve got my swimming. But I’m looking forward to seeing this!’

The next day Mr Wood put Year Six to work, organizing the day.

‘It’ll be on a Saturday,’ he said. ‘We have just three weeks. We’ll ask mums and dads to make food, and every class is going to have a stall. You lot are going to make a big display about how to get fit and healthy. We can use the information we collected on our visit to Wanderers. Rob, I want you to organize the World Cup tournament. We’re doing it for fun,
so
teams can have players of any age in them. For instance, Rafi could play with his mum and dad and his little sisters.’

Everyone started laughing and talking. Mr Wood held up a hand.

‘You can choose which country you’d like to be,’ he said. ‘But if there’s more than one entry for that country then it’ll be first come, first served.’

Rob was already writing in his notebook.

‘Is that OK, Rob?’ Mr Wood asked.

‘I’m on it,’ Rob replied.

TJ looked at him. Rob seemed to be getting more confident with every day that passed. But there was no time to think about that. Suddenly there was a huge amount of work to do.

‘Come on, Jamie,’ TJ said. ‘You’re really good at designing posters. We can have plates of steaming food, and mad football pictures.’

‘I can’t,’ Jamie said. ‘I don’t even want to think about food. I’m starving.’

‘No way,’ said TJ. ‘You’re never starving.’

‘Well, I am today,’ Jamie said. ‘I had cornflakes for breakfast.’

‘So? That’s what I had.’

‘You don’t understand. That’s
all
I had. If this is what it takes to get fit, I don’t think I want to play football. You all thought up this crazy idea just to torment me, didn’t you?’

‘It’ll be fun,’ TJ laughed. ‘And you don’t have to starve yourself. Just give up the sticky toffee pudding. And there’s another thing . . .’ TJ told him about his dad’s idea.

‘We won’t go far,’ he said. ‘Dad reckons one or maybe two kilometres at first.’ He turned to the others. ‘You can all come if
you
want,’ he said.

‘I’m fit already,’ laughed Tulsi.

‘I’ll come,’ Rob said. ‘If you’re sure it’s all right.’

‘Of course it is,’ TJ told him. ‘We’re going to the Sports Centre on London Road. They’ve got a floodlit running trail. How about you, Jamie?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jamie gloomily. ‘Right now, I’m weak with hunger. I might not even have the strength to walk home.’