T.J. and the Penalty (8 page)

‘Look at that,’ said TJ. ‘It fits! You must have got thinner, Jamie.’

‘I’m sorry, Rodrigo,’ Jamie said. ‘I didn’t know he’d take you off.’

‘OK, everyone,’ Mr Wood said. ‘This is going to be very hard work, but I don’t want you to just defend. If you do that, they’ll keep on scoring goals. You have to attack them. Take them by surprise. But first you’ve got a free kick to defend.’

They made their way back onto the pitch.

‘OK, Leroy?’ the Wasps coach said to his captain.

Leroy walked a few steps and then nodded. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. TJ could see the angry red marks on his thigh where Danny’s boots had scraped.

Jamie stood between the goalposts and clapped his hands. ‘Come on, Parkview,’ he yelled. ‘We can beat this lot.’

TJ saw the Wasps players around him laughing, but just looking at Jamie standing there in goal made him feel better. Rafi, Tommy and Leila made a wall on the edge of the penalty area. The ref blew his whistle and Leroy took the free kick. It bent around the wall and into the top corner of the net.

Even Jamie couldn’t do anything except watch it. It was a perfect free kick.

‘Don’t worry, Parkview,’ Jamie yelled, as he threw the ball back to the centre circle. ‘We beat Hillside, didn’t we? We were three nil down then, and we won it.’

There was a ripple of applause from the small group of Parkview supporters on the touchline. ‘Come on, Parkview,’ Mr Burrows yelled. ‘You can do it!’

‘We have to move more,’ TJ said to Tulsi.
‘We
have to confuse them a bit. We can swap places sometimes, and we have to help Rafi make tackles.’

Tulsi nodded her agreement.

They kicked off. Rafi raced into space and received a pass. He took the lightest of touches and then laid the ball off to TJ. TJ didn’t even need to take a touch. He saw Tommy moving forward and tapped the ball to him. Tommy moved it on smoothly to Tulsi, who was close to the Wasps penalty area with her back to the goal. She controlled the ball and shielded it from the defender behind her, as Rafi and TJ ran towards the penalty area, then she played a pass into TJ’s path. TJ flicked the ball past the defender, catching him by surprise, and sprinted for the goal line. He heard his brother, Joey, yell, ‘Go on, TJ!’ and he knew the Wasps defender would never catch him.

He hit his cross hard across the penalty
area
– but there was no one there.

The ball flashed harmlessly between the Wasps defenders and their goalie and went out for a throw-in on the other side of the pitch.

‘Where were you?’ he said to Tulsi.

‘You didn’t look, did you?’ she said.

‘No, but it was a perfect cross. You should have known what I’d do.’

‘Oh, what, I’m supposed to be a mind-reader now, am I?’

‘Stop it, you two,’ yelled Rafi. ‘Get back!’

Wasps had taken the throw-in quickly and the black-haired defender was running forward with the ball at his feet. TJ sprinted after him, breathing hard. Rafi didn’t know whether to mark Leroy, or go and challenge the running defender. There seemed to be Wasps players everywhere. Just as TJ caught up with the defender he struck his shot, and TJ saw the ball rocketing towards the top
left-hand
corner. It was a certain goal.

But then Jamie took off. No one else in the team could have reached the ball, but Jamie stretched out his fingertips and pushed it over the bar. Everyone on the pitch stared, as Jamie rolled on the ground and then stood up with a streak of mud on his face.

‘Brilliant save, lad,’ said the ref, as he pointed to the corner flag.

‘JAMIE, JAMIE!’ chanted the Parkview fans.

‘Don’t just stand there,’ Jamie yelled. ‘Defend!’

They all ran back into the penalty area, as Leroy took the corner, but Jamie didn’t need them. ‘Keeper’s!’ he yelled, and he jumped through the swarm of Wasps players to pull the ball out of the air, as the ref blew the whistle for half time.

C
HAPTER
13

‘I’M AMAZED,’ SAID
Mr Wood to Jamie, as he handed out slices of orange. ‘That’s one of the best saves I’ve ever seen.’ TJ was almost sure that Jamie blushed.

‘We’re still losing three nil though,’ Rafi pointed out.

‘Yes, but you are starting to play some good football,’ Mr Wood replied. ‘And I’ve got a feeling that your fitness training might be paying off. You were making them work quite hard and one or two of them were starting to puff a little.’

‘They think they’ve already won,’ Rob said, as he handed out the water bottles. ‘Look at them.’

The Wasps players were standing around laughing with their mums and dads. Some of them were drinking Coke and TJ saw one of them with an ice cream. Then the Wasps coach, Brian, came out of the dressing room with Leroy, who now had a big white bandage around his thigh. When Brian saw what was happening, his face darkened and they heard him shouting at the players, waving their mums and dads away.

‘You’re right, Rob,’ Mr Wood said with a grin. ‘A lot of teams get over-confident when they’re three nil up, and it looks like they’re as human as anyone else.’

‘They’ve still got an extra player,’ TJ pointed out.

‘I think the Coke and ice cream should just about cancel that out,’ Mr Wood told
them
. ‘Let’s really give them something to think about.’

Wasps kicked off, and straight away they were on the attack, zipping the ball from player to player before the Parkview players could get near it. They passed it out to the right wing, where a skinny black boy dribbled forward to take on Tommy. ‘Pass it, Martin,’ yelled the Wasps coach, but Martin paid no attention. In the first half he had never once tried to beat Tommy with the ball, but now he was over-confident and he started to show off. He stepped over it once, then twice, then dragged it back with the sole of his foot and flicked it with the outside of his right boot.

Tommy didn’t watch Martin’s fancy foot-work. He just watched the ball, and when Martin tried to go past him he simply reached out a foot and took the ball away
from
him. There were groans from the Wasps supporters, as Tommy clipped the ball to Rafi, who had been darting backwards and forwards trying to lose his marker and had managed to find a few metres of space. Rafi dragged the ball backwards away from the Wasps player who was trying to tackle him.

Tulsi was running diagonally away from him with her marker trailing behind her.

Rafi had to judge the pass carefully. If he hit it too hard it would run out of play before Tulsi could catch it, and if it wasn’t hard enough then the defender would get it. He struck the ball just the way Mr Wood had shown him in training, chipping it so that it would be spinning backwards as it hit the ground, and would slow up just a little.

Tulsi saw the ball dropping over her head and she sprinted after it. ‘Our throw!’ yelled the Wasps fans, as she controlled the ball right on the line and moved off down the
wing
, but the linesman’s flag stayed down.

Tulsi had kept the ball in play, and now she looked up and saw TJ running towards the penalty area. She curved her pass into his path so that he didn’t have to pause in his run, but there was still the tall, black-haired defender in his way.

TJ took one touch, and he saw the hesitation in the defender’s eyes. Then the defender burped, very loudly, and in a split second TJ had skipped past him and buried the ball in the net, low to the goalkeeper’s left.

The Parkview fans screamed and shouted as if they had won the match. ‘Concentrate, Parkview,’ yelled Mr Wood, as TJ grabbed the ball from the net and ran back to place it on the centre spot. ‘That was good work. Don’t waste it!’

TJ looked over as Mr Wood spoke and saw a stocky man in a grey puffa jacket and a red woolly hat standing beside him, saying something. Mr Wood nodded in agreement. TJ knew that he’d seen the man somewhere very recently, but he couldn’t remember where. ‘Who’s that?’ he asked Tulsi, as they waited for
Wasps
to restart the game.

Tulsi shrugged. ‘Some friend of Mr Wood’s, I expect. Come on, let’s get another one.’

‘Keep going, Wasps,’ called one of their supporters. ‘Show ’em how you can sting!’

Leroy didn’t need any encouragement. TJ could see that he was angry they’d conceded a goal. Straight from the kick-off, he took the ball and headed down the middle of the pitch towards Jamie’s goal. He took Rafi completely by surprise, and brushed off his weak tackle as if he hadn’t even noticed him. He was clean through on goal.

But Jamie was there. He had seen what was happening and moved quickly off his line. Now, as Leroy pulled back his foot to shoot, Jamie threw himself, full-length, on the ground at Leroy’s feet. The shot cannoned into his stomach at point-blank
range
, but Jamie jumped quickly to his feet and rolled the ball to Tommy.

Tommy saw his chance and raced past two stunned Wasps players before they had time to move. Then, as they ran towards him, he played the ball across the width of the pitch to Leila, who hit a first-time pass to TJ. TJ could see the fear in the eyes of the black-haired defender. Another defender was coming to help him, but that left Tulsi completely unmarked. TJ simply passed the ball between the two defenders, and Tulsi lashed her shot past the goalkeeper.

TJ ran all the way back to Jamie and whacked him on the back. ‘Brilliant, Jamie,’ he said. ‘We’d probably be losing five nil if it wasn’t for you. And that was a great pass, Leila.’

Leila went bright red. Jamie’s brothers were jumping around on the touchline, chanting his name. As TJ ran past them, he
saw
a Wasps supporter pointing at the other side of the pitch, where Mr Wood was standing with the man in the red hat.

‘He’s a scout from Wanderers,’ the man said. ‘I’ve seen him down here before.’

TJ felt his heart pounding. He saw the buzz spreading along the touchline, as the spectators realized there was a scout watching. If Parkview kept playing well then any of them might have a chance to get into the Wanderers Academy. TJ hardly dared to think it, but it might even be him.

C
HAPTER
14

IT WAS 3–2
to Wasps, as they kicked off again, and the noise of the crowd was loud in TJ’s ears. The game must be nearly over, but he hadn’t seen the referee look at his watch yet. And he suddenly felt nervous. What if he played badly? What if he made a mistake?