On The Ball (8 page)

Emma was at school early the next day. She wasn't the only one. Lots of kids had turned up before school for the try-outs.

Ms Tenga blew her whistle. ‘I think we'll play girls versus boys again. That seemed a good close game last time. Okay, everyone in position, let's play!' Ms Tenga blew her whistle again and the game was on.

It seemed that everyone trying out had been practising. Everyone seemed better: running hard, precision kicking, reading the play. After twenty minutes, neither team had scored.

‘Five more minutes,' cried Ms Tenga. ‘Let's see if we can get a result in this game.'

Isi had the ball. She passed it to Emma who kicked it to Hannah. Hannah started to run but Oskar was catching up. Hannah kicked the ball to Elle but Edvard was right behind her so she kicked it quickly on to Isi. Now it was Isi's turn to run and she powered up the field. No one could catch her. Isi was in front of goal. She stopped for a moment then kicked. A big, beautiful strong kick into goal. She was going to score. At least she was until Oliver threw himself at the ball and deflected it out of the goal.

‘Bad luck, Isi,' cried Ms Tenga. ‘Great kick but what a stop, Oliver! Two minutes of play.'

‘Don't worry Is, that was a brilliant kick,' Emma called to her friend.

‘Yeah, but Oliver's stop was better,' Isi yelled back as she returned to position. ‘Let's go, Em. I know we can win this.'

Emma loved the way her friend just bounced
back when things went wrong. Bounce back, just like the ball coming towards Emma. Oliver had thrown the ball in but Elle had intercepted it on its way to Edvard. She passed it quickly to Emma who kicked it on to Isi. This time Isi was being crowded. There was no way she could get clear to shoot for goal but she managed to kick it high, right up in front of goal. Right up in front of Emma.

Emma knew exactly what to do. She arched her back and stretched her neck, keeping her eye on the ball the whole time. The ball came down and Emma met it perfectly. She pounded it into goal. Oliver didn't have a chance this time.

Girls 1, Boys 0. Girls uncontrollably happy.

‘Great game, everyone. The team will be on the board at lunchtime,' said Ms Tenga.

Lunchtime seemed to take forever to come but when it finally did, the girls raced to the noticeboard.

‘Yes!' cried Isi as she ran her finger down the list of names. ‘You, you, you and...' Isi was about to burst, ‘and me! We're all on the team. We're all
getting shirts with our names on them and we're all awesome! And my number is 4, my lucky number, and that is incredibly awesome too!'

Emma wondered how they were going to calm Isi down for afternoon class. She also wondered what her number was. She looked at the list, found her name, then ran her finger across to look up her number. It was number 12.

Perfect!
she thought to herself.
After all, I made the team with a little help from CC, KM and EJ12!