Golden Goal (11 page)

 

 

As soon as Jamie got home, he jumped straight in the shower.

He was in a hurry, but he knew he could do a shower in under thirty seconds…

Then, while he was drying himself, Jamie suddenly noticed something: his belly – it had gone!

Jamie patted his returned six-pack and smiled. Then he tensed his biceps. They were bigger than they had ever been before.

“Thanks, Archie,” Jamie laughed as he examined his new muscles in the mirror. “At least all your slave-driving is good for something!”

Jamie put on his best jeans and tucked a wad of money into the pocket. Then he put on some aftershave and went to knock on Jack's door.

As Jamie waited for someone to answer the door, he suddenly realized that he was nervous. He missed Jack a lot. Without her, his life wasn't quite complete…

When Jack opened the door, Jamie was taken aback for a second. He had never seen her wearing glasses before. They really suited her.

“All right?” Jamie opened. “Just wondering if you wanted to go to the cinema tonight? It's on me – I've just been paid!”

“Oh, Jamie, that's really sweet,” Jack said, her eyes glistening underneath the security light by her front door. “But we're revising tonight. The exams start next week.”

We!
Jamie thought.
Who's we?!

And then, in the background, Jamie saw Alex Marcusfield standing behind Jack. He was holding a bunch of books and he looked really pleased with himself. He even seemed to be smirking at Jamie.

Marcusfield had always been the ugly swot when Jamie was at Kingfield School. But now he didn't look ugly any more and the lucky gimp was getting to spend the whole evening with Jack!

Jamie was so jealous that he wanted to storm into the house, wrestle Marcusfield to the floor, and tell him that Jack was taken and that he should keep his hands OFF!

But he knew that wouldn't impress Jack.

So, the only thing Jamie could do was try to hide his disappointment and say, “Cool… Yeah, I'm pretty busy tonight, anyway. Maybe some other time.”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “I'd like that. Some other time...”

 

 

Jamie couldn't help staring at the whiteboard in the Hawkstone Academy Team dressing room. As his eyes scanned the diagrams, a flash of recognition lit up Jamie's mind.

The whiteboard was covered with drawings and instructions to teach the Hawkstone players a new skill…

Push the ball diagonally forward …

… with the outside of your foot …

… then use the inside of the same foot to tap the ball in the opposite direction and accelerate away…
REMEMBER THE KEY TO THE SNAKE
– DO IT ALL IN ONE MOVEMENT!

 

It was the
snake
– Jamie's move. He'd spent hours perfecting that skill when he was at Foxborough.

He thought back to the Youth Cup Final when, live on TV, he'd—

Splat. A stinking pair of wet and sweaty Y-fronts squelched into the side of Jamie's face before landing in a messy heap on the floor next to him. Jamie touched his cheek; it was wet with the moisture of someone else's sweat.

“Make sure they're nice and clean for me tomorrow, Johnson!”

Jamie didn't have to turn around to see who it was.

He could feel his cheeks going red as the Hawkstone Academy players started sniggering. This was just like being back at school. Dillon's jibes seemed to follow Jamie wherever he went.

But they weren't at school any more. Jamie didn't have to take this now.

“I ain't doing nothing for you!” he shouted back to Dillon, who was just about to get in the shower.

“Oooh,” responded the Hawkstone players gleefully. They were enjoying the rising aggression in the room.

“In case you didn't realize,” Dillon responded, menacingly, “your job is to do whatever I tell you to do.”

He was now completely naked, striding towards Jamie.

“We're footballers,” he said, pointing to his teammates. “And you're not!”

The Hawkstone boys clapped in their appreciation of Dillon's disses.

“That's it, Dillon,” they said, goading him on. “Take him down! Give him some proper licks!”

At that moment, Jamie felt more alone than he had ever done in his life.

But he knew one thing: he had to stand up for himself.

“You're right,” said Jamie, using all the courage he could muster. “I may not be a footballer… But at least I'm not scum!”

“Oh no, Dillon!” called one of the Hawkstone players. “He's just blatantly disrespected you to your face! What you gonna do about it?”

“I'm gonna do the same thing I've always done: teach the idiot a lesson!”

And with that, Dillon pulled back his fist and sent a pounding punch piling towards Jamie's face.

Instinctively, Jamie snapped his head out of the way, feeling the gust of Dillon's lunge against his cheek.

“Not this time,” Jamie said, elbowing the back of Dillon's shoulder blade with such force that he sent Dillon flying to the ground.

For a second, Jamie couldn't believe what had happened.

He looked below him, where Dillon was now lying on the floor, with his face buried in his own dirty underpants!

Jamie wondered where his strength had come from. He'd never been able to lay a hand on Dillon at school. Let alone floor him!

Not that Dillon was down for long. Like an angry bear, he drew himself up to his full, frightening height. Jamie took a pace back. He was in trouble.

There was madness in Dillon's eyes as he marched towards Jamie, who had nowhere else to go. His back was right up against the wall. Jamie took a deep breath and tensed his stomach muscles to prepare them for the onslaught that was about to come…

“OK, time for us to get on with washing this kit, Jamie,” said Archie Fairclough, who'd come from nowhere and purposefully placed his body in between Jamie and Dillon. “I've only got a few minutes, then I've got a meeting with Harry Armstrong.”

Although Archie was talking to Jamie, he was looking Dillon square in the eye. For a moment, all three of them stood motionless. Then Dillon grimaced and took a step back.

“Yeah, you'd best get him away, Cloughie,” he snarled. “We wouldn't want anything nasty to happen to your little assistant…”

“Don't worry,” Archie responded while the two boys still glared at each other. “He's learned his lesson. And if he hasn't, I'll teach it to him again. Now go and pick up those pants, Jamie, and we can get on with our job.”

If it had been anyone else, Jamie would have told them where to go. No one else could have made Jamie pick up Dillon's stinking pants – or anyone else's, for that matter.

But, for Archie – and for the sake of his job – he did it.

Slowly, he approached the dank, soggy underpants that lay on the moist floor by the showers. With Dillon's evil cackles pricking like thorns into his ears, Jamie lifted the pants up with the very tips of his fingers and quickly flung them into the kit bag with the rest of the dirty gear.

Jamie smelled his fingers. They stank.

“One more incident like that and you're out. Gone,” threatened Archie at the end of the day. He hadn't said a word to Jamie since they'd left the Academy Team dressing room. He was furious.

“You are my responsibility,” he continued. “And I'm not going to have you and your pride ruining my reputation at this club. You got that?”

“But…” Jamie was desperate to tell Archie everything. That he knew Dillon from school and the things Dillon had done to him down the years. That neither Dillon nor any of those other Hawkstone Academy Team players were good enough to lace Jamie's boots when he'd been a player…

“No buts,” countered Archie. “You knew what the job was when you took it. If you don't like it, you can leave. I mean it. But believe me, you'll have no idea what you're throwing away.”

Jamie thought for a minute. He remembered what his life had been like before this job.

“Sorry,” he said, softly. “It won't happen again.”

He felt ashamed of himself now.

“Too right it won't,” said Archie. “And you'll thank me for this one day.”

Then he tossed Jamie a pair of flashy boots to polish.

On the heels of the boots, written very clearly in indelible marker-pen, were the initials DS.