see you’re looking for video-game stuff, are you?”
“Yeah! Are you?” said Morris, who tended, when not exactly sure what to do re the whole bullying thing, just to repeat what Isla said.
“Well spotted!” said Ellie. “Thank God there’s a photo on the screen so that you could work that out. How would you have known if it was just words?”
“Very funny …” said Isla. “At least I can see it without glasses.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wearing glasses!”
“Oh, isn’t there? Shall we go and ask Rashid? If he likes girls with glasses? Or, for that matter, girls with braces and pigtails and who still dress like they’re in Year One …?”
Ellie blushed and looked away.
Rashid Khan was universally considered to be the most handsome boy in their class. More importantly, he was also universally considered to be the nicest boy in their class.
Now, Ellie wasn’t very interested in boys – she was much more interested in video games – but something about Rashid did make her feel a bit funny inside. A long time ago – back in Year Four, before Isla Fawcett had completely grown into the bully she now was – Ellie had stupidly confided this to her and now she was always worried that one day Isla was going to tell Rashid. Who, Ellie was sure, probably liked Isla, or at least girls who looked like Isla, more than Ellie anyway.
Fred, knowing that the mention of Rashid had embarrassed his sister, said: “Leave it, Isla.”
“Sorry, what was that?” said Isla, turning to him.
“Yeah, what was that?” said Morris, also turning to him.
It was true Fred hadn’t said it very loudly.
“Nothing,” said Fred.
“Oh, that’s very odd,” said Isla.
“Yeah. Odd. Very,” said Morris, improvising.
“Because I’m sure you said something. Was it maybe … something about being a boy who isn’t even as good at video games as his sister …?”
“Yeah! His sister!” said Morris.
Fred looked away, embarrassed.
Even though he didn’t mind at all that his sister was better than him at video games, he did mind people at school making fun of him for it. Which some did. Not because Ellie had told everyone, but because Eric, at Bracket Wood’s last parent-teacher evening, when asked by their form teacher, Miss Parr, what he thought Ellie’s particular talents were, had said: “Video games. You’d have thought that would’ve been the boy, but no, she’s the one with the magic fingers!!”
Unfortunately, Eric’s voice was very loud and booming, and everyone in their form room – and most of the rest of the school – had heard.
“In fact, Fred, you’re probably even worse at video games than you are at actual games!” said Isla.
“Yeah! Actual games!” said Morris.
“Like …” said Isla, turning to Morris.
There was a pause.
“What?” said Morris.
“I thought you might say this bit,” said Isla.
Morris frowned. “What bit?”
“The bit about which games he’s rubbish at …? Like, give some examples?”
Morris looked blank.
“Oh, come on, Morris!” said Isla. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to always drive the bullying? To have to come up with all the clever things to say to humiliate other children? Frankly, I’m starting to think you’re just a passenger in what we’re doing here.”
Morris frowned again. Then he frowned some more. Finally, his face cleared. “Football!” he said, clicking his fingers.
“Yes! Well done, Morris! Yeah! What are you worse at, Fred – FIFA or football? You could hardly be worse at FIFA – because I’ve never seen anyone so bad at football!”
“Yeah, so bad at football!” said Morris.
“Oh, shut up!” said Ellie, getting up to face the bullies.
“Yeah, shut up!” said Fred, getting up and facing them too. He had had enough.
Because football meant a lot to Fred. He wanted more than anything to be in the Bracket Wood First XI. He wanted to be in the Bracket Wood First XI and score the winning goal in the final of the Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy. Ever since he was old enough, he had gone to the school trials for the team. And every year he hadn’t got in. Every year something had gone wrong.
Let’s just take a moment out from the main story to look at the last time Fred went to one of the trials for the school football team.
This was last year, when Fred was in Year Five. For the trial, Fred had spent all his pocket money on a new pair of football boots. Bright yellow ones. Marauders. Fred was totally convinced that they were going to make all the difference (to the fact that he hadn’t been picked on any of the three preceding years).
Unfortunately, Eric and Janine had never taught Fred how to tie his shoelaces properly.fn1 So what normally happened was that every morning, before school, Ellie would tie Fred’s school shoes very, very tightly with a triple bow. And that would be fine; they would stay tied for the whole day.
But, before the school team trial, Fred had asked Ellie to tie his Marauders with just a single bow. Because a triple bow, he thought, would be too bulky and make it very difficult – for example – when the ball came to him on the edge of the penalty area to bend it round five defenders into the top right-hand corner (not something he had ever done, but he was sure he was going to this time).
“Really?” said Ellie, kneeling down by the touchline of the school pitch. I say school pitch. And touchline. Bracket Wood was a good school – more or less – but its school pitch was a muddy triangle in the local park and its touchline was the concrete path around it.
“Really,” said Fred. “A single knot.” And ran on. And, as his laces came untied, tripped over. Into some mud.
And then ran backwards and forwards to the touchline throughout the game so that Ellie could retie his shoelaces.
He did stop doing that eventually. Because, after the fifth time, Ellie said: “If you’re not going to let me tie a triple knot, I’m not tying them at all any more!!” and went to sit on the roundabout in the playground six metres away.
After which Fred had to ask the referee, Mr Barrington, to tie his shoelaces. Bracket Wood was a good school – more or less – but its sports teacher was Mr Barrington, who was sixty-seven and wore glasses with lenses thicker than a rhinoceros’s foot.
So after Mr Barrington had sighed very heavily and bent down on one knee in the mud to tie up Fred’s shoelaces – and after it had taken him three minutes to get up again, during which time four goals were scored that never got recorded – he made a point of running (well, staggering) away every time Fred approached him.
Fred didn’t know what to do. His boots kept on coming off. Briefly, he even wished his mum or dad was there, which was something he didn’t often wish for.
Then, eventually, Ellie came back from the playground and Fred let her tie the Marauder shoelaces into a triple bow. Two minutes later, the ball came to him on the edge of the penalty area.
“Come