kid next to Tarquin rolled his eyes. ‘Your pals are making excuses,’ he explained. ‘They’re just afraid to play the Green Giants.’
You know when you’re the last person to work something out and it makes you feel all stupid, so you say something cocky to make yourself look keel?
‘We’ll see you on Saturday,’ I said, twizzling round to face the Green Giants. ‘And we’re gonna smash you avocados into a paste!’
The Green Giants wandered off and Bunky glared at me. ‘What in the name of unkeelness was that all about?’ he cried.
‘What are you afraid of, Bunky?’ I said, pretending it was no big deal. ‘I thought you were the best footballer in Mogden School!’
‘I spose that IS true,’ said Bunky.
‘But we don’t even have a team,’ warbled Stuart.
‘Well then,’ I said, still trying to make up for looking like a loser three minutes earlier. ‘We’d better make one!’
Bunky stroked the bit of his face where his beard’ll be when he’s older. ‘Hmm, let me see,’ he said. ‘I’d be up front, of keelse. Darren, you can go in midfield. Shazza and Stuart in defence and Gordon in goal.’
‘Wait a millisecond,’ I said. ‘What about me and Nancy?’
‘Leave me out of this,’ said Nancy, not even looking up from her book.
‘You don’t want to play do you, Barry?’ asked Bunky.
Darren cracked open another Fronkle. ‘Yeah Loser,’ he said. ‘You’re rubbish at football!’
‘No I’m not!’ I said, even though it was true. I scratched my head, and my brain wriggled inside its skull, immedikeely coming up with one of its amazekeel ideas.
‘I’ve got it!’ I cried. ‘I can be your football coach!’
‘You have got to be kidding,’ laughed Gordon.
Darren took a slurp of Fronkle. ‘Forgeddaboudit, Loser,’ he belched.
‘Oh PLEEEASE,’ I said, immedikeely losing my keelness and dropping to my knees. ‘Don’t leave me on the sidelines with nobody to talk to!’
Nancy looked up from her book. ‘Ahem?’ she ahemed.
‘No offence, Nance,’ I said, peering up at Bunky. ‘What d’you reckon, Captain?’ I smiled, calling him that so he’d go along with my plan.
Bunky ruffled my hair like I was his son. ‘It’s a nice idea, Baz, but you don’t actukeely know anything about football, do you?’
‘That fact might be ever-so-slighterly true,’ I said, getting up off my knees. ‘But I’m pretty good at bossing people about!’
‘And you think that’s all it takes to be a coach?’ said Gordon.
‘Oui,’ I said, showing off I could say ‘yes’ in French, because I’ve been learning it in school.
Sharonella’s nose crinkled up. ‘Urgh, we don’t need to hear about your toilet habits, Barry!’ she said.
‘Yeah, Losoid,’ said Darren. ‘Nice idea about the team, but I don’t think we’ll be needing your services, okay?’
‘Right that’s it,’ I said, stomping my foot and preparing to activate Operation Pain au Chocolat. ‘I didn’t want to do this, but it looks like I’m gonna have to.’
I rotated myself on the spot like a tray of pain au chocolats in a bakery shop window and walked away from my ex-friends.
I was putting on a fake limp to make them feel extra sorry for me.
‘Oh don’t be like that, Barry!’ called Bunky.
‘No you’re right,’ I mumbled over my shoulder. ‘What do you lot need a useless old Loser like me for?’
‘Just let him go, Bunky,’ said Gordon Smugly, who’s always trying to steal my best friend off me and probably thought this was the perfect time to put his evil plan into action.
I spotted a piece of gravel lying on the floor and wondered if I should fake a trip over it to really get them feeling bad.
‘I’ll be alright,’ I mumbled. ‘Don’t you worry about Barry Loser, he’ll get over it in a couple of weeks or so.’
I carried limping off for a couple of milliseconds until I heard Sharonella’s mouth opening.
‘“Coach Loser”,’ she said, trying the name out for size. ‘I suppose it has got a tiny bit of a ring to it . . .’
I chuckled to myself. ‘The old Pain-au-Choc trick never fails,’ I muttered, widening my earholes by 0.3 millimetres each, trying to hear if anyone was nodding their head to what Shaz just said.
But heads nodding aren’t as easy to hear as mouths opening.
I carried on facing away from my friends. ‘What do you reckon, Bunk?’ I croaked, shortening Bunky’s name to show Gordon Smugly how much of his best friend I was. ‘How about doing an old pal a favour?’
Everything went quiet for a billisecond.
‘Oh alright,’ sighed Bunky, as his bum started to cry.
‘Hey, you alright, little fella?’ said Bunky, pulling a Crying Freakoid out of his pocket.
Crying Freakoids are the latest craze at school - apart from football, of keelse. They’re these tiny football- shaped toys which sort of act like pets you have to look after.
They’re the size of a gobstopper with batteries inside and a mini speaker on the back. On the front are little screens with faces on them that show what mood the ball’s in.
Whenever one starts to cry or act unhappy at all, the owner has to work out if it’s hungry or needs the toilet or wants a little cuddle to make it feel better.