T.J. and the Cup Run Read Free Page A

it?’
    ‘Maybe you should practise with him,’ his dad suggested. ‘Like you did with Jamie, remember? He’s probably just not very confident when you’re all there together.’
    TJ looked at his dad. ‘That’s a great idea,’ he said. ‘The others can’t come round this Saturday, so I could go to the park with Rob. Thanks, Dad.’
    But in the park on Saturday morning Rob was not in a good mood. ‘I don’t really feel like playing football,’ he said.
    ‘You’re crazy,’ replied TJ, balancing the ball on one foot and then transferring it to the other. ‘I
always
feel like playing, even when I’m watching TV, or eating my tea . In lessons too.’
    ‘That’s just it,’ replied Rob. ‘Everything’s pointless now Mr Wood has gone. Especially the lessons. Mr Potter is so boring. And the football training is terrible. You’re dead lucky you get to go to the PDC.’
    ‘I know,’ TJ said. ‘Actually there are some things we did there that I want to practise. You can help. And I had this idea for a free kick and I want to see if it works. You take the free kick and you pretend you’ve hit it wrong and it’s going to miss. But I make a run and I pull it back for you to score. I bet we can do it. We’ll use that bench as a goal.’
    ‘It’s good,’ said Rob, after they’d practised a few times. ‘But it’s never going to be any use, because I won’t be in the team to take free kicks.’
    ‘You never know,’ replied TJ. ‘Now I’ll show you the new drill we did at the PDC. It’s for practising how to thread a pass through a crowded defence. You pass it backwards and forwards across a square with defenders in the middle.’
    ‘What defenders?’ said Rob. ‘I can’t see any.’
    ‘We can use that tree over there,’ said TJ, ‘and the bin. And the lamppost. We can move around the outside of them and see if we can pass it through.’
    ‘Tricky,’ said Rob, but TJ could see he was interested.
    ‘We’re allowed to take a touch before we pass,’ TJ said. ‘We’ll see how many we can do.’
    It was very hard to squeeze the ball through the narrow gaps, and at first TJ found it almost impossible. But Rob was getting his passes through every time. ‘How are you doing that?’ TJ asked when they stopped for a break. ‘I always seem to hit something.’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ Rob said. ‘I just sort of know what the angles are. I don’t really have to think about it.’
    They carried on, and TJ started to improve. They strung twenty passes together before a shout from across the park broke TJ’s concentration and the ball cannoned against the bin. He looked up and saw Deng and Krissy approaching across the grass.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Krissy asked. The tall black girl was Hillside School’s star striker.
    ‘It’s a game we made up,’ TJ said. ‘You have to go round the outside here, and you can’t pass between the same two things twice in a row. It’s hard. Our record’s twenty. D’you want a go?’
    Krissy grabbed the ball. ‘We’ll beat that, easy,’ she said. ‘Come on, Deng.’
    Five minutes later they stopped. Their record was three, and Krissy was out of breath and cross. Deng hadn’t missed a pass, but Krissy had found it just as hard as TJ.
    ‘I said it wasn’t easy,’ TJ laughed. ‘I reckon we should let Rob have a go with Deng. It might be interesting.’
    It was like watching a complicated dance. As Deng and Rob circled the bin, the lamppost and the tree, the ball flashed backwards and forwards between them.

    When the passes reached thirty TJ turned to Krissy and saw her mouth hanging open.
    ‘Told you,’ he said with a grin. ‘Hey, you two! Why don’t we have a game of two against two?’
    Deng flipped the ball up into his hands. ‘Nice game you’ve invented, TJ,’ he said. ‘Lucky you brought someone who can play it properly.’ He exchanged high-fives with Rob, who had a grin on his face that was nearly as big as Deng’s. ‘Me and Krissy