The Bare Bum Gang and the Football Face-Off by Anthony McGowan Page A

eye I could stillsee Jennifer sitting in the patch of mud. I thought she might stay there for the rest of the game, but she was so rubbish at football I didn’t think it really mattered.

    Dockery had the ball, thundering along on his massive legs, charging towards our goal. There was no way he was going to miss again. But then little Luke somehow managed to poke the ball out from under his feet. It rolled to The Moan. Dockery looked surprised as well as furious at being tackled. You could see that he thought about kicking Luke, but then decided he might as well kick The Moan, which meant he’d havethe ball again. In fact he didn’t even bother kicking him – he just ran over, grabbed his shirt and threw him on the ground. You couldn’t get a more obvious bit of nasty cheating.
    And then I saw a blur. The blur moved from where Jennifer had been sitting in the mud. It flashed all the way down the pitch to where Dockery was standing. Then the blur became clearer, and I saw that it was Jennifer.
    Her face had the look of a warrior princess: grim, determined, fatal.
    She ran straight at Dockery, flew into the air and landed an amazing kick right in the middle of his chest, shouting out, ‘Hiiiiiiii-yahhhhh!’
    Dockery staggered back, a look of amazement on his face. Then Jennifer followed it up with two more kung-fu-style kicks, and Dockery was on the floor.
    â€˜Don’t you dare touch my brother!’ she screamed.

    Carl lumbered up to help his chief, but Jennifer got him too, with a chop to the arm. And then she chased James Furbank, and tripped him up and pushed his face into the mud.
    Then I realized what it was that Jennifer was sporty at. The Moan said she was always off at clubs in the evening. I looked at him (he was still sitting on the floor, where Dockery had pushed him). He was grinning.
    â€˜Karate!’ we said together, and laughed.
    And now the whole crowd were laughing too. Jennifer, the little pocket warrior, was chasing all the Dockery Gang around the pitch. She kept landing kicks and punches, and they were squealing and yelling. Finally she chased them all off the pitch, and then Mrs Cake let Trixie off her lead, and she joined Jennifer in the attack, biting at heels and bottoms, and the whole Dockery Gang kept on running until they were out of sight.
    The rest of our team were cheering like mad by now. Even The Moan, who hated to admit that Jennifer had ever done anything right.
    Finally Jennifer came back and stood with us. She was smiling sheepishly – not that sheep really smile, but you know what I mean.
    â€˜Well, Jennifer,’ I said, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I can’t say I approve of that sort of thing. We were supposed to be here to play football, and you turned it into a kung fu movie.’
    â€˜It was tae kwon do, actually,’ she said. ‘I’m a red belt. They don’t let you go any higher until you’re fifteen.’
    â€˜Well, whatever, but it’s not really the sort of thing we do in our gang,’ I said, still trying not to grin. But I couldn’t keep it up. A smile sneaked onto my face, and then completely took over, and soon I was laughing again with the rest as we went over what Jennifer had done, and Ipretended to be Dockery, blubbing like a big fat baby.
    Finally I said, ‘I don’t suppose we’ll be bothered much by that lot for a while.’
    Then Jamie said, ‘But we haven’t won the game yet. It’s still nil–nil.’
    â€˜You’re right,’ I replied. ‘Do you want to go and blast one in, Jenny? You’ve earned it.’
    â€˜Um, no, maybe I should let someone else do it. I don’t know where it might end up. I’m much better at kicking people than balls.’
    Well, that was certainly true. So I decided that I should be the one. I dribbled the ball up the pitch by myself, until I was a couple of metres from the goal, and then I kicked it