Boyhood of Burglar Bill by Ahlberg Allan

Author:Ahlberg, Allan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2007-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

That’s me, in a nutshell. I had this bald, mouldy-looking tennis ball which I dribbled with on the way to school till it disappeared down a drain. I even had a ball that I’d made myself out of cut-up rings from an inner tube wrapped round a core of silver-paper sweet wrappers. It was hardly bigger than a golf ball and bounced about, all that rubber, like a live thing. I kicked a ball in the playground, the park, the back yard, the street, the cemetery even, one time. Balls I kicked ended up in other people’s gardens and front rooms, under lorries, floating off down rivers and canals, carried off triumphantly in dogs’ mouths, confiscated by teachers. As far as my contribution to the team went, I had a good engine and could run forever. I was the only one of us who got to enjoy passing, preferred it almost, feinting to run with it, threading it through. I linked things up between attack and defence. Oh yes, and I was the captain.

(9) Ronnie Horsfield. Ronnie was a puzzle. A player who advised other players without doing all that much himself. A centre forward who didn’t score many. He had a good kick on him and his noisy, confident manner drew defenders towards him, leaving gaps for Wyatt and Tommy Pye to exploit. All the same, how Ronnie ever got to play in the most popular position, being as he was just about the least effective player, is a mystery. As I recall, when we had the vote for who’d be captain, he nearly won that. There again, his confidence had its uses. In the changing rooms and walking out on to the pitch, while some of us might secretly doubt our chances and glance uneasily (admiringly) at the opposition, Ronnie strode forth to victory. The other team could as well go home. Ronnie’s message, like Amos’s, was emphatic: we’ll marmalize ya.

(10) Tommy Pye. Tommy was our best player and he was only seven, and that’s not the half of it. He was getting better day by day, hour by hour! I’m not exaggerating. He was like a little overnight mushroom sprouting upwards. He had this round chubby face and chubby knees, but give him a ball and he was like a whippet. That’s it, he was a mushroom and a whippet. When Spencer told us stuff, the offside rule, for instance, Tommy took it all in. It was as though Spencer was merely reminding him of things he already knew. Sometimes kids come along who can do things so effortlessly, so instantaneously, it looks like reincarnation. Tommy was one of these. Nor was his size a total disadvantage. His centre of gravity was so low you had little hope of knocking him off the ball. He was like a mushroom, a whippet and one of the lead-weighted dolls you put in a canary’s cage for it to play with. He could come in under the other team’s radar too.

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