The Striker by Deborah Abela

Author:Deborah Abela
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 2005-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

‘Jasper! Wait up.’

Lil caught up with Jasper and tugged at his shirt.

‘I’ve been calling out to you for ages. Why didn’t you turn around?’

Jasper knew Lil had said something but all he could hear was ‘Ieeeoooooaaawwwwowooooooooaahooouuuurrrown?’

‘Sorry?’ Jasper winced and leant forward, unable to hear Lil properly.

Lil pointed at his ears. ‘What are they?’

Jasper frowned before he remembered. He pulled out two yellow earplugs. ‘My parents were practising their karaoke number in the car. This talent show had better be over soon or the neighbours are going to call the police and have us kicked out of the street.’

‘It can’t be that bad,’ Lil scoffed.

‘You know our big tree down the back of the yard?’

‘The one with all the lorikeets?’

‘You mean the one that used to have all the lorikeets. They’ve flown away. I only hope the singing didn’t kill any.’

‘You can’t kill a bird by singing.’

‘You haven’t heard my parents.’

Jasper and Lil made it to where the rest of the Rovers were getting dressed for the game. They sat on the ground and started tucking in their shin pads and pulling on their boots.

Noggin walked up and sat beside Jasper.

‘What happened to your eye?’

Noggin’s left eye was circled by a black and purple bruise.

‘The Jolly Pirate trick went a bit wrong.’

‘A bit wrong?’ Tricky asked, staring at his eye. ‘So if it had have gone a lot wrong you wouldn’t have a head?’

Josie gave Tricky a look that told him to be quiet. Quickly.

‘Noggin, you have to tell your dad you can’t be his assistant,’ Jasper pleaded.

‘But he has his heart set on it.’ Noggin took his boots from his bag. ‘You know how parents are when they get an idea in their heads.’

Jasper sighed. ‘Yeah, I do.’

Coach Wallace walked over to the Rovers. Normally he was a serious man when it came to training, but this morning he almost seemed happy. Coach never believed winning was the point of the game, but now that they had a real shot of being in the finals, Jasper knew he couldn’t help feeling excited about a possible Rovers’ victory.

‘Come on, team. We won’t get much soccer played sitting around here.’

‘Do you have to go?’ asked Tricky sadly from the sidelines, hating the idea of having to sit through another match. ‘Don’t you have a pep talk to do first? You could do it here.’

‘Gotta go,’ Josie shrugged. It wouldn’t hurt Tricky’s ego to sit out one more week.

The Rovers followed their coach to the middle of the field where he took them through a warm-up session that was fit for a World Cup game.

Jasper looked around at his team. They were one of the finest and he was glad Aamir could be a part of it. Nannu was right, it was better to focus on the things that were important. And soccer was definitely one of them.

In their huddle before the game, their arms on each other’s shoulders, Coach reminded them, ‘Play well, play fair and play as a team.’

‘And no daydreaming,’ Jasper added.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.