Zombie Xl_Striker by Pete Kalu

Author:Pete Kalu [Kalu, Pete]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07HCT59VN
Publisher: HopeRoad
Published: 2018-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

EYEBALLS AND EARTHQUAKES

Iwake up next morning to find I’ve had an avalanche of crazy texts from Jamal, Kwong, Marcus, Horse, even the goalkeeper.

If u say yes u can play on my PS4 – deal?

Bro we need u

Teams gonna be lit if u come bak

Believe in better

Keep the faith

At form class, Eddie joins in, giving it large about me not playing. The team’s calling itself the Blue Devils now. Everyone’s begging me and Sheba to pull on the shirt again. They’ve given up on the League but the Cup matches are starting next month.

‘We want our A Team playing,’ Eddie tells me, ‘which means you and Sheba and not the reluctant fools Windmill rounds up with threats and bribes.’ Eddie shakes me by the shoulders, urging, ‘Say yes!’ I laugh but say nothing.

More texts ping in all day.

We need you

Truce?

Ill do yr homework 4 u?

U can wear my spare boots

Ill give u a lift home on my bike

Cmon u know u want to

I’ll take you to my barbers bro

It’s a good feeling. Sheba’s been getting the same. We show each other our texts when we meet up at Drama Club.

‘My phone’s been melting,’ I tell her.

‘I got a new ringtone. Mine’s been laughing like a hyena all day. Wanna hear it?’ Sheba plays her phone’s text message alert for me. ‘It’s got me a detention for next week,’ she says proudly.

We’re in Warm-ups, stretching our fingers. We lock fingers.

‘How’s you and Jamal?’ she asks.

I shrug. ‘He don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to him.’

‘You should make up,’ she says, but when I don’t respond, she leaves it.

Mr Sax sets the first exercise. It’s called Space Station Fire! We lie in pairs on the gym floor, the top of our heads touching. We have to use crackly radio voices. Me and Sheba do the voices and the space station creaking but we chat about what we want unless Mr Sax nears, when she throws in phrases like ‘pass me the radar gauge’ and ‘two degrees flick on the aspect comfort ratio’ to please him.

The gazing game is next. You have to sit cross-legged opposite your partner, close your eyes and when Mr Sax shouts, ‘Go!’ open your eyes and gaze at them without talking or excessive blinking.

I look at Sheba’s eyes as she looks steadily back. I see the black pupils at the centre of them. We’re so close I have to refocus my eyes and choose only one of her eyes to look at. There’s a circle of brown surrounding the black. The brown is flecked with different shades – like if you mixed brown with a bit of yellow, then a bit of green, a bit of red, a bit of blue. They’re mainly rubber-band brown with the strands all moving. The surface of the eyeball catches reflections from the gym lights. Gazing at them, I feel this emotion that makes my stomach queasy.

Sheba tilts her head forward so her eyes become even bigger and the whites whiter. Her eyelashes swish down then up like car windscreen wipers.

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