Previously...

We went down in the lift and it sort of swooshed quietly as we descended, the muzak was the same as when we went up. Hell would be being caught in this lift for more than ten minutes and Chinese water torture would have been infinitely more preferable.

My phone chirped and I answered it.

‘Susan.’

‘Oh hi Danni....’

‘We have a situation. The press have found out you are there and why. They have camped outside and have all the exits covered. The admin people at the hospital have called the police, but you need to go back up to Andrea’s room and stay there until I can give you the all clear. Let me speak to your mum.’

I handed the phone over to a quizzical parental unit and when the lift stopped we just stayed in it and sent back up again while Mummy found out what was happening.

As we went back up, the muzak grated on my nerves but not as much as the fact that only a few people knew that we were coming to the hospital and why.

I wondered if we had an enemy in the camp.

And now the story continues…

Andrea was surprised to see us but a few words later, she knew as much as we did.

So we waited, and waited, until about an hour later we were given the all clear by a rather breathless Danni, who came in the room with Daddy.

‘The media was told that you had all had left via a rear entrance.’

‘We aren’t sure who tipped them off,’ said Daddy.

‘It must be someone at the club.’

‘That’s our thought,’ said Danni, ‘they are looking into it, but until then, your movements are on a need to know basis and subject to change at short notice. It’s one thing telling the press, but whoever is doing this may have more sinister motives.’

‘Like what?’ I asked, holding Andrea’s hand and not really wanting to know the answer.’

‘We don’t know to be honest. Ferris is in prison, so it isn’t him, but it could be a friend or accomplice; or it could be someone who just doesn’t like you.’

‘So that narrows it down to half the country then.’

‘Don’t be silly Susan, everyone loves you,’ said Andrea enthusiastically.

‘You’re biased,’ I replied smiling at her.

‘And you are silly,’ said Andria.

‘Girls, give it a rest,’ said Mummy, ‘Danni, can we go now, I really need to sort out the twins.’

‘Yes, but we will go out the back way just in case.’

I said my goodbyes again to Andria, who was seriously miffed that she wasn’t coming with us and then we went down the muzak infested lift and from there through an obscure exit to where the car was, with Charlotte, our other non gun toting heavy, gunning the engine of our get-away vehicle — all right, I watch a lot of American cop shows; none of us are perfect.

~ §~

I must admit, I was glad to finally be at home. I had a crick in my neck from continually looking around to see if we were being followed. I knew that others, in particular Danni, had been doing the same. Daddy’s car had followed behind with Mummy and Danni in it, as it seemed prudent to those who know better than little old me, that we split the family up; so I was in Charlotte’s 4X4, sitting in the front and feeling more than slightly frazzled at the events.

As soon as we stopped, I jumped up and then went inside. I had already texted Mummy in the other car that I wanted to have a lie down, so I didn’t need to bother with explanations. I needed to be alone for a bit. I had a blinding headache, the sort that I get when I’m all tense. An hour’s peace and quiet and I would be a new girl, all bubbly and lovable again, ready to face the world and spit in its face again. That didn’t sound right, but I couldn’t be bothered to think too much about grammar.

I took off my shoes, they were killing me - heels are nice but not very practical, then I lay down on the bed with a sigh and shut my eyes. My head was throbbing to the sound of distant drums. It was all a bit much being a super dooper star. Or was I that great? I was just a girl who could play football a bit and talk sense to the media. But the media only loves you because you create headlines. If I was a boy, would I have had the same intense media coverage– probably not.

I supposed that being moderately pretty helped too. If I was ugly, with acne and a big nose, would I be in the media so much? Probably not; but I couldn’t help my looks, so I had to just get on with it. I wouldn’t let it get me down. Just thinking how much I had compared to others less fortunate than me was enough to get me out of my blue funk. I was tired though and I just closed my eyes for a bit and was soon in the land of nod.

I woke up as someone touched my arm.

‘Come on girl, time to feed your face.’

‘Oh, hi Claire,’ I answered as I sat up, stretched, scratched an itchy breast and yawned — not necessarily in that order.

‘God, if your adoring fans could see you now.’

‘What?’

‘You– glamorous you ain’t.’

‘Charming,’

‘Aren’t I?

‘Not really.’

~ §~

I had scrambled eggs on toast and a cup of tea– I wasn’t that hungry to be honest. Not much was said at the table, Monica and Daddy had gone to the hospital for the night shift and Mummy was tired after sorting out the twins for bed. It was getting a bit late and to be honest, I just wanted to crawl into bed again. I was supposed to be a trained athletic type footballer, but at the moment felt like a geriatric frog without the spring in her step.

Claire was reading a teen mag and I was left munching and watching the news on the TV over in the corner.

I saw an over made up and over dressed woman with a microphone standing outside the Melchester ground and I turned the sound up. I wondered in passing how many cans of hairspray she needed to use to keep her hair from waving about.

‘Sources close to the club say that the bid by American billionaire Howard T Hughes was a generous one but falls short of what the true value of the club is and anyway, according to the club, it was not for sale. Hughes has been buying up shares at an alarming rate and will soon be in a position where he will have to put an offer in to buy the remainder. Watch this space to see if the biggest football club in England gets taken over by foreign investors like so many other clubs in the Premier League. Back to the studio...’

I switched the TV off. That was interesting; I wondered if it would impact much on the playing side. Maybe if we did get bought out, we might get some new blood in. Many of our players were getting on a bit, over 30 and you needed to keep an eye on the transfer market. It was all a bit over me though so I just shrugged and forgot all about it.

~ §~

Life went on relatively normally. Andrea got better and was soon at home. She would be going to the girls school now and was looking forward to the following Monday when she would be going there for the first time. She already had the uniform and looked very sweet in it and no more than 13 years old — much to her disappointment. I hoped that she wouldn’t have any worries about bullies at her new school. The ones that had caused all the problems were up for sentencing the following week and I sincerely hoped that hanging would be re-introduced.

I was reasonably fit now with all my aches and pains hopefully a thing of the past. As I had an early breakfast with Daddy, prior to going to the ground–we were having a home game against arch rivals Teddenham–I mentioned the possible takeover at the club.

‘Things have gone a bit quiet on that one. I think Hughes is being investigated by the FA regarding suitability. It shouldn’t be much of a problem as he owns an American football and a baseball club not to mention a sizeable chuck of Texas, but these things take time so we will have to wait and see.

‘Will he take us over then?’

‘He might. You know that the club hasn’t made much profit in the last couple of years and the wage bill alone makes the chairman stay up at night and weep–especially yours.’

‘Ha ha,’ I replied with as much distain as possible.

As we drove up to the ground, people were already working their way up the long straight road that led up to one of the iconic and great football clubs in the country, if not the world. Whether things would change if the takeover was successful, no one could know. There was talk of another, much larger stadium being built on the site of an old industrial complex, further out of town, but it was all hearsay, so we had no real idea.

As a player, you would have thought that I would know more than I did, but it was true to say that I learned more from the TV reports and newspapers than I ever did from the tight lipped club that I belonged to.

The banter in the dressing room was the usual stuff, as I entered after putting on my kit in my own dressing room. That was a good thing about Melchester; I had my own dressing room. OK, it used to be a store room, but they had stripped it out and made it nice for me and I had my own shower and loo, too!

You may ask why the ladies team didn’t have their own dressing room; well, they used the men’s one when they had a game at the ground. That was one of the reasons why they at least were keen to have the club move grounds; so that they would have their own state of the art dressing room with all the girly fixtures and fitting necessary–I was with them on that one, the hair dryers alone in the men’s one were dire and didn’t even have diffusers!

~ §~

All went quiet as Mr Macpherson walked in and sat on one of the benches.

‘Right you lot, ye ken what we want today, win and nothing else. I’m no goin’ ta ask ye ta play defensively, cos that doesn’t win any games. We are at home and most o’ the crowd are behind us. The Teds are a good team and they have won their last three away games, so they are on a winnin’ streak. They are susceptible to wing attacks and their new full back Tranter, doesn’t know his arse from his elbow–bugger it. sorry Susan.’

I just smiled and the others laughed, breaking the tension a bit.

All too soon we were out and kicking balls around in the warm up. It brought me back to the previous season when I played against Teddenham in my first ever game for the club. I came on as a sub and the rest, they say, is history. A lot had happened in the mean time and not all of it good, but as I smashed a ball towards the goal, I was, on balance, glad to be there and playing for the best club in the world, with the fans–well some of them anyway– chanting my name and making me feel part of things.

It was a great sight with all the fans in colourful scarves, hats and football shirts and a few had banners. One or two had my name on them but modesty forbids telling the flattering things they said.

We went back in after the warm up and a few minutes later, lined up with the other team in the tunnel prior to coming out.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked across. It was Owen Michaels, Teddenham and England’s top scorer for the past two seasons.

‘Good luck Sue, but not too much luck!’

‘Same to you Owen,’ I grinned back.

The crowd roared as we came on and then as the players stood around the centre circle with the refs, there was a whistle and all went quiet. Stan Albertson used to play for the club in the fifties and scored a double hat-trick in a game, something that no one else in the club had ever done had died a few days before and that was why there was silence throughout the ground and all the others around the country that were playing today. We all had black armbands on and as I stood there, I wondered if, on some hopefully far distant day, when I went up to the great club in the sky, whether others would stand here for me too.

Such rather depressing thoughts went away as the ref blew his whistle again and the ground roared into life.

It might have been the ghost of Stan Albertson on our shoulders that day, I don’t know, but the game went down in club history as one of the best ones in memory. It wasn’t a walkover by any means, but today, as a team we clicked.

Almost immediately, we were on the front foot and we were peppering Teddenham’s goal with shots from all angles.

The ball had come out to me and I rushed down the wing, did a few fancy dinking movements, cut in past Smith, a Teddenham fullback with a reputation for being less than sporting and one that collected red and yellow cards like others collected stamps, and then thundered a shot against the post. I nearly swore, but being ladylike, I simply pouted and trotted back up the field. Others said I stamped my foot, but where is the evidence, if you ignore the heavily edited and doctored highlights?

After a sweeping move that went from the goalkeeper, to Indongo and then Peter Martins, the talented forward looked up and then passed the ball to Daniel Schmitt who scored a glorious goal from outside the area that the hit the back of the net and threatened to break it!

‘GOAL!’

We were one up and it was only ten minutes in.

Teddenham tried to counter attack immediately after the whistle went and came close to scoring as Owen managed to turn sharply and fire a shot at goal, but it was too high and the ball sailed up into the second tear of seats and a lucky 11 year old boy caught it, to the cheers of half the spectators in the ground.

Seven minutes later, the ball came out to me. I was hovering around looking as menacing as I could, but failing miserably. I had already had a heated conversation with Smith regarding his lack of manners and the fact that he was losing his fight against flab, something he got a bit upset about. So I suggested that he borrowed one of my bras to help support his man boobs; was that any reason to swear at me?

Anyway, I got the ball and hared down the pitch like a erm hare. Anyway, there I was, my little legs pumping like mad as I swerved past a couple of Teddenham men, cut inside and then outside a midfielder with a name I couldn’t pronounce but end with “ng” .

The crowd were going mad; I could hear the chants of ‘Suzie,’ coming from our fans and other not so nice ones coming from the other lot.

The goal was about twenty yards away. The keeper was standing tall and waving his arms around like some sort of demented windmill. Smith wheezed up from behind and tried to chop me down, but was so slow, I could have painted my nails and waited for them to dry before he had any effect. I accelerated a bit and then thumped the ball with the outside of my foot, putting a bit of a spin on it. It went like an over-bent banana to the right of the keeper, who should have really have come out to me rather than stand there on the goal line playing with himself. The ball went in just under the crossbar and the keeper stood there looking at me with a less than pleasant expression on his face.

‘GOAL!’

Teddenham had nothing to lose now and pulled out all the stops to try to come back at us. The trouble with that tactic is that it leaves you vulnerable at the back and we took advantage of that. I was racing up and down the pitch, happily spraying the ball about and generally enjoying myself. I managed to send a ball 75 yards over to the other side of the pitch that landed at the feet of Ogsood who promptly scored with a sizzling volley into the back of the net.

‘GOAL!’

~ §~

It was half time, we had a drinks and oranges in the men’s dressing room and Mr Mac came around to us individually as he usually did and gave us all a few words of encouragement. I was sucking on an orange when he came up to me.

‘Well done Susan, ye are playin’ well today.’

‘Thanks boss.’

‘I want ye ta do more of what ye are doin, but go further up the pitch. Tranter, their full back is feelin it. I don’t know why he hasna been sub’d yet, but while he’s on, you can play with the lad and try ter take advantage of him,’

‘Boss, I’m not that sort of girl!’

He looked at me and smiled.

‘Ge away with ye. I have a daughter your age and you know full well what I mean,’

I giggled at that as he moved on to the next guy.

~ §~

The second half started slowly and then sort of built up. Teddenham were a plucky team and they tried to get at us from early on, hitting the post twice and forcing a succession of corners, but there was no doubt who was in charge that day–us.

Ogsood scored from the penalty spot when Smith chopped him down. Smith was red-carded and sent off, so Teddenham’s day went from bad to worse. Ten men against a rampant team who were 4 nil up and looking for more goals.

I was standing near the centre waiting for the whistle to blow, when there was an enormous cheer. I looked up at where everyone was looking and on both of the big screens a message had come up.

‘I LOVE YOU SUZIE-SUE!’

I felt myself go red. I knew who that was; it was Andrea’s pet name for me. How she did it, I don’t know and to this day, she never would tell me, but I went all goose pimply over it and I was useless. Luckily, our team were well on top so it didn’t matter that much.

Soon, I got my brain back into gear and was up and down the pitch, attempting to do what I could for the team. Odongo scored yet another goal, with a header from a corner and we were five up with half an hour still to go.

Teddenham had a corner and Gloshter, our keeper, took it cleanly and then threw it out to me on the wing. Most of the Teddenham team were still in and around the box with our boys, cuddling and generally getting in the way of each other and only Tranter and their keeper were between me and the opposing goal. I ran up the field and could hear stampeding wildebeest galloping up behind me. I tut-tutted as I saw that my team mates were still far behind me and I cursed silently at their lack of speed as I made a bee line for the goal. Tranter came towards me; the look on his face was not nice. Given the chance, I think that he would have chopped and filleted me. He had had a bad day of it and if I had anything to do with it, it would get worse.

I chipped the ball over his head and just before he tackled me with both boots, studs up. I sailed over him doing a sort of Grand jete, wondering, as I sailed through the air with the greatest of ease, whether I could take ballet lessons as I went, and then all thoughts of tutu’s went out of my mind as I carried on running at the goal. It was just the keeper and me now mano-a-mano or would that be womano-a-mano? I wondered whether he would make my day by standing on the goal line like he did last time, but no, he came out to narrow the angle. I could hear everything go quiet. Unusual that as normally the crowd would be screaming nice or nasty things at me, but I was only aware of the keeper and the gaping goal behind.

Then I was scythed down from behind and there was an uproar. Tranter had done his worse and tried to stop me. Before the whistle was blown though, I rolled and then was on my feet again and I had chipped the ball over the advancing keeper and it drifted slowly over the line. The ref, for once had his glasses on and had actually played advantage.

‘GOAL!’

I had a bloody but not seriously gash on my leg and I went off to generous applause after that to have it seen too, I was replaced by Dave Hastings, our perpetual sub, but he didn’t seem too happy for some reason and barely touched my hand as I went off and he came on. He had missed all the fun, I supposed.

All in all it had been a great match for us as we ran out 11-0 winners and we had leap frogged over Teddenham in the table on goal difference. They had only 9 men on the pitch at the end and their manager hinted that that was the reason why they had lost by such a big margin, I knew as sure as eggs were an ovate spheroid shape, that we would have won even if they had had 12 men on the pitch.

~ §~

After being treated, I went home with Daddy. I was sore and didn’t fancy the post game nosh up in the boardroom.

Andrea was at home. She was still under orders not to do too many marathons and had stayed in to sort through what clothes she had and decide whether to hit the shops the next day–Sunday.

I did try to wheedle out of her how she managed to get the message on the scoreboard screen thingie at the match, but she was tight lipped. I would work on her later. I don’t like torture, but sometimes a girl has to do...

Back in shopping mode, I was wondering whether I could do my wig and sunglasses disguise and join Andrea in her á¼ber shopping spree. I would have to ask Danni and the parental units if it was feasible. I loved to shop and I was itching to go out and do something normal, even if it was only to by some naughty undies.

I felt a sudden need, so I hugged her and gave her a toe curling French kiss, she liked those and I wasn’t too opposed to them either!

‘Well,’ I said as I put her down, my needs satisfied for the moment, ‘what’s the verdict. Do you need more clothes?’

She looked at me as if I was mad.

‘More clothes, more clothes, you must be kiddin; I have nothing.’

I looked at her bed and wardrobe. There was enough there now to clothe a medium sized village.

‘Spoken like a true girl.’

She looked at me and I looked at her and we both started giggling.

~ §~

When we went shopping, I had on a dark wig and was gothesque, clothes wise and makeup wise and it was totally different to my normal look. No one recognised me and it was nice to look around the shops then feed our faces in the food mall and generally have a good time. I wasn’t too keen on the dark, rather severe makeup, but needs must, as they say. Danni and Charlotte were hovering but were not in our faces, so I didn’t feel too restricted in my movements. After a happy morning, we made our way home to be confronted by a posse of parents. Daddy, Mummy and Auntie Monica looked grim as we were asked to go into the library to have ‘a family meeting.’

Andrea looked at me and shrugged. I had no idea what was up and scanning my internal memory stick, I couldn’t recall doing anything to warrant instant displeasure.

Claire was in the study on the computer and she glanced up as we came in. Her normal cheery look wasn’t evident. She looked as sick as a sick parrot.

I sat on the leather sofa with Andrea next to me. The others draped themselves over other chairs and then Daddy coughed and then looked at the two of us.

‘What’s up doc?’ I said, trying to lighten the mood. It felt like a loved pet had died or something.

‘We know who the mole is. He went on your fan site and said things about you and Andrea. It’s out in the open now that you and Andrea are an item. It was only hinted before in the papers and the papers have had to be careful what they say due to your ages and possible litigation, but it’s on the web and there’re aren’t so many restrictions there. The idiot used a static IP address and our people pulled some strings so that he was easy to trace through his internet provider.’

I felt Andrea’s hand grip mine, she was trembling slightly.

I took a deep breath.

‘So who is trying to ruin our lives Daddy?’

To be continued...

Please leave comments and kudo thingies...thanks! ~Sue