The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3142 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

---

This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
*****

It was half past nine on a Saturday morning and we’d dropped off our answer to Beckham and Rooney at the school and the cheer squad were sitting in the car waiting for it all to start. It was fairly bright but very blowy and although not cold, we wrapped up like Christmas presents in jiffy bags, with thermal socks and wellingtons. We also had a flask of coffee for Simon and me, orange juice for the rest plus quartered oranges as well, probably enough for the whole team. After being reminded of the event, I sent Si and Danni down to Tesco to get some oranges for the team—they came back with a box of the things. Apparently, Si did a deal with the duty manager. He asked what discount he could get for buying a whole box and when he was asked why he wanted a whole box, he said for a school football game and the manager sold it to him at cost. We’ll be eating oranges all week.

About quarter to ten we emerged into the sunlight and unloaded our supplies from the boot of the car. Walking down to the football pitch we must have looked like an expedition by the amount of stuff we were carrying, including a couple of folding seats—well I’m used to the grandstands at Wembley, which are all-seater things.

We were nicely ensconced, that is Simon and I on the seats with Livvie, Hannah and Meems, standing around us and Cate sitting on my lap. They all had their school scarves and were waving them about like mad and the teams were just lining up to start. They won the toss, but I hoped that would be all they got, especially with the dynamic duo playing.

Once it settled down say, after ten or so minutes, Danni opened the scoring from the halfway line. She could see the goalie having difficulty with the sun, so she lobbed the ball high so that the goal keeper lost it against the sun, then it bounced in front of her and went over her astonished head and into the goal. Simon thought it was brilliant, I thought it was a bit unfair—but the object is to win and it broke no rules.

A few minutes later Trish was hacked down in the penalty area and she took her own kick and they were two nil up. By the end of the first half, St Claire’s were five nil up, three of which had been penalties or direct free kicks. Danni scored them all, the most spectacular being a free-kick which curled round the wall of players and went into the corner of the net without the goalkeeper moving. She was apparently unsighted by her own wall.

Livvie was busy with her camera and had used some of her inheritance to buy a camcorder which was powerful enough to catch the action on both sides of the pitch including the sounds—grunts, squeals and thuds.

We had our coffee at half time, sharing a cup with the headmistress who was in awe of Cameron field skills, mine in the woods and the two girls on a soccer pitch. The players and our supporters club shared the oranges and the juice, including taking some over to the other team, who waved their thanks.

The second half was proceeding along similar lines to the first, with two goals in ten minutes when Trish got pole axed by a large defender, who judging by her size and hairy legs, might have been a near relative of King Kong. She shrugged and walked away as Trish lay flat out on the grass. I rushed to see how she was and shouted at the referee for not penalising the defender who made little if any effort to play the ball and just body checked the smaller girl.

Thankfully, she was just winded and after a couple of minutes was able to continue, though at a much more subdued level. It was what happened next between Conan the barbarian and Danielle that was amazing.

Danni was racing up the field when a pass found her, up popped Shrek who attempted to do similar damage to Danielle as she had to Trish, however, Danielle just stopped and trapped the ball and the Incredible Hulk overshot and went arse over tip into one of her own players. Then Danni passed the ball across the goal and another St Claire’s forward got on the score sheet.

Trish did eventually recover and upon being challenged by the big defender, ran straight at her and dropped her shoulder at the last moment and laid out the bigger girl crashing into her formidable chest. This time the injured player took no further part in the match. I think Trish was also a bit hurt but she soldiered on and helped create another goal. St Claire’s won by eleven goals to nil, with my two scoring eight between them.

It was as the whistle was blown one of the parents of the losing side recognised Danielle and began haranguing the headmistress and sports teacher for playing an England international who was obviously older than the rest of the girls. I entered the fray—you know me, no one knocks my girls and survives—and put her right, saying she was only fourteen and therefore eligible to play but how old was the grizzly bear who tried to bash Trish? Apparently, all her family were big—yeah, so are Gorillas.

They had showers in school and changed back into Clark Kent mode afterwards. Trish was in a little pain but otherwise well enough to go out for lunch—Stella was watching the others—which Simon was treating us to at a local pub.

We got home mid-afternoon and I did some healing on Trish who had some nasty bruising on her shoulder. She said it felt better when I’d finished and gone off to watch Livvie’s version of the game.

With a cuppa on my desk and some clever software Sammi had recommended, I finally got to play with my plan to decorate and furnish Julie and Phoebe’s flat. Two hours seemed to fly by like it does when you’re engrossed in what you’re doing, but I had a reasonable scheme by the time David said dinner was ready.

I showed it to the two would-be flat mates and they seemed to like most of it, which I’d managed to combine mainly soft pastel colours with a couple of primary reds and blues in thin stripes on some wall paper and in abstract designs on the curtains. The carpet I’d kept relatively plain in a soft red.

Neither of these curtains or wallpaper actually existed and the cost of having them custom made is crazy. So I offered to go shopping with them next week to look at curtains, carpets and wallpaper, to see what we could get to match my colour scheme as best we could. I did say, if they went for striped walls, they could always be painted on but they didn’t seem to like that idea.