ZOMBIE POWER

It's a bad day. I'm a substitute again. On the bench. And this time there's a girl on the bench with us. Can it get any worse than this?

From the get-go I knew it was going to be bad. We were gathered in the poxy changing room, under the mouldy ceiling that dripped green spores and black mould and the shells of dead insects. The cracked floor-tiles were getting the usual pounding from studs being dragged across them. Players were flicking towels, kit was being swapped, shin pads tested. In the air was all the usual howling, shouting and laughter that comes when you know you're going to be playing in a football match. I was quiet, awaiting my fate.

The coach, Mr Broderick, strode in wearing his crisp white Nike tracksuit, clutching his favourite blue clipboard. He ran his fingers through his 'Caesar' haircut and I watched his eyes flit about the room because that's what he always does first – check that his first picks are in the room. His grey eyes never sought me out. He preened his hair again, then rubbed his stubbly ginger beard, hesitating. He licked the tip of his pen and his eyes went back to the clipboard. Then he looked up and, above all that buzz, called out: 'Right lads, gather round, here's the team for today!' We came up to the flip chart where he was standing. Sometimes he has tactics drawn up on the chart. Today it was blank.

'Here we go. The team today is ...'

He named the defenders. Then the midfield. Since I'm a midfielder, when my name wasn't called there, I sat down and waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, he said the words: 'And the subs today are Eddie, Leonard ... and the lovely Sheba!' What? A girl? Everybody's jaw dropped. I looked around.

The coach rapped on the steel changing-room door in a drum roll. 'Everyone got their kit on? All righty. Come in, Sheba!' A girl pops her head – only her head – around the changing-room door. Then the rest of her. It's definitely a girl. Breasts. Huge smile. Long legs. In the team kit. She stays in the doorway, a little nervous.

'Come on, boys, give her a clap. It takes guts for her to walk into the boys' changing room!'

A few of the team clap but most of us just gawk. The coach is always bringing new players in, that's why his nickname's The Windmill – he constantly changes. But this is a new low. Somebody's got to say something. When nobody does, I decide I'll do it myself.

'We can't play with a girl.'

The Windmill laughs. 'Leonard. Always Leonard. You were born with a scowl on your face, weren't you? Go on. Tell me why.'

'Girls aren't allowed. And anyway, boys are stronger. We'll never win with girls.'

'They are allowed, thanks to the new regulations. Up to Under 15s, in fact. And Sheba's good, she'll add something.'

The coach grabs the nets bag. 'Now everybody out on the pitch and start your warm-up. Subs, take the water bottles and the bench – good lads!'

There's a giant clatter of studs and cheering from the boys who are going to be playing as they step outside.

The sky is blazing yellow. Eddie punches me on the shoulder. Horse feints a high five, then charges into my chest instead. Everybody's trying to cheer me up. I look down at my shiny old boots, the ones I stayed up all morning polishing in case I played. I pull the zipper right up on my tracksuit so it covers my chin and walk on.

Carrying the subs' bench from the changing room to the pitch is the most humiliating thing ever. Sheba tries to help out but me and Eddie don't let her. We weave the bench through the car park. Then the tarmac's stony clatter switches to the smudgy squelch of grass. The pitch is a big sea of green. The grass has been cut so one side of the pitch is light green, the other dark. It looks good. Even the burnt-out car that lived behind the far goalposts has been dragged away (there are two big gashes where it was hauled, like the claw-marks of a giant rat). A couple of parents are on the near sideline reserved for the away team. Me and Eddie take the bench over to the far side.

Our team wins the toss and chooses downhill. The game begins – for everyone but the subs, that is. So it's Eddie, me and Sheba, rubbing shoulders on the subs' bench. There's not enough room for three on it.

We're soon losing 4:0.

Sheba nudges me. 'Girls can't play football then?'

'Dead right.'

'Let's see who can throw a ball furthest then.' She's pulling me up.

'No. Keepy-uppy.'

I figure she must be good at throw-ins, else why would she suggest that? I keep the ball up five times with my feet then kick it hard at her. She kills the ball well with her knee, flips it on to her head, then down to her ankle, then knocks it up again. It's impressive but it doesn't count because she doesn't keep it up with her feet by more than two touches.

'See?' I tell her.

Eddie has a go. He manages two, like Sheba.

'I'm the best,' I declare.

The coach is waving at us to sit down. He likes us to save our legs. Impact subs, he calls it.

It's strange, me and Eddie. He's my rival for a place on the team yet I can't help liking him. He has this smile. Eddie didn't do his homework? One Eddie smile and the teacher doesn't mind. Eddie late to the canteen at lunch? A two-second Eddie megawatt grin and the shutters roll back up and the dinner ladies serve him. Sometimes I practise in front of a mirror, trying to do Eddie's smile, but my face can't stretch that far. Eddie says he likes my miserable face as it is and I shouldn't try to change it.

I watch Sheba out of the corner of my eye. I've heard rumours about her. Once I saw a girls' football training session after school while waiting for the bus and there was one girl who swerved and flowed round the orange markers like a skier, ran up the wing like Road Runner and did this crazy throw-in using a somersaulting front flip. She looked like Sheba.

Sheba catches me looking at her and I look away.

'I've got three dads,' I tell Eddie. 'Beat that.'

'Whatchutalkinabout?'

Eddie's shuffled between me and Sheba and is flicking his tongue at his two big front teeth where there's something lodged between them.

'I've got my official dad, like his name is on my Birth Certificate and he works on an oil rig so I never see him. Then I've got my stepdad Mustapha, though I think he split up with my mum last month ...'

I don't know if Eddie is even listening. He wriggles his nose and sucks his teeth, his eyes on the pitch. We're defending a free kick. This huge lad is about to take it. The players in our wall are shaking like a tub of slime.

'And then Thierry Henry who's my actual dad. My biological dad.'

Eddie smooths the cabbage-y thing out from between his teeth with his tongue, wipes it into his hand, looks at it, eats it, then turns to me. 'What makes you say that?' he says.

'Was that a bogey?'

'You want one?' He's going into his nose again.

'Nooo.'

'Thierry Henry?'

So he was listening. I pull out my pic of Thierry Henry. 'Look.'

There's a cheer from the pitch. Our goalie's fishing the ball out of the net again.

'Nah,' says Eddie, glancing at the pic then at me.

Sheba takes the pic and looks. She squishes one eye shut and moves the pic nearer to me then further away.

'My mum used to work at Man United Hospitality,' I tell her.

'Man U's got their own hospital?' asks Eddie.

'Catering. The VIP zone. Where they serve...