Ten Page 7

This is not me pretending to be Zico.

  This is not me imagining myself on the pitch in the middle of the night while watching television.

  This is not me practising in the garden.

  It’s quite real. This is me losing the game for my team in front of family and friends and crowds of people. Complete strangers know how badly I’ve messed up.

  For the first time, I’m glad Dad is not in the audience.

  I’ve lost the chance to win that ticket to England.

  If I’d stayed on my feet, I might have seen Dad, Zico and Foyles in the same week.

  Now, I’m going to have to wear a bag over my head to avoid being recognised around Kuantan.

  Their striker is placing the ball.

  Batumalar is swinging her arms in a windmill, keeping herself loose. I shake my head in admiration. She’s a real pro.

  A hockey goal isn’t that big but Batumalar is only ten. There seems to be a lot of space for a talented striker to slip the ball past her.

  The striker is three metres behind the ball. She’s planning a long run up. That probably means she’s going for power. If she gets the ball on target there won’t be much poor Batumalar can do about it.

  Nurhayati wanders over and claps me on the back.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Maya. You were just unlucky.’

  My heart feels like warm toast. The team is sticking by me. I don’t deserve it – but it feels good.

  It happens in a flash.

  The other team’s striker goes for power and placement. It’s an amazing shot. Flying like an arrow into the top right-hand corner.

  Time slows down.

  I remember Zico missing his penalty against France.

  I remember Maradona’s second goal against England.

  I remember Burruchaga winning the World Cup for Argentina.

  I swear that none of those moments compares to Batumalar getting her fingertips to the ball and tipping it over the bar.

  As we jump up and down in excitement and hug each other and run to Batumalar to hug her, I hear the crowd. They are chanting ‘Batumalar, Batumalar’.

  I know in that instant that Sister Pauline will never make Batumalar do squats again.

  Nobody would dare pick on the school’s heroine.

  Each girl gets a medal.

  As the captain, I get to hold the trophy aloft. I don’t cry – I’m not Maradona – but I am the proudest I have ever been.

  Our school headmistress, Miss Cook, receives the outsized mock cheque for ten thousand ringgit.

  And then Nurhayati’s dad takes the mike.

  He says, ‘The time has come to name the Player of the Final. The winner, and an accompanying adult will, as promised, be flown to England to attend the Brazil-England friendly to be played at Wembley Stadium next month.’

  We are all watching him, trying to guess who the winner will be.

  Until I conceded that penalty, I would have bet the ticket had my name on it. But now I guess they will give it to Batumalar. Or Nurhayati, if her dad decides that he’s spent enough money on other people’s kids. Or they might feel they need to give the runners-up something to cheer about, in which case they’ll probably hand it to that big striker from Beserah who missed the penalty.

  I look across at her. She’s still crying. It’s not much use being the best player in your team and a contender for Player of the Final if you missed the penalty that would have kept your team in the match.

  Football can be a cruel game.

  Just ask Zico.

  ‘It was a much harder decision to make than any of us expected,’ continues Nurhayati’s dad.

  I know there is no hope, but I can’t help hoping.

  ‘Nurhayati, who also happens to be my daughter, played with real courage.’

  I can’t believe it. I wouldn’t have expected it of him. He’s going to give the ticket to see Zico, my Zico, to his own kid. It’s not fair.

  ‘But Batumalar, a last-minute substitute when the regular goalkeeper was injured, put in an immense effort … including saving a penalty!’

  I cheer and clap. She deserves to win. I am horribly disappointed to miss out on seeing Dad but the judges aren’t to know that I have a special reason for wanting to go to England.

  All three judges are looking at me. Miss Cook, our headmistress, the headmistress from the other school and Nurhayati’s dad.

  They’re all smiling at me but they’re twisty smiles.

  I realise in that moment that everyone already knows that Dad has left Mum and Rajiv and me to go and live in England.

  ‘But for an overall performance worthy of the number “10” jersey and for scoring the winning goal in the final, the ticket to England goes to Maya “Zico” David!’

  This time I bawl like Maradona.

  Nurhayati’s dad hugs me.

  Mum and Rajiv hug me.

  Soon, Dad will get a chance to hug me too.

  I don’t want to tell Dad I’m coming. I want it to be a surprise. A big surprise.

  Mum’s not sure about this.

  ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Maya, to not tell your father you’re coming.’

  ‘It will be such a great surprise, Mum.’

  She looks doubtful and I know her head is full of visions of Dad breaking my heart by not being happy to see me.

  I can’t explain to Mum, of course, but the thing is – I’m not sure I could be more hurt than I am now. I have such a sore place in my heart because Dad missed seeing me score my winning goal. I have such a sore place in my heart because everyone around me only does twisty smiles, even Nurhayati’s dad. I have such a sore place in my heart because Rajiv is working so hard to be the man of the house.

  And if I tell Dad I’m coming to England he’ll have plenty of time to think of good reasons why he can’t come back to Kuantan and be our dad again.

  I know what grown-ups are like. They hate admitting they’ve made a mistake.

  Besides, I can’t tell Mum my plan to get Dad back. Or Rajiv.

  It really has to be a surprise.

  Time flies when you’re about to get your dad back. In no time at all Mum and I are on a big Boeing 747 to London.

  Amamma is staying at home to keep an eye on Rajiv.

  Poor Rajiv.

  He’s being very decent about it. I know he really wishes he could come and see Dad too but he’s too young to be my ‘accompanying adult’. That’s what Nurhayati’s dad says anyway and he tends to know about this sort of thing.

  I would love to tell Rajiv about my plan to get Dad back so that he doesn’t have to feel so sad about missing out on this trip. But I’m afraid he won’t think it’s a good idea and might feel that he has to be all grown-up and responsible and tell Mum what I’m planning to do.

  But I know he wants Dad to come home just as much as me. I’m getting Dad back for both of us.

  I say to him as firmly as I can, ‘Just make sure you watch the game on television, Rajiv.’

  ‘It’s just a friendly,’ he grumbles. ‘And you know I don’t really like football that much.’

  I shake my head and juggle my football on my knee.

  ‘You’ve got to watch, Rajiv. You might spot me in the crowd.’

  Rajiv smiles at me. ‘There’ll be thousands of people at Wembley!’

  I am getting desperate, ‘Please, Rajiv. Promise you’ll watch?’

  He laughs and puts an arm around my shoulder. ‘All right, I will.’

  I wonder whether Rajiv will stay being a great brother when Dad comes home or whether he’ll be a pain again when he’s not the man of the house anymore. I hope he doesn’t go back to being the sort of brother who would support Germany in a World Cup final. But it’s a risk I have to take. We need a dad.

  Mum wants to call Dad when we arrive in London but I refuse.

  ‘The game’s tomorrow, Mum. We won’t have much time to see him if we call him now. Let’s just wait.’

  ‘But you’ve been so anxious to see your
father again …’

  Mum is really puzzled.

  ‘But I want to see Zico first, Mum!’

  The next day, I’m up at dawn. I’m so excited. This is going to be the best day of my life.

  Mum has carefully washed and ironed my football kit. I plan to wear the blue shorts and yellow number ‘10’ shirt to the match. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was supporting England!

  When I get dressed, I slip on an extra layer under my jersey. It’s all part of my brilliant plan to get Dad back.

  If things work out like they’re supposed to – he won’t be able to turn me down. I just know he won’t.

  Who would have ever thought that the first time I visited a stadium in my life it would be Wembley?

  Wembley!

  Pelé calls Wembley the ‘cathedral of football’.

  The twin towers are so much more imposing in real life than on TV.

  The crowds of people streaming in are laughing and shouting and singing.

  Mum clutches my hand tight and looks nervous because they’re mostly English fans with beer guts and tattoos, shaved heads and painted faces. But I’m not worried. They just love their football and their team. I know the feeling so well. I may be skinny and brown and wearing Brazil colours – but I’m just like them under the skin.

  Besides, Mum doesn’t know it but she has a lot more to worry about than hooligans …

  Walking through the spectator tunnels and seeing the perfect green grass of the pitch for the first time is magic.

  The pitch is much bigger than I imagined it to be.

  I can’t wait to turn professional and play here myself. Even Amamma might think that girls should be allowed to play football if she could see Wembley.

  There are players warming up. I spot Branco and Sócrates but Zico is not out yet.

  I realise that he might not start the game.

  They’d better bring him on as a substitute. I haven’t come all the way to England to watch Brazil play a friendly and have Zico sit on the bench for the whole game.

  The players go back into the tunnel.

  I look around. There must be 75 000 people packed into the stadium. Most of them are in white but there are large pockets of yellow scattered about, my fellow supporters of Brazil dancing the samba.

  Our seats are quite a long way up – on the third tier. But they are on the aisle. I make Mum sit on the inside. There are vendors carrying trays of junk food and drinks and I ask Mum if I can have some chips. She agrees and gives me some money and I hurry down towards the vendor.

  There is another one much closer but I pretend not to notice. I need to see the layout further down. The pitch is separated from the spectators by a low barrier and the running track. I lean on the barrier and a policeman in a silly hat – a bobby – glares at me. I smile at him but then scurry back to my seat.

  There’s no reason to get into trouble before it’s time to get into trouble.

  The match is about to begin. I am bouncing up and down in my seat. Even Mum is looking excited, her hair is windblown and her smile is happy, not twisty at all.

  The players run out one by one and the crowd – and me – goes wild as the names are announced over the loudspeakers. So many of my heroes are in the starting line up – Sócrates, Falcão, Branco and Careca.

  But not Zico. He’s on the bench.

  The game is exciting.

  It’s strange not to have the instant television replay. Usually, on TV, you just get to see the man on the ball. There is no perspective on the rest of the team taking up positions or running into space or making darting runs into the penalty box or tracking back after a forward run or sprinting down the wing to cross the ball to the middle.

  I wonder for a second if I will ever be able to watch football on TV again. It is just so fantastic ‘live’.

  Unfortunately, being ten years old, I miss quite a lot when the people in front of me leap to their feet in excitement. I’m too short to see anything when they do that. I decide to jump on my seat the minute the ball gets into the last third. Otherwise, I might miss a goal.

  I miss a goal.

  In my hurry to get on my chair, I slip and by the time I’ve made it onto my seat, Sócrates has curled one in.

  I do see England’s equaliser. I’d have been quite happy to miss Lineker scramble the ball over the line. Typical Brazilian mix-up between goalkeeper and last defender. Some things never seem to change.

  At half-time the score is 1 – 1.

  Mum asks me if I would like a drink or a hot dog but I shake my head. My insides are all churned up – like the six-yard box on a rainy day.

  I decide that the sixtieth minute is when I will execute my plan to get Dad back.

  Time is moving slowly now. I watch the clock more than the game.

  In the fiftieth minute there is a huge roar from the crowd, even the England fans.

  I stare at the pitch wondering what I’ve missed.

  Then I see the fourth official holding up the board to announce a substitution for Brazil.

  Number ‘10’ is coming on.

  Zico is coming on!

  I feel lucky.

  The game enters the sixtieth minute.

  I look at Mum.

  I feel a moment of doubt.

  What if this is a horribly bad idea?

  There’s only one way to find out.

  I lean over, put an arm around Mum and give her a quick hug.

  She turns to me in surprise.

  I grin, get to my feet and skip down the steps until I’m leaning on the barrier by the pitch.

  I wait until the bobby is facing the other way.

  Then I scramble over the railing.

  A ball boy is watching me, his mouth hanging open in surprise.

  Everyone else in the stadium, all 75 000, are watching the game.

  Only the running track is between me and the pitch.

  I am about halfway down, quite close to the centre circle.

  I take a deep breath, think of Dad for a second and dash onto the pitch.

  I run as fast as I can.

  At first, no one notices. Falcão thunders past me. He slides a pass to Júlio César who has made a run down the wing.

  And then Glen Hoddle spots me.

  He realises that the small figure in Brazil colours is not an underfed Brazilian substitute.

  They’ve all stopped playing now.

  I am still running for the centre circle. The pitch is huge when you’re just ten years old.

  The crowd, which fell silent in surprise when the game ground to a standstill, are yelling and cheering now.

  There’s nothing football spectators like more than a pitch invasion.

  A pitch invasion is not half as much fun on TV because they point the cameras somewhere else so as not to ‘encourage’ such behaviour. Usually, it’s streakers who run on as well – buck naked and very, very drunk.

  No one has seen a ten-year-old from Kuantan heading for the centre circle at Wembley before.

  I see Zico out of the corner of my eye.

  He has the ball under his arm and is jogging slowly towards me, a confused expression on his face. Maybe he thinks I’m the Brazil mascot and I’ve just got lost.

  I reach the centre circle.

  I rip off my yellow jersey.

  Underneath is the white T-shirt I painted myself the week before we left.

  I am in the middle of the pitch at Wembley Stadium in the sixtieth minute of a friendly between Brazil and England.

  The score is 1 – 1 and the players are almost upon me.

  All of them, including Zico and the other players, and the referee and the linesmen and the people in the stands and the TV cameras can see my T-shirt with the words in big, bold letters –

  DAD, PLEASE COME HOME.

  It doesn’t work.

  Dad won’t come home.

  I am a nine-day wonder – the kid who wanted her dad to come back so badly that she was prepared to announce i
t at Wembley in the middle of a football game.

  But Dad won’t come home.

  It is in the newspapers and on the television.

  Zico holds a press conference and says that family is very important to him and gives me a number ‘10’ Brazil shirt signed by the whole team.

  But Dad won’t come home.

  He stops being angry with me for embarrassing him after a few days and takes me to Foyles and buys me some books and promises to call more often and visit Kuantan once in a while and says he was sorry to have missed my tournament and especially my winning goal – but he really, really isn’t coming home.

  And he introduces me to a friend of his, a lady, and at first I don’t know what it means but then I see them holding hands and discover that she has a daughter who is twelve who doesn’t even like football.

  In a few days I am on a plane home with Mum who is still not speaking to me.

  We reach Kuantan airport and walk slowly through the arrival hall.

  I spot Nurhayati and wonder what she is doing at the airport – setting off on another expensive holiday probably. And then I see Batumalar and Sok Mun and Nurhayati’s dad and Batumalar’s too and Miss Cook, the headmistress, and the rest of the team and Rajiv and they are holding a banner that says,

  WELCOME HOME, MAYA ‘ZICO’ DAVID!

  It is like winning the World Cup and I cry like Maradona and hug everyone as tight as I can and they hug me back even harder than when I scored the winning goal in the final of our tournament.

  I whisper to Rajiv, ‘Dad wouldn’t come home.’

  He nods and shrugs. ‘I like being man of the house anyway.’

  I know he is lying. We both smile twisty smiles.

  I guess things don’t always work out the way we’d like.

  But I still have Rajiv and Mum and lots of friends and a number ‘10’ Brazil shirt signed by Zico and the rest of the team. I’ve finally been to Foyles and when I’m a grown-up professional footballer, I’ll probably see more of Dad.

  In the meantime, I saw a neat trick by Careca – he did a triple step-over – I can’t wait to try it.