and the Penalty CHAPTER 4 THEY BEGAN TO play. TJ suddenly remembered that he’d seen this game before when Marshall had taken them to see Wanderers play City. The Wanderers team had used the game as a warm-up, and now he was playing it with an actual Wanderers player. ‘Hey, come on, TJ, wake up,’ Marshall said, as the ball ran past his foot. ‘That’s a point we’ve lost.’ Rodrigo retrieved the ball and passed to Mr Wood. Pass . . . pass . . . pass . . . It was impossible to get the ball off them. Then suddenly TJ saw Mr Wood’s eyes flick to the left and he stretched out a foot to intercept the pass. He heard Marshall’s shout, back-heeled the ball and darted off to find more space. The ball came back to him hard and fast. There was no time to think. His instincts took over. All the hours and days of practising against the wall in his back garden now paid off. He took the pace off the ball with the inside of his foot, and at the same time he was moving away from Mr Wood, making himself half a metre of space to play the ball back to Marshall.
