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‘I
wouldn’t miss the game even if I really was sick.’
    ‘ In that case, go and try
waking your dad again.’
    Grubber went to the bathroom where his dad
was
    fast asleep after doing his nine hours on
night shift.
    Grubber shook his dad’s shoulder.
    ‘ Come on ,
Dad. The big game’s starting soon. I need you to run me
over.’
    His dad groaned.
    ‘ Hurry
Dad, please ,
we’ve got to be there in less than an hour.’
     
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Jitters
      
    Kick-off was at eleven. At
ten thirty both teams, the Greens and the Reds - the Cauliflower
Ears and the Devils - were warming up at opposite ends of the
playing field.
    We needed the warm up, and not just to get
our muscles loose and supple. It was really chilly out on the
field. Our breaths were puffs of steamy white.
    ‘ Just listen to that,’
said Grubber.
    ‘ What?’ asked
Sprigs.
    ‘ The roar of the
crowd.’
    Sprigs and I looked round.
The single stand had several dozen people in it, their hands
wrapped round thermos flasks. There were also about fifty
supporters standing in little groups on the sidelines, marching on
the spot to keep warm. The Red Brigade and the Greenies. But you’d
hardly call it a crowd. And it certainly wasn’t roaring.
    ‘ That’s not a crowd you’re
hearing,’ I said. ‘It’s
    your heart drumming.’
    ‘ That’s what it is,’
agreed Sprigs.
    ‘ Is not,’ said Grubber,
but he clutched his chest all the same.
    ‘ It’ll be because your
dad’s staying to watch the game,’ I said.
    I was right, even though
Grubber wasn’t going to admit it. He’d managed to drag his dad out
of bed and make
him solemnly swear to stay for the whole game. Now, Grubber wasn’t
sure it had been such a good idea. He always felt queasy before a
game. Today he felt worse than usual. His lips were dry and his
stomach was doing flip-flops. His heart, now that he had his hand
over it, was definitely banging away like a jackhammer. Grubber
wouldn't have been surprised if Sprigs and I had heard it.
Actually, he’d never felt this bad.
    ‘ I
thought I was
going to be late,’ said Sprigs, as we stretched our legs and swung
our arms. ‘Man, it was hard finding matching
laces.’
    This time Grubber and I looked at each
other. ‘Can’t have been as hard as me having to wake my dad up,’
said Grubber.
    ‘ You two can laugh,’ said
Sprigs, ‘but no way was I
    playing without a matching bootlace.’
    ‘ We’re not actually
laughing,’ I pointed out.
    ‘ Not yet you aren’t,’ said
Sprigs.
    ‘ What I
don’t understand,’ Grubber said, forgetting his jitters for the
moment, ‘is why you only replaced one of the laces. They come in
pairs. You could have put in two new ones.’
    Sprigs shook his head. ‘I just had to leave
one of the old laces in,’ he explained. ‘They’ve been my lucky
laces all season.’
    ‘ Don’t we know it,’ I
said.
    Sprigs was our top scoring fullback. He
hadn’t missed a goal kick all season. We were all depending on him,
and his lucky laces, in the Grand Final.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Team talk
     
    ‘ Listen up now,’ said our
coach, Mr Marlow.
    We stopped exercising and listened up.
    Mr Marlow had been a top player in his day.
We knew this was true because of his cauliflower ears. The left one
especially was flattened and lumpy from having been in too many
scrums and rucks.
    Mr Marlow’s ears had given the Green’s our
other name. We didn’t often use it as a name ourselves. It was the
rival teams, especially the Reds, who did. Whenever they called us
the Cauliflower Ears, which was each time we played them, they used
it as an insult. But we took it as a compliment, just as Mr Marlow
suggested. We’d even put it into our team slogan to show how proud
we were of it. Grubber had written the slogan. He was good at
writing poems.
    ‘ This is a noteworthy
day,’ Mr Marlow continued.
    We all nodded. It couldn’t
get any more noteworthy than this. The Greens were in the Grand
Final for