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her eyes seem to be magnetically pulled towards her mum and Mr Cooper – who didn’t appear to have noticed there was a problem – but whenever she was looking at the pitch, there was Max!
    The ten minutes dragged on and Katie just couldn’t get into the game. The boys’ side were quick to take advantage of the hole in the girls’ attack, with Josh Matthews seeming to be here, there and everywhere. He might fancy himself, but he was good at football. The boys didn’t so much dominate the action as make the girls look as though they were standing still, and at the end of the first half they were two goals up, with only Megan’s sterling efforts having kept it from being loads more. As Mrs Ross blew the whistle to change ends, and called out the team changes she wanted to make, Katie was miserably aware that she had never played worse. She wasn’t surprised when Mrs Ross took her off, and she was too embarrassed to look at the coach – she knew that Mrs Ross would be wondering what was going on with her.
    She trudged off the pitch, dodging the furious glances from her teammates. She jumped as someone suddenly thumped her on the back.
    â€œThanks, Katie!” Max jeered, grinning. “You played brilliantly – didn’t know you’d joined our team!”
    Katie actually felt like hitting him – or screaming something along the lines of “What’s your stupid dad playing at?”, and it was an effort just to walk away. She watched the second half on her own, radiating such gloom that none of the rest of the squad came to see what the matter was. Every so often she sneaked a look at her mum and Mr Cooper. Mum waved cheerfully – she clearly hadn’t a clue that Katie had just been substituted for playing the worst match of her life. Katie dropped her eyes to the ground and stared fiercely at the grass. Was something actually going on? She so wished that Megan hadn’t said anything last week – she’d probably never have even noticed without her comment! But then Katie’s sensible side kicked in, reminding her that it would be even worse if something were going on and she hadn’t a clue… Wouldn’t it? Actually, blissful cluelessness sounded pretty good right now.
    Sarah and Cara managed one goal between them in the second half, but the boys were jubilant at the final whistle, acting like they’d just won the Cup Final or something. The girls trooped silently off the pitch, and still no one spoke to Katie – it was as though she’d been a scapegoat for the whole disaster, even though her bad play in the first half couldn’t be blamed for everything. Megan came over and gave her an enquiring, worried look as Mrs Ross called them all together.
    â€œWell, never mind, girls, it was only a friendly!” The coach was trying to sound cheerful. “You’ll get them next time, and it’s shown us what we need to work on, hasn’t it? OK, let’s go and get changed.”
    As Megan and Katie walked over to the changing rooms, Megan was clearly worried, but at the same time she didn’t want to make Katie feel worse by asking her why she’d played so badly. Katie could see that her friend just didn’t know how to start.
    â€œSorry I was so useless,” she muttered.
    â€œWhat was wrong?” asked Megan, gratefully seizing the opportunity. “I’m sorry, I know this sounds mean, but it was like your head wasn’t in the game at all.”
    Katie shrugged. “You know what you said last week about Max’s dad and my mum looking friendly?”
    â€œYeah?” Megan looked enquiring.
    â€œAnd I told you not to be so stupid?”
    â€œMmmmm…” Megan nodded.
    Katie sighed a huge and miserable sigh. “I’m not sure you were being that stupid after all. They were standing together watching the game. Didn’t you see them? They looked like they were