Katie's Secret Admirer

  Contents

  Cover

  Half Title Page

  Series by Holly Webb

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Sneak Peek of Becky’s Dress Disaster

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Ten Quick Questions for Holly Webb

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “Look! That’s him!” Megan was so excited that her upside-down face nearly matched her red hair.

  Katie peered round her own muddy knees and nodded. “Definitely! Oh, this is so cool!”

  Practically all the girls’ squad had now spotted the little party trooping across the field, and given up on warm-up exercises. There had been a bit of grumbling when Mrs Ross suggested Saturday morning training sessions to get them into really good shape for the next round of schools league matches, but the whole squad had made it to the playing fields on time today. The boys’ team were there too, on the adjacent pitch – after the girls had beaten them hollow in the fund-raising match last term, Mr Anderson hadn’t had much trouble convincing them that a spot of extra practice on Saturdays would be a good idea. Now everyone in both squads was muttering and pointing excitedly. The tall, good-looking man with Mrs Ross and Mr Anderson was Garth Owen, the footballer. He’d actually gone to Manor Hill School, years ago, and then he’d been on the youth team at Stallford, the local football club. Now he played for Spurs, but he came back home to Darefield quite often to see his family.

  Today the Spurs striker was running a masterclass in ball skills for his old school, and everyone was desperate to play their best in front of such a star. Lots of parents had come to watch, too – altogether the atmosphere was fantastic. The local paper had even sent a reporter and photographer along to capture the event.

  Mr Anderson and Mrs Ross gathered the two junior squads together (the senior teams trained later in the evening instead of at weekends, as so many of them had Saturday jobs), and everybody looked hopefully at Garth Owen. What would he be like? When they’d found out that he was coming, a couple of weeks ago, Katie and Megan had looked him up online to find out more about his playing style. He wasn’t one of those really aggressive forward players who just powered through the field; instead he was very fast and he had fantastic ball control – he ran rings round the opposing players. Katie reckoned this was good news for the girls’ team – speed and ball control were their strong points too, and they might be able to pick up some really good tips. They watched eagerly as he took off his tracksuit – what did Premiership footballers wear to train in? It turned out to be a slightly scruffy T-shirt and shorts, and Katie nodded approvingly. She wasn’t really into the whole football and fashion thing – she reckoned David Beckham would have been a better football player if he hadn’t spent so much time worrying about his hair. Garth Owen looked a bit like he hadn’t even brushed his that morning.

  He smiled around at them all. “OK, morning everybody.”

  “Morning,” they chorused back shyly. Even the Year Eights were a bit overawed, Katie noticed – super-confident people like Sarah, the girls’ team captain, and Josh Matthews, Year Eight stud (and her sister Annabel’s current all-time best-ever pin-up boy since she’d starred in the school Christmas play with him last term).

  “I need to do some warm-up exercises before we get on to the fun stuff – sorry about that, I know you’ve already done yours. Won’t do any harm though. Ready?”

  Everyone nodded eagerly. This was really exciting – even boring warm-up exercises were better with a professional footballer leading them. Ten minutes of bends and stretches later, and they were being organized into small groups to work on their ball control: tapping the ball from foot to foot on the ground, then in the air, which was tricky. The groups were mixed from the two squads, which was weird – there had been such bad feeling between the girls’ and the boys’ teams that practising together felt a bit uncomfortable. Still, a couple of the boys were mates from class, Katie told herself – it was really dumb that they had to be sworn enemies as soon as they got on to the pitch. Talking of sworn enemies, though – Katie decided to pretend that Max Cooper (deliberate leg-kicker, class idiot and general pain-in-the-bum) wasn’t a few metres away. Actually, for once, Max seemed to be behaving himself – he was listening to Garth Owen as though the footballer was telling his group that week’s winning lottery numbers.

  Katie was carefully shifting her weight from side to side to balance the ball as Garth had suggested, when she noticed that he was watching their group. He nodded approvingly at her. “Very nice – good control there.”

  Everyone in the group looked envious as he went on to the next lot.

  “Wow!” said Robin, a boy from Katie’s class who’d just got into the boys’ squad, although he hadn’t actually played in any matches yet. He gazed wide-eyed at Katie. “That was so cool. Well done. I can’t believe I’d just dropped the ball when he came to watch us.”

  Katie was pink with pleasure. “He’s really nice – I hadn’t expected him to be like that.”

  After a few more minutes of ball-skills, Garth yelled, “Right! How about some shooting practice?”

  “Yeees!” Everyone cheered. However much the staff went on about defence and tactics, and team-play making everyone’s place on the pitch important, there just was something really cool about having a shot at the goal.

  “We need a goalie – any volunteers?” Katie pushed Megan forward. “Go on! It’ll be brilliant!” “I can’t be in goal against Garth Owen! I’ll mess it up, stop it!” Megan’s heels were practically making furrows in the pitch as she tried to stop Katie from volunteering her. It was too late though – she’d been spotted. “Great – do you play in goal for the girls then?” Megan gazed back looking hunted, and stammered something unintelligible. Katie was about to stick up for her, when, surprisingly, the team captain Sarah did it instead. “Uh-huh, Megan’s really good – she made some brilliant saves in the league final last term. We’d never have won without her.”

  Megan blushed happily. Sarah wasn’t given to saying that kind of thing much, and the Year Sevens in the team sometimes felt the Year Eights were still rather high-and-mighty, so the praise came as a shock. She grabbed her goalkeeper’s gloves, which she’d left on the side, and trotted over to the goal feeling a bit happier. It was still quite nerve-racking to turn round and see thirty people staring at her, though, and that wasn’t even counting the mums and dads who’d come to watch the masterclass from the sidelines. She rubbed her gloved hands together nervously, and listened as Garth explained what he was going to get everybody to do – try to convince the goalie that the ball was going to one side of the net when really they were aiming for the other. He was going to demonstrate, with Megan as his hapless victim.

  Katie watched interestedly. Megan was really good at this usually – it was almost as though she had some kind of mind-reading ability and could see through people trying to fake her. Not that she always caught the ball, of course, but she was almost always on the right side of the goal. Katie wondered if Garth was going to kick the ball at Megan as hard as he would in a normal match. The stats about him on the web had said that he could send a ball into the net at a hundred and thirty kilometres an hour. From the look on her face, Megan was remembering the same website. Luckily, he’d obviously decided that wasn’t going to be necessary, and the ball he sent at Megan was just fast rather tha
n looking like something shot out of a cannon. Megan didn’t catch it, but neither was she deceived by his clever footwork – she had her fingertips to the ball, but the goal was so slippery after the disgusting January weather that her feet slid out from under her, and she ended up covered in mud.

  There was a nasty snigger from somewhere behind Katie, and she wheeled round furiously. Of course – Max Cooper. He took every opportunity he could to get at the triplets and their mates.

  “Like you could do any better, dogbreath!” Katie snarled. Then she turned back and yelled, “Yay, Megan! You were really close!” Lots of the girls started clapping, and Katie noticed Becky’s boyfriend, David, joining in. Not for the first time, she thought how nice David was. He was really good at football as well; he was super-fast.

  Garth Owen was grinning at Megan too. “That was brilliant! You nearly had me there. Come on, let’s have another go, and then we’ll try and get someone else muddy.” He lined up again, and Megan clapped her gloves together determinedly. This time…

  Yes! There was an amazed gasp as Megan launched herself at the ball. There was no way she was missing this one, and besides, she already looked like a swamp monster so she didn’t need to worry about a bit more mud. The ball didn’t have a chance – thirty-eight kilos of determined Megan felled it to the ground with a thump.

  Katie led a victory dance as the girls’ squad went mad. Even Cara Peters, who she normally couldn’t stand, was chanting “Go Meg-an! Go Meg-an!” with the others.

  An hour later, everyone was milling around the school hall. The sports department had put out coffee and biscuits for everyone who’d been watching the session, so most of the squads’ parents were chatting and watching as the players queued up for autographs. Lots of them had brought cameras and were snapping pictures of their sons and daughters with Garth Owen. Mrs Ryan waved across the room at Katie and Megan (now without her second skin of mud) as they stood in line, clutching pictures of him in Spurs kit that they’d downloaded from the net.

  “I can’t believe your photo’s going to be in the paper!” said Katie for about the tenth time.

  “I know! It’s so cool – my dad reckons he’s going to buy about five copies.” Megan grinned all over her face. After her brilliant save, the newspaper photographer had insisted on taking several pictures of her and Garth, with Megan clutching the football and beaming like anything through a mask of mud.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Megan. I bet you broke his camera, with a face like that.”

  Megan’s face fell. However used they were to Max’s evilness, he could still be shockingly horrible. Megan had been flying so high that Max’s mean comment really hurt, and Katie could tell – her freckles were suddenly dark against her white face. Katie rounded on him furiously – how dare he spoil Megan’s big moment?

  “You really are a scumbag! Get lost – you’re just jealous ’cause no one’ll ever want to put a photo of something as disgusting as you in the paper.”

  Max sneered at her, but he obviously couldn’t think of anything to say, and after a few prickly moments he gave them one last smirk and wandered off. Not far, though – he got about three steps and stopped dead. He’d obviously been going to find his dad, but then realized with horror that he was talking to Katie’s mother.

  “What does she want, talking to my dad?” he snarled back at Katie.

  Katie’s face was a mask of contempt as she replied, “How should I know? What does he want talking to her? Why don’t you both just get lost!” She practically spat the last two words, and Max took a step back – she looked so angry.

  He recovered quickly though: “I bet she’s having a go at him about me – have you been whining to Mummy again?” Max had deliberately injured Katie’s leg in a match the previous term, and Mrs Ryan had phoned up his dad to complain.

  “As if! I don’t need anybody’s help to deal with you. I never wanted her to phone your dad in the first place.” Katie folded her arms and glared and Max glared back. It was a stand-off, and it only ended because Katie and Megan had, without even noticing, got to the front of the autograph queue. Max was dismissed without another thought as they hurled eager questions at Garth Owen.

  Once they’d got their photos signed, and had to reluctantly let the next people in the line have their turn, Katie and Megan wandered off in search of their parents.

  “You know,” said Megan thoughtfully, “I don’t think your mum was having a go at Max’s dad earlier.”

  “No?” Katie didn’t sound that interested. She was sick to death of Max, and his dad.

  “No. She looked as though they were just – chatting. She was smiling at him.”

  Katie looked sharply at her. “What do you mean?”

  “They looked as though they were friends, I suppose.”

  “No way!” Katie laughed. “Sorry, Megan, but that’s silly – this is the first time they’ve spoken to each other. Anyway how could my mum be friends with someone who has a son like Max?”

  Megan just shrugged. Katie headed over to her mum, now chatting to Megan’s parents. She couldn’t help looking at Mum carefully, even though she’d laughed off Megan’s silly idea. Had she been making friends with Max’s dad? Why? And why couldn’t Katie get the horrible image of the two of them smiling at each other out of her head?

  Chapter Two

  Once she got home, Katie discovered that however much she’d laughed at Megan about her mum and Mr Cooper being friendly – or more than friendly – the thought just wouldn’t go away. It was stupid – wasn’t it? They’d just been talking, like parents did at these things. It didn’t mean anything. Still, she found as she wandered up the stairs to change that she very much wanted to talk to Becky and Bel about this. She needed someone to tell her, very firmly, that of course it was totally mad, and preferably laugh themselves silly at the same time.

  Unfortunately, she’d forgotten that both her sisters had their own plans that morning. Becky was meeting up with David after the football session so they could go into town and look at Valentine’s Day presents for each other. Katie was surprised at herself for forgetting – she and Bel had spent enough time teasing Becky about how she and David were so couply and sad that they were practically married. But Katie had a feeling that Bel wouldn’t have minded someone to be like that with. She shuddered. Maybe when she was a bit older she’d want to go out with someone, but the idea of spending a perfectly good Saturday looking at pink teddy bears was truly awful.

  Bel had gone to Saima’s to try out some fantastic new make-up tricks that one of their magazines had come up with. Katie had a strong suspicion that she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference when Bel came back flaunting her new look, but she supposed it would be cruel not to pretend a bit. She flung herself down on her bed crossly. Both her sisters seemed to be obsessed with boys at the moment. Becky never seemed to move without David following her like some kind of … some kind of … puppy (Katie had the grace to feel guilty for thinking this: David was really nice, even if she wished he wasn’t around quite so much), and Bel was spending the whole time obsessing about how she looked, and whether she was pretty enough for Josh Matthews to notice or not. He’d been Prince Charming to her Cinderella in the school play, and he’d had to kiss her in front of about two hundred people. Unfortunately, he wasn’t showing any signs of doing it again. And now that Valentine’s Day was getting close, the whole thing seemed to have moved up a gear.

  Katie rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, her arms behind her head. She felt wrong. It was Becky that normally worried herself silly about stuff like this, and Bel was the one who claimed to know everything there was to know about relationships, so why was it her, Katie, trying to work out what was going on between her mum and Max’s dad? She stood up suddenly, and shook herself, her long ponytail swinging. There was no point bothering herself about it – because it was not happening. Megan was wrong, ful
l stop. So what if they’d been chatting and smiling? Mum was nice, and polite, and she felt really sorry for Max and his dad, she’d said so. That was all.

  By the time Bel and Becky got home Katie had calmed down a bit. Besides, she was so determined that Megan had to be wrong that she decided not to even mention it to her sisters.

  As she’d thought, Bel didn’t look all that different, just a bit surprised somehow. Katie looked at her sister curiously. “What have you done to your face? It looks – different…”

  Annabel gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve got dots of white eyeliner at the corners of my eyes – look.” She loomed over Katie, who was curled up on the sofa, and opened her eyes scarily wide.

  Katie recoiled. “Um, yes. Why? You just look kind of surprised.”

  Annabel’s showing-off-eyeliner face mutated into a glare. “I do not! My eyes are like melting pools! The magazine said so!”

  That brought Katie out of her edgy mood. She laughed.

  “What?” Annabel asked indignantly. “What’s so funny? Has it smudged?” She ran to the mirror to check.

  “Melting pools!” Katie sniggered.

  “Oh, shut up,” her sister said disgustedly. “You don’t understand anything.”

  “I do,” said Katie. “I’m sure Josh will love it.”

  Over by the mirror, Annabel scowled at her perfectly made-up face. She really wasn’t sure what was going on with Josh. He smiled and said hello when they met each other in the corridor, but he never made an effort to talk to her on purpose, and she was wondering whether to give up. She certainly wasn’t going to throw herself at him – that would be way too embarrassing. Annabel was used to being the one that boys made fools of themselves over, and she found fancying somebody who didn’t seem to fancy her back a bit weird.

  Becky walked in just then and gave Annabel a horrified stare. “What have you done to your face?” she gasped in a really shocked voice.