liked a game, and he had put down his name and been picked. Shuggie was at centre forward for the first team, Aleck at outside right. The jerseys were all the one size so Aleck’s was too big for him, the sleeves coming down over his hands, and Shuggie’s was a bit tight, the cuffs stopping short of his big bony wrists. They laughed at each other. Aleck pranced up and down like a male model and Shuggie threw the ball after him, both performing for the girls watching as well as for each other.
At last they were ready, the coin tossed for choice of ends, everybody more or less in their positions. At the centre, Shuggie rubbed his hands together, flexed his legs, jumped up and down on the spot. Then he hunched over the ball, ready, and at the first blast of Mrs Stone’s whistle, he kicked off and the game began.
They played half an hour each way, stopping for five minutes at half time. The frozen bone-hard pitch was rutted and uneven, the grass rough and sparse, and the ball difficult to control, especially for the bigger, heavier defence of the second team, who floundered and grew more shaky and haphazard as the game went on. The other team were generally more nimble, surer on their feet, and in the end they won easily by six goals to two, Shuggie scoring three. At the final whistle they leapt in the air, threw up their arms, rushed to hug and slap each other on the back. It didn’t matter that it was just a stupid trial. They had won. They were entitled to strut and parade in their glorious red and white.
Mrs Stone had to go then. That was why the game hadn’t been a full ninety minutes. But most of the boys decided to stay and play on.
‘Wonderful game boys!’ said Mrs Stone. ‘Wonderful! I’ll be seeing you all on Monday morning then. And don’t forget to bring back the jerseys.’
They watched her go. Some of the girls went with her, but a few stayed, to go on watching, a giggling huddle on the touch-line. They re-shuffled the teams, to make things a bit more even. Four of the boys had gone so they were down to nine-a-side.
They had been playing about twenty minutes when the ball broke to Aleck just on the half-way line. He moved infield and pushed it through the middle. Shuggie ran on to the pass. He shuffled past a defender and he was clear, moving on towards goal, but Les had moved back to cover. As he came in to tackle, Shuggie dummied to the left, expecting Les to follow, then swerved to the right again with the ball. This should have left Les stranded and off balance, but he was slow and instead of following Shuggie’s feint, he lunged forwards clumsily, missing the ball, catching Shuggie below the knee with a heavy tackety boot. Carried forward by their own momentum they collided, crashing together and falling to the ground.
Shuggie was up first, hobbling, gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, easing it by spitting out a steady rhythmic barrage at Les.
‘Gan ya durty fuckin black enamel bastard ye!’
Les was just getting to his feet when Shuggie threw the first punch, catching him on the jaw and laying him out again. Then Les was up and they were swinging at each other. A few of the other boys tried to break it up and pull them apart. The girls were shrieking with delighted horror. The ball had rolled a few yards away and lay where it came to rest, unnoticed and forgotten.
On Monday morning some of the girls had been talking to Mrs Stone. She was looking grim and righteous as she sent Aleck next door to fetch the boys from the other class who had played in the trial.
‘And tell those who have jerseys to bring them,’ she said. The others had been called out to the floor in front of her desk, without explanation. They waited, shuffling, awkward. She went on with some corrections. When Aleck came back with the rest she put down her pen and looked at them.
Then she began. She was horrified. The girls had told her about the scuffle, about the amount of swearing that had gone on.
‘And I was disgusted,’ she said. ‘It seems I just can’t turn my back on you for a minute but you’re behaving like the lowest of animals. You’ve really disappointed me boys. If that’s a sample of your behaviour then you just can’t be trusted. And I’m certainly not willing to make any effort for a bunch of hooligans who are just going to disgrace me. So that’s it boys. No more football, and you’ve only yourselves to blame.’ She brought out the cardboard box and laid it down in front of her desk.
‘Those of you who have jerseys,’ she went on, ‘put them back in the box. The boys from next door, go back to your class. The rest of you sit down and get out your arithmetic jotters. Hugh and Leslie, stay where you are. I hear you were the worst offenders.’ She reached into the desk for her belt.
‘Actually brawling!’ she said. ‘Just think yourselves lucky I don’t send you to the headmaster. Right Leslie, you first. Cross your hands.’ She belted them both twice. She sent Les back to his seat and told Shuggie to pick up the box of jerseys.
‘You will take these jerseys,’ she said, ‘and put them back where you found them, and I will hear no more about football from any of you.’
They were numbed. She had pronounced sentence, and they knew that it was final.
‘Right!’ she said, turning to the class. ‘Arithmetic.’
Gypsy’s Touch was a sadistic kind of tig-game that had been dreamed up by Shuggie. Somebody would accidentally or deliberately brush against Les or another gypsy, and jump back as if contaminated. The aim of the game then was to transfer the infection, by touch, to somebody else who would try to pass it on again.
Now that they all blamed Les for the collapse of their dreams of having a football team, the game was more popular.
Shuggie jostled Les in the dinner-hall queue and recoiled.
‘Gypsy’s Touch!’ he gasped out, clutching his hand to his throat, then poking somebody else and beginning the game. The queue broke up in disorder as they chased and ran, ducked and climbed, desperate to avoid the Touch.
‘D’ye know whit happens when ye get Gypsy’s Touch?’ shouted Shuggie.
They delighted in trying to imagine.
‘Ye turn intae a gypsy an they come an take ye away!’
‘Ye go aff yer heid an kill yer maw an da!’
‘Ye get covered in plooks!’
‘Yer skin turns green!’
‘Ye get scabies!’
‘Warts!’
‘Worms!’
‘Nits!’
‘Boils!’
‘Dysentery!’
‘Leprosy!’
‘Black Death!’
‘THE DREADED LERGY!’
And at this last, the ultimate affliction, they all joined in a strangled cry and gave up trying to better each other, because no more could be added. There could be nothing worse than the Lergy. It included all the rest, and more.
And all Les could do was turn away from them, and try to let none of it touch him, for the playground was their territory, and no place for him to get into another fight.
On Friday night Shuggie and Aleck set out early for the shows. On their way down
