Trouble

We're so proud of you

City had had a lot of games recently and Maisie was really pleased with how she'd been playing. She was feeling good about her performances and was once more loving her football. Harriet had kept well away from Maisie and everything had been put behind them. They were never going to be best friends but that didn't matter; they weren't constantly going at each other so that was all that was important.

Maisie's boxing class was a lot of fun and if she had some free time, she'd ask Lucy to take her for an extra session.

"Luce?"

"Yeah?" Lucy replied, looking up from her phone.

"Can we go and do some boxing after school?"

"Of course we can," Lucy said. She loved Maisie's enthusiasm for it and it was clearly teaching her some good discipline.

As soon as Maisie got home, she ran upstairs and got straight into the stuff she needed for boxing. She'd had her class the previous evening and the guy who ran it had told her how pleased he was with her progress.

Keira and Lucy arrived home from training and were greeted with an extremely excited Maisie.

"Can we go now?" she asked.

"I'm just going to have a coffee and then we can go."

The time seemed to drag and Maisie was practically tearing her hair out at how slow Lucy was moving. After what felt like forever, they were off, waving goodbye to Keira.

The gym was pretty empty and after a skipping warm up, they began.

Maisie's hits had got more powerful and Lucy could feel them even more through the pads.

They did all sorts of exercises, Maisie completely focused on what she needed to do.

"Good girl," Lucy said as the teenager managed to complete the drill first time just from listening to what she was told. This was never something she was able to do so to get it that quickly was incredible.

After about an hour and a half some other people were coming in to do a class so they had to leave. Maisie was gutted as she felt like she could've kept it up all night.

They drove back, both of them pleased with the session.

"I'm very proud of you, you know?" Lucy said, "You're trying so hard with this boxing thing and it's really paying off."

"Thanks," Maisie said, a smile bursting onto her face.

They pulled up at home and Maisie went to run and have a shower.

"Mais can you come here for a sec?" Keira called through. She did so, wondering what it could be about.

"Whatever it is I didn't do it," she said, wanting to defend any misdemeanours she might've committed.

"You're not in trouble. Come and look at this."

"What is it?" Maisie asked as she moved to read what was on Keira's laptop.

She scanned the thing and her eyes widened.

"Oh my god," she said under her breath, "Oh my god."

She'd got a call up for the England U15s. She felt so happy and excited and she could barely stop herself from screaming with joy.

"Oh my days this is so cool," she squealed. She turned back and saw the proud looks on both Keira and Lucy's faces.

"We're so proud of you," Keira said, pulling her into a tight hug. Lucy joined the hug and the three of them stood celebrating.