Plan B

Chapter Fifty-three

Saturday morning, for once, did not herald rain. It was bitterly cold outside, and the heating had broken down, so it was bitterly cold inside most of the school buildings too. Fran shivered her way through History, French and Maths with Mathilda, whose fountain pen ink had frozen, and they were both extremely glad to be among the first into the cafeteria for a nice, hot meal.

"Are you going to be watching the rugby today?" Fran asked Mathilda as the girl set down her book on post-modernist philosophy and dug into the steaming stew.

Mathilda shook her head and wolfed down an enormous lump of beef. "Can't. I have a taekwondo competition today, so I have to leave once lunch is over."

"Bummer."

"It's worth seeing, though," Mathilda assured her. "I mean, this is the local schools competition, and we play our rivals. They beat us hollow last year, so the matches against them should be great. Our teams will be out for revenge."

A boisterous atmosphere reigned in the boarding house when Fran got back there. Even Brookie, who wasn't filming that day, was in school colours, although he hadn't been able to train with a team very often, so he was subbing for the seconds. Arthur, Piers, Rico and the twins were in a huddle in the common room, chanting to psych themselves up.

"Okay, okay!" exclaimed Bernard after one of their cheers had taken him so much by surprise that he'd spilt coffee all over himself. "Enough of Darkwood, Dark Horse! I'm burnt, here!"

Piers' head appeared out of the huddle. "Go get changed!" he barked. "The match is on in an hour."

"Exactly," said Bernard, "one hour."

Fran chuckled as he headed out of the common room, muttering to himself.

Piers spied her as the next target. "You're coming to watch, aren't you?"

"Since you say it like I have no choice, yes."

The boys broke out of their huddle.

"Fabulous," said Piers. "Let's go down and cheer on the under fifteens."

In less than half a second, the entire year group had piled out of the common room door. Fran blinked.

Concluding that they hadn't teleported, she returned to her room to dig her black coat out of the cupboard. She had no objection to going and watching the under fifteens, but there was no way she was going to let herself get totally frozen in the process, especially since she wanted to watch Rico and Brookie play.

It was a fifteen-minute walk down to the pitches, and by the time she got there, Fran was certain her cheeks had gone blue. She stood on the sideline with the upper sixth, trying to work out what was going on in the game and watching her breath condense on the air.

Eventually, after the referee had blown the whistle yet again for a foul that Fran wasn't aware had happened, she tugged on Piers' rugby shirt.

"Why was that a foul?" she asked.

"The fly-half was offside when he tackled," Piers explained distractedly before bellowing: "Go for a break down the wing! They have no defence there!"

"Fly-half?"

"Number ten. Most influential player on the pitch. Ferdy usually knows better than to tackle from offside." He squinted at the players on the pitch, just in time to see Ferdy intercept a pass and send the ball smoothly out to the right wing.

"Yes! Yes!" yelled Piers as the boy with number fourteen on his back broke through the defence line. Number Fourteen dummied spectacularly around the full back and hared over the try line before slowing to a jog and coming round to plonk the ball down directly between the rugby posts.