Page 8 - Story Book_Neat

run, the hens sqwarked with delight. At least that was what the gang thought
they were doing. Meanwhile Annabel received the ball from James after each
shot and passed back to one of the shooters. It was Ellie and Jackson’s job to

block the passes. To start with, Ellie asked that Annabel didn’t hit the ball quite
so hard as it frightened her. But as the days passed, everyone improved and
knew what they had to do.

The day of the tournament arrived and the team proudly turned up at the pitch in
their colourful jerseys. They walked over to the stewards’ tent where Mrs

Tanner was explaining who was to play whom.

“Annabel’s team will play Nobby Ditchwater’s team at 3 pm.”, she said.

“Oh no, Nobby is very good and very horrible”, said Annabel. “We will have to
be at our best to beat them.”

At 3 o’clock the two teams were called to the pitch. Annabel lost the toss and
Nobby chose to push back. Miss Jones and Mr Brown were the umpires and

Miss Jones blew her whistle for the match to start. Nobby pushed the ball bank
to Frank Gubbins who tentatively moved the ball forward towards a charging
Harry. Quickly he flicked the ball to Toby Hardbottle who raced forward with
the ball and then hit it on to Nobby. Annabel raced towards Nobby but he
dribbled the ball past her and raced on towards the goal area. James was getting
a bit nervous at the site of horrible Nobby dribbling at speed in his direction.
Ellie realised that she had to do something as Nobby was on her side of the

pitch. She put on her fiercest face and charged towards Nobby and swung her
stick as hard as she could at Nobby’s stick that seemed attached to the ball.
Nobby yelped as the sticks met, the ball flew back down the pitch in the
direction of Amelia. Nobby, meanwhile, was so terrified by Ellie that he ran off
the pitch screaming “Mum, that girl scares me”. Amelia stormed down the

pitch and flicked the ball to Harry and he gave the ball the biggest hit ever and it
went straight into the goal leaving the goalie trembling at the ferocity of Harry’s
shot.

The whistle went and Miss Jones leaft the pitch to ask Nobby to come back on.
Annabel called the team together. “That’s the spirit team. Be fearless. Let’s
see your fiercest faces Amelia and Jackson”, said Annabel. Jackson pulled a

seriously scary face and everyone agreed that that should terrify the other team.

The match started again and this time Hugo Everywhere set off down the pitch,
heading straight for Annabel and Jackson. He didn’t get far as Jackson charged
at him, hitting the ball straight to Annabel. She edged forward expecting Nobby
to try something but he just watched until Annabel hit the ball down to Amelia