The Great Gold Robbery (20 page)

Nilly felt his head boiling. No one—
no one!
—was allowed to talk about Lisa that way! Or any of his other friends! Not even Eva, who actually
was
his sister!
Nilly’s first thought was that he should ram Ibranaldovez in the chest, but the problem was that he only came up to the man’s knees.

So he kicked Ibranaldovez instead. On the butt. It just sort of happened.

Thunk!

A whistling noise ran through the crowd as they watched the best soccer player in the world soaring through the air, flying over the field and up into the stands. And a groan as he landed in the
VIP section.

“Ibranaldovez just landed right in Maximus Rublov’s lap!” a radio reporter screamed into his microphone.

“The ref is giving the double-scoring Beckadona Hamarooney Sherl a red card!” a TV reporter howled.

“I’m sorry,” Nilly said, flopping down onto the bench next to Krillo, Doctor Proctor, and Lisa. For once he looked truly crushed.

“It might not make that much difference,” Krillo said. “We’re ahead 2–1, and we’re usually good at defense. This might work!”

“I mean,” Nilly said, “I’m sorry I kicked that idiot. I could have hurt him.”

“I hope you really did!” Krillo said. “Would you tickle the devil! I can see him moving around up there!”

And sure enough, Ibranaldovez was back on the field ten minutes later. He was rubbing one butt cheek a little, but seemed more excited than ever to score a goal.

Two shots that hit the goalposts and three saves in a row later, Krillo looked at the clock and determined there was only one minute left. The Chelchester fans were moaning in despair, pulling
out clumps of hair, and biting their fingernails almost all the way to the second knuckle.

“If we can ward off this corner shot, we win!” Krillo whispered.

The corner shot came in high, in front of the goal. Two players leaped into the air: Rotten Ham’s goalie and Ibranaldovez.

“This is great!” Krillo whispered. “He won’t be able to head the ball higher than our goalie can reach!”

Then, as if he’d been kneed in the stomach, the Rotten Ham goalie grabbed his stomach and doubled over. And another hand rose up over the goalie’s head. A very particular hand.
Ibranaldovez’s hand. And it
hit
the ball.

Whoosh!

“Goal!” the Chelchester fans screamed.

“Handball!” the Rotten Ham fans screamed.

“A particular hand!” Maximus Rublov screamed.

“Volleyball!” Krillo screamed.

“Goal,” the referee said, and pointed to the middle line.

Ibranaldovez ran victoriously toward the stands, stopping in front of the Rotten Ham bench to lean over to Nilly and whisper triumphantly, “That didn’t hurt at all, so
there!”

Our friends and Krillo sat staring straight ahead, stunned, as the referee let Rotten Ham take the kickoff before blowing his whistle to end the game.

2–2.

“What now?” Lisa asked.

“Extra time,” Krillo said. “And you need to go warm up.”

“Me?” Lisa asked.

“You’re our only substitute,” Krillo said, nodding toward the goal where their goalie was lying on the ground, clutching his stomach as he was helped onto a stretcher.

Lisa gulped. She was about to get exactly what she’d asked for: to have the whole world watching her.

“I DON’T WANT to go out there and—and—make a fool of myself in front of the whole world!” Lisa said. She kicked at the grass in irritation and
looked up at the sold-out stands and all the TV cameras. “If my feet were small enough to fit into that boot, maybe then there would be some point to my playing.”

“I know,” Doctor Proctor said, watching the referee walk toward the center circle to start the extra time. “But we have to try whatever we can to win this game! If
there’s no winner, there’ll be a rematch next Saturday, and that’ll be too late.”

“Please, Lisa!” Nilly said. “At least you don’t have to stand in the goal.” He pointed to the goal, where Nero Longhands was standing, wearing gloves and the
goalie’s jersey.

Nero had never been goalie before, but since no one else on the Rotten Ham team had either, Krillo had done a quick eeny-meeny-miny-moe-holy-moley-pick-a-goalie. And Nero had lost.

The referee started the game again by blowing his whistle. Lisa was playing left back. Krillo had said she should try to get in the way of the guys in the blue as much as she could and that they
didn’t really expect anything else from her.

But every once in a while it’s funny how fate can step in and put a person in just the right place in this world, a place no one had the slightest idea they truly belonged. And I’m
not talking about Lisa now. The few times Lisa got anywhere near the ball, she was pretty much running the wrong way, looking the wrong way, or not really understanding how a ball rolls, bounces,
and sort of generally behaves.

I’m talking about Nero Longhands.

“Did you see that save?!” the radio reporter screamed to the sideline commentator after Ibranaldovez headed the ball right toward the very bottom corner of the goal. But in one tiger
leap, Nero was there, stretching out one of those unbelievably long arms of his to put his hand between the ball and the ground and then hammering it
over
the crossbar. “Gordon, I
haven’t seen anything like this since—since—”

“Get Longhands on the national team NOW!” the TV reporter howled as Nero saved a super-hard shot with ease. And the Chelchester fans kept groaning, pulling out their hair, and
chomping on their fingernails as Nero caught, saved, and wiped his hands. And even here, before you know the outcome of this match, I will give you the good news. Because the good news is that Nero
Longhands had a long and prestigious career as the national team’s goalkeeper. The not-quite-so-good news, well, the downright bad news, was that this game was almost over and there was
no
sign that Rotten Ham was going to cross the midline and approach Chelchester’s goal.

“We have to do something!” Doctor Proctor cried in desperation. “There’s only a minute and a half left in the game!”

“I hate clocks,” Nilly mumbled.

Just then the ball rolled toward Lisa, who was standing way over by the sideline in front of the bench. It stopped right in front of her feet, and she stared down at it.

“Come on, Lisa!” Nilly yelled from the bench. “Get going! Do a Cruyff Turn, a camel feint, a nutmeg, then a bicycle kick! It’s not
that
hard!”

“It’s not?” Lisa said, cautiously raising her foot. She didn’t get any farther than that, because Ibranaldovez came flying through the air, cleats first, right then. His
cleats hit both Lisa and the ball, causing them both to fly off the field and hit the ads with a sickening crash.

“Red card!” Krillo screamed angrily, leaping up off the bench. “Life-long imprisonment! Electric chair!”

But the referee just gave them a free kick.

Lisa opened her eyes and looked up to see three Nillys and three Doctor Proctors all looking down at her, seeming very concerned.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” Nilly asked.

“Only all over,” Lisa said. “And could you please stop being in triplicate?”

“You just hit your head a little,” Doctor Proctor said. “Lie still, Lisa, I’ll go get—”

“Lie still?” Lisa said, irritatedly kicking away the advertising banner, which was half covering her, and getting up. “We have a game to win!” Then she passed out and
fell right back down on her butt again.

“Lie still, you have a concussion, and it’s too late to do anything about the game anyway. Here, drink a little water,” Doctor Proctor said.

But instead of taking the bottle, Lisa furrowed her brow in concentration.

“We have to take that trophy home with us
today
,” she said.

“She didn’t just hit her head a
little
bit,” Nilly muttered.

“That free kick, it’s ours, right?” Lisa asked.

“Yes, but my dear Lisa, even if I had a wood-chopping shoe that fit you, it’s quite a ways down
our
half of the field.”

Lisa got up. “Do you remember what you packed as we were leaving home?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Give me the bag of the stuff that I foolishly didn’t want you to bring.”

“You mean . . . ,” Doctor Proctor began.

“She means . . . ,” Nilly said.

“Hurry!” Lisa moaned.

Doctor Proctor ran back to the bench, opened the suitcase, found the bag, and brought it to Lisa, who resolutely opened it and poured the contents into her mouth. Nilly licked the bag to make
sure all the powder was gone. Then Lisa marched over to Krillo.

“I want to take that free kick,” she said.

Krillo sighed and shrugged. “All righty. It’ll be the last kick anyway. The referee is just blowing his whistle now.”

“HELLO!” THE RADIO reporter said. “It looks like Rotten Ham is planning to let that little girl take the last kick in what has been a dramatic final game.
She’s taking position. With her back to the ball, actually. Is she planning on wrapping this up with a heel kick? Well, why not?”

LISA LOOKED UP at the stands. Saw all those faces staring at her. She wasn’t the least bit nervous anymore. Her only thought was that she didn’t care if it seemed
impossible, because she
could
do this! Because she was Lisa, the one and only Lisa. She felt a bubbling in her stomach. She knew it would come soon, and she started counting down: six,
five, four . . .

She saw the referee raise the whistle to his lips, and she bent over all the way so her butt was pointing right at the ball. She remembered what Nilly had explained, that if her butt was
pointing down toward the ground too much, she would launch herself into the air, like a fartonaut.

Two, one . . .

Then it came. The explosion. The one that comes after you swallow a whole bag of Doctor Proctor’s fartonaut powder.

The radio reporter screamed, “It almost looked like her heel didn’t make contact with the ball at all, and yet the ball is flying off like a projectile!”

“But it’s heading straight for Chelchester’s goal, so the goalie is bound to catch it,” his co-commentator said. “There, he caught it.”

“But look, Gordon! There was so much force to the kick that the ball’s taking the goalie with it. . . . Wow! All the way
into
the goal and . . . the whole net is
ripping!”

“That’s the worst I’ve seen!”

“That’s the best I’ve seen, Gordon!”

“But that’s a goal! 3–2 Rotten Ham!”

“And there! The referee blew his whistle. The game is over!”

“Rotten Ham ’n’ Potatoes has won it, Gordon!”

“Lisa!” Nilly howled, leaping up and down.

“Best in the world! Lisa!” Doctor Proctor cheered.

“Ockolmes!” Krillo roared, running out onto the field just as fast as his fisherman’s boots could carry him.

“Toes, my Toes!” sang Tony and the other fans dressed in white over in the corner.

And then for a while they all ran around hugging and telling each other that it was really true: They’d won the World Cup at Wobbley Stadium!

And after Nero Longhands and the other players on the team had gone up to the queen and picked up their awards, they carried Lisa around the stadium on their shoulders while she held up the big
trophy.

“Carry me to the locker room,” she commanded, clutching the trophy.

And when they were in the middle of the players’ tunnel, right as they passed the spot where Nilly was standing with an innocent smile and an open suitcase, someone—probably a guy in
swim goggles—turned off the lights so it went dark.

There was screaming and yowling and tumult, but when the lights came on again a moment later, Lisa was still sitting up on her teammates’ shoulders. And the trophy she was holding was so
identical to the one she’d been holding a few seconds earlier that it didn’t occur to anyone that it might be a different trophy.

And while the players were drinking champagne and celebrating in the locker room, a black London cab was flooring it to the airport. And the cab contained a driver, three happy people
we’re very familiar with, and a suitcase containing a gleaming World Cup trophy with a ribbon around it.