Billy Blake spent his time on the playground stood by a hedge. Pulling leaves off it. Every day. Every minute of break time. He was content. It gave him time to think. Time to map out his plan. To become a doctor, and an engineer, and a chef and one of those people who drives cranes. What are they called? Crane driver? Probably. He thought. Daily. Eventually he’d pull off enough leaves to form a discrete hole that he could slip out of at breaktime. The world would be his playground. He could go wherever he’d like. It meant nothing to Billy that the hedge backed onto a solid brick wall.
This lunchtime however, Billy looked upon the concrete football pitch and its faded markings with curiosity. The stampede of the other boys from 6B would pelt it every Wednesday. Chasing a ball as it hit the back of each scraggily net pendulously. 8, 9, 10 and on one occasion 22 times. At least 5 legs each match would grate against the course ground. Blistering English wind would tear at their hands and faces. At the end of it all they’d tread back to class. Bruised, bloodied, frustrated, and drenched in icy sweat. And yet, religiously, they’d come back next Wednesday like a horde of puppies bounding after a stray meatball.
For an impartial observer like Billy, it seemed like an ordeal. And yet he wanted in. Passion, camaraderie, triumph. These were all words that Billy didn’t know. But if he did, he’d know why he was so drawn to the beautiful game in that moment. Billy couldn’t understand why he was never invited to join. And by that logic, he felt there was no reason why he shouldn’t.
Billy stuffed the wodge of leaves he’d torn off the hedge into his pocket. For reasons not even known to himself. With the curly pyramid of orange hair atop his head bobbing with each step, he trotted across the playground and into the centre circle.
The game had been in full swing before Billy entrenched himself precisely in the middle of the pitch. Legs two shoulder widths apart like a bipod in an oversized, blue puffer jacket. Play came to an abrupt stop from the sheer force of indignation coming from the players. How dare Billy be so entitled as to think he was allowed the company of people!?
“What are you doing Billy!?” Whined the largest, reddest-in-the-face child.
“Wha’? I’m playing football.” Retorted Billy. Shocked that that fact wasn’t obvious.
“We don’t like you!” Cried one of the smaller children. Billy was used to hearing this. And had prepared for it. Billy was about to throw down a hand of five aces on these mere mortals.
“I’ll tell Miss.” That morning’s assembly and its stern message on inclusiveness had not been lost on Billy. It was at that, that the other boys relented and permitted him entry to the game. They knew they’d all feel the heavy hand of lunchtime monitor justice crash down on their heads. Billy couldn’t win them over with charm, but he had legislation on his side.
Play reluctantly resumed. The dirty sponge ball being hoofed from end to end. They weren’t allowed to play with a proper leather one ever since Nico’s mum complained to the school about an alleged broken nose. A free kick had fallen just short of clearing the heads of the boys in the wall and knocked poor Nico off his feet. For the most part, an empty circle formed around Billy, roughly equal in diameter to the distance that the smell of Wotsits emanated from him.
For 15 minutes, an eternity to an 11-year-old, Billy stood in the middle of the pitch, attempting to call for a pass by leaving one arm stuck in the air. But it was as if the other players saw through him. This did not deter Billy however. He’d arrived with a second plan. All it required was patience. The right moment would come.
Billy always felt as if he was smarter than the other children. Not in terms of academics, or wit, or street-smarts or common sense. But he had a knack for spotting the obvious. The obvious that, for some reason, everyone else seemed to miss. Like how he could eat his lunch a lot quicker than his fellow students if he squished his ham sandwiches into a ball and chew threw them in one go. This hadn’t sparked the culinary renaissance he was expecting. It was just met with looks of disgust. A genius unrecognised in his time.
The way the other boys played football seemed absurd. Ricocheting the ball aimlessly around the pitch. Chasing it as it constantly bounced out of play, celebrating when it finally bounced across the goal line almost entirely by chance. Billy was about to turn the game on its head. A poor clearance from someone who, for that moment at least, played the part of a defender, saw the ball roll to Billy’s feet.
Now was his chance to revolutionise sport. He folded forward, almost completely in half, and in one motion scooped up the ball, clutched it tight to his chest, and turned towards the opposition’s goal. He took care to do this entirely with his forearms never touching the ball with his hands. He ran, leaves flying out of his pockets. When Billy ran, he looked as if he was riding an invisible bicycle. No one tried to stop him. Even if they did, there was nothing they could do within the rules of the game to free the ball. The other players stood by, perhaps in awe at Billy’s ingenuity. Marvelling at the revelation of the hand ball loophole he was now exploiting.
Billy ran to the opposition goalmouth and dropped the ball over the line with a flourish. He turned to celebrate, pumping both fists in the air. But to his surprise, no one joined him. There were no cheers, claps, or bows. Just a crowded pitch of angry faces. The stunned silence was met with cries of several words. ‘Billy!’, ‘hand ball!’ and ‘idiot!’ along with allegations that he didn’t know how to play the game.
He couldn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Why was he not met with admiration and elation at scoring? He protested the charges of hand ball. He’d not touched the ball with his hands after all. Wanting to assert that he was well aware of how to play the game, he claimed “That’s how they play it in Japan! I was on a team when I lived there!”. Billy had never been to Japan. He didn’t know where Japan was. Or really what it was. And he didn’t know why he felt the need to lie.
He had a tendency to make things up. Often things that were immediately verifiable as false or involved him making promises he couldn’t possibly deliver on. Just yesterday, he’d claimed one of his many uncles was in the process of buying the school and was going to make Billy the swimming teacher. The school did not have a pool.
Defeated, Billy left the game. There was nothing more for him to do if these simpletons weren’t willing to accept his bold new ways of doing things. He trotted off back over the playground, disturbing a game of bulldog and several conversations as he did. Blissfully unaware of the concept of personal space. He stood by his favoured hedge once again.
A lunchtime monitor looked on at Billy with sympathy. It seemed tragic to her. A misunderstood child excluded by his peers, left alone. But she needn’t have worried. Billy may have felt alone, but he was far happier spending his time outside pulling leaves off the hedge.
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