Ah, Crystal Chronicles... set back in the days when you had to make your own entertainment.
Belstone United
The Belstone caravan were enjoying the few weeks of peace and quiet they were due before they set off on yet another year-long quest for myrrh. Being a caravanner was both a physically and mentally demanding job. Kronan the Lilty abused this excuse as much as possible during his time off by spending approximately twenty hours per day in bed.
It was therefore extremely irritating for Kronan that, at precisely nine-twenty-three in the morning of his second day off, there was a storm of knocking on his front door. Kronan staggered downstairs to open it, revealing all three of his fellow caravanners standing on his doorstep. Tag and Sam looked positively gleeful, while Esther resembled a thundercloud.
Without so much as a word, Sam thrust a large orange orb in the Lilty's face.
"What is this?" Kronan asked blankly.
"It's a magicite," explained Sam Teh, looking puzzled. "You know, those things you use to cast spells?"
"I know what that is," the Lilty replied testily. "I want to know why you woke me up before midday to show it to me."
Tag was grinning. "Listen up, Kro, Sam and me just invented the best game ever. We were all walking past the alchemists' house - "
"Before midday?" Kronan expression was a masterpiece of pained disbelief. Tag continued as if he hadn't noticed.
" - and that little Yuke kid who lives there came running outside with this huuuge magicite and asked if we wanted to play with it. So I took the magicite and started kicking it about."
"Then I bet him ten gil he couldn't get it between the two trees in the rancher's garden," Sam explained.
"As I'm sure you will appreciate, Kronan, I will do anything for ten gil," Tag said, "so I had a go and kicked it over the wall and between the trees."
"And broke the rancher's window," muttered Esther.
"It didn't matter, he thought it was you."
"Exactly!"
"Anyway," Sam interjected, seeing Kronan was getting ready to slam the door on Tag's fingers, "after we ran away from the rancher we found two more trees and all had a go at kicking the magicite through it like it was a ball and it was really fun, so we thought maybe we should come and get you so you could play too. We called it football."
Kronan looked slowly round at their circle of faces as if expecting some kind of punchline. When none came, he said flatly, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard."
"So... you don't want to play?" Sam asked, looking disappointed.
Tag only just got his fingers out of the doorframe in time.
After an equal mix of coaxing and pleading, Kronan finally gave up on sleep and joined his friends in the farmers' orchard.
"So what, we just... take it in turns?" he asked. "There's no fighting? That's stupid."
"It's a game," Esther replied, nonplussed.
Kronan shrugged. "So is chess."
"There's no fighting in chess either."
"There is when I play."
Tag ignored his companions and booted the fire magicite across the orchard. It hit the left-most of the trees he was aiming at and abruptly set it on fire.
"Tag!" Esther exclaimed, but in a rare display of lucidity Sam Teh was already hurling a nearby bucket of rainwater on the flames. Kronan had to wonder if this was inspiration or if the Selkie had already witnessed the scene enough times this morning to learn the appropriate response. The flames went out with a discontented sizzle, leaving the tree singed but otherwise unharmed.
Esther glared at Tag. "I'm not taking the blame for that. We shouldn't play any more, it's too dangerous."
An irrational urge immediately struck Kronan. "I want to play," he said.
"But you just said it was stupid," Sam Teh said. His expression displayed very clearly that he had taken this as a personal insult.
"Yeah, I know, but there's just something about Esther saying we shouldn't do something that makes me want to do it," Kronan said with a shrug. "Also, it set that tree on fire. That's pretty cool."
"Well, if it's going to be dangerous, there should at least be rules," Esther interjected firmly.
All three boys stared at her for a contemplative moment, the burnt-out tree still crackling slightly in the background.
"Rule number one, Esther can't play," Kronan announced suddenly. Esther's mouth dropped open in surprise, but before she could protest Kronan followed up with, "Motion carried?"
Tag and Sam exchanged uneasy glances. Then Kronan kicked Tag, and the Clavat raised his hand with a shrug. Esther looked so betrayed by this that Tag was forced to pretend there was something really interesting in the sky above him to avoid looking at her. Sam Teh's hand got about two inches away from his belt before Esther fixed him with an accusatory stare. It stopped; the Selkie looked apologetic.
"Motion not passed," Esther said triumphantly. "It was a draw."
"Fine." Kronan looked sullen. "Esther can play. But no more rules!"
As was customary for any game the Belstone caravan played that didn't involve weapons, gambling or tormenting other people, it quickly got boring. Even though Esther tried her best to keep her mouth shut, and absolutely no reprimands or rules escaped her, the fact remained that they were simply taking it in turns to kick a ball between two trees. There hadn't even been any more fires.
"Okay, seriously Esther," Kronan said loudly. "You just being here is making it boring."
Tag, feeling like he somehow needed to make up with his fellow Clavat following the whole I voted to leave you out the game debacle, said, "Shut up, Kro. She can't help being bori- I mean," he amended hastily, "it's not her fault."
"Well, she's still here and it's still boring."
"We need to make it harder," Sam suggested brightly.
Kronan beamed at this. "Yeah! Like, er... someone has to stop you getting it between the trees."
Esther scoffed. "Oh come on, who's going to be stupid enough to stand in front of a mental Lilty kicking a Fire magicite?"
Even as she said it, she had an awful feeling. She glanced to her right and sure enough, Sam Teh had his hand in the air. Tag burst out laughing.
"That's not funny!" Esther said, scandalised. It was only too easy to imagine their newest caravanner as a pile of soot. "What will the Elder say if he gets hurt? We'll end up on probation again!"
That shut Tag up. He turned to Kronan and seized his smaller friend's gauntlets, thrusting them at Sam. "Here, put those on."
The gloves were comically oversized on the Selkie; Lilties tended to go for the impressively huge aesthetic when it came to hand armour. Sam Teh looked doubtfully at the cumbersome equipment. "So, what, do I catch the magicite with my hands?"
"Yes," Tag agreed, pleased that the Selkie had grasped the idea so quickly.
"But," Sam said slowly, "I thought the game was called football?"
This complication caused a momentary pause for thought, with each of the players trying to justify this new development. Esther came to a solution first, and smirked triumphantly at Kronan. The Lilty scowled. He was gradually coming to the realisation that he could no more stop Esther making up some rules than he could force the sun to stop coming up in a morning.
"Fine," Kronan groaned. "What did you have in mind?"
"The person standing between the trees," Esther said with maddening superiority, "obviously has a special role that not all the rules apply to. We're all kickers, and we kick the ball into... the goal, and Sam is... a goalkeeper. So he can use his hands to stop the ball too."
"Goalkeeper?" snorted Kronan. "That's a stupid name."
Sam sighed. He just wanted to keep playing. "What would you call it, then?"
"We're ball-kickers and you're a ball-catcher. That's better, right?"
"Whatever, Kro," said Tag, ushering Sam towards the two trees that had now been dubbed the goal. "Okay Sam, just... catch the ball. Or stop it. Just don't let it through. Got it?"
"Okay!" Sam said brightly, raising his gloved hands.
Tag backed up and took a run at the magicite on the grass with a murderous single-mindedness that Esther usually only associated with Kronan. What the heck was wrong with him today? She couldn't watch.
Well, she could. But only through her fingers.
Tag booted the magicite; it took off with a sizzling sound. The giant orange ball arced like a miniature sun towards Sam - whose traditional Selkie garb was suddenly, in Esther's opinion, looking far too much like mostly naked.
There was a metallic thunk, a shout, and a definite thud. Esther shrieked.
When the boys finally managed to persuade her that the thud she had heard was definitely not Sam's charred body hitting the ground, and that she could in fact open her eyes, Esther saw that Sam had actually stopped the ball. Kronan's Lilty gauntlets were good for other things besides protection from monsters, it seemed.
"See?" Sam said, wiggling his fingers with a slight clinking sound, "It worked!"
To prove it, they let her kick the magicite at the goal again - unharmed, Sam caught it and threw it back for Kronan to have a go, and then again for Tag. Tag actually managed to get the magicite past Sam, but that was mostly because he'd run screaming at it and aimed it at Sam's head, forcing the Selkie to duck.
"What?" Tag exclaimed, when Esther stared at him in horror. "I'm not going to aim it at his hands, am I? He'll catch it! How else am I going to win?"
"Win what?" Esther demanded. "There's nothing to win! Who are you even keeping score against?"
"Well, you," ventured Tag after a moment's thought. "And Kronan, I suppose. Unless... we're all playing against Sam? Er."
There was an awkward pause.
"Oh my gods," Kronan groaned. "Esther, just stop ruining it! You're such a big ruiner!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Esther!" a petulant voice yelled, and Esther ceased her argument with Kronan (which in Kronan's eyes meant he'd won by default) to look over to the edge of the orchard. Her little brother Larkin was watching them with suspicious eyes. He'd still not quite forgiven her for the incident with the marlboro seed.
The fact that the marlboro had turned out to be vegetarian, had simply been overenthusiastic about licking his new friend, was now called Carrot, and currently lived in the back yard of their house, apparently, was all irrelevant. Being surrounded by several thousand teeth and a hot, sticky tongue for seven hours will cause even the most well-adjusted kid to nurse a grudge.
"What, Larkin?" Esther yelled back, matching his tone.
"What are you doing?"
"Playing a game," she replied without thinking, and when Larkin's face lit up, she hastily amended, "for grown-ups only!"
Not to be deterred, Larkin straightened up an inch and tried to deepen his voice. "I know what grown-up games are. Dad always gets mad at mum for playing them and hides the strange liquid."
Sensing Tag and Kronan's matching grins, Esther scowled. "Not that kind of game, and anyway, you can't play."
"I'M TELLING MUM YOU BROKE THAT WINDOW!" Larkin bellowed. But, before he could skitter away at breakneck speed, Sam Teh said reasonably, "If Larkin plays, then there's four kickers. So we can have two teams and then we can keep score."
"I knew there was a reason we picked you from the line-up," Kronan said, shaking his head in admiration.
"No," Esther snapped. "Absolutely not. I am not exposing my little brother, no matter how stupid and obnoxious he may be, to potential third degree burns."
Five minutes and one temper tantrum later, Larkin was playing on Esther's team. He turned out to be about a hundred times better at kicking the magicite than his sister was. Esther couldn't quite seem to get the hand of kicking it where Sam wasn't. And anyway, it was heavy.
Larkin scored another goal and did a victory lap of the orchard. He stuck his tongue out as Tag as he passed; the older Clavat was having a particularly bad attack of competitive fever.
"What's the score?" Tag practically screamed at Sam.
The Selkie did some counting on his gloves. "Er. Five goals to seven."
"Hah!" Tag exclaimed triumphantly, frothing at the mouth. Esther was getting seriously worried about him now.
"No, to... to Esther and Larkin."
"What?" yelled Tag. "No way! Kronan, you're terrible! Larkin, come and be on my team, come on!"
"Nope," said Larkin smugly. Esther ruffled his hair.
Tag stomped around the field for a bit, tearing at his own prized locks, then flopped down on the ground and started sobbing about just wanting to win, was that so much to ask.
"What's going on?" another voice asked.
Tag was bolt upright in two seconds flat and trying unsuccessfully to hide behind Sam, because the voice belonged to Sarah Dawn Riverford. Several other things belonged to Sarah Dawn Riverford, including a manic smile, a tendency to twitch when nervous and a mild psychotic streak. Even Sam Teh knew she was... odd, and he was on a slightly parallel path to normality.
"We're playing a game!" Larkin declared, just before the entire Belstone caravan leapt on him in an attempt to shut him up. Alas, they were too late.
"Can I play?" Sarah Dawn Riverford asked.
"NO!" shouted Kronan. When Sarah Dawn Riverford's eyes narrowed, the Lilty did the quickest thinking of his life. "Because... because! Then there would be an odd number of kickers on one team. So it would be unfair."
"Since when do you care about being fair?" Esther hissed in his ear. Larkin was trying to bite the hand she had clapped over his mouth, which was not improving her temper.
"Since it means I don't have to play with Sarah Dawn Riverford!"
"Oh," Sarah Dawn Riverford said, "that makes sense. Well, I suppose I could go find some more people to play! Then we'd have even numbers of kickers, right?"
Everyone turned and glared at Kronan.
"Right," the Lilty said sarcastically. "Great."
Sarah Dawn Riverford came back with four friends. As Sam Teh so helpfully pointed out, that still meant there would be an uneven number of kickers.
"Oh," Sarah Dawn Riverford said brightly. "Well, can't one of them be a ball-catcher like you? Liesel's got her own gauntlets."
"That's stupid," Kronan snorted. "Why would we need two ball-catchers? How would that even work? Do we all just line up and you take it in turns to kick at Sam Teh while we take it in turns to kick at... who're you, again?"
"Liesel," the girl in question said. Esther took a good hard look at the people Sarah Dawn Riverford had brought and alarm bells started clanging.
"She's brought nearly everyone we rejected from the lineup last year," she hissed to Tag and Sam Teh. "Look, that's the Yuke, whatshisface, Reginald, and Liesel is the Lilty girl Kro said couldn't fight, and there's Donny with the really good hair-"
"It's not that good," Tag said automatically, stroking his own locks.
"Who's the last one, then?" Sam Teh asked. They all swivelled surreptitiously to look. Stood by Reginald the Yuke there was a pink-haired Selkie goddess in a swishy skirt and tasteful amounts of eyeliner. Poets would take one look at her and cry because no summer day would ever compare. She sighed in a bored sort of way, and even that was so perfect that if she'd done it against a glass window the condensation would probably have spelled out Better Than You in copperplate font.
"Oh, that's Lala Na," Larkin piped up from around knee height. "She lives next door to us, Esther. Remember?"
"Lala Na?" Esther repeated. "But wasn't she really..." She trailed off helplessly. Several years of being away from home most of the year rather biased your memories of people you knew when you were a kid.
"Fat," Tag filled in succinctly. "Really fat. And short. And kind of spotty."
They all made mental comparisons.
"Hmph," said Esther. She sniffed as well, just in case her disapproval wasn't coming across. Life was so unfair sometimes.
"Look, you don't get to change the rules! Esther makes the rules, the rules are FINE, we don't change them!" Kronan exclaimed loudly, recapturing their attention.
He was still deep in discussion with Sarah Dawn Riverford at the midway point between the two groups; the Clavat girl was gesturing in a way that made Tag wince. Eventually some kind of conclusion was reached. Without another word to each other, both Sarah Dawn Riverford and Kronan spun on their heels and marched back to their respective teams. Esther was so flattered that Kronan had acknowledged her rule-making authority that she graciously decided not to point out his hypocrisy as he came to a halt in front of her.
"What did she say, Kronan?" Sam Teh asked.
"Okay," Kronan began, "how are your passing skills?"
"… passing what?"
The lineup, if viewed from above, would have looked very much like two tiny armies marshalling for war. It had been difficult to find a relatively clear patch of grass with an appropriate pair of goal-trees in the orchard, but they'd managed it (everyone was very politely ignoring the striped apple sapling in the middle of the field). The Belstone caravan and Larkin lined up warily in front of Sam Teh; Sarah Dawn Riverford led her troops out, human shield style, in front of Liesel the Lilty.
Liesel looked rather disappointed that her job was basically to stand still. She had consoled herself with cracking her knuckles aggressively whenever Kronan so much as glanced at her, an impressive feat considering she was wearing gauntlets.
"Okay!" exclaimed Sarah Dawn Riverford in her best cheerful-or-else voice. "So all the ball-kickers can kick the ball to each other, and they have to get it past the other team's ball-catcher. Easy! Are we ready?"
"Hang on a second," Esther said, "Liesel, did you bring your lance?"
"No," said Liesel mutinously. Beside her, the not-a-lance was propped up against the leftmost goal tree and looking very much like, well, a lance.
"Yes you did!" said Esther. "No weapons!"
Liesel scowled. "What's the point then?"
"You know, I said the exact same thing," said Kronan understandingly. "It's actually better than it sounds."
Liesel gave him a dirty look.
"Okay, now that's sorted," trilled Sarah Dawn Riverford through a fixed smile, "Ready? Go!"
The Belstone caravan barely had time to breathe before Donny charged the magicite left lying on the grass. He kicked it hard – it seared past Sam Teh's shoulder. The Selkie blinked, slowly, and turned his head to look at where a tiny flame had sprung up on his furs.
"Yay!" said Sarah Dawn Riverford sweetly. Behind her toothy grin, the shark of vengeance was flashing a fin. "So that's… one point to us, right? We're winning?"
Donny and Reginald high-fived. Due to a slight misjudgement, Donny missed the Yuke's paw and slapped Reginald's sallet instead. The resultant metallic noise sounded very much like ding, ding.
If it hadn't been war before, it was now. There was a seven foot furrow in the dirt where Sarah Dawn Riverford had tackled Kronan; she'd been aiming for Tag but Tag had seen her coming and run the other way. Tag then made up for this when he kicked the magicite ball at Sarah Dawn Riverford instead of the goal (completely by accident, what are you implying Lala Na, rude) and the magicite set her dress on fire. Donny was limping because Larkin had bitten his leg. Esther may or may not have twanged the apple sapling at Reginald as he tried to score. In retaliation, Reginald may or may not have cast a Thunder spell that was making her hair stand on end every time she moved. There had been four fires, three of them on Sam Teh. At some point Liesel had punched... well, pretty much everyone.
The score was tied at six apiece. Probably half of the goals had been scored legitimately.
"Okay, no. Just no!" Kronan bawled. "Lala Na, you can't just stand next to Sam until someone kicks you the ball and then score. That's not fair!"
"Why not?" Lala Na said sulkily. "You never said there was a rule about that when you explained it earlier."
Esther prided herself on being a generally nice and tolerant person, but there was something about Lala Na's effortless perfection that made her want to poke the other girl in the eye. "Actually there was," she said smoothly. "It's called… offside."
"Offside?" repeated Sarah Dawn Riverford suspiciously. "Is this like the rule about how you are actually allowed to use your chest to bounce the ball? Or your head? You know, non-existent until you scored a goal that way?"
"I don't make the rules," Esther said.
"Yes you do!" exclaimed Donny. "That's exactly what happens."
"ESTHER SAYS THE RULE IS CALLED OFFSIDE," Kronan yelled, and offside was thusly invented, and no one understood it.
Ten minutes later the score was ten to seven in favour of Sarah Dawn Riverford's team. Apparently now that they weren't passing to Lala Na, the average scoring ability of the ball-kickers had actually increased.
"How is this happening?" Tag demanded, in a voice that was almost a shriek. "How are we losing?"
"Because you're basically incompetent," suggested Liesel from the other end of the field.
Larkin made a rude gesture that he had probably learned from Tag in the last few minutes, and Esther was so full of fellow-feeling that she couldn't be bothered to scold him. Sarah Dawn Riverford was watching her with a crazy, twitchy sort of look that definitely meant trouble.
"Do you give up yet?" she called.
"NO!" screamed Tag. Esther looked at him in alarm.
"We-ell," Sarah Dawn Riverford said, inspecting her nails with an air of forced casualness, "if you're so keen to win, why don't we make this more interesting?"
"Interesting how?" Sam said. " Because I have been on fire a lot today, and it's got less exciting every time."
The opposing team all exchanged significant glances, with the exception of Lala Na, who just sort of stood there and radiated amazingness.
"How about if we win," Sarah Dawn Riverford singsonged, "we get to be Belstone's caravan this year instead of you?"
Esther and Kronan were so busy loudly la-la-la-ing over the top of the word "caravan" so that Sam Teh wouldn't hear it that they didn't spot the real problem until it was too late.
Tag said, "Deal."
"Why did you agree to that?" Kronan was still raging two whole minutes later. "Why, Tag? Whyyyyyy?"
Tag had his head in his hands and was moaning softly. "I don't know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."
"You," Esther said, "are a complete maniac."
"The Elder won't allow it, right?" Tag said weakly.
Esther looked at Larkin, who made the universal gesture for ehhh - a sort of wiggly, rocking motion with a flat hand. She sighed. "Considering his recent opinion of our activities, I wouldn't count on his support."
There was a small, polite clearing of the throat. They all looked up into the face of Sam Teh.
"I don't mean to be rude," the Selkie said, "but could someone tell me what's going on? Only I just wanted to play a game and have fun, and this isn't fun any more." He frowned. "At all."
It was a terrible thing to see Sam Teh disappointed, like watching an overturned baby hedgehog pie trying to right itself. Everyone present felt an immediate involuntary surge of guilt.
"Nothing's going on," Tag said eventually. "We're just probably going to lose... at football."
"That's not so bad, right?" Sam Teh asked. "It's just a game."
Kronan rolled his eyes, but with less malice than usual. In all likelihood, Sam Teh wouldn't even notice if he didn't leave the village on a dubiously explained quest this year, let alone mind. "No, I suppose not."
"So cheer up!" Sam exclaimed. "We're only three goals down, anyway."
"Are you done stalling yet?" Reginald called across the orchard. Lala Na laughed at this as if it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard.
Liesel sniggered. "Or are you still trying to explain the newest made up rule to your dumb ball-catcher?"
There was this to be said for the Belstone caravan - they might all want to punch each other most of the time, but that was the whole point. They were going to do it. No one else was going to get a look in. If anyone so much as thought about it, the Belstone caravan would unite in sheer pigheadedness to destroy them. And to target Sam Teh, who made a cuter caravan mascot than a moogle in a bonnet, was highest treachery. Liesel was suddenly the subject of three white hot glares, plus a decent eyeballing from Larkin, who learned fast.
"Go suck a grape-corn, Liesel!" Kronan hollered, but Esther grabbed him by the arm.
"One minute," she said sweetly, "we just need to talk strategy now the stakes have been raised."
Sarah Dawn Riverford made a face, but waved her assent. She would have been amazed at the change in Esther's expression when she turned round. The Belstone caravan huddled. "Okay," Esther said grimly, "we're going to crush them. What have we got on them?"
"Donny's got bad depth perception," Tag muttered. "He smacked Reginald on the head earlier instead of highfiving him, and he can't track a ball going past him in the air."
"Good. What else?"
"Liesel doesn't like me very much," Kronan volunteered, in a tone of voice that suggested he couldn't fathom why. "She gets distracted if I'm near their goal."
"We can use that. Larkin?"
Larkin grinned deviously. "Lala Na's got a big crush on Reggie. She's been trying to get him to ask her out since the Harvest Festival but he's too scared to ask."
"Good job, you horrid little viper. Sam?"
Sam's forehead crinkled in thought. "Well, Sarah gets very upset when people don't pass to her. I think she likes to think she's the boss."
"Sarah who?" Kronan asked blankly.
"Sarah Dawn Riverford?" replied Sam. "The girl we've been playing all this time?"
"Oh." Kronan shuddered. "Don't call her Sarah, it's weird."
Tag was thinking furiously, competitive spirit suddenly reinstalled. "Yeah, and Donny's got a bad leg from where Larkin bit him, and Sarah Dawn Riverford likes things to be organised, and Reginald can't see people coming at him from the side because of his helmet."
Esther raised her eyebrows. "So? Do we have a plan?"
They did. Tag explained it.
Sam said, "Are you sure that isn't cheating?"
They'd thought the last hour had been war. Hah. That had been nothing. That had been a droplet in an ocean of terror, a footnote in the textbook of pain. This, this, was war. And no one fought dirty like the Belstone caravan.
They went screaming up the pitch like hooligans, frightening the living daylights out of Sarah Dawn Riverford's defenders and confusing Liesel, who looked between all four ball-kickers and couldn't see the magicite anywhere. It was only when they were practically on top of her that Sam Teh, all the other way down the end of the pitch, drop kicked the ball neatly up the field and right over Liesel's head.
"No fair!" shrilled Sarah Dawn Riverford. "You never said the ball-catcher could score!"
"Never said they couldn't," Kronan said, and turned a smug look towards Liesel. "Doubt she could do it, though."
"What?" fumed Liesel. "I could so!"
"Whatever," Kronan singsonged, tossing the ball to Donny for kick-off. Donny fumbled the catch. Flushing beet red, he took a few extra seconds trying to line his opening shot up; this was unfortunate for him, because as soon as the signal was given, Liesel came charging straight out of the goal, pushed Donny flat on his face, and tried to assume command of the magicite-
-which wasn't there, because Tag had run it around behind her and booted it through the now unguarded trees.
"Liesel!" Sarah Dawn Riverford wailed. "This wasn't the plan! Just do what I tell you!"
"What, stand around like a moron while you have all the fun?" Liesel yelled back. "You said I could beat someone up!"
They started pushing each other. Hair-pulling and name-calling was much in evidence. Donny was about to intercede when Larkin bit him on the other leg and he was suddenly rather distracted.
Lala Na watched everything with vague, stylish disinterest. She'd only come because Reggie wanted to play, and she'd thought maybe if she played too then perhaps he'd finally realise all the things they had in common, like being tall and attractive and stuff. Then he'd ask her on a date. But that wasn't working out the way she'd hoped. Even tossing her hair and pouting every time he looked at her hadn't worked. She didn't understand. That always worked.
"Hello Lala," Sam Teh said, as the fight got increasingly more violent in the background.
"Oh, hello," she said. "Aren't you supposed to be in your goal?"
"Not much point while they're arguing, is there?" Sam explained companionably. "Are you having fun?"
Lala Na sighed delicately. In a more poetic universe, rainbows would have blossomed in the background. "Not really. I don't even like this silly game. I only came because Reggie did."
Because he was a benevolent soul, Sam ignored the slight to his creation. "What about Reggie?"
"I just want a date with him!" Lala exclaimed petulantly. "Is that so much to ask?"
Sam's face got suddenly very intense and focused, like he was reading a script from some distant cue. He kind of was, since Esther had drilled the words into him and was now watching him with the air of someone who was planning on giving out marks for performance. "We-ell," he said slowly and carefully, "why don't you go and ask him for one?"
"Don't be silly," Lala said. "Boys ask girls on dates."
Sam's expression was now a mask of thespian agony. "That-is-old-fashioned-thinking-and-it-is-time-we-challenged-gender-stereotypes-and-seized-our-opportunities-with-both-hands."
"What?"
Sam looked helplessly at Esther, who realised she had perhaps been pushing her luck with words of more than two syllables when it came to Lala Na. Just as Esther was about to abort the mission, Sam Teh rallied magnificently.
"I think he's just very shy."
"Ohhh," Lala said, with dawning comprehension. "Is that what it is?"
"Probably," Sam hedged. In the background, Donny had finally managed to pull the wrestling Sarah Dawn Riverford and Liesel apart. This was quite impressive considering Liesel had picked up her lance and Larkin was still attached to his shin by the teeth.
When they resumed play thirty seconds later, Donny punted the ball to where he expected Reginald to be, only to find that Reginald was actually several feet further away and absolutely not looking in the right direction, because he was being hit on by Lala Na.
"What are you doing?" Sarah Dawn Riverford demanded.
"Going on a date tomorrow, I think," Reginald said in the dazed voice of someone who can't believe his good fortune.
"No, I meant- hey!"
But it was too late - Larkin snagged the magicite, ran right between Reginald's gangly legs and made for goal like a child possessed (in all fairness, Esther thought, he probably was). Liesel made a valiant effort to stop him, but since even Larkin managed to be taller than she was he ran right over her. It took him several metres to slow down, assisted somewhat when he tripped over a tree root.
"Oh my," Esther said airily, as Larkin climbed out of the muddy groove he'd scored across the orchard and dusted the dirt off his clothes, "is that really the score? Ten apiece?"
Tag, who had subconsciously developed a much better Sarah Dawn Riverford warning system than the others, took cover behind a tree just in time. The magicite hit the tree where his head had been and a branch burst into flames.
"YOU'RE CHEATING!" Sarah Dawn Riverford shrieked. "YOU CHEAT AT EVERYTHING! HOW CAN YOU BE ON THE CARAVAN WHEN YOU'RE SO TERRIBLE AT DOING THINGS PROPERLY?"
"Rude," Kronan muttered.
"Caravan?" said Sam.
"Fire!" yelled Tag.
"What?"
"Fire!"
The tree Tag had been hiding behind was blazing away quite happily. As everyone watched, the fire magicite rolled gently over and hit the next tree, lighting it up like a torch. The flames leapt everywhere they could reach in little rivers of gleeful orange light.
"I am not taking the blame for this one," Esther announced, because the only other thing she could think to say does not bear printing.
"We should probably get some water," Sam Teh said, as a third tree went up firework style. Donny and Reginald nodded vigorously.
"No," said a dangerously cheerful voice. They all turned and saw Sarah Dawn Riverford, standing between them and the main path. She smiled. "Nobody leaves until the game is over."
This would have been distinctly less frightening if she hadn't picked up Liesel's lance. Nine pairs of eyes focused on its unwavering point.
"The game is over," Larkin pointed out. "The orchard is on fire."
"Yeah," Lala Na said. "Sarah, this is boring. I wanna go make out with Reggie."
"The score is ten apiece," Sarah Dawn Riverford told them brightly. "So, unless the Belstone caravan wants to throw in the towel and lose the bet, no one has won, ergo the game is still on, ergo no one can leave."
Another tree crackled gently into flames. Everyone swivelled to look at the fire magicite, merrily spitting embers on the grass, and then back at the lance.
"This is stupid," Esther said. "Who's going to play a game when we all might get burned alive?"
"Who's going to leave when they might get impaled?" Sarah Dawn Riverford asked meaningfully. "How about... the next goal decides the winner?"
Unfortunately, Esther had four team mates and only one pair of hands. It was a case of grabbing the one statistically most likely to do something stupid. She chose Tag. This did not stop Kronan, Larkin, Liesel and Donny all looking at each other, then at Sarah Dawn Riverford and the lance, and breaking into a mad run for the ball.
"Stop them, Sam!" she yelled, but it was too late. The game was back on.
It was thirty seconds later. Eighteen trees were on fire, the sky had been replaced by a sea of burning leaves, and Esther, Sam and Tag were using a collapsed and charred trunk as a barricade against flaming death. Well, Esther and Sam were - Tag was trying to escape Esther's iron grip on his belt.
"How does this game even end?" Esther wailed, covering her head with her free hand to protect herself from fiery debris. "When one team gives up? When one team DIES?"
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!" Tag yelled. "Shoulda thought of that when you were making up all the other rules! Now let go of me, I have to get back in the game!"
The magicite ball went flying overhead, trailing flames and screaming players. Something crashed loudly. The air smelled of smoke and intimate violence. Esther stared at Tag. "What is wrong with you? Why are you so obsessed with this game?"
"Are you kidding?" Tag said. "I hate this game. I've hated it since, I dunno, fifteen minutes after we invented it. It's stupid."
"Then why are you still playing?!"
Tag gave her an exasperated sort of look. "Because I want to win."
"More than you want to live?"
"YES!"
"Esther?" This was Sam. "How does the game end? Because we should probably put the fire out soon."
Esther chanced a glance over the trunk at the pitch and wished she hadn't. "Probably when Sarah Dawn Riverford burns down the entire town and becomes Queen of Hell like she always wanted," she muttered. She risked another look. "Or... when Kronan stabs her with Liesel's lance."
Sam looked thoughtful. "So if we stop Sarah we can stop the game?"
"I didn't mean that," Esther said weakly. "I suppose?"
With a well-meaning expression of polite determination, Sam got up and vaulted the trunk.
"Where are you going?" Esther asked, trying to grab him with her free hand and failing. "Oh gods, you don't think he thought I was serious about stabbing her, do you?"
Tag brightened. "Hey, maybe."
Sam Teh strode across the burning playing field. At the halfway mark he passed the sad remains of the striped apple sapling, which someone had uprooted in a manic tackle. It had suffered terribly in the name of football and was now little more than a blackened stick.
Nearby the rest of the players had all pounced on the ball, which was presumably somewhere underneath them. It seemed like the only person still actively trying to get the ball was Sarah Dawn Riverford - everyone else was just trying to get control of the lance or die trying, literally. Sam lifted the first person off the pile that he could get a good grip on.
"Hello Lala."
"Hello Sam."
Sam put her down, tapped Reginald on the shoulder, and, when the Yuke failed to move aside, picked him up by his wings and gently deposited him next to Lala Na. Then he dug into the scrum and pulled out Sarah Dawn Riverford by her collar. She was holding the ball in her hands to stop anyone getting it away from her. Sam hadn't paid attention to many of the new rules after offside, but he did know this one.
"Excuse me," he said. "You can't hold the ball in your hands. You're not a ball-catcher. "
"So?" Sarah Dawn Riverford demanded. "This game is stupid! I just want to be on the caravan! I have to win!"
Sam Teh frowned. He'd had just about enough of everyone calling his game stupid. "Yes, but you're still breaking the rules."
She faltered. Everyone knew Sarah Dawn Riverford had a thing about doing things exactly so. "It doesn't matter if I only bend the rules. Bending rules is allowed."
"Yes," Sam said again, patiently, "but we both know you aren't bending them."
"I can make new rules, then!"
Sam sighed. What was so difficult about this? "They won't be official rules."
"Sam!" Kronan yelled from where Donny was sat on him and trying to force him to eat a clod of grass. "Sam, don't just stand there, take it off her! Larkin would you stop kicking Donny because it's not Donny you're kicking it's me and I will end you."
Sarah Dawn Riverford's eyes flickered over Sam's shoulder to the undefended Belstone goal. "But if I put it down and score, I win fair and square, right?"
"That's the rules," Sam agreed.
Cautiously, Sarah put the magicite on the grass. Kronan and Larkin gave join cries of noooooo, although Kronan's was slightly more muffled on account of all the grass in his mouth.
Sarah Dawn Riverford straightened up to take the shot, and, calmly and methodically, Sam hit her under the chin with the striped apple sapling. She backflipped spectacularly into the dirt.
Tag cheered.
"Is she dead?" Liesel yelled from the bottom of the pile. "Quick, someone take my lance and make sure!"
"She's breathing," Larkin said after a moment. "Wait, she's on your team."
"Do I look like I care? Stab her!"
Sam Teh stepped forward and punted the magicite, which was still spitting the odd ember, through Liesel's abandoned goal. It flew out of the orchard with a discontented sizzle.
"Eleven to ten!" Esther called, from the safety of the far end of the field. "We win!"
"Good," muttered Donny, finally climbing off Kronan. "Can you imagine if we'd won? Being on the caravan with her all year?"
"Why do you think I jumped on her?" Liesel said. "Someone had to sabotage us."
Kronan spat out grass. "Wait, you weren't trying to get the ball just then?"
"Nope," said Reginald, in a voice that suggested he'd spent most of the last hour trying very hard to be absolutely nowhere near the ball. Like, at all.
"Then why was Donny choking me with dirt?!"
"Figured I'd do the rest of your caravan a favour," Donny said, and Liesel sniggered.
The Belstone fire brigade mostly consisted of Mr. Edwards and his eldest son, plus anyone else not too busy spectating to carry a bucket. They had their work cut out for them, even with the nine conscious players helping out. Someone had accidentally spilled a bucket of water on the prone form of Sarah Dawn Riverford during the damage control effort, completely not by accident at all.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Sam Teh said, when the worst of the flames had fizzled out under their ministrations.
They surveyed what remained of the pitch.
"Sam," Tag asked conversationally, "just out of interest, do you need spectacles?"
Belstone's Elder arrived late enough to be of absolutely no use to the firefighting efforts but definitely in time to dispense extravagant punishment, which was typical. He took one look at the smoking wreckage of half the orchard, then turned to face the football players. His eyes landed on the Belstone caravan.
"Ah," he scowled. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Do not look at us," Kronan said primly. "We had nothing to do with this."
The Elder gave him a look that said, I do not believe you.
Larkin displayed commendable forethought at this point and burst into tears. "Waaah!" he wailed at the top of his voice. "Sarah Dawn Riverford made us plaaaay! She wouldn't let us le-he-heave! And she threatened me with a laaaaance!"
The Belstone caravan looked surreptitiously sideways at Liesel, who was too busy doing her best what-kind-of-maniac-brings-a-lance-to-a-ball-game-I-am-shocked expression to claim ownership of said lance.
Larkin might not have got away with it (the Elder was completely aware of who his sister was, after all, and things like compulsive lying were probably genetic) if Lala Na hadn't joined in too. It was agonising to watch her cry, like seeing a souffle deflate. Larkin, who had previously considered himself a skilled practitioner of fake waterworks, could only gawp in amazement in the presence of a master at work.
"She s-s-set the trees on fire," Lala Na blubbered, through tears that could be bottled and sold as a miracle cure. "She's c-c-crazy!"
"Now now, Lala, don't cry," the Elder began weakly. "Sarah Dawn Riverford? Am I thinking of the right girl here? Small, blonde, smiles a lot, very good at needlework? A nervous, ahem, disposition? Surely there's been some kind of mistake."
Sarah Dawn Riverford fortuitously chose this moment to regain consciousness. She shot upright with a shriek, ash-covered and soaking wet and - best of all - using Liesel's lance as a crutch. "What happened?! Is it over? Did you all LEAVE? If you all left then I WIN! I WIN! I'M ON THE CARAVAN NOW, HAH!"
"No idea what she's talking about," Tag said, radiating honestly.
The Elder sighed. "Tag?"
"Yessir."
"Take your friends and go away, would you."
They found out later that the magicite had landed on the blacksmith family's kitchen extension, which had subsequently burned down. Kronan laughed himself sick.
Fin.