Little Croker Read online

  Splinter put his secret agent role into action and greeted Danny.

  ‘What’s the story, Danny? I’ve a new player for the team. He’s coming up tonight. Is that okay?’

  ‘Animal,’ replied Danny. ‘Is he any good?’

  ‘Savage,’ smiled Splinter. ‘Here he is now.’

  Everybody, especially Jimmy, watched eagerly as Jonathon shuffled his way across the playing field with his training bag slung over his left shoulder.

  Danny had told him to look a bit more relaxed and sort of cool when he was walking, but he didn’t anticipate that Jonathon’s version of relaxed and cool would make him look like a cowboy walking across the pitch.

  ‘The state of him!’ laughed Paddy Timmons.

  ‘What’s the story, Spittser?’ greeted Jonathon.

  Now everyone was laughing at Splinter because they thought ‘J’ was slagging him.

  Danny had a little word in Jonathon’s ear and advised his cousin not to bother with the fitting-in plan.

  Jonathon may have made a poor first impression on the team, but he certainly made a lasting impression on Jimmy during training. Jonathon was a natural at GAA and he proved that by playing a stormer in training.

  Jimmy was dead keen to get him signed and the sooner the better as it takes a week for registration to go through and there were only a few games left in the league.

  Jimmy got the ball rolling.

  ‘So, Jason, is it?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘Just J, Da,’ answered Splinter on Jonathon’s behalf.

  ‘Sorry, J. So, what do you think? Interested in signing for us?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ answered Jonathon.

  ‘Super. Good man. Mick will be delighted. I’ll just have to get a form for you to sign and then you’ll be okay to play in a week or two.’

  Danny had been hovering around behind Jimmy; as soon as he heard his dad’s name and forms mentioned in the one sentence, he jumped straight into the conversation.

  ‘Eh! Jimmy. I’ll get a form from the house for him.’

  ‘Nice one, Danny!’ said Jimmy. ‘If you get it back to me, J, as quick as you can, I’ll send it off.’

  ‘Why don’t we get the form now, Jimmy, and you can fill out your bit and then put it in an addressed envelope for J, and he can send it straight away, because I’m not going to be back at my house until Thursday.’

  Jimmy, being Jimmy, thought that was a super idea and did exactly what Danny had suggested, and so that was the paperwork taken care of.

  Chapter 14

  The Match Against Castle Village

  Jonathon continued to impress everyone at training on Thursday, as Danny seized every opportunity to coach him when Uncle Larry and Aunt Regina weren’t around. He wasn’t going to be playing in Saturday’s match away against Castle Village, though, as his registration hadn’t gone through yet.

  Jonathon sat and watched as all the other players togged out for the game before Danny gave Jimmy the nod for the pre-match talk.

  ‘Right lads! Listen in,’ announced Jimmy, trying his best to sound like Mick. ‘OK, boys! Em, well, as you all know, it’s the first game since Danny’s dad took ill, and I know you’re all missing your manager, but I’m sure he’s sitting up in his bed now, willing us to win.’

  Not bad, thought Danny, but it needs a bit more bite to get them going.

  ‘Nice one, Jimmy,’ said Danny. ‘We have to go out there, lads, and give it everything for my dad! Jimmy’s right, he probably is sitting in his bed, willing us to win, but we don’t stand a chance if we don’t will ourselves to win!’

  The team let out a big roar!

  He’s good, thought Jimmy, nodding his head. Yeah! A real chip off the old block.

  ‘Then let’s get out there and bring the points home!’ yelled Danny, and on that note, Mick Wilde’s team marched out of the away dressing rooms and into battle for their absent general.

  Under Danny’s watchful eye, Jimmy had selected the same team layout that had beaten St Agnes’ boys. The only change he made was to bring in Anto Farrell to replace Sean Dempsey, the player that Mick had kicked off the team.

  Anto would have preferred to slot back into his left corner full back position that Kevin Kinsella now had, but Jimmy thought that if Mick was present he would probably have left Kevin there as he had played really well in the last game.

  Littlestown Crokes must have been inspired by Danny’s words as straight from the throw-in they absolutely bombarded the home team’s defence, knocking over point after point. After twenty minutes, Danny’s team was winning by five points to nil, of which Danny had scored two points.

  Jimmy was thrilled with himself. Here he was, all on his own, holding the fort while Mick was away, and everything was running smoothly.

  Jonathon thought that Jimmy was dead funny, running up the line and cheering his boys on when the Crokes burst forward and then running back down the line, chewing his fingers, when Castle Village got the ball back down the pitch!

  The referee blew his whistle for half time and the Crokes were still winning, but only by three points now as towards the end of the first half, Castle Village had made a bit of a comeback; the score was seven points to four points in the Crokes’ favour.

  As all the players eagerly ate their oranges, Danny noticed that Jimmy was very quiet.

  ‘Any half-time words, Jimmy?’ he whispered.

  Jimmy took a big breath. It was obvious now to everyone that poor Jimmy had a dose of the jitters and his nerves were beginning to let him down.

  ‘Right lads!’ trembled Jimmy. That didn’t do the trick as only a few players even heard him speak.

  ‘Will yiz shut up!’ roared Danny with more than a hint of Mick Wilde’s tone in his voice.

  Now everyone tuned in.

  ‘Thanks, Danny,’ smiled Jimmy. ‘Just keep going at them, lads. You started great, you let them come back at you a bit easy towards the end of that half.’

  ‘It’s Anto!’ shouted Alan Whelan, the centre half back. ‘He’s losing everything in midfield and Danny’s having to cover for him all the time!’

  ‘Shut up, Wheelo!’ retaliated Anto.

  ‘Will yiz give it up!’ shouted Splinter. Splinter felt sorry for his dad. He was mortified as he knew Jimmy would have just stood there and let the two boys rip into each other if he hadn’t spoken up.

  For the first time ever, Splinter realised just how important Mick Wilde really was to the team, and also to his dad. Jimmy just wasn’t cut out for management without Mick.

  As the referee blew his whistle, it was up to Danny to get the team’s spirits up again, but he knew that even if they managed to scrape a win out of this game, the hard fact was that the dismissal of Sean Dempsey had fractured the strength of the team and that fracture had to be repaired or the last match against Barnfield wouldn’t even count.

  The solution to the problem was simple in Danny’s mind. Jonathon – J – was the man for the job!

  * * *

  On the sidelines Jonathon was mesmerised by his cousin’s talent. Danny’s just dynamite, thought Jonathon as he watched him play the second half out of his skin.

  Danny Wilde wasn’t just playing out of his skin, he was playing out of his age too. He just controlled the whole second half of the game – he looked like an under-16s player among a younger and less experienced group of players.

  ‘Raw talent!’ Jimmy kept turning to Jonathon and saying.

  Jonathon was itching to jump up and announce to everyone that Danny was his cousin and he was proud of that. But he couldn’t or that would be the end for him before he even had his chance to try to be as good as his cousin.

  Following Danny’s lead, his team-mates lifted their game. Although they only scored two more points in the second half, crucially to their title hopes they battled and scrapped to prevent the home team from scoring at all, and the game ended nine points to four points in favour of the Crokes.

  Chapter 15

  A Close Shav
e

  That night, Danny and Jonathon went into the hospital to see Mick, and fill him in on the match that day.

  Danny did all the filling in as Jonathon wasn’t even supposed to have been there; Jonathon just sat on the edge of Mick’s bed pretending to be as gobsmacked as his uncle as Danny re-enacted the whole game for his dad.

  Mick was thrilled to bits.

  ‘Only two games to go, son!’ said Mick and he clenched his right fist in the air.

  At that moment Danny was the happiest he had been since Mick was taken ill.

  There was his dad, smiling and punching the air. A simple task, but one that Mick couldn’t have managed straight after his stroke.

  The nurse with the medicine trolley came into Mick’s room and so Danny and Jonathon did a disappearing act to the vending machine to get some drinks.

  On their way back to the room, the cousins chuckled about how Jonathon had to put on an act in front of Mick while Danny described the match.

  ‘I nearly butted in a few times!’ laughed Jonathon as they got to Mick’s door.

  ‘Shush!’ hushed Danny and he stopped in his tracks and stooped down below the door and peeped in through the glass.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jonathon, afraid that something was wrong with Mick.

  ‘It’s Jimmy!’ said Danny. ‘Come on back around the corner.’

  Jonathon hid well out of sight while Danny went back in to his dad’s room.

  ‘All right, Jimmy!’ said Danny, acting cool.

  ‘Howya, Danny!’ replied Jimmy. ‘I just popped in to tell your daddy about the stormer you played today, but it seems that you beat me to it.’

  ‘Where’s Jonathon?’ interrupted Mick.

  ‘Emmmm … Uncle Larry’s picking us up and he’s, eh, he’s … he’s after ringing him on his phone to say he’s down in the car park already, so he’s just gone down to tell him to hang on for me.’

  ‘You better not keep him waiting, son. There’s a good lad,’ yawned Mick. The medicine was starting to take effect.

  Danny thought that all was left was a simple goodbye to his dad, and that would be that, but Jimmy said, ‘Did you tell your daddy about the new player, Danny?’

  ‘New player?’ asked Mick.

  Danny had to be as quick as a flash with his answer.

  ‘Oh! Splinter’s mate?’

  ‘Who’s this?’ quizzed Mick.

  Luckily for Danny, Jimmy was dying to tell Mick something that Danny hadn’t already beaten him to, so he went on and on about his son’s friend from swimming who was interested in joining because a player had left. Jimmy even called him ‘Jason’.

  ‘I better get off, Dad,’ interrupted Danny.

  ‘All the best, son,’ said Mick.

  ‘See you on Tuesday night, Danny,’ said Jimmy.

  Danny disappeared out the door and when he told Jonathon just how close a shave it was, the two boys agreed that Jonathon shouldn’t go to the hospital with Danny again.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Operation Larry’

  The next game for the Crokes couldn’t come quickly enough for Jonathon Wilde. The game was all he could think about when he was in school. He couldn’t sleep at night and he couldn’t even go to the bathroom without thinking about playing his first game for Danny’s team. He was obsessed.

  Even Danny noticed that all his cousin wanted to do was talk GAA, play GAA, and watch GAA. So that’s exactly what they did.

  When his parents were out, Jonathon practised and practised and at night he watched Danny’s GAA dvds on his portable dvd player (under the covers, in case his dad came in and caught him).

  But unfortunately for Jonathon, Jimmy announced at Thursday night’s training that there would be no match on Saturday.

  ‘A walk-over!’ cheered Jimmy.

  All the boys cheered in celebration. Normally they hated walk-overs, but at this stage in the league they were feeling the pressure and they knew that it was more precious points in the bag.

  The team they were supposed to play, Willow View, was at the bottom of the league and had cancelled because a bunch of the players had lost interest and gone off to play soccer, and there was no point in turning up with half a team.

  As expected by everybody, Barnfield won their second last game, and so Jonathon’s hopes were pinned on the friendly in Wexford against Kimuldridge under-14s on 1 November – he really hoped he’d pull off a good enough performance to make it into the starting fifteen for the title game against Barnfield on the Little Croker on 8 November.

  The following week flew by and Jonathon still hadn’t managed to pluck up enough courage to tackle the Larry problem and book himself a seat on the coach to Wexford.

  On Saturday night, only six days before the trip, Larry and Regina were rushing around the house, trying to get themselves ready for a night at the opera. They were late because Larry had an emergency meeting with a client that day and it ran late.

  Danny kept hassling Jonathon to come up with something, but no matter how much Jonathon racked his brain, the truth was, the thought of actually going on a trip away from home overnight without telling his parents petrified him.

  He’d lied about joining a club at school and he’d gone to training and to matches instead, but this was different. This kind of lie was off the scale!

  While Larry and Regina were arguing upstairs, Jonathon, Lowry and Danny were crashed out in front of the telly in the living room.

  The door bell rang, and Lowry jumped up.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘We weren’t moving,’ laughed Jonathon, and he reached out to Danny for a high five.

  Somehow, the cousins’ high five turned into a wrestling match on the floor. Danny had his leg wrapped around Jonathon and had him in a head lock. He had taken off his socks and was trying to stick his smelly toes into Jonathon’s nose when somebody very special from his recent past walked into the room.

  ‘Danny!’ said the person, and she laughed.

  It was Trinity Dawson – she was a friend of Lowry’s!

  Danny turned pink and let Jonathon go.

  ‘All right!’ he said.

  Lowry stood beside Trinity with her jaw hanging open.

  ‘Do you two know each other? Like, how do you two know each other? You can’t. It’s impossible. He’s not from around here, and like, you haven’t been around in ages, Trinity, so you can’t know who he is!’

  It was just too much for Lowry. The thought of one of her friends knowing that Danny was her cousin was killing her, but when Trinity and Danny explained how they had previously met, Lowry calmed down.

  Just a bit of bad luck! thought Lowry. It happens!

  Lowry dragged Trinity upstairs to her room.

  If we’re stuck in with those two clowns all night, there’s no way I’m exposing my friend to Danny any more than I have to, thought Lowry.

  Jonathon couldn’t resist slagging Danny.

  ‘She fancies you!’ he laughed.

  ‘Get lost,’ muttered Danny.

  ‘You’re going red. You must fancy her too!’

  Jonathon was now rolling around the floor in stitches.

  ‘Shut up, ye muppet!’

  Danny tried to look serious, but he just couldn’t resist a small smile.

  Larry popped his head in the door.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked

  Jonathon nearly leapt to his feet.

  ‘Nothing, Dad!’

  ‘Larry! I can’t find the camera,’ called Regina from upstairs.

  ‘That woman!’ muttered Larry as he hurried out the door.

  Danny jumped back on Jonathon’s case about the trip.

  ‘You’re going to have to come up with something or you won’t be going.’

  ‘We could ask Trinity to help us,’ suggested Jonathon.

  ‘How is Trinity going to help us? And why would she?’

  Jonathon just smiled at Danny and nodded hi
s head.

  Danny went red again.

  Jonathon was right. Trinity must have had a soft spot for Danny because when they asked for her help during one of her snack visits to the kitchen, she was all for helping them come up with a plan to get Jonathon on the trip.

  Danny, Jonathon and Trinity spent most of the evening going over and over what they called, ‘Operation Larry’ while Lowry sat tutting.

  ‘It won’t work,’ she said. ‘You’re all going to be crucified when Father finds out.’

  When Larry and Regina finally got home, Trinity didn’t waste any time in putting ‘Operation Larry’ into action.

  Larry and Regina were in the kitchen having a nightcap.

  Trinity walked in with Lowry, while Danny and Jonathon crept down to the bottom of the staircase to listen in.

  ‘I’m off, guys,’ said Trinity.

  ‘See you, petal!’ said Regina.

  Larry just nodded.

  Just as Trinity was heading out the door, she turned to Regina and said, ‘Oh! Regina, when you see Jonathon could you tell him that my brother Sebastian is having a sleepover on Friday night, if he wants come over?’

  Regina looked at Larry.

  ‘That’s Halloween night.’

  Larry nodded.

  ‘Bye!’ said Trinity and she left the rest to Lady Luck.

  Danny and Jonathon waited in desperate anticipation.

  ‘Danny’s away with his club that night, isn’t he?’ asked Regina.

  Larry laughed.

  ‘That’s right! Just imagine the peace we’d have with those two out of the house.’

  There was nothing said after that, but Danny and Jonathon looked at each other and smiled. They knew that ‘Operation Larry’ was going well, but it still needed a few final touches.

  The following day, Regina mentioned the sleepover to Jonathon.

  Jonathon played along, pretending that he didn’t know anything about it.

  ‘I didn’t know that you and Trinity’s brother were friends,’ said Regina.