Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

The referee's whistle echoed across the field bringing the game to a crashing halt. Again.

Coach Danvers threw his clipboard into the dugout, frustration streaming off him as the first aider was called onto the pitch.

A shake of his head, he'd knocked another of our players out of the game...

"Twelve minutes left," he said as we huddled around him, "come on, you're not beaten yet!"

Coach studied at our dejected faces, measuring and dismissing each of us in turn as he paced, frantically trying to conjure a new game plan to work with what he had left.

"We'll swap to a 4-4-2... Marks drop back to midfield, Smith out of defence... and," he growled, "that still leaves me with a gap..."

I still don't know what came over me, what I could possibly have been thinking as I stepped forward.

"I'll do it," I'd said, repeating myself more loudly when my voice was lost in the background, "I'll be right back, Tim's better on the left."

He looked at me like I'd grown a second head, sucking air between his teeth until, finally, he nodded...

I adjusted my pony tail and ran out with the boys.

"Go Anna," My father's voice rang out from the now silent crowd, "show them how it's done!"

And then we were off. The clock ticked over slowly, the ball never seeming to come my way.

Ten minutes... five... three... then he got the ball and broke away, headed straight at me. I couldn't let him past, wouldn't give him an open run at the goal...

The referee's whistle signalled the end of the game... I'd felled the beast and stopped his run!

"Oww," he groaned, poking his tongue out at me from where he lay, "great tackle sis!"

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