Dear Grandad,

Annie got ever so cross a couple of days ago. We were playing in the garden and to begin with I was having fun bouncing on the trampoline and she was kicking her football around. She had a new ball for her birthday, with red and blue colours on it like they used in the World Cup and she was ever so pleased with it. So there was me bouncing happily away and she was dribbling around a set of cones that she had set up in a path from the back of the house, past the garage and down onto the grass. She had to go left and right through each one and then do things like turn around with the ball, stop and do five keepie-uppies and then shoot into her goal. To be honest it looked pretty easy. I mean there were no defenders trying to tackle her and there wasn’t even a goalie to try to save her shots. Mind you, it didn’t help when Mum and Dad kept getting in the way while they were trying to cut the hedge and some of the plants in the garden and saying things like “Mind the plants” and “Don’t kick the ball too hard” (which just made Annie kick it harder and I am sure she missed the goal deliberately one time so that the ball went through a rose bush!).

After a bit, she decided she wanted me to join in but I didn’t really want to stop being on the trampoline so she chipped the ball up to me as I was bouncing and I caught it and threw it back down to her. Then she chipped it up again and instead of catching it I pushed it down with my hands like a goalie making a save. All the time I was bouncing. It was actually really fun but Mum kept saying “Be careful Kate, you could easily fall off” and Dad kept going on about how we were going to break a window at this rate. But I was being careful, so I didn’t fall off and we didn’t break a window – of course! Eventually we worked out a route where Annie could dribble the ball around like she was before but at certain points she had to stop and chip the ball up to me and I would save it back down again to her so she could carry on around her course and shoot for the goal. Sometimes the ball would come up to me when I was on the trampoline and sometimes when I was in the air so I had to keep moving to be able to reach the ball. Sometimes I missed it and ended up flat on my face which Annie thought was funny and started laughing about which made me start laughing and then we practically ended up in a heap with the giggles. When that happened she would have to go back to the start and try and do the whole route again but perfectly which did actually happen sometimes.

I got quite tired leaping about and making saves in the middle of my jumps. I reckon it would be good training for a real goalie. Then one time she chipped the ball up to me but I was already on my way back down. I was going down and to my left and the ball was going up to my right so I couldn’t get my hands near it. But I didn’t want to break the move so I stretched up my right leg to try to knock the ball back down to her and – uh oh – disaster… The ball didn’t go back down to her at all. Instead, it flew off my foot and went right up into the air before coming back down towards the edge of the garden through a tree. As the ball came down it was like time slowed down as we waited for it to come all the way to the ground, but it didn’t, it hit the tree and just got stuck there. Annie started yelling “Now look what you’ve done, you’ve lost my new ball” and I said “It was an accident” but that didn’t make any difference. She went on and on: “I’ve only had it a couple of days” and “Why did you do that?” and things like that. Dad tried to reach the ball with a ladder but it wasn’t high enough and Mum said “Don’t you go falling off and breaking your neck” so he had to give up. They told Annie that it would probably fall down eventually but SHE WAS NOT HAPPY, I can tell you!

Eventually Annie settled down and I think she understands that I didn’t kick the ball up into the tree deliberately – I’m not that good! But the ball is still in the tree just sitting there like it is waiting for something to happen. We need a really long pole or for some kind of special hand to come down from the sky and dislodge it – as if…

Got to go. I hope you liked the story.

Kate

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