They had an excellent premiership ball, and the four of them started kicking it around us.

‘Wanna go?’ said the short one.

Sam didn’t answer. The ball rolled towards us. I felt all zappy and full of skills, so I dribbled it across the field. The short one tackled it off me, but I won it back. He did a step-over and I kicked it away from him before he could cross it.

‘Don’t,’ Sam hissed, very low and quiet.

‘It’s OK – we can just have a kick-about,’ I whispered. And then Tombard said, ‘To me!’ And we worked out goals and teams without hardly saying a word. Sam hung back to start with, then scored a revolutionary goal. I scissor-kicked a lustrous one in.

Tombard saluted me. ‘Gifted, man! Skillage in the village!’

His voice buzzed through my shoes, up into my feet, and hit my knees like electricity. Whizzy? But there wasn’t time to think. The ball came back my way.

It felt like the game went on for hours. It was beautiful. I did moves I’d never even dreamed of, and Sam was untouchable. It was pure Whizzy magic making us ourselves but way better, and it was brilliant because there was no way Sam could ever doubt her now.

‘See?’ I said. ‘She’s making us supreme! She’s a talent-magnifying streak of brilliance!’

Sam nodded and grinned. His whole face had come to life. This couldn’t have been more perfect.

Suddenly, Whizzy zoomed out of a bush and went fizzing over to a nearby bench. I nudged Sam and tried to point her out with careful signals so that the gang wouldn’t see, but by that time, she was underneath it and out of sight. She’d looked all excited.

‘He isn’t as bad as he usually is at school,’ Sam whispered. ‘Do you really think it’s her doing it?’

A tour around the village was mentioned, and without anyone asking us, Sam and I were on it. Tombard isn’t the kind of person you disagree with, Sam had said. If someone looks like they might be about to, they get a stare, and the idea dies in the air.

The tour started at the river, but not for stone skimming. The river was attacked. There was kick splashing, boulder smashing, pushing – everything. The wild flat-out craziness of it was mega exciting. Even Sam was infected.

‘Look!’ Sam grabbed my arm as we scrambled back to the road. ‘That’s her, isn’t it?’ The telephone wires above our heads were steaming. ‘Yah. I think she loves this – looks like she’s playing too.’

I nodded. Sam finally getting to see her in action was just the coolest thing ever. And soon, she’d lose her shyness and trust him enough to appear fully – for sure.