Achieving Your Goals

Chapter One

Ten

Jessie leaves school leaving Ashleighn friendless again, but she doesn’t mind, she likes being alone. Besides, she prefers playing with the boys anyway. So goes and plays football with the boys.

 Girls wear a little make-up on their faces, and talk about boys. Old best friend Rebekah starts to wear make-up too, Ashleighn misses her old best friend.

 Girls laugh at Ashleighn, they think that she shouldn’t play football, it’s a boys sport. Ashleighn runs into the toilets and cries.

 At home Ashleighn asks her mum if she can have football lessons. Mum laughs and says

 “What would you want them for; it’s a boy’s thing.”

 She ignores her mum, she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand much about it anyway, so she asks dad. He says yes, and she starts on Saturday.

 Dressed in her kit, dad drops her off at football. At first she’s scared, but big brother Jamie tells her everything will be fine; she jumps out of the car and finds the girls she’s to play football with.

 She’s alone again; she doesn’t know any of these people. A medium height girl walks over to her, and says she’ll be her friend. Ashleighn nods her head. She has a new friend.

 Mum picks her up putting a towel down on the seat. Ashleighn asks why, mum replies,

 “I don’t won’t to get mud all over the seats.”

 Ashleighn’s hurt about what her mum said. They drive home in silence.

Twelve

Liverpool’s her favourite team. Every time they’re on television she’s on the sofa, watching with her brother. She shouts when they score a goal; happy, even more when they’re winning. Her father too would watch it, and like his children, he would cheer when they scored a goal or when the opposition had a player sent off.

 Her mother on the other hand, wasn’t a fan. She hated that Ashleighn had become so interested in the sport. In her eyes, her daughter should learn to become a lady. Someone well respected good mannered. 

Ashleighn starts high school. Un-like before when she started primary school, the children weren’t scared, but instead they were excited. Excited about going to the big school, for it meant in a few years’ time, they’d be done with school and out into the world of work.

 Ashleighn walks to school, alongside her big brother Jamie. She was glad she had him around, she’d be safe with him, and he kept her company. For the past two years he was the only person she ever really talked to. For none of the girls at school would speak to her, and the boys only played football with her.

 She didn’t know anyone in her new form. She was the only girl from her old school, but there were a few boys she knew. Ashleighn sat in the corner by the window, looking out onto the outside of the school.

 “May I sit here?”  One girl said, standing by the empty seat of Ashleighn.

 She had dark hair, tied in a ponytail, with blonde highlights on through the top.  Brown eyes, high cheek bones, and rosy pink lips.

 “Sure,” Ashleighn said, nodding her head at the same time.

  “I’m Rachel.” She said holding out her hand for Ashleighn to shake.

 “Ashleighn.” She replied moving her bag from the seat beside her, allowing Rachel to sit down.

Thirteen

Rachel had been her only real friend during the first year of high school. She still saw the girls from her old school in lessons, they were still popular, and still they were mean to her.

 Ashleighn still played football every week on a Saturday with the team she had joined. In physical education at school football was her favourite. The teachers thought it was great that she had the ability and skill to play. Again the girls from primary school made their comments, but she learned to ignore them, not letting them get to her like they did before.

 Rachel didn’t say anything about her playing football, for she was the one to teach her to not let the others get to her. She liked Rachel for that, her kindness.

 Ashleighn wants to join the school football team, but isn’t sure about it. She doesn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of everyone else, but Jamie tells her she will be fine, so she joins.

 Again she doesn’t know anyone, for she doesn’t really speak to other people other than Rachel, but she forgets about that and just plays the game she loves.

Fourteen

Ashleighn begins her third year of high school. During the summer she spent all her time perfecting her skills in football wanting to get better, and she did. Jamie helped her, always making sure she got it spot perfect until she moved on to the next one.

 Sometimes when she played on a Saturday Rachel would come and watch or the boy’s football team would watch after their training was finished. She didn’t like it when they watched for they often put her off, especially when she knew who they were.  They would stand on the side lines, cheering when her team had the ball, just like she would when she watched it on the television. They would shout ‘shoot’ when she had the ball near the goal, and most of the time she would be more interested in seeing who had said it instead of kicking it at the goal, trying to win the game.

 It’s the year of choosing what to take for GCSE’s. Ashleighn has to choose four, plus triple or double science. Physical education’s her first choice, followed by history, Spanish, and child care. She’s looking forward to studying them next year.