Jack Harrison is the cleverest of us all and the youngest, the keeper in our group and what a keeper. He had trials for Liverpool when he was younger but got an injury that stopped him from playing and has only ever played for the Sunday league team all five of us play for since. This brings us to Mike Murphy or Mickey, because unlike Jack, Mickey is not very clever, last week he got Harrods, the massive toy shop in London, mixed up with Halfords, yes that is Halfords as in the car accessory shops dotted around England, and yesterday he thought you could get the train to America, odd, I know but he does make us laugh, usually without knowing though. However when it comes to Liverpool he is a genius, he knows the clubs complete history, he’s like a walking talking Liverpool encyclopedia and another of his strong points is playing football because let’s just say if playing as a center back was a subject, he’d be top of the class by a mile. Healthy, also know as Patrick Heath is a computer game addict mainly using online gaming. This is where he got his nickname, Healthy, because he sets his username on these online games as Heathy during these many people have read it quickly and a lot of them mistake it for Healthy, hence the nickname, it started as a skit but we’ve all just got used to it. Paul McGinnis, Pablo, is my best mate and I’ve known him as long as I can remember. He’s not had the easiest of lives, having been fostered out as a baby and has lived with seven different families luckily all around Crosby and Waterloo over the last ten years so I’ve always been able to keep in touch, mainly due to the abuse he encountered in his first two families, for a while after that he found it very hard to settle down anywhere. Luckily though Pablo has managed to settle down and has been with Bella and Peter, his current foster parents for the last three years and he seems a lot happier now.
One boring Saturday we were all sitting in Healthy’s watching the television when an advert for Continental Tyres came on and at the end of the advert it stated ‘Proud sponsor of the World Cup Germany 2006’. Now that was the first any of us knew that Germany was staging the World Cup, so when I saw this I told them all my amazing dream to got to the World Cup final in Germany and see England win. At first there was silence and I was expecting them to all turn around and laugh and make me feel like an idiot but then we started talking about it and I soon discovered how much they would love to do that too. Then Mickey suggested we actually go to the World Cup in Germany next year. We all looked at each other and just burst out laughing, but once we had calmed down we all started thinking, what if we could go. Fly to Germany, its not that far. Watch the matches on television. Go to the stadium on the final day. Witness the World Cup final inside the massive stadium. Roar with tens of thousands of fans. It would be anyone’s dream. But then Jack had to go and ruin the moment by admitted the biggest problem. The money. We all sighed in the knowledge that we were never going to get round the problem – but we could try, and where determined to give it a go. So we thought we need money were do we go, a short silence while we thought of how to get around the problem when we all jumped out up and shouted ‘PARENTS’ followed seconds later by Mickey who was just a little slower than the rest of us.
Mickey’s dad is a bricklayer and one of the nicest people you’ll every meet. He had always left open an offer for Mickey and a friend to work with him and get paid, of course. Healthy said he had a good income from somewhere which matched what Mickey and Jack would be getting from doing the bricklaying, I wondered where but didn’t think to ask because my mind was taken by the possibility of going to the World Cup Final! Now that just left me and Pablo and I had a great idea. I remembered my Uncle, you know the one with the massive house in Wales that worked at a Mercedes car showroom and had told me that he was looking for two, maybe three young, smart, quick apprentices to take on. Well we’re young, so hopefully that will do. Next task was to find out how much it was going to cost, so later that night Pablo got on the Internet to see what he could find. What he found was not quite what we were hoping for.
After Pablo had found out how much this amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity would cost we then had the next hard task – parents. The idea was to all go to one person’s house together as a group. First on the list was Mickey because his parents are the most lenient and we wanted to get off to a good start. As you can see we were planning everything down to the bone. Now, in every family there is usually a good parent and a bad parent, or at least a not so soft parent, so obviously you are best to ask the more persuasive parent first and in many cases this it the mum, and is no different in Mickey’s case. Our plan was to go to Mickey’s mum, Anne, at home while Mickey’s dad, Jim was at work. Parents are definitely weaker on their own. When we got there Mickey quickly cornered his mum on the sofa with us all around and started to explain our ingenious plan to get to the World Cup Final. We made sure she knew all the facts, that way she would be impressed by the amount of research and knowledge we had gained. We then attempted to get the sympathy vote by using phrases such as ‘if we don’t go this time we may never get the chance to go ever again’ and ‘it’s been my dream as long as I can remember’, and this worked a treat. Once we’d finished explaining there was a five second silence which felt like five hours, but it was well worth it, we got our first yes and were on our way.
We thought the best idea was doing the hardest parents to persuade next – Jack’s mum and dad, also known as Marge and Geoff. We thought this would be a good idea because Marge and Geoff are very good friends with Anne and Jim and we knew that if they needed a bit more persuading we could get them to phone Anne, and as we cleverly predicted they wanted to talk to another adult so they did and after what seemed like the longest ever phone conversation, we got our second yes. On the way to my house we made a decision that without realizing, saved our plan from falling apart. Because Mickey’s dad was working and his job at the time was sort of on the way to my house, we decided to go to see him about the trip, but mainly to find out whether Mickey and Jack could work for him to get the money. Now the thing you need to take into consideration here is that I had invited everyone to sleep at my house that night and Mickey would probably not have seen his dad till later the next day. With this in mind when we arrived we had to wait a couple of minutes because Jim was in the middle of talking to two lads around our age. Once he had finished, the lads left and we went over to him to tell him, we then found out that those two lads had been inquiring about a job and where talking to Jim about any openings, who was going to phone them the next morning about whether they could work for him. So if it hadn’t been for us turning up when we did and telling him about wanting the jobs, he would have almost definitely said ‘yes’ to them working and Jack and Mickey would have just missed out on the best chance of getting a job to make money for the trip of a lifetime. I wonder what would have happened if they had missed out. Actually on second thoughts I don’t think I want to know because I don’t think anything good would have come from it but we got the jobs and it is all fitting into place.
So we had two ‘yeses’ and a confirmed job. We were going alright but we had to go to my house next and you never want to be the one who lets everyone down, so as you can imagine I was getting quite nervous walking up the garden path. I knew I’d have to talk to both parents because they would never make a decision without consulting each other, especially as big as this. My mum and dad, Debra and Steve aren’t the strictest parents in the world but they’re not always easily persuaded which is what was worrying me. Like with Mickey and Jack’s parents, we all sat together while talking to my mum and dad, and again started by explaining all the research we had done and plans we had to achieve our target. Once we had all finished explaining they just sat there thinking for what seemed like hours and I think if we got anymore silence from anyone’s parents we would all go mad then they started whispering with some tuts and giggles and didn’t even seem as if they were talking about our dream of going the World Cup. Then, suddenly they just stopped. There was another long silent period. Then it came. The answer. Maybe. Maybe? I couldn’t believe it, they needed longer to think about it. They decided that if we go and find out what Healthy and Pablo’s parents said, then come back, they would give me an answer. So we set off again to the next stop – Healthy’s.
The thing with Healthy’s parents is that none of us know them very well. I mean, we’ve all met them quite a few times but never got to know them, like what they do or like. So when we got to Healthy’s, none of us quite knew what to expect. We all walked in and sat down in the living room while he fetched Edna and John. When he came in with them they just sat down and said nothing. Healthy started explaining and nobody else dared to move, while Edna and John just sat in complete silence. Once Healthy had finished explaining, on his own, for the first time that night and probably ever John said something. ‘Can we be left alone please?’ Not good. So we all left the room to let Healthy talk to his parents in private. We must have waited at least half an hour until he came out with a disappointed face and we all realized what had happened. We stepped outside and asked him. Sighing, he slowly whispered ‘Yes’. I tell you I was so close to fainting with relief. So it meant three yeses and a maybe which should turn into a yes if Pablo’s parents are happy with our plans, so we all ran to Pablo’s with excitement, knowing we were so close to tasting the atmosphere of the World Cup Final.
It was starting to get late by the time we arrived at Pablo’s. We tried to calm ourselves down while running up the Pablo’s road and as we got to the drive Bella and Peter answered the door and told us that all the other parents had phoned and informed them about what we were proposing to do, including my mum. Then Peter told us what they had all decided. As long as we organized the whole trip ourselves then yes we could go. As soon as he said that one word, yes, we all went mental and started running up and down the road shouting and screaming, ‘WE’RE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP!’
