Frankie vs. the Rowdy Romans

  To my mom, Pat, who encouraged me to do my homework in between kicking a ball all around the house, and is still with me every step of the way

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ACTIVITY

  TEASER

  ALSO BY FRANK LAMPARD

  COPYRIGHT

  Welcome to a fantastic fantasy league — the greatest soccer competition ever held in this world or any other!

  You’ll need four on a team, so choose carefully. This is a lot more serious than a game in the park. You’ll never know who your next opponents will be, or where you’ll face them.

  So lace up your cleats, players, and good luck! The whistle’s about to blow!

  The Ref

  Frankie pushed the bell beside Charlie’s front door.

  DING-DONG!

  “It must have been a dream,” said Louise, who was standing next to him.

  “But we all had the same dream,” said Frankie.

  Louise rolled her eyes. “There’s no such thing as a magic soccer ball,” she said. “And even if there were, it wouldn’t look like that.” She pointed to the ball under Frankie’s arm.

  He smiled. The ball looked like it had been chewed up and spit out. Half the leather had peeled away, and it sagged like an old balloon. He’d won it at a carnival from a strange old man, but something very weird had happened when they had played with the ball in the park. A portal into another world had opened up, and they’d found themselves on a wooden ship, playing soccer against pirates. Well, three pirates and a talking parrot, which was even weirder.

  “We can’t have been dreaming,” said Frankie. “It was the middle of the day.”

  He heard the sound of footsteps in the house. Max, Frankie’s dog, barked.

  “And dogs don’t talk, either,” said Louise.

  Max glanced up. On the pirate ship, he’d been chatting away like one of them. But back in the real world, it was just his usual barks, whines, and growls.

  The door opened and Charlie stood there. He was wearing his goalie gloves, as always, and was holding a slice of toast.

  “Sorry, guys, just finishing my breakfast,” he said.

  Louise laughed. “It might be easier if you took those off,” she said, nodding at the gloves.

  Charlie shook his head. “No way. The best goalies are —”

  “— always ready!” said Louise and Frankie together. They had heard it a million times.

  Charlie swallowed the last bit of toast. “Let’s go.”

  Just as he stepped through the door, his kitten, Jinx, slipped out after him. Max leapt into the air, then scurried away, tail between his legs. Jinx purred and narrowed her green eyes.

  “She’s nothing to be frightened of,” said Frankie, scratching Max behind the ears.

  Jinx leapt up onto the front fence and arched her back.

  “She’s just a pussycat,” said Louise, running her hand over Jinx’s fur.

  As the friends set off toward the park, Max seemed to recover, trotting a few steps ahead of them and sniffing around.

  “It’s funny how your dog is so fearless about everything else,” said Charlie, “but he’s terrified of Jinx.”

  Frankie shrugged. “I guess we’re all scared of something. It doesn’t have to make sense. I don’t like heights.”

  “I hate spiders,” said Louise.

  They were silent for a few seconds, then Louise asked, “What are you scared of, Charlie?”

  “I don’t know,” said Charlie, chewing his lip. “Nothing, I guess. No, actually, I do know! I’m scared of … not saving goals.”

  Frankie and Louise burst out laughing.

  “That doesn’t count!” said Frankie.

  “Well, I suppose I’m scared of sharks,” said Charlie.

  “We’re all scared of sharks,” said Frankie. He shuddered as he remembered seeing shark fins cutting through the waves beside the pirate ship. “Do you think it was real?” he asked.

  Charlie shrugged. “It felt real to me. Has anything else happened with the ball since?”

  Frankie shook his head. “Nope.” He’d tried playing with it in his backyard and even in his bedroom. No more portals had opened up. It was sort of a relief — on the pirate ship, they’d almost ended up marooned on a desert island. But Frankie couldn’t help feeling disappointed, too. “I’ve got a theory, though,” he said. “Maybe it only works when we’re all together.”

  “Frankie’s FC might not be finished yet!” said Louise.

  * * *

  A light drizzle had started by the time they reached the park, so there weren’t many people around. Frankie dropped his ball and kicked it into Charlie’s gloves.

  “Looks like we’ll get the field to ourselves,” said Charlie as they made their way to the grass where they played.

  “Or not,” said Louise, pointing ahead. “Uh-oh.”

  Frankie looked up and his heart sank. His older brother, Kevin, was already there with his friends Liam, Rob, and Matt. Matt was in goal between the two posts. They were kicking around a brand-new soccer ball.

  “Whoa!” said Charlie. “That’s a ‘Pro Infinity.’ They cost a lot.”

  Frankie felt himself blushing. He suddenly wanted to hide his battered old ball. “Come on, let’s go somewhere else.”

  But it was too late. His brother blasted a shot past Matt and the ball rolled toward Frankie. He stopped it under his foot.

  “Look who it is!” said Kevin. “Frankenstein and his loser friends.”

  Frankie’s embarrassment turned to anger. He put up with his brother picking on him, but not his friends. Time to teach them a lesson, he thought. “Hi, Kev,” he said. “Can we play, too?”

  Kevin glanced at his friends as he walked over. “No way,” he sneered. “It’s not a children’s game.”

  Kevin tried to kick the ball from under Frankie’s foot, but Frankie rolled it back out of reach.

  “Give me the ball, Frankenstein,” said Kevin, his face darkening. “Or else.”

  “Sure,” said Frankie. He dribbled the ball over to his brother, then tipped it through his legs.

  “Hey!” said Kevin. “I said, give —”

  Frankie wasn’t listening. He passed the ball to Louise. Liam and Rob were closing in. Louise faked a pass back to Frankie but took the ball around Rob. Charlie was laughing. “Go, Frankie’s team!” he shouted. Liam was a big kid, and he was quick. He ran at Louise, but she kept steady and flicked the ball over his head. It came to Frankie, who was now in front of the goal.

  Matt spread his arms. “You’re not getting past me,” he said.

  Want to bet? thought Frankie.

  “Hey, that’s ours!” came Charlie’s voice.

  Frankie turned, forgetting about shooting. Max was barking, running in circles around Kevin, who was holding their soccer ball from the carnival.

  “Children play in the children’s area,” Kevin said. “Now, beat it!” He tossed the old ball in the air, then booted it high and far.

  Frankie watched his ball fly toward the toddlers’ play area.

  Suddenly, he was on the ground, as Liam tackled him roughly and took the other ball.

  “Great shot, Kev!” called Matt. He lowered his voice and muttered to Frankie, “Told you that you wouldn’t score.”

  Frankie picked himself up, hanging his head and avoiding his brother’s look as he joined his friends. Together, they trudged off to find their ball.

  “Just ignore him,” s
aid Louise. “Your brother’s only jealous because you’re better at soccer than he is.”

  “Yeah,” said Charlie, grinning. “He’s probably jealous of your ball, too.”

  Frankie looked at his friend, who was smirking. He couldn’t help smiling, too. His ball had cost him fifty cents rather than fifty dollars.

  The rain began to fall much harder. Great gray sheets poured from the sky, so it was hard to see very far ahead. Behind them, Frankie could hear Kevin and his friends shouting that they should find some shelter.

  “We’d better go, too,” said Frankie. This was turning into a disaster. “Max, go and get the ball.”

  Max streaked off. Frankie squinted ahead and saw his dog pause for a moment on the edge of the playground. Then he darted toward the sandbox, and leapt over the side.

  He vanished with a howl.

  “Max!” called Frankie.

  “What happened to him?” said Louise, panic in her voice.

  Frankie broke into a run. He was soaked to the skin now. He hopped over the fence into the play area and ran to the sandbox’s edge.

  The sand was gone, replaced by a pool of swirling colors.

  “It’s just like the portal from before,” said Charlie, huffing as he caught up.

  Frankie nodded slowly. “Max must have fallen through,” he mumbled.

  “What should we do?” asked Charlie.

  Frankie stared into his friends’ faces. Rain had matted their hair and soaked their clothes. “I can’t ask you to come with me,” he said. “Max is my dog. He’s my responsibility.”

  “We’re coming,” said Louise. “No question. The best teams always stick together.”

  “She’s right,” said Charlie. “Try stopping us.”

  Frankie’s heart surged with relief. I never should have doubted them.

  He held out both hands, and Louise and Charlie each took one. Whatever waited for them on the other side, they’d face it together. “Ready?” he asked.

  Charlie gave a quick nod and Louise squeezed his hand tighter.

  Frankie leapt into the kaleidoscope of color. Both of his friends’ hands were wrenched from his. Everything went dark.

  * * *

  The first thing Frankie realized was that he was dry. Dry and warm.

  That’s a good start, he thought.

  “Louise?” he said. “Charlie?”

  “I can’t see anything,” said Louise.

  “Me, neither,” whimpered Charlie. “And, by the way, I am afraid of something — the dark!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Frankie, groping about in the gloom. Metal clanked and the sound echoed. Frankie shuffled forward. More clanking, and he almost tripped.

  “I’ve got chains around my ankles,” he said.

  The sound of shifting chains seemed to come from all around him.

  “Me too,” said Louise.

  “Oh, great!” said Charlie.

  A low growl rumbled in the air.

  “Jinx?” said Charlie.

  “That sounded bigger than Jinx,” said a husky voice that Frankie recognized.

  “Is that you, Max?” he said. He felt a wet nose brush his leg.

  “Sorry I got you all into this mess,” said Max.

  “What mess?” said Charlie. “Where are we?”

  Frankie suddenly heard whistling, and a faint glow appeared in the distance. It grew brighter, until he saw it was the flickering flame of a torch in the hand of a large man. He also made out thick wooden stakes and iron bars all around them.

  “We’re in a cage!” he said.

  The man holding the torch walked toward one side of the cage. With him came a breeze of smelly air: old feet and rotten onions. Judging by the man’s toothless, dirt- and sweat-smeared face, Frankie guessed he was the source of the smell. He looked a bit like Frankie’s next-door neighbor, Mr. Pratchett – if Mr. Pratchett hadn’t been to the dentist in about a hundred years.

  “Hey!” said Charlie, rushing to the bars as fast as his chains would allow. “Let us out of here!”

  The man scowled, and another wave of stinkiness almost knocked Frankie off his feet.

  “Oh, you’ll be out of there soon enough,” he said. “Your team’s up next.”

  “Our team?” said Frankie. He looked down and realized he was wearing a dirty white tunic and leather sandals. On his chest was the same badge that had appeared when he had faced the pirates. It read FFC.

  “Frankie’s Football Club,” he said to himself. “Guys, we’re going to play another match!”

  “Hurray!” said Louise. She was wearing a tattered tunic, too, with a cape behind it.

  “Let’s hope we’re not getting fed to the sharks at the end,” said Charlie.

  Their jailer frowned. “No sharks today,” he hissed. “They’re not flooding the arena until next week.”

  Arena? thought Frankie. Where are we? He knew someone who could tell him. “Can we speak to the Ref?” he asked.

  The jailer bashed the cage bars with his torch. “Who’s this ‘Ref’?” he snarled. “One of the other gladiators?”

  “Gladiators?” said Louise. She gripped Frankie’s shoulder. “We must be in ancient Rome!”

  The jailer shook his head. “You’re a funny bunch, aren’t you? We just call it Rome.”

  An enormous roar shook Frankie to his bones.

  “That sounded a lot bigger than Jinx,” said Max.

  The jailer smiled. “That’s Ferox. Better pray he’s not hungry. Ha! What am I saying? Ferox is always hungry.”

  Charlie’s eyes were as big as saucers.

  “You ready?” said the jailer, opening the door of the cage.

  “No!” yelled Frankie and his friends.

  The jailer led them along a low corridor. They shuffled and rattled along in their chains. Torchlight threw long shadows on the walls. Every few steps, they passed alcoves that led to other cells. In the gloom, Frankie made out figures crouched in their cages: just whites of eyes, with the occasional glint of steel armor and swords. The air smelled of stale sweat and fear.

  They must be the other gladiators, he thought. They don’t look much like soccer players!

  From somewhere above came the hum of voices: hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Frankie felt a bead of sweat trickle down his cheek. His heart was thumping in his chest.

  The jailer led them around several corners, and then up a long ramp toward a towering wooden gate.

  “Perhaps we should go back to that nice warm cage,” muttered Max.

  The jailer raised his torch and banged three times on the wooden gate. He turned to Frankie and his friends. “Too late for that now,” he said. “Your audience awaits!”

  A rhythmic thumping began on the other side of the gate. Frankie realized that the crowd was stamping their feet in unison.

  As the jailer walked between them, unlocking the chains at their ankles, the pounding grew louder, and faster and faster, until it felt as if the walls were shaking.

  “We’ll be all right,” Frankie said to the others.

  The jailer grinned. “They all say that.”

  The hinges groaned as the gates swung outward.

  Frankie was blinded and deafened at once. Daylight flooded the rampway, and the roar of voices created a wall of sound. He rocked back on his heels, but the jailer gave him a shove in the back.

  “Wow!” said Louise.

  Frankie stumbled through the gates. Blinking into the glare, he gasped. Steep tiers of seats rose up on every side of the arena, with great stone arches built one on top of the other. The stands were packed with what must have been thirty thousand people, all wearing tunics or togas of every color, or dresses draped in many folds. Their eyes stared at him. Frankie turned slowly. He and his friends were standing on one side of an enormous circular field, but instead of grass on the ground, there was a thin layer of sand over hard-packed earth. He felt tiny, as if he were waiting on a long line at a fair.

  “This is the Colosseum!” said Loui
se. “We learned about it at school. It’s one of the largest buildings in ancient Rome, built in the first century for gladiatorial contests …”

  “Not soccer matches?” said Charlie.

  “No,” said Frankie with a giant gulp. “Fights to the death.”

  “Oh,” said Max. “And I was just hoping for a run in the park.”

  From somewhere in the arena, a drum beat slowly. Two servants with bare chests began to close the gates behind them, and the jailer gave them a little wave.

  “See you soon!” called Charlie bravely.

  “I doubt it,” said the jailer. Then the gates slammed closed and he was gone.

  The drums sped up, hammering more quickly. Frankie noticed that the eyes of the crowd had all shifted in one direction. He followed them with his own and saw a man standing far from them across the arena. He wore black and had some sort of necklace hanging around his neck. “Guys!” Frankie said. “Look!”

  The black-clad man made his way to a raised podium as the drumbeat quickened to a crescendo. As he lowered himself into a throne-like seat, the drums stopped dead.

  “That’s not right,” said Louise, frowning. “That’s where the emperor should sit. But he wore purple, not black.”

  Frankie suddenly realized what the necklace was — a whistle. And now he recognized the face, too. “It’s not the emperor,” he said. “It’s the Ref!”

  “Welcome, challengers!” bellowed a bald man beside the Ref. “State your team name!”

  Frankie cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to let his fear get the better of him. “Frankie’s FC!” he called.

  Thousands of boos rolled in from the stands. The noise was incredible — shouts and screams and hisses.

  “We’re definitely the away team,” said Louise nervously.

  The Ref reached down and picked up something round off of a stand in front of him. He lifted it above his head.

  “The ball!” said Frankie. “Our ball!”

  The Ref hurled the ball into the arena. It rolled to a stop right in the center.

  “Where’s the goal?” Charlie shouted.

  Two pairs of servants appeared at opposite sides of the field. They lifted two pairs of posts into position, facing each other.