On The Ball Read online

  Lemonfizz Media

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  Published by Lemonfizz Media and Scholastic Australia in 2010. Text, design and illustrations copyright © Lemonfizz Media 2010.

  A CIP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Did you miss Books 1 and 2?

  Did you miss Books 3 and 4?

  Did you miss Book 5?

  Back Cover Material

  Emma Jacks had never run so much in her life. Her chest heaved and her legs ached. She wasn’t sure she could keep running and keep kicking the soccer ball at the same time. But she had to. She was right by the goals and a goal would put the girls in front of the boys. Just as Emma thought she would have to stop, one of her best friends, Hannah, sprinted up beside her.

  ‘Em, here, pass the ball!’ yelled Hannah.

  Emma kicked the ball and it shot across the field. Emma thought she had kicked it straight to Hannah so was surprised when she saw Oskar running in the opposite direction with the ball. Emma’s heart sank: she had kicked the ball to Oskar.

  ‘Bad luck, Em,’ cried Hannah as she chased after Oskar.

  Bad luck nothing, thought Emma. I just can’t kick straight! Oskar was miles away from Hannah!

  But there was no time to think about that now. Isi was down the other end of the field and had skillfully taken the ball back from Oskar. She was now powering back up the field towards Emma. Isi kicked the ball to Hannah, who was running fast. Just as Dougall caught up, Hannah kicked the ball towards Emma.

  ‘It’s yours, Em,’ she called. ‘Head it into goal. You can do it.’

  I can? Emma tried to get ready. She watched the ball. She watched it coming towards her, high in the sky, in front of the goals. Emma got ready to jump. She closed her eyes. She could see it all in her mind: she was going to jump up and meet the ball and, with just a little nudge of the head, she was going to guide it into goal. Well, that was the plan. Somebody should have told Emma’s head the plan.

  Emma jumped up, aiming her head at the ball, waiting for contact. No contact. She turned her head and watched as the ball sailed past her and back onto Oskar’s boot. Oskar ran, then passed it to Edvard, who kicked into the far goal.

  Ms Tenga blew her whistle. Boys 1, Girls 0. Boys ecstatic. Emma not impressed.

  The goalie threw the ball back into play for the girls. Isi took it but was soon tackled by Edvard. Isi did well to get the ball free but she couldn’t control where it went and she kicked it to an empty part of the field. The closest girl to the ball was Nema who, unfortunately, seemed to be re-plaiting her hair.

  ‘Nema,’ shouted Isi, ‘the ball! Nema, get the ball. It’s the round thing coming towards you!’

  ‘Oh, what, this?’ said Nema, picking up the ball.

  Ms Tenga’s whistle blew.

  ‘Foul. Boys’ ball,’ cried Ms Tenga. ‘Nema, you can’t pick the ball up with your hands. You have to kick it with your feet.’

  ‘Oh, sorry Ms Tenga,’ said Nema who then in a low voice muttered so her teacher couldn’t hear her, ‘stupid rule, stupid boys’ game.’

  Edvard took off with the ball but, just as it looked as if the boys were going to score another goal, Hannah swooped in and took possession. She quickly passed the ball to Emma, who was waiting on the side. Emma ran a bit further up the field before passing to Isi, who shrugged off Oskar and kicked it high to Cat, who was right in front of goal. Cat leapt up, as if she was about to take off, and with a perfect header, she sent the ball into the goal.

  Ms Tenga blew her whistle again. Girls 1, Boys 1. The girls leapt all over each other in delight. Emma was thrilled and almost forgot about her missed header.

  There was time for just one more play. They were still close to the girls’ goal so Emma was hopeful they’d score again.

  Callum threw the ball in for the boys. He was aiming for Edvard but Isi, seeing what Callum was doing, snuck in front and took the ball. Callum tackled hard but Isi managed to kick the ball to Hannah, who only just beat Edvard to it. Again Hannah kicked the ball up high towards Emma.

  ‘This time, Em,’ Hannah shouted, ‘head this one in.’

  Emma went up again. She stretched her neck and pushed with her head. Contact. The ball flew through the air. It went high, much too high, over the goals and out of bounds.

  Ms Tenga blew the whistle.

  ‘Bad luck, Emma. Good try,’ cried Ms Tenga. ‘Great game everyone! That’s it for today. Now quickly into the changing rooms.’

  Everyone rushed off, except Emma was a bit slower than the others. She was angry with herself for missing both those headers. She felt she had let the team down. Hannah must have noticed her friend looking sad and came up and put an arm around her.

  ‘Cheer up,’ she said.

  Then Isi bounded up to them. Isi was, as always, excited.

  ‘How fun was that!’ she exclaimed. ‘And we nearly won. Those boys were so sure that they would beat us by heaps and it was a draw. Yay us!’

  ‘Yay you, maybe,’ said Emma. ‘I can’t believe I missed two headers. Maybe I shouldn’t try out for the school team.’

  ‘No, you have to,’ cried Isi. ‘How cool will it be if we all play together? And this year, the team is going to have proper shirts with our names on them! You have to be in the team Em, you just have to be!’

  ‘I have to get into the team first,’ said Emma glumly.

  ‘Why would anyone want to be in the soccer team?’ said Nema, who had walked up alongside them. ‘It’s a boys’ sport.’

  Ms Tenga was coming up behind the girls. She must have heard their conversation.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Nema, soccer is one of the largest girls’ sports in the world. And don’t be so hard on yourself, Emma. You played really well today. Headers take a lot of practice. Keep trying, stay on the ball and you could really shine.’

  Emma blushed. On the ball. Gee whizz, lemonfizz, I should be good at that, she thought.

  And she should. After all when she wasn’t Emma Jacks, schoolgirl and not very confident soccer player, she was Special Agent EJ12, code-cracker for the under-twelve division of the secret agency SHINE. And a secret agent always had to stay on the ball.


  Emma Jacks was pretty much your normal, everyday schoolgirl. She went to school (her favourite subjects were maths and art), she liked sport (particularly gymnastics), she loved spending time with her friends (sometimes too much email time, according to her mum) and she loved animals and chocolate, animals more than chocolate. She thought she might be a vet when she grew up, although her brother Bob didn’t think she would ever grow up, which gives you an idea of how irritating Bob was.

  Emma worried about things sometimes, normal things. Sometimes she worried about friends (and mean girls not being friends), sometimes she worried about school and quite often she worried about whether she would be able to do something properly. Like soccer. So, Emma Jacks was pretty normal, very normal in fact—except for the spy thing. Except for being one of SHINE’s best secret agents.

  SHINE was a worldwide secret organisation that stopped evil plans, particularly those of the SHADOW organisation. SHADOW was as bad as SHINE was good and they seemed to be always launching new evil schemes. SHADOW used secret messages to send instructions to their agents and they were always inventing new ways to make sure those messages couldn’t be intercepted or decoded.

  Luckily, SHINE’s agents were very good at cracking new codes and foiling SHADOW plans. Agents like EJ12. She enjoyed looking at the code and picking the clue within it, finding the thing that would let her decode it. This was a problem she enjoyed—and she was good at it. She had a good head for secret messages and codes. She was pretty good at the mission too and was awarded lots of points in the SHINE Shining Stars, the Spy of the Year competition.

  She just wished she had a good head for soccer as well.

  That afternoon at home Emma was practising her headers with her older brother, Bob. Strangely, Bob was being nice to her. Although she was suspicious, she needed the help with her soccer and Bob, she had to admit, was pretty good at soccer. Their puppy, Pip, was also pretty good and was joining in chasing the ball all over the garden. It seemed everyone was better than Emma at soccer.

  ‘When you see the ball coming,’ said Bob, ‘just reach up, stretch your neck and nudge the ball with your forehead. Here, throw the ball up towards me and I’ll show you.’

  Emma threw the ball up high towards Bob. His eyes on the ball, he leapt and stretched to meet the ball and then, with his forehead, he pushed it back to her.

  ‘See, easy!’ said Bob.

  ‘Maybe for you,’ replied Emma grumpily.

  ‘Try again,’ said Bob as he threw the ball up.

  As the ball came towards her, Emma looked towards where it was going and jumped. But she jumped just a little too late and the ball hit the ground.

  ‘Nearly, it just takes practice,’ said Bob. ‘You’ll get it. Maybe we can do some more tomorrow.’

  Bob went inside leaving Emma holding the ball and wondering if any amount of practice would help her headers. It was so frustrating: she could catch balls really well but she just couldn’t seem to get headers right—and if she couldn’t do a header, how was she going to get on the school soccer team? She would have to practise all weekend if she was going to have a chance at the try-outs when school went back.

  The weekend. That reminded Emma. What was she going to do? It was a long weekend but all her friends were going away. Elle and her family were going to visit her grandmother, Isi and her family were going camping and Hannah and her sister were going to stay with their cousins. Even Bob was going to a soccer camp with his team. She wouldn’t be able to practise with him. Things were desperate if you were going to miss your brother. The long weekend was going to be so boring.

  Piinngg!

  Emma jumped. That was no ordinary ping and it came from her very not ordinary phone. It was a special-issue SHINE phone that looked a bit like a game console and a bit like a touch phone. It had lots of normal applications but it also had special SHINE spy apps, including a special SHINE message system that alerted their agents to report in. It was this system that had just sent Emma a message.

  Emma took out her phone and opened the message. She was surprised at what she saw: it didn’t look like the usual SHINE message alert.

  What does this mean? wondered Emma. Is the first line a motto? SHINE liked mottoes and they had lots, but what did ‘It won’t mean a thing if you use a wingding’ mean? It certainly didn’t mean a thing to Emma. She couldn’t make head or tail of it.

  It has to be a clue, thought Emma. It has to be telling me how to crack the code. She read the top line again.

  What’s a wingding? Emma asked herself. I’ve heard that word before, but where? Then she remembered. On the computer, it’s a font on the computer.

  Emma liked fonts, she liked writing her name in different fonts. She liked finding fonts that expressed different styles and different moods. There could be bold, strong fonts and more pretty, girly fonts and there could be just plain nutty fonts. There could be fonts for when Emma felt happy and fonts for when she felt sad. Sometimes Emma made up new fonts herself with a pen but she also liked choosing different ones on the computer. She had quite a few that were her special favourites.

  I think I remember a wingdings font, said Emma to herself. She scrolled to her word app and keyed her name. She then highlighted it and pressed ‘choose font’ and scrolled through her options. Wingdings, starting with W, should be towards the end, thought Emma.

  ‘There you are,’ she said, pressing ‘wingdings’. Now her name looked like a cross between hieroglyphics and a comic book.

  Emma smiled to herself. Emma Jacks, your head may be a bit slow with the ball, but it is fast with the codes. She went back to the SHINE message, highlighted the text and chose another font. ‘It may not mean a thing if you use wingdings but if I use this font, let’s see what happens,’ Emma said to herself as she pressed another of her favourite fonts.

  A weekend training camp with SHINE? Emma was excited. What would that be like? Where would it be? What would they do? Who else would be there? Would she know anyone? Most importantly, would she be able to go? Before Emma could think of any more questions, her phone went again.

  Piinngg!

  There was another message on her phone but this one was from her mum.

  Emma’s mum used to be a SHINE agent and she now helped Emma on her missions. SHINE must have sent her mum a message too—after all agents in the under-twelve division needed their parents’ permission to go on missions. And now Emma had it. She pressed ‘reply’ on the SHINE message system and keyed in her answer.

  As she pressed ‘send’, Emma smiled. Not only had she solved the code, she had solved her long weekend problem as well.

  It was the last lesson of the last day before the long weekend. Emma’s bag was packed with the things she needed for camp. Packing had been easy because SHINE had said there was no need to bring clothes, just toiletries. Emma couldn’t wait for school to finish.

  Finally the bell went. Everyone cheered and ran out the door. Emma rushed out with Isi, Elle and Hannah but knew she would have to make her way to report in to the SHINE Mission Tube.

  SHINE had a secret network of tunnels that allowed agents to be brought to HQ quickly and without anyone knowing. Different agents used different tubes. Each tube needed to be somewhere the agent went frequently yet a place where the entry could be concealed. Emma’s Mission Tube started in one of the girls’ toilets at school. Emma understood it made sense but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a bit embarrassing.

  Although Emma’s closest friends knew she was a secret agent, and sometimes helped on missions as part of BEST (Brains, Expertise, Support and Tips), the SHINE agent phone assist scheme, they weren’t allowed to discuss missions. They had, however, worked out their own secret code so Emma could let her friends know when she had to leave. As Isi, Hannah and Elle made their way to the bus, Emma dropped back a bit.

  ‘Come on Em, we’ll miss the bus,’ said Hannah.

  ‘I’ll see you guys,’ she said to her friends. ‘I need to go to the toilet.’

>   ‘Oh, we can wait, Em,’ said Elle.

  ‘No Elle, I’m going OM,’ whispered Emma. OM meant On Mission. Well, this time it wasn’t really a mission but it would have been too complicated to explain.

  ‘Right,’ said Elle. ‘See you next week then. Good luck.’

  ‘Bye Em!’ cried Isi. ‘Don’t forget to practise. I can’t wait to see our names on those soccer shirts!’

  ‘Me too. Bye Han, bye Isi, see you Elle,’ cried Emma as she turned and headed towards the toilets.

  Emma pushed the door to the girls’ toilets open. First checking no one else was there, she then turned on the hand-dryer and went to the last cubicle on the right, closing and locking the door behind her. She put down the toilet seat, sat down and flipped open the toilet-roll holder. This would have been an odd thing to do, except it was no ordinary toilet-roll holder, it concealed the SHINE Mission Tube access pad. There was a small socket on the side of the holder. Emma pushed her phone into it and waited. There was a beep. Emma entered her pin code and then removed her phone. There was another beep and then words flashed on her phone screen.

  EJ held on to the edge of the toilet seat and counted to three. On three, the wall behind the toilet spun around, with the toilet and EJ attached. On the count of four EJ was sitting on a beanbag at the top of a giant tunnel slide. On the count of five, the wall spun back and a protective shield covered EJ and the bean bag. She had entered the SHINE Mission Tube. EJ then pushed 1 on her phone and WHOOOOOOOOOSH! she sped down what looked like a giant pipe, shiny and brightly lit.

  Normally EJ stopped at the Code Room but this time she sped past it until she came to a stop outside two large metal doors. Next to the doors was a small keypad. EJ stood up and again keyed in her pin code and waited for the security check. The check changed each time. Sometimes it would be fingerprints, sometimes an eye-scan, once EJ even had to sing a song—that was a little embarrassing. The checks were constantly changing to ensure that no one could break into SHINE HQ. EJ wondered what it would be this time.