Diary of a football detective: week three

14-year-old football detective Danny Harte watches the Lionesses and finds himself worrying about his friend’s safety. And you, blog reader, need to make a choice…

Monday 18 September

Monday. School. Spent the evening in doing all my homework for the week, so I can go to the World Cup qualifier against Russia tomorrow night. Dad’s coming. Mum’s giving us a lift.

Tuesday 19 September

Weird night. Went with Dad to watch England beat Russia 6–0 in the Women’s World Cup qualifiers. Mum drove us, then went to see a friend of hers who lives near the Tranmere stadium.

We battered Russia. 6–0. And — I can report — there was no chance of the match being fixed against England. Russia had zero chance.

When Nikita Parris scored England’s first goal she ran over to the England manager, Mark Sampson and hugged him. All the players did. They were happy. They were thrashing Russia, looking great for the World Cup finals. They loved their manager.

The weird thing that happened at the match was when I led dad to the loos during the match. I went first, my dad holding onto my arm, because he’s not familiar with Tranmere’s loos. We go inside and there’s two men. A giant in a long dark coat. And a smaller bald man. A familiar smaller bald man. I swear it was him. He looks the same in real life as he does on the TV. I stared and he walked past me, eyes down. His gorilla glared at me.

‘Who were they?’ Dad asked, once he’d heard the door shut.

‘One of them was Vladimir Putin,’ I said.

Dad laughed. ‘The Russian president in Tranmere on a chilly autumn night? Of course, I thought it would be.’

Wednesday 20 September

Scanning the news this morning, I found this. UK warplanes sent up to investigate a Russian military plane… It made me wonder.

Why was there a Russian plane in UK airspace? Who was on it? Was it Putin? Had he been at the match? Really? Weren’t world leaders meant to have loads of security and our Prime Minister with him?

More weirdness today, too. I was reading the BBC Football webpages during the Carabao Cup games, listening to Leeds beating Burnley. It said that the England women’s manager has been sacked! Sacked the morning after a 6–0 win in the opening game of the World Cup qualifiers.

Why?

It got me wondering. When something like that happens there’s usually another reason for a big event like that. And there was. But I had an email from Anton Holt. He said not to investigate it. Not even to bother reading about it. So I did read about it. But I can’t mention it in these pages.

You can learn a lot from reading the newspapers.

Thursday 21 September

Rain on the way to school. Felt like autumn. Rain on the way back. Felt like winter. It’s going dark early too.

Friday 22 September

‘Have you seen IT yet?’ Charlotte came up to me at lunch and asked me.

I said no.

Charlotte hesitated.

‘But I’ve read it,’ I said. ‘With Dad.’

‘So… do you want to see it?’ Charlotte said, that angry look in her eyes she gets sometimes.

I said ‘Yeah.’

‘Sunday, then?’ she said. ‘Half two. The Vue.’

Then she walked away.

Saturday 23 September

Sat with Dad, listening to the football and chatting, him becoming more and more cheerful as the afternoon went on. His predictions were better than mine. Again. He says I am no way near as good as him at predicting football matches. He’s 5–2 up now in results this season. And he gets a bonus point for getting the Man City score bang on. He’s 6–2 up.

But it was hard to concentrate on the football, to be honest. In fact, the more the day went on the less I thought about football and the more I thought about going to see IT with Charlotte. I had these weird butterflies in my chest. Dad commented on it.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘It’s not to do with Anton Holt and that stuff you do for him, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can promise you it’s not that.’

Sunday 24 September

I got to the Vue at 2 .15 p.m. Charlotte had said to meet at half-two. I waited. And waited. Then it was 2.45 p.m. I texted Charlotte. No reply.

Then at three my phone rang. Charlotte’s number.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked. I was worried about her now.

Now it’s up to you. What happens next?

Tom has come up with three scenarios for you to choose from. Please email info@tompalmer.co.uk with your vote. One vote per class.

A) Charlotte says she’s had a better offer and has gone shopping with her mates in town instead.

B) Charlotte has been abducted by Tupolev and the phone call is from the Russian, saying that Danny needs to catch a flight to Moscow this week, as there are certain people who want to meet him. If he doesn’t, he’ll never see his friend again.

C) Danny’s mum and dad ban him from doing any more investigations. He is a 15 year-old boy and he should be concentrating on his GCSEs.

Predictions

Wednesday: PSG v Bayern Munich. Me 1–1; Dad 1–0

Saturday: Chelsea v Man City. Me 0–0; Dad 0–0

Saturday: Huddersfield v Spurs. Me 1–0; Dad 0–2

Can Danny do any better with his football predictions this week?