Goal:

"C'mon boys! Run! Faster! Pick up the pace!"

I winced as I walked through the turnstiles and into the football ground, Coach Mickey's voice resonated in my ear drums as he was shouting through a megaphone. I looked around in awe at the place, it looked like Wembley, a large oval with a huge green rectangular pitch in the middle, surrounded by thousands of seats undercover by the huge building which surrounded it, holding a gym, café, tea bar and multiple sports halls for individual sports. I had never realised how big it was. I never came to the sports hall. On the pitch there were a few dozen boys running around, all dressed in House colours of red, yellow and blue, allowing me to distinguish between the different year groups. The whole college was separated into three years and therefore three colours, red for third years, yellow for second years and blue for first years. I was a second year which meant that when in houses, literally everything was painted yellow.

I walked around the pitch to the nearest entrance, my heels clipping on the floor. A few of the cleaners turned to look at me, giving me odd glances, probably wondering what I was doing in a football field dressed in high heels and a mini skirt. Once at the green gate I opened it, taking a step onto the soggy, muddy pitch. My heels sunk slightly, and I groaned, knowing that I would have to get them professionally cleaned that weekend. I headed towards Coach and a few of the boys looked at me as they ran past. I only recognised a handful of them from the year above, I had no idea who the others were. The academy boys tended to keep themselves separate from the rest of the school, the closest you would come to meeting them is if you lived on the same floor as them, but even then, their schedules were so different it was very unlikely you would pass them. With every step I took my heels sunk further and I sighed. Mr Potter had told me that Coach wanted to meet me today and that I should go at my first convenience, so I headed straight from English and didn't get changed. Not that I owned anything remotely appropriate for a football field. What are you supposed to wear exactly? I would not wear a tracksuit. It simply wasn't appropriate in a school like this.

As I approached him, he shouted once more through the megaphone and I held my hands over my ears. He turned to look down at me, looking at my outfit with a confused expression on his face.

"Uh, hi. I'm Isla, Mr Potter said you wanted to see me?" I asked nervously. He tilted his head at me and furrowed his eyebrows.

"What are you wearing?" He asked, and I stepped back in shock.

"Excuse me?" I asked, and he laughed.

"I'm sorry..." He said, sounding much more well-spoken than before. "I just meant that you don't look dressed for a football match." He said, and I nodded in understanding.

"I didn't have a chance to get changed..." I explained and began to move my feet around so that I wasn't sinking.

"You might want to make time next time- "

"Coach! How long are we running for?" A boy, reasonably tall with dark blonde hair wearing yellow ran up to us, the name NEWMAN printed onto his shirt.

"Oh yeah I forgot about you guys." Coach muttered and used the megaphone to call them all in, deafening me once again.

"Who's the chick?" The same boy asked, looking up and down at me with a confused expression. Coach ignored him, and I crossed my arms over my chest, stood up as tall as I could despite my sinking shoes and held my head high, a blank expression on my face as more of them began to stare at me.

"Right. This is... What's your name again?" Coach asked, and I huffed.

"Isla." I spat, and he nodded.

"Yeah Isla. She's gonna be writing the match reports for us so she'll be coming around with us and to training and stuff. I won't bother introducing you as you can do it yourself. Be nice to her please. Now go get changed." Coach ordered, and they all sighed in relief that they could finish. They all headed in, and not one of them said hello to me on the way through. Coach sighed as the last one walked, only looking over at me briefly. "They are nice boys. They're just picky. You're gonna have to prove yourself to them."

"What do you mean?" I asked, following him out of the pitch and onto the concrete.

"I mean, you're gonna have to prove you're one of us for them to like ya." He muttered, shutting the gate behind me.

"I don't quite understand." I muttered. 'One' of them? What on earth was that supposed to mean.

"I mean-" he said, heading towards the door. "-You need to show us that you aren't like the rest of 'em."

"The rest of who exactly?" I asked, and he sighed.

"You're gonna be hard work, aren't you?" He asked, and my mouth dropped in shock.

"Excuse me I'll have you know I'm-"

"Yeah yeah, you're so and so's daughter. I don't care. But listen, Ella is it?"

"Isla!" I exclaimed, feeling frustrated with him. I was offended. Who were 'they' exactly and why couldn't I be like them? That was the point of this school. We all wanted to be like the top dogs; they were our goal.

"Yeah Isla. For you to get what you need out of this, you need them to like you. And the you you're being... Well, they don't like those types of people. They're here for the football, not the money. Remember that yeah?" He explained, turned away and opened the door, letting out the sound of loud rap music. "I'll see you tomorrow 7am sharp for training." He said and walked inside.

"7am?! It's a Saturday!" I exclaimed, and he laughed, shutting the door behind him and leaving me outside in the ground, with muddy high heels and a confused expression painted across my features.

This was going to be harder than I thought it would be.