“Chapter 7

SCENE 1 – The Training Camp
[Various members of Hang Eleven are standing around chatting and sunbathing. Very little training is getting done.]

Surfer Girl: Who the heck is he? I’m sure he wasn’t here yesterday.
Surf City: He wasn’t. He’s one of the replacements.
Surfer Girl: Well, duh! Of course he’s a replacement. I mean, he wasn’t here yesterday.
Surf City: He’s a replacement replacement. One of the replacements got injured.
Surfer Girl: Jeez. We suck.
Surf City: That’s life on the edge. Injuries happen.

[Coach Robsson enters]

Surfer Girl: Hey Coach, it’s official. We suck.
Coach Robsson: Thank you, Surfer Girl, but I seem to remember we won our last game 5-1. To me that says we rock, not suck.
Surfer Girl: Maybe, but we sure as heck ain’t gonna win the next one 5-1, huh? Not with this bunch of shark biscuits.
Balboa Blue: Hey girl, don’t dis’ the biscuits. Who else you gonna get to stand LoS with Charlie?
Surf City: Not you, Blue, that’s for sure.
Balboa Blue: Correctamundo, Hefe. Why waste the talent on the line?
Surf City: Say, Blue. You show me some talent, I’ll look after it for you.
Surfer Girl: Word!
Balboa Blue: Whatever.
Coach Robsson: [coughs loudly] If I may just interrupt for a moment, and in your own parlance… Train much? Now, go show the biscuits how to put their armour on. They’ll probably be needing it.


SCENE 2 – The Field of Play
[Hang Eleven are playing against Extremists, a dark elf team. The game has just begun.]

Commentator: [as a voice over] …and Ride the Wild Surf is through! Surf City has cleared a channel for him down the sideline and the wood elf is sprinting…he going all out, he’s going to score…he’s down! Oh no, right on the goal line and Ride the Wild Surf goes down. The ball is loose, inside the endzone. All it needs is one wood elf to dive on it and the score is theirs. But now Dr Diehard, the dark elf thrower is coming back, he’s scooped up the ball… now he’s looking for someone to pass to. There are a few players open. He steps up… No! Unbelieveable. Ride the Wild Surf has leap back up, he’s gone for the much stronger thrower and he’s got him! He’s down! He’s out. Dr Diehard is out of the game. But the ball is safe. With his last action, Dr Diehard has managed to dump the ball off to Eclipso and now the dark elves are on the offensive…

Coach Robsson: [shouting from the sidelines] No! No! No! Get it back. Come on. After them! They’re only dark elves. They’re slow and stupid!

[A stale meat pie, thrown from off-stage, hits Robsson on the back of the head]

Coach Robsson: Ouch! Doc, I’m down!

[Doc Onholiday, the team’s apothecary, enters]

Coach Robsson: Jeez, Doc. Is it bad? It feels bad. Oh crud, I can see my brains!
Doc Onholiday: That’s meat pie. You’re fine. Luckily for you there was a lot of jelly in this one. Now, on your feet soldier, I have more casualties coming in.

[Ride the Wild Surf enters from the field]

Coach Robsson: Ride, what happened?
Ride the Wild Surf: Dude hit me, man. Hard.
Doc Onholiday: Fractured skull. Not too bad. I’ll patch him up.

[[Wipeout enters]

Coach Robsson: Wipeout?
Wipeout: Headwound.
Coach Robsson: But I thought we buried you three days ago? Didn’t you die last time out?
Doc Onholiday: Fractured skull. Pretty bad. Nothing I can do for him now.
Wipeout: That was the other Wipeout, dude. I took his name as, like a homage, man.
Coach Robsson: Well that’s a relief. At least we buried the right one.
Commentator: [as a voice-over] Score! Extremists run it in at last. And there’s the whistle for half time. So, it’s 1-0 to the dark elves after a totally dominating, if somewhat disappointingly slow, performance which has left the wood elves both reeling from the shock and licking their wounds. Join us back here in fifteen for what we hope will be a more action-packed half.


SCENE 3 – The Visitors’ Dressing-Room
[After the match. The wood elves are in high spirits, despite a 2-0 loss]

Ride the Wild Surf: So I was like, rargh! And then he was like, eek! And then I was like, ha! But then the other dude came in and it was like, doof! Splat! And I was like, Dude? Ouch!
Spiltmilk: Hmmm. Interesting. But perhaps I’ll paraphrase a bit if that’s okay. Some of my readers are a bit, well, un-surfer if you know what I mean. But I’ll make it sound good. Promise.
Surf City: And I was our MVP. Don’t forget to mention that.
Ride the Wild Surf: MVP like why? Moi, thirteen yards rushing and cas. Vouz, nada I believe.
Wipeout: Cas? Please. The fans did that, not you.
Ride the Wild Surf: But it was me that pushed him.
Surf City: And it was also you that crashed out and gave away the ball in the first place.
Wipeout: Touché, Dude.
Ride the Wild Surf: Whatever. We still won though.
Spiltmilk: Er, actually, no you didn’t. You lost 2-0.
Ride the Wild Surf: Really? Lost?
Spiltmilk: More like hammered really.
Ride the Wild Surf: Yeah, I was pretty hammered, but that was way before the game. I was totally sobered up for the game. Oh, wait. Hammered. I get it.
Spiltmilk: So. Can I tell my readers to expect better things from you next time out or is this really as good as it’s likely to get?
Surf City: Who knows? We just go with the flow. Just push that old board out into the waves and see where they take us. One day we’re so totally awesome it hurts. Next, we’re so totally awful it sucks.
Wipeout: [rubs his bandaged head] And hurts.


[FIN]
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