"How long have you been on our books?"
Ellis Cartwright looked at the empty net.
"I am not, gaffer."
I had a ball in my hands and I stopped turning it.
"Say that again."
"I am not on the books." He said it the way you say a thing you have said in your head 400 times. "I was released on the 6th of June."
Somewhere behind me on pitch 2 a groundsman started a mower.
Brrrrrrmmm.
"Ellis."
"It is fine."
"It is not fine, it is the 20th of July." I put the ball down. "Who released you?"
"Mr Cooke did the meeting."
"And what did Mr Cooke say?"
"That I am a lovely lad and there is not a place." He was looking at the goal and not at me. "10 minutes. It was 10 minutes, and there was a lad waiting outside for his one after mine."
"And you have been coming in since."
"Yes."
"Every morning."
"7 o'clock." He shrugged, and it was the worst shrug I have ever seen on a teenager. "Nobody has told me to stop."
