[…] David always listened to football in the evenings. […] United had drawn at Liver­pool. 2-2. So he was neither happy nor sad. This was one of his favourite bits of the day. He closed his eyes and pretended he had been at the United game, chanting with the crowd, celebrating the goals. […]

Although he lived less than a mile from United’s sta­dium, David had never been to see them play. That cost £ 50 a ticket. Too much. Sometimes noises interrupted David’s football fantasies. The kids on the street out­side. Police cars going past with their sirens blasting. And, sometimes, noises from next door. David had never met his next door neighbour. In fact, he barely knew any­one in the street where he lived. But he knew some things about the old man next door. He knew he went to bed at 10 pm. […] He also knew that every Saturday – and sometimes Sunday – a posh car would arrive and the old man would get into it and be away for a few hours. That that was the only time the man went out in a week. […]

[…] The day after the Liverpool-United game, David was playing [football in] the back garden, trying to do keepy-uppies with his feet and his head. That’s when it hap­pened for the first time. He kicked the ball high, then headed it, then kicked it again and then – losing control – it flew over the high fence and into the next garden. […] He was just about to start [cursing] when, like a miracle, the ball came back, per­fect­ly weight­ed to his feet. David was startled. How had that happened? He was so amazed – and so puzzled – that he kicked the ball back over the fence. Just to see what would happen next? The answer came quickly. The ball was lofted back to him. So he headed it over the fence again. And it came back. Again. This went on until it was dark, when David had to go inside. He shouted thank you to whoever had been kick­ing the ball to him. But no-one replied. That night, as he went to sleep, David did not think about play­ing for United. His mind was too busy wondering who was on the other side of the fence. […]

[The next day, David was looking out of the window lost in thoughts, he saw s]ome­one coming over the fence at the back of the houses. A young man wearing a base­ball cap and scarf around his face. David watched the man walk swiftly across the garden next door, then disappear from view. He waited and then heard something coming from the house next door. Bumps. Noises of someone opening and closing drawers. Someone was burgling the old man’s house! David wasn’t sure what to do. Should he phone the po­lice? […] After a few more minutes he saw the man in the base­ball cap leaving the house, climbing the fence, but struggling this time, because of some­thing he had in his hand. Then he heard a police siren. The man in the baseball cap react­ed by running in one direction, putting his hands against a wall, then quickly run­ning the other way. […]

[… Two days later,] David sat in the kitchen […], looking at the newspaper. A photo on the front page shocked him. It was a picture of an old man. But not any old man. It was the old man who lived next door. And underneath he read the headline UNITED HERO’S CUP FINAL MEDAL STOLEN. David read on: ‘Arthur Stevens, the last surviv­ing player from United’s Cup winning team of 1952, returned from watch­ing United’s 3-0 home victory against Chelsea, to find his cup winning medal had been stolen from his house. […]’ David couldn’t believe that the old man next door was a former United player. […]

That night, [… David] lay in the dark wondering how the old man would be feel­ing. That medal must be one of his prize possessions. May­be his favourite thing in the world. And someone had just stolen it. [… Then, suddenly, he remembered] some­thing. The man with the baseball cap. He’d run one way, then the other, when he heard the police car coming. That had seemed strange to David at the time. The way he’d run to the wall, then come back running the other way. But he’d not given it any more thought. Now he was. Because what if … what if the man had hidden the medal there? […]

_{Adapted from: http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/uk-now/literature-uk/mystery-stolen-fa-cup-medal}