Rubber boy

Rob knew he was different from every other kid his age. He wasn't made of the same stuff. He was rubber, through and through. He had rubber skin, rubber bones, rubber blood, rubber organs and even a rubber brain. When he was born he was a medical marvel but the doctors said there was absolutely nothing they could do to cure his condition. He would be that way until the day he died, or was worn out.
Apart from having no hair and a slight velvety nap to his skin he looked the same as everyone else. In fact being made rubber had its advantages, which Rob discovered when he was very little and decided to jump off the roof of his parents house. If any normal kid had tried that they' have broken practically every bone in their body, but Rob just bounced off the ground and landed square on his feet.
All the kids he grew up with thought he was cool because he could do neat tricks they couldn't like tie his legs into a bow, stick his arm down plug holes, fire missiles off his tongue and kick a football from one end of the pitch to the other. But for all his talents, being rubber caused his mother significant problems. Apart from having to vacuum the house daily because of the rubber shavings he'd leave in his wake, when he brushed past walls he took off half the wallpaper print with him.
The townsfolk also adored him, especially as he kept the town clean of graffiti. Every Saturday he'd take a walk down to the underpass and use his head to rub the tiles clean. He never did it for money. He just liked feeling useful. So when his dad said the family were going to have to relocate because of his job he was more than a little sad.
"Think of it this way, son," he said, trying to appeal to Rob. "There will be fresh challenges for you to embrace in this new town. Think of all the ways you might be able to help them."
That didn't appear to be possible, as rather than embrace him and his 'uniqueness' as his mother called it. He was the town freak.
Everywhere he went people stared and gossiped about him.
"He looks fairly normal for someone that's not real," he heard someone say.
"I thought he'd look more, like, square or angular, you know," said another.
He was the talk of the town before school even started. If his chilly reception by the residents of Quimby Slate wasn't enough to make him pack his bags his first day at Quimby High should have been.
Rumour of his condition had spread like fire across the school to the degree where almost every kid was congregated in the playground waiting for him.
When his mother dropped him off, Rob was petrified. He was sweating rubber bullets. They dropped off his forehead and ricocheted around the car.
"Rob, sweetheart, be careful, you'll take my eye out. Don't worry you'll be fine," she said.
Rob took a deep breath, wiped his brow and when he slammed the car door shut he strode through the crowd. With his eyes focussed on the main door he tried to block out as much of the tittle-tattle that reached his ears as he could, but some of the more cutting comments stuck like glue.
"Hey, pencil head, bounce back to where you came from, freak," yelled one boy.
Another called out. "Can we borrow your head 'cos our football's gone missing?"
Rob scuttled inside, away from the hundreds of pairs of scrutinising eyes, and down the corridor towards the reception. It was lined from floor to ceiling, either side, with trophy cabinets displaying hundreds of glittering and gleaming sporting accolades. Rob couldn't help himself. He saw a smudge on the glass of one of the cabinets and instinctively he rubbed it off with a finger. He cursed himself. It was going to take more than a filthy cabinet for everyone to appreciate him.
His first day, as he expected, did not go well. Not only did the kids get their fill making fun of him the teachers couldn't help joining in too. Mr Cutter, the maths teacher, who thought he was the funniest teacher ever born, asked Rob if he would come and clean the blackboard. The class roared with laughter.

"It'll get better. You'll see," said his mother hopefully over dinner.
But it didn't. The kids in his classes nicknamed him 'Rubbie' and kept asking him if they could borrow his thumb or his ear or his nose, as they'd left their rubber at home, or they'd pick him up and bounce him down the corridor. There was even a suggestion that they should find out if he would bounce higher than a Whizzball. Rob knew what Whizzballs were. They were tiny and rubber and hard and could bounce higher than a three storey building. Rob wasn't terrified of being dropped from any height as he knew it wouldn't hurt him. What he didn't want was to become someone's play thing. What he needed now was a miracle.
The next day there was a change in mood at the school. Mercifully attention had turned, with both the staff and the pupils, from persecuting Rob to the horror of what had happened that night. Practically the entire school was huddled round the football pitch. Rob nudged and bounced his way through the crowd to see what was going on. When he broke through he saw the extent of the damage. Someone had broken into the grounds shed, stolen the school's line painter and covered the entire pitch with lots of squiggly lines and shapes and wiggly writing.
Mr Treville, the football coach, who was standing beside Rob, held his crestfallen face in his hands. "Who would do such a thing? And why couldn't they have done it tonight instead of last night?" he whimpered.
One of the footballers, who was decked out in the school colours yellow and black, gave Mr Treville a look of despair. "But the final starts in three hours coach. What are we gonna do?" he said.
"We'll have to scratch. Forfeit," replied Mr Treville.
"What? Loose? But its the Interschool Football League Championship final."
There was a collective roar of disapproval from everyone on the pitch. That was when an idea struck Rob. "I can fix it," he said hesitantly.
Everyone turned and grimaced at him. "What you? Rubber head?" said the footballer
Rob nodded. "I used to help the town clean graffiti of the walls where I used to live," he proffered timorously.
All the pupils and teachers looked at each other. As the idea gradually sank in, smiles replaced their frowns. Rob could see they were a little sceptical that he could carry out such a mammoth task in such a short space of time but over the years of cleaning for the council Rob learned how to speed erase.
He took of his jacket and shoes and socks and set to work. He started of by cleaning off the edges of the outer lines with his hands, then used his feet to round the curves of the centre circle and then used his head for the rest. The crowd watched on agog at Rob's talent. He whizzed like a whirlwind across the pitch and by twelve thirty his head was whiter than the snow and the pitch was back to it normal green, ready for the game.
The crowd erupted with jubilant claps and cheers. Kids rushed up to Rob and began patting him on the back-some patted so hard their hand bounced back.
"That was so cool, way too cool," Rob heard someone say.
"I've never seen anything like it. He amazing," said another.
Mr Treville had other ideas. He strode up to Rob and took hold of him firmly by the shoulders. "How are you at football?" he asked.
"Erm, not bad. I suppose. I'm not Pele, but I can kick a ball, fairly far," he said playing down his confidence.
"Right, you in. There's kit in the changing room," said Mr Treville. "I've had a kid call off sick. You can replace him."
If getting praise and gratitude from everyone for saving the championship wasn't enough, being allowed to play was the cherry on the cake.
Rob strode out to the roar of the crowd with a vindicated smile on his face and the yellow and black strip over his pink rubber body.
Nobody watching or even playing knew this yet, but Quimby High was about to win the championship again by a 8-1, curtesy of Rob's infamous full pitch kick.