The Whole of My World (7 page)

 

 

‘Contact!' Mrs Hodge cries out as Anna Barnes slams into Melanie Hauser, giving Melanie a clear shot at goal. I suck in air and rest my hands on my knees, struggling to catch my breath before the ball comes back into play.

Tara is watching from the sidelines because she has a sore ankle and can't play netball. Or that's what she told Mrs Hodge, who raised her eyebrows and nodded curtly, having heard this a hundred times before. Tara never does P.E., no matter what sport we're doing or when we're doing it.

‘I don't know why you bother,' she says to me at the half-time break. Despite the cool air, I'm sweating bullets and my lungs ache with the effort to breathe. I'm playing on the wing and against Ginnie, who, to add to her already stupendous number of accomplishments, is a state-level netball champion. I've managed to avoid netball until St Mary's, and my footy skills are only able to take me so far. She's beating me and I hate that.

‘It's fun,' I lie, returning to my position. It's anything but.

The whistle blows and I leap forward just as Ginnie's foot catches mine, knocking me off balance. ‘Sorry!' says Ginnie, as I stagger for a step or two, just managing not to fall over.

‘Tripping!' I call out, and point to Ginnie, who smirks discreetly. ‘She tripped me.'

Mrs Hodge does the eyebrow lift. ‘I didn't see it.' She doesn't believe me. She thinks I'm a bad sport. Between Mrs Hodge and my dad, I'm starting to think they may be on to something.

I shake it off and get ready to go again. Ginnie knows the game, but I'm faster. So I think through how to make this work. I fall back from the centre line and hang outside the ring, on my toes, circling a bit as we wait for the centre pass. Seconds before Elena Irving releases the ball, I jog towards the line, then sprint at it, breaking through a split second after the whistle blows, timing it perfectly. The ball slams into my chest and I've left Ginnie several paces behind play. I pass it forward, run to meet the next pass on the top of the circle, then slot it into Kathy Doyle's waiting arms. She shoots and scores, and Ginnie is left panting behind me. Tara cheers like it's the footy.

I wink at Ginnie, rubbing it in. Somewhere deep down I'm ashamed of my gloating, but it's pretty deep and easy to ignore.

After the game, which, despite a slight improvement at my end, we lose, Tara and I head to the lockers to get our lunch.

‘So Saturday morning at the Burke and Wills statue at eleven?'

I look over my shoulder. Is she talking to me? Tara's face is buried in her locker and I'm the only person around, so she must be. Except I have no idea what she's talking about.

‘I can only wait fifteen minutes max because we have to catch the eleven-twenty up Elizabeth Street.' Tara closes her locker and looks at me. ‘Saturday trams are dodgy,' she adds, as though I've asked her a question.

‘Are they?'

She nods. ‘I always watch the reserves first. That's why I go so early.'

And then I get it. She's asking me to the footy. Not just training but to an actual game. On the weekend.
This
weekend. ‘Okay,' I say, shock doing a very nice job of flattening my voice despite my excitement. I've never gone to the footy just with a friend before. It's always been a family thing – with my parents or Josh's or both. Going with Tara alone feels important, somehow, for all kinds of reasons.

Dad seems pleased when I tell him that night and offers to drive me to the station. But as I get dressed to go on Saturday, the doubts kick in. Will Tara even turn up? Or what if she does show up and ignores me for the whole match? I let all the horrible and excruciating possibilities pile up in my head even as I rush Dad to get to the station early.

Josh is on the platform when I get there, but the train isn't. Vic Rail is as bad as the trams on a Saturday – actually, every day. I take a seat beside him on the bench. ‘We need to stop meeting like this,' I say, yanking my scarf out from under my leg, where it threatens to choke me half to death.

‘Go Gorillas,' he says predictably.

‘Loser,' I reply. He'd already called to gloat about the Panthers' win so at least I've got that out of the way. ‘You got a game?' He's wearing his tracksuit and there's an Adidas sausage bag by his feet, its corners frayed and torn.

‘No,' he grins. ‘Thought I'd go fishing today.' He digs out his footy, raising it like a trophy. ‘My fishing rod,' he says, spinning it in his hands.

I knock it out of his grip and we both leap up to grab it before it falls off the platform. I get there first.

‘Idiot!' he says, laughing.

‘What?' I offer an innocent smile and handball it to him at close range. Hard. He fakes injury, coughing and spluttering, then handballs it back, neat and straight.

The train finally pulls up and we find seats in the middle of the third carriage. I always choose the third carriage from the front – for good luck.

‘So much for running after school,' he says, not looking at me. He's called twice this past fortnight to organise a run, but I've fobbed him off. The whole hand-tingling thing is messing with my head. I think he knows I'm avoiding him but he probably thinks it's about the Raiders. I feel bad about that, but better he think it's about football than the other stuff. Everything would be easier if we kept it all about the footy. ‘Mick's up for a big one today,' I say, changing the subject.

‘Bloody Edwards again?' Josh says. ‘What's so special about him?'

‘He's cool.' I shrug. ‘And really nice.'

Josh tilts the footy onto the tip of his finger, spinning it before it falls and lands on my lap. I grab it before he can. ‘Nice? How would you know if he's
nice
? He could be a mass murderer when he's not playing footy.'

I laugh. ‘Yeah right.'

‘Or a devil worshipper. Or a . . .' Josh looks around for inspiration. ‘A secret Warriors supporter on his days off.'

It's really hard to hate Josh. Seriously, I've tried. ‘I talk to him at training,' I say, unable to stop the chuckle that escapes. ‘They're all nice.'

‘You get all that from how they sign your autograph book?'

‘We talk a lot. About all kinds of stuff.'

Josh grabs at the ball, but I baulk, holding it just out of reach. ‘What stuff?' He looks away, acting all cool, but I can tell he's mad.

I don't know why exactly, but it feels good. ‘You know . . . footy, of course. And WA. School. Lots of stuff.'

‘So instead of training – the reason they're actually there – they hang around chatting with the fans. About school. And
stuff
.' His tone has changed, and suddenly it's not funny anymore.

‘It's no big deal,' I say, lying. It's easily the most important thing that's happened to me all year. The best thing.

‘Does your dad know you're mates with these guys?' Josh snatches the ball back from me with more aggression than needed, if you ask me.

‘What?' I rub the back of my hand theatrically, making sure he knows he was being too rough. It didn't hurt. But it
could
have.

‘Sorry,' he says, looking like he means it.

I nod but am too annoyed to ease the moment.

‘You didn't answer my question,' he says eventually.

‘What question?' I refuse to help him.

‘So your Dad's fine about you hanging out with these . . .'

He trails off, searching for a word. ‘These . . .
men
?'

His attitude reminds me of things I don't want to remember. ‘Of course he is,' I snap. ‘Mick's just a friend. They all are.' But my voice is unnaturally high and thin. I look out the window, hoping he'll get out soon.

We pass two stations before anyone speaks. ‘Shell?' Josh says softly.

I slowly face him, prepared to fight even though the kindness in his voice almost undoes me.

He opens his mouth like he's about to say something, but seems to change his mind. ‘Just . . . be careful, okay?'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about, Joshua.' And even though it means I'll end up at the wrong end of Flinders Street Station, I get out at the next stop and switch carriages. I keep an eye out in case Josh comes looking for me, but when I see him get off at Yarra Station, he only briefly looks back at the train before disappearing into the swell of disembarking passengers.

 

The City Square is basically empty but for Tara, who is standing under the Burke and Wills statue, clearly waiting for someone. I cross my fingers, hoping that someone is me. The first thing I notice is that she's wearing the most amazing duffle coat. It's dark brown with gold trim and is covered top to toe in Glenthorn colours. All the players whose faces are now so familiar to me smile in the same stiff pose they save for our cameras, their faces pressed into round, shiny badges. But it's not just all those badges that impress me. It's the whole thing. Her total and absolute
dedication
. Every centimetre is devoted to brown and gold in all different forms: name tags sewn neatly in rows, premiership insignias for each year we've won, rosettes and ribbons and flags in the gaps between. I have to stop myself from gushing at her when she notices me. ‘Cool coat,' I say, as evenly as I can manage.

Tara sticks her hands in the coat pockets and stands a little straighter. ‘Dad got it for me,' she says.

I struggle to picture her dad. She's never mentioned him before. But the idea of a dad sewing badges on a duffle coat amazes me. I like him already. I wait for her to say something, encouraged by the fact that she seemed to be looking for me only moments ago. She raises her eyebrows and frowns. ‘You right?'

‘Um, yeah. Just . . . Ready to go?'

‘I was here first,' she says, deadpan. ‘Obviously
I'm
ready.'

I'm not late. In fact, it's five to eleven, so technically I'm
early
. Not by the Brown clock, of course, but maybe Tara follows the same system. ‘So where do we get the tram?'

Tara leads me across to the tram stop, ignoring the looks her coat attracts. Other people don't seem quite as admiring of it as I am. We take a seat on the tram in silence. It's clear Tara's stressing about something but I know I can't come right out and ask her, so I make conversation about the one thing we share. ‘Can't wait to cream the Gorillas and put our stamp on the season now that we're on top.'

Tara thwacks me on the arm with her scarf.

‘What the . . . ?' I say, genuinely irritated.

Tara closes her eyes, as if summoning some greater power to help her deal with this imbecile beside her. Slowly, she opens her eyes and fixes me in her stare. ‘Never
ever
say we're going to win before the game, okay?
Never
. You'll jinx us.'

‘Okaaaaay . . .' I'm as superstitious as the next footy fan, but I also can't completely dismiss the power of positive thinking. ‘Still, if you say it like you believe it, it might just come true.'

She shakes her head. Those greater powers aren't enough, apparently. ‘When you say we're going to win, you sound cocky and then all the good luck disappears. Or worse, goes to the other team.'

‘Right.' I'm not convinced, but at least she's talking to me and we're on the way to the footy – together – so I'm prepared to go along with it. ‘Anything else I should know?'

‘You can't say we've won until after the final siren, when there's no doubt.'

‘What if we're slaughtering them?'

She's thought about this. ‘The only exception is if we're more than sixty points up at the twenty-five-minute mark of the final quarter. You can say it then, but anything less than that and you'll have to find somewhere else to sit.' She pulls out her ticket, nodding at the conductor who's making his way through the packed tram.