ANNABELLE
What’s the problem with Gracie Faltrain? That’s easy – she thinks she’s so good. She’s so loud. She thinks just because she can play soccer Nick will be interested in her. I’ve liked Nick since he arrived. I don’t see why Gracie Faltrain should get him just because she wants to. Why shouldn’t I get something that I want?
ALYCE
I don’t know what the problem with Gracie Faltrain is, Mrs Wilson. She just doesn’t want to work with me.
MARTIN
The problem with Faltrain is that she plays for herself. She kicks for goal from the side when she should cross to the centre and let someone else score once in a while. She doesn’t listen when I tell her to pass. ‘What’s your problem, Martin?’ she asks. ‘I made the shot.’ Yeah, Faltrain, but you practically knocked out one of our players to do it. That’s my problem.
ANDREW FLEMMING
And mine.
CRAIG BUCKLEY
That’s everyone’s problem.
HELEN
The problem with you, Gracie Faltrain, is that you kill all the plants, even the weeds. You think I don’t notice that you only water half the plants every night. It’s easier to do it myself after you’ve gone home. If you don’t listen to me carefully we’ll be out of business.
BILL
The problem with Gracie is that she loves too fiercely. She sees the world in black and white, when it’s grey and blurred at the edges. ‘People do things we don’t like, honey,’ I say, but she doesn’t understand. If life isn’t exactly as she wants it to be then she shuts it off.
That’s like throwing away a breeze, warm and sweetened with jasmine, just because there’s a storm forecast for the end of the day. Just think of what you’re missing out on by staying inside. I’m worried she’ll throw away all her good memories when she realises that I’ve let her down. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt her, but I’m going to; I know I am.
GRACIE
The problem with Mum is that she worries too much. We could do the work in half the time at the nursery if she’d listen to my plan to speed everything up. If we just watered half of the plants every night then we wouldn’t have to be there for so long. I figure what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. She’ll have some time to herself. I can have a kick before dinner. Now missing soccer, that’s a problem.
9
team spirit noun: the camaraderie
and loyalty that members of a team
display towards each other
COACH
For the first time in years, I’ve got myself a team of good players. Great players. It didn’t happen overnight. It took effort. Blood. Sweat. Tears. That’s what I tell them before every match. Their sweat – and the opposition’s blood and tears.
I tell them there’s only one way to win at those Championships: ‘Great playing isn’t enough, you’ve got to play like you’re closer than family. You’ve got to know each other. Before that ball has even touched a boot you need to sense the direction it will take. How? Know the kid who kicked it, know his instincts like your own.’ Now that’s what soccer’s all about.
What makes a team the best? They can play with their eyes shut and still win the match.
Have I got a team like that? Not even close.
Why am I taking them to the Championships? Because they had it once. They can get it again.
ANDREW FLEMMING (CENTRE FORWARD)
What’s soccer all about? It’s about knowing your place. Defenders block. Midfielders pass and defend. Strikers score. No surprises. No mistakes. No one playing for himself. And that means no kicks from the side, Faltrain, when you’re too far out and you can cross to someone closer. The forwards are our best chance of clocking up those goals. I’m our best chance of scoring those goals.
GRACIE FALTRAIN (MIDFIELDER)
Second best chance.
DECLAN CORELLI (MIDFIELDER)
Soccer’s won by more than just kicking goals, you know.
ANTHONY FRANCAVILLA (DEFENCE)
Lucky for you, eh, Corelli?
GRACIE FALTRAIN
The game’s won when I get on that field.
COACH
The game’s won when I say it’s won. NOW GET BACK OUT THERE AND GIVE ME TWENTY PUSH-UPS OR WE’RE ALL SLEEPING ON THAT FIELD TONIGHT.
MARTIN KNIGHT (MIDFIELDER/CAPTAIN)
Some people say it’s all about kicking goals, but they’re wrong. You can’t win on all attack or all defence. I still remember what Mum said to me after one of my first matches: ‘Marty, watch any of the great teams, and you’ll see, they’re arms and legs on the same body. They share a heart. If you’ve got separate hearts, Marty, you may as well give up before the match even starts.’
10
hubris noun: arrogant pride inviting
punishment
GRACIE
All Dad’s talk about fate is well and good, but sometimes life’s like soccer. You’ve got to take the ball. No one’s going to give it to you. Some people make good defence. I like to attack. Shoot for goal. That’s why I’m on Nick’s train today.
Sure it means extra time on public transport. Sure it means Mum will explode because I’ll be too late to close up at the nursery. But how often do you know exactly where your destiny will be down to the last minute?
Mine’s travelling inside the 4.05 train bound for Eltham. It’s a chance too good to miss. Unfortunately, my destiny’s stuck in a carriage with thirty screaming girls all swinging school bags into my stomach. You can’t have everything, though.
I get on at the station after Nick. It’s one thing to follow someone. It’s a completely different thing for them to catch you doing it. I fight my way through two carriages before I see his hair. At last. It’s time for kick-off.
Nick is about five metres away from me. That’s a long way in peak-hour traffic. Imagine it. Bags carpet the aisle. Bodies squash in against each other. At least fifty people obstructing the ball. I’m finding out more than I want to about the man next to me. He’s not wearing deodorant and I’m forced to hold my breath beyond all levels of human endurance.
I’m at about the two-minute mark when I decide my destiny needs a little help. I elbow my way through thirty bodies hanging on to rails like plane passengers about to crash into the Atlantic. That’s not the hard bit, though. About halfway down the aisle, I hook my feet into the handles of a bag and fly into the back of an old woman. That’s not the hard bit either. I have to use the face of the man sitting down near her to stop my fall. That’s easy too. The hard part? Making it all look casual. And this is very important, because it was at about the two-and-a-half-minute mark that Nick spotted me.
‘Nick? Hi.’ Hello destiny, I think as I peel my hand from the face of the man who has broken my fall.
‘Gracie, hi. What are you doing here?’
I take a little time to think about tactics. There’s just no good way to say, ‘I’m following you in the hope you’ll ask me out because in Year 8 I saw you reading a soccer magazine.’
‘I’m staying at my aunt’s place tonight.’ Lying is much better.
‘Are you playing soccer this week?’ he asks.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’m going to see a film after the match with some of the guys. You should come.’
At last, I’m lining up the shot.
‘My brother said he’d take me in. We could pick you up on the way, about seven?’
I swing back and kick. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘That sounds great.’ It’s a perfect shot. The crowd goes wild. It’s a goal.
The thing I like about Nick is that he notices me. He watches all the games. He waits to talk to me after every one. Last week I walked off the field and he was leaning against the fence next to the change rooms. My heart made a quick trip down to my boots.
‘Hi, Nick.’
‘Hey, Gracie, you played a good match today.’
His words grabbed hold of my throat; they made it hard to talk, hard to breathe.
I could see him looking at my hair, brown and pulled back in a ponytail, at my shorts and boots. At my eyes. Some people say I’m plain looking but standing there in front of Nick that day, I felt like I was exactly right.
Just like now.
ANNABELLE
I’m so sick of Gracie Faltrain hogging the limelight.
FLEMMING
I’m so sick of Gracie Faltrain hogging the ball.
GRACIE
He asked me, Jane.
I can hardly wait to tell someone. I press send and wait for her to reply.
JANE
And you didn’t even have to hit him in the balls.
11
see verb: to look through the eyes;
perceive verb: to be aware through the
heart or the mind
NICK
Like I said, she’s plain, you know? But there’s definitely something about her. I see it when she’s on the soccer pitch, the whole school is cheering her and she’s winning the match all on her own. I’m a football player myself, but I love to watch soccer. I especially like watching her. She’s got a great body. Out there she’s got something, you know, something I’ve never seen before.
ANNABELLE
Can we talk about something else please? I’m so tired of Gracie Faltrain. I can’t believe he asked her out. What about me? What about my hair and my eyes? If Nick says one more thing about her, it’ll be the last thing he says. I mean c’mon, I’ve got boobs.
MARTIN
Who cares what she looks like? She plays soccer like a champion.
JAKE MORIESON (STRIKER)
She plays soccer like she’s out there alone. And that’s no way to play.
ALYCE
Gracie’s got brown hair, like me. She’s about the same height too. People notice her. I think it’s her voice. It’s always louder than you expect and covered with laughter.
I was surprised when she said she didn’t want to work with me. I don’t know Gracie very well, but I remember once in Year 3 she gave me an invitation to her party. She spelt my name right. Everyone always spells it with an ‘i’, even the teachers. Ever since then I thought she would be nice. I never thought she’d look at me like I was nothing.
HELEN
I held Gracie on the day she was born and thought, she is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. She is fragile. Alive. Ours. ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘we’re in trouble now. This kid is going to run all over us.’
Things come easily to Gracie. Before she was born I felt her name on my lips. Grace. I knew then that she would have something special. It’s in the way she smiles, the length of her lashes. Her fingers. In her run when she’s playing soccer.
In school, I was always the last one picked on the netball team. It’s not that I want Gracie to know what that feels like. I’ve always been proud of her strength. Sometimes I worry, though. She’s so impatient. I see it at the nursery. She can’t understand why she kills the plants. She can’t see that some things need nurturing before they’re strong enough to take off on their own.
Sometimes you need to wait, Gracie, and then things happen. Beautiful things. You can’t see them at first, like vegetables growing under the soil. Like tiny shoots, arriving unexpectedly, green on old branches.
BILL
The day Gracie was born I thought, she has her mother’s eyes. They were eyes of fire. I knew then that I would do anything she asked me. She’s so much like Helen, even though neither of them can see it.
Helen is harsh sometimes, tells Gracie and me to get off our arses and take the rubbish out, or clean up the mess in the damn kitchen. If she finds a spider in the house, though, she won’t kill it, she’ll put it back in the garden. She’ll order three tonnes of manure and talk about life and death while she’s unloading it. Helen’s soft when she’s thinking about Gracie and hard when she’s talking to her.
Sometimes they fight and roar at each other like rough winds along the coast. I wait until it’s quiet, and then I find Gracie and I tell her the story of her beginning. I remember for her a mother with tired eyes, crying with relief because her daughter has been born, crying because she is safe.
12
nemesis noun: the retribution of fate
for wrongdoing
GRACIE
There are only two other times I’ve felt exactly right like I did at that moment with Nick. The first was when I was much younger. I used to have this dream. I was staying at a farm. There were acres of trees, tall, and far enough apart so that the sun lit up the day between them. The first thing I remember about the dream is that it was warm. The second thing is that I could fly. The wind took me up and I was swimming through air currents like waves. I’d wake and still have the feeling that it was true. The second time I feel right is when I’m on the soccer field. It’s the closest thing I have to that dream.
We lose the toss today. Flemming kicks off and Martin and I run out to the side. Their defender is close but I’m fast. I get the ball. Martin shouts at me to cross. I pretend not to hear him.
He’s saying what he always does when I get the ball. Kick it to him, to Flemming, to the centre and then move back to defence. I don’t need to. I can make it. I run fast. My feet are flying. I want Nick to see me score this goal. I want him to see it come off my boot and fly. I love the look on the face of the goalie. He can’t believe a girl kicked it.
I don’t see the defender coming up behind until it’s too late. His feet are almost tangled with mine. The whole ground becomes a blur. I’m running so hard I can’t breathe, pushing against time, aiming for the goal, but it’s not enough. The ball is his. And then I see Martin. He runs in from the side and cuts a line between the defender and me; he gives me a second to keep moving. On the edges of my sight he slides and hits the ground. I stumble into the ball, kick it before play is stopped.
The goalie doesn’t even have to move to catch it. I’ve practically gift-wrapped it for him.
Martin’s face is white and small. His eyes are almost black against its paleness. They meet mine for a moment as he is carried past me. For the second time in my life I feel lost on the field.
The end of the match seems a very long way away.
FLEMMING
Nice one, Faltrain.
MARTIN
‘No need to thank me, Faltrain. Don’t mention it. Any time.’
‘Thanks, Martin,’ she says, like I’ve just passed her the salt. That’s it? That’s all I get? I twist my ankle sliding in to help her score the goal and all I get is, ‘Thanks, Martin’?
It’s not my fault she missed the shot.
‘Just pass the ball next time, all right, Faltrain? It’s not tennis we’re playing out there.’
HELEN
Watching her today, surrounded by kids, I know she’s alone.
Gracie is stubborn. She started drinking that in from me before she was born. She takes the ball on her boot and runs all the way to the goal because she can. Gracie, I think as I watch her run faster towards winning, pass it to someone. Trust them to play on your team. Even though you’re not sure they’ll make the shot.
‘Pass that bloody ball,’ I’ve tried to tell her, but she ignores me. ‘You’re digging your own grave out there. Who do you think you are, Madonna?’
GRACIE
Maradona, Mum. Maradona.
GRACIE
I stay on the field for longer today. I want to make sure that the team has gone home. I don’t feel like talking about the game. I kept missing shots after Martin was taken off. I can’t believe I played that badly. If I need proof, though, I can ask Nick or Annabelle or Mum or Coach or Martin. Actually, I can ask anyone in the school.
For once I’m glad Dad wasn’t here to see me play. He always says his favourite part of the match is hearing the sound of my boot on leather, it’s the sound of me winning, he says. He sits in the front row, wearing our colours on his scarf. It’s unravelling at the ends but he won’t buy another one. Mum knitted it for him. He clenches his fis
ts and bends his arms like he’s about to jump out of his seat. He only ever yells at my soccer matches.
I can’t think about Dad today, though. Martin’s face keeps popping up. The more I try to block him out, the more I see him – Martin running in from the side, Martin’s face, all white and hurt. I might have made it if he hadn’t run in to help. And then he wouldn’t be hurt now.
I can hear voices spilling out of the boy’s change room as I walk past. It takes me about a minute to work out that the guys are talking about me.
‘I reckon she should be off the team,’ Andrew Flemming says.
My chest cracks open. Cold air moves inside me, grips like a fist.
‘No way,’ Martin answers.