‘She’s the reason you got hurt today.’
‘I only twisted my ankle. I’ll be able to play next week.’
‘It could have been worse. She never passes the ball. She leaves us out there looking like idiots.’ Corelli spits onto the concrete.
‘Do you want her to pass you the ball, Corelli?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Flemming answers for him.
‘We need her.’ Martin’s voice is quiet. Flat.
‘No we don’t.’ Michael Arnolde’s voice is cold and clear.
I want to go before I hear anything else but I can’t move.
‘There are plenty of other guys we could get before the Championships but we need to do it now,’ Flemming says.
I wait for Martin to speak. For him to say they need me again. For somebody to say something. Their boots scrape on the floor. Their answer is as loud as if they’ve said it.
I unlock my bike and leave.
MARTIN
I came out of the change rooms and saw her riding away. Something about the way she was pedalling told me she’d heard every word. That and the fact that she didn’t have her bag. She swung around the corner and she didn’t look back.
Maybe it’ll do her some good. She’s her own worst enemy. I watch her out there every match, running to the side after kick-off. I know she’s not looking to see where anyone else is. She’s searching for the ball – and when she gets it she’s off.
Faltrain’s good. The guys know it. The problem is she knows it too. It’s like she’s out there trying to prove something to the world. You don’t need to, Faltrain. You’ve got it. No one doubts that.
I remember the look on her face at the first match she ever played with us. It was pure fear. I watched her drowning in defenders, lost between bodies. Stop fighting it Faltrain, I thought; just relax. Play like you did in practice. You’ll float. She did. The wind changed direction all of a sudden and started blowing her forward towards goals.
We lost that first match and it had a lot to do with her but none of the guys really cared. She was out there playing soccer. That was all that mattered.
13
accident noun: any unfortunate event,
especially one involving injury
GRACIE
It’s almost 7 o’clock. Nick’s picking me up in five minutes and I feel like I want to vomit. I can’t stop thinking about the guys on the team, the sound of Corelli’s spit on the ground, their feet, shifting and scraping.
I tried to distract myself when I got home from the game and I made the fatal mistake of getting ready too early for my date. It’s a fine line. Get ready too early and you leave too much time to play with your hair and that’s deadly.
By 6.15 I’d fluffed it up so much I looked like I’d stuck my finger in a power point. I kept putting in more gel in the hope it would calm it down, but it kept getting stickier. By 6.30 I had hair the consistency of fairy floss. ‘Faltrain,’ I could hear Jane’s voice in my head, ‘just dunk the whole lot and start again.’
At 6.59 Mum isn’t looking at her daughter but a life-size stick of fairy floss, dripping water all over the floor. ‘Gracie, what on earth did you do?’
‘Mum, listen carefully. This is important,’ I say, wiping the gel that’s dripping down my forehead with the back of my hand. I’m on the verge of hair-product-induced hysteria. ‘When Nick rings the bell, DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR.’
‘Gracie, you can’t leave him on the porch.’
‘Are you listening to me?’ I say, fear driving a wedge between each word, ‘DO – NOT – ANSWER – THE – DOOR. MY – SOCIAL – LIFE – DEPENDS – ON – IT.’
And with the kind of punctuality that only ever happens when you don’t want someone to arrive on time, the bell rings. Mum and I look at each other for just a second, like animals before they pounce. I know her. She won’t leave him standing at the door. She swerves past me and runs down the corridor. I chase her, calling out in desperation, ‘Stop!’
We both arrive at the door at the same time. I don’t think she means to open it until I’m in the bedroom. It’s just one of those accidents. Mum’s hand opens the door – and we seem to shout, ‘Nooo’ in slow motion as the wood swings back to reveal me, standing in the doorway, hair dripping in some strange sort of pre-eighties mohawk, wearing my dressing gown and slippers. Now, it would be bad enough to see just one boy standing there. But there are two.
NICK
I don’t know what is going on when she opens the door. I mean, she’s standing there in her dressing gown. Her hair looks like she’s been caught in a wind tunnel, you know? I tell her I’ll wait in the car. I don’t even want to take her anymore after what happened at the game today. The guys were really angry. She looked like an idiot. They won’t want her there. I’m starting to think this is all a big mistake.
MARTIN
Nice slippers, Faltrain.
GRACIE
When things go this badly in the movies, usually the date goes really well, and the girl ends up with the guy, right? I mean, everyone knows that. I give you every single teen flick that’s ever been made.
I can hear Jane now: ‘Life ain’t a movie, and people who tell you it is are trying to sell you something.’ Standing in the hallway, dripping water, mascara running down my face, I have to agree. Unless someone told me that my life was Scream 2. Then they’d be onto something.
Mum’s hands grip my neck and drag me into the bathroom. She dunks my head into the sink and holds it under the tap. I start banging on the bench, a desperate sign that the water is too hot and running into my undies.
‘Right.’ She throws my head back with a force that would make Coach proud. In ten minutes my hair is dry, brushed and plaited, my face is scrubbed and a new shirt ironed. I have to hand it to her. She’s good.
‘How does she look, Martin?’
He just stands there and stares. Typical Martin. I can’t stop thinking about what the guys said after the match. And that he didn’t say anything.
MARTIN
I don’t know what to say. I just dropped around to make sure she was all right after today and she gets all dressed up. My fingers start to tingle. I give them a bit of a shake and then leave. I mean, Faltrain’s a mate.
HELEN
No one has looked at me like Martin looked at Gracie for the longest time. Pity for him she’s looking at Nick.
14
kiss verb: to touch or caress with the
lips
GRACIE
Andrew Flemming is standing next to Susan and Annabelle when we pull up outside the movies. He looks at me and it’s not hard to work out what he’s thinking. He wants me dead.
Some of the other guys from the team are there too. They all start talking. No one says anything to me. Not even Nick. I stand with my hands in my pockets, trying to smile. I have this weird thing happening with my lips. They keep getting stuck on my teeth, so I look like I’ve got a set of those fake ones in my mouth. You know, the kind you get in those cheap lolly packets? Except I can’t take mine out and eat them. At least in the dark I’ll be able to relax, right?
Wrong.
For one thing, I didn’t eat anything before I left. Nick and the rest of the guys obviously have. Either that or cool, beautiful people’s stomachs don’t rumble. Mine is thundering. The more I try to make it quiet, the louder it gets.
NICK
I’m sure one of her stomach grumbles is a fart. I’ve asked out a girl who makes me wait an hour for her and then farts all the way through the movie. I nudge Andrew next to me. I’m trying not to laugh out loud.
GRACIE
About halfway through the film there is a situation with my mouth and Nick’s ear. It’s not that I haven’t kissed people before. Gracie Faltrain has seen her fair share of action.
There was Kane Dortman in Year 4. We were playing kiss chasey at lunchtime and Kane and I were running around each other, careful to play by the rules. And the rules, although not written down anywhere, are clear. Un
der no circumstances do you actually try to catch the person. There’s a lot of running going on, there’s a lot of threatening to kiss, but there is definitely no kissing.
Kane made a mistake that would follow us from Year 4 to Year 6. He slipped and grabbed hold of my skirt. It was a reflex action but, technically, he’d caught me.
‘You have to kiss in front of everyone now,’ Annabelle shouted across the yard. I hated her for it.
Kane’s lips quivered at me. They were all I could see. He grabbed me by the shoulders and pressed two fat wet worms against my mouth. My introduction to romance.
There were other kisses, all slightly better than the first, but all of them wet. I had a feeling – a hope, let’s say – that the perfect kiss would not be so full of spit. ‘Faltrain,’ I remember Jane saying to me, ‘it’s just the saliva that makes it so wet.’ Right, so I guess when you meet the right person you want to go swimming in their saliva.
NICK
I catch her looking at me, you know, like she wants me to kiss her. Andrew and Susan are at it beside us. I think, why not? I mean, the film’s boring anyway, and she does look good in those jeans.
GRACIE
He leans in just as the bus is blowing up and tries to kiss me. It’s not like I don’t want him to kiss me, it’s just a bad time of the movie to choose. I’m tense, sitting there waiting for the man with the gun to shoot the bad guy. My first instinct when he slides his arm around me is to punch him. So I do. Even in the dark I can see that he looks kind of surprised.
I can’t stop laughing. I’m not laughing at him. It’s a nervous reaction. I can’t help it. Other people are laughing too and this is the last thing I want. This is not going well at all.
I lean over to kiss him, except my mouth is still dry. I lose control of my tongue. It sort of does this twisting thing outside of my mouth, so I look like I’m making an obscene gesture at him. I can’t understand it. This has never happened to me before. I tell my body what to do. It does it. It’s a basic rule of nature. Tongues don’t think for themselves. Susan looks up from Andrew and says, ‘That’s disgusting.’ I panic. I think, I’ve just got to get this thing inside his mouth. The problem is, I’ve waited too long. He’s already turned his head to the front. I stick my tongue in his ear. She’s right. It is disgusting.
NICK
She stuck her tongue in my ear. I mean, she stuck her tongue in my ear.
GRACIE
Everyone at school will know. Gracie Faltrain stuck her tongue in Nick Johnson’s ear. I stuck my tongue in his ear.
Time out due to
injury
15
fallout noun: radioactive substance
resulting from an explosion
FLEMMING
I need a cotton bud. No, wait – there’s Gracie Faltrain.
ANNABELLE
Gracie, Nick told me what a great kisser you are. Can you teach me?
CORELLI
I’ll teach you how to kiss.
GRACIE
Now that is disgusting.
MARTIN
Faltrain, keep your mind on the game, your tongue in your mouth and your kicks to the CENTA!
JOHN MAIDEN (GOALIE)
Block and defend, Johnson, just like I do in goal. Next time, remember, block and defend.
NICK
Trust me, there won’t be a next time.
GRACIE
The last piece of gossip to spread this fast was when Tony Gortmon threw up in the tuckshop line all over Alison Kaner. It was ugly. So is what’s happening to me. The whole school is talking about my ‘kiss’ with Nick and how I missed at the game on Saturday. Annabelle is handing it round like a chip packet, everyone is taking a handful and passing it on.
The good news is, even things like this get forgotten. Tony walks by in the yard today and I check him over. He looks happy; he’s in one piece. I just have to wait for this thing to blow over. And more importantly, I have to lie low until it does.
Until then I’m on my own. And there’s nothing worse than that at school. Lunchtime is only forty-five minutes long but without Jane time goes by in dog years. Forty-five minutes feels like a hundred hours. The first rule is to take your time doing things. When the lunch bell sounds I always go to the toilet. This wastes at least ten minutes and by the time I get out the crowd has cleared. Next I go to my locker, tidy it up a little and then grab my lunch. I don’t go to the tuckshop. There’s nothing easier to spot than a loner in a crowd. I find a quiet place to eat and here comes the highlight – I go to the library. It’s my sanctuary. No one can touch me there.
I’ve always had Jane. I’ve never needed heaps of people because with her around it was enough. We used to hang out with some of the other groups, like Nick and his friends, but she was the only person I really spoke to about stuff that mattered. I never had to say to Jane, ‘Don’t tell anybody.’ I just knew she wouldn’t.
I’m trying to avoid the guys from the soccer team, except Martin. I run into him on my way to the library.
‘Faltrain, come and have a kick of soccer?’
‘I don’t feel like it, Martin.’
‘What? You’re not still worrying about what people are saying?’
‘They’re saying I’m a cotton bud, Martin. A cotton bud. How would you like that?’
‘I wouldn’t. That’s why I don’t go round sticking my tongue in people’s ears.’
‘It’s not funny. Nick’ll ask Annabelle out now, just watch. What’s she got that I don’t?’
‘Geez, Faltrain, I don’t know. Haven’t you got a girl to talk to?’
‘No.’ My reply is little and lonely.
‘I don’t reckon he’s worth it after what he told the whole school.’
‘Well I do. I just wish I hadn’t been such an idiot, then he’d still like me.’
‘Look, Faltrain, everyone stuffs up. Don’t let them make you feel wrong. Just tell everyone to get lost. Tell them all to just bloody get lost.’
I didn’t need to tell them that. I was already alone. That was the problem.
Come home, Jane. Come home and make me laugh.
ALYCE
How do you like looking like an idiot, Gracie? How do you like sitting on your own at lunch because no one will sit with you?
There are people I hang out with sometimes. I laugh when everyone else does but most of the time, I just feel kind of stupid.
I wonder if that’s how it is for Gracie. Probably not. She hangs out in the library and it seems somehow okay. When I’m there I feel like the biggest loser.
I sit at the back behind all the shelves. Books surround me. I bet most of them have never even been borrowed, pages and pages of words that no one ever bothers to read.
16
disappear verb: to leave from sight (if
you’re lucky, that is)
GRACIE
‘I’m not going back to school, Mum. Ever.’
‘I love you, Gracie Faltrain, but get your backside out of that bed. You won’t solve anything by staying there.’
‘Everyone’s talking about me.’
‘In a week they’ll be talking about someone else. Remember to walk on the sunny side of the street,’ she says, and I want to yell at her, what if there’s no sunny side, Mum? What if it’s pissing down on both sides of the street?
‘I wish Dad was here,’ I say. I have cut my reply neatly out from her heart.
Mum’s face looked kind of like one of my old shirts when I mentioned Dad. All crumpled and grey around the edges. I hate that I made her look like that, but I can’t believe she wants me to go back to school. ‘I just need to lie low for about a month, Mum,’ I explained but she wouldn’t listen. Sometimes I think she enjoys seeing me embarrassed.
Take last month, for example. We went to Myer to buy me a new bra. Her first words to the saleswoman were, ‘I’m not sure if you’ve got one small enough for her.’ Thanks, Mum. I mean, maybe we should just pop into the chemist’s and buy me two banda
ids for support. Mum and the woman were laughing about the fact that I’d be ‘popping out all over the place soon’, when I decided to grab a few bras and try them on.
This is when it started to get ugly. And all because of two little words: swinging doors. They should be illegal in change rooms. Mum sees them and her reflexes take over. ‘Order is very important, Mum,’ I yelled as she flung open the door. ‘First, you ask, “How are you going in there?” Then you wait. That gives me time to say, “I’m NAKED in here.” ’
If she doesn’t get that frontal nudity is embarrassing, then what hope have I got of convincing her that ear cleaning with a tongue is definitely a quick drop, head first, down the social ladder?
HELEN
Gracie, no one saw anything. I mean, what’s there to see?
GRACIE
You see what I’m dealing with here?
17
desperate adjective: ready to take any
risks;
desperado noun: Gracie Faltrain
GRACIE
I figure the only way up that ladder again is to win them the game today. The whole school will be there. I’ll show them the old Gracie Faltrain.