Gracie Faltrain Takes Control

  I edge my way towards her. Try to look casual. ‘Hi, Alyce. Great dress,’ I say.

  ‘Nice jeans,’ she answers. Her voice doesn’t belong to the Alyce I know, or maybe it does. One thing I’ve worked out: I haven’t been listening very hard to the world. I’ve been listening to my commentary on it, and it hasn’t quite matched the game.

  ‘Alyce, I wanted to say sorry, about everything.’

  ‘Sorry that Martin’s gone and it’s your fault? Sorry that for the past year you’ve been trying to make me into Jane, so you don’t feel embarrassed hanging out with me? Or sorry that you’ve been caught and we don’t want anything to do with you anymore?’

  ‘I don’t care that you’re a nerd, Alyce.’ That sounded much better in my head. ‘What I meant to say was that you don’t need to change to be my friend.’ Again, not exactly how I imagined that sounding.

  ‘You are unbelievable, Gracie Faltrain. You think you’re so much better than anyone else.’

  ‘I don’t. Not anymore.’ This isn’t going how I planned. I blame the flashing disco lights. I blame the boogie.

  ‘I guess to someone like you, I must look pretty ordinary,’ she says.

  I take a minute to let her words sink in. They should. A person who treats their friends like I have should feel it in their blood.

  ‘I make you feel bad?’

  ‘Most of the time. It’s pretty hard living up to how you want the world to be.’

  ‘I’m the one who’s going to change.’

  ‘I don’t want you to change, Gracie. I want you to stop trying to change everyone else.’

  ‘I will.’ I know that tonight is just the start, though. Those two words are like a kid’s song. They don’t mean a whole lot without some actions to go along with them.

  Her eyes drift across to Flemming. ‘Look, he’s holding Susan’s hand.’ Alyce’s heart was clean and shiny before Flemming and now there’s about 200,000 kilometres on the speedo. It needs some oil and water. Let’s face it, after what I did, she probably needs a new starter motor.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alyce. You wouldn’t feel so bad now if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘I just wish I hadn’t hoped so hard that he’d like me. When he asked me to the dance, he said, “I reckon you’re the smartest person I know, Fuller”. Then he kissed me. I could smell grass and popcorn. I thought I could smell the sky on a windy day. I had all these kites in my chest, moving around, trying to get out. I bet that sounds stupid to you,’ she says. ‘I bet you think I’m stupid because no one’s ever wanted to kiss me before.’

  ‘No, Alyce. I don’t think that.’

  ‘And then he took it all back. He came up to me in the classroom and I thought he was going to kiss me again. And then he said I was boring. That all I did was read. And I told him that it was okay.’

  ‘Alyce, he did like you, he just didn’t have the guts to admit it.’

  ‘But then it doesn’t mean anything, does it? If he didn’t like me enough not to care what everyone else thinks of me. Why do they all treat me like that?’ she asks.

  If she’d asked me that question a month ago, even two weeks ago, I would have said, ‘They treat you like that, Alyce, because you let them.’ But that’s not the real reason at all.

  ‘You’re different, Alyce. And they don’t know what to do with you. You’re better than them.’

  ‘Love sucks, doesn’t it?’ she asks after a while.

  ‘You’ve been hanging out with me way too long. Do you want to dance?’

  Alyce has a great way of moving. She throws her arms out like she’s spraying confetti. I never even knew she could dance. My style involves more kicking and punching. Faster than Alyce. Different, but not better. She spins out and lets the skirt of her dress twirl wide. I can feel it for a second, brushing against my jeans.

  Corelli comes over to us and starts to dance next to Alyce. ‘Hey, Corelli,’ Singh calls out. ‘You move like a washing machine.’

  Corelli goes red. ‘Shut up, loser.’

  Alyce saves him, though. She starts moving her arms around in a spin cycle. The four of us laugh and spin and kick and punch in turns.

  Flemming has dropped Susan’s hand. He’s moving back and forth, like he’s almost decided to walk over to Alyce, but then can’t quite get up the guts to do it. You idiot, I think, you’re missing all of this. But I’m not too hard on him. Let’s face it; he’s not alone in the stuffing up department.

  ‘Dog,’ Newman shouts to Alyce on his way past.

  She stops dancing and for a second I think the night is ruined. Forget him, Alyce, I’m about to say, when Corelli calls out over the music, ‘You are a dog.’ He says it like it’s the best thing in the world to be, and then spins around like the big idiot he is. But Alyce loves it. She’s happy. This would all be perfect, if Martin was okay.

  ‘I have to go, Alyce,’ I say. I can feel the song and the lights echoing round my chest.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she answers. Mum was right. Alyce’s friendship is worth fighting for. I’m glad that I did.

  Flemming is standing with Annabelle as we leave. ‘I have to go to the bathroom. Meet you out the front,’ Alyce says as we walk past them.

  ‘Hey,’ he calls to me. ‘Still no word about Knight?’

  ‘His dad thinks he might have gone to Dromana. They went there on holidays when he was a kid.’

  ‘I’d run away too, if Gracie Faltrain was my girlfriend,’ Annabelle says.

  ‘Shut up,’ Flemming yells at her, and takes a step towards me. ‘He’ll be okay, Faltrain.’

  But I deserved what Annabelle said. If everything was the other way around, and she’d done what I had, I’d say something like that too. I’d say worse. I swallow any pride that I have left. ‘Did he ever tell you about the holiday?’ I ask her.

  Maybe she sees how sad I am. Maybe for the first time in my life I’m not threatening to punch her. She looks at me and shakes her head. She seems, sort of, real.

  ‘I saw Susan in the toilets,’ Alyce says while we’re waiting outside the hall for Dad to pick us up.

  ‘Did she say anything to you?’

  ‘No. She seemed sad. So I told her that her dress looked pretty.’

  You know how people tell you that one tiny bit of sweet, dark chocolate is better than a truck full of the cheap stuff? Well, Alyce is Lindt. That’s why Flemming had to ask her to the dance. That’s why he’ll feel sick later. Because he’s had about a block and a half of Susan tonight, when he could have had the tiniest piece of the real thing.

  Dad waits for Alyce to walk inside and then starts the car again.

  ‘Did Mr Knight call while I was out?’

  ‘Sorry, baby. Give him a bit of time – he’ll have barely arrived.’ He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. ‘Gracie, I wanted to tell you how proud I am.’

  ‘Of me?’

  ‘It’s not easy living with your mistakes. I should know. And it’s not easy to lose the things you love.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t think I’m doing so great.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. After she dropped you off tonight she was crying.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘My guess is that she missed you. And now she knows you’re on the way back.’

  42

  The world looks a whole lot different standing in someone else’s soccer boots.

  Gracie Faltrain

  No one wants to admit that Martin still won’t be here today. This is the decider. If we win this, then we’re into the final.

  ‘Faltrain,’ Coach says. ‘I know you miss Knight. I know that playing without him is hard. But I need you out there.’

  I nod. ‘I’ll take his spot, then. In goal.’ He doesn’t argue. He just shifts Maiden into the midfield.

  I figure I owe it to Martin to see what his life has been like, what he’s been trying to tell me all this time. If he ever comes back I want to prove to him that I’m listening.

  All this time I thought Martin
was a coward. But the game he’s been playing is harder than I thought. I’m on the lookout for attack all through the first half. If I let my guard down for a second then they’ll score. Do that too many times and the game’s over. Almost all of Martin’s life has been defence. Looking after his family, and me. Guarding the last memories of his mum. I wanted him to attack so badly, kick his dad to wake him up. Kick the other team in soccer.

  But standing in Martin’s place today, I see that attack can be ugly. Flemming smacks into players and flips them like pancakes, flat on their backs. Sure, he gets the ball and scores three goals in a row. But he used to do that all the time. He just never hurt other players to do it.

  The thing is, I’ve watched these guys play since Year 7. I know their style. Flemming could have made at least two of those goals by cutting to the right at the centre of the field and then swinging into the gap left by one of their defenders. Sure, the degree of difficulty was high, but man, what a great goal it would have been if he’d made it.

  I guess up until now, I haven’t been able to work out what I think. Those guys did set the rules. But we set some before them. Like I said, human nature’s like a track on loop. But someone’s got to stop it.

  ‘Francavilla,’ I say at half time, ‘you’re playing like you don’t want to be out there, I can tell.’

  ‘I don’t want to be. It’s no fun anymore. I used to love protecting goal, predicting the shots, making sure no one got through. It’s not the same anymore. I’m thinking I might sign up for footy next year.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I don’t even try to convince him to stay. I know exactly what he means.

  We went from man to ape in one season. ‘Blows the theory of evolution right out of the water, doesn’t it, Faltrain?’ It feels good to have Jane’s voice back in my head. It hasn’t just been man to ape, either. It’s been woman to ape woman. Whatever. I’ve been in there kicking as much as the next guy.

  Sometimes you have to stand back a bit to get the full picture. And the one I’m seeing today in the second half? It’s full of bad soccer players. We’re nothing like we were.

  Except for a guy called Jason Harroway. He’s scoring goals for the opposition like he’s playing for Brazil. I know him because in Year 8 he came to some of our practices. He hadn’t made it onto a team at his school and his dad knew Coach. ‘Nice shot,’ he’d say to me as I sank a goal. He never hassled me about being a girl. Everyone on our team liked him.

  Seeing him play this afternoon makes me want to rewind, cut back to when I sank goals without sinking the other players. I want to be the best because I’m good. Not because our team’s a pack of thugs.

  Jason takes the ball from Corelli, and it makes him enemy number one, no matter what he’s done in the past. He steals it fair and square. No rough stuff. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Real soccer. His foot edges in quiet, like a thief. Once he has it he runs, moving like he’s on blades, gliding to goal.

  Flemming races at him with the momentum of a rock rolling down a huge hill. Harroway doesn’t see him coming. ‘Jason,’ I call out from goal, but it’s too late. Flemming slams at him in the middle of the field. From here it looks like a block tackle, but I know better. Jason is the other team’s chance at winning. So Flemming takes him out.

  As they both fall down, Flemming’s knee connects with Jason’s nose. The ball spins out. The other team gets an indirect free kick. Harroway gets an ambulance. Flemming pretty much gets away with it.

  He shouldn’t have. The game keeps going and in the background, I can see the ambulance guys close the doors and drive away. And I’m not the only one who’s looking. The rest of our team shuffles around, like they’ve been sleepwalking, and all of a sudden they’ve woken up somewhere strange. The thing is, when you’re heavy with night, it’s hard to get back to where you should be.

  After the game finishes, Coach rubs his eyes like he’s tired of seeing. He doesn’t even say congratulations, you won. You’re into the final. ‘I’m going to the hospital,’ he says more to Flemming than the rest of us. ‘I’ll call you when I know something.’

  ‘Call him at my place,’ I tell him. ‘He’s coming home with me.’

  ‘The ref ruled it as an accident,’ Flemming says as we wait in my kitchen for the news. He locks his hands together and bangs them softly on the table.

  ‘It wasn’t, Flemming. I saw it. I saw you threatening that guy at the back of the change rooms, too.’

  ‘He hit Corelli. I was protecting the team, making sure no one else got their heads ripped off. The guy was an idiot.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. You were enjoying yourself.’

  ‘So what if I was? We’re gonna win the finals, Faltrain. And every scout in the place will be there. You and me both know the only thing we’ve got going for us is soccer.’

  ‘They won’t pick us if we’re playing like thugs.’

  ‘So make sure you don’t get caught on TV kicking some guy in the balls.’

  ‘Listen to yourself. The whole reason you play soccer is that you love the game. And now you’re saying it’s all right to play dirty as long as no one sees, as long as we win?’

  Flemming keeps tapping his fist on the table.

  ‘What if Jason’s hurt, really hurt? You knew him this time, Flemming. He wasn’t an idiot. He was a mate.’

  ‘I want to win so bad, Faltrain. I want to play for the state. You were right about the school stuff, about me being stupid. I’m not gonna pass Year 12. I’m barely passing Year 11. I’ve got nothing else.’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Flemming.’

  ‘I know what I am. Even my dad says I’m not going anywhere.’

  If there are buttons you can push to ruin someone, there are ones you can push to fix them. They’re harder to find, though. Flemming’s not an idiot. He’s just done some stupid things. There’s a difference.

  ‘We’ll win, Flemming. I promise. We’ll thrash them on our terms. In front of everyone, we’ll prove we can do it. Imagine all the talent scouts seeing that.’

  As soon as I say it I feel that old excitement building up in me again. I imagine soaring along the grass, heading to Flemming, kicking to Singh, scoring goals like a champion.

  ‘You’re dreaming, Faltrain,’ he says.

  ‘Maybe. But they won’t pick you for state playing like you are, and you know it. Any scout there today would’ve scratched you off the list. But the old you, the Flemming who plays soccer better than anyone I’ve seen, they’d take in a second.’

  ‘Better than anyone?’

  ‘Except me, of course.’

  The phone rings before he can answer. Mum walks in to pick it up. Dad walks in behind her and sits with us at the table.

  Flemming’s whole body freezes, caught in ice. I know that feeling. He’s about to find out if he’s hurt someone else too bad to fix. It’s a cold feeling. It’s lonely.

  ‘Yes. Yes,’ Mum says. Her face is hard to read. Dad reaches out across the table and holds my hand. ‘I’ll let them know. Thanks, Coach.’

  She hangs up and turns to us. ‘He’s awake. A broken nose, concussion,’ she lists his injuries off on her fingers, ‘and a dislocated finger. He’s going to be okay, Andrew. The doctor said he’s going to be fine.’

  ‘All right,’ Flemming says, and I can hear in his voice a change of direction.

  ‘Harroway’s a better player than he was in Year 8, Faltrain.’ Flemming and I are waiting on the steps for his dad to come. ‘Did you see the way he took the ball off Corelli?’

  ‘Like taking candy from a baby,’ I say. ‘I miss playing like that.’

  Flemming stands up as his dad arrives. ‘I miss it too, Faltrain.’

  ‘So we’re playing like we used to in the final?’ I ask.

  ‘Just remember. You promised we’d win.’

  We will. And it will be even better than last season. Because winning means a whole lot more when you know what it feels like to lose.

  In my dream tonight, Mart
in is sleeping in the middle of the road. There are cars racing past. He’s about to be hit, but I can’t scream loud enough to wake him. There’s something caught in my throat and I can’t make a sound. All I can do is watch and hope that he wakes up in time. At the end of the dream, a car drives right over the top of him. Martin doesn’t die. He disappears. That’s when the thing in my throat vanishes. Every vocal chord comes alive and I’m screaming for all I’m worth. But it’s too late.

  Mum shakes me. ‘You’re dreaming, wake up.’

  I blink into the half light of my bedroom. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Six o’clock. Mr Knight is on the phone.’

  His voice is low, crouching with sleep. ‘I’ve found him, love,’ he says. ‘I’m bringing him home.’ He hangs up, but before he does I imagine I can hear the sound of the ocean. And it’s calm.

  43

  Alyce Fuller: one. Gracie Faltrain: zero.

  Alyce Fuller

  The world is a good place today. I can feel spring hanging at the edges. ‘He’s on his way home, Alyce,’ I say at the start of sport.

  ‘That’s fantastic news, Gracie.’ And then she does something that’s never been done before. Alyce Fuller plays with the laws of the universe. She raises her hand and volunteers to be captain. She smiles at the look on my face. ‘You’re not the only one who gets to set the rules,’ she says.

  ‘So how come you never did that before?’

  ‘Because I never wanted to be a captain. But today, I feel like it.’

  Good for you, Alyce. I’m not happy because she’s starting to act like everyone else. I don’t care about that. I’m happy because she’s smiling. I put my hand up as well.

  ‘Freddy Jabusi,’ she calls when it’s her turn. She picks every crap player in the class. Corelli’s the only guy on her team who’s even close to okay. She chooses her final player and smiles as he walks over. She makes him feel like the first. It’s in how you choose, I guess, not in the choosing.

  I have Flemming and Maiden and Singh. I have Susan and Annabelle. I call her name last, but I follow Alyce’s lead. I try as hard as I can to give her a grin on the way past. My smile moves like a rusty bike. She stares at me as if I’m crazy. Being nicer to Annabelle could take a little practice.