The Year My Life Broke (8 page)

Crouching low, I ran to the window that had the best view. It was at the corner of the kitchen. I think I was in a state of shock, but I wanted to see that my dad was all right. I expected my mum to call me back but when I looked around I could see her going down the corridor. I think she was checking on Callan and Pippa. I didn't know if she still had the phone. I peeked out the window, just in time to see my father do a kind of roll over the top of the fence and drop down the other side. I had the terrible thought that I might have seen him for the last time. I thought I'd be safe if I snuck out the back door and used the corner of the house for cover, so I did that. As soon as the night air hit me I started shivering worse than ever, but most of it was fear I think.

The Great Danes across the road were going crazy. I hoped they didn't get out, or if they did they'd know that I was one of the good guys. I hunched down and snuck along the wall. Suddenly a man yelled, ‘Over there,' from the yard next door. Then there were two more shots, both from the same place, it sounded like. The shots were much louder out here, and I began to think that it was really not a good idea for me to be outside. ‘Brendon's down,' a man shouted. I edged quickly back towards the door again. Then I heard running footsteps coming down our driveway. I peeped around the side and saw my father going flat chat, like the Great Danes were after him. He was carrying something heavy. Someone heavy. It had to be Woody. My dad gets asthma and he was breathing like a donkey. I put my head down and raced towards him. I heard a shot, horribly close. It sounded a bit like the lid of a dumpbin being smashed shut. Another man yelled ‘Got him!'

‘What are you doing?' my dad gasped. ‘All right, take him and get inside.'

I put Woody, who didn't seem to be moving, over my shoulder and carried him, even though my legs were going all wobbly, but my dad supported him from behind, and that helped. Woody didn't move at all and I wondered with terror and horror if he was dead.

We got inside and my dad slammed the door. I dropped Woody onto the couch, a bit heavily, but I couldn't carry him any longer. Suddenly my mother was there. ‘What's happening?' she asked in a strange half-strangled voice, like she had asthma too.

‘Don't worry, I think it's over,' my dad said.

My mum took one look at Woody and went out to the kitchen. My dad turned on the little lamp. Woody was so white it was like he had no colour at all. I couldn't see any blood though, so I thought maybe he hadn't been shot. My dad started patting his face and saying, ‘You're all right now, don't worry, you're all right.' My mum came back with a face flannel and a bowl of water and wiped his face, very gently. ‘Get a doona for him, Josh,' she said, and I scurried out of the room and got one from the hall cupboard. There was a hammering on our front door. I jumped about a metre. But a voice came through the door: ‘Are you there, Cam? It's me, Lenny.'

My dad went to the door and opened it. Lenny seemed to know we had Woody, because he said straight away: ‘Is he OK?'

I thought my dad said, ‘I'd say he's shot, big time.' For a second my stomach dropped away like I was in a lift going up at a thousand k's an hour. Then I realised he'd said ‘shocked'.

My dad brought Lenny in and they had a look at Woody. Lenny ran his hands over him and Woody pushed him away, but pretty feebly. So at least he was alive. Lenny said, ‘Yeah, like you said, Cam, shocked I reckon, but no wonder. There's an ambulance on the way,' and as soon as he said that I realised I could hear sirens in the distance, loads of them, like every emergency vehicle in Tarrawagga was heading to Brissie Street.

Soon the street was full of the wailing and moaning of sirens. They even drowned out the Great Danes. The flashing blue and white lights through the window made our living room more like a disco. But we had to wait about ten minutes until the police gave the all-clear before the ambulance guys could come in. When they did, a funny thing happened. They tried to put Woody on a stretcher but he cried and wouldn't get on it. ‘How about you walk out there with us then?' they suggested. They were very gentle with him.

‘No, no,' he cried, but they kept insisting. Then he pointed at me and said, ‘Only if Josh comes.'

The main ambulance guy was quite an old man, little but tough-looking. ‘Are you Josh?' he asked me.

‘Yeah.'

‘Can he come with us then?' he asked Mum and Dad. ‘One of you can come too if you like.'

So that's how I came to have my first ever ambulance ride, through the night, with Mum and Lenny and Woody, a kid I hardly knew. To my disappointment the ambos didn't use their siren, but we still got to the hospital pretty quickly. Woody wouldn't let me out of his sight, so I sat with him while we waited for a doctor. A nurse brought us some Lego, and we played with that, making a plane and an aircraft carrier, although I thought it was strange that half an hour earlier we'd been dodging bullets and now we were playing Lego.

Eventually the doctor came hurrying in, and checked Woody out. ‘You're not doing too badly,' she said, ‘but I think it'd be a good idea if we kept you in overnight.' Two cops arrived to replace Lenny and to guard Woody, and the nurse gave him a sleeping tablet or something, because about three minutes after he took it he went out like a light and started snoring. By then it was 2.30 in the morning, and I didn't need a pill – I was ready to fall down on the hospital floor and go straight to sleep.

Lenny took us to the hospital car park and put us in his cop car. Pretty cool way to go home. I begged him to use his siren, but he was as tight about it as the ambos had been. At least he let me go in the front seat.

On the way home I asked him, ‘Who's looking after Harriet?'

‘Harriet? She's at her mum's for the whole week. Thank God. I'm glad she missed this.'

So I was in great shape for the game against Maxwell. Mum drove me to school at about ten o'clock, 'cos the game wasn't meant to start until 10.30. Callan and Pippa had caught the bus as usual. To my total and utter amazement, in spite of the shots and yelling and running around, they had both SLEPT THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. It didn't seem possible.

We really got to school too early though. The speeches to open the new oval were just starting and, geez, I had no idea it took so many words to open an oval. Two different members of parliament, the mayor, the principal Ms Krishnananthan, the oldest ex-student of Tarrawagga Primary, someone from the Education office, a guy from Rotary (because they had paid for some trees) and the two school captains. By the time they'd finished I thought it'd be time to mow the thing again, 'cos the grass would have grown so long while they were talking.

But eventually the two politicians cut a ribbon across the main gate and Mr Surrey announced that the cricket and netball would start in ten minutes. The old man who'd been at Tarrawagga in 1925 or 1808 or whenever it was grabbed the microphone and said, ‘Make sure you beat them, boys, I've never seen us beat Maxwell yet.' I don't think he'd noticed that the school was now co-ed and we had girls.

About half the crowd wandered off to watch the netball while the other half stayed for the cricket. I grabbed my cricket bag and went over to join the team. I was a bit worried when I saw how nervous they all were. Some of them didn't look much better than Woody had at two o'clock that morning. I wanted to psych them up, but I didn't know how, plus I was stuffed from the night before. But Red took charge and gave the best speech I'd heard all day. It was about twenty words long. ‘Kick their butts back down the freeway to Maxwell,' he said. ‘This is our oval and we want them off it.'

We grinned. Mr Surrey said, ‘That's not really the sort of attitude we want to encourage, Redmond,' but I don't think anyone took much notice.

Harriet was in the team, replacing a kid called Adam, who'd broken his arm on the trampoline. It had been between her and Nirvana for the last place, but she'd got the gig. ‘Did you hear about the action in Brisbane Street?' I asked her.

‘No, what?'

‘I'll tell you later.'

Red went out to shake hands with the Maxwell captain and toss the coin. He came back looking a bit annoyed and said, ‘We're fielding,' so I guessed he'd lost the toss.

We jogged out onto the oval to lots of clapping from the crowd. I hoped it wasn't the last time they'd be clapping us today. The Maxwell batsmen marched out, looking spick and span. Red took the ball and marked his run-up. The game began.

I love the start of a cricket match. Dunno why, just love those first few overs when everything's fresh and new and you don't know what to expect. My loving this one didn't last very long but. The Maxwell captain hit Red's fourth ball straight to me, where I was fielding at mid-wicket. It came right at my chest, and I dropped it. They could have been 1 for 0. Red put his hands on his knees and stayed bent over for a minute, then went back to his mark without looking at me. I squatted on my haunches and chewed a piece of the nice new grass, thinking that I wouldn't blame Red if he wanted to use me to fertilise it.

That was pretty much my only contribution for the first hour. The new oval had a scoreboard, so I could see what my mistake cost Tarrawagga. When we stopped for drinks, at about twelve o'clock, Maxwell were 0 for 83.

Mr Surrey came on to give us a talking-to while we stood around looking like a bunch of losers. ‘Get your heads up,' was the first thing he said. Then he made a few suggestions, most of which were quite useful. He did know a bit about cricket. We trudged back to our positions. On his way off the oval with the esky Mr Surrey stopped to talk to me. ‘What's wrong with you, Josh?' he asked. ‘You look like you're half-asleep. And as for that catch you dropped . . . a baby could have caught it.'

‘Uh, I had a late night,' I said lamely. ‘Didn't get to bed till real late.'

It was the wrong thing to say, and I knew it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

‘Well really,' he said. ‘The night before the most important game of the year, maybe the most important game ever played here at Tarrawagga, the match we've been training for all term – well, some of us have – and you can't even get to bed on time. That's exactly why I didn't want you in the team.'

I yawned. I didn't mean to be rude; I just couldn't help myself. He gave me a look that could have scorched the grass, and stormed off the oval.

Things were not going well.

At the end of the next over Red chucked the ball to me. Normally I'd have been on earlier, but maybe he'd seen what Mr Surrey had seen: that I wasn't in the best shape. Plus he might still have been disgusted by my dropped catch. But one thing Mr Surrey had done was motivate me. I was good and angry when I took the ball. I thought Mr Surrey should at least have given me a chance to explain myself. He was always looking for an opportunity to have a go at me.

Even so, I couldn't find my length, and I had seven runs taken off my first three balls. I was often a bit of a slow starter when I bowled, but this was ridiculous. The fourth ball was no better. A rank long hop. But wouldn't you know it, sometimes you get lucky. The batsman went to smash it through the covers but he must have been overexcited, because instead of smashing it, he edged it to Shelley at second slip. Bingo! I was suddenly surrounded by excited Tarrawagga players all congratulating me for one of the worst balls I'd bowled all year.

But my fifth ball, now that was a ball I could be proud of. It just came out right, a scorcher that flew straight at the stumps. One person who wasn't expecting it was the Maxwell captain. Seeing I'd come on fairly late in the morning and seeing my first four balls were pitiful he probably thought I was easy pickings. Way too late he went to jam his bat down on it but already his stumps were looking more like a piece of modern art than a set of cricket stumps. He looked around with his mouth open, like he couldn't believe it, but it was time for him to go, and he went.

I was on a hat-trick, which I spoiled by bowling a no ball. Trying too hard, I guess. But that gave me one more ball, and I got the length I wanted, and a bit of movement and took out leg stump, sending it spinning through the air. Three for 94. Not exactly a winning position, but better than 0 for 86, which had been the score at the start of the over.

That was the end of my success for a while. But we got a run-out two overs later, when a Maxwell kid went for a single that wasn't there. Shelley took a wicket in the over after that, then Red got two in one over, just before lunch. So our mood was a bit better as we got our sausages from the barbecue. Maxwell were 7 for 121, and as Red said, if we could get the last three wickets cheaply we'd be in with a good show.

I don't know what was in the tomato sauce but it worked better for Maxwell than it did for us. Marty dropped an easy chance, almost as easy as the one I'd dropped, and Nathan, our wicketkeeper, missed a stumping when he fumbled the ball. Rolf bowled a couple of overs of rubbish and suddenly the batsmen were belting us all around the ground. I came on again and got hit like everyone else. Finally Harriet spun them both out, but by then the damage was done. Maxwell were 9 for 209. I got the last kid for a duck, and they were all out for 211.

You could tell by the way people avoided our eyes when we came off the field that they thought it was all over, and we were done for. Marty and Michael padded up, looking a bit sick. I sat under a tree, feeling woozy, like an afternoon nap would have been nice. I closed my eyes and did actually doze off for a few minutes. When I opened my eyes again Marty was taking off his pads and I saw the score on the board. Two for 12. Ouch.

A shadow came over me. It was Mr Surrey. He stood there, hands on hips, glaring down. ‘Good to see your level of interest in the game, Josh,' he said. ‘Let me know if the crowd gets too noisy and I'll ask them to stop clapping.'

He stalked off. ‘You weren't up in the middle of the night with bullets flying around you,' I thought. But before I could spend any more time replaying the action from last night Shelley called, ‘You're in next, Josh.' I looked across at the wicket. Red and Michael were batting. I got up and found my pads. At least my nap, short as it was, seemed to have refreshed me. I was feeling better than I had during the Maxwell innings.

I got Harriet to bowl to me so I could warm up but she managed only one ball. As she got ready for the second one I heard a huge yell from the direction of the wicket. ‘Geez, Mr Surrey, I thought you were going to keep them a bit quieter,' I said. I was thinking of taking another nap. I didn't really say that; in fact I didn't say anything, because Mr Surrey was talking to Ms Krishnananthan. He had his back to the game, so I don't know why he was complaining about me not being interested.

I hadn't had time to feel nervous about going in. I set off for the centre, passing Michael, who was storming past, thumping his bat into the ground with every step. ‘It didn't carry,' he muttered. I hate it when batsmen do that. It's so distracting.

Halfway to the wicket Red met me. Great. Another distraction. ‘They're pretty quick,' he said. ‘But we'll be right.' I don't know why he wanted to tell me that. It didn't make me feel any better. I took guard, still not sure whether I was completely awake, but when the first ball came thundering down, I woke up all right. It was fast. I shouldered arms but at the last moment realised it was cutting in and likely to take my off stump. There wasn't time to do anything. I whipped around and watched it graze past the stump by a millimetre. There was a groan from the wicketkeeper and slips. How humiliating would that have been: bowled first ball without offering a shot. I stepped forward and patted down the spot where the ball had bounced, just for something to do. The wickie told me, ‘Don't worry, mate, you can do all the gardening you want in a minute. But it won't be here.'

There was a lot of giggling from the slips and the umpire at square leg called out, ‘That's enough; we're not having any sledging, thanks.'

I was grateful to him but I tried to put it out of my mind and prepare for the next ball. It came at me like lightning too, one of those awkward ones that keep swinging right into your body, like they're following you. I got up on my toes and managed to kill it. That was the end of the over.

I had a chat with Red in the middle of the pitch. ‘The other kid's not as bad,' he said. ‘But they're both pretty quick.'

‘Looks like they're changing bowlers,' I said.

They were, and maybe it was lucky for us, because the new kid wasn't too accurate. He was a spinner, but he kept dropping them short. Red hit him for three fours. I survived the next over from the super-fast bowler, and scored three off the last ball, then hit the spinner for four fours, just to go one up on Red. That was the last we saw of him but at least he'd given us some confidence and let me get settled.

I noticed that they had no-one fielding at fine leg. When the quick kid came on again I got to face him after Red took a single off his first ball. I just spooned him away down there for four, and did that twice more before they moved a fielder to cover it. For the first time I looked at the scoreboard: 3 for 61. It was a long way from 211, but it was better than 3 for 15.

I figured they'd give their star bowler a rest now that we were hitting him more easily, but they obviously relied on him a lot, because they kept him on. We didn't have any more overs like the three where we'd scored 40, but we started picking up runs. Red was quick between the wickets, so we got quite a few singles and twos.

We stopped for drinks, with the score on exactly 100. Despite my little nap I was pretty tired. In any other match I probably would have been out half a dozen times by now, but I felt like I couldn't afford to fail in this one. I'd been concentrating so hard I was going cross-eyed.

At 3 for 100 we still had a long way to go. But at least we had a chance. The kids who brought the drinks out were really excited. They seemed to think we already had it in the bag. I knew better. Given the choice of 211 all out or 3 for 100, I'd have taken 211 every time.

First ball after drinks, Red went. He tried to sweep, the ball just popped up, and the wickie raced around and caught it. I swore to myself. Red stamped off, looking disgusted. It was a soft dismissal, but classic situation, getting out after a break. Happens all the time.

Rolf came in. He hadn't bowled well, but he was pretty reliable with the bat. He'd failed against Bromwich, but so had most people, and he'd made 60 against Ravensburg. But he was the last of our good batsmen. We had a long tail. Next after Rolf would be Nathan, and although he was a good wicketkeeper he was a nervous batsman.

What Rolf did was actually pretty dumb. He hoicked the first ball for six. It was a great shot and the crowd loved it. The first six to be hit on the new oval. He'd made history. But I didn't like the look on his face. ‘Oh no,' I groaned to myself. ‘Please don't try to do it again.'