Gracie Faltrain Gets it Right (Finally) (11 page)

Annabelle walks up the path to my house tonight and sits next to me on the steps. I don't think she realises but her eyes drift to the sky when she talks. ‘I've been thinking about Dad's telescope. On clear nights we'd drive out of the city and take turns looking through it.'

‘What's the moon like close up?' I ask.

‘Less romantic, I guess. You see it for what it is, full of all these craters.'

‘Not gold like that,' I say, pointing.

‘It's better. It's real.'

I wonder what she's thinking. I wonder if I should kiss her. ‘Do you want to see the moon close up?' she asks.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘I do.'

‘I know it's in here,' Annabelle says, switching on the light in her back shed. There's stuff everywhere, bikes and boxes, tools and an old record player.

‘You should clean this place out.' I hold up a soccer ball. ‘There's some good stuff caught between all the crap.'

She pulls a sheet off the telescope. ‘Give me a hand.' We lift it outside and she leans over the lens, tilting it up and turning dials. Her hair falls forward so I can't see her face. ‘Look.'

I stare through. She's right. The shine's gone but it's beautiful. We're quiet, moving between the gold moon and the real one.

‘Are they your dad's initials scratched in the side?' I ask. She runs her fingers over them on the telescope. ‘He left it to me. I could handle using the car. I barely remembered being in it. But this was too hard to look at because the memories are so strong.'

The sky stretches over me like it did out on the road. I'd give a million dollars to know what Annabelle's thinking, to know if she wants to kiss me like I want to kiss her. Maybe she's here because she's missing her dad and the last thing she wants is some guy cracking on to her.

‘One night, close to when he died, Dad told Kally and me the name of every constellation he could see. He made us say the names until we remembered them. It was him he wanted us to remember, though.'

‘I failed my exams,' I say. I don't know why, it just comes out. ‘I stuffed up last year and didn't get in to uni.'

‘So you'll get where you want to go another way. Where do you want to go?' she asks.

‘I'm not sure.' But talking to her, I feel like I'm on the way to all those towns spread out along the ocean, I feel like I'm seeing the water surface as I drive around the bend. I want to
kiss her so bad because she makes me think of all those places. But I'm not sure if she'll kiss me back and I don't want to wreck things. By the time I'm ready to make my move she's packing up the telescope.

‘So do you like the moon close up?' she asks on the way inside. Her breath makes shapes around me in the night.

‘Yeah,' I say. ‘I do.'

I try hard to concentrate in my classes today. But how can I focus on Mrs Young when the
Dan Woodbury Movie
is playing in my head? I'm only human. On an excitement scale of one to ten, that kiss is rocketing past one hundred.

‘You're red,' Flemming says while Mrs Young hands out worksheets.

‘No I'm not.'

‘You've been weird all afternoon, walking around with a stupid look on your face.'

‘I always look stupid.'

‘You look more stupid today.'

I have to tell Flemming about Dan some time. It may as well be now. ‘Dan Woodbury and I are going out.' I know he has a problem with it because he starts doing his work. ‘What?' I ask.

‘Nothing. Congratulations.'

‘He's a good guy. We were wrong about him.' Flemming
nods and keeps working. ‘We were all idiots last year in the Firsts competition.'

‘Who are you trying to convince, me or you?'

‘I don't need to convince anyone.' I knew Flemming would act like this. He hated Dan last year. He hates him this year. No matter what, he'll hate him next year. But that's a stupid way to live. Things aren't clear cut. People change.

We don't talk again till the end of the lesson. ‘Are we still mates?' I ask before the bell. ‘I was your friend when you were going out with Susan.' He packs up his books and punches me on the arm. I'll take that as a yes.

I know that some of the stuff Coach and Martin said about Flemming is true. It's easier to get into trouble when I'm around him. But since Year 10 he's been one of my best mates. Friendship is about staring at your friend, all of your friend, and seeing the bad and the good. And it's about sticking with them anyway.

Dan picks Kally and me up after school and drives us to the first extra training session with the state girls. I can't help thinking that it's going to take more than two afternoons a week to prepare them for the match against the boys. ‘How many are going to be here?' I ask as we pull into the field's car park.

‘A few,' Kally says.

I follow her eyes. Without counting, I'd make a rough guess that almost every girl from our Sunday state sessions is here. ‘All of them? How am I going to train all of them?'

I feel crowded. I feel the weight of every girl's hair on my shoulders as they close in and wait for answers. I talk loud and
confident when I feel quiet and scared. ‘I can train with you Friday and Sunday afternoons. Next week I'm on camp but I'll be back in time to practise. You need to do weights and aerobic work. Get fitter. If you know boys who'll train with us, bring them along. Trust me. You don't want to find out what it's like to play these guys for the first time at the practice match.'

They grin as I speak. They're imagining themselves on the day they win, grass green under their boots as they kick goals and beat the boys. I guess people believe what they have to so they can sleep at night. I know I won't sleep. And if I do, my dreams will be filled with the sound of clippers. They'll be filled with the bald heads of the state squad. Think, Gracie Faltrain. Think. The fate of cascading curls is resting on your shoulders.

Mum drives me to the school soccer match on Saturday morning. ‘You look tired,' she says.

‘I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about the stupid bet.'

‘It's not your responsibility to win it for them, Gracie.'

‘But it feels like it is.'

I watch my school team warming up for a while before I walk towards them. I've always said it's not about being a girl or a boy out there. It's about the game. But that answer won't help the girls. They're looking for rules to follow. They're looking for right and wrong. The only answer I've ever had is that I fly out there because I can.

When the whistle goes today I take note of everything. I watch the feet of the boys. I map their play. I map my own. I make a book in my head of how to fly, how to sail, how to move.

I take notice of Coach. Everyone said I was a natural at the sport but that's not a hundred per cent true. Coach taught me how to play the game. He taught me so well I don't remember learning.

‘So I heard about the bet,' Coach says after the game. ‘I heard you're training the girls in your spare time.'

‘You think I'm stupid?'

‘It doesn't matter what I think. You got a plan?'

‘I was trying to remember how you taught me to win against boys.'

‘I didn't teach you that. I taught you the skills and then I let you onto the field. Some things a player learns for themselves.'

In four months I have to give to the girls what Coach took years to give me. ‘I've got a favour to ask. I want to put five girls on the bench every Saturday in our school games. I need you to sub them in for ten minutes at a time so they learn what it's like to play against boys. The guys will have a problem with it.'

‘It might do them good to be shaken up a bit.' He thinks for a while. ‘Bring your players along next week. Get a mix of positions.'

I expected him to make me beg, to make me fight for it. ‘Thanks, Coach.'

‘Thank me by making it to the state squad. I've been waiting for that since you walked onto that field in Year 7.'

‘You thought I was a crap player in Year 7.'

‘I thought you were the stupidest, gutsiest kid I've ever seen, running out there with your toothpick legs. Choose the best girls for the first Saturday match. It'll be rough out there till they prove themselves.'

I stare at the field for a bit longer after he's gone. I keep replaying his words over and over. I want to make sure I remember them.

I walk over to Dan's house after I leave the field. We sit in his room for a while, doing homework. At least, I try to do homework, but I'm thinking about a hundred other things. Ninety-nine of them have to do with him and the last one is about the bet. ‘I want to be a coach,' I say to him after a while. ‘You know, for a career.'

‘Isn't that part of Sports Management?'

‘I don't know. I only said that to impress you. Can I use the Internet?' The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.

I can't find exactly what I want so Mrs Woodbury helps me research while Dan cooks dinner. ‘Monash University has degrees in Sports Studies including Coaching Science, Sports Management and Sports Media,' she reads. ‘You could study coaching, improve your own performance, and then study further if you wanted to do Physiotherapy. Does that sound like something you're interested in?'

‘Yep. That's it. What do I need to get in?'

‘Any Maths subject and a study score of at least twenty-five in English.' Crap. I'll really have to pick up my game in English if I want to get that. Mrs Woodbury pulls out her Maths textbook. ‘Let's get in an hour of study before tea.'

‘I have a test soon. Think I'll pass?'

‘I think you'll do very well. You're smart, Gracie. I don't know where you got the idea that you're not.'

*

‘I really like your mum,' I say to Dan after he kisses me goodnight. ‘She printed off that information on Sports Studies for me. There are university open days coming up. We should go to some.'

‘You're kind of ruining the mood here.'

‘She thinks I'm smart.'

‘Because you are. You can't play like you do, pick things up as quick as you do, be as funny as you are, if you're not smart.'

Life is good. We sit in the car for a while, listening to the radio and talking about the bet and next year and Flemming and Kally and all the things we want and all the things we're worried about.

‘I know what I'm going to say to the girls when I see them at state trials tomorrow,' I tell him. ‘I'll say, “There are no guarantees. You have the skills but you have to learn how to use them.” I'll make a list of dates for every girl so they know when they're playing with us. They'll need to tell their school or club ahead of time that they won't be available.' Dan leans in, his hair falling at a mathematically perfect angle that I could calculate if I had to, and kisses me. I feel happy. Deliriously happy.

I spread the love around when I go inside the house. I show Mum my course print-out and she looks deliriously happy. There's a David Attenborough documentary on the TV so Dad looks deliriously happy. Jane looks kind of happy, too. ‘No particular reason, Faltrain,' she says when I ask. ‘I had fun with Corelli this afternoon, that's all.' It's a good night. We all eat chocolate. We all laugh. We're all deliriously happy. For once.

Of course, the danger with being deliriously happy is that it's like running at high speed through really long grass. Most times there's something waiting that you didn't expect because you were too busy running and being deliriously happy. I'm running happily towards the bus for camp on Monday when I hit the thing that's waiting in the long grass for me: my English teacher.

‘Gracie, can I have a word?' Mrs Young takes my essay out of her folder.

‘One out of ten?' My English study score of twenty-five isn't looking too good.

‘I was being kind. Your essay bore no resemblance to the text whatsoever.'

How could it? I have no idea whatsoever what the text is about except there's a guy called Bottom in it. I take another look at the essay. I spelt his name wrong, too. ‘I'm studying now.' Even as I say it, I see the flaw in my plan: I've been
working on Food Tech and Maths and Outdoor Ed. But English is hard for me, so I've put it to the side of the homework pile since the beginning of the year.

‘Gracie, you're in trouble. We've got a media analysis in a week. It's very important that you do well. You need to let me help.'

‘I leave for camp today. We're gone till Friday.'

‘In that case I'm calling your parents.'

‘No, wait. Alyce is coming with me. She'll help.' Mum's been so proud lately. I don't want her to hear this while I'm away. I need to be around to do damage control.

There's no way any of my old teachers would let me off the hook. But Mrs Young is new and I take advantage of that. ‘Give me one last chance. I'll do well, I promise.' It's the first time in my school career I've really meant it.

She looks me in the eye. She falters. ‘Fine. But I'm marking the media analysis essay the night you do it and then I'm calling your parents with the result.'

‘No problem, Mrs Young. I'm going to ace it.'

‘How am I going to ace it?' I ask Flemming while we're waiting for the camp bus. He's only half listening. The other half is watching Brett hold hands with Alyce.

‘Relax, Faltrain. I've got it covered.' He pulls out an envelope. ‘These are the articles they're using and these are the answers.'

‘Where did you get those?'

‘If they question you, it's better not to know. You want them?'

‘No. You don't want them either.'

‘Take a copy in case.' He pushes the envelope into my hands. He
forces
me to take them. That's my story. And I'm sticking to it.

‘Alyce is so excited about going to camp with Gracie,' I say to Corelli, watching them wait for the bus. ‘I didn't have the heart to tell her that Faltrain's a magnet for trouble on excursion.'

‘You'd love to be going with them, wouldn't you?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘I know how you feel. Francesca's been on exchange for the first part of this year. I wanted to go with her but the time's gone really quickly.'

‘Francesca?'

‘Frankie Butera, my girlfriend. I met her over the holidays and then she left in January. She's back soon, though.' He goes on talking but all I hear is white noise: sharp, ear-piercing white-hot noise.

‘Excuse me,' I say after a while. ‘There's something I need to tell Faltrain before she goes.' And I have to find a private place to let my head spin off my shoulders.

Jane walks over and says to Mrs Wilson, ‘Gracie has to go to the toilet before she leaves.' She whispers to me, ‘Move quietly and don't make a fuss.' When we get there she pushes me into a cubicle with her and locks the door.

‘Jane, I swear; I wasn't going to open the envelope.'

‘I don't know what envelope you're talking about. I don't care. We have five minutes before you leave and they're all about me. You never mentioned that Corelli has a girlfriend.'

‘You two are friends, I thought you knew. She's in Italy or something.'

‘If I knew, I wouldn't have been dreaming about Corelli in his Superman suit. But it's too late to stop that now.'

I have a flash of memory. ‘He wore red undies over the top of blue tights.'

‘The dream's in full colour, Faltrain. I know.'

‘Okay, this is weird. You're acting like me.'

‘I can't help it. My serotonin levels are up.'

‘What?'

‘The hormone levels in my brain. Didn't you listen even in Sex Ed?'

Okay. Now Jane's freaking me out and not only because I'm backed up against a toilet and she's yelling about Sex Ed and Corelli in his red underwear. ‘Calm down. There's not much time. We need to think what you'd say to me in a situation like this.'

‘I'd say, “Get a grip, Faltrain.” But it's too late for that. I really like Corelli. I know you think that's weird. I think that's weird. It's why I haven't said anything. But I do. I like
the food he cooks. I like that he drives me around in his car and sings Britney Spears. I can talk about the goats with him.'

‘What goats?' Jane's passed the point of sanity and I know because most of the time that's the point where I live.

She leans in closer. ‘You've seen her. She's pretty, isn't she?'

It's a tricky question to answer at the best of times. But when your friend has you locked in a toilet, raving about goats and underwear, it's even trickier. ‘Define pretty.'

‘She looks like Jennifer Garner, doesn't she?'

‘Only in certain lights.'

Jane sits on the toilet seat. ‘This isn't fair.'

Sometimes there's a girl called Francesca waiting in the grass while you're running deliriously through it. ‘No,' I agree with her. ‘It's definitely not.'

Last year I would have found Corelli and told him to wake up to himself. Jane's better than any girl, even the real Jennifer Garner. But I know now that sometimes, when life goes wrong for your friend, the best thing to do isn't to dive in and change things. Sometimes the only thing to do is share their toilet cubicle for a while. So until I have to leave for camp, that's what I do.

Love sucks
. Okay, that thought isn't going to win me a Pulitzer Prize. But it's the truth.

I can't stop thinking about Jane on the way to camp. I know we'll be back on Friday but time's a funny thing. The week will last forever for her and for me it'll fly by because I have to be ready to write the English essay after the weekend. If I don't do well there's no way I'll get a study score of twenty-five.

I know it's wrong but that envelope looks pretty inviting. I put it in my locker after I spoke to Jane. I wanted to hide what I was planning to do from myself but the only thing I use my locker for is to store my soccer ball. So now I have a picture in my head of that envelope in an empty locker where there should have been books and pens and study notes.

‘Are you okay?' Alyce asks.

‘I'm fine. A little bus sick, that's all.'

‘We're nearly there.'

‘Really? It feels like we're a hundred miles away.'

Alyce, Kally and I get a three-bed cabin and set up our stuff. ‘We have to meet in the main hall,' Alyce says.

‘What for?' I ask.

‘A study talk.'

And in the words of Flemming, let the torture begin. In Year 12 they take the fun out of everything. You can't go on camp anymore and canoe. You have to think about study scores of twenty-five in English that are way beyond your reach. You have to look deep inside yourself for the answers. I don't have the answers. Actually, I do have the answers but I don't think they count if you steal them.

Mrs Wilson hands out blank paper. ‘I want you to write a letter to yourself. Put in it what you want to achieve this year. Write where improvements could be made. Write what you do well. Be completely honest.'

I look around at everyone scribbling away. Sure, there are things I could write. But putting them on paper makes what I'm afraid of real. ‘Having trouble, Gracie?' Mrs Wilson whispers. I shrug. It's not my style to over-think things and she knows it.

‘I always loved your pieces about soccer. Why don't you start with that?' If you looked up ‘desperate' in the dictionary it would say Mrs Wilson. Not ‘desperate' in a bad way. She really wants me to get something out of this. And after seven years of knowing me and three years of putting up with me as a student, I figure it's time to throw her a bone.

So I start. And then I can't stop. I fill page after page of all the things I want and all the things I'm worried about and all the things I love and all the things I want to get away from. Who knew there was so much stuff in my head? When I'm finished I do what Mrs Wilson says. I lick my envelope and seal it. I put it away somewhere safe to open down the track.

‘Okay, so we've got an hour before dinner,' I say to Alyce and Kally. ‘Let's explore. On the map there's a flying fox marked at the edge of the property.'

‘It's a long way,' Alyce says, following Kally and me across the back paddock. ‘And it's out of bounds. You heard Mrs Wilson. No second chances after the Year 11 camp. Any bad behaviour and they'll send us home.'

‘They always say that. No teacher's sending a student home from study camp. It'd be playing right into our hands.'

‘Are you sure you know where we're going?' Alyce asks.

‘I can follow a map.' When I say that I'm certain; after another half an hour, I'm not so sure. There's a tree that's starting to look a little too familiar.

‘We're not walking in the right direction,' Alyce says. ‘The flying fox is to the west. We're heading east.'

‘How do you know?'

‘The sun is setting.' She points ahead of us.

‘And?'

‘And it sets in the west, Gracie.'

I can tell Alyce is flustered because she hardly ever sounds cross.

‘She's right,' Kally says. ‘We should go back.'

‘Good idea. Which way is back?' I ask.

Alyce turns the map around a few times. ‘That way. I think.'

The problem with dark bushland is that it's very hard to see in it. ‘What was that?' Alyce asks. And then there's the problem of the animals.

‘I'm sorry I dragged you both into this.'

‘You know there's more to life than flying foxes. It's not all fun and games and racing along ropes, screaming your way to the end,' Alyce says.

‘I know. But I thought we could use a little fun.'

‘We're not on this camp for fun. We're here to think about our future.'

A twig snaps. ‘What was that?' I ask, peering ahead into
the darkness. ‘It might be a wild dog or a bear or a man with a chainsaw.'

‘There are no bears in the Australian bush,' Kally says.

‘Is that meant to be comforting?' I ask.

‘We should stop walking. No one ever gets help in the bush if they keep moving.' Kally's right. We find a spot to sit.

‘I thought eyes eventually adjusted to the dark,' I say after a while.

‘You're not nocturnal, Gracie. Your eyes won't adjust to this darkness.'

I can't see Alyce anymore but I can tell by her voice that she's mad. I would be too; it's cold and way past dinner time. But I can't stand the quiet. ‘What did you write in your letters?'

‘I wrote about New York and what I plan to do when I get there.'

‘Tell me about the program, Alyce.'

‘I don't want to talk about it.'

Fear makes people do dumb things. It makes people like Alyce snap at her best friend. ‘I didn't mean to get lost,' I say.

‘What did you write in your letter?' she asks, and her voice is softer now, more like the Alyce I know.

In the dark, it's easy to tell her and Kally. It's a relief. ‘I wrote about how I'm really trying in school now but I'm still scared that I'll fail. I'm even more scared now because failing is worse if you're actually trying to pass.

‘I wrote that I miss playing soccer with Martin and sometimes I wish I was still in Year 7 and we were friends again. I wrote how stupid I feel sometimes for having a dream to play for Australia but I can't stop wanting it. I wrote about
Dan and how much I like him. I wrote that the strangest thing about falling for him is that I want to tell Martin all about it. He's one of my best friends and sometimes I feel like my arms are missing because he's gone.

‘I wrote that I'm worried about what's going to happen next year if you all go to uni and I fail.' I take a breath and keep going. ‘I didn't write, because I was worried that I'd get caught, that I'm thinking about cheating in the analysis essay on Monday. Flemming gave me the answers.'

I wait for Alyce to sound shocked and for Kally to tell me I'm stupid. ‘Everyone gets freaked about life sometimes,' Kally says. ‘You're not on your own there.'

‘I wrote that I ruined my chances for the Young United Nations Program,' Alyce says quietly. ‘I haven't done any actual volunteer work where I have contact with people. The truth is, ever since Mrs Davila said “Third World” to me I've been frightened.'

‘But you collected all those coats and made potpourri for the old people.'

‘But I never visited the old people. You and Jane did that.'

‘We wanted to get out of school. The potpourri-making was at lunch.'

‘I'm not going to New York. I made a list of places I could volunteer at but I haven't done anything about it.'

‘You've helped more people than anyone I know. You found a way to help Flemming. You won the comedy debate against Annabelle but you didn't humiliate her like I would have. You collect coats for cold people.'

Across the darkness she reaches for my hand. ‘Thank you,' she says. ‘I'll help you pass this year, Gracie. You're not
a cheat. And even if you can't see us all being there for you because we're in different places, we'll still be there.'