Gracie Faltrain Gets it Right (Finally) (7 page)

I think about Andrew more than I should. I think about him more than I think about Colin Firth. Sometimes I think about Andrew Flemming dressed as Colin Firth. Sometimes I think about Colin Firth playing soccer. Then I stop myself.

‘Are you okay?' Brett waves his hand in front of me. ‘You've got a weird look on your face.'

‘I was thinking about Mrs Davila again.'

‘You're still going to apply, right?'

‘Maybe.'

‘What you need is a good game of footy.'

‘I don't think that's what I need.'

‘Trust me.' He turns the car around and heads towards the park. I imagine that it's Andrew and me getting out of the car, and running across the grass to play soccer.

‘Almost,' Brett yells when I miss the ball. Almost is a word I've heard a lot lately, I think, as he kisses me, and I try to make my blood fizz.

After dinner I pull out the book Brett gave me.
Dear Diary
, I start. I put it away. Some things about yourself are safer not to have in writing.

‘Shakespeare was messed up,' I say after Jane describes the play.

‘And I haven't even told you about the fairy queen who falls in love with a guy called Bottom whose head has been turned into an ass.'

‘You're kidding, an actual . . .'

‘An
ass
, Faltrain. A donkey. Let's go over the play one more time.'

I drift off and think about Dan. I've been living lost love all day. It's not fair that teachers make me come home and
write
about it.

Some people say things happen for a reason. But I'm betting those people have never smacked their English teacher in the face with a soccer ball. Everyone's looking at me like my middle name is Soprano when I get off the bus this morning. I know the look because Mum gave it to me last night. Yoosta didn't waste any time calling home. ‘I didn't hit Mrs Young on purpose,' I said.

‘I know that, Gracie. I want you to be careful, that's all. You don't look ahead, sometimes. That's why unexpected things happen.'

Who expects to see their English teacher standing in the way of their ball? I mean, come on. I'm not Athena Star-woman.

Well, that's one way to pass English, Faltrain.

Call me when you get this message. I want to hear every single detail. If I thought I could get away with it I would have smacked Young in the face at the beginning of the year.

Am I the only one who sees that Flemming is headed for jail?

I see it. At trials he played rougher than I've ever seen him play before. He doesn't break any rules, exactly. But the guy definitely has an anger management problem.

Gracie Faltrain doesn't stretch the rules. She smashes them and gets away with it. Annabelle said Mrs Young smiled at her last night after the nurse gave her an ice-pack.

It wasn't a smile. It was that thing animals do with their teeth when they're scared.

She's not scared of me, Jane. It was an accident.

Whatever you say, Faltrain. Any chance my English teacher could meet with an ‘accident' before she marks my essay?

No, but there's a chance you could. How many times do I have to say I wouldn't hit my teacher on purpose? There are some things even I'm not dumb enough to do.

I ignore everyone before school and knock on the staffroom door. ‘Hi. These are for you.' I hand Mrs Young a card and a box of chocolates. She and I didn't start off on the right note this year. And that note hasn't exactly been getting any better. But she could have pushed for more punishment yesterday and she didn't.

‘Thank you, Gracie. I'll see you in English. Why don't you sit up the front? On your own so you can concentrate?' And then it hits me harder than a ball to the face. Mrs Young isn't pushing for official punishment because she's banking on my guilt to neutralise me as a threat in her classroom. Permanently. You have to hand it to the woman. She's smart. ‘No problems, Mrs Young.'

I make sure I'm in class before the bell. I sit up the front. A deal's a deal. I'm so close I can feel her breathing. ‘I'm glad you're early,' she says, like it was my idea. ‘I wanted to speak with you about your last essay. Your ideas are good. They're full of fun and insight and you write well. Imagine what you could do if you actually read the books and listened in class.'

I don't answer. I've been caught in a trap like this before. I agreed with Mr Parks in Year 8 that I hadn't read the book and he pulled out a record of the discussion in parent–teacher interviews.

‘Have you read the play you're writing on this morning?'

It's no use lying. One look at my essay and she'll figure
out my good friend,
Cliff Notes
, told me everything I know. ‘I read the study guide.'

‘It's not quite the same thing. Gracie, the next text is a film, so that gives you some breathing space. I can schedule extra classes to help you catch up.'

‘I'll think about it. Thanks, Mrs Young.'

Kids come in and she goes back to her desk. She hands out the essay question and I read it slowly. Everything Jane said is mixed around in my head. ‘Comment on the role dreams play in the text.' I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I do know what I dream about: a soccer crowd of thousands, chanting the name of my team. I dream of me, on the field, fast and focused. I've got my eyes on the striker and the box and the ball. When the whistle goes I sail. I'm one of the best players in the world. And every day my job is to do what I love.

‘Make a start, Gracie,' Mrs Young says gently. And because she's looking at me kindly with bruises I gave her, I put pen to paper. It doesn't make any sense, though. Nothing makes any sense in here. It's slow, clock-ticking, pen-scribbling torture. I belong on the field. I belong in the game.

At lunch I walk down to the sheds, again. Alyce has student council and Jane's working in the library with Corelli. If I hang around where people can see me someone's bound to make a crack about Martin. Half of the things they're saying aren't even close to the truth. I went to the library this morning and a Year 7 kid leaned in and whispered, ‘Did you hear how Gracie Faltrain almost killed her English teacher because she's dating her ex-boyfriend?'

I leant back and whispered, ‘You know I'm Gracie Faltrain, right?' It cheered me up to see her run. But only for a second.

Kally's at the sheds, again. We kick around each other for a while and then she passes to me. I head my ball up, kick hers back, and then catch mine on its way down. We volley two balls between us, catching and sending, catching and sending. For a while, nothing but the game matters.

The bell goes and we walk towards school. ‘Don't try so hard at the next trials,' I say. ‘You'll qualify, easy.'

‘I knew what I was doing and I couldn't stop. The more I tried the more passes I missed.'

‘It makes sense, after what happened with school soccer.'

‘That was definitely humiliating.'

‘I should have done something.' Yeah, Kally had to be good enough to cut it on her own. But why did she need to be superhuman? She was up against twenty-one players out there that day instead of eleven. When I first tried out the team weren't exactly on my side, but they didn't knock me down.

‘Forget it. You weren't even on my team.' She's right. But I could have asked Coach to put me on her side. He would have done it in a second.

‘Did you see how everyone was checking out the competition at the state trials?' she asks, changing the subject. ‘Char Taylor's one of the best players but she favours her left leg.'

‘I know. And Esther Wish swerves to the side instead of taking the ball straight down the midfield.'

‘She swerved because Natalie Nguyen was on her left.' The guys and I don't talk about soccer like this. We don't pick apart the game and work out how to get better. I wish
we did. This is what I've been trying to tell Mum but she doesn't understand. Soccer isn't only about kicking a ball. It takes strategy as well as skill to play. Over the summer, when Martin wasn't there, I'd run on the field alone. I'd map how I played and how I could move better.

‘What about me?' I ask Kally.

‘You focus on your striker. You switch feet without blinking and you're impossible to predict because you judge situations on the spot. And every girl gives you space because you're brutal.'

And there's that word again. ‘Thanks. I think.'

‘I'm only telling you how it is. You're forgetting to shield because you think you're faster than them. You're backing rough play over skill sometimes and that's lazy. It'll get you injured. And you are not a team player.'

‘The trials aren't a team sport.'

‘The trials coaches won't want wild cards. They're assessing on attitude, remember.'

‘You're right.' I learnt that lesson in Year 10 and Year 11.

‘Now if I could fix my own play before Sunday, I'd be happy,' she says.

‘If you want an extra person to train with . . .' I fade off because I'm not sure if offering to practise with Kally is weird. I mean, we've only talked for a bit and let's face it: I'm not one hundred per cent sure her cousin doesn't have a bounty on my head. Kally and me hanging out would be like Jane and Annabelle becoming study partners.

‘Dan and I train most nights on the trials oval,' she says. ‘We're at Better Life Gym on Hanover Street about four-thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

‘Would it be strange if I came along tonight?'

‘Annabelle hates you. Dan likes you. I'm still on the fence. But I could do with the help.'

‘Losers,' some guy says, walking past us. Kally puts out her foot; he flies over it and lands on his face. ‘You know,' she says, ‘the guys in this place are really starting to bug me.' She might be Annabelle's cousin. But Kally is definitely someone I want to have on my side of the fence.

‘Okay, everyone run,' Jane says. ‘You hanging out with a relative of Annabelle Orion has to be one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse.'

‘She's good, Jane. I mean, she really knows the game. I learnt stuff listening to her today. She's funny, like you.'

‘Yeah, right. She's me in a parallel universe where I have a rock-solid body and can run like the wind. You don't think it's a problem that given the chance, you'd kill her cousin? It's sounding kind of
Romeo and Juliet
without the love and with soccer instead of swords.'

‘I don't want Annabelle dead. I want her gagged. I have to meet Flemming before the gym. Can you tell Mum I'm at the library?'

‘I'll lie this one time but I take no responsibility if she finds out and kills you.'

Mum won't kill me. I run way too fast to get caught.

Flemming's already at the oval when I get there. ‘I want to know every detail. I can't believe I left before I saw you smack Young.'

‘It wasn't funny and I don't have time. I'm meeting Kally and Dan. You want to come?'

‘As if I'd train with those idiots. Just tell me what the essay topic was today.'

‘What does it matter? You haven't got time to read the play.'

‘No, but I can read the essays on the Internet.'

‘Cheat?'

‘I copy in bits from those guides and bits that other kids have written.'

‘Coach'll kick you off the team for that.'

‘Only if they catch me.' He grins. ‘They haven't yet.'

It's the ‘yet' that bothers me. If Flemming's been doing this since the start of the year he'll be in trouble soon. He's standing on the tracks thinking the train won't hit him because it's late. The train always comes, Flemming, I think. And as I write down the topic I feel the need to run so I'm not close when it hits.

Kally and Dan are training when I arrive. I see them through the windows as I buy a casual pass. ‘I know you,' the girl behind the counter says.

‘I don't think so.' I look past her. I've never really seen Kally and Dan together before. He doesn't look cool or detached. He looks happy. In fact, on a scale of one to ten, he looks about a twenty's worth of happy.

I do a quick scan of conversations I've had with him about Kally: she cleans up everyone on the field. He gets goose bumps watching her. She's smart, she's funny; she's straight down the line. I do a quick scan of the things he's said about me: I'm brutal; I'm not anyone you can expect help from. I'm not exactly coming out on top here.

It shouldn't matter who Dan likes anyway. I mean, we're just friends. I still stare at the phone wishing Martin would call. So how come when Dan smiles through the glass today the hairs on my arms dance like disco is back? Flemming says girls are confusing. He should try being one. Can you like two people at the one time or is that like mixing your sweet and savoury foods? You finish a chip and move to chocolate and then back to the chip in a never-ending cycle that doesn't stop till you're sick? ‘Get a grip, Faltrain,' I imagine Jane saying. She's right.

I walk into the weights area. The important thing is to be cool and casual about this. Dan needs to see the relaxed me. The real me. That way he can make an educated choice about who he likes. ‘Hey,' the girl from the counter says, walking in behind me. ‘You left your bra in the changing room.' Okay, that's not what I had in mind when I said that Dan needed to see the real me.

‘That's not mine.' I mean, would I leave the change room without my bra? That doesn't even make sense. ‘You're right,' she says, holding it up to me. ‘Yours would be way smaller.' Okay, now it makes sense. She hates me.

‘Any idea what her problem is?' Kally asks.

‘Jane says I'm at a stage in my evolution where people don't need a reason to hate me.'

‘She's the girlfriend of the guy you kicked in the balls last year,' Dan says, trying not to laugh. Okay. I'll admit it. Some people have a very good reason to hate me.

The great thing is, Kally and Dan have heaps of reasons to hate me but they don't. Kally cracks jokes the whole time
we're training. By the time we leave I couldn't care less what bra size I am.

‘I want you to teach me how to be bad by the practice match,' she says on the way to Dan's car. ‘I want to kick Andrew Flemming between the legs and watch his face.'

‘He's my mate.'

‘Yeah, but after those tryouts, he's no mate of mine.' She grins. And it's hard not to grin with her.

‘So, see you in detention on Friday,' Dan says before I get out of the car.

‘Yeah,' I say, and watch him drive off in his Valiant Sahara with Kally by his side. Is it just me or does that sound like a Harlequin Romance novel?

One thing's for sure, there's no love happening when I get inside the house. ‘Mrs Ruse called today. She said you failed your last Maths test.'

‘Thanks for breaking it to me gently. We haven't got them back yet.'

‘You really had no idea that failing might be a possibility?'

‘It's not entirely unexpected. How bad did I do?'

‘Three out of forty.'

And the week just keeps getting better.

‘I don't mind paying for a tutor.'