Netball Dreams (2 page)

Mum’s about as sporty as I am. She hardly knows anything about sport. I kept eating the rice balls as I explained the difference between basketball and netball. Mr Dwyer had taught us that already.

‘And that’s why the best players are Angie, Claire and Callum,’ I finished.

Mum came to stand near me. She looked at me with a faraway look in her eye. Then she cupped my face in her hands, like she was holding a baby. ‘You’ll be great on a team, Alex,’ Mum said, smiling. ‘You’re good with people.’

I let Mum kiss my forehead. Then I headed back inside feeling happy. Maybe I could do something special on the team, after all.

The next week in P.E. class, all six teams stood in groups around the netball courts. It was time to decide who would play in each position.

In netball, each player has a specific job to do – like shooting goals, or stopping the other team from getting goals.

I didn’t think I would be good in
any
position. Unless ‘score keeper’ was one.

Callum turned to face us. He clapped his hands like Mr Dwyer always does. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’m playing centre, and let’s see …’

He scratched his head as he continued. ‘Mickey’s goal shooter, and Brad is goal defence –’

But he didn’t get any further through the positions than that.

‘Hang on!’ Angie said, her arms crossed. ‘You’re not the boss, Callum.’

‘Yes I am. I’m captain,’ he said, standing tall and proud.

Mickey did a joke salute, like he was in the army. Brad laughed, but Claire and Becky scowled with Angie.

‘We’re meant to work this out together,’ said Angie. Her dark eyes were flashing. It didn’t look like she was going to be bossed around by Callum.

I like Angie. She’s strong, and nice. But I didn’t want her to start a fight. So I decided to speak up.

‘Well, why don’t we make Angie vice-captain?’ I suggested.

The whole team looked at me. A netball flew past. But no-one moved. There was complete silence while everyone thought about my idea.

‘You both know heaps about sport,’ I said. ‘But this way, you can work together so no-one is the boss!’

Angie’s eyes shone. Callum was nodding, as if he liked the idea. I sneaked a glance at Becky. I wasn’t sure if she’d feel jealous of Angie being vice-captain, with Callum as captain.

But Becky was beaming. She looked proud of my idea. Before long, Callum and Angie had decided all the positions together – without any fighting.

They picked me for wing defence. That was fine with me. From what I could tell, playing wing defence meant I had to run after the wing attack from the other team. And when they caught the ball I had to flap my arms a lot and try to stop them throwing it where they wanted.

Maybe all that flapping was why they called
it
wing
defence?
Well, the idea gave me a giggle.

‘OK, let’s get to work,’ said Callum.

He pulled a netball from a sack at the edge of the netball courts. Then he started spinning it on his finger like a basketball.

My heart sank. A ball. I always look like an idiot around balls.
Am I about to look silly
in front of my friends?

That first day of training, the netball really had a mind of it own. It was like a cheeky little gremlin.

Each time I touched it, the ball would fly off the court, or go crazy and crooked. So annoying! But, to my relief, everyone was super nice to me.

If I dropped the ball, someone would call out, ‘Never mind.’ And if I threw the ball crooked, someone else would call, ‘Good try, Alex.’ They didn’t make me feel bad at all.

Once I even managed a solid catch, followed by a not-bad pass to Becky. When I did that, the whole gang clapped and cheered. Anyone watching would’ve thought I’d actually done something useful!

It was brilliant seeing the sporty kids in action. The Basketball Girls were so cool to watch. One of them would throw the ball to no-one – just a gap. And I would think,
hey, I’m not so bad. Other people throw the ball
dumb places, too.

But somehow the other one would charge into the gap. Like magic, she would always be there to catch the ball!

The first time they did it, I thought it was just a fluke.

But they kept doing it. Over and over. Even Callum and Mickey managed to do it sometimes.

Those kids really know a lot about throwing and catching balls.

By the time P.E. was over for the day, I realised something amazing. Even though I was still clumsy and awkward, it felt great to be part of a team. For the first time ever, I started to see what the sporty kids liked about sport.

I even started looking forward to the tournament. It was going to be fun playing a real game with my team.

Tooooot!
Mr Dwyer blew the whistle and shook his head at Angie.

She made a face and said ‘Drat!’ under her breath.

‘Never mind,’ Callum called to Angie. But he didn’t look happy.

This was our first game for the tournament. And it wasn’t going well. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Angie and Claire had heaps of shots at the goal. But the ball hardly ever went in.

Sometimes the ball would fly over the ring, as if aiming for a backboard that wasn’t there. Other times, one of us would break a rule, so the ball would be given to the other team.

Not good at all.

Of course, I was doing nothing special as I had expected.

At first I thought that defence would be easy. Just a lot of arm-flapping and getting in the way. But good defenders actually stop the other team scoring. And really good defenders even steal the ball and get it to their own attackers.

I knew all that by watching the other team. They were great. They kept stealing the ball from us and getting it to their shooter, super fast. Again and again.