Down the Line

by Michael Panckridge

  ‘So this Legend stuff has been going on for a long time then, hey?’

  ‘Long time? Mitch, it’s been going on for ages. A few years ago they had their 50th anniversary. It was huge. All the past Legends came back for this big dinner and stuff.’

  ‘Awesome. Well, let’s go warm up, yeah?’

  It didn’t take long for a crowd of parents to fill the spectators’ seats. Thirty-two nervous tennis players stood nearby, ready to pit their skills against the wall. It was a normal school day for most students. However, kids would arrive as classes were brought out to watch the challenge.

  Jack and I caught up with Bryce and Bubba. I hadn’t told them about the weird noises from the library and Bryce’s nervous face convinced me that now wouldn’t be the best time. I think Bryce must have suddenly realised he was mixing it with the rest as a player, rather than just a brain.

  ‘Bryce, how did you go in Legend of Tennis last year?’

  ‘I didn’t. Didn’t play any sport, Mitch.’

  ‘But you’re a great tennis player, Bryce,’ I said, encouragingly.

  ‘I’m getting better,’ he said, smiling.

  Whoa! Was that an understatement?

  Miss Lamb called for everyone’s attention through a megaphone. We gathered around to listen to her final instructions. I still wasn’t totally sure about the rules, but Jack had said that it was just a matter of keeping a rally going against the wall. It sounded simple enough.

  The only thing that bothered me was that a really good player could make a silly mistake in the first few shots and miss out altogether. But Miss Lamb answered that worry before I had a chance to ask Jack about it.

  ‘Each player gets three attempts at the wall. All your shots must be from behind this line, which is five metres from the wall. The ball can only bounce once after it hits the wall and before you hit it again. And you must hit the ball into the target zone on the wall – above the yellow line and between the red lines.’

  ‘It’s not much of a target,’ someone behind me muttered.

  ‘It’s a whole two metres between the two lines,’ Miss Lamb said.

  All the competitors were checking out the wall.

  ‘Remember, you have three attempts,’ continued Miss Lamb. ‘After fifty consecutive shots, you may shout out “Retire!” and you can then have a break and come back in your allotted order.’

  Miss Lamb told us that we could have our second round straight away if we wanted to, even our third if our scores were low.

  ‘So, Miss Lamb,’ Bubba interrupted, looking perplexed.

  ‘It’s not rocket science,’ Travis muttered, under his breath.

  ‘Go on, Bubba,’ I urged him.

  Bubba took a big breath. ‘So, you hit the ball against the wall and every shot you make counts for a point.’

  ‘Correct,’ Miss Lamb said.

  ‘And if you get to fifty shots, you can stop and continue your rally later.’

  ‘Correct again. That’s what we call retiring.’

  ‘Oh, like in cricket!’ Bubba’s eyes lit up suddenly.

  ‘Exactly. Now the order that you hit in does get a bit tricky what with people retiring and coming back in, but don’t worry. Just be ready to come out again. I’ll look after all of that. We’ll start with the girls and in opposite order of seedings. That means you’re on in three minutes, Gemma. Good luck, everyone!’

  ‘Miss Lamb?’ Bryce asked, softly.

  ‘Really?’ Travis groaned. ‘What is it now? Surely you get it, Flavel. You’re supposed to be the smartest kid on the planet.’

  ‘Travis!’ Miss Lamb glared at him. She turned to Bryce. ‘Ask away, Bryce.’

  ‘Well, I was wondering how you’re going to calculate the final wall score, since it’s out of thirty.’

  ‘Maybe Travis can explain that,’ I muttered. Bubba sniggered. I noticed Mia yawning then turning to move away from the group.

  ‘Well, it’s a little complicated Bryce, but what I do is divide the final number of hits each of you makes against the wall by five.’

  ‘So if someone scores a hundred and fifty points, they receive the maximum thirty points?’ Bryce said. Everyone turned and stared at him. Even Travis.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Lamb replied, smiling. ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Travis muttered, quickly walking away.

  ‘And if someone scores more than a hundred and fifty points?’ Bryce asked. This time everyone stopped except Travis, who hadn’t heard the question and was now well out of ear shot.

  Miss Lamb shook her head, but she was still smiling. ‘Thought that would be your next question, Bryce. We’ll look at the final scores first up, then work out what would be fairest for everyone based on the tallies. Is that okay?’

  ‘Perfectly okay,’ Bryce said, looking satisfied.

  It was amazing how difficult it actually was to keep a rally going. I mean, the wall didn’t move, didn’t get you with any tricky shots or anything. But sooner or later, errors just happened.

  Gemma was going along quite calmly, hitting a careful forehand against the wall. The ball was bouncing back nicely, then suddenly she didn’t quite hit the ball hard enough and she had to scramble. The ball bounced back from the wall slowly, but Gemma couldn’t go past the line to reach it. By the time the ball reached her, it had bounced three times.

  As the higher seeds for the girls came through, the rallies started to get longer. Luci’s first effort was a disaster, but she made it to 37 on her second try, which seemed like a pretty good score. But then Miss Cool, Mia, stepped up to the line and reeled off a lazy 50 hits without having to step a metre either way. I thought I saw her actually yawn at one stage.

  ‘I’m going to have to hit another four just to make Mia go out there and hit again,’ said Luci. ‘I don’t reckon anyone is going to challenge Mia. Except maybe the Mulova twins, they’re pretty good.’

  Mia did have to go out and play again. She got to 64 and then top hit a ball, which sailed over the wall. She looked pretty annoyed with herself.

  Luci went out for 41 on her third go, which was definitely going to be enough to put her into a high position. As it turned out, Mia only had to go out once more. Her 64 points had her only 23 points behind Luci, who was sitting in first place.

  She knocked off a cool 24 shots, caught the ball, looked at Miss Lamb and strutted off the court.

  She didn’t smile, even after the last hit. Picking up her gear, she took a sip from her water bottle and headed off with her mother. She looked like she had one focus and purpose in life – to be the Tennis Legend.

  ‘Mia might have just made the biggest mistake of her tennis career,’ Bryce muttered. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not about coming first on the wall,’ he explained. ‘It’s about getting as many hits as possible to get as high a score as possible.’

  ‘But surely she knows that?’ Luci asked. I remembered her walking away before Miss Lamb had finished explaining the scoring rules for the wall.

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said.

  ‘What about a shot at the school record?’ called one of the parents.

  A hint of a smile crossed her face, then disappeared as she shook her head and pressed on.

  ‘Why won’t she go for it?’ asked Jack. ‘Even if she doesn’t know about the scoring. I’d give my right arm – no, maybe my left arm – to be in that situation.’

  Bryce nailed the reason with four words. ‘She’s afraid of failure,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, just what I was thinking,’ agreed Bubba, nodding wisely.

  We looked at Bubba and laughed.

  ‘What?’ he said, a smile spreading across his face.

  The sun was higher, the court was warmer and the crowd was gathering. Richard Mazis went first. His very first hit – the shot to start the rally – went flying over the wall. His next shot didn’t even make the wall on the full. He chose to take his third and final shot then and there. Richard was super strong and powe
rful with his hitting but way too aggressive. He wanted every shot to be a winner. I even felt a bit sorry for him. He made the wall on the full with his final attempt, scrounged about for a couple of shots, then eventually stuffed up a backhand.

  ‘I lead the competition,’ he yelled, punching the air. ‘You’re gonna have to catch me to win!’

  It was hard to tell if he was joking or serious. He was getting a few laughs, though. I’d heard rumours that he was a better footballer than Fisk, which was supposed to be quite something.

  His total was passed a few minutes later. I looked around for Mazis to gauge his reaction, but he had turned his back, totally disinterested.

  After the first round, three kids had been eliminated. They had used up their three attempts at the wall, but had only managed very low scores. No one had managed to get to the magical 50. I had hit 39 before scrubbing a forehand that didn’t make the wall on the full. Jack was on 37, and both Fisk and Shane had got 42. Bryce had struggled to 23, never settling down to any sort of rhythm.

  I said as much to him as we both took drinks. He nodded, his eyes boring into mine, searching for clues. Sometimes really smart people missed the really obvious things.

  I mentioned to him about reducing the angle and moving as little as possible.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Of course. It’s all about angles.’ He moved off, deep in thought.

  Bubba smacked thirteen solid forehands into the wall, but his first backhand caught the rim of his racquet and went soaring over the side fence and onto the road. A car horn blared.

  Then Bryce was back again, but this time doing really well. He had been working on his angle theory; which was basically to try and avoid them. He was in a groove. He hit the ball like a machine, bending his head over the ball and gently tapping so it landed halfway up the wall. He was moving so little I thought he might wear out a patch on the court. In no time, he had racked up his 50. But unlike Mia, who stopped after her 50 shots, he kept going.

  Shot after shot, forehand after forehand. It was mesmerising. It was as if he had that ball on a string. I couldn’t believe that Bryce was this good. But he was working within his limitations. He wasn’t a shot maker. He wasn’t a chaser. He didn’t have stamina. But he did have amazing mental concentration.

  Bryce reached a hundred hits without showing any sign of emotion. Nothing was going to stop him. The noise in the crowd was lessening with every shot. A class was quickly hushed as they wandered out to watch the action. I turned to look at the expressions of the others around me. I was proud of Bryce and pleased for him. Bubba had stopped chewing; his jaw had gone slack. Jack was shaking his head. Luci had a smile and looked genuinely pleased for him. Fisk was sneakily talking on his mobile phone. I couldn’t imagine why, or to whom.

  A total hush had come over the crowd. We knew we were seeing something special. And we knew someone special was doing it. Bryce Flavel was different. He may have been sort of odd but he was very popular.

  And still his rally went on. The only person who was keeping up with the score now was Miss Lamb, who occasionally wrote something down. She told us later that she had been marking off every ten shots.

  What eventually stopped Bryce was the only thing that was ever going to stop him – tiredness. One minute the ball was thumping into the wall at a steady pace. Then suddenly the power was gone. Bryce lunged forward to try to get to the ball before it bounced twice, but in doing so, crossed the line. Miss Lamb called, ‘Out!’

  For a moment, there was just stunned silence. Then the whole crowd, enormous now, burst into cheering and applause, everyone suddenly rising to their feet. Bryce turned, shoulders drooped, chest heaving.

  ‘One hundred and eighty-seven!’ called Miss Lamb, when the cheering had died down a bit. This just made the cheers and clapping return even stronger.

  Following Bryce’s performance was always going to be difficult. I just wanted to put down 50 onto the whiteboard without a mishit.

  I managed to reach the target without too much of a problem – just one scramble around the 35 mark where I had to hit a backhand half-volley which was not my all-time favourite shot.

  I had hoped to get to 50 hits, call out ‘retire’, catch the ball calmly and walk off to the applause of the crowd. Fortunately it happened. To be able to put a score of 50 on to my total score, without losing one of my three turns, felt really satisfying. Bryce had made my achievement a bit less glamorous in the last ten minutes, though! Still, that put me on 89, with two more attempts up my sleeve.

  I took a drink then turned to see if Shane Corelli could ease through 50 hits. But (surprisingly) after about 20 or so he stumbled, almost tripping over his own feet as he stepped back, and mishit his forehand.

  A few moments later, his total score after two attempts appeared on the whiteboard – 69.

  Fisk’s turn was next. He powered his way through to 50, and then, like Bryce, decided to press on.

  ‘Funny that his dad isn’t here to watch,’ Jack whispered to me.

  ‘Yeah, he gets pretty involved in all the Legends stuff, doesn’t he?’ I said.

  ‘Involved? Man, that’s the understatement of the year,’ said Jack.

  ‘Maybe that was his dad he was talking to on his phone a minute ago.’

  But Jack didn’t answer. He was focusing hard on Fisk. Smooth, clean-hitting Fisk, who was belting the ball into the wall. Jack was probably willing him to make a mistake. As the thought entered my head, Fisk did make it. A flat backhand barely reached the net line on the wall and came back low at him. He yelled out, ‘Retire!’ just before the ball bounced a second time.

  ‘Can he do that?’ I asked Jack, who was getting to his feet, ready to have his go.

  ‘Depends what his score was. If it was a multiple of fifty then he’s lucky, I suppose,’ said Jack.

  ‘One in fifty chance? Not good,’ added Bryce, shaking his head.

  ‘Ninety-eight!’ called Miss Lamb.

  I turned to Bryce and smiled. Bryce smiled back.

  Fisk was fuming. It was a look I had seen so many times already this year. He stormed over to his bag and threw his racquet down.

  Jack strode out and knocked up 50 hits before calling out, ‘Retire,’ then calmly walked back to where we were sitting in the shade of an umbrella.

  ‘Nice going, Jack,’ called Bubba, all smiles.

  ‘Thanks, Bubbaman. Scores, Bryce?’ Jack asked, sitting down.

  But Bryce, for once, wasn’t making notes and keeping tabs. He had his own sporting worries and had passed his trusty calculator and notepad over to Bubba, who was looking from the paper to the calculator with a look of complete bewilderment.

  Jack and I exchanged glances.

  ‘I’ll go and check the scoreboard,’ Jack said.

  ‘I’m getting there,’ Bubba wailed to his back.

  There were five of us left in the competition. Jack was looking good, sitting on 87 with only one error. We were so close that it didn’t matter. Fisk and Shane both had two errors, but Fisk had hit the wall 140 times, which was heaps more than Shane – heaps more than Jack and I, too. And then there was Bryce. He was on 210, but only had one more error up his sleeve.

  As the lowest seed, Bryce had to go first. He started off just like his last rally. Crouched over the ball, hitting exclusively on his forehand side, he tapped and patted his way to 50. Of course, he kept on going.

  Luci and Becky came over and sat down. ‘He’s a machine. I had no idea he was this, this–’

  ‘Focused?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose,’ Luci replied.

  The crowd was silent again. But just when everyone thought Bryce might go on for the rest of the day, a car screamed past, blaring its horn.

  It was enough to distract him. Bryce jerked his head up at the wrong moment. The ball was almost upon him. He floundered, mishitting the ball badly. It lobbed up, brushed the wall, and gently rolled back to his feet. The sigh from the crowd was almost as loud as the cheers that fol
lowed. It was unbelievably bad luck.

  Miss Lamb called out his score for the rally, which was 81. His total score was written up on the whiteboard by Mr Spears – 291.

  I walked out for my turn.

  ‘Mitchell,’ Bryce hissed at me, before I had time to say anything to him. ‘Get your fifty, and then retire, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, but–’

  ‘Retire, okay?’

  He sat down to much applause, unsure how to acknowledge it.

  I knocked up another 50 – probably my best and cleanest rally yet. There was heaps of clapping as I headed back, passing the ball over to Mr Bronsen, who grinned and immediately started spinning it in the air, just as he had during the Legend of Cricket series.

  It was getting tense now. A few more classes had come outside to watch, but once someone was up at the wall, the noise was almost non-existent.

  Poor Shane made a shocking error off his very first hit when the ball caught on the edge of his racquet. It was totally unlike Shane. He looked confused as he checked out his racquet.

  Fisk was next. He marched out and took his place by the line. It didn’t take long for him to belt up another 50 and retire. I looked around for Bryce, who had disappeared. Fisk had also vanished.

  Jack went out to the wall next and was looking good right from the start. He managed to make his 50 but, unlike last time, kept on going. He must have been well into the 80s when his concentration was interrupted.

  This time it wasn’t a car horn, but the screeching of brakes. It was a loud, shocking sound. No one could avoid turning to look. A few people even screamed, thinking there was about to be a huge smash on the road beside the courts.

  Jack lost it totally. He didn’t even try to hit the ball that bounced past him while he was looking the other way. For a quiet road, there was plenty happening out there today.

  I went out to the wall for my next go, but only got to seventeen before scrubbing a backhand that never even made it halfway up to the net line on the wall.

  It was Fisk’s turn, but he didn’t appear when called. Miss Lamb asked Jack if he wouldn’t mind going next. Jack shrugged and walked out to play.