Cannily, Cannily

by Simon French

  “Yes, sir,” Trevor answered, feeling the resentment rising.

  “Here is your book. Come and collect it.”

  Trevor walked hesitantly to the teacher’s desk and picked the offending exercise book up from where it had been disdainfully placed. As he turned to return to the relative safety and distance of the chair next to Martin, the teacher said, “Remember, Huon. A new story, finished by next Monday. And before you sit down …”

  The other kids once more seemed to have abandoned their work, and had fixed their surreptitious attention on Trevor and the irritated teacher.

  “Why is it, Trevor Huon, that you never see fit to wear appropriate school clothing?”

  Trevor looked down at what he was wearing.

  “Why do we have to put up with the sight of you in sandals, jeans – usually patched – and hair that constantly looks untidy, mainly because it needs cutting?”

  Shut up, you cretin, Trevor thought to himself and aloud, said, “I don’t know, sir,” not so much to the teacher as to the floor.

  “Neither do I. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you will deign to appear in proper school clothing, but it would be appreciated if you could wear decent shoes and socks, like the rest of us. Now sit down.”

  Sure that his face was scarlet with the anger and frustration he felt, Trevor made an effort to resume the comprehension work. He wrote erratically for the next few minutes until Mr Fuller stood up and left the classroom for the office next door. Briefly he flicked open the writing book, long enough to take in the mass of red biro lines and comments that covered his incomplete story. Without stopping to read the teacher’s comments, he slowly closed the book.

  “What are you gonna do now?” one of the other kids asked.

  “Buy a new book,” Trevor replied.

  “And make up a new story?”

  “No.” He paused, and then added. “Write the same one out again, and finish it.”

  “You’re mad,” said Angela Simmons, and a few others agreed.

  “Fuller’ll really go off his brain.”

  “He’ll give you an even harder time.”

  Trevor shrugged, his mind made up.

  Martin looked at him sympathetically. “He’s a bastard, isn’t he?”

  “You bet.”

  “That’s why,” Martin continued, “you have to play in the game on Sunday.”

  The days were like a countdown.

  “Get those legs going!” Fuller shouted from the sidelines at Friday training. “I want running, not a waltz!”

  With their usual numb persistence, the team sprinted across the field in a broad row. At one end, Martin Grace ran with the ball.

  “Right!” Fuller shouted. “Pass that ball out! Straight and fast.”

  Martin shot the ball sideways to Jason. Jason passed it on to Bradley, Bradley to Tony, Tony to Trevor, Trevor to David, and on to the end of the line.

  “Stop!” Fuller shouted. “Start again. Huon, you pass that ball, boy! You’re not handing out lollies. Or haven’t I told you before? Pass the ball properly, or go home. And that goes for the rest of you, too. Your performance is pathetic. It’s fortunate the game is on Sunday, this week – you can all turn up for an extra training session tomorrow.”

  Groaning, the line of kids reformed, started running once more.

  Despite some encouraging looks from Martin, Trevor fumed silently. I did so pass it properly, he thought as he caught the football and swung it on to the kid next to him. I’m just as good as the other kids.

  At home in the caravan that night, he stared ruefully at his written story in the exercise book and at the contemptuous comments written by Mr Fuller.

  “What are you working on?” asked Buckley, who was washing up.

  “My story,” Trevor replied, and opened a new exercise book to the first page, placing it on the table in front of him. “Oh. I see.”

  He looked at the two books for a long time. He decided that the story lacked the right sort of beginning, so he spent some time in thought. Over on her bed, Kath was writing letters and Buckley whistled softly to himself over the dishes. Taking advantage of the relative quietness, Trevor mentally sifted through time past for an appropriate early memory with which to begin the story. At first, the right words didn’t appear in his mind and seemingly refused to. There were the familiar pictures of caravan parks, of a dozen different country towns and as many schools. He’d already written that down.

  And then he remembered them: photos in an album, of him before he’d even started school. These photographs reminded him of his memories of sand and ocean, of the house he’d once lived in. He couldn’t remember its exact form or location, just some impressions of the rooms inside. A bright sunny kitchen and grass-matted lounge room were the parts he best remembered.

  He looked at his parents, with the intention of saying something. But it was a long time since he’d asked them directly about the beach and the house, and for some reason he felt uneasy about asking now.

  So he looked back at his exercise books. Slowly, the words came together, and he picked up his pen and started to write.

  TWELVE

  The sky had clouded impressively for the day.

  Overnight, it had rained. The greyness was complete; a blanket of haze subdued the town and the surrounding forested and grazing hills to a cool stillness, punctuated only by the vivid green of the Norfolk pines and the smalltown backyards.

  Today, the noise at the football ground seemed more intense than usual. Trevor stared vacantly across the patchy stretch of ground, feeling threatened, trying to come to terms with things to come. Today it was actually going to happen. He was going to play. Martin’s crazy plan was going to subvert Fuller’s iron-hard rule on the team. The idea had blossomed into a conspiracy, mainly because Martin had employed his height and strength to convince the other kids it was a good idea.

  They huddled together in a group on the sidelines, discussing and rehearsing what was to happen.

  “–and then get caught in one of the tackles, Dave.”

  “Go under and make it look as though you’ve been kicked.”

  “But don’t all get injured at once. If we all go off in the first half, Fuller’ll spring us for sure.”

  “You guys are nuts,” said the ever-pessimistic Bradley Clark. “Anyway, I’m dobbing you in to Fuller.”

  “You do, Clark,” warned Martin Grace, “and I’ll smack your teeth in for you.”

  “Yeah? Just try it.”

  “Shut up, or someone’ll hear us.”

  “They prob’ly know already.”

  “Not if you keep your mouth shut.”

  “Well, I still reckon it’s a stupid idea.”

  “No one asked you, Clark.”

  Pause.

  “Well, who else is going off, then? Apart from David?”

  “Dave, Pete and me,” said Martin. “We pretend to get injured, get sent off the field, and Jason, Andrew and Trevor go on.”

  “It’s not gonna work!”

  “But what if our team starts losing the match because Huon and the reserves are playing, huh?”

  “We recover from our injuries real quick,” Martin reassured, “and get ourselves back on the field.”

  “Still in it, Trevor? Or have you chickened out?”

  “No,” Trevor answered quickly, “I’m still in.” The anticipation weighed heavily on him. He glanced around at the others and pretended smug self-assurance.

  “Better not muck up the game, Huon,” said Bradley Clark, “or you’ll get it from me.”

  “You and whose army?” said Martin, who these days seemed to have little time for Bradley’s aggression but plenty of time for his own. “This had better work,” he added, more to himself than to the other kids. Even now, he seemed to be puzzling over the strange piece of generosity he was extending to Trevor.

  Gradually, the kids started talking about other things. The game was due to start in fifteen minutes or so, and they nervo
usly checked out their opposition on the other side of the field.

  “Could be a hard game.”

  “Why?” asked Trevor.

  “Last time we played them, they nearly beat us.”

  “Look at the size of some of them.”

  “Bloody giants!”

  “We’ll be right. Remember how slack they were in the scrums last time?”

  “I still reckon we should forget this dumb plan,” said Bradley.

  “Go jump, Clark.”

  “Shut up, here’s Fuller.”

  Fuller immediately checked off the name list in his usual brisk manner. The kids, meanwhile, exchanged guilty, scheming glances and fidgeted around, waiting for the game to commence.

  Fuller explained that today was an important match because winning it would virtually secure their chances of making it into the finals. “… for the third year running,” he added with emphatic hand gestures.

  Across the field the teams sized each other up. The parents had arrived armed with the usual dependants and paraphernalia. The clouds above maintained their ominous presence and the air began to chill. The feeling of impatience affecting the team seemed to spread to the parents as well, and they grouped themselves around the team even more closely than usual, alternately offering their respective sons urgent advice and listening to what the coach was saying.

  “… remember,” said Fuller with the familiar pre-match aggression, “that team over there are the guys who very nearly beat you a couple of months back. Are they going to beat you today?”

  “NO,” came the chorused reply.

  “Last week’s game was pretty pathetic. Frankly, I was disgusted with this team’s general standard of play. This week I want that standard improved. We’re going to beat that miserable bunch standing over there and we are going to win this season’s competition. Right?”

  “RIGHT.”

  Fuller moved on to tactics. “The ground’s a bit damp today and a wet ball is a slippery ball, so watch your passes and be ready to dive on any loose ball from them. I want to see you moving up quickly today. Knock them over! I want to see you put them on the ground! Their forwards are big, so I want to see a fair bit of back-line play to run their front line around and tire them out. Stretch their defences so that our forwards won’t be running into theirs so much. Because they’re big, go in with two-man tackles – one over, one under. Break up their defence pattern with little kicks. Give them hell! What are you going to give them?”

  “HELL!”

  “We’ve won this comp two years running. You can play badly and lose everything, or you can play your best and win – keep up the proud record. Are you going to win or lose?”

  “WIN.”

  “Well then,” Fuller said with a satisfied grin, “who’s the best team in the district?”

  “CLUB UNDER TWELVES!” the team shouted back, before charging on to the field to the cheers and claps of their audience. Almost simultaneously there was shouting and cheering from the other sideline, and the opposing team also ran on to take their field positions.

  Seated on the sideline, Trevor watched with mounting apprehension.

  From his prop position on the field, Martin briefly turned around and gave Trevor a thumbs up for good luck. Trevor returned the gesture.

  In the middle of the field they were flipping a coin for the kick-off. Seconds later, Bradley Clark was positioning the ball and lining it up for the game’s start.

  A hush fell over the spectators. The three reserves sat behind the sidelines, beset with secret suspense, and on the field Bradley took his backwards paces from the positioned ball. The referee’s whistle sounded, the ball was kicked into the air, and the suddenly frenzied parents began their shouted commentary and commands.

  “Get them, Scott!”

  “Tackle them hard!”

  “Rub their noses in the mud!”

  “Come on, team!”

  “Get them!”

  And Fuller as usual, paced up and down the sideline, watching and shouting.

  The opposition had the ball, and with some fast running and fast passing, were launching a good offensive. Fuller’s team, however, playing with their usual rehearsed precision, were quickly able to bring the opposing players down in a series of fast tackles.

  At first, it looked good.

  Trevor and the reserves exchanged pensive glances. A short distance behind them stood Kath and Buckley, and Trevor looked at them also, wondering what they were thinking as they watched the football match. Trevor turned away quickly, unnerved by his parents’ silence. Today, it seemed that they were more than just cynical onlookers. It was as though they sensed an anticlimax of sorts. Ten minutes into the game, and so far no score. Fuller’s team had the ball now, and the forwards were moving by degrees from their own end of the field towards the scoring tryline. The ground, already soft from the night’s drizzle, was slowly becoming more difficult to run on. With an effort, the two teams maintained solidarity and consistently blocked each other’s attempts to score points. The tense nil-all atmosphere was beginning to show on Fuller’s face as his sideline commands grew louder and more aggressive.

  “Pass that ball out, Under Twelves! Run! What’s wrong with you today?”

  At last, it happened. David Briggs, running with the ball, was tackled by several kids from the opposing team. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but David crouched on the muddy ground and didn’t get up. The game came to a halt as the referee and then Fuller ran up to where David was. The spectators, suddenly subdued, watched as David was helped limping from the field by Fuller.

  “On the field, Evans!” the coach commanded as he sat David down on the reserve bench and started examining the apparently twisted ankle. Mr and Mrs Briggs hovered about in a worried fashion, and David winced convincingly.

  The game continued.

  Jason Evans had taken on David’s field position and was now helping spearhead a new tryline attack by the team. Stubbornly, the opposition continued to block the way with fierce tackles. The two teams’ aggression was being increased by their growing frustration at their inability to score points.

  The parents’ shouting continued unabated, a lively noise beneath the imposing sky of grey cloud. On the reserve bench, David Briggs continued to nurse his supposedly injured ankle.

  “Well, you’re no bloody good for the time being, are you?” barked Fuller, and stalked off to keep an eye on the game.

  “Good one, Dave,” whispered Andrew Willis, the other reserve, once there seemed to be no adults within earshot.

  “Shut up, you dummy,” David whispered back. “You’ll get us sprung.”

  Minutes before the half-time whistle, it happened again. This time, it was Martin Grace running with the ball. He was just across the halfway line when he collided very convincingly with a kid who seemed to be at least a fraction taller and heavier than Martin. The two of them spun and collapsed to the ground amid a howl of dismay from the crowd.

  Once again play was stopped. After the necessary attention from the respective coaches and the referee, the other player hobbled back to his team. Martin however, did not, and Fuller spent a few moments on the field talking to him in a low voice. Martin was hanging painfully on to one shoulder, and somehow, it looked anything but an act.

  “Willis!” Fuller shouted, “get on the field!”

  Andrew Willis obligingly stood up and jogged on, as Martin slowly walked off. No sooner had he sat down than he was besieged by his concerned parents.

  “I’m all right, Mum,” he grumbled in reply to his mother’s anxious questions.

  “Well, I hope so,” Mrs Grace replied seriously. “It would be a shame if you were to miss out on any more games …” She shot Trevor an accusing glance.

  Finally the Graces left Martin in peace and resumed their positions nearby in the crowd.

  “Does it hurt?” Trevor asked.

  Martin came very close to laughing, but didn’t. “Course it does,” he w
hispered back. “I’m not pretending. Look at the bruise. I banged me head too, so it’s for real.” Then he added, “You’re on next, Trev.”

  At half-time Fuller was reduced to shouting about the team’s apparent incompetence. “What’s wrong with you lot? Have those other blokes got you scared or something?”

  Bradley Clark ventured a reply. “No sir, but–”

  “What do you mean, ‘No sir, but’?” Fuller sneered. “I’m finding it hard to believe you’re the same team that’s won the comp two seasons running. You’re like a bunch of girls out on that field today …” Taking advantage of the team’s ashamed silence, Fuller spoke on loudly about tactics and the lack of them.

  “I want to see you doing something out there! We’re playing two reserves now, so it’s up to the rest of you to win this game. You’re not varying your attack; the defence is good but you must do more with the ball. Our wingers have hardly had any possession. Okay, play it in the forwards for a couple of tackles and then use your faster back line … I want to see you running hard! Run till you drop! And score points, because if you lose this game today,” Fuller added in an icy voice, “just forget about winning for the rest of the season.”

  The last comment left a dangerous feeling in the air. The team members glanced at each other, thinking perhaps that the plan had gone far enough. Bradley Clark and a few other kids were shooting David Briggs and Martin angry or anxious looks. Resolutely, David and Martin returned the expressions.

  By now, the parents had filtered through the team and were offering individual advice in Fuller’s temporary absence.

  “What’s the matter with you today, Michael? I saw you miss three tackles.”

  “One dollar for every try, Bradley …”

  “If I see you drop that ball once again, Scott, no TV for a week!”

  “What’re you frightened of, Michael? Getting your knees dirty, or something?”

  “Just tackle them hard. And stick the knee in on the way down, son.”

  “… and fifty cents for every field goal, Bradley.”

  Fuller returned to this climate of mutual displeasure and resumed his shouted commands on tactics.