ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Attending a conference called Getting Reluctant Readers Reading, Michael Panckridge skipped lunch to sit in the old commentary box at Victoria Park, where he was inspired to write stories for kids who were as keen on sports as he had been when growing up. Fifteen years on, Michael is the author of over 35 books, selling more than 250,000 copies. As well as sports books such as the Legends series, he also writes action-packed thrillers and suspenseful mysteries. When he’s not teaching or writing, Michael enjoys watching sport, reading, and running.
Also by Michael Panckridge
Chasing the Break
Down the Line
Against the Spin
Clearing the Pack
Over the Wall
The Toby Jones series
The League of Legends series
The Clued Up series
The Cursed
The Vanishings
The Immortal
The Book of Gabrielle
Be Bully Free
Big Bash League Cricket series
Thanks to Robyn and Tim and all the staff at Ford Street Publishing for their wonderful support and expertise as we work together to bring the Legends back to life – MP
Published by Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of
Hybrid Publishers, PO Box 52, Ormond VIC 3204
Melbourne Victoria Australia
© Michael Panckridge 2018
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
This publication is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction should be addressed to
Ford Street Publishing Pty Ltd
162 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford, Vic 3067.
Ford Street website: www.fordstreetpublishing.com
First published in 2003 by BDB. This edition has been revised.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Panckridge, Michael, 1962- author.
Title: On the Buzzer / Michael Panckridge.
eISBN: 9781925804133
Target Audience: For primary school age.
Subjects: Sports--Juvenile fiction.
Children’s stories.
Cover design and interior illustrations: Marita Seaton ©
Interior design: Grant Gittus Graphics
Editors: Robyn Donoghue & Tim Harris
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 Was it Jack?
Chapter 2 Mrs Cartwright
Chapter 3 Basketball Trials
Chapter 4 Escape!
Chapter 5 The Rat Returns
Chapter 6 Back to the Tunnel
Chapter 7 Trapped!
Chapter 8 The Build-up
Chapter 9 Lucky Bryce
Chapter 10 The Tournament Begins
Chapter 11 A Call for Mrs Morris
Chapter 12 The Crazy Finish
Chapter 13 On the Buzzer
Basketball Game Scores and Ladders
Legend of Basketball Results (Boys)
Legend of Basketball Results (Girls)
Legend of Sport Points Table - Boys
Legend of Sport Points Table - Girls
Basketball Quiz
Quiz Answers
Event Dates
Surfing
February
Cricket
March
Tennis
April
Football/Netball
June
Soccer
July
Basketball
August
Athletics
October
Swimming
November
Scoring
1st
5 points
2nd
4 points
3rd
3 points
4th
2 points
5th
1 point
Structure
Each sport has a teacher in charge. Generally, there have been three types of assessment, but not this time. There are just two. You can forget the skills session. Get it out of your mind. It’s the game that matters.
• A knowledge session
20%
• A game session
80%
Practice
All participants in a Legend event will have the opportunity to practise on Wednesday afternoons from 1:00 pm till 5:00 pm. During this time, Legend participants will be able to use the library. Sports staff and sports venues will also be available on request. It is the responsibility of the student to book venues, equipment and other materials. Normal sports training will continue for all students on the appropriate afternoons.
The Legends Noticeboard
The noticeboard outside the gym should be constantly checked for updates. It is the student’s responsibility to do this. The Teacher in Charge for the Legends of Basketball is Mrs Cartwright.
There are three sports to go. Basketball is coming up, the last of the winter sports series. Sandhurst, the school Mitchell Grady attends, has won the inter-school trophies for football, netball and soccer. Winning the basketball will be a first for the school.
For Mitchell, becoming the Legend of Sport is going to be difficult. His arch rival and enemy, Travis Fisk, has gained two crucial points on him during the Legend of Soccer event, leaving them tied on eighteen points.
It’s looking like a tight race in the girls’ competition too as Luci strives to hold on to her lead over Becky and Mia.
Bryce and Bubba have entered the secret room in the library, where they have discovered a tunnel that connects Sandhurst with Ascot College.
Perhaps the most amazing thing of all, though, is that Mitchell’s best mate from the beginning of the year has switched schools. Jack Crossly is now a student boarding at Ascot College.
Plenty of other things have happened. Fisk and Mitchell had a little run-in with some of the Hoods players (tough, scary kids from a nearby school) one afternoon. Mitchell and Fisk escaped without retrieving Mitch’s soccer ball. Then, on the night of the Legend of Soccer presentations, a discovery was made. The football trophy had been stolen from the Sandhurst library. In its place was Mitchell’s soccer ball . . .
The day after the Legend of Soccer presentations, a Friday, was cold and wet. I slept in. Mum had gone to work, but she and Dad must have decided that a day away from school would be good for me. He had a rostered day off so that worked too.
I kept looking at my watch and wondering what all the kids at Sandhurst were up to.
At lunchtime I grabbed Dad’s phone and sent a text message to Bryce. I wanted him to know that I could still come round to his place for the Legends party. He and his dad had come up with the idea of having a party after each Legend sport. A few moments later, Dad’s mobile beeped.
Good to hear from you Mitch. Plenty to talk about, see you after school. Bryce. (Bubba says hello, so do Luci & Becky. I won’t ask Travis!)
Dad dropped me off at Bryce’s house at around five o’clock. All the others were there already. Luci, Becky, Bubba and, obviously, Bryce.
‘So, did I miss out on anything at school today?’ I asked.
‘Well, have a read of this for starters.’ Bryce handed me a piece of paper.
‘It’s an email from Jack,’ Bubba added.
Subject: Hi
Email from: Jack Crossly
“mail to: [email protected]”
Hi Bryce
Thanks for your email. That’s so amazing about the tunnels. I did as you said and haven’t told anyone, but there’s this nosy as kid here
who seems to know a bit about me. Don’t ask me how. I reckon that room where the trapdoor is would be one of the study rooms. I’ll check it out. And yeah, we do have dinner at 5:30. I’ll keep an eye out for the trophy, but I don’t reckon anyone from here would do it. I don’t think they even know about the tunnel, anyway.
Well, maybe I’ll pay you a visit one day – I can still remember when library is, or I could sneak up one Wednesday afternoon. I wish I had a mobile phone so I could tell you.
Say hi to everyone. Hopefully I’ll get an invite out of here soon!
Jack
For a while nobody spoke.
‘You don’t think Jack would have nicked the trophy, do you?’ I asked, hardly believing I had to ask the question.
‘If that trophy left through the tunnel, then who else could it have been? I mean, who else knows about the tunnel?’ Becky asked.
For some reason, we all looked at Bubba.
‘Hey! What? I haven’t told anyone.’
‘Anyone?’ Luci asked.
‘No way!’ Bubba looked annoyed at the suggestion.
‘What about Fisk?’ Bryce asked. ‘He might have overheard us talking about the secret room.’
‘I reckon Fisk doesn’t know as much as he makes out,’ I said. ‘When he turned up at the library yesterday, he was as shocked as I was to see the trophy gone. I reckon he thought I was dobbing him in for cheating in the soccer quiz.’
‘Yeah, we checked the noticeboard today. He got a perfect score. Twenty out of twenty. But how do you know he cheated?’ Luci asked.
‘Well, Paisley as good as told me at the presentations last night.’
‘But the scores weren’t even up, then,’ Bryce said. ‘How did Paisley know?’
‘Beats me. He just said, “I could’ve, too”.’
This got everyone thinking, especially Bryce. Another little problem for him to solve.
‘It’s a bit fishy,’ Bubba said, shaking his head.
‘Well, the big question is, do we tell the teachers about the secret tunnel?’ I asked.
‘Well, it wouldn’t be a secret tunnel anymore, would it?’ Bubba said, as if he was thinking aloud.
‘Bubbaman, sometimes you come up with the best answers,’ said Bryce.
‘I do?’
‘Mmmhmm. I’m going to have a go at basketball and try to solve the mystery,’ said Bryce.
‘I think there’s one more thing I need to tell you,’ I said to Bryce.
‘Well, tell it quick, Mitchell. Dinner awaits!’ Bryce’s dad had walked in, wearing a blue apron and holding a plate of nachos.
‘Yeah, real quick,’ Bubba added, already out of his chair.
‘It’s just that they found my soccer ball where the trophy should have been. And the last people to have my soccer ball were some Hoods kids that Fisk and I met up with on the Kent Street ovals about three weeks ago.’
‘What were you doing with Hoods at the Kent Street ovals?’ asked Luci.
‘More to the point, what were you doing with Fisk?’ Becky added.
Over dinner I described the encounter with the Hoods in the toilet block, our stupid little game of soccer, and how Fisk and I had ran before taking a beating from them. We’d escaped, but left my soccer ball behind.
‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ said Bubba. ‘If the Hoods had your ball, they must have returned it.’ He nodded, impressed at his own genius.
We got talking about other things. I think Bryce would have loved to talk all night about tunnels and trophies, but Luci had brought a DVD. Bubba did his traditional dive from afar into the beanbags, then the rest of us settled in, surrounding ourselves with snacks and drinks.
I felt a nervous tingle of anticipation and excitement as I walked through the gate to school the following Monday morning. It was the first official day of the Legend of Basketball after another short break between sports.
The Legend winter sports were crammed together. The soccer goals were still up and Mr Zucker was walking around with a smile on his face. I wasn’t sure how Mr T, our football coach, was feeling. I wondered if we could say we won the four winter sports – supposing we won basketball – if we only had three of the trophies. I also wondered if Mrs Waite, the principal, would call in the police.
At recess I went to the library with Bubba. I was surprised to see Fisk and Mazis looking through some basketball books. I was just as surprised (and a bit curious, too) to see that Jimmy Paisley wasn’t with them. I’d heard that he’d injured himself last week. Maybe he wasn’t going to be in the Legend of Basketball.
‘Any news about the football trophy, Miss Javros?’ I asked.
‘Not a thing, Mitchell. It’s a total mystery. I’m sure it will turn up,’ she said. ‘Did you know that in 1966, in London, the trophy for the Soccer World Cup was stolen, then found a few days later under a bush by a dog called Pickles?’
We stared at her.
‘It was wrapped up in newspaper,’ she added.
Bubba’s eyes were wide and his mouth had dropped a few centimetres. It was a pretty impressive bit of trivia – and Bubbaman loved trivia.
‘No, I expect you didn’t.’ Miss Javros smiled, then turned back to her computer.
I walked over to the work stations near the fiction books.
‘Hey, Bubba, c’mon,’ I called, settling in for some serious web searching.
‘So, Bubba,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the Legend of Basketball. How did it work last year? Who’s the teacher in charge?’
‘Hmm. The biggest thing last year was that Fisk got injured. Some say he faked it because he thought he wasn’t going to win, so he wanted to kind of save face. It was all a bit of a mystery,’ said Bubba.
‘Wow, go on.’
‘Well, we play a big tournament in the Kent Street Stadium – you know, behind the soccer pitch where you and Fisk met up with those Hoods kids. And speaking of Hoods kids, there’s this little kid called Rat–’
‘Rat?’ I swivelled around in my chair to look at Bubba.
‘Yeah, Rat. He’s just unbelievable. He’s, like, born to play basketball. He can do anything. He was captain of the all-star team last year, and he’s still got two more years at school. There’s no way the Hoods can lose at basketball,’ Bubba said.
‘There is one way,’ I said.
‘Mitch, you haven’t seen him play–’
‘What if he played for us? What if he switched schools?’ I said.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he loves sport. Because he’d love to be a Legend.’
‘He’s from Wetherhood, Mitch. A Hood would rather die than not be a Hood.’
We both thought about what Bubba had just said.
‘Okay, that might be taking it a bit far, but you know what I mean, hey?’ said Bubba.
‘Yeah, Bubba, I know. What else?’
‘Well, last year there wasn’t really a proper teacher for basketball. Mr T and Mr Bronsen sort of shared. Don’t know what they’ll do this year. There’s a girls’ team and a boys’ team. There are firsts, seconds, thirds and fourths. But only the firsts and seconds play off in the big tournament.’
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘What’s the quiz like?’
‘Awesome. You have to get all your answers by searching these official basketball sites. It’s not like the others.’
‘Cool, like the NBA and NBL and stuff?’ I asked.
‘Yep. All of that.’
I nodded. There was already plenty to think about, and the Legend of Basketball hadn’t even started yet. But it was about to.
I checked the Legends noticeboard after school, and saw that there was to be a meeting and grading session after lunch on Wednesday for anyone interested in being in the Legend of Basketball. The note was handwritten and hard to read – unlike the previous sports notices.
A huge group of kids had gathered in the library for the Legend of Basketball meeting, maybe the most I’d ever seen at a Legends meeting. Mr Spears, who’d been
away for a term, introduced us to Mrs Cartwright. She wore a black bomber jacket and an angry face.
‘Don’t cross me, and you’ll be fine, you hear?’ were her first words to us.
It was a strange way to start. I looked over at Mr Spears. His head was down, checking out some notice on his clipboard.
‘You kids are privileged,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky to be doing this Legend thing and you’re lucky the school has got me in to take the basketball.’
Kids were looking sideways, back-ways, and heaps of other ways, but not at Mrs Cartwright as she delivered her words.
‘Is everyone listening?’
There was silence.
‘Good. Now, I want all you boys to meet me down in the gym, now. You girls can stay here and–’
‘Oh, Mrs Cartwright, we weren’t anticipating that there –’ Miss Javros’s voice trailed off. I think she’d been hiding behind the fiction books.
‘Well, I’m not anticipating that I’ll be having all this lot down in the gym.’
‘I can take the girls on the outside courts,’ Mr Spears added helpfully, nodding at Miss Javros.
Paisley caught my eye and made a face – a what-the-heck-have-we-got-ourselves-into-here kind of face. I shrugged and gave him a fake scared face back. He grinned.
‘Right. C’mon then, boys,’ Mrs Cartwright bellowed.
‘Um, excuse me, Mrs Carntwrite –’
There was a burst of laughter.
‘Cartwright!’ she yelled. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Nick. It’s just that I don’t think Mum–’
‘Well, forget it, then. Go home. You’re off the list.’
‘I don’t think that’s what he meant, Mrs Cartwright–’ began Bryce.
‘And who are you?’ she cried, turning on Bryce. ‘You can forget about playing too, unless you decide to get rid of those glasses. I won’t have anyone playing for me in glasses, do you hear?’
‘Yeah, he can hear. He just can’t see.’ Fisk sniggered. No one laughed. Everyone seemed stunned. And I reckon that included Mr Spears and Miss Javros.
On the Buzzer Page 1
