by Brett Lee
I reverse-cupped my hands in front of my face. Still edging backwards, I caught the ball, then stumbled and fell over. I clutched the ball to my chest, closing my eyes in delight and relief.
‘Told you it was a good idea,’ Martian said, grinning.
I was hauled to my feet and we jumped about like galahs for a few moments before Jono held up his hands.
‘We’re in this game,’ he roared at us. ‘Two more wickets before tea, okay?’
We got him three. I came back on to bowl and snapped up Scott’s partner, lbw, with a fast yorker that got him on the toe. Then Rahul got a lucky break when their number six batter played on. The ball spun back and clunked into the base of his off-stump, just dislodging the bail.
The Scorpions were rattled. Jimbo swooped on a ball played into the covers in the last over before tea. The batters stuttered and stumbled. ‘No!’ the nonstriker finally shouted, holding up an arm. But the batter had committed. He turned and tried to regain his ground, but Jimbo’s flat and awesomely fast throw to Ally caught him well short.
The dismissed batter flung his bat into the stumps in anger and frustration, and swore at his partner. Ally was lucky as the bat missed her by centimetres.
‘Nicko, here—now!’ The Scorpions’ umpire demanded.
We went to tea a much happier group, though we could hear shouting from the other team’s clubrooms during the tea break. I assumed the coach was getting stuck into them again.
By contrast, Mr Pasquali was quiet and friendly. He spoke to us individually, encouraging and giving each of us something to focus on for the next session.
The Scorpions’ last three wickets put on about 40 runs, though, which was a bit disappointing. We dropped two catches during that last hour and I had what looked like a plumb lbw decision turned down too. The batter shouted straight away that he’d hit it, but it was unlikely that Mr Pasquali was influenced by that call.
We left the field as a tight group at the end of the innings. The day wasn’t quite over for us, especially for our openers Cameron and Jono, who would have to face a very tricky three overs to see out the day.
Padded up and ready to go in, I sat down to watch the action and see if we could get through the overs without losing a wicket. We’d already decided that we wouldn’t risk Jimbo going in tonight, so I was given the role of night watchman—the batter whose job it is to go in if someone gets out, and survive till stumps.
They almost made it!
Jono was given out lbw to a Scott Craven yorker—a vicious and amazingly fast ball that smashed intothe bottom of his pads. Jono was trapped in front of his wicket, absolutely plumb.
That left me with three balls to face from Scott Craven.
‘Survive, survive,’ I said to myself as he ran in to bowl. The first ball whizzed past my off-stump. Scott threw up his arms and screamed in anger and disbelief. Maybe it had been closer to my stumps than I thought.
Two balls to go.
The next caught the edge of my bat and flew towards second slip. I spun around to see the guy thrust out his left hand. The ball bobbled, then dropped to the ground as he rolled over. To my amazement he jumped back up, shouting and holding the ball up for all the world to see.
I didn’t move. Scott charged down the wicket yelling in delight. I looked over to Mr Pasquali, who’d swapped positions to be at square-leg for our innings, and gently shook my head.
‘How’s that?’ Scott yelled, turning to the Scorpions’ umpire.
I’d never felt so sick in my life. ‘Don’t do it,’ I muttered.
The umpire looked over at Mr Pasquali, obviously not sure about the catch.
‘That was not a catch,’ Mr Pasquali said firmly. ‘The ball hit the ground.’
‘Not out,’ the Scorpion’s umpire called.
‘What?’ Scott said, looking dumbstruck and pointing to the fielder with the ball. The umpire was unmoved. Slowly the players returned to their positions, swearing and muttering.
I settled over my bat and waited for the last ball of the day.
‘Cheat,’ one of the kids mumbled behind me. I straightened up and pulled away from the wicket.
‘Is there a problem?’ the umpire asked. He obviously hadn’t heard the comment.
‘Just a bit noisy down here,’ I yelled back. I glanced at Mr Pasquali. He smiled and gave a slight nod.
Scott charged in and bowled a bouncer. Surprise, surprise.
I ducked, but hardly needed to because the ball soared over my head as well as the keeper’s and flew to the boundary for four byes. It didn’t matter how the runs came, as long as they did.
In 1997, Glenn McGrath took 8 for 38 in a Test match against England at Lord’s. His bowling figures for the first innings were 20.3 overs, 8 maidens, 8 for 38. These are the best bowling figures for any Australian at Lord’s. McGrath also took 8 for 24 against Pakistan in Perth in 2004.
17 Ally or Jessica?
Saturday—evening
‘TOBY, we have a plan,’ Georgie said excitedly.
‘To stop Scott Craven taking all 10 wickets in the second innings?’ I asked, just as Mum brought in a plate piled high with hamburgers stuffed with lettuce, onion, cheese, tomato, egg and sauce. She then disappeared outside where the adults were having drinks, while Ally, Georgie, Nat and I blobbed in front of the TV, ready to tuck in. Somehow I knew that the plan Georgie was talking about had nothing to do with the grand final.
‘Ally did some checking out. She knows the people in the house that we went to with Jim. You know—to get that letter?’
I looked over at Nat, who was nibbling on her hamburger and feeding the odd bit to an army of Beanie Bears she had propped up against the couch. She wasn’t listening to us.
‘Who are they?’ I remembered that Ally lived close to the area where Jim had driven us when following Smale.
‘Well,’ Ally said, putting her plate down, ‘I don’t really know them, only to say hi. Their name is Walters. They have a girl a few years older than me, called Jessica. The weird thing is they’re on holiday.’
‘How do you know that?’ I asked, taking a bite.
‘Their neighbours are collecting their mail.’
‘And how do you know the neighbours are collecting their mail?’
Ally sighed. ‘Because Henry lives next door to them and we often walk to school together.’
‘You and Henry?’ I asked.
‘Is there a problem, Toby?’ Georgie asked, frowning.
‘No,’ I said. I was still on a bit of a high after the day’s play, and I would rather have talked about the fake catch or my catch to get rid of Scott, our decision to give Georgie a bowl or the state of the game.
I shrugged. ‘Okay, so what’s the plan?’ I’d made a conscious decision, along with Jim, to put the time travel issue to one side while the grand final was on. It was after all, only two days of my life. But the girls had other ideas and their energy and enthusiasm was grabbing my attention.
‘We think that the father is the fifth person—the fifth traveller to go with Smale to wherever they’re going,’ Georgie began.
‘A cricket match in the past?’ I suggested.
Georgie nodded, taking a drink. ‘So, Smale thinks someone’s coming because the fifth person has replied.’
‘Only he hasn’t,’ I said.
‘Exactly, but Smale doesn’t know that. What if this guy’s daughter, Jessica, went instead of him?’
‘But didn’t you say they’re on holidays?’
‘Yes, exactly,’ Ally said, pointing at me.
‘Riiiiight,’ I said, slowly.
The two girls looked at me.
‘But how does Jessica go if she’s not here?’ It seemed pretty straightforward to me.
‘Jessica doesn’t go,’ Ally said quietly. ‘I go.’
There was a shout from the TV. The Aussies had just taken another wicket.
‘You go?’ I asked. Ally nodded.
‘Brilliant, huh?’ said Georgie.
> ‘Tell me how it’s brilliant,’ I said.
‘Smale doesn’t know me from Adam,’ Ally explained.
‘Don’t be daft—’
‘Wait on!’ Georgie said, glaring at me. ‘Let the girl finish.’
I sighed, popped the last mouthful of hamburger into my mouth and turned back to Ally.
‘Smale won’t recognise me,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain that I’m Jessica, Geoff Walters’ daughter, and that I’ll be taking the trip on his behalf.’
‘Told you it was brilliant,’ Georgie repeated.
‘Okay,’ I sighed, grabbing another hamburger. ‘First, you said yourself, Ally, that Jessica is two years older than you. Second, you say Mr Smale won’t recognise you. Except he’s just spent the entire afternoon watching you play a game of cricket. And third…’
‘Third?’ Ally said, smiling and looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.
‘Third? Um, yeah, well, third is that there’s no way Smale will let a girl travel with him and a group of adults. He’s probably asking them to pay 10 thousand bucks each for the privilege.’
‘Great. So let’s just do nothing, hey?’ Ally said, looking at Georgie. ‘Let’s sit on our backsides here, eat hamburgers and—’
‘Okay!’ I shouted. Nat looked up sharply. She had been talking happily to her ‘friends’.
Georgie turned to her. ‘Bet you haven’t got Aussiebear,’ she said out of the blue.
‘Nope.’ Nat was surprised. ‘Have you?’
‘It was the first one I got. You want me to get it for you?’
‘Would you?’ she asked, no longer troubled by my outburst. ‘Cool!’
Georgie raced out of the room with Nat hard on her heels.
‘Okay, so how do you plan to do it?’ I said, turning to Ally.
‘No probs. I…well, we go down to the Scorpions’ clubrooms, and I’ll go in on my own and explain the situation. If I can’t go on the tour, then we just go back home.’
‘But what if he does recognise you?’
Ally shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll just skedaddle.’
‘Yeah, and hope that Smale doesn’t—’
‘Toby, Smale will be occupied with the other people there. I’m going to be hanging around at first, like I just happened to be there. Then, if he does recognise me, we haven’t given anything away. He’ll simply tell me to run away.’
‘And you will?’
‘And I will.’
Georgie and Ally had the evening all planned. I headed to Georgie’s house at 8.30 to ‘watch a DVD’. Ally had made a similar arrangement, while Georgie was supposedly going over to Ally’s. We all hopped on our bikes and rode towards the Scorpions’ ground. Ally looked completely different. Her long dark hair was now bunched up on her head, and her eyes appeared darker. Maybe it was the make-up. She had neat-looking clothes on and seemed taller and older.
‘You can stop staring at her,’ Georgie hissed as we rode onto the street.
‘I’m not!’
‘Not what?’ Ally called from in front.
‘Totally preoccupied with the game tomorrow,’ Georgie finished with a grin.
There were lights on at the Scorpions’ rooms and four vehicles in the car park when we arrived.
‘If he does look suspicious straight away,’ Georgie said, ‘just say you came back because you left your hat or something here.’
‘Okay.’ Ally leaned her bike up against the cemetery fence that ran behind the car park. ‘Will you wait for me?’
‘If you’re not back in 15 minutes, we’ll assume you made it in.’ Georgie looked at me.
‘Which means it should be about an hour at the most before you’re back,’ I added.
‘Hopefully not more,’ Georgie grimaced.
I had a thought. ‘Ally, listen! If it does look like you’re going on this trip, see if you can sneak out just for a moment and tell us where you’re going. That way, if there’s any trouble, I—’
‘We!’ Georgie interrupted.
‘We can come and help you.’
Georgie and I wheeled the bicycles behind a nearby old scout hall and sat down on the grass to wait. I guess we both expected Ally to be back pretty quickly, but after 10 minutes of chatting about the grand final and what might happen tomorrow, our conversation dried up as we thought of Ally and what might be happening.
‘Should we go and take a look?’ I asked.
Georgie nodded. ‘If they’ve gone there’ll be no one there anyway.’
There were fewer lights on in the clubrooms now, only a glow from a room behind Smale’s office. We hadn’t been in there before. All the outside doors and windows appeared to be locked, except for one window that was open just a few centimetres.
We crept over to the open window, freezing when we heard a man’s voice.
‘Brilliant!’ someone exclaimed, and there was the sound of hands clapping.
‘He must be showing them something,’ I whispered. ‘Maybe the scorecard?’ I edged away from the building.
But Georgie wasn’t listening. She’d picked up a piece of paper that had been half-pushed out from beneath the main door.
‘Brisbane, 19…’ Georgie stopped reading and looked up at me.
‘What?’ I said, snatching the paper from her.
‘Toby!’
‘Brisbane, 1960. Tied Test,’ I read aloud. Ally had already been there. This was a disaster. I turned to Georgie.
‘I know, I know,’ she groaned. ‘It was a slight chance.’
‘Slight chance?’
‘Well don’t you get so high and mighty,’ Georgie fired back. ‘You took her there. You knew as well as anyone else.’
We both paused, breathing heavily, staring at each other. I couldn’t remember Georgie and me ever fighting before. Not once had we had a cross word for each other.
Georgie closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Toby, we’re not going to get anywhere standing here arguing. What will we do?’
‘The problem is we don’t know if she’s in any trouble. She may be fine. If there’s enough distance or time between her two selves…oh, hell!’
‘What?’
‘When I took her to the game—it was near the end, obviously—there was something wrong…’
‘Toby, there’s always something wrong with us when we go back in time. Rahul in India. Jimbo, watching his dad. And Jay! God, remember what he did down in Hobart?’
‘No, this was different. Ally was really scared. She kept looking around, and she said something about someone calling her name.’
‘Smale?’
I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe.’
Georgie pulled a pencil from her pocket and scrawled a note on the back of the one Ally had written.
‘And how will we get that to her?’ I asked.
‘I’ll just put it on her bike. We’ve got to try something.’
I sat down with my back against the brick wall of the clubrooms and watched Georgie walk along the fence line to the bikes leaning against the scout hall.
‘Maybe we should give it a few more minutes?’ I said, looking at my watch as she returned.
‘How long has it been?’ Georgie asked.
‘Well, we don’t know how long they’ve been away,’ I replied, ‘but it’s nearly half past nine. Let’s give it a few more minutes.’
While we waited, we checked out the cars parked nearby and paced around the clubrooms.
‘Toby!’ Georgie whispered, beckoning me over to the open window. She had pushed a section of curtain to one side, and I put my head next to hers and listened.
‘They’re back.’ She spoke softly.
‘Or they haven’t gone yet. Can you see Ally?’
Holding up a hand, Georgie shook her head. There didn’t seem to be the excitement in the room that we’d heard earlier.
‘But what about Colin?’ someone said, his voice rising above the others. A door banged shut.
‘There’s something wrong,’ Georgie said, looking worried
and backing away from the window.
‘What?’ I leaned in closer, trying to hear what was happening. I heard a few more shouts before Georgie grabbed at my sleeve. Something was about to happen. Crouching, we ran back to the fence, then along the side of the cemetery, to our bikes.
‘We shouldn’t have let her go, Toby,’ Georgie said, slamming her helmet on and grabbing her bike. ‘Let’s go down to the end of the street and wait a few minutes.’
‘I’d love to know what’s happened,’ I said.
‘C’mon, Ally. Where are you?’ she screamed into the wind as we tore off down the road.
‘Guys!’ came a shout from behind, just as the words left Georgie’s lips.
We braked hard and swung our bikes around, amazed to hear Ally’s voice. She was riding hard, trying to catch up with us.
Georgie dropped her bike and gave her a hug. We walked our bikes home, not only because it was dark and Ally was out of breath, but so we could hear the whole story before we got there.
In 1926, Clarrie Grimmett—playing for South Australia against New South Wales—had 394 runs scored from his bowling. This is the most runs scored off a bowler during a match in Australia, however his haul of 10 wickets (4 for 192 in the first innings and 6 for 202 in the second) was a great achievement.
18 Back to Brisbane
ONCE Ally began retelling her adventure, the words poured out like a torrent. She was still wound up by all the excitement.
‘Guys, I was so nervous I thought Phillip Smale would hear my heart pounding, but I walked straight up to him and said G’day, because my disguise was pretty good and I knew I had to act like I was meant to be there.’
‘And he didn’t recognise you?’ I asked as we picked our way carefully along the dim footpath.
‘No. He just said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not taking any children. This isn’t a game, you know.”’ Ally smiled. ‘But one thing I didn’t tell you guys, is that I’d typed up a fake letter from my “Dad”, saying why he’d sent me along in his place.’
