The Year My Life Broke

by John Marsden

  Anyway, I went and shut the front door and the back door, locking them, then I sat on the couch and watched cartoons with Pippa, but every ad break I got up and had a little look through the windows, just to make sure there were no zombies or serial killers or ghosts or killer moths prowling around. I was pretty pleased when Mum got home from Gran’s.

  That night at dinner I said to Mum and Dad as casually as I could, ‘What’s the story with the place next door?’ pointing with my fork to show that this time I wasn’t talking about where Harriet lived.

  I thought they would have said stuff like, ‘What are you talking about? There’s no story. What do you mean, story?’ but to my surprise they didn’t. Dad stopped pouring tomato sauce on his sausages, Mum stopped eating, and they stared at me. Dad said quietly, ‘Why do you ask?’

  I said ‘Is it haunted or something?’, but with a little laugh, to show that I didn’t really believe in haunted houses. But the expressions on their faces made me nervous. Up till then I’d thought that being scared by the eye was just me being stupid. You know how they say some kids have overactive imaginations. I didn’t think the adults would take my question seriously. But they looked like they might take it seriously seriously. Suddenly I remembered how my dad had turned right instead of left when he’d gone out the back door that time. I put down my fork.

  ‘Well, is anyone living there or what?’

  ‘Well, have you seen anyone living there?’ Dad asked, real casual-like.

  ‘Not exactly seen,’ I said. ‘But what I seen today, I mean saw, was an eye.’

  ‘Oooh,’ Pippa said. ‘How do you mean an eye? Like, just lying on the ground?’ She sat there with her knife and fork sticking up in the air, staring at me.

  ‘No, ’course not. Looking out a window.’

  ‘Was it attached to a body?’ Callan asked.

  ‘Er . . . or . . . ar . . .’ Pippa said, or something like that. She didn’t seem to like the idea of random body parts floating around the neighbourhood.

  ‘I don’t know. All I could see was the eye. Peeping out from behind a blind.’

  Mum and Dad looked at each other. ‘Look,’ Dad said. ‘It’s a bit tricky. All I can say is that if you kids see anyone in that place you have to stay quiet, OK? You mustn’t talk about it, especially at school. And if anyone asks you questions about the house, come and tell me or Mum straight away.’

  He’d gone really grim! I thought, ‘Maybe I had the wrong place all along – maybe that’s the Mafia house.’ But then I thought, ‘Would the Mafia have their headquarters so close to where two cops live?’

  I asked: ‘What if you or Mum aren’t home?’

  ‘Well, go into Lenny and Luke’s place, next door on the other side, and tell them. Don’t waste any time though. Make sure you tell them straight away.’

  ‘You’re scaring me,’ Pippa whined.

  Mum looked at Dad. ‘Wish we’d never moved here,’ she said.

  Dad shrugged. ‘What choice did we have? Anyway, what’s the risk? Like your father said, driving to work every day’s a lot more dangerous than living here.’

  I couldn’t believe how full-on this was getting. Seemed like the house with closed eyes was spooky beyond my wildest dreams. That night, lying in bed trying to sleep, having my own room didn’t seem such a great idea after all.

  At school, cricket and netball had become the main activities for everyone in grades 5 and 6 – that is, everyone who could stand up without falling over. As this apparently didn’t include me I found myself more of a reject than ever. Most kids had practice every day. A lot of them whinged about it but I wouldn’t have minded.

  Instead of playing cricket I wandered around looking for something to do. One day when they were short of parents to help in the canteen, I got pulled out of the queue and asked to serve behind the counter, which was fun, and then one of the teachers saw me helping the Prep kids at the canteen and signed me up to hang out in their playground sometimes, to look after them. She said I was good with little kids. It was lucky she never saw me with Callan and Pippa.

  I didn’t mind, but – it was something to do, and they did crack me up sometimes with the stuff they said. One very serious little guy called Franklin came up to me one day and pointed at a boy called Marley, and said, ‘Josh, Marley just said the F word.’

  I was pretty shocked but I said to him, ‘You better tell me exactly what he said, Franklin.’

  ‘He told me I was an idiot.’

  ‘An idiot, huh. Whoa, that’s pretty severe.’ I called out to Marley, ‘Hey Marley, stop calling people idiots. That’s a bad word.’

  What I really wanted to say to Franklin was, ‘Kid, you got a serious spelling problem,’ but I didn’t think that would be such a good idea.

  Then the very next day a girl called Kitty came up just like Franklin had, and whispered, ‘Josh, Rachel just said the R word.’

  I went through all the rude words I could think of and not one of them started with R, so I had to ask her, ‘Kitty, what’s the R word?’, thinking, ‘Now I need a five-year-old to teach me how to swear.’

  She looked around to make sure no-one was listening, because obviously the word was so toxic that she couldn’t risk other kids being exposed to it. Then she whispered, ‘Arse.’

  She definitely had a spelling problem.

  But there were days when I got sick of Preppies grabbing me or chasing me around or wanting me to admire the fact that they could put one foot in front of the other . . . I’d look across at cricket practice on the old oval and my mouth would water and I’d sigh and go back to holding a skipping rope so that these little kids could get fitter and better coordinated and maybe one day grow up to be good at cricket and netball and stuff like that . . .

  Mr Barnes organised a trial game of cricket between Tarrawagga and a school from the city called Bromwich Primary. It was on a Tuesday and I knew Mr Surrey didn’t work on Tuesdays. So I figured I’d grab my chance for a day off and I asked Mr Barnes if I could go as scorer. I knew Mr Surrey would have said no – even if the match was in hell he wouldn’t have let me go – but I got on OK with Mr Barnes, most of the time.

  ‘Do you know how to keep score in a cricket game?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, I did it a few times at my old school,’ I said, trying to look serious.

  ‘We’ve never taken a scorer before.’

  ‘I’d be really useful. You and the kids in the team could concentrate on the game better. And I am good at maths.’

  ‘Well, I guess it’ll be OK, as long as your parents sign the consent form, of course.’

  Bromwich Primary reminded me of Abernathy: old buildings, lots of trees along the street, big houses with heaps of flowers and stuff. Like our old house before we lost our money. The game wasn’t at the school though, it was at a park down the end of the street. It was a pretty big oval, with a turf wicket. Our kids lost the toss but the Bromwich captain wanted to field for some reason, so he sent us in. I opened the score book and went to work. I did six dots in the first over, and three more in the second over, and then suddenly I got busy. KABOOM! Wicket, dot, wicket. Two wickets for no runs. Marty and Michael both taking off their pads, looking angry and frustrated. Great.

  Red went in and for the first time I found myself seriously barracking for Tarrawagga. I’d hated the school from the first day but you can’t stay in a place forever without finding a few things that aren’t too bad. Somehow hanging out with the five-year-olds had made me feel more a part of Tarrawagga. I felt kind of protective towards those little critters and that made me want the school to be a good place for them. Besides, it was just plain embarrassing to be associated with a bunch of losers, and at two for nothing Tarrawagga were looking like serious losers.

  Red settled in fairly well, and at the end of the third over scored our first runs, with a sweep that wasn’t too well timed
but got 2. He and Shelley were batting and they survived two more overs before she went LBW for 5. That put Rolf in, and I felt a bit more confident with him and Red at the wicket, because they were our best batsmen by far. Unfortunately though a minute later I had to write a zero beside Rolf’s name as he walked back again, clean bowled for a golden duck.

  Apart from a kid called Nathan who went in at number nine and scored 11, no-one except Red got double figures. We had five ducks. Sundries got 6, which made them our third-highest scorer. Red was 16 not out, and our total was 43. I suppose it could have been worse, considering at one stage we were 8 for 26.

  The Bromwich innings started and I found myself busy again, but for the wrong reasons. The Bromwich openers were scoring so fast that I thought they’d pass our score in the first five overs. I was so busy that I didn’t take any notice of a boy standing in front of me watching the game until he shifted a bit to his left and blocked my view. Then I called out, ‘Excuse me, can you move please, I can’t see.’

  He turned around to answer and we both did a double take. I didn’t know his name but he obviously knew mine, because he said, ‘Josh! What are you doing here? How come you’re not playing?’

  I took a quick look to find Mr Barnes, and luckily he was busy talking to the teacher from Bromwich.

  ‘Well . . .’ I said, ‘the thing is, I’ve, um, pulled a muscle. So I’m just scoring.’

  ‘Wow, bad news for you, good news for us.’

  He was a nice kid; he’d played a couple of times for Southern Districts when I was vice-captain. I glanced down at the list of names the Bromwich scorer had given me and recognised his straight away: Angus Beatty. He was batting at number four.

  ‘What are you doing at Tarrawagga?’ he asked. ‘Have you moved or something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, wondering if he hadn’t even heard about Antelope. It had been in all the papers, and on TV.

  I decided to be honest about the cricket. I was a bit sick of lies.

  ‘Look, Angus,’ I said. ‘I made that up about the pulled muscle. To tell you the truth, I’m not actually playing. They don’t know I can play cricket. I didn’t want to be in the team so I just never got involved. Please don’t say anything to them, OK?’

  He shrugged. ‘OK. Pretty funny though. If they only knew! God, they could’ve used you today.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s kind of a crap school and the PE teacher’s a real mongrel.’

  It ruined the morning because I spent my time worrying that Angus would say something to his coach who would say something to Mr Barnes, or one of our team would hear the Bromwich kids talking, or Angus would tell one of our players.

  The morning was in ruins from a cricket point of view as well, because Bromwich were way too good for us. Our kids had nothing to show for all that training they’d done. Bromwich declared at 2 for 100, then got us all out in the second innings for 31, even worse than the first. Outright defeat. Ouch. It was a pretty quiet bus trip home.

  At least I was getting my cricket fix twice a week by training with Cypress and playing for them. I was going OK too, considering it was Under 14s. My batting average was 70.6 and I had 17 wickets at 11.8. I even got two Saturday afternoon games in the Under 16s, when they were short of a player, and I scored 61 for them one week, and 26 the other.

  Then came a Saturday morning when things changed slightly. I never knew who we were playing from one week to the next, especially when the games were at home. I didn’t care, it didn’t matter to me. This particular Saturday was a home game, but I was late; Mum dropped me off on her way to the optometrist with Callan, and because he was so slow getting out of bed I missed the start of the match.

  When we got there I ran across to Wally. He just said, ‘’Bout time. We’re batting, so you can pad up and knock a few balls around with Chris. I’ll probably put you in next.’

  Looking at the batsmen in the middle I could see that they were our openers, so we hadn’t lost any wickets. And these days I normally batted number three.

  Chris and I hit balls to each other to warm up, until after about ten minutes I heard shouts from the pitch and Wally yelled, ‘OK, Josh, you’re in.’

  I set off on the long walk. It wasn’t until I reached the centre and took guard, then got ready to face my first ball that I looked at the bowler. I also realised why he was standing staring at me instead of starting his run-up.

  The bowler was Red.

  I stared right back at him, in horror. This couldn’t be happening. I really liked Red, respected him even. The last thing I wanted was to have him know I’d double-crossed him and everyone else at Tarrawagga. What was he doing here anyway? I remembered then that he played for South Tarrawagga, so maybe they were in the same comp as Cypress. But this was Under 14s!

  I thought, ‘OK, I’ll hit a really pathetic shot and get out first ball, so he’ll still think I’m hopeless,’ but I knew that wouldn’t be fair on my team. And anyway, I was already busted. Not only would he know that I must be better than average to be in the Under 14s, but also I was batting number three, and no coach puts a dud batsman at number three.

  Besides, any serious cricketer gets a good idea of what a batsman’s like simply by the way he comes in, takes guard, checks the field placements, settles himself for the first ball . . . you just know right away whether he’s going to be a tough nut or a pushover, or somewhere in between. By now I’d played so much cricket that I arrived at the crease like I was coming home. I felt confident in that little rectangle, and anyone as smart as Red would have picked that up in the blink of an eye.

  The umpire looked around, frowning, wanting to know where the bowler had gone. Red shook himself, dropped his head and began his run-up. I knew right away that I was in for a lethal delivery, something truly venomous. Well, I got that right. I think it might have been the fastest ball I’d ever faced. And it was a sandshoe crusher, a yorker, the kind of ball that’d break your foot if it landed where the bowler was aiming.

  It was a brutal piece of bowling but I had to admire it. Somehow I moved fast enough to smother it with my bat and keep it out of my stumps. It dribbled away towards gully. I straightened up, looked at Red and said, ‘Good ball.’ The slips guys were applauding like they’d just seen a hat-trick or something. Red grunted at me – I think he said, ‘Like you’d know,’ – got the ball, and walked back to his mark.

  The next one came at the same speed but was a full toss, heading right for my groin. I played it with a quick foot shuffle, elbow up, dead-straight bat, and again it dribbled away. A better batsman than me might have done more with it, but I was just pleased to survive.

  I hadn’t been paying much attention when I came in so I didn’t hear the umpire tell me how many balls Red had left, but I hoped he was near the end of his over. I had too much pride to ask the ump now, because it would look like I was scared. I was scared, but I didn’t want Red to know that. I took guard again, trying to look pleased and confident, like I couldn’t wait for the next exciting ball.

  This one was at least predictable, a bouncer aimed like I had a cross on my forehead and Red wanted to hit it dead-centre. I swayed my head back and let it go whistling by. It was too fast for the wicketkeeper and went flying down to the boundary for four byes.

  The wicketkeeper muttered, ‘He’s gunna kill you,’ as he waited for the throw.

  ‘He’s gunna kill you if you keep giving away extras,’ I muttered back.

  The next one was just a great delivery, a super-fast ball on a perfect length that was either going to trap me plumb in front LBW or knock my middle stump out – and smash it into matchsticks. I reckon I did well to get my bat to it. I got a thick outside edge, and it ricocheted towards second slip. I jerked my head around to see its fate. The kid at second slip got a fingertip to it but couldn’t hold it. He swore, danced up and down waving his fingers, then dropped to the ground, holding his hand and
swearing some more. The ball went down to the boundary for another four. The umpire bustled over to the kid on the ground, and the South Tarrawagga players all gathered around him. All except Red, who took his jumper off the umpire and walked away to fine leg without looking at me. It was the end of the over.

  I didn’t go visit the kid who’d hurt his hand but the coach came on with an icepack. ‘We’d better get it X-rayed,’ he said, and they walked him off.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ I called after him, but he didn’t answer. I wouldn’t have either.

  I only faced the last ball of the next over but hit a cover drive and ran three. Big mistake, as this meant I had to face Red again. In he came, steaming like a chain smoker on a foggy day. The ball screamed past me, pretty much as fast as the ones in his previous over: another dot in the score book, but I felt that if I could survive a bit longer he’d have to slow down. I blocked the next couple, then got a streaky single past point, which of course meant I was suddenly up at his end of the pitch, standing right next to him. He might have been steaming but he gave me a look from out of the Ice Age. I couldn’t help noticing that the next ball, to my partner, Dylan, the big kid I’d bowled to in the nets the day I’d joined Cypress, was a lot slower than any of the ones I’d got. Even so, it was too good for Dylan, who edged it straight to the keeper and trudged off without waiting for the umpire.

  I waited, leaning on my bat, while everyone congratulated Red. ‘This is the best I’ve ever seen you,’ I heard one kid say.

  Lucas was the new batsman and he got a single off the first ball. That gave me the strike for the next over, and a new bowler. The ball seemed like a friendly red apple after the hand grenades I’d been getting from Red. I had a bit of fun and hit a few boundaries. Then it was Red again. I figured this would be his last over, and he’d be getting tired. I figured that sooner or later there’d be one I could hit. I blocked the first four, but finally it came, the second-last ball of the over. It was a slower one that pitched short and was somewhere round middle and leg. With a squirt of joy running through my body I lifted it high and wide of the square leg fieldsman. One bounce and over the ropes. I peeked at Red but he had already turned around and was marching back to his mark.