Gracie Faltrain Gets It Right (Finally)

by Cath Crowley

  ‘He bumped her arm.’

  Dan waves. I wave back. It’ll be a good sign if he walks over to me straight away. He doesn’t. ‘Maybe he’s trying to make me jealous by paying Kally lots of attention.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Every now and then I catch Dan watching me watching him. He is touching her arm a lot. That could mean he likes her or it could mean he knows I’m checking him out in the mirror. What we have here is the trickiest sign of all. ‘So it’s a sign that a guy likes you when he pays loads of attention to some other girl?’ Jane’s voice sounds in my head.

  Exactly. Most boys don’t attempt it because it’s the bicycle kick of signs. Nine out of ten times it goes horribly wrong. I might think Dan isn’t interested and move on. I might go out with someone else to even the score. If Dan looks my way more than twice while he’s touching Kally’s arm then what’s going on between the two of them is really all about me.

  Sure, she’s good-looking. But I’m not bad. I have muscles. I lift one arm up and flex. Dan’s watching me so I speed up the machine and start running. ‘I don’t think you need to try so hard,’ Corelli says.

  ‘I’m pushing myself to my physical limits.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I’d watch your towel.’

  I’ve always been interested in fate. Why do two people fall in love? Are Martin and I really destined to be together? Was the towel always going to fall on the running belt or did Corelli’s comment cause me to look at it and so alter my destiny?

  Today I find the answers about fate I’ve been looking for. When you’re on a conveyor belt running like the Bionic Woman and see your towel about to jam the machine you really don’t give a crap about the reason it’s happening. You give a crap about how to get off with all your body parts intact.

  There are moments in life where things go from bad to worse. Today that’s the second where my towel jams the conveyor belt before Corelli hits the stop button. Alyce could explain how when an object travelling at a very fast speed brakes suddenly, the object on it is propelled at an equally fast speed. My explanation’s not that technical. I scream and rocket off the machine.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Dan asks.

  ‘I think so.’ If by okay you mean completely humiliated and lying on the floor with a dislocated butt.

  ‘How can you be so unbelievably coordinated on the field and so out of control off it?’

  ‘I practise,’ I say. A lot.

  I take a shower while the others finish up. I wait for them outside. ‘Corelli’s driving Kally home,’ Dan says when they walk out. ‘I’m giving you a lift.’ He folds his jacket and puts it on the seat so I have a cushion. Whatever pride I had got jammed in the conveyor belt, so I don’t have a problem sitting on it. ‘Is it possible to dislocate your butt?’ I ask.

  ‘If it is, you’ll be the one to find a way.’

  He doesn’t take me home. He drives me to the soccer field where Martin and I used to play. ‘I’m not really up for a kick.’

  ‘I’m sick of soccer,’ he says. ‘Think you’re up for a swing?’

  We walk across the soccer ground. All the kids have gone home so the swings are ours. I ease myself back and look up at the sky. I’ve almost forgotten about my humiliation when he says, ‘You don’t need to do stuff to impress me. Kally and I are just friends.’

  And there it is: positive confirmation that boys do talk about things like girls in the change room. If I didn’t need Corelli for my cooking partner I’d make sure he died a painful death.

  ‘I like you,’ Dan says. ‘I wasn’t trying to make you jealous.’ A long and slow painful death. ‘I kissed you on the cheek the other night because I had a feeling you were still thinking about Knight.’ Is nothing sacred, Corelli?

  I look across to the spot where I reached for Martin’s hand and he moved away. I look across to the spot where he and I played soccer since Year 7. If I keep looking at that spot, though, I’ll never move anywhere. And what’s the point of looking when Martin walked away months ago? What’s the point in looking when there’s a guy I actually like swinging right in front of me? Or, at least, swinging to the side of me?

  ‘Please tell me all that quiet doesn’t mean you’ve still thinking about Knight or I’m leaving now to kill Corelli . . .’

  ‘I’m not thinking about Martin. Well, maybe a bit but only because this is where he dumped me.’

  ‘Really? Crap. Sorry.’

  And that’s when it happens. The moon shifts and I don’t see Martin in the shadows of the park. I see Dan. I lean over and kiss him. My blood doesn’t turn to toffee like it did with Martin. It turns to velvet. And that’s even better. Dan smiles and I swing. I fling myself as high as I can. The world is blurry. I’m dizzy. Yep. I have officially left the state. No plans to write postcards. No plans to return. Finally.

  *

  Jane’s waiting for me when I walk in. ‘Are you okay? You’re limping.’

  ‘I flew off the walking machine and landed on my butt in front of Dan.’

  ‘So why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because he likes me.’

  ‘I want details,’ she says. ‘Talk me through humiliation to kiss.’

  We’ve been talking for an hour when I catch sight of that picture of Martin and her and me. I don’t feel so sad anymore when I look at it. It’s not that Martin isn’t still important. It’s not that I don’t miss him. But my inside doesn’t feel like it’s crumbling anymore. ‘What?’ Jane asks.

  ‘I was thinking that it’s funny how things change.’ And we keep talking about Dan and school and Alyce and the United Nations and how there are a new type of M&Ms on the shelves.

  21

  MARTIN

  Annabelle walks up the path to my house tonight and sits next to me on the steps. I don’t think she realises but her eyes drift to the sky when she talks. ‘I’ve been thinking about Dad’s telescope. On clear nights we’d drive out of the city and take turns looking through it.’

  ‘What’s the moon like close up?’ I ask.

  ‘Less romantic, I guess. You see it for what it is, full of all these craters.’

  ‘Not gold like that,’ I say, pointing.

  ‘It’s better. It’s real.’

  I wonder what she’s thinking. I wonder if I should kiss her. ‘Do you want to see the moon close up?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I do.’

  ‘I know it’s in here,’ Annabelle says, switching on the light in her back shed. There’s stuff everywhere, bikes and boxes, tools and an old record player.

  ‘You should clean this place out.’ I hold up a soccer ball. ‘There’s some good stuff caught between all the crap.’

  She pulls a sheet off the telescope. ‘Give me a hand.’ We lift it outside and she leans over the lens, tilting it up and turning dials. Her hair falls forward so I can’t see her face. ‘Look.’

  I stare through. She’s right. The shine’s gone but it’s beautiful. We’re quiet, moving between the gold moon and the real one.

  ‘Are they your dad’s initials scratched in the side?’ I ask. She runs her fingers over them on the telescope. ‘He left it to me. I could handle using the car. I barely remembered being in it. But this was too hard to look at because the memories are so strong.’

  The sky stretches over me like it did out on the road. I’d give a million dollars to know what Annabelle’s thinking, to know if she wants to kiss me like I want to kiss her. Maybe she’s here because she’s missing her dad and the last thing she wants is some guy cracking on to her.

  ‘One night, close to when he died, Dad told Kally and me the name of every constellation he could see. He made us say the names until we remembered them. It was him he wanted us to remember, though.’

  ‘I failed my exams,’ I say. I don’t know why, it just comes out. ‘I stuffed up last year and didn’t get in to uni.’

  ‘So you’ll get where you want to go another way. Where do you want to go?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m not
sure.’ But talking to her, I feel like I’m on the way to all those towns spread out along the ocean, I feel like I’m seeing the water surface as I drive around the bend. I want to kiss her so bad because she makes me think of all those places. But I’m not sure if she’ll kiss me back and I don’t want to wreck things. By the time I’m ready to make my move she’s packing up the telescope.

  ‘So do you like the moon close up?’ she asks on the way inside. Her breath makes shapes around me in the night.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I do.’

  22

  GRACIE

  I try hard to concentrate in my classes today. But how can I focus on Mrs Young when the Dan Woodbury Movie is playing in my head? I’m only human. On an excitement scale of one to ten, that kiss is rocketing past one hundred.

  ‘You’re red,’ Flemming says while Mrs Young hands out worksheets.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘You’ve been weird all afternoon, walking around with a stupid look on your face.’

  ‘I always look stupid.’

  ‘You look more stupid today.’

  I have to tell Flemming about Dan some time. It may as well be now. ‘Dan Woodbury and I are going out.’ I know he has a problem with it because he starts doing his work. ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing. Congratulations.’

  ‘He’s a good guy. We were wrong about him.’ Flemming nods and keeps working. ‘We were all idiots last year in the Firsts competition.’

  ‘Who are you trying to convince, me or you?’

  ‘I don’t need to convince anyone.’ I knew Flemming would act like this. He hated Dan last year. He hates him this year. No matter what, he’ll hate him next year. But that’s a stupid way to live. Things aren’t clear cut. People change.

  We don’t talk again till the end of the lesson. ‘Are we still mates?’ I ask before the bell. ‘I was your friend when you were going out with Susan.’ He packs up his books and punches me on the arm. I’ll take that as a yes.

  I know that some of the stuff Coach and Martin said about Flemming is true. It’s easier to get into trouble when I’m around him. But since Year 10 he’s been one of my best mates. Friendship is about staring at your friend, all of your friend, and seeing the bad and the good. And it’s about sticking with them anyway.

  Dan picks Kally and me up after school and drives us to the first extra training session with the state girls. I can’t help thinking that it’s going to take more than two afternoons a week to prepare them for the match against the boys. ‘How many are going to be here?’ I ask as we pull into the field’s car park.

  ‘A few,’ Kally says.

  I follow her eyes. Without counting, I’d make a rough guess that almost every girl from our Sunday state sessions is here. ‘All of them? How am I going to train all of them?’

  I feel crowded. I feel the weight of every girl’s hair on my shoulders as they close in and wait for answers. I talk loud and confident when I feel quiet and scared. ‘I can train with you Friday and Sunday afternoons. Next week I’m on camp but I’ll be back in time to practise. You need to do weights and aerobic work. Get fitter. If you know boys who’ll train with us, bring them along. Trust me. You don’t want to find out what it’s like to play these guys for the first time at the practice match.’

  They grin as I speak. They’re imagining themselves on the day they win, grass green under their boots as they kick goals and beat the boys. I guess people believe what they have to so they can sleep at night. I know I won’t sleep. And if I do, my dreams will be filled with the sound of clippers. They’ll be filled with the bald heads of the state squad. Think, Gracie Faltrain. Think. The fate of cascading curls is resting on your shoulders.

  Mum drives me to the school soccer match on Saturday morning. ‘You look tired,’ she says.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the stupid bet.’

  ‘It’s not your responsibility to win it for them, Gracie.’

  ‘But it feels like it is.’

  I watch my school team warming up for a while before I walk towards them. I’ve always said it’s not about being a girl or a boy out there. It’s about the game. But that answer won’t help the girls. They’re looking for rules to follow. They’re looking for right and wrong. The only answer I’ve ever had is that I fly out there because I can.

  When the whistle goes today I take note of everything. I watch the feet of the boys. I map their play. I map my own. I make a book in my head of how to fly, how to sail, how to move.

  I take notice of Coach. Everyone said I was a natural at the sport but that’s not a hundred per cent true. Coach taught me how to play the game. He taught me so well I don’t remember learning.

  ‘So I heard about the bet,’ Coach says after the game. ‘I heard you’re training the girls in your spare time.’

  ‘You think I’m stupid?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. You got a plan?’

  ‘I was trying to remember how you taught me to win against boys.’

  ‘I didn’t teach you that. I taught you the skills and then I let you onto the field. Some things a player learns for themselves.’

  In four months I have to give to the girls what Coach took years to give me. ‘I’ve got a favour to ask. I want to put five girls on the bench every Saturday in our school games. I need you to sub them in for ten minutes at a time so they learn what it’s like to play against boys. The guys will have a problem with it.’

  ‘It might do them good to be shaken up a bit.’ He thinks for a while. ‘Bring your players along next week. Get a mix of positions.’

  I expected him to make me beg, to make me fight for it. ‘Thanks, Coach.’

  ‘Thank me by making it to the state squad. I’ve been waiting for that since you walked onto that field in Year 7.’

  ‘You thought I was a crap player in Year 7.’

  ‘I thought you were the stupidest, gutsiest kid I’ve ever seen, running out there with your toothpick legs. Choose the best girls for the first Saturday match. It’ll be rough out there till they prove themselves.’

  I stare at the field for a bit longer after he’s gone. I keep replaying his words over and over. I want to make sure I remember them.

  I walk over to Dan’s house after I leave the field. We sit in his room for a while, doing homework. At least, I try to do homework, but I’m thinking about a hundred other things. Ninety-nine of them have to do with him and the last one is about the bet. ‘I want to be a coach,’ I say to him after a while. ‘You know, for a career.’

  ‘Isn’t that part of Sports Management?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only said that to impress you. Can I use the Internet?’ The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.

  I can’t find exactly what I want so Mrs Woodbury helps me research while Dan cooks dinner. ‘Monash University has degrees in Sports Studies including Coaching Science, Sports Management and Sports Media,’ she reads. ‘You could study coaching, improve your own performance, and then study further if you wanted to do Physiotherapy. Does that sound like something you’re interested in?’

  ‘Yep. That’s it. What do I need to get in?’

  ‘Any Maths subject and a study score of at least twenty-five in English.’ Crap. I’ll really have to pick up my game in English if I want to get that. Mrs Woodbury pulls out her Maths textbook. ‘Let’s get in an hour of study before tea.’

  ‘I have a test soon. Think I’ll pass?’

  ‘I think you’ll do very well. You’re smart, Gracie. I don’t know where you got the idea that you’re not.’

  *

  ‘I really like your mum,’ I say to Dan after he kisses me goodnight. ‘She printed off that information on Sports Studies for me. There are university open days coming up. We should go to some.’

  ‘You’re kind of ruining the mood here.’

  ‘She thinks I’m smart.’

  ‘Because you are. You can’t play like you do, pick things up as quick as you
do, be as funny as you are, if you’re not smart.’

  Life is good. We sit in the car for a while, listening to the radio and talking about the bet and next year and Flemming and Kally and all the things we want and all the things we’re worried about.

  ‘I know what I’m going to say to the girls when I see them at state trials tomorrow,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll say, “There are no guarantees. You have the skills but you have to learn how to use them.” I’ll make a list of dates for every girl so they know when they’re playing with us. They’ll need to tell their school or club ahead of time that they won’t be available.’ Dan leans in, his hair falling at a mathematically perfect angle that I could calculate if I had to, and kisses me. I feel happy. Deliriously happy.

  I spread the love around when I go inside the house. I show Mum my course print-out and she looks deliriously happy. There’s a David Attenborough documentary on the TV so Dad looks deliriously happy. Jane looks kind of happy, too. ‘No particular reason, Faltrain,’ she says when I ask. ‘I had fun with Corelli this afternoon, that’s all.’ It’s a good night. We all eat chocolate. We all laugh. We’re all deliriously happy. For once.

  23

  GRACIE

  Of course, the danger with being deliriously happy is that it’s like running at high speed through really long grass. Most times there’s something waiting that you didn’t expect because you were too busy running and being deliriously happy. I’m running happily towards the bus for camp on Monday when I hit the thing that’s waiting in the long grass for me: my English teacher.

  ‘Gracie, can I have a word?’ Mrs Young takes my essay out of her folder.

  ‘One out of ten?’ My English study score of twenty-five isn’t looking too good.

  ‘I was being kind. Your essay bore no resemblance to the text whatsoever.’

  How could it? I have no idea whatsoever what the text is about except there’s a guy called Bottom in it. I take another look at the essay. I spelt his name wrong, too. ‘I’m studying now.’ Even as I say it, I see the flaw in my plan: I’ve been working on Food Tech and Maths and Outdoor Ed. But English is hard for me, so I’ve put it to the side of the homework pile since the beginning of the year.