Gracie Faltrain Gets it Right (Finally) (14 page)

I don't ask Mum and Dad if I can stay home today. There are some things you can't hide from. I walk down the corridors and kids stop talking as I pass. I look them straight in the eye. There's only one person I care about. And it's him I'm going to see.

I knock on Coach's door and my stomach knots. I want him to believe me but there's every reason he won't. It's not like I haven't done dumb things before. It's not like I've never lied. He takes one look at me and says, ‘Hang on. I'll get a soccer ball.'

We walk to the oval. He kicks to me and I kick back. ‘I didn't do it.'

‘I know you didn't do it. One look at Flemming's face is enough to tell me something's not right. I don't suppose you'd consider telling the whole story so I can help you?'

I almost do tell him. But I did take the answers. I did think about cheating. I have to own that. ‘Sorry, Coach.'

‘I didn't think so. I guess this means I won't be seeing you as much anymore. I'll miss you at the Saturday games.'

‘The girls will still be on the bench. I thought I might help out from the side. If that's okay.'

‘It's fine with me. Principal Yoosta didn't say you couldn't watch. I could use a co-coach.'

The next thing is hard for me to say because ever since Year 7 I've been Gracie Faltrain, soccer star. I've been the only girl who was brave enough to play on a boys' soccer team. It felt good to be that girl. But the truth is, I'm not the best female soccer player around. I'm only one of them. Char, Beth, Alex, Brianne, Natalie, Esther, Joanna, Rachel and Sophia are as good as me, just to name a few. And Kally is even better. She's a member of the school too, so that makes her eligible to take my place.

‘I want to talk to you about my replacement. It should be Kally.'

‘She didn't do so well at our tryouts.'

‘She didn't do so well because we blocked her.'

‘She's a midfielder?'

I nod.

‘You're telling me she can cut it out there?'

I nod again.

‘Okay. We'll give her a go.'

‘Just like that? You'll take my word for it?'

‘I took Knight's word about you and look what happened. I got one of the best players I've ever seen. Don't be late on Saturday.'

‘I won't.' There are people who are counting on me.

*

My first job as co-coach is to make sure that things are different for the girls in the next Saturday game. I figure it's time to call in a few favours and remind my team-mates that I deserve some loyalty. Bet or no bet. Girl or no girl.

I start with Francavilla. He shuts his locker and I'm standing there. Waiting. ‘Faltrain, you scared me.'

‘How long have we played soccer together?'

‘What?'

‘Answer the question. How long have we played soccer together?'

‘Six years.'

‘And how many times have I won us the game?'

‘I don't know.'

I push him into the lockers. ‘Think about it.'

‘Hundreds. More than hundreds.'

‘That's right. And am I a boy or a girl?'

‘Is that a trick question?'

‘Exactly. On the field, it doesn't matter. I'm bringing some more girls from the state trials to get a little practice with us on Saturday. You'll kick to them and watch their backs as if they were me. You got a problem with that?'

‘No.'

‘That's the right answer.' I let him go and find the other guys. One by one. That's how you change things.

‘So, you're not talking to Flemming ever again?' Corelli asks at lunch.

‘I've got nothing to say.' I kick the ball. Hard. Kally catches it on her foot and slams it back.

‘So, is anything wrong with Jane?' he asks. I actually have
to bite my lip so hard I taste blood but I don't say anything. ‘It's only, when I try to talk to her she runs away.'

‘Am I the only one who's going to call this like it is?' Kally asks. I wave my hands at her. No, pull out, danger up ahead. I drag my hands across my throat. It's no good. Kally's about to spill Jane's heart on the grass at Corelli's feet. ‘I mean, I haven't known you and Jane long, but hello, check out the steam in the kitchen.' Okay, she really spilled it. There's no way we can put a spin on that.

‘What?' he asks.

‘She likes you,' Kally says, speaking slowly.

‘Faltrain?' Corelli asks. I run. I run and don't stop until I reach the quad.

‘It wasn't me,' I say when I find Jane.

‘Wasn't you what?'

‘Wasn't me who told Corelli you like him. Kally did.'

‘I'll be in the toilet if anyone needs me,' she says. ‘And if Corelli comes looking and you tell him where I am, I will hunt you down. I will kill you.'

It's like I said, though. There are some things you can't hide from. Even in the girls' toilets.

Okay. I'm sick of living in the toilet. I have to face him. Soon.

Liking someone who doesn't like you sucks. Especially when they did like you but someone prettier came along. The only thing worse than liking someone who doesn't like you is when that person you like finds out that you like them. Clearly, I am a girl on the edge. Of what, I'm just not sure.

Mr Faltrain drives me to Corelli's on Friday night. ‘Is everything okay?' he asks. ‘Not missing home, are you?'

‘At the start of the year I wanted to go back. Now, I'm not sure what I want.'

I don't know if I'm thinking about staying because I've been so happy hanging out with Corelli or if it's really something I want. My GPS guiding system started misfiring after I took that first trip in his car. It's been on the blink ever since.

‘Home's so built into us,' Mr Faltrain says. ‘Maybe you'll migrate for a while, stay with us for the summer and go back to England before our winter starts.'

‘Still hooked on the Discovery Channel, hey Mr Faltrain?'

‘It's addictive. Last night I watched a special on hummingbirds. You're one of our family, Jane. You have a home with us any time.'

I watch him drive away and then knock on Corelli's door. ‘I like you as a friend' is written all over his face.

We stand on either side of the bench and he explains, in great detail, how to cook rice so we don't have to talk. ‘Okay,' I say after he moves on to couscous and other grains. ‘I know Kally told you. Let's get it out there.'

He puts the lid on the rice. ‘Yeah, that was weird.'

‘Weird how?'

‘She doesn't even know us. I mean, why would she say that?'

I get mad, then, and I make it a policy not to lose control. I've seen Faltrain do it. It's not a pretty look. But Corelli's making this even more humiliating than it needs to be. ‘Wake up and smell the, the . . . okay, help me out here, I'm looking for a food analogy.'

‘Coriander?'

‘Good. Wake up and smell the coriander, you idiot. Would I sit in your car over and over while you sang Britney Spears if I didn't like you? Did you think I'd suddenly turned Pop Princess?'

He backs up a little. ‘I thought we were friends. The last time I made a move you threatened to glue my lips together.'

‘The last time you made a move was in primary school. I didn't have access to anything stronger than Clag. I didn't mean the situation to be permanent.' I sit down. ‘It doesn't matter anyway. You've got a girlfriend.'

‘I don't know what you want me to do.'

‘Clearly, I want you to say you like me and dump Francesca.' His face gets the way it does when his pasta is overcooked. ‘I'm joking.'

‘You're not; I can tell. You know, I liked you all through Year 7 and I liked you in Year 8 and then I liked you in Year 9. I even liked you when you weren't here. But you never even looked at me, not till you found out I had a girlfriend.'

‘That's not true.'

‘It is. No one looked at me like a boy before that. And then Francesca came along and she liked me. She's gorgeous and not just in looks, I mean she's kind and funny and yeah, I like her. I never imagined when you and I started hanging out that you'd want anything more than friends. You're not even planning on being here next year, are you?'

‘I wasn't. But now I'm not sure.'

‘I'm not giving up Francesca because for the next six months you want me to cook for you and drive you around.'

This is all going wrong, I think, and as I do the lid bounces off the pot and nearly hits Corelli in the face. ‘It's gluggy now,' he says. And then he slams me with the closer. ‘She's back tomorrow.'

‘You didn't tell me.'

‘I kept trying. You've been treating me worse than the plague.'

He's right. I knew he was going to tell me and I didn't want to hear. ‘I have to go home.' But I sit there for a while longer because my feet won't move.

‘Well?' Corelli asks after a while. ‘Do you want some dinner or are you leaving?'

That's the million-dollar question, I think, as I sit on a park bench waiting for Mr Faltrain. I lean back and look at the sky. It's orange and empty. All the birds have gone for the winter. How do they know where they're meant to be? Maybe whoever told them could let everyone else in on the secret.

I haven't been working at the neighbourhood house for long but it's enough to make me realise that the reason I've never had contact with the people I help is that it's not any fun. It's much better to help them from a distance.

‘I still don't understand,' I say to the kids I'm playing cards with this afternoon.

‘What are you, stupid?' Foster Williams asks. Foster Williams always asks me if I'm stupid even though I've told him I have one of the highest IQs in the state for my age. ‘If you put the same card down then it's canasta.' He shakes his head. ‘It's still your turn.'

I thought canasta would be better than Scrabble. We stopped playing that last Friday because the only words the kids wanted to spell were ones that I didn't think Janet would want on the board. ‘There.' I put a card down.

Foster shakes his head. ‘Another dumb move. Two wins to Foster Williams,' he says, and shuffles again.

A girl my age called Tracy laughs. She looks at me with smokey-lined eyes and perfectly messy hair. I push up my glasses and look back. ‘Nice skirt,' she says in the same voice Susan would use. Who needs to go to New York? I'm in a city where I don't belong every day.

‘You're doing well this week,' Janet says near the end of my shift. ‘Mr Jacobson mentioned that you helped him fold his washing.' She puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Maybe let him fold his own underwear next time.'

‘The kids hate me.'

‘They're testing you.'

Usually I'm good at tests. But it's like this one is written in another language. I asked to watch TV with the kids the other afternoon and they made me be the antenna. I knew it was useless because the human body won't improve a bad reception but I did it anyway.

I was holding my arms up when the old woman from my bus stop walked in. She looked at me and snorted. ‘Are you stupid? That won't help.' I know it won't help, I thought. I'm trying to bond with the children. ‘Get out of the way, Alyce,' Foster yelled. See, I'm bonding, I thought.

‘Alyce, love, this is Roberta,' Janet said. ‘She visits the centre a lot. Could you make her a cup of tea?'

‘Don't make it as weak as your face.' Roberta laughed and the kids joined in.

‘No,' I say to Janet this afternoon. ‘They really do hate me.'

‘Roberta's teasing. She likes you. I wondered if you could stop by her unit on your way home? She hasn't been in for a few days and she always comes on a Friday for the biscuits.'

I don't want to. I'm scared of Roberta. She smells, too.

‘She only lives one street down from you. I'll feel better if I know she's okay before the weekend.'

‘Okay, I'll go.' Anything has to be better than another game of canasta.

I knock on the door of unit one. ‘Hold your horses.' Feet shuffle on the other side of the wood. ‘Who's there?'

‘Alyce Fuller.'

‘I don't know anyone by that name.'

‘I made you tea at the neighbourhood house.'

‘That's right. You're the one who makes it weak and never brings me a biscuit.'

You never asked for a biscuit, you old cow. I take three deep breaths to control myself. I haven't been this angry since the government wouldn't sign the Kyoto Agreement. Old people are meant to bake cakes and say ‘dear' a lot.

‘Janet sent me to check you're all right,' I say when she opens the door. Roberta's dressing gown flaps open and her white legs remind me of plucked chickens. I look away. Her place is neat, but I have a feeling that if it were lighter I'd see a layer of dust over everything. I don't want to sit down in this place where her bed, kitchen and couch are all in the one room. Through the side door I see a tiny bathroom and it makes me feel sad. There's a smell in the air, too. ‘Soup,' Roberta says, watching me. ‘Stinks, doesn't it?'

‘No.'

‘Don't lie. I can't see well but I smell good. The Meals on Wheels people drop it off early on Fridays.' She waves at the foil container. ‘It fills the place.'

‘Would you like me to heat it up for you?'

‘Can't be fussed.' She waves her bandaged hand. ‘Burnt myself last time I tried.'

‘It can't be very nice cold.'

‘What does it matter? I can't taste anything. Sit.' She waves at a chair. ‘Tell me about yourself.' She curves forward and chews her lip the whole time I'm talking. ‘You must bore the living daylights out of your friends,' she says after a while.

For a second I think I've heard wrong, but a sentence like that is hard to mistake. ‘I used to. Sometimes I still do,' I say, and then it seems like a good time to leave.

I call Janet when I get home. ‘Roberta's fine.'

‘You sound like it didn't go well.'

‘She said I was boring.'

‘It takes longer to get to know some people than it does others.'

‘None of them want to get to know me.'

‘For heaven's sake, Alyce, you've only just started. Do you want the truth?'

No. ‘Yes.'

‘You look like you'd rather be anywhere else but there.'

‘I'm scared.'

‘I know. Keep trying with Roberta and Foster. I have a feeling they'll let you in eventually. So, will we see you next week?'

‘Yes,' I say. But I wonder: if I hadn't already sent off my application, would I go back? I feel like an idiot in that place. I want to walk in there with the list of things I've done and
say, ‘Here. I've helped people for years. I'm good at it. Now let me help you.'

I call Andrew after I hang up from Janet. He's the one I want to talk to about this. I want to check that he's okay, too. I keep thinking about him, tearing the bits off his sandwich and throwing them to the birds. He's sat in English all week, staring out of the window half of the time, and trying to act like he's not staring at Gracie the other half.

‘You could have asked me how I was at school,' he says. ‘Only you're not talking to me in front of Faltrain.'

‘It's not easy. I'm Gracie's –'

He cuts me off. ‘What do you want, Alyce?' ‘

To talk.'

‘You've got a boyfriend for that,' he says, and hangs up.

I can't sleep. I'm so mad at Andrew. I replay the phone conversation over and over. Each time I give him a piece of my mind. I replay my conversation with Roberta, too. I call her rude and old and mean. I guess I'm no Angelina Jolie. I pull out Brett's book. I put it back again. I think my life is best kept in my head.