Hat Trick! (4 page)

Dad liked Georgie. Being a bit of a writer himself, he was forever talking poems and stuff with her when she came round. And Georgie, of course, loved the attention.

‘Yeah, that would be great, Dad,’ I said as he flipped the card over to me.

‘Sounds good to me, Mr Jones,’ added Rahul.

‘Great. How about Wednesday? Cricket training’s on Tuesday and Thursday, isn’t it?’

‘Wednesday’d be great, Dad,’ I said, not sure if I was ready to go back to the library just yet.

Between March 1979 and March 1994 Allan Border (Australia) did not miss a Test match. This amounted to 153 consecutive Test match appearances. This put Border 47 Test matches ahead of his nearest rival, Sunil Gavaskar, from India.

Tuesday—afternoon

THE
gym was booked; Georgie hadn’t forgotten. I often met up with friends there at the start of lunchtime and usually other kids would call by and end up joining in. Even Jimbo had stopped in for a look one lunchtime a few weeks back. He sat on one of the long benches at the back of the gym and watched. He was eating a salad roll. I remember this because you are not allowed to eat in the gym. But no one was going to mention this little rule to Jimbo.

We played with three pieces of equipment: a stump for a bat, a set of kanga wickets and a tennis ball that was half-covered with black tape. It swung like crazy.

We picked a couple of teams.

‘Where’s your secret friend?’ I asked Georgie as I took my place behind the stumps to be keeper. Martian, the regular keeper, said he had a bit of a headache and was sitting out this game.

‘She’ll be here soon. And when she gets here, I want her to have a go at keeper, okay?’

‘Yeah, sure,’ I said.

Rahul whacked the first ball back past Jay and into the back wall for four. He had a great eye—even if he did wear glasses—and it always looked as if he was playing with a real bat.

‘Hey, Georgie, I’m here.’

A tall girl with long hair was standing at the door. I had seen her before, though she wasn’t in any of my classes.

‘Hey, Ally,’ Georgie called out. ‘Get in here. Toby, get out in the field, would you? Ally, go behind the stumps and just grab the ball if it comes your way, okay?’

‘Watch out, Marshall, looks like a girl’s gonna take your keeping job,’ said Scott Craven, who had just arrived with Gavin Bourke. I wondered if they had come with Ally.

I looked over at Martian to see if he would react to this teasing from Craven. But amazingly, he had his eyes closed and his head tilted up towards the roof.

I walked over to him.

‘Hey, Martian, you okay?’

He didn’t open his eyes but smiled slightly and put one thumb up in the air. ‘Sort of. Bit of a headache, but I’ll be okay.’

Meanwhile, Ally had got herself behind the stumps and was waiting for Jay to bowl. It was a wide one. Ally took it easily and flicked it back, low and hard, to Jay.

‘Okay? Now can I go?’

‘Ally! C’mon,’ said Georgie. ‘You said you’d stay for at least 10 minutes.’

‘Okay, 10 minutes. Nine now. Let’s do it!’

She was amazing. She didn’t miss a ball. And most of the deliveries went to her as most of us still couldn’t hit the ball with a stump. Her throws were neat and strong too. True to her word, though, she waved goodbye to Georgie about 10 minutes later and headed out the door.

‘Hey, Ally, did you enjoy it?’ Georgie called.

‘Yeah. Actually it was good. I’d like to stay, but I’ve got some stuff to catch up on.’

‘Ally’s a good keeper, huh?’ Georgie said, as we headed off to afternoon class.

‘Awesome,’ I replied.

‘She plays representative softball. She’s the catcher. I just thought it would be interesting to see if she could handle being a keeper.’

‘No problems there. Does she want to play?’ I asked.

‘Not sure.’

‘You want to add to that answer?’ Jay asked.

Georgie thought for a moment.

‘No.’

‘Pity,’ Jay responded.

We all turned. Martian had joined us, obviously having heard our conversation. Suddenly he stopped and headed for the library.

‘Hey, Martian,’ Georgie called out, ‘I don’t mean for her to take your place.’

But Martian didn’t turn around. He kept on walking.

‘Bummer! Toby, will you see him in class this arvo?’ Georgie asked.

‘Yeah, I’ll talk to him.’

‘Thanks. I really didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that it’d be nice to have another girl in the team, you know.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said.

As it turned out, I didn’t catch up with Martian during the afternoon. He didn’t show up at all. Instead, I spent a lot of the lesson thinking about how weird the MCG excursion had been. Jay didn’t seem to want anything to do with it and Georgie didn’t believe me. At least she didn’t believe the time travel bit. I needed to talk to someone smart, someone straight. Someone who’d call it as he saw it. I thought of Jimbo.

Jimbo always took a bus home from school, but it didn’t leave until 10 to four. I seized my moment.

‘Hiya, Jimbo.’

He looked at me and nodded. Not mean, or angry. Almost a bit surprised.

‘Can I ask you something?’

Again Jimbo nodded, without speaking.

‘Well, you know how we had that excursion last week, and I went to the MCG? Well, there was
this guy, an old guy…like, a really old guy actually…’

‘Yeah?’

‘His name’s Jim. Jim Oldfield.’

Jimbo was looking at me politely, waiting for me to finish.

‘Well, he told me some really weird stuff—’

‘Like what?’

It was hard to know where to start, as I knew the whole thing was going to sound stupid. A bus pulled up. Jimbo turned to look at it, then turned back to me.

‘So?’

‘Nah, it’s okay, Jimbo. Doesn’t matter. Is that your bus?’

‘Nope. Tell me, Toby. What did he say? You said it was weird. I want to know.’

It took a few minutes, but I told him everything. I even dragged the poem out of my pocket and showed it to him. Jimbo didn’t say anything. He just shook his head and whistled softly.

Another bus had pulled up.

‘This one’s mine. See ya, and thanks for telling me all that.’

He picked up his bag and climbed onto the bus.

And then I realised that I hadn’t asked him the one question I really wanted to know the answer to: why he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, play cricket for us. Maybe one day I would go and visit Jimbo and try to find out.

In an 1884 Test match between Australia and England, all 11 players, including the keeper, got to bowl for England. Guess who got the most wickets? Yes! The keeper! His figures were 12 overs, 5 maidens, 4/19. The first 200 scored in a Test match occurred in this game: Billy Murdoch made 211 out of Australia’s 551.

Wednesday—afternoon

WHEN
school finished I walked over to the car park behind the gym and met up with Jay and Rahul. Georgie arrived a few minutes later. She was coming to the MCG too and then staying at my house for dinner.

‘Did you speak to Martian, Toby?’ Georgie asked.

‘I didn’t see him all day. He told me in the gym at lunchtime yesterday that he was feeling sick, so maybe he went home.’

‘Georgie, get real. Your friend Ally won’t play cricket. She’s too pretty to play cricket.’

Oh, boy. Jay had just put his foot in it. Big time.

‘What?’ Georgie said to him, in a hissing tone.

‘Well, I mean, she doesn’t look the type, that’s all,’ Jay stammered.

‘Georgie, tell Ally what Jay said and then maybe she’ll play cricket,’ said Rahul.

We all looked at him, a bit perplexed.

‘You lot coming to the MCG?’ a voice yelled at us from an open car window a moment later.

Dad had arrived.

We piled our bags into the boot and jumped in.

‘Crikey, you kids don’t know how lucky you are. Getting to do projects on cricket! Can you believe it? In my day it was the Battle of Hastings and the Peasants’ Revolt.’

Dad chatted most of the way, and each of us was left to our own thoughts. I could imagine what some of those thoughts were.

Georgie would be wondering about how to get Ally playing cricket without hurting Martian’s feelings. Jay would be angry with himself for saying the first thing that came into his head, and he’d be thinking of a way to get back into Georgie’s good books.

‘Hey, Georgie, you want me to try to hunt out that book of cricket poems my uncle gave me for Christmas last year?’

(See, what did I tell you?)

And Rahul? Actually, I wouldn’t have a clue what Rahul would be thinking. I turned to look at him. He was staring out the window and smiling as we turned into the MCG car park. Probably smiling at Jay’s comment. Then again, it’s just as likely that he was thinking about something else.

As for me, I was getting a bit nervous about seeing Jim again, especially having Dad and the others with me.

But as it happened, I was in for a big disappointment. Or maybe it was relief. After we’d shown the little card to the lady at the desk, we were taken up to the old part of the stand. On the walls of the passageways were the old photographs and massive paintings. Cricket bats stood in a glass cabinet. Some of the old ones looked like paddles for a little rowing boat. When we walked into the library, there was no one sitting at the oval table. There was no pile of books lying scattered across it. The glass doors of the bookshelves were shut. They looked as if they hadn’t been opened in years.

The only person in the room was a man sitting in a green chair over to the left of the room. His glasses were pushed up on his forehead and a closed book lay in his lap. He appeared to be asleep.

Jay looked at me and smiled.

‘Just as well he’s not here, I reckon. Let’s forget it ever happened, eh?’

For a moment I was about to agree. But then I noticed the rows of brown and yellow
Wisden Almanacks
lined up across the top shelves. I walked over to them, reached up and tried to open the cabinet door. It was locked.

‘Found something interesting, mate?’ Dad asked me.

‘
Wisden
s, Dad. There’s one for every year since way back, with all the scores and stuff from every game played in that year.’ Dad was nodding his head and sighing.

‘Well, not quite every game, my boy, but all the important ones.’

My heart stopped. I wheeled around and found myself staring at a smiling Jim. I smiled too. The secret door in the wall had opened and closed. Dad was looking confused, though I felt safe with him standing next to me.

Dad held out his hand and introduced himself.

‘Good to meet you, Peter,’ Jim said, nodding his head as Dad introduced the others to him.

‘The kids are all doing cricket projects at school. They probably told you.’ Dad was prattling on. ‘That was a very kind invitation of yours, Jim. And what a treasury of old books.’

‘And some not so old either, Peter.’

Dad was nodding enthusiastically.

‘Right then, everyone. What are you all studying again?’ asked Dad. There was something tense and unsure about the moment, and I think Dad was picking up the vibes.

‘Well, I’m doing women in cricket. I’m really interested in what I’ve read about women inventing over-arm bowling.’

Georgie had spoken up, of course, and Jim moved over to a small table, grabbed a set of keys from a drawer and limped off to a distant bookcase.

‘Excellent, excellent!’ Dad was excited. He led us over to the table and we took out our folders to get stuck into a bit of serious research. It looked as if time travel was off the agenda—for that day, at least.

When everyone had settled down to a bit of study,
I sneaked a look at Jim. He was smiling at me. It was a gentle smile.

‘Peter, did you ever play cricket?’ Jim was still looking at me.

Dad looked up from where he was sitting on the floor with a huge book open on his knees.

‘Yes, I played a bit.’

Dad had never spoken much about his cricket-playing days. Well, to me he had, but the others didn’t really know that he used to play at a pretty high level. ‘At school,’ he added.

‘And what about after school?’ said Jim.

Dad looked at me. He shrugged.

‘Yes, and after school.’

‘Where, Mr Jones?’ Rahul asked. ‘Who for?’

‘You don’t want to hear…’

‘Toby’s dad here played for Victoria,’ Jim chimed in, his eyebrows raised.

I sensed the others looking up from their books.

‘They don’t want to know about that,’ said Dad, staring at Jim.

There was an uneasy silence.

‘Wow, Mr Jones, that is so cool! Did you play here, at the “G”?’ Georgie asked

Dad closed the book he was holding and said, ‘Well, Jim, I fear a little cat has been let out of a bag. You say those brown and yellow books up there have all the games played? Well, let’s pull down a few from the ’80s and see if we can find a Jones among a few others more famous.’

‘No!’ I jumped up from my seat.

‘It’s all right, Toby,’ said Jim.

Dad was looking at me strangely.

Jim had pulled down a
Wisden
. It had a hard yellow cover. I didn’t see the year. The others had gathered around. Jim was flicking through the pages. I couldn’t bear to look.

‘Here we are. Victoria versus South Australia. At the MCG.’

Slowly I looked up from the table in front of me to the open pages of the book. The letters and numbers swirled and blended, spinning round and round in a sea of black and white. I closed my eyes.

‘Here, let’s have a look,’ Dad said, reaching out for the book.

‘No!’ I yelled again.

But before I had a chance to stop him, Jim had passed the book over to Dad. I looked at Dad’s face. He was smiling.

‘It’s all right, Toby. They don’t bite. I think I’ve got a few of them stashed away somewhere. Ah, here we are! P. Jones, bowled, for 23. That was my highest score for Victoria. Jim, you’ve found the best page about me!’

‘Dad, you can read it?’

‘Yeeeees,’ he said slowly, ‘I picked up that handy skill about 35 years ago. Hadn’t I told you that?’

‘Did you get a bowl, Mr Jones? Or take a catch?’ Rahul asked.

‘Nope. Nothing. We won the game, though.’

Dad closed the book and handed it back to Jim.

‘Do you know, I can remember that game quite well,’ Jim said, nodding thoughtfully. ‘I was here in the library and I had a visitor. Quite a young visitor. Though unfortunately we never met. A most curious thing it was.’ It sounded as if Jim was rambling.

‘Well, I think we’ve probably taken up enough of your time, Jim.’

‘Oh, yes, by all means, yes indeed,’ Jim replied, though a bit hazily.

As Dad helped the others put their books away, Jim quietly called my name, then spoke softly.

‘Have you ever heard of talents skipping a generation? They say it of music and musicians. When my father read
Wisden
s, he read
Wisden
s. When I read
Wisden
s, I travel through time. Just as my grandfather did. I think it’s the same with you, Toby. Of course I can read the words now too. That takes time to learn, as you will discover.’

‘Okay then, people, ready to go?’ called Dad.

‘Can you all come again? It’s wonderful to see young people here learning about cricket.’

‘I’m sure they’d love to. What do you think, kids?’

Rahul and Georgie nodded. Jay was looking down at his shoes. I mumbled something that meant nothing.

‘Well, I think I can persuade them, Jim. As long as you don’t reveal any more secrets about me.’

They both laughed as we headed out.