Howzat! (10 page)

Thursday—afternoon

‘Toby, we’re coming with you,’ Georgie said defiantly.

I was glad Rahul, Jay and the girls had decided to come back to the cricket camp. Rahul had hinted yesterday that he would be back to watch the game, but I was surprised to see who he’d brought with him. I’d filled them in on the events of last night and this morning.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said. ‘Jim would—’

‘Jim’s not here to say anything, Toby. We’ll just wait in the background, to make sure everything goes okay.’

‘You need us, Toby,’ Jay said.

I looked at Ally. She didn’t appear as enthusiastic as the others.

‘Well, I’m staying here to watch the cricket,’ Rahul said, already gazing out at the action on the field. The Aussie team was 6 for 88 and struggling.

‘What about Jimbo?’ Georgie said, looking across to the players’ viewing room.

‘No way,’ I said. ‘He was already getting a few dirty looks for spending so much time away from the team. We won’t be seeing him for the rest of the day.’

We said goodbye to Rahul, bought some food and drinks from the Hugh Trumble Café and headed upstairs. I noticed Ally was lagging a few paces behind.

‘No wonder Smale is heading interstate for a while,’ Georgie said, following me into my room.

‘Why?’ asked Jay. ‘Wow, you can see the play from here,’ he called, racing over to the huge window.

‘Well, it’s obvious. He wants to lie low for a few days, in case something comes up about Toby.’

‘This is very weird, Toby. Right now you’re supposed to be dead,’ Jay said, staring at me.

‘Only according to one person.’

‘C’mon, Toby. Let’s go,’ Jay said. He seemed jumpy. Why was I taking them, I asked myself. People you took with you changed in the new time. They became stubborn. Like Rahul in India and Jay in Hobart.

Georgie was staring at me.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You don’t want us to come with you, do you?’ she said.

‘It’s not that. It’s dangerous.’

‘Oh, save me, Toby,’ said Jay. ‘Why should
you
get all the fun?
You
get invited to the cricket camp.
You
play on the MCG wicket.
You
train in the indoor nets and swan around the place with your ID security badge as if you own the joint. And as if that’s not enough,
you get to go on these amazing time travel adventures just because you happen to have this gift. Why doesn’t any of that stuff happen to me?’ Jay took a swig from his drink, wiped his mouth and sat down.

‘You finished?’ Ally asked, eyebrows raised.

‘I guess,’ Jay mumbled. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to take you,’ I said again. ‘But stuff happens when I take people. Things change.’

‘We’ll wait here for you.’ The disappointment in Georgie’s voice was obvious.

I looked at my friends, whose heads were bowed. Suddenly they were more important to me than anything else—maybe even Jim. They were my future. All the hours we’d spent together playing cricket, talking, listening to music, just hanging out…I didn’t want to lose that.

‘C’mon,’ I said, taking the
Wisden
off the shelf. ‘Ally, you find the spot. But remember, we do nothing but give this guy the scorecard. Then we go. It’s a pretty spooky place anyway, and you won’t want to hang around.’ I looked at each of them, saw the excitement flushing their faces. ‘Deal?’

‘DEAL!’ Jay and Georgie cried together.

Opening the
Wisden
, I passed it across to Ally. Georgie struggled to hide her disappointment.

‘Ally was really quick last time,’ I said lamely. As if it mattered. But it obviously did to Georgie.

‘Should Ally even be coming?’ she said. ‘I mean, remember what happened last time.’

‘Hey,’ Ally said, holding her hands in the air, ‘I have no intention of going. I’m not going through all that again. No offence, Toby, but I’m staying right here.’

‘That’s probably best,’ I said. I felt Georgie’s hand take mine. ‘Ok. Remember—say nothing. We’ll be back before you know it.’

I looked down at the open
Wisden
. It was the same one Jim, Ally and I had used a few days ago. The page was dog-eared.

‘Find the number 99 on the page, Ally, then go back a couple of scores. We’ve got to arrive before we did last time.’

‘Got it,’ she said. ‘There’s a 5 just above it.’

I stared into the swirl of letters and numbers.

‘Go further up,’ she said. I followed her finger as it moved slightly up the page. ‘There’s a 59. That’s the first number.’

The 5 slowly appeared from the cloudy grey mess around Ally’s finger. ‘Got it,’ I whispered, ‘59. Hang on to the
Wisden
, Ally.’

We were gone.

The gurgling noise in my ears quickly subsided. ‘Come on,’ I said, moving forward briskly. We could hear the dull roar of the crowd above us, but for once I wasn’t interested in seeing the action. The others jogged behind me.

‘Can we just go and see Bill Lawry bat?’ Jay asked, trying to keep up.

‘No!’ I said firmly, not looking around.

Like last time, there were very few people in the library. An elderly man wearing a dark blue blazer looked over his glasses at us as we entered.

‘We’re Jim’s friends,’ Georgie said, walking past him confidently.

Looking slightly bewildered, he started to fold his newspaper.

‘This way,’ I said, leading the way to the shelves near the back. Grabbing a
Wisden
from the display, I held it up to the little glass window like Marcus had and waited. Nothing happened.

‘What are you doing?’ Jay hissed. ‘Can’t you just open the door?’

I moved the book closer to the glass so it was almost touching.

‘Toby, the old guy’s coming over,’ Georgie said quietly.

‘Jay, distract the dude in the blue jacket, quick,’ I said. Jay trotted back, saying something about a missing school bag he’d left up here last week.

‘C’mon, Toby,’ Georgie urged.

‘There!’ A small clicking sound was followed by the door easing open a few centimetres.

‘We’ve found it, Jay,’ I called, pushing the door open.

Georgie followed me inside, then Jay a moment later. I shut the door quickly.

‘What do you think?’ I said, turning around to see their reaction. No one answered. Spinning back
around, I found myself face to face with Hugo Malchev. He stood only a metre away, smiling, his arms folded.

‘Well, well,’ he said, surveying us with contempt. ‘You’ve brought along some friends, Toby Jones. That was rather foolish. What are we to do with them?’

‘I-I’ve got the scorecard for you. Then we go again,’ I stammered, pulling the card out of my pocket.

‘Do you understand what’s happening here?’ Malchev said, frowning and taking a step towards Georgie. Georgie edged away, bumping into the wall behind her.

‘Not totally.’

‘You see, I am the victim here, not the villain. I was the one who suffered. No one had considered the possibility of a Test match being washed out. Oh no. Not one of these brilliant men who became Cricket Lords. But it was worse than that. That game
could
have started;
should
have started. But it didn’t, because someone wanted me dead. Someone wanted me to stay in this crypt for ever. But I escaped. And then I returned for the seventh Test at the same ground, and thus I became a Cricket Lord.’

‘So why don’t you just leave everyone alone now?’ I said. ‘You’ve got what you wanted.’

‘Toby, let’s get out of here,’ Georgie whispered. Jay was looking pale.

‘Revenge, Toby Jones. Perhaps children don’t know about revenge. But if you were left to die in a room without food or water—’

‘But you’re a Cricket Lord,’ I said. I was surprised by the boldness in my voice.

‘Not strictly. I am yet to be appointed, and that can only be done by a Cricket Lord. A living Cricket Lord. In exchange for your life, Toby Jones, Jim Oldfield will appoint me and thus grant my wish.’

‘Where is Jim?’ I asked.

Malchev glared at me. ‘Watching the game from up in the stands somewhere, I imagine.’ He laughed. ‘Now give me the scorecard.’ He thrust out his long, white arm.

I took one last look at the card then placed it on his hand, wondering whether this was better or worse than Phillip Smale owning it.

‘Now, if you want to see the old man one last time, take these two home and come back alone,’ he snarled, waving his arm at Georgie and Jay.

‘C’mon, Toby. Let’s go!’ Jay cried, grabbing my arm.

I looked up at Malchev. ‘Is Jim alive?’ I asked.

‘Well, you’ll have to wait until you return—alone—to find out,’ he sneered.

‘But you’ve killed the other Cricket Lords!’ I shouted. ‘You’ve killed them all.’

Malchev turned away and strode off into the gloom of the chamber. I felt the others near me, clambering in close. Suddenly the room was filled with an awful screeching sound.

‘TOBY!!’ Georgie shrieked, her fingernails digging into my hands.

Hugo Malchev was swooping towards us, his long cloak billowing out behind. I ducked instinctively, but felt his strength suddenly tear me away from the others.

‘THE POEM!’ Jay shouted.

Hands and arms grasped at me as I squeezed my eyes shut, desperately trying to recall two of the lines.

‘Perhaps I should be done with you now!’ I heard Malchev shriek as he smashed into me.

I went sprawling, my head crashing against the stone wall behind me. But my grip on Georgie held firm. Jay landed on top of us both.

What wonders abound, dear boy, don’t fear.

The words came out in a shouted, garbled mess, but they were out. Someone gripped my arm, pulling me away. Did I have Jay? I reached out for him and saw the look of terror on his face. I could feel Georgie breathing hard next to me.

These shimmering pages, never clear.

‘No, you don’t,’ Malchev roared, and wrenched me so hard I thought he’d pull my arm out of its socket. I collapsed onto the floor, my arms swinging back and slapping the stones hard. I’d lost Georgie and Jay.

‘Where are they?’ I gasped, looking around in desperation.

Hugo Malchev laughed.

‘I said, where are they?’ Anger overtook fear. With a strength I didn’t know I had, I leaped to my feet and lunged at him, pinning him briefly against the wall behind us. He pushed me away, sending me flying across the chamber. Then he turned his back on me and walked over to the
Wisden
cabinets.

‘Your
Wisden
still glows with the strength of three of you,’ he said. ‘Your friends have not returned to your time. They will be at the eternal cricket match, out on Dismal Swamp.’

‘What swamp? Where? What are you talking about?’ I gasped, trying to get up.

‘I’m sorry, Toby Jones, but I’m going to have to kill you,’ Malchev said, turning to face me. ‘You are a traveller, and thus a potential Cricket Lord. And that can’t be. My life doesn’t begin until I have eliminated all the Cricket Lords and time travellers. And now I have the scorecard, no one else can interfere. I shall just have to trick the old man.’

‘But I’m
not
a Cricket Lord!’ I screamed at him, hot tears stinging my eyes.

‘No. Not yet you’re not,’ he said quietly.

‘What about my friends? And Jim?’ I turned away slightly and started reciting the first lines of the poem again.

‘I can take you to the Swamp to save your friends,’ Malchev interrupted. ‘It will do you no good to go home, Toby Jones. I’m afraid you’re beyond that now. Look at the
Wisden
. See how it fades?’

Slowly, I made my way over to where Malchev was standing. A pale yellow light washed over the 1968
Wisden
, making it brighter than the others.

‘You can stare at the
Wisden
and watch your friends die,’ Malchev told me. ‘I have done it myself a few times.’

‘You’re sick,’ I said, spitting the words out.

‘Once I have killed all the travellers and Cricket Lords, no new appointments can ever be made again. And after Jim Oldfield appoints me—believing that he is saving your life by doing so—I will kill him, the last of the Cricket Lords. Then I will rule the game for eternity.’

‘There’s one thing you don’t have,’ I said, staring up into his ugly face. ‘Father Time.’

‘What would you know about Father Time?’ he scoffed, shaking his head. But the fleeting doubt that crossed his face told me I’d hit on a weak spot.

‘Do you want your friends to live?’ he asked, quickly regaining his composure and holding his arm out to me. I looked through my tears at his grim face and took his hand. There was nothing else I could do.

‘As much as you want Father Time,’ I said boldly.

‘Oh, I doubt that, Toby Jones.’

A cold wind with icy tendrils swirled around me. Hugging myself for warmth I stumbled on, trying to stay close to Hugo Malchev, a vague ghostly figure that disappeared then reappeared through the grey misty fog.

‘How much further?’ I gasped, shivering.

A bird swooped down on us and I saw Malchev duck. It squawked and flew on. I looked up into the grey sky but could see nothing. All around us were grey and black trees, stunted and bent; their weird twisted shapes like grotesque creatures.

‘Don’t speak to anyone,’ Malchev called, not turning. I wondered what he meant. Who would there be to speak to?

And then I heard it. The unmistakable sound of bat on ball. It came from away to the left. There was a cricket match happening.

‘Who’s playing?’ I asked. It wasn’t really the weather for a game of cricket, but I was dying to see some green grass. Malchev didn’t reply.

Straining every sinew in my body to hear another cricket sound I pressed on, head down, following Malchev’s steps along the beaten path. And then the smell hit me. It reminded me of Chennai, when I took Rahul there, only ten times worse. It was putrid. I gasped as I felt the stench enter my mouth. My throat tightened.

‘Keep moving,’ Malchev ordered.

Coughing and gasping, I plunged on. The fog had got thicker and I wasn’t aware that Malchev had stopped until I bumped into him.

‘Over there,’ he said.

I followed his arm. Between two gnarly, blackened trees I could just make out the shape of an oval. The mist in that area was thinner. Weird-looking creatures stood about in groups.

‘The timeless cricket match,’ Malchev whispered. I looked at him; even he appeared spooked by the place. ‘Not somewhere you want to linger for too long. Let us hope your friends are still alive. Stay close.’

He set off quickly. I could hear a dull murmuring noise, which became louder as we made our way over a small rise and then down a worn path to the oval itself. I gasped. The figures standing around were the
most frightening people I’d ever seen—if they were in fact people. They wore long robes and capes, which made their features hard to distinguish, but as we passed, I caught glimpses of torn, mangled, decaying faces, the flesh grimacing and twisted. I thought of the guy I’d rescued from being crushed by a train near the MCG. Were these creatures time travellers who had died away from their own time? And were their bodies now decaying slowly? Was this where I’d have ended up if I’d died in the truck? A half-human, halfghost creature whose punishment was to be stuck at a cricket match that never ended?

I stopped, frozen in terror. Suddenly the creatures were moving towards me. I gagged, my hand involuntarily covering my mouth as they swarmed around me.

‘Malchev!’ I cried.

There was the sound of bat on ball again, and suddenly a chink of light appeared between the hooded creatures. I darted through, and saw Malchev striding back towards me.

‘I told you to stay close,’ he hissed.

‘Who are they?’ I asked, not daring to turn back to look.

‘Cricket watchers,’ he snapped. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

I looked out to the oval. The two umpires, wearing long black gowns and white hats, were discussing something mid-pitch. ‘Are they real?’ I whispered, nodding towards them.

‘They are spirits. This is the timeless game. As long as this match is playing, cricket will be played in the real world.’

The players were faint, ghost-like images, tall and dreamy. The game appeared to be playing in slow motion.

‘Where are we?’ I had my doubts that we were still even on planet Earth. ‘How long have they been playing?’

‘As long as cricket has been played,’ Malchev replied, then suddenly held up a hand. I followed his gaze.

‘It’s Georgie and Jay!’ I cried. Through the haze I could make out two small kids huddled together beneath an old wooden scorebox.

‘Shut up,’ Malchev scolded, glancing around. Some of the players and one of the umpires had turned to look at us. He squatted, turning away from the game, dragging me down with him. ‘Head down,’ he whispered. ‘You interfere with this game and you interfere with cricket.’

We stayed there a few moments. I stole a couple of glances at the players. They were dressed like real cricketers, with heavy white jumpers and oldfashioned caps. Their whites were more a yellowycream colour. Some of them had big moustaches and long beards.

‘Are they players from the first
Wisden
?’ I asked.

‘No one knows. I’ve heard that each player is a mixture of the cricketing talent and the character of
all the dead cricketers in the world. When the game pauses, that means another cricketer has died, and their spirit is absorbed into one of the players on the oval there.’

It was the most Hugo Malchev had ever spoken, and I was surprised by the softness of his voice. He caught me staring at him.

‘I was a cricketer once and a great lover of the game,’ he said. ‘But someone tried to take that privilege away from me. When I sat dying in the Sanctum, I vowed that if I got out alive that person would pay dearly for their crime.’

I turned back to the game. The cricketers shimmied and swayed in the mist, finally settling down as a bowler trundled in from a few paces to bowl a ball. Someone clapped his hands. The ball was delivered and pushed gently back down the wicket by the batter.

‘What’s the score?’ I whispered as Malchev slowly got to his feet.

‘You don’t want to know,’ he answered, hauling me up.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Knowing the score is like knowing the time of your death. It could be 9 for 343 in the second innings, with only one wicket to fall before the game ends.’

‘So?’

‘When this game ends, so does the game of cricket as we know it. Once I am the ultimate Cricket Lord, I will ensure that never happens.’

‘I can help you,’ I said desperately.

Malchev looked at me and smiled. ‘Oh no, Toby Jones,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You are of no use to me. You have helped me enough. That’s the only reason I’m here trying to find your friends.’

There was a shout from the oval. Terrified, I looked at the umpire. What if this was the end of the game? The umpire shook his head. The bowler smiled and walked slowly back to the top of his run.

We raced around to the far side of the oval. ‘Georgie?’ I cried, rushing towards her.

She looked up sleepily, nodded and then collapsed. Jay was lying next to her. There were a few spectators standing nearby, eyeing them warily.

‘Guys, I’m here!’ I said loudly.

Malchev was looking about, his eyes darting from one curious onlooker to the next. ‘Someone has kept the watchers away from your friends,’ he muttered under his breath.

I hauled Georgie to her feet. ‘C’mon, Georgie. We’re going home.’ She fell into me, all her weight against me. Staggering back, I grabbed her shoulders and held her away from me. I turned around to ask Malchev to help, but he had gone.

The shrouded figures moved towards us. Lowering Georgie to the ground carefully, I called out softly, ‘Jay.’ He stirred briefly. The shadows moved in closer. ‘Grab my hands, quick, and hold on tight,’ I ordered.

What wonders abound, dear boy, don’t fear

These shimmering pages, never clear.

The coldness pressed in close, smothering me with icy dampness. And then, suddenly, we were back inside the Sanctum. I repeated the lines. When I opened my eyes I saw Jimbo, his back to us, staring out of the window.

‘Jimbo!’ I gasped, suddenly feeling the warmth of the room surging through me.

‘Hey, Toby! You missed the best game. Hey, you guys okay?’

‘I’ve missed the whole game?’ I asked, surprised. Surely we’d only been gone twenty minutes or so?

‘I assume you left pretty well straightaway around lunchtime,’ Jimbo said. ‘Well, it’s now just after six. Rahul’s already gone home.’

I turned to look at the others. They were pale and shivering, but smiling.

‘Boy, are we glad to see you, Jimbo Temple,’ Georgie said, slowly getting to her feet. ‘Where’s the nearest shower before I freeze to death?’ she asked.

After a series of phone calls to organise for the guys to stay on later, Jimbo and I left to scrounge some food.

By the time we got back, Georgie and Jay were looking better; still a bit frightened, but definitely less pale.

I told them all as much of my conversation with Hugo Malchev as I could remember, as we devoured the hamburgers, toasted sandwiches, sausage rolls and cans of drink Jimbo and I had brought back.

After an hour of eating and talking, there were still plenty of questions to answer.

‘Priority one is surely Jim, but where is he?’ Georgie said, leaning back against the bedhead and closing her eyes.

I looked at my watch. We were supposed to be meeting her mum outside Gate 1 at nine o’clock. We still had forty minutes left together.

‘I’d like to know where that spooky swamp place was you sent us, Toby,’ Jay said.

I glared at Jay. ‘I didn’t send you there.’

‘Then who did?’

‘As if Toby would send us to that place,’ Georgie said. ‘It must have been that Hugo Malchev guy. Then he gets the guilts and comes and rescues us.’

‘No, it was both of us,’ I said slowly. ‘I lost you in the travel back. Malchev was pulling me away from you. I reckon you ended up travelling in time without me and got lost. Maybe the swamp’s where you go if you’re disconnected during the travel.’

‘Or if you’re a dead cricketer?’ Jimbo looked at me doubtfully.

‘Well, that’s what Malchev said.’

‘Hey!’

We all turned to look at Georgie. She’d opened her eyes again and was leaning forward. ‘There’s a
Test match coming up, isn’t there? An Ashes Test match?’

‘Yeah. Boxing Day. What of it?’ Jay said.

‘Well, if this Hugo Malchev wants to keep on being the Cricket Lord, won’t he need to be in that Sanctum room at the start of the Test match? You know, to be voted in?’

‘But there’s no one to vote him in,’ Jimbo said. ‘They’re all dead.’

‘All except Jim,’ I said. ‘That’s Malchev’s plan. He’s going to convince Jim that by appointing him as the new Cricket Lord, Jim will be saving my life.’

Jimbo interrupted the silence that followed.

‘That’s two Ashes Tests we’ve got to worry about.’ He took a long swig from his can.

‘We?’ I asked.

‘That’s what I said. You’ve had other things on your mind, but I checked the team on the board.’ He was grinning at me.

‘I made it into the Australian side?’ I raced over to him.

‘Yeah, well, don’t kiss me or anything.’

After some high-fives and hugs, Ally brought us back to reality.

‘So, Jim’s disappeared, Malchev has the scorecard and is killing off all the Cricket Lords, Phillip Smale thinks you’re dead, and you’ve just come back from some sort of cricket hell with ghosts and creepy weirdos. If it hadn’t been for the tall albino guy, you’d probably be dead now.’ Ally’s bottom lip was
trembling. She stood up. ‘I’ve had enough. I’m out of here. Toby, if I see you again, it’ll be on a cricket field. Nowhere else, okay?’

I nodded, wondering if I’d just lost a friend.

‘Yeah, I’m sort of with Ally on this one,’ Jay said, shaking his head. Jay would never have the guts to make the decision himself, but he was good at following. I didn’t say anything.

‘Georgie, you coming?’ Ally asked from the door.

‘Yep, hang on.’

‘I’ll walk you down,’ Jimbo said, and led the others out of the room.

‘You won’t lose
me
that quickly,’ Georgie said, taking my hand and smiling. We looked at each other.

‘What am I going to do?’ I asked.

‘What you always do, Toby. Come up with a stupid plan and somehow make it through.’

We both laughed. With Georgie still holding my hand, we ran out into the corridor.

‘Are you with me?’ I whispered.

She squeezed my hand. ‘I’ve always been with you. And right now I’m closer than ever. Come on!’