The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain (11 page)

gift
noun
: something given, a present;
colloquial
: anything too easily obtained

‘Coach, I'm going on that field today.'

‘Faltrain, after what happened yesterday, why should I let you on the field? No one kicks you the ball.'

‘Coach, you gave me a chance once before. Trust me this time.' I'm doing everything short of getting down on my hands and knees.

‘Give it up, Faltrain. You're on. I just wanted to see you beg.'

This game is more important that any of the others I've ever been in. Today I want to prove that I can play as part of the team. I want to give back a bit of what I've taken. If I do that, then there's a chance that they'll let Martin back into the game. We could have a chance at winning. And then maybe, just maybe, Martin will have a reason to come home.

The guys still aren't kicking the ball to me. Every instinct in me screams, just take it. But I wait. The other team never makes a mistake. Singh was one of our strongest players. Dalton's in his place but he's not enough. Without Singh
there's a hole in our defence. Every time they shoot, it's a goal.

In the last few seconds of the first half, I look up and see the face of my dad. He's in the stands, sitting next to Mum. I'm convinced I'm having some weird kind of hallucination brought on by guilt. As I'm squinting into the crowd, Martin finally gets the ball. I hear ‘Faltrain!' shouted across the grass, as if in slow motion, but it's not slow enough; I'm too distracted. I have a perfect shot at goal. The ball hits my boot and flies towards the keeper. We're all watching it soar towards the net; it seems to be dead centre. The crowd are so loud that I shut my eyes and block my ears. When I open them, the ball is outside the white lines. I've missed. Despite the yelling of the crowd, the only thing I can hear is the silence of my teammates.

‘FALTRAIN!' Of course, Coach is not quiet. He's mad. Madder than I've ever seen him before. His ears are red and his face is white. Any second smoke is going to start blowing out his ears.

‘Coach –'

‘Don't Coach me. You had a perfect shot at the goal and you BLEW IT!'

‘Hang on a minute.' Martin is standing next to me but I don't want his protection. I face Coach. Head on. I look the guys on my team in the eyes for the first time in months. ‘So I missed the goal. I stuffed up. But we're not winning out there for more reasons than just me.' I can feel a new Gracie's voice coming up from somewhere inside me. ‘We're not playing as a team. You're not kicking me the ball.'

‘
That
's funny, coming from you,' Flemming snarls.

‘You're right. I know why you don't want me out there.'

‘We don't want you because you're always out there kicking goals so you look good,' Flemming answers.

Martin cuts in. ‘Our problem is more than Faltrain. Singh's out until the next match and Dalton needs help in defence. We need Faltrain in lower midfield. From there she can help defend
and
push the ball forward. She's perfect. We need someone fast and strong. She can't help us if she doesn't have the ball, though.'

‘Thanks, Martin.' I say. I've got that feeling along my arms again.

‘How do we know she'll stay on her player?' Flemming asks. ‘If she tries to run forward for goals then we're
really
open for attack.'

‘Faltrain?' Martin asks me.

‘I won't.'

‘Why should we believe you?' Buckley asks.

I know there's no good reason why they should. ‘I won't stuff up,' I say. ‘Trust me. Let me back into the game.'

Slowly everyone nods. I know they have given me something that I have not earned.

‘Don't blow it, Faltrain,' Martin says to me. ‘Stay low in the midfield, run the ball up to me, I'll kick to Flemming.' We all run on together. The weight of ten hands thumps onto my back. If we lose this then we go home without winning a game. If we win then we have a chance.

Imagine yourself in the match. The wind is working against us. The opposition owns the ball; like a dog, it trails their ankles, runs where they tell it. For us the ball is a shadow. Uncatchable. They're firing balls like bullets.

They're playing rough. There's a bad feeling on the ground today. Maybe it's desperation. We both need to win this to
have a shot at the Championships. The defender on Martin is taunting him. Real quietly. Martin's ignoring him; he's trying to concentrate on the game. Then all of a sudden he snaps. I've never seen him look like this. Angry. Fists clenched. He throws a punch and misses. The ref red-cards him. He's off.

It's all the motivation we need.

They get a free kick. The centre forward kisses the ball for luck. ‘You'll need it,' I whisper. They score. And it's the last goal they get.

I slide my feet in between attackers and steal the ball, ignoring the studs that press into my legs. I flick it up on my thigh before kicking it over the striker towards the halfway mark. Corelli collects it and crosses to Flemming, who heads it home. Our team roars, running around the ground with arms spread wide.

We're in with a chance.

We send the ball flying back each time it comes close to their goal. We never let up.

The match ends on the whistle, and our last goal flies past the keeper.

We win the game, 6–4. Coach is going wild, the team members are piling on top of each other, yelling and laughing. I'm in the middle of them. Flemming is messing my hair and shouting the loudest. I'm trying to get away from them to look for Martin.

That's when I see Mum and Dad standing at the side of the field, giving me the thumbs-up sign. I run across the ground, hug them both. The wool of Dad's old brown cardigan scratches my nose. I look across and see Martin walking away from us.

‘Martin, wait!' I can't leave him here, with his smile that stops at his mouth. His eyes are like the ocean when the wind
is cold. His shirt is grubby around the wrists.

‘Martin, are you all right?'

‘Yeah. The ref said I could play in the next match.'

‘Martin, what did they say to you?'

‘Nothing. It doesn't matter, Faltrain. Nothing matters.'

‘It does matter. Martin, why aren't you coming home?'

At first I think he's not going to answer. He kicks at the dirt, puts his hands in his pockets.

‘Because Mum's not coming back. Because I can't stand it anymore.'

‘Maybe she will,' I say to him quietly. I say it even though I would give anything not to hear about this, about a home where you wait for the sound of a key in the door that never comes. I don't want to hear a story with this ending.

‘She won't.' The words sting at my face.

‘What about your dad?' I ask.

‘He's not coming back either.'

I think of all the things I could tell Martin that might make him get on that bus with me, that his mum might come back, that things with his dad will get better. I want them to be true but they would be lies.

‘What about your mum's sandwiches? There must be other good things. There must be other reasons to go back.'

Martin reminds me that Mum and Dad and me might not be together again. He makes me feel scared but I won't leave him standing here, the back of his shirt blowing him away from me like a sail.

 

I don't want to be like you, Mum. I can't leave and just imagine that things are all right back there. I can't stand the thought of Karen growing up thinking I hate her. Every time I want to leave I think, who'll pick her up after swimming training? I see her little feet walking along the side of the pool, trying not to slip. What about all that stuff, Mum? Do you still see that when you dream?

Part of me knows you do. Part of me knows exactly how you felt. I know what it's like to want to get away so bad you just run. I can't though. The thing is I can go away and everything else will stay behind, school, soccer, Dad and Karen, Gracie. But you'll come with me. It's not that I don't want you to, but I have to find a way to take the good stuff. I figure that's what you did. You left carrying all the laughs we had in your suitcase. That's why it has taken us so long to get on with it, I reckon, because you took it all and left us with nothing. And that's what we've had. Until now.

connect
verb
: to bind or fasten
together

How do you start again? You start with a touch, a word. I have no idea if it will work out between us. I thought it would the first time.

I let that thin thread start to spin out and stretch towards him. It's fine, barely visible. If we move quickly it will break so we must walk slowly, treat each other carefully.

I watch Gracie play that last game and see a hundred threads, a road map of webs, connecting every living thing to the next.

 

For the first time in years I'm in a hotel and I'm not lonely. Helen is in the next room. Gracie is down the hall. The winds are quiet. We are all exactly where we are meant to be. I've come in from the sea and the waves that have been tossing me around for months are shallow, lapping at sand. I'm playing at the edge; the sun is warm on my face. Helen and Gracie are next to me and we are laughing.

 

‘So, Dad, are you and Mum back together?'

‘No, honey. It's going to take a lot of time. Things might not work out between us.'

‘That's okay.' I don't know what to say after that. I'm scared for him.

‘I'm still the same, Gracie. I still love you more than anything in the world.'

‘I understand, Dad,' I say, and I think maybe I do.

Like he'd always told me, some things are grey. They're blurred at the edges like the sky when it's fading into night. It's a beautiful part of the day, even though you know it's going to get dark soon. There's calmness in the night, though; there are people there if you have a bad dream or feel sick. You can listen to the rain and know that you're safe, inside your house, with strong walls around you.

‘That guy, the defender. He said something about me, didn't he?' I'm sitting with Martin out the back of the hotel. It's cold and wet on the grass but neither of us moves to go inside. I'm taking this as a good sign.

‘I wouldn't deck a guy over you, Faltrain. I'd just stand back and let you knock him out yourself.'

‘Shut up, Martin, or I'll hit you.'

‘Exactly.'

‘So are you coming back with us?'

‘Yeah. At least for a little while. I'll see what happens.' Martin shifts his leg. Scratches his head. We both get very interested in the grass all of a sudden. I watch his hands, pulling at weeds. If I leave now, and Martin is waiting to make
a move, then I'll have missed my chance. But if I stay, and that's not what he's thinking, then it could be awful. Grass-picking definitely wasn't in the body language book.

‘Just don't stick your tongue in my ear, all right, Faltrain? I'm not into that kind of stuff,' he says. There's my sign. Direct. Just how I like it.

So I kiss him.

Was it good? Yep. Did Gracie Faltrain's issues with saliva get resolved? Absolutely. And it all happened underneath the stars. It was fate.

 

‘I like you, Faltrain,' I say after she kisses me. ‘I like you because you're going to win me the Championships.'

I know if I say it, then she will.

galaxy
noun
: a collection of stars,
intensely hot and producing their
own energy by nuclear reactions

We've made it to the final. Come with me onto the field. The opposition are brutal. They call themselves the Destructors. I look towards Martin and he gives me the sign. I see the player he wants me to stay on. I know what I have to do – I'm the bridge between our defence and attack. I replay his first words to me: ‘You're smaller than them, Faltrain. Get in there, get under them, get the ball.'

I tap the ball out from beneath a surprised Destructor and kick it far down towards centre. Martin picks it up and belts it into the goal. The other side react with force. The ball is ricocheted down from one side of the field to the next. We are goal to goal with them at half time and the score is 3–3.

Coach doesn't roar today. He calls us over and just stands there. ‘Team, you're making me proud out there. Real proud.' I've never played a match where Coach didn't break the sound barrier at half time.

Forty minutes into the second half and no one has scored.
The goalkeepers block the ball like steel fences. I can see Coach biting his nails. Every muscle in my body is tense. I am glued to my man. There's five minutes on the clock. Somebody needs to do something. Quick.

The opposition have apparently decided this too. Their defence steals the ball from Martin and kicks to the centre. In less than a second it's in their midfield. We've lost control. It's speeding towards the goal square, moving so fast I can barely see it. The noise of the crowd rises like waves, roaring support. Their wing attack has control. He flicks the ball up then kicks.

And that's when I run. I sense where the ball has gone before I see it. I angle my body and back-dive towards the ball, kicking it forward seconds before it enters the goal. Francavilla takes it and passes to Ed. There's no yelling between us; we move by instinct.

Ed passes to Martin who swings left at the last minute and crosses to Flemming. With three minutes to go a defender trails Flemming, so close they're sharing legs. At first I can't tell who has kicked the ball. It rises up and flies as the final whistle blows.

The spectators are silent as they watch it soar. I spot Mum and Dad in the stands. The ball is still in the air and they are already standing and cheering. If Jane was here I know she'd be standing with them. Faltrain, she'd say, I always said you could do it. I look around and see my team-mates, their mouths open and arms in the air.

Did our team kick it? You bet. Is it headed for the goal? Absolutely. Does it go in? Who cares? We're in it together. We've already won.

Welcome to the life and times of Gracie Faltrain.