Every single one of the eighth-grade teachers was wearing a white sweater—and so were some of the sixth-grade teachers, like Mrs. Harknet and Mrs. Wrubell and Mr. Solaski and Mr. Barkus. Mrs. Harknet decided that for reading that day, she would show a film clip. It was so old it was in black-and-white, but it had a Latin teacher playing cricket, and he was really, really good. (I know. This is hard to believe.) Mrs. Wrubell—who wore her white sweater under her lab coat—decided to take a day off from beakers and Bunsen burners to talk about the aerodynamics of cricket balls and why a ball swerves, and she drew a googly on the board and showed how you could predict the way it would move in the air. (I told Billy Colt it wouldn’t help him at all.) Mr. Solaski, who was walking around carrying a cricket bat, swinging it wrong because he didn’t keep his arm straight, decided to talk about the spread of an empire through examining the game of cricket in Australia, India, and Pakistan. And Mr. Barkus had every single word problem begin with “Two cricketers took their places at the wickets.”
At lunch, there were two lines. You could choose either fish and chips or butter chicken with curried rice. You can guess which line Team Britannia went to and which one Team India went to.
And in seventh period, when the whole school was released to the gym for the pep rally to pep up the Minutemen for their big Saturday football game against the Seton Badgers, one side of the gym started to chant “Bri-tan-nia” and the other started to chant “In-di-a” right after the Minutemen were introduced, and the Minutemen looked around sort of confused. Coach Krosoczka thought it was hilarious. Vice Principal DelBanco looked kind of mad, but there was nothing he could do, as Longfellow Middle School got pepped up for the first cricket match in its long and glorious history.
* * *
At the beginning of our last afternoon practice, the Butler reminded us that we had to be on the pitch by seven thirty sharp the next morning. “We have only two hours,” he said, “and though it is barbarous to shorten a cricket match, it is the case that the Longfellow Minutemen imagine the field belonging more to them than to us, with perhaps some justification, given the peculiar priorities in sport your country has taken. So, seven thirty in the morning without fail.”
“Which side are you rooting for?”
“Young Master Krebs,” said the Butler, “I do not ‘root.’ Pigs root. Hogs root. There are undoubtedly other porcine creatures that root. If, however, I were inclined to cheer—please note the correct verb, young Master Krebs—I would suppress the urge in favor of objectivity.”
“Does that mean you’re rooting for Team Britannia?” said Singh.
“In all matters save the present one,” said the Butler. “Now, shall we get to it?”
And we did. I bowled and bowled and bowled, and everyone batted, and the Butler hit to Team India’s slip and gully and cover and mid-off on the off side, and the mid-on and midwicket on the on side, and then we switched teams and the Butler hit to Team Britannia’s slip and gully and cover and mid-off and mid-on and midwicket, and I bowled and bowled and bowled until my arm was about to fall off and my spinning finger was red and a little bit raw.
“Young Master Krebs, young Master Singh, marked improvement in both teams. I predict a credible match tomorrow morning, which, though low scoring, will be hard fought, and since there have been more than a few well-known test matches of that description—one recalls the 1999 Cricket World Cup semifinal between Australia and South Africa, for example—we shall do the game proud.”
“And you’re rooting for Team Britannia, right?” said Singh.
“Imagine what you wish,” said the Butler.
* * *
By the time we got the equipment put away and we drove home in the Eggplant, it was already starting to get dark. Cold air was rising up, and the branches—mostly bare now—clacked against one another in a new wind.
“It may be that conditions will not be the best tomorrow,” said the Butler.
I looked out the window.
“But your first cricket match, young Master Carter. How splendid for you.”
And I guess I should have been pretty excited. I mean, how many sixth graders play on eighth-grade teams By Invitation Only? And how many get to be bowler? So I should have been pretty excited.
“We will need to attend to your finger,” said the Butler.
Except I was remembering how the first time I saw the blue air, my father said we should come back to Sydney again someday with all of us and right away I thought, We can never do that because Currier won’t be with us.
But I hadn’t thought, We can never do that because my father won’t be with us.
Stupid.
“Young Master Carter?”
Stupid.
“Some ointment and a plaster?”
Stupid.
· 23 ·
Stance
The stance is the position the batsman takes when the bowler is about to deliver the ball. A batsman presents his left or right sides' shoulder pointing down the wicket.
We didn’t expect what happened when we got to the Longfellow Middle School football field on Saturday morning.
We got there in plenty of time. The Butler made us all get up early—my mother and Annie and Charlie and Emily too. Ned was pretty excited, I guess because he knew something unusual was happening, so he threw up twice. I walked him around the block while the Butler cooked Irish steel-cut oatmeal. “One need not deplore everything that comes out of a nation, despite its lamentable politics,” he said.
“Unless it’s Italy?” I said.
“Lamentably, pizza does overwhelm what might otherwise be attractive,” said the Butler.
Emily said she hated oatmeal when the Butler put the bowl down in front of her, and she didn’t like brown sugar, and she didn’t like raisins, and cream was yucky, and why didn’t we ever have one percent milk anymore?
I told you, it was really early.
“It is liable to be blustery on the pitch this morning,” the Butler said.
“Cricket is boring,” said Emily.
The Butler handed her a spoon. “Miss Emily,” he said, “only a dullard would believe such a thing.”
“What’s a dullard?”
The Butler added some brown sugar to Emily’s oatmeal. “Currently, your television stations are spending most of their time airing three-hour-long orgies of what Americans mistakenly call football. If you were to watch the commercials—and you shall not, lest you be infected—but if you were to watch them, there would be no need to ask such a question. Now, to the task at hand, please.”
“Emily,” I said, “if you eat your oatmeal, I’ll let you bowl the first ball.”
“Really?” she said.
“But you have to eat all your oatmeal.”
“The first ball?”
I nodded.
Emily was the first one finished with her Irish steel-cut oatmeal, and after we all finished too, we piled into the Eggplant, the girls wearing coats, since the Butler had been right and conditions were not the best. I wasn’t wearing a coat. I had on my white sweater—which was still too long, but I was used to it. “You will need the freedom of your arms today, young Master Carter,” said the Butler.
“Suppose I get cold?”
“Then you shall bowl all the more vigorously,” said the Butler.
And so we came to the Longfellow Middle School football field, at seven thirty in the morning, and we parked the Eggplant in the school parking lot. Krebs was already there, and his father too. And Coach Krosoczka. And in just another minute or so, everyone from Team India and Team Britannia was there as well, jumping up and down, and beating and holding our arms around ourselves because it really was cold and windy—“blustery,” said the Butler.
“Freezing our glutes off,” I said.
“I think it might snow,” said Coach Krosoczka.
The Butler took some blankets out of the trunk for my mother and sisters, and he handed me thr
ee bright red new cricket balls and three new bats—“Mr. Krebs senior and I have knocked them in ourselves,” said the Butler—and we headed toward the Longfellow Middle School football field, the home of the Minutemen.
And that’s where the thing we never expected to happen happened.
“What’s that sound?” said Emily.
“The wind,” said Annie.
But it wasn’t the wind.
It was the crowd.
Mrs. Harknet wasn’t the only one from Longfellow Middle School there after all.
The stands were full.
That’s right. Full.
Full!
I know. I couldn’t believe it either.
“What are all these people doing here?” I said.
“Soon there will be a cricket match played on this field,” said the Butler. “Where else would they be?”
“Asleep?” I said. “Or watching Ace Robotroid and the Robotroid Rangers? Or raking leaves? Or . . .”
“Young Master Carter,” said the Butler, “there is time enough for all that. Now is the season for cricket.”
“Ace Robotroid comes on only on Saturday mornings.”
“And no one here seems to care about that in the least,” said the Butler, and he waved his hand toward the stands.
“I guess they’re not dullards,” said Emily.
The Butler leaned down. “You, my dear, are exactly right. Now, here’s the ball. Let me show you where to stand, and your brother will bat.” Which I did, four times because Emily said the first three didn’t count because they only rolled to me. I took a few steps toward her and the fourth one did reach me and I batted it out to Krebs, and he threw the ball back in, and then he bowed to Emily—really, he bowed—and Emily was so happy she would have thrown up if she were a dachshund. Then I took her hand and walked her over to my mother in the stands, where everyone was cheering for her.
And the stands were really, really full.
I leaned down to her. “Was it worth the oatmeal?”
She nodded.
I could see Mrs. Harknet, and Mrs. Wrubell, and Mr. Solaski, and Mr. Barkus. Principal Swieteck was there in her white sweater. I think most of the sixth grade was there, and probably most of the eighth grade, and even some of the seventh grade. But there were lots of other people too, and I don’t think they were there just to get a good seat for the Minutemen game. There were a lot of parents and grandparents and little kids. One kid was leaning over the rail, holding up both his arms and cheering like he wanted to be out on the field with us. Two old guys were all decked out in white sweaters—probably cricketers once. And Billy Colt’s parents were there, and a bunch of girls Annie knew from fifth grade, and Sarah Bixby—who was cheering like a wild child—and Patty Trowbridge, who waved at me, and Jennifer Washburn, who waved at Krebs but he didn’t notice, and even—if you can believe it—a news crew from WZZN stringing long cables and fussing around with two cameras.
“Is this on television?” I said.
“Depends on whether it’s a busy news day,” said the cameraman.
I told the Butler, who was putting on a white brimmed hat to go with his white shirt—he must have been freezing his glutes off—that the match was going to be on television. He looked over to the cameras. “Perhaps Ace Robotroid himself will be preempted,” he said.
“Don’t count on it,” I said, and the Butler handed me the stumps.
“Young Master William is just arriving. Shall I leave it to the two of you to put the stumps out? On the thirty-nine-yard lines, please. We may as well play dead center.”
So I took the stumps and I handed the bails to Billy Colt, and we went out to the thirty-nine-yard lines and started to pound the stumps in, and the whole crowd got really quiet—either because they were trying to figure out what we were doing or because they were waiting for Vice Principal DelBanco to come out and start to pound us into the ground. But when we had the stumps in and the bails set on top, the crowd began to clap as if we’d done something amazing, and Billy Colt took a bow like Krebs, and they all went wild.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“They’re cheering for Team Britannia,” Billy Colt said.
“No, they’re cheering because we pounded in the stumps.”
He took another bow. More cheers. “Pretty soon they’ll be cheering for Team Britannia,” he said.
“Believe it while you can,” I said, and we headed back to the Butler, and to the eighth-grade varsity cross-country team, except now they were Team India and Team Britannia. They were all wearing white sweaters, and Krebs was holding a bat and swinging it low, and Singh was lobbing slow bounces to his wicketkeeper, and Team Britannia was warming up with short sprints, and I think we all could feel the eyes in the stands, and the lenses of the cameras, and the cheering of the little kid whose father was holding him now—probably so he wouldn’t fall over the railing—and the steady glare of the two old guys in white sweaters, who were standing up and looking like they were ready to captain us if only we’d ask.
They really must have been cricketers.
And that little kid! He looked like he would have given anything right then to be a cricketer. Just like Currier would have given anything right . . .
Just like.
The Butler and Coach Krosoczka waved us in and we gathered around them. The wind was whistling like it does in the Blue Mountains, and I looked up into the stands and wished I had one of the blankets that my mother and Annie and Charlie and Emily were cuddling around themselves.
“I am pleased to see you all wearing your whites,” said the Butler, “and that no one has succumbed to the temptation to wear the pajama kits that have become so fashionable.”
“Who wears pajamas to play cricket?”
“Barbarians, Master William. Now, to it. Coach Krosoczka and I are the umpires, the ultimate arbiters of the game,” said the Butler. “Both whining about and disagreement with any of our decisions is unseemly and discourteous, and so will not occur on this pitch. Are we all agreed? Good, then. It will be my responsibility to oversee the coin toss, to monitor the number of runs, to be sure there is no running short—as, Master Briggs, is sometimes your tendency, so be on your guard, for I will call it mercilessly—to signal when the ball is in, to respond to all appeals, and to mark all breaches of discipline—of which there will be none, gentlemen. Batsmen, you will take your guard in a timely manner, and bowlers, you will deliver without long delay. We play only a single innings, so the game will be abbreviated, given the ten o’clock necessity of the Minutemen. We will have time for six overs to a side, six bowls for each. The fielders are restricted to seven per side. This means, of course, that we will not be playing a true match. Nonetheless, Coach Krosoczka and I expect the full attention and intensity of such a match from both teams.”
We nodded our heads and huddled closer—mostly to hide from the wind.
“We begin with the coin toss.” The Butler handed a coin to Singh.
“What’s this?” he said.
“It is a pound,” said the Butler. “If you would be so kind, please toss it and spin it in the air, calling heads or tails. Whoever wins the coin toss will bat first.”
“How will I know which is which?”
“The regal profile of the queen will be a clue.”
So Singh tossed the coin and called, “Tails!” and we all looked in to see it fall, and the Butler called, “Tails it is!” and Team Britannia cheered and Hopewell and Bryan ran to their wickets, and Krebs positioned the fielders—Steve Yang was wicketkeeper—and then he handed the ball to me, and he said, he really said, “Remember, this is cricket. So pay attention.”
And suddenly, the wind sneaked between the stands of the Longfellow Middle School football field and coiled around the thirty-nine-yard lines. It hunted and slithered and scrambled around us, then bit deep—like our white sweaters were its target, and it meant to freeze our glutes off.
It was the kind of cold, wet wind that comes just before an Australian tropical thunderstorm blows in.
I looked over at the stands. The little kid’s father had wrapped a blanket around him, and the little kid was still cheering, and his father was cheering with him and holding him tight.
And that’s when I felt the Blue Mountains of Australia lean over me.
Like I had always known they someday would.
· 24 ·
Sledging
Sledging is the act of a fielder—sometimes with good nature, sometimes with aggression—who seeks to distract the batsman through taunts and heckles as the batsman tries to concentrate.
I was there.
In the Blue Mountains of Australia.
I was wet and cold and the wind was up, and my father had scattered my fire and now he was kneeling by the fire he had built and he was stacking twigs onto it. You could already feel the warmth. Then he was putting on bigger branches and the twigs were crackling and my father held out his hands to the flames.
“You see?” he said.
“I guess,” I said.
“You guess?”
A long quiet. Shrieks from the white birds.
“Currier would have loved this,” I said.
Currier would have loved this. He would have loved the fire, the trees, the tent, the blue air, the birds—he would have loved everything.
“Max too,” he said, leaning another branch into the flames.
I looked at him. “Max?”
“Currier,” he said. “I meant Currier.”
He reached for another branch.
“Who’s Max?”
“A kid I met off base. I took him camping once or twice with his mother. You’re right. Currier would have loved this.”
“Okay,” I said.
“In a little while, it will be time to gather some more wood,” he said.
Pay Attention, Carter Jones Page 12