by Justin Brown
‘I’m giving you that frog I found the other day,’ said Hughesy. ‘Mum doesn’t want me to have it anymore.’
‘He’s joking,’ said Jonesy. ‘Your real present is a surprise!’
‘It’s a remote-controlled fart machine!’ said Hughesy.
‘Shut! Up!’ Jonesy punched him. ‘It’s a surprise !’
‘Sorry,’ Hughesy said to me. ‘It’s not a remote-controlled fart machine.’
When I got to Grandma’s shop after school she showed me the bright purple bionic ski jacket she had just won.
‘But Grandma, you even don’t ski!’ I said.
‘Might have to start, then!’ Grandma replied.
I showed her my new waterproof watch and she gave me a present. It was a jumper she’d knitted. The arms were too long and it was itchy, but I didn’t say anything about that because Grandma has enough to worry about.
I started playing the pinball machine with the naked ladies on it.
‘How’s Claire?’ Grandma asked.
‘Same old,’ I said. ‘She leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor and drinks juice out of the bottle without getting told off.’
Grandma laughed. ‘How’s her arm?’
‘Oh, man!’ I said. ‘I wish I’d never double-bounced her. She’s lazier than a fat cat lying in the sun. All she does is sit in Mum’s chair. Every time Max needs to go to the toilet I have to take him.’
‘Ah well,’ said Grandma. ‘It’s good to help your brother.’
‘That’s what Dad says. He thinks it’s good to learn how to look after little kids. But I’m not Max’s dad!’
‘Your dad could help,’ said Grandma. ‘Then again, he’s probably too busy spying on me to make sure I eat right.’
After Grandma hugged me goodbye I watched her walk back to her favourite armchair. I noticed she needed a stick to help her walk, and when she fell into her chair she closed her eyes.
One thing I didn’t talk to Grandma about was The Lie.
Every time I got excited about my party, something in my head told me I should tell Grandma. At least she would never tell Dad. I’ve told her lots of other stuff she’s never told anyone. But how could I tell her on my birthday? It would have ruined my party!
Before my party started, we played our first after-school rep game. This is when teachers get together and choose twenty-two players. The boys who play the best get to play in the first eleven. The pitch was greener than the shirts Dad wears on Saint Patrick’s Day, which is perfect for spin bowlers like me.
And here’s the best bit. I got a wicket with my first ball! And then I got three more in the next over! On my birthday!
McGarvy must have forgotten to turn up, so the world’s biggest goober wasn’t there to drop any catches. Because it was my birthday I also got to choose a name for our team. I called us the Great Whites, like the shark. The other team called themselves the Hornets – like the insect.
I don’t know much about hornets, but I do know they’d have no chance against a killer of the sea. Everyone thought Hornets was a dumb name. What use is an insect on a cricket field? At least the Great Whites could eat the umpire if we didn’t agree with a decision.
We won the toss and asked the Hornets to bat. For a while they smashed us everywhere.
‘For insects, they’re pretty good!’ said Hughesy.
At 68–3, Scott Honeyford threw me the ball.
In cricket books it says famous players have their own ways of getting wickets and runs. Some batters say to themselves, ‘Watch the ball’ over and over like a mantra. Some bowlers say, ‘Outside off stump.’
I decided to try it.When I ran in to bowl I said to myself, ‘GameBox, GameBox, GameBox.’
It worked, because I bowled the most perfect slider and the batter missed it completely. Jonesy was supposed to be fielding but he still managed to record the whole thing on his phone, even the bit where the bails flew into the wicket-keeper’s nose.
I got three more wickets. We got the Hornets out for 101, but Coach wasn’t happy because we bowled 21 wides and 17 no balls. When we went into bat, Jonesy got no runs again and we were 21 for 2. Then we lost three more wickets. Suddenly the Great Whites were 46–5. It was my turn to bat.
When I got to the crease, Ravi Patel came up to me with a frowny face. ‘Just go for the ones and twos,’ he said, whacking my pads with his bat. ‘Play sensibly and sneak singles when you can.’
Ravi must have forgotten I had birthday cake waiting at home. I smashed everything for six and we won by four wickets with five overs left.
Then back at my house we all played darts and made water bombs. My cake was shaped like a Manchester United jersey, with lots of red icing, and I ate a whole arm and felt sick. And the remote-controlled fart machine from Hughesy and Jonesy really is the best present in the history of presents, mostly because Claire says it’s the most annoying present in the history of presents.
9th FEBRUARY
I couldn’t stand it anymore. After school today I told Grandma about the lie.
She just listened, as she polished an old lamp. When I finished, she said, ‘So what are you going to do now?’
‘I guess I should tell Dad one day,’ I said. ‘Maybe when he’s caught some fish and is in a good mood.’
‘Toby, I don’t think that’s the right way to handle this,’ Grandma replied in a super-serious voice. ‘Aren’t you squirming inside about it?’
‘Yeah, I am,’ I admitted. ‘I feel horrible.’
‘Then why don’t you own up?’
‘Because I’m too scared! Plus I’ve got eleven wickets and if I tell him the truth I’ll be back to four!’
‘Well, Toby, it’s up to you. I won’t tell on you. But if you come clean, I’m sure your dad will understand you were carried away in the moment. I mean, I’ve lied myself on the odd occasion.’
‘Whoa! Really?’
‘Of course. Everyone has.’ She winked. ‘Your dad thinks I eat leek and potato soup for lunch, for one thing.’
When I got home Hughesy was watching the early news with Dad, a humungous bag of chips between them.
‘Here he is!’ said Dad.
I picked up the bag. Only a few crumbs left.
‘You snooze, you lose,’ said Hughesy.
It was the ad break, so Dad turned the volume down and took off his glasses.‘Hughesy was saying you had a good game yesterday,’ he said. ‘Four wickets!’
‘Yep,’ I said, feeling bad as bad.
‘See?’ Dad replied. ‘Apply your mind and you can do anything. With your Player of the Day performance, you’re halfway to finishing the Challenge!’
Once I watched a TV show where someone had been in a bad car crash and they said it was as if the whole thing happened in slow motion. Like a replay of a slam dunk when you’re watching the basketball.
When Dad said the words ‘Player of the Day’ I looked at Hughesy, who opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish. In slow motion.
Then he looked confused. In slow motion.
I tried to open my mouth, but that was stuck in slow motion too. I knew exactly what Hughesy was going to say, but I couldn’t stop him.
‘Player of the Day?’ Hughesy asked. ‘When was that?’
‘Last weekend,’ said Dad, turning the volume back up on the TV. ‘Toby got seven wickets – six bowled, one caught.’
‘Huh? That was McGarvy!’ Hughesy said.
You know those goosebumps you get down the back of your neck when you break your mum’s favourite china plate? Or when you accidentally open Grumpy Old Tompkins’s mail and hide it under your bed because you’re too scared to tell him?
Multiply that by a thousand million and that’s how I felt standing in the lounge with my big fat lie sitting where everyone could see it.
Dad stared at Hughesy.
Then at me.
And then Dad did something he never does. He turned off the news before the weather came on.
‘Toby,’ he said, ‘you to
ld me you got Player of the Day last Saturday.’
‘Whoops,’ said Hughesy, sitting up straight.
‘Well? Is it true or not?’
I pulled my fingers till they clicked.
‘Toby, stop that! Did you lie to me?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled. I couldn’t look at him. My face was burning.
Dad got off the couch and walked towards the kitchen. ‘Right, my boy. It’s time Hughesy went home and you went to your bedroom.’ He crossed out the seven wickets with one of Mum’s red pens.
‘Hey!’ I said. ‘What about my four wickets from yesterday? You took seven away, but you haven’t added my other four!’
‘Don’t push your luck, Toby. I’ll be talking to your mother when she gets home.’
I walked Hughesy out the front door, then pushed him against the garage wall as hard as I could. He fell down by the wheelie bins and looked shocked.
‘Why did you say that?’ I asked.
‘Say what?’
‘Why’d you tell Dad I wasn’t Player of the Day?’ ‘Because you weren’t! McGarvy was.’
‘You could have made it up! I was going to tell him, it wasn’t your job to!’
‘I didn’t know to make it up,’ Hughesy said. ‘If you’d told me to make it up I would have. But I didn’t know.’ Then he punched me so hard I fell against the front door and accidentally rang the doorbell.
‘Toby!’ Dad yelled from inside. ‘Get to your room or there’ll be trouble!’
Hughesy ran off without saying goodbye.
I went to my room, slammed the door, fell on my bed and cried into my pillow. I turned my stereo up so Claire wouldn’t hear. A few minutes later my pillow was so wet I had to flip it over. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were puffy and red.
Life sucked.
McGarvy hated me.
Hughesy hated me.
Dad hated me.
Claire hated me.
Mrs Martin-Edge hated me.
I was a liar and a failure. I hated myself.
I picked up my new drumsticks and tried to play something, but I was useless. So I played Tetris on my new watch, but that didn’t make me happy either. There was a knock on my door. I quickly dried my eyes and got my homework book from my schoolbag.
It was Mum.
‘Toby,’ she said.
I groaned inside, but I didn’t answer, just pretended to read my homework book. Today we were told to write about something important that happened in the last fifty years. I was going to write about the time Michael Jordan scored 69 points against the Cleveland Indians, when he got 23 field goals and 18 rebounds, but then I remembered how much I hated Mrs Martin-Edge and how much she hated me.
‘Dad told me about your lie,’ Mum said.
I still didn’t answer.
‘Toby, lying destroys trust. Plus, it was cheating when you included those seven wickets in your Challenge score. You give us no choice but to ground you for two days, and that’s letting you off lightly. No sport. No playing with Terence and Sam after school.’
‘What about the Knights?’ I yelled. ‘We’re playing them on Thursday. This is my big chance!’
‘You won’t be playing,’ said Mum.
‘Oh, man!’ I threw my pens and paper across the room.
‘Next time think before you act,’ said Mum. ‘You need to apologise to your dad, and to all of us.’ Then she pointed at the mess I’d just made. ‘And you can tidy your room before dinner.’
Even my own mum hated me.
11th FEBRUARY
McGarvy blocked my path into the classroom this morning.
‘Gilligan-Flannigan!’ he said. ‘Who’s been a naughty boy?’
‘None of your business,’ I replied. ‘Go away.’
‘Guess you won’t be playing against the Knights after school, then?’ he said.
The bell rang and I did my best to get past him, but he grabbed my books from my bag and threw them across the schoolyard. They skidded over the wet concrete where it had been raining overnight. When I bent down to pick them up he pushed me into a puddle.
‘Whoops!’ he said. ‘Bit slippery today.’
I sat in class like a big wet dog. Worst of all, my pants were soaked, so when Mrs Martin-Edge told me to come to the front and help with a maths problem McGarvy screamed with laughter. ‘Ha! Ha! Gilligan-Flannigan’s peed his pants!’
I had the last laugh, though. This afternoon it rained cats and dogs and goldfish and that meant no game against the Knights, so at least McGarvy couldn’t steal any more of my wickets.
13th FEBRUARY
Hughesy and I are friends again. He made me a new slingshot.The CGC had an awesome game of BYB after school yesterday and afterwards Mum made hot dogs with tomato sauce and cheese.
All I can say is, there must have been some magic dust in those hot dogs, because this morning I bowled better than ever.
We played the Kings and I opened with a straight leg spinner, which the opening batter missed by a million miles. Next over I bowled a top spinner. The batter nicked it and Hughesy dived like a dolphin and took a screamer of a catch.
I got wickets with my googly, slider and flipper.
Coach said I had the ball on a string. One of the parents said I made the ball talk. McGarvy was on the field too, but Scott Honeyford didn’t need him because I got most of the wickets.
And what about this? After the game McGarvy came up and shook my hand!
‘Respect,Toby,’ he said. ‘That was some wicked bowling out there.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Are . . . you joking?’
‘Why would I? Six wickets! You were on fire!’ ‘Wow,’ I said. I think I even went red.
‘Maybe you need to give me some lessons,’ McGarvy said. ‘I might even change from fast bowling to spin.’
Wait till Dad heard about this! The meanest guy in school, the fastest bowler in school, the boy who threw beanies up trees and pushed people into puddles was asking me how to bowl!
20th FEBRUARY
Dad calls it getting too big for your boots.
Mum calls it getting ahead of yourself.
But I didn’t think there was anything wrong with saying I was going to get Player of the Day against the All Stars.
I didn’t think I even needed to practise before the game. I just listened to music on my headphones, which is what David Beckham does when he’s walking through airports and doesn’t want to answer questions about what he ate on the plane and why his wife looks so grumpy.
We batted first and scored 269–4! I didn’t even need to bat. But then things went down the toilet. The All Stars did the same thing to us and only needed ten runs with two wickets left!
That’s when I kind of worked out what Mum and Dad had been trying to say in the car.
I ended up getting the two tail-enders out, but only because their brains exploded at the same time and they tried to win with a six.
27th FEBRUARY
It was hot and sunny this morning as I jumped out of bed at eight-thirty and put on my whites. The game was due to start in half an hour. If you’re late you don’t get to bowl and you have to bat last.
I put some bagels in the toaster. Mum was looking for her tennis racquet and Claire was complaining that her phone was the oldest one in her class. Dad had already gone to work at Beach FM. Once Mum had found her racquet she came into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea, and that’s when I heard the worst possible thing you can hear on a Saturday morning.
‘Oh, bad news, Toby,’ said Mum. ‘Cricket is cancelled.’
‘How can it be?’
‘Must have rained overnight.’
I looked out of the window. There was no water on the driveway and the grass in the front yard was as brown as my feet.
‘Who said the game was cancelled?’ I asked.
‘One of the boys from your team rang. He said he was calling half your team and the coach was calling the other half.’
‘Who was it?’
I asked. ‘Was it Hughesy?’
‘No.’
‘Jonesy?’
‘Toby,’ said Mum. ‘All I heard was that cricket is cancelled today. I was asked to tell Dad and he is about to announce it on the radio.’
‘But you’re still going to tennis!’
‘I don’t know, Toby,’ she said. ‘I’m just going by what I was told. Now, where are those new balls I bought?’
I tried to forget that Hughesy hit Mum’s new tennis balls into Tompkins’s backyard after school last week. I turned the radio up.
‘Once more, in case you’ve just joined us, all under-12 cricket matches are cancelled. Here’s a song to put a smile on your dial. It’s Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, turn it up!’
I had to call Dad. We have a special phone number straight through to the studio, but the problem is it takes at least thirty rings before someone answers. Dad says it’s because everyone is so busy. I think it’s because they’re dancing to songs and drinking too much fizzy to hear it.
The phone rang and rang. Dad finally answered.
‘Your game was called off,’ he said.
‘But why?’ I asked. ‘It’s perfect cricket weather!’
‘Don’t shoot the messenger, Toby,’ he said. ‘I just read out what’s put in front of me. Look, I’ve got to go. My song’s about to finish and I need to give away a CD to some lucky listener. Early bird catches the worm!’
‘But Dad, how could it be off? It’s like Fiji outside! Can’t you say something on the radio, like it must have been a mistake?’
‘Toby, I’m busy!’
‘Puh-lease, Dad!’ I pleaded. ‘Could you check?’
But he had hung up.
I went to my room and smashed my fist against the wall. My favourite framed picture of Kobe Bryant fell down and broke on the floor. I was so confused. What was going on?
I rang Hughesy, but his mum said he’d already gone to the game.
‘Didn’t he hear Dad on the radio?’ I asked. ‘Cricket is cancelled.’
‘Good one, Toby!’ Hughesy’s mum replied. ‘Today is perfect for cricket.’
Something wasn’t right. I rang Jonesy’s house, but he had gone to the ground as well!