I ducked right under the centre of the sticks and dotted the ball down, then jogged a few steps along the in-goal area, wagging my finger at the crowd as if they had been naughty. They erupted out of their seats, even though most of them were Machetes’ fans. But there was one face that wasn’t. A Machetes’ fan that is. I looked up into the crowd, into a sea of eighty thousand faces, and somehow I looked straight into the eyes of Jason Kirk.
He was sitting next to his dad; they must have flown over for the Final. He waved and I gave him a huge grin, and that’s when Bean hit me from behind in a late tackle. It was late, it was hard, and it was deliberate. And I wasn’t expecting it because you’re not allowed to tackle someone after they have scored a try. It’s in the rule book!
I felt like I had been hit in the back with a tree. All the wind was knocked out of me and my head hit the turf, hard. Somehow I managed to sit up, but the entire grandstand was swimming in a huge circle around my head. I tried to stand but just fell over and from where I fell I could see the grandstand clock. Sixty seconds to go. Then Henry’s huge arm was around my shoulders and he half carried me back to our end of the field while Ainsley slotted the ball between the posts for the conversion. We were four points behind.
SIXTEEN
SIXTY SECONDS
Two tries in two minutes. One minute to play and we were just four points behind. The maths was simple. If we could score another try we’d equalise. If we could convert that try we’d win. I shook my head, trying to clear it. I still don’t know why Bean hadn’t been sent off, or at least penalised, for that late tackle on me. You can’t tackle a player after he’s scored a try! The trainers were all around me, checking that I was OK. I wasn’t, but I couldn’t let them know that.
The Machetes lined up for kick-off, and it was pretty obvious that they were going to try a short kick-off and try and get the ball back themselves. If they did then they could probably soak up the last sixty seconds of the game with some slow play-of-the-balls and put it out on the last tackle to eat up more time.
I blinked twice as I did the Thing, to get ready for the kick. But nothing happened. Maybe I was still woozy from the tackle. Maybe the Thing was broken? I didn’t know what caused the Thing to happen, so I had no idea what might cause it to stop happening. But, for whatever reason, the Thing would not happen. I tried again, and again, and slowly it dawned on me that I was out on a rugby field, in the middle of a Grand Final, with twenty-five hard, professional rugby players, most of them twice my age. And the Thing that had got me there was not working.
My legs felt weak and for the first time I felt butterflies in my tummy. Except I don’t think these were butterflies, they felt more like small birds.
I turned to Henry as Carver lined up the kick-off for the Machetes. ‘Henry,’ I called urgently, ‘I can’t do this!’
Henry looked carefully at me. As always he didn’t doubt, argue or ask questions. He just instinctively knew something was wrong.
‘Look around, Flea. There’s eighty thousand people here who think you can. So whether you can or not, you’ve got to try your best. For all of them. For your fans.’
The sound of a boot on leather interrupted him. Carver had kicked off. He had kicked, not towards my wing, but towards Ricky Albany’s. No doubt they wanted to keep the ball as far away from me as possible. If only they knew! I tried the Thing again, but it was still broken.
Henry called to me out of the corner of his mouth, without taking his eyes off play. ‘Get me the ball, then get behind me. I’ll make you a hole the size of Cook Strait in their line, all you gotta do is run through it.’
Yeah, right, I thought, Henry always sees things so simply. He’ll just make a hole and I’ll run through it, without the Thing!
The ball came rocketing down out of the air just over the ten metre mark. Any less and it would have been a penalty. Michaels went high for our side but suddenly there were blue jumpers everywhere as the Machetes rushed up to try and reclaim the kick. Rumble Bean took out Michaels with a shoulder, knocking him backwards in the air, totally illegal of course, but in that whirling storm of blue and black bodies it was hard to see what was going on. Then there was just this sea of blue and the Machetes’ hands stretched up to grab the ball. We were lost for sure.
But somehow, out of nowhere, up through the middle of the hurricane came a flying, black jumper and Ricky Road Runner Albany, the second-fastest Warrior of all time, flew through the air like Michael Jordan, gathered the ball as it dropped towards the clutching hands of the Machetes, and crashed through the players to the ground.
Alastair and Nick, the two Machetes forwards, grabbed at him and smothered him in a tackle, but we had the ball!
Ricky played the ball and Ainsley rushed in at hooker, passing the ball to Bazza, who got smashed by a gang tackle. He was up quick though and played the ball, although he dropped to his knees afterwards and put his head down for a moment.
Ainsley played hooker again and doubled around with Brownie, who charged straight at the line and nearly got a pass away before one of the Machetes clamped a hand around his arm.
Brownie played the ball, Des played hooker and passed it back infield to Ainsley, who chip-kicked it over the top of Rumble Bean’s head and darted around him to regather the ball. Or he would have, except Rumble tripped him and Ainsley went sprawling. Streakson, the Machetes’ pacy winger, pulled in the ball and shot at the gap where Ainsley had been. He left-footed Brownie and was away down the field with just our full-back to beat, when the whistle went. Hanson, the referee, had seen the trip.
Most of our team were applauding as Streakson, with a scowl a mile wide, brought the ball back to the spot that Hanson marked with his heel.
There was no question of kicking for a penalty goal, that would have gained us just two points, not enough to win, and no time left for another try.
So Ainsley kicked for the sideline, which took us to just twenty metres from the Machetes’ goal line.
The two teams lined up at each other, seconds ticking away. I prayed the ball would stay on the far side of the field. Then Brownie tapped the ball with his foot and, as Jason would say, it all went as wild as thunder in a bucket.
Brownie tapped and passed to Ainsley who batted it along to Bazza. It was what they call a hospital pass. Bazza was about to get monstered by Chugs and Mouldren. You gotta admire Bazza though, he knew what to do. He turned his back on the tacklers to protect the ball and shot it out the back to Pacman, who flung it backwards to George. Suddenly we were thirty metres away from the goal line. We’d gone back ten metres and just then the siren sounded for the end of the game.
The game wasn’t over though. It wasn’t over until the ref blew his whistle, and he couldn’t do that until the ball went to ground, or was put dead.
George ran up five metres and passed to his right. And that’s how the ball got to Henry. What happened next was not a lot short of a miracle.
Henry did exactly what he had said he was going to do. He tucked the ball under that huge left arm, let out a roar that sounded like Tyrannosaurus Rex with a really bad headache and let rip at the line.
Rene Phillips had the bad luck to be first in his line of fire. He got batted aside like a moth. Clancy and Carver hit Henry hard, Clancy around the legs and Carver about the waist. It slowed him a little but didn’t look even slightly like stopping him. He was a bull, no, more like a bulldozer. Clancy hung on to Henry’s ankle desperately, all the while trying to latch on to the other ankle and pull him down.
Ackland went flying in from the side and smashed the ball-carrying arm, trying to jolt the ball loose. He might just as well have tried to hammer in a nail with a feather. Ackland clung on though. Henry didn’t seem to care. He crossed the twenty metre mark like a runaway concrete truck, and that’s when Banter leaped on the top and Floridiana hit him from the right.
Nobody has ever seen anything like it, before or since. Henry was carrying what seemed like half the Machetes team, and dr
agging another along the ground. And he was still going!
Two more Machetes closed in from the left, and Froder and the winger raced in from the right. Rumble Bean stood his ground in front of the whole shebang, waiting for the juggernaut to reach him.
Right then, though, Clancy managed to get his arms around Henry’s other tree-stump of a leg and he hugged Henry’s ankles for dear life.
It doesn’t matter how big you are, it doesn’t matter how strong you are. If your ankles are tied together you cannot run.
The juggernaut stopped. It waited for a moment, then slowly, with another roar like the dying scream of a dinosaur, the mass of bodies began to topple forwards.
Somehow, in the midst of all that highly paid, rugby league flesh and bone, a burly arm poked out, holding the ball, and tossed it backwards to me.
Henry couldn’t have seen me. He had no way of knowing where I’d be. And yet, without looking, he tossed the ball straight into my arms. The commentators called it a wild pass, a speculator, tossed in the hope that someone would be there. They were wrong though. Henry may not have been able to see me, but he knew exactly where I’d be.
The ball came backwards as if in slow motion, but it wasn’t really slow motion because the Thing was still broken. I grabbed it and clutched it to my chest.
To the left I had two Machetes; to the right I had two more. In front of me was a tangled mass, a mountain of blue jumpers with Henry at the bottom of it all. Behind that was the sneering face of Dell (Rumble) Bean.
There was no way to go, there was no time to think. So I didn’t think. I just ran. Somewhere in the back of my head were some words that Frank had once said to me, a hundred years ago. Don’t do what the opposition expects you to do. I didn’t. I ran straight at the mountain in front of me. I wasn’t even sure if that was legal.
I trod on Clancy’s leg, skipped up Carver’s back, jumped on to another bit of someone, Floridiana I think, and leaped off the top of the huge pile of bodies, right at Rumble Bean.
He certainly wasn’t expecting it. No one would have been. It’s not often that you get players coming at you through the air at head height. He grabbed up at me but he was too slow. Way too slow.
My foot landed on his shoulder and, before he could do anything, I used him as a springboard, launching myself into space, just five metres from the Machetes’ line.
I dived over the line and somehow landed on my feet. The crowd was on theirs too. The only thing was, the impact of the landing, from that height, was a jarring jolt. The ball came loose even as my legs buckled underneath me and I crashed to the ground.
The ball spun up in the air, lazily turning end to end. It began to drop, arrowing down just in front of me. I stretched out and grabbed it, an inch above the turf. The crowd was just about exploding. I planted the ball on the grass and we were suddenly four points richer. The whistle blew for the try.
Two strong hands lifted me off the deck and hoisted me into the air like a trophy. I looked down at the smiling face of Ricky Albany.
‘You’re OK, Flea,’ he said. ‘You’re OK.’ At least I think that’s what he said, but it was hard to hear above all the screaming fans and shouts from my team-mates. Ricky lifted me up on to Henry’s broad shoulders. That’s when I noticed Henry was bleeding from a cut above his eye. It didn’t seem to bother him though.
After all that, the conversion was a bit of an anticlimax. Ainsley slotted it over without even trying, or so it seemed. The game was ours and we were surrounded, the other players just wanting to hug us or pat us on the back.
Not just our own players either, a lot of the Machetes’ players seemed just as excited, even though they’d lost the Grand Final. It takes a big player to genuinely congratulate the winning team when you’ve just lost the biggest match of your life, and I learned a lot of respect for some of those Machetes after that.
Not Rumble Bean though. He slunk off and didn’t even shake anyone’s hand. He didn’t last long with the team after that either. Last I heard he was playing in some cold, dank place somewhere in England.
Henry carried me off the field with the rest of the team mobbing all around him and the crowd still screaming with excitement.
And that was the last game of professional rugby league I ever played.
SEVENTEEN
GOOD FRIENDS
The celebrations lasted for days. So did the interest from the world’s media. There were endless interviews and press conferences and photo sessions. It was all a bit much really. Through it all, though, Henry was right there by my side, looking out for me. So was my dad and I felt really good about that. When things were getting a bit tough or I was getting a bit overwhelmed they would step in, or get me out of there if needs be. Nobody was going to argue with Henry Knight!
So it was nearly a week before I got back to Glenfield and caught up with Jason. Henry drove me around to Jason’s house but Jason wasn’t there, so I suggested we try the Lost Park.
‘Worth a try,’ big Henry said. ‘And anyway I’m dying to see this place.’
‘You’re not allowed to tell anyone about it!’ I warned. ‘Or I’ll beat you up.’
Henry’s head just about touched the roof of the car and he looked down at me from that height and laughed. ‘I promise.’
We saw Jason cycling back from the park and I wound down my window and called to him to turn around and meet us down there.
We waited for him by the secret path and the three of us walked through the track together. Henry had to jump across the creek ’cos he didn’t think the old, rotten bridge would take his weight.
The old guy with the faded track pants and the sunhat was tottering back and forth across the far end of the park when we emerged from the bush. He waved to us, then carried on tottering. That was the first time he’d ever acknowledged our existence! I guess he must have been a rugby league fan too.
Henry was stunned. ‘This place is amazing! Wow! A Hawker Hurricane!’
‘We call that the Spitfire,’ I said.
‘Sure,’ Henry said, not asking why.
The sun was high but filtered through a streaky, grey cloud that corrugated the sky. Every now and then a frosting of tiny raindrops dampened our hair, but not our spirits, and we quickly dried off again.
For the next three hours Henry was a kid again. He ran around the fort with us as we beat off vicious attacks by a band of marauding Indians. He drove the tractor in the Indi-Tractor-poulis 500, shouting at the other tractor drivers to get out of the way.
He even squeezed into the cockpit of the Spitfire and became a World War II fighter ace, Henry the Black Knight, scourge of the Luftwaffe.
Eventually, though, he looked at his watch, and at that moment he grew eighteen years older in front of our eyes.
‘Flea, Jason, it’s been great,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got places to be. Jason, I’ll see you around. Flea, I’ll catch up with you in the pre-season training.’
I shook my head. ‘I quit.’
‘You quit!!’ Jason and Henry said in unison.
‘I already told Frank. He was OK about it.’
‘Have you had an offer from another team and haven’t told me about it?’ Henry glared at me.
‘Sort of,’ I said.
‘Who? The Broncos? The Knights? Not the Machetes I hope!’
I laughed. ‘No. None of those. It’s the Glenfield Giants. I’m kind of hoping they’ll let me try out for next season.’
Henry was silent for a moment. ‘That’s a shame.’ He checked his watch again and stood up. ‘I’d better get going. Still …’
He stood there next to the Spitfire for a moment without saying anything. We both looked up at him. A giant of a man with the heart of a kid. The sun chose that moment to break through the cloud cover and its warmth washed over us, despite the cool breeze. A flock of birds whirled above the park, swooping and circling around the trees.
‘Still … I’m sure we’ll find plenty of time to hang out. In between my training
, and your school and the Giants.’
‘Absolutely,’ I said with conviction. ‘Absolutely.’
Henry smiled a small, sad smile as he ambled away towards the secret path. He looked back once, waved, and disappeared into the bush.
‘Why’d you do it?’ Jason asked after a while. ‘Why’d you quit the Warriors?’
I said, ‘Seems to me that I’m going to have plenty of time to be a grown-up later on. The rest of my life in fact. But I’ve only got this one shot at being a kid. Better make the most of it.’
‘I see,’ he said, although I don’t really think he did. ‘Sorry about calling you a smart fart, eh.’
I looked over at him. ‘If your best friend can’t be honest with you, then who the heck can?’
‘Don’t be such a gazoo,’ said Jason, who said things like that. ‘Guys don’t have best friends. That’s for girls.’
‘I know.’
In the distance beyond Manuka Park I heard Henry’s car start up in the car park.
We won the junior league championship the next year. And, although the Thing had come back to me a couple of days after the NRL Grand Final, I never once used it for Glenfield. It didn’t seem fair.
Jenny and Phil hit it off real well and they’re still together. Jenny and I are good friends though, and Phil and I can stand each other. Just.
As for the Warriors, they successfully defended their title the next season, which was also Henry’s last year with the club. Thirty-two is retirement age for a rugby league player
One day I might like to have another try-out for them
But in the meantime, I thought I’d really, really like to play baseball for the New York Yankees …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Falkner was born and raised in Auckland. He is the award-winning, best-selling author of several novels for children and young adults, including The Flea Thing, The Real Thing and The Super Freak. His action adventure sci-fi novels The Tomorrow Code and Brainjack were both short-listed for the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults and the Esther Glen Award at the LIANZA Awards, with Brainjack winning the New Zealand Post Book Awards, Children’s Choice Award (Young Adult Fiction category). Brainjack also won the 2010 Sir Julius Vogel Award, Best Young Adult Novel. The Project has also been short-listed on the 2011 Storylines Notable Books List.
The Flea Thing Page 8