Hat Trick!

by Brett Lee

  ‘Will you come back with me, Jim?’ I asked, struggling to my feet. I felt like I’d just gone 10 rounds with Scott Craven in a certain toilet block.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’

  Jim put an arm on my shoulder and we walked back to where Georgie and Ally were still standing, trying to blend into the background in their bright red and blue tops.

  ‘Georgie girl, how good it is to see you again. It’s only been half an hour since I saw you last, but how much time has gone by in your life?’ Jim asked. Ally was looking totally bewildered.

  ‘Not long, Jim. About a day,’ she chuckled.

  ‘Ah, good. These old bones are used to a bit of travel, so a day away won’t be too much of a bother. Nothing new, then, for me to learn?’

  ‘Well,’ I said aloud, thinking of the virtual cricket machine, ‘there may be one thing. But I’ll tell you about it later. Come on, everyone. Hold on.’ I felt better by the minute.

  ‘But won’t someone see us?’ Ally asked, taking my hand again.

  ‘That is an interesting question,’ Jim chuckled. He didn’t seem at all put out that I’d come back to rescue him.

  ‘Jim, you don’t mind coming back, then?’

  ‘My dear boy, I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps hoping you might arrive a little later, but alas. Now, let’s be gone.’

  Then find yourself a quiet place

  Where shadows lurk, to hide your trace.

  I recited the words aloud—and in a flash we had returned to my bedroom.

  ‘So, no one saw us?’ Ally asked, looking from me to Jim.

  ‘Jim. Jim Oldfield,’ he said to Ally, smiling. ‘Delighted to meet you, my dear,’ he added, holding his hand out to her.

  ‘Oh, hi. I’m Ally.’ She shook his hand.

  ‘No one saw you, my dear,’ said Jim. ‘It’s one of the peculiar things about Wisden travel, quite unexplained. Some sort of time warp takes place. Those in the area temporarily cannot see into the space occupied by the travellers. I’m afraid I don’t know much—’

  ‘Toby? Are you in there?’ Natalie called from the hallway.

  ‘Just coming, Nat. You wanna play corridor cricket? Ally here wants to play on your team.’

  ‘Oh, cool. I love Ally,’ she yelled. We heard her footsteps retreating down the hall.

  ‘She’s not the only one,’ Georgie mumbled. At least, that’s what I thought she mumbled. We all ignored her.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Jim. ‘There’s just the small task of removing myself from your home, Toby Jones. I think it would be most unwise for me to stroll down your stairway and greet your dear parents at this point, don’t you?’

  ‘Um, yes. I guess so,’ I said.

  ‘That wouldn’t be good,’ Georgie laughed. ‘Ally and I will go and suss it out. Ally, get Nat to show you how to play corridor cricket. I’ll wait at the bottom of the stairs and signal when the coast’s clear, okay?’

  ‘Good old practical Georgie,’ Jim said, nodding approvingly. Ally just looked at each of us in turn, shaking her head in wonder.

  ‘Don’t worry, Ally,’ I told her. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s a relief. For a minute I thought I’d shifted to another planet.’

  Georgie opened the door, and Jim took a few steps back to be out of view of the hallway, just in case.

  ‘Ally, are you okay?’ I asked her quietly.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Yep, I think so. Toby, I was totally freaked out. But you know what?’ I had a feeling I knew what she was about to say. ‘I want to go again.’ I was right. ‘Weird, huh?’

  ‘Yep. Very strange.’

  Ally nodded and headed out the door to follow Georgie downstairs.

  ‘I met myself, didn’t I, Jim?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Toby, you did. Luckily for us travellers, it’s an experience that we are more able to deal with than those we carry.’

  ‘You mean like my friends?’

  ‘Yes. They are far more vulnerable to the problems that can arise.’ Jim had picked up a cricket ball from my desk and was gently fingering the seam.

  I had grown really close to Jim in the time that I’d known him. There was something vulnerable about him that needed protecting. He was old, and no amount of wisdom could make up for the fact that he was fragile. But I needed him. The time travel was part of my life, and I wanted Jim to be a part of it as well.

  ‘Jim, would you come and live with us?’ I said. I had no idea where he lived. His life outside the library at the MCG was a complete mystery, and maybe he had nowhere to go. The only other place I’d seen him was in a hospital. He never spoke of a family.

  ‘One thing at a time, Toby,’ Jim said, smiling at me.

  ‘Hey,’ Georgie called from down below.

  I stuck my head round the door, and she gave me the thumbs up. ‘Let’s go, Jim.’

  He picked up the 1931 Wisden lying on the floor and shuffled out. I raced ahead of him, bounding down the stairs. I’d just reached the bottom when the phone rang.

  ‘Got it,’ shouted Dad. A door banged shut.

  I spun around, urging Jim to follow me. I took his arm and gently guided him towards the back door, then steered him away from the house and to the little side gate next to Dad’s new studio.

  ‘This is where the fire was,’ I said quietly. ‘It used to be a boring old garage. Now Dad’s contemplating a permanent move.’

  ‘Most impressive,’ Jim said, eyeing the bookshelves behind the double-glass doors.

  ‘Jim, can you make it to my game tomorrow? We’re in the semi-final against Benchley Park, up at the school oval.’ The words were just tumbling out of my mouth.

  We’d made it to the laneway. ‘How will you get home?’ There was a pause. I looked into Jim’s eyes. ‘Where is home?’

  The question hung between us. He smiled, then turned away.

  ‘Jim?’

  ‘You get a good night’s sleep, Toby Jones,’ he called without looking back. ‘You’ve got a lot of bowling to do tomorrow.’

  I watched him walk away, wondering where and when we would meet again.

  I also wondered how he knew that I’d be bowling tomorrow. Maybe it was a 50/50 bet. But then Jim didn’t seem the betting type.

  I turned and jogged back inside for the promised game of corridor cricket.

  The best bowling figures in a Test match are held by Jim Laker of England. Playing against Australia in Manchester in 1956, he took all 10 wickets in Australia’s second innings (and nine in the first). He bowled 51.2 overs in that innings, with 23 maidens and 10 wickets for 53 runs.

  4 Can It Get Any Hotter?

  Saturday—morning

  ‘IT’S a boiler,’ Dad sighed, strolling into the kitchen the following morning. ‘It’s going to be an absolute belter. Toby, get Benchley Park out nice and quick, you hear me?’

  ‘You bet, Dad.’ I searched his face for any clues that he suspected anything was up after last night. But he padded about in his bare feet, boxer shorts and straggly hair, as on most other mornings, totally focused on getting his breakfast organised.

  ‘Hey, Dad. There’s a new virtual reality machine down at the shopping centre. Can we go and check it out sometime?’

  ‘Virtual what?’ he asked, attending to the toaster.

  ‘Virtual reality. You know—real, but not real.’

  ‘Real, but not real?’ he repeated slowly.

  ‘Well, yeah. Almost real. Virtually real. You know.’

  ‘Hmm, not exactly, but I guess I’m going to find out soon enough, aren’t I?’ He winced as his finger touched the hot edge of the toaster.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ I looked at the clock. ‘Ten minutes and we’re out of here, okay?’ I called, getting up.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he said, licking his finger.

  I couldn’t believe the heat. The air was still, and it was hard to breathe. Even at 8.20 in the morning the temperature was 27 degrees, and Dad said it was expe
cted to climb to 42 degrees. You could smell the dryness as well as a faint hint of smoke.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t have to worry about a bushfire,’ Dad said, sniffing the air as we got out of the car. ‘Total fire bans bring out the total idiots.’ He looked at me. ‘Sounds dumb, I know, but make sure you do a proper stretch.’ Dad hauled out his deckchair and the enormous Saturday newspaper, and settled down in the shade of a large gum tree.

  I grabbed my gear and walked over to Mr Pasquali’s car to help him with the kit.

  ‘It’s a hotty, Mr P,’ I said, pulling out the stumps.

  ‘Short spells today, Toby. Hats and zinc too,’ he added, looking up at the sky. ‘Thanks for helping.’

  More cars arrived and soon the team was in the outfield tossing a ball around. I went to measure my run-up, though I could easily see where I’d scuffed a mark in the grass lots of other times during the season.

  I strolled in to the middle and rolled my arm over a few times until Mr Pasquali called us together for the traditional pre-game pep talk.

  ‘Now I don’t need to tell you to be sensible out here today. I want you to wear hats, sunscreen, even sunglasses if you’ve got them,’ he began. Already there were beads of sweat on his face. ‘It’ll be hard work for their batters too, but we must support our bowlers. Short spells, Jono,’ he said, turning to our captain. Jono nodded.

  ‘I’m not going to interfere with bowling changes or fielding positions,’ Mr Pasquali continued, ‘but I’ll say this. Any suggestions should go through the captain, and I want there to be suggestions. I want you to be alert to what the batters are doing, alert to any weaknesses you see, alert to anything at all.’ He paused, looking around at each of us in turn.

  ‘I’ve coached a few Riverwall teams in my time, but none quite as good as this one. Let’s show the parents, and the opposition, what sort of a team you are.’

  Jono tossed me the new ball. How would our bowling line-up rate now that Scott Craven wasn’t a part of it? Time would tell. I had to stand up and take over the responsibility for leading the attack. I’d been in Scott’s shadow all season—now was my big chance to lead from the front.

  My start couldn’t have been worse. I should have pulled out of my run-up, but instead I stuttered up to the crease, my rhythm and strides all over the place. I overstepped the popping crease by a mile and bowled a wayward delivery that Ivo took in front of Jono at first slip.

  I slowed down for the rest of the over and wasn’t even thinking of taking wickets; I just wanted to put the ball in the right spot.

  ‘Okay, you’ve got that one under your belt, Toby. You’ve got to attack now,’ Jimbo said. He’d jogged all the way over from the covers to fire me up.

  ‘It felt shocking,’ I told him.

  ‘Mate, it looked shocking. But that’s because you weren’t relaxed. Next over, just let it go and see what happens.’ I nodded, feeling better for the advice.

  Our top four bowlers—Cameron, Jono, Rahul and me—were in the top six of the batting line-up as well. We were a team that fell away quickly. Ivo was a really good keeper. He had won his spot back from Ally, who had filled in for most of the season after Ivo’s bad accident, when his bike collided with a car. Ally was an awesome softballer with great reflexes and a strong throwing arm, but she didn’t appear very comfortable without the keeper’s gloves on.

  Georgie, Jay, Gavin (who was really grumpy now that his best mate, Scott Craven, had left the team) and Jason loved their cricket but were really just filling up the numbers.

  I looked over at Jimbo as I took the ball for my next over. He gave me the thumbs up. I tried to clear all the negative thoughts from my mind. I’d run in to bowl a thousand times without ever thinking of my stride pattern, yet suddenly I was feeling like a total loser.

  ‘C’mon Tobes,’ Jimbo called from the covers, clapping his hands. A few others joined in. ‘Time for some action.’ The batter nonchalantly looked around the field, then settled down over his bat.

  I took a deep breath, made one final check that the small plastic disc I use to mark my run-up was exactly where it should be, then steamed in. Somewhere, someone was clapping but I pressed on, striding out, my paces lengthening as I approached the pitch.

  This time it felt perfect. The seam of the ball stayed upright and the ball cut back fractionally from the off side, thudding into the batsman’s pads. It was probably 15 kilometres per hour faster than any ball from the previous over.

  ‘Howzat!’ I screamed, jumping in the air and turning to the umpire. I could tell straight away by his grim look that he was going to put up his finger. And he did.

  ‘Yeah!’ I roared, turning round and charging down to the slips.

  ‘Bloody beauty!’ Jono cried, clapping me on the shoulder. The rest of the team charged in.

  ‘That’s more like it, Toby Jones,’ Jimbo said, his fists clenched.

  The rest of the over played out uneventfully—the kid who went in for Benchley at first drop, a guy called Edison Rocker, was easily their best batter—but I felt much better. Every ball was on target.

  It’s amazing what a wicket can do for your confidence. Suddenly I was feeling on top of the world again, desperate to get another crack at the batsmen.

  ‘Two more overs, Toby, maybe three if you snag another wicket,’ Jono called as we changed ends. And then the day improved even more when I noticed Jim sitting in Dad’s chair with Dad nowhere to be seen. He was probably off scrounging another chair. I gave Jim a wave and he waved back.

  I didn’t take another wicket in that spell. By the first drinks break Benchley Park had still only lost the one batsman and were looking settled, though they weren’t scoring quickly.

  ‘We’ve just got to dry them up,’ Jono said, guzzling down some ice-cold cordial. ‘It’s really important that we keep the runs down. No wides, no misfields.’

  ‘And we need to back up in the field,’ Jimbo said. ‘They’re probably going to start looking for the quick singles to break things up a bit.’

  It was great how Jimbo was getting more involved. This was only his third game for us. Years earlier his dad had banned him from playing cricket because he’d walked away from the game himself after being hit by a vicious ball. His anger had carried through to poor Jimbo, but luckily Mr Temple, Jimbo’s dad, had had a change of heart. Lucky for us too. Jimbo was a brilliant batter and his knowledge of cricket was amazing.

  And he was right about backing up too. During the second over after drinks, the batters sprinted through for a single. Jimbo charged in, scooped up the ball and took a shot at the stumps at the bowler’s end, missing by centimetres. Cameron tried to gather in the ball, but it flew past him.

  ‘Again!’ Edison Rocker screamed, not realising that I had actually stopped Jimbo’s throw from going to the boundary with an enormous dive to my left. I flicked the ball back to Cameron, who was still by the stumps at the bowler’s end.

  Edison’s batting partner was run out by about eight metres.

  ‘I’m going to call you Prophet,’ I laughed at Jimbo. He’d predicted exactly what had just happened.

  But as the morning grew hotter, some of us started to drag our feet. Two catches went down, and several misfields and sloppy throws crept into our game.

  Jono, Jimbo and I tried to keep everyone positive and motivated but it was an effort, particularly because Benchley Park didn’t really look like a threat.

  Edison Rocker got his 40, but there weren’t any other quality batters in the team. And although Jay and Jason were belted for a couple of fours each, it was just a matter of time before Benchley collapsed.

  With ten overs left Jono tossed the ball to me.

  I decided to put the heat out of my mind and concentrate on line and length. There was a chance for some wickets as the batsmen were starting to play loose shots to up the scoring rate.

  My first two balls were off target, but the third was spot on. Aimed at off-stump, it caught the seam and deviated left, catching t
he bat’s outside edge. Martian took a ripper catch low down in front of Jono.

  I slowed up the next two deliveries and the new guy played them easily enough. Ambling in for the last ball of the over, I was hoping the batter was expecting the same again, but I swung my arm over quickly, pitching the ball on a shorter length.

  At the last moment he hoicked his bat to keep the ball off his chest. The ball ballooned away to my left and I dived, catching it just centimetres from the ground.

  The game died quickly after that. The Benchley Park coach made sure all his team got a brief hit, retiring a couple of the batters early. One kid was so annoyed that he swore then threw his bat about five metres into the air.

  Benchley Park had fallen short of our total by just under 70 runs, but our celebrations were pretty subdued. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the fact that we hadn’t really won anything—yet. Scott Craven and the Scorpions were on most people’s minds as we packed up the gear, folded away the chairs and headed off to our cars.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, ‘can Jim come around to our place this arvo?’ But as I spoke I saw a taxi turn into the ground and Jim wave an arm at it.

  ‘I already asked, Tobes. But he said he’d come around tonight if he can.’ Dad smiled, ruffling my hair. ‘You’re really very fond of him, aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s shown me some very interesting things,’ I said, watching Jim walk towards us.

  ‘Well played, Toby. Your bowling is most impressive,’ Jim said.

  ‘Not my first over,’ I mumbled.

  ‘No, indeed. But that too was impressive. You were able to put it behind you and bowl from then on with good pace and rhythm.’

  Jim said goodbye and walked slowly over to the taxi. Watching him, I remembered that he really was an old man.

  ‘Toby?’ Ally called, holding up a bottle. ‘You want the last drink?’

  I didn’t, but I headed over to her anyway. ‘Um—er, Toby?’ she asked quietly, looking up at me from beside the Esky. ‘You reckon I can go on another cricket trip?’