Stuff Happens, Tom

by Pat Flynn

  I thought for a bit. ‘I don’t think so. I didn’t try to move it or anything.’

  Miss Hobbie looked at Luke. ‘Tell Tom what happened.’

  Luke shook his head at me. ‘Dude, your paperclip was flying around like a magic carpet.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  It turns out the same thing happened for Maddie and Gregor. Even though we thought we kept it still, the paperclip moved in whichever direction we imagined.

  ‘Now do you believe in the power of the mind, Luke?’ asked Miss Hobbie.

  ‘I guess so.’

  As for me, I knew so, but I was still confused. Picturing something happening seemed to work for everything but the one thing I wanted it to – tennis. When the bell rang for recess, for once I didn’t burst out of the room ready to scoff down vegemite sandwiches and play handball.

  I needed answers.

  I approached Miss Hobbie’s desk and she looked up from her laptop. ‘Yes, Tom?’

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. How do you tell your teacher that you’re a nut case?

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what’s on your mind.’

  Once I started, the words shot out like bullets. ‘I tried to imagine my serve and all I could see were double-faults and then I lost to Kristen Cameron and stopped trying and now Dad wants me to quit tennis and I feel so bad I was hoping you can help me. Can you help me, Miss? Please?’

  And for some unknown reason, I started to cry. Not much, but enough that Miss Hobbie probably noticed the wetness in the corners of my eyes. She didn’t mention it, though. All she said was, ‘Follow me.’

  I did. We walked out of the classroom and headed towards the office. When we went past Jack, a mate of mine from Mr Johnson’s class, he mouthed, ‘What did you do?’

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’

  He glanced at Miss Hobbie, then back at me. ‘Yeah, right.’

  Once in the office we walked past the secretary, Maureen, who gave us a wave. I liked Maureen a lot more than Principal Davies, so I was relieved when I tiptoed past her door. We stopped outside a small office beside the staff room, one I’d never seen before. Even though the door was open, Miss Hobbie knocked. A voice said, ‘Come in if you’re a nice person.’

  I went in anyway.

  ‘Mr Gardner, this is Tom. Tom, this is Mr Gardner – our new school counsellor.’

  I wondered what happened to our old counsellor, Mrs C. I never really spoke to her, but she had a nice smile. Mr Gardner looked friendly, too. It’s probably written on the job description: School counsellor for Monvale Primary – must have a friendly face. He stood and shook my hand firmly. I liked that. Dad always says to never trust a man with a limp handshake.

  Miss Hobbie got the ball rolling. ‘Tom’s a keen tennis player and he’s having a few little problems that you may be able to help him with.’

  Little? I don’t think so. More like massively big.

  Turning to me, Miss Hobbie said, ‘We’re lucky because Mr Gardner is not only a fully qualified psychologist, but also a talented athlete himself. He competes in triathlons.’

  ‘I try,’ he said.

  I chuckled. At the time, this seemed really funny.

  ‘Who’s your favourite tennis player, Tom?’

  ‘Umm . . . Nick Kyrgios.’

  He’s young, talented and an Aussie. Besides the fact that he breaks a racquet every now and then, what’s not to like?

  ‘Mine is Pat Rafter, which probably shows my age.’ Mr Gardner smiled, then looked right at me. ‘So what can I help you with, Tom?’

  I started at the beginning, with losing my serve and my match against Zac. Mr Gardner asked the odd question, but mostly let me talk. At some stage, Miss Hobbie had to go as she had a class to teach.

  ‘Sorry you missed your recess break,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m just happy you asked for help.’

  When I finished the story, I asked Mr Gardner why imagery didn’t work for my tennis when it seemed to work for everything else.

  He stroked his chin. ‘I’d say that after what happened against Zac, your mind and body have become so uptight that you’ve developed a block when it comes to imagining good serves.’

  ‘Can you unblock it?’ I pictured him holding a plunger up to my ear and sucking out the bad part of my brain. That’d be cool.

  He looked me in the eye. ‘No, I can’t.’

  My stomach sank.

  Then he added, ‘But you can.’

  I sat up. ‘How?’

  ‘Usually it’s a matter of changing some beliefs. This lets you see things more realistically, which relaxes you.’

  ‘What sort of beliefs?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, when you think back to the match against Zac, how do you feel?’

  ‘Really bad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I should have won.’

  He raised his pointer finger. ‘There’s the first block.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘It is?’

  He nodded. ‘The word “should” makes you feel like a failure. You’re better off saying to yourself, “I could have won, but in life there are no guarantees. The important thing is that I tried my best.”’

  I bit my lip, thinking. ‘I did try my best, but I still lost. Dad always says that winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!’

  He held up two fingers. ‘Block number two. If you believe you have to win you’re putting all sorts of pressure on yourself. You can tell your Dad a better way to think is, “I’d like to win, but I can handle losing if it happens.”’

  He pushed over some coloured paper and pens. ‘Why don’t you make some signs of these new sayings and stick them up in your room? If you look at them every day they should unblock your mind, and then we can try some guided imagery.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s where I help you imagine the serve you want. Once you can see it in your head, there’s a good chance you can do it.’ He smiled. ‘Well, you also need a lot of practice in the real world.’

  I grabbed a blue piece of paper and a black pen. I had no idea if this would work, but I sure didn’t have anything to lose.

  ‘Close your eyes and feel the weight of your body on the chair.’

  I was back in Mr Gardner’s office. Every morning for the last week, I’d been staring at signs in my room that said, I can only do my best, Winning is fun but losing is okay too, and, Everybody makes mistakes – even me!

  After a few days, I even started to believe the signs. Now it was time to see if reading words on a page had relaxed my mind enough to unblock it.

  Mr Gardner spoke slowly and rhythmically. ‘I want you to take three long, slow, deep breaths. And as you exhale, feel your body relax. Your muscles are loosening, the skin on your face is becoming soft and smooth.’

  I was used to this from Miss Hobbie’s relaxation exercises. After three slow breaths through my nose that sent air deep into my tummy, I started feeling calm.

  ‘Your mind is able to imagine so many things,’ Mr Gardner said. ‘Right now, I want you to imagine that your left arm is getting heavier and heavier, like it’s filled with wet sand. Your right arm is feeling light, like your right hand is tied to a bunch of helium balloons.’

  It sounded weird, but it worked. As my left arm got heavier, my right arm got lighter. It almost felt like it was floating.

  ‘Now I’m going to count down from three to one and your arms will feel exactly as they usually do. Three, two, one – your arms feel normal now.’

  They did. It was like Mr Gardner’s voice had special powers. I might try that trick on Ellie.

  ‘Now, I want you to imagine a staircase in your mind. At the bottom of that staircase is a door. Walk down the stairs and open the door.’

  I did. The door was red.

  ‘You see a big room with lots of shelves, and on the shelves are books that hold every memory you’ve ever had. I want you t
o walk over to one of the shelves. You see a book titled, Tom’s Tennis. Pull it out and take it in your hand.’

  I did that too. It had a picture of a tennis ball on the cover.

  ‘I want you to open the book and turn to the page where you played against Zac. Let the day come back to you fully, and then remember how you felt when your serve went from feeling good to not so good.’

  I remembered the blue sky, the hot sun and the confident feeling that swept through me when I thought I’d aced Zac to win the game. Then I recalled how things went downhill so quickly after that. The double-faults, my left arm forgetting how to toss the ball up straight, the sinking feeling in my stomach when I knew I was going to lose. Just thinking about all of this made my breathing speed up and I felt a prickle on the back of my neck.

  Mr Gardner continued. ‘Now, I want you to shrink everything on that page. I want you to shrink it and shrink it until all that is left is a full stop. Do that now.’

  As I shrunk my match against Zac down to a single dot, the tension seeped out of me like sweat. It was like dropping a sack of bricks that I’d been carrying around on my shoulders for months.

  ‘I want you to turn to a page further on in the book,’ said Mr Gardner. ‘A blank page. This is your tennis future and you’re going to create some new pictures here.’

  Even though I felt much better, I wasn’t sure whether I could imagine hitting good serves when I’d been hitting so many bad ones in my head and in real life. But it turned out Mr Gardner had a plan.

  ‘In a second you will open your eyes. You’ll still be very relaxed. Three, two, one – open your eyes now.’

  When I did, there was a laptop sitting in front of me. On it was a video of Nick Kyrgios serving an ace.

  The whole thing only lasted five seconds, but the video was looped so Nick served a 200-kilometre-per-hour bomb over and over again.

  Mr Gardner spoke. ‘When you’re ready, close your eyes and imagine yourself entering Nick’s body. You are supremely confident as you step to the line. The ball rockets off your strings and lands exactly where you want it to. Spend a minute or two imagining that serve.’

  It was much easier being Nick Kyrgios than me. I was tall, strong and really confident. And why wouldn’t I be? I beat Rafa at Wimbledon.

  After a bit, Mr Gardner spoke again. ‘Now, I want you to step out of Nick’s body and pick up your own racquet, then walk up to the baseline holding a ball in your hand.’

  In my mind I grabbed the trusty Wilson and felt the fuzzy ball in my left hand.

  ‘You still have all those feelings of poise and sureness that you did when you were in Nick’s body. Now, toss the ball up, sure and straight. Your racquet loops back before it explodes up to hit the ball. Even though it’s one of the fastest serves you’ve ever hit, it feels almost effortless. Picture the ball landing exactly where you want it to.’

  It wasn’t easy, and I was far from perfect, but I felt much more positive about my serve as I practised it over and over in my head. It wasn’t like stepping into a video or anything, but I could glimpse the ball sailing over the net and landing in the corner of the service box.

  My mind was starting to unblock.

  ‘You are beginning to see a future where your serve is powerful, smooth and consistent,’ said Mr Gardner. ‘And you can call up these confident feelings on your serve whenever you want to, just by saying the word “Nick” in your head.’

  Nick, hey? Sounds good to me.

  Then Mr Gardner counted me out of the guided imagery and I opened my eyes, feeling awake and refreshed.

  ‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

  I didn’t hesitate. ‘Like playing tennis.’

  Fifty kids lined the multipurpose court to watch Zac and me play. This wasn’t the Australian Open, but it sure sounded like it.

  ‘Go Zac! Go Zac! Go Zac!’

  5L was really loud, probably because they were excited to be outside during class time for once.

  Luke started a return chant and soon everyone from 5H joined in. ‘Tom is da bomb! Tom is da bomb! Tom is da bomb!’

  I don’t know if that’s true, but with both classes yelling it sure sounded like a bomb was going off.

  Miss Hobbie blew her whistle. Beside her stood Ms Lucas – her scrunched-up face making it clear that she couldn’t believe 5L was missing valuable class time for this.

  This was the final lesson of our unit on the power of the mind, where students had to put to the test the goals we wrote down in the first lesson. Earlier today Josie touched a feather without screaming, Fadi breakdanced for a bunch of open-mouthed year twos, and Luke gave a one-minute speech in front of our class. It was supposed to be a two-minute speech, but it ended in a hurry when he bolted out of the room to go to the loo. As you can see, the power of the mind worked better for some kids than it did for others.

  It was time to find out how well it worked for me.

  ‘Okay,’ said Miss Hobbie when the chanting finally stopped. ‘Tom’s dream is to play against Zac in front of a big crowd, and I’d like to thank Ms Lucas and the boys and girls of 5L for letting that happen.’

  The kids from 5L whooped and cheered, and Ms Lucas finally cracked a smile. I suppose even mean teachers like to be liked sometimes.

  Miss Hobbie continued. ‘Tom and Zac are going to play a first-to-ten-point tie breaker and our job is to support both of them. No boos but lots of claps, okay?’

  ‘YAY!’

  It was pretty clear that everyone agreed.

  I rolled the ball around in my fingers and took a deep breath. I was serving first, which would be a good test to see how far I’d come. It had been three weeks since my first session in Mr Gardner’s office and already I felt a lot different. I wasn’t nearly as anxious on the court and at fixtures last Saturday I’d only served two double-faults. I’d still lost to Jack Jansen, 6–4, but even Dad said my game was ‘not too shabby’. And that was all he said, which was weird. No constructive criticism. Dad’s changed his spots since he spoke to Mr Gardner on the phone.

  ‘Can I keep playing tennis?’ I’d asked Dad.

  He’d nodded. ‘For now.’

  Mr Gardner had recorded a guided imagery script that I listened to every night on my iPod, and he’d also given me more tips on how to get in the zone while playing sport. These included writing down my goals before a practice session or a match, using deep breaths to relax on court, and imagining a string pulling my head up and pushing my shoulders back as I walked around the court. ‘You’ll be taller and more confident,’ he’d said.

  Today against Zac, I needed all the confidence I could get.

  After bouncing the ball three times, I tossed the ball up straight and hit a powerful serve. Right into the middle of the net. It looked like I hadn’t come too far at all.

  ‘Fault!’ yelled Adam Davidson from 5L in a high-pitched voice.

  ‘Shhh!’ Ms Lucas said to Adam.

  My second serve went over the net and over the service line by about three metres.

  ‘Double-fault!’ screeched Adam.

  Ms Lucas let rip. ‘Adam Davidson! Principal Davies’ office! Now!’

  As Adam trudged off, I tried to refocus. This wasn’t the start I was hoping for. Not by a long shot.

  But one thing I’ve learnt from Mr Gardner is that I need to leave my mistakes in the past. ‘You get what you focus on,’ he’d said. ‘Think about your bad shots all the time and you’ll get more bad shots. Remember your good shots and they’ll start to happen more often.’

  As I got ready to return Zac’s serve, I reminded myself that there was nowhere else I’d rather be than right here – testing my talent against Zac – and that thought created a butterfly of excitement that zipped through my tummy.

  Zac served wide and I was onto it in a flash – nailing a top-spin backhand crosscourt. The ball landed just inside the sideline and fizzed past Zac for a winner.

  Luke yelled, ‘Great shot, TC!’ and lots of kids clapped.


  After that, I relaxed. And the more I trusted my unconscious mind, the better it did. My feet danced around the court in time with the ball and my racquet flashed through the air like a wizard’s wand. I was letting the horse run free.

  But Zac wasn’t winning tournaments because he was some chump. When I hit a forehand winner to take a 5–4 lead, he hit a backhand winner to make it 5–5. When I hit an unreturnable serve to go up 8–7, he banged down an ace to square it up. It was like his motto was, ‘Anything you can do, I can do better.’

  At 8–8 we traded groundstrokes like punches, each one getting faster and harder, searching for the knockout blow. I blinked first by mis-hitting a ball that landed short in the court, and Zac moved in confidently for the kill. He attacked with a forehand up the line – the way our coach tells us to – and put himself in a winning position by moving close to the net.

  As I raced across the court my legs were pumping hard, but my head was still and my eyes were wide. According to my coach, I should have defended with a high, deep lob. I should have, but my horse wasn’t in the mood to play it safe. When I reached the ball there was no time for second-guessing, no time for anything except to swing my racquet like a whip – all elbows and wrists. The ball cracked off the strings, and shot past Zac’s outstretched racquet for a winner.

  Zac yelled, ‘That’s impossible!’

  Luke yelled back, ‘No, it isn’t!’

  5H and 5L erupted – half cheering and half laughing. When the spectators settled down, I realised it was match point. One good serve and victory was mine. With a deep breath, I put that thought out of my mind. Thinking about winning only makes me more nervous. Instead, I thought about where I wanted to hit the serve.

  Ace down the middle. The idea popped into my head like a thought bubble. The same serve as six months ago, but this time it would go in. Hopefully.

  ‘Nick,’ I said to myself.

  I pictured the serve in my head and then asked – not told – my body to do it. I even said please. Then I sat back and observed as my left arm tossed the ball up slowly and smoothly, and my right arm swung with all its might at the hovering yellow ball.