The Miracle Goal

by Tony Wilson

  Hi! We’re the Selwood Boys!

  We can’t wait for you to read our new series, written by bestselling kids’ author Tony Wilson. These books are all about our childhood, growing up in Bendigo, Victoria. With four footy-mad boys in one house, you can probably imagine the things we used to get up to!

  In these stories, Tony has taken inspiration from all the funny things that happened to us as kids, and then he’s added even more!

  We’ve loved making these books with Tony and we hope you love reading them.

  Troy, Adam, Joel and Scott

  THE SELWOOD BOYS

  COLLECT THEM ALL!

  OUT NOW!

  Book 1 – Battle Royale

  Book 2 – The Miracle Goal

  OUT SOON!

  Book 3 – Hit the Road

  Book 4 – Versus the Street

  DEDICATION

  For Mum and Dad

  — Troy, Adam, Joel and Scott

  For my beautiful, footy-mad Jack,

  who taught me about courage off the field

  — Tony Wilson

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  An Excerpt from The Selwood Boys: Hit the Road

  About the Selwoods

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ONE

  1997

  ‘Joel and Fish are captains!’

  ‘Pick me, Joel!’

  ‘Sel! Sel! Sel! Pick me!’

  The bell had sounded for lunchtime and Mr Cunningham’s grade fours were streaming onto ‘Big Oval’ at Bendigo Catholic Primary School. Big Oval was neither big nor an oval. Instead, it was a poky, out-of-shape rectangle, with a cyclone fence around three sides. It had patchy grass, which was getting patchier as the drought in Bendigo and Central Victoria bit harder.

  The boys didn’t care about the shape of Big Oval or the state of the grass. They just wanted to play footy. They played footy every recess and every lunchtime. From March to October.

  Joel was always one of the lunchtime captains. He didn’t particularly want it that way. Sometimes he’d say, ‘Don’t make me captain, give somebody else a go.’ The new captains would then fight over who got first pick to have Joel on their team. Eventually, they agreed that Joel and the year level’s second-best footballer, Charlie Fishburne, should be permanent captains.

  Everyone called Charlie ‘Fish’. He was shorter than Joel, but he moved so fast he was almost impossible to tackle. He was Aboriginal, and his favourite player was St Kilda’s Nicky Winmar. ‘He’s a brother,’ Fish would say, and it took a long time for Joel and the rest of grade four to understand that Winmar wasn’t actually Fish’s brother. What Fish meant was that he felt a bond because Winmar was Aboriginal, too.

  Fish got to pick first. The grade fours thought this was fairer, because Joel got to have Joel on his team.

  Joel loved lunchtime footy but hated the picking-teams part. He usually picked Lewis first, because Lewis had been his best friend since prep and was a decent player. But it was a brutal process, a bunfight. Kids would squeal to be picked, and those already picked shout-whispered embarrassing and sometimes mean opinions on who should be taken next.

  ‘Not Reuben — his skills are terrible!’

  ‘Sel! Sel! Don’t get Pooch! Remember Friday lunch? He cost us the game!’

  Fish also picked kids one by one, from best to worst. He had the unfortunate habit of taking forever with each decision. He’d point his finger at a hopeful kid and say, ‘I’ll take . . . um . . .’ And then he would change his mind and choose somebody else. For Fish, lunchtime footy was full-on.

  It took a serious footy nut to wear a mouthguard to lunchtime footy. Fish was that nut. He wore his mouthguard, which was in the black, yellow and red of the Aboriginal flag, every time. He was a ferocious opponent but also a great teammate of Joel’s at Strathdale Sharks Under 10s.

  ‘You’re going down, Selwood,’ Fish would say, every day.

  ‘Yeah, just like yesterday,’ Joel would reply.

  ‘Yeah, well, today you are.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see.’

  Like everyone, Fish knew how good Joel was. Joel was worth about three players. If Fish’s team snagged a win, if they beat the mighty Selwood, it was trumpeted like an AFL premiership.

  Joel liked winning, too. After grabbing Lewis, he picked the next best in the line. Sometimes he’d feel bad for the kids who never got picked early. They would look at the ground, their faces sad. But when he would go to pick them, the others on Team Selwood would start stirring.

  ‘What are you doing, Sel? Harry W is still there!’

  ‘Hamish can’t even handball properly. Don’t let Fish’s team win!’

  There was one kid who never begged. As bad as Hamish and Wayno and Oliver and Percy were, they were never the absolutely last kid picked.

  That’s because there was always Ray.

  Ray d’Cruz was last picked, every day. He was tiny and skinny-armed and not much bigger than a grade one. His legs were like matchsticks, barely thicker than Joel’s arms. He hardly spoke, and when he did speak, his voice was quiet and slightly slurred. And he ran awkwardly, sort of like a soldier dragging an injured leg.

  For weeks Ray came down to Big Oval and just stood there, off to the side. Neither Joel nor Fish picked him, because they assumed he didn’t want to play, or wasn’t fit to play. Surely he’s too small, Joel thought. He’d say if he wanted to join in. He must just like watching.

  Then one day, after teams were picked, Ray spoke.

  ‘Can I be on your team, Joel?’ he asked, almost in a whisper.

  ‘Yeah, of course!’ Joel said in surprise.

  Joel felt terrible that nobody had invited Ray to play before.

  He began playing from that lunchtime on. Truth was, Ray still spent most of his time watching, only now from on the field. He hung around the forward pocket, and never called for the ball or made a serious effort to win it. He sometimes waved a stick-thin arm, or did a little trot, but he never really got a kick. He just pottered around and smiled a lot. Ray seemed to enjoy being involved, without the hassle of possessing the footy.

  Because he never touched the ball, Ray was always picked last. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Joel sometimes felt like picking him earlier, just to show Ray that he was welcome on Team Selwood. And also because Fish never, ever took Ray. Fish might not have even noticed that the small skinny kid had started playing.

  But Joel knew what Lewis and some of the others would whisper.

  ‘What are you doing, Sel?’

  ‘Don’t get Ray! You can still get Henry Morrow!’

  They wanted to win. They wanted the best team they could get.

  So it was the same every day. ‘My team, Ray,’ Joel would finish, even as Fish and everyone else was running for the start of the game.

  Ray always gave Joel a smile.

  TWO

  Mr Cunningham paced the front of the classroom, grinning at his grade fours. He had a clipped beard and blue, smiley eyes. Most of the kids were on the mat in front of him. Joel was at the back, cross-legged in one of the comfy orange armchairs. It was a Monday, which meant it was Joel’s chair day. Every kid in the class had a chair day.

  ‘How many of you know what Hale-Bopp is?’ Mr Cunningham asked.

  ‘It’s a song by Hanson,’ shouted Lewis, who then immediately started singing, ‘Hale Bopp ba duba dop.’

  ‘MMMBop’ by Hanson was the numbe
r-one hit on the charts. The class roared with laughter and joined in the song. Even Mr Cunningham was Hale-Bopping at the front of the class. That was one of the good things about their teacher. He was usually up for a laugh.

  Mr Cunningham called them to order with two extended palms.

  ‘Enough karaoke, 4C, who can really tell me what Hale-Bopp is?’

  There was silence. After a long pause, Ray d’Cruz raised one of his pipe-cleaner arms.

  ‘Yes, Ray,’ Mr Cunningham said. He sounded pleased and maybe a little surprised. Ray never spoke in class.

  ‘It’s a comet,’ Ray said, in his fuzzy, high-pitched voice. ‘It was discovered by two astronomers called Hale and Bopp two years ago. It’s the brightest thing in the sky in the northern hemisphere at the moment. And it’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Woah, very good, Ray,’ Mr Cunningham said. ‘From the sounds of it, you know more about it than I do.’ He shushed some of the louder kids who were trying to strike up a second chorus of ‘MMMBop’.

  ‘Can you tell the class what a comet is, Ray?’

  ‘Santa’s reindeer!’ shouted Lewis.

  ‘It’s a brand of kitchen cleaner!’ added one of the twins. Possibly Edgar.

  Ray grinned. He was a keen smiler, with brown skin that showed off his super-white teeth. ‘Comets are space bodies,’ he slurred. ‘They’re made of ice and dust and electro particles, but when they get near a solar body, like our sun, they heat up and release gas and we sometimes see really cool tails. Hale-Bopp’s the most amazing comet we’ve had for ages.’

  Mr Cunningham clapped slowly.

  ‘Nerd alert!’ somebody hissed, which caused Mr Cunningham to glare at the class in warning.

  ‘Okay — homework assignment. Divide into pairs and make something spacey for Hale-Bopp. Use anything you can find. If we get some good ones we might have a space-craft exhibition. Hey, get it, kids? Craft about space! Space. Craft. Spacecraft.’

  The class wasn’t listening. They all jumped up to seek out best friends and allies. Lewis leapt over a desk on his way to Joel.

  Mr Cunningham put a stop to that.

  ‘Actually, I’ll divide you up. I don’t like you always pairing with the same people.’

  He picked teams with a speed and efficiency that never happened for lunchtime footy.

  ‘Lewis with Katrina Lo . . . Harry W with Ruby Mount . . . Joel Selwood, you can go with our gun astronomer, Ray d’Cruz.’

  The class laughed. It wasn’t nice laughter. It was the laughter reserved for when a popular kid is being forced to hang out with one of the less popular kids.

  Ray stared straight ahead. His eyes were huge in his small head. He was still smiling, and Joel could tell he was pretending not to hear the giggles.

  Joel stared at the ugly beige mat in the middle of the room. He’d be working with Ray. It wasn’t that he minded. After all, Ray seemed to know more about space than anyone else in Bendigo. It was just that he didn’t know him. It’d be weird. Ray was always just the tiny, shy kid in the corner. The last one picked.

  Now Joel would be spending time with him, possibly even after school.

  ‘Your spacey craft is due by the end of the week!’ Mr Cunningham said. ‘Give me something out of this world!’

  THREE

  It was the prank war that became the talk of Year 7 at Catholic College Bendigo.

  Fiona started it when she put mandarin peel in Adam Selwood’s footy boots. Adam trained for ten minutes that night before he worked out why his boots suddenly felt too small. And smelled of citrus fruit.

  Tongues had wagged, and Adam found out it was Fiona Leigh.

  He hit back by slipping an open yoghurt into Fiona’s pencil case.

  Then Fiona ‘ballnapped’ his footy and left a ransom note in his bag.

  Then Adam ‘bagnapped’ Fiona’s bag.

  Then Fiona told Mr Atkinson that Adam had taken her bag, even though it was just tucked in the cleaner’s cupboard.

  Then Mr Atkinson gave Adam yard duty for a recess.

  Fiona and her group of girls followed him around the whole time, laughing and pointing out the most horrible bits of rubbish. ‘That half-eaten lolly there needs picking up, Selwood. If you grab a bit of cardboard you might be able to slop up that melted ice cream!’

  They thought they were hilarious.

  Which is why Adam found himself at the bike sheds, with a jar of honey and a dessertspoon.

  It was his twin brother, Troy’s idea. They were thirteen now and at different schools. It had been a tough decision to split up. Troy was at Bendigo State High. Adam was at the Catholic College. The idea was to have a little more time apart, just to get used to it. ‘We won’t always have each other around all the time,’ Troy had said. Adam had eventually agreed. Deep down, they both hoped to be drafted into the AFL one day. If that ever happened, they might not even end up in the same city.

  Even from a different school, Troy followed Adam’s prank war against Fiona Leigh with interest.

  ‘She sounds funny,’ Troy said.

  ‘She’s annoying,’ Adam replied.

  ‘Is she pretty?’ Troy asked.

  ‘You tell me, Romeo,’ Adam replied.

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ Troy said.

  ‘Well, I haven’t noticed,’ Adam said. ‘She’s tall. She’s got brown hair. She thinks she’s funny. And she’s fearless. She’s gonna prank me again. I can feel it.’

  ‘You might need to escalate,’ Troy said. ‘Does she ride to school? You could always try “Sticky Seat”?’

  The twins loved Sticky Seat. They’d nailed Joel and Scott with Sticky Seat over the holidays.

  Fiona did ride to school, and Adam had no trouble finding her bike. It was a red Malvern Star, a dragster with little flowers printed on the long white vinyl seat. It was an old bike, and might have been really daggy except Fiona somehow made it work. She bragged about how great her dragster was. In the end, everyone believed her. Fiona was like that. She was confident and jokey and might have been funny, Adam thought. If she wasn’t so annoying.

  Adam spooned up a serious dollop of honey on his dessertspoon. He checked the coast was clear. Yuck! The honey was dribbling all over his hand. He re-dipped into the honey, and then slathered it over Fiona’s flowery seat. Hmmm. Better make sure of it. He went back for another spoonful. Adam was making some very pretty swirls with the honey when he heard a throaty cough.

  ‘Finished yet, Selwood?’

  It was the deputy principal, Mr Fleming. How had he arrived so quietly? Mr Fleming was surely part-teacher, part-schoolyard ninja.

  Adam felt his stomach jump into his chest. His hand leapt a mile in the air, then hid the spoon and honey behind his back. This was a bad idea. Before he knew it, he was leaping again because the honey was pouring down the back of his leg.

  ‘Making a bit of a mess there, Selwood?’

  Adam started yabbering. ‘Um, no . . . I mean . . . yes, I suppose, it’s just that I . . . um . . .’ He was caught honey-handed.

  ‘Who are you attempting to Sticky Seat?’

  Adam couldn’t believe it. This schoolyard ninja knew Sticky Seat was called Sticky Seat.

  ‘Um . . . Fiona Leigh.’

  ‘The same Fiona Leigh I just caught putting a skink in your schoolbag?’

  Adam’s jaw flapped open. ‘A dead one?’

  Mr Fleming shook his head slowly. There was a hint of a smile. He had puffy lips and black hair, slicked back hard with some ancient, oily hair product. He was enjoying passing on the news.

  Adam let out the breath he was holding. A live lizard. Man, she was good.

  ‘Friday detention, Selwood. And don’t worry, she’s got one, too. This prank war stops right here. Is that clear?’

  Adam felt a sudden panic. Interleague training! Friday was interleague training for the Bendigo Junior Football League. If Adam wanted to be selected, he had to train.

  ‘Not Friday!’ Adam said.

  ‘Friday,’ Mr Fleming
said, walking away.

  ‘But, sir, please . . .’

  The teacher ninja floated away. Of all the teachers on staff, nobody would be moved less by a hard-luck football story than Mr Fleming. He loathed football, and said so at every opportunity.

  ‘But, Mr Fleming . . .’ Adam called.

  ‘See you Friday, Selwood.’

  FOUR

  Bedroom Footy was banned in Joel and Scott’s bedroom. ‘Take it outside!’ Mum would yell from the kitchen, ‘you’ll put a hole in the plaster!’ But Bedroom Footy played outside was not Bedroom Footy. It was outside footy. Otherwise known as footy.

  Joel and Scott loved Bedroom Footy. It was their game, their bedroom, their rules.

  The most important rule was to always be playing Lego when Mum eventually got fed up with the banging and came to investigate.

  ‘Stop playing footy inside!’

  ‘But we’re playing Lego,’ Joel would say, puffing and panting and wiping sweat from his forehead.

  ‘It’s very noisy Lego,’ Mum would respond, hands on hips.

  ‘It’s police Lego,’ Scott would pipe up, with the rubber Bedroom Footy ball stuffed under his pyjama top. ‘Catching baddies is noisy.’

  Mum would laugh and then she’d warn, ‘Don’t smash a window. Don’t break a wall.’

  Little did she know, they’d already broken a wall. Way back when Scott was five. But Joel had covered the hole with a Billy Brownless poster.

  Today, Joel had given Scott a ten-goal head start, but was already leading him fourteen goals to twelve. First to twenty. That pretty much meant game over.

  ‘Let’s start again,’ Joel said. ‘I’ll spot you fifteen goals this time.’ This was how Joel worked. He lured his seven-year-old brother with head starts, just to get him playing, and then brutally mowed him down.

  Scott dragged out the Bedroom Footy ball from under his top. ‘I don’t want to. I’m sick of losing.’

  Joel and Scott shared a room. It had once belonged to the twins, but they’d moved out into their own rooms when they turned ten. Now it was plastered with footy posters — Geelong stars on one wall for Joel, Richmond stars on another for Scott. On the roof were actual stars, or at least stars of the fluorescent variety, which winked greenly as the boys drifted off to sleep.