The Miracle Goal

by Tony Wilson

  The Bedroom Footy goal was the wall under the Billy Brownless poster, from bunk post to cupboard.

  ‘Okay, she’s gone,’ Joel whispered.

  ‘I don’t want to play,’ Scott replied.

  The game restarted anyway, and Joel scored twice, slamming the ball into Billy Brownless’s ripped nose. ‘And Joel Selwood now trails fifteen to two,’ he commentated. ‘Surely he can’t win it from here, can he? If Scooter throws this lead away, he’ll be furious!’

  Scott dived to win the loose ball.

  ‘Owwwwww!’

  One of the problems with pretending to play Lego for the benefit of Mum, was stepping on Lego.

  Scott nursed his left foot in his hand.

  Joel ruthlessly speared the ball through for another goal.

  ‘Score is fifteen to three,’ Joel crowed, pumped for the contest. ‘You can feel the defending champion lifting here!’

  Scott sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t want to play. I’m sick of losing all the time. I’m sick of you always being better.’

  ‘That’s why you get a head start,’ Joel said.

  ‘I’m sick of head starts, too.’

  Adam wasn’t exactly bursting to give Mum the newsflash about his detention. She was not a fan of breakfast condiments on bicycle seats. ‘I’m the one who ends up doing the washing around here, remember?’ she’d said when he and Troy pulled Sticky Seat on the younger two. She would not be pleased to hear he’d taken Sticky Seat to the wider world.

  So he kept quiet, shutting himself away with the homework assignment that had kept him from basketball training. ‘I’ll tell her before dinner,’ he promised himself.

  Then Dad and Troy arrived home from training, and the night was overtaken by Troy’s bad news. He’d been jumping to catch a rebound at basketball training and landed on Max Mudge’s foot. He limped to the door with Dad, miserable, a giant ice pack attached to his ankle.

  ‘Is it broken?’ Adam asked, feeling a panic for Troy. His foot was super swollen.

  ‘No, but the doc said I’ll be out of action for a week.’

  ‘What about interleague? Training’s on Friday!’

  Troy’s lip wobbled a little. ‘Thanks for reminding me. I hadn’t remembered that at all.’ He gazed glassily into the living room, where Mum was putting pillows on a footrest.

  ‘I guess you’ll be the Selwood in this year’s Bendigo team,’ Troy said.

  Adam didn’t know what to say. Both of them stared forlornly at Troy’s ankle. It looked more like a loaf of bread than a foot. It wasn’t the right time to talk about his Friday detention and Adam’s own problems with getting to training. The coaches had been clear. ‘No train, no play!’ Now neither of them could train. Maybe there would be no Selwoods in interleague this year?

  Adam almost confessed to Dad as he was saying goodnight. But Dad told him how thrilled he was with Adam’s term-two report. It seemed a shame to upset everyone’s good mood.

  In the morning, Troy hobbled to the breakfast table. His ankle was a fraction less swollen. Still, there was no way he was training on that watermelon.

  Joel was stacking up cereal biscuits in his bowl, muttering his own complaints.

  ‘I wanted to play footy tonight,’ he moaned, ‘but instead I’ll be at this weird kid Ray’s house, making space junk for Mr Cunningham’s stupid assignment.’

  ‘Why’s he weird?’ Mum said. ‘Ray’s mother called me to organise it and she seemed nice.’

  ‘Well, he’s tiny for starters,’ Joel said. ‘Smaller than Scooter even.’

  ‘So?’ said Mum.

  ‘And he doesn’t speak, hardly.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he sounds weird when he talks.’

  ‘None of that’s very important,’ Mum said. ‘The important thing is whether he’s a nice boy. And the important thing for me is that my boys are being nice boys.’

  ‘I am!’ Joel said. ‘I pick him in my team every lunchtime. Ray likes me!’

  Mum made a hmmm noise and continued to apply her lipstick. Hmmm usually meant she wasn’t overly impressed. But she didn’t take the Ray thing further.

  Mum worked at the bank on Wednesdays and was now in a rush to get ready.

  ‘I just wish I could play footy,’ Joel whined. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘You poor deprived thing,’ Mum said. ‘What’s it been this week? — Sharks game Sunday, training Monday, street footy with Tommy O until bedtime every night, endless full-contact “Lego” in your bedroom against your brother. When do you want me to get a plasterer for that wall?’

  Joel nearly choked on his cereal. He glanced at Scott, who was innocently buttering toast. Billy Brownless hadn’t done his job, after all.

  ‘You should do this space project,’ Mum continued, ignoring her own bombshell. ‘Thinking about the universe for an hour or two will be good for you.’

  ‘I’d rather think about going to Pratt Oval after school for a kick. That’s where Troy and Adam have interleague training on Friday.’

  ‘Just Adam,’ Troy corrected, in the glummest of voices.

  Adam cleared his throat. This was probably the time to confess.

  ‘Yeah, um, yeah I guess — it’s just me.’ He swallowed. Maybe he’d do the detention at school, and then ride to the Pratt afterwards and explain himself to the interleague coaches. Maybe he didn’t have to tell Mum and Dad.

  He did have to tell Troy though.

  Gathering his bag and lunch, Adam pulled Troy aside. ‘Um, Troy, you know how I was gonna do the Sticky Seat prank on Fiona . . .’ He told him all about Mr Fleming and the detention.

  ‘What? So that means you’re not training either?’ Troy asked. ‘You won’t get picked! How can neither of us make the interleague team? We’ve been having such a good year.’

  Adam shook his head sadly. ‘You think I don’t know? No train, no play. I’m an idiot.’

  Troy nodded. ‘Although. What if — there was a way for at least one of us to train?’

  Adam looked up hopefully. ‘What? If you pass your X-ray?’

  Troy snorted. ‘Have a look at my ankle. I’m not training, bro.’

  ‘Well, I can’t play, Troy. There’s no way Fleming will let me off this thing. He’s the toughest teacher in the school. And I can’t be in two places at the same time!’

  Troy laughed. It was the first time he’d looked happy since rolling his ankle. ‘Can’t you, Adam?’ He stretched out his hands and presented himself to his twin. ‘Can’t you?’

  FIVE

  Ray’s house was a five-minute ride from the Selwoods’ family home. He lived in a single-storey weatherboard bungalow with a white door. There was a lemon tree in the front yard that had dropped dozens of juicy-looking lemons onto a green tangle of lawn weeds. Next to a cobwebby tap, there was a chipped old footy-themed garden gnome, lying on its side. Joel was pleased to see it was a Geelong gnome, wearing Gary Ablett’s number five. He stood up Ablett Gnome.

  When Joel pressed the bell, the Geelong theme song played. Ray answered the door almost immediately, like he’d been waiting there.

  ‘Great doorbell,’ Joel said.

  ‘Nah, I hate it,’ Ray said in his high, slurry voice. ‘Mum and me are Carlton. The doorbell came with the house. The last owners must have barracked for Geelong.’

  ‘Well, you should change it, then,’ Joel said. ‘Isn’t that really annoying?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ray said, nodding vigorously. ‘Yes, it is.’

  Joel waited for him to say something more but he didn’t. He just kept nodding and smiling.

  Ray introduced Joel to his mum, Ros, and then took him down a long corridor to his bedroom. It had a desk with a computer in one corner, and an impressive-looking telescope in the other. There were also three footballs, a wheelchair, and a Carlton moneybox in the shape of Stephen Silvagni.

  ‘So,’ Ray said. ‘I thought we could dress up as Hale-Bopp?’

  Joel hadn’t expected that. ‘Hale-Bopp? As in th
e comet? You’ve built a comet costume?’

  Ray pointed to a mountain of sheets at the foot of his bed. ‘Under there. We pinched a couple of headlights off Pa’s old tractor.’

  Ray uncovered a cricket helmet that was smooth and white. It looked weird and alien with wires and metal jutting out on both sides. One headlight pointed backwards, and had blue cellophane taped to it. The other pointed forward. Wires connected the lamps to a car battery, stashed in a Captain Carlton backpack. It was crazy.

  ‘This is . . . Hale-Bopp?’ Joel asked.

  Ray said a high-pitched and quite weird-sounding ‘Yeeep!’

  Ray put the helmet on his head and flicked its switch. The spotlight was blinding.

  ‘What I thought,’ Ray said, ‘we go down to the aths track, and one of us runs with the helmet and the lights, and we strap on the tail.’

  Joel now saw that the white sheets had been cut into long strips and sewn together. ‘The blue light will shine on the comet’s tail. You wear the sheet around your neck like a cape,’ Ray said. ‘Mum sewed on some velcro.’

  ‘I do?’ Joel asked warily.

  ‘Well, I could wear it and you could video,’ Ray said. ‘But you know, my CP. I won’t be a very fast comet.’

  Joel didn’t know. ‘Your CP? What’s that?’

  Ray explained on the way down to the athletics track. He had a condition called cerebral palsy. It wasn’t a disease; it was an injury that happened when Ray was born. ‘The cord between me and Mum got caught around my neck,’ Ray said. ‘I didn’t get enough oxygen and it damaged a bit of my brain.’

  ‘But you’re smart,’ Joel said. ‘You’re practically the smartest in the grade.’

  Ray laughed. ‘Yeah, the bit of the brain that got injured wasn’t the smart or not-smart bit. It’s the talk-and-walk-normally bit. It’s the make-your-hand-flat bit.’

  Ray showed Joel his right hand. It was stiff and kind of stuck in a claw shape. Joel hadn’t noticed that about Ray before.

  ‘I actually didn’t get it bad,’ Ray said. ‘I can walk and talk and run even. There are a lot of CP kids who can’t do that. But it’s why I sound like I’ve got a fat tongue, and why I hobble. It’s why I’m no good at footy.’

  ‘You’re okay at footy,’ Joel lied. ‘You’re getting better.’

  ‘I’m not okay at footy.’ Ray grinned. ‘I’m terrible. But I love footy. I love footy more than anything. On the weekends I sit by the radio and take the stats for the Carlton games on my stats pad.’

  ‘I do that!’ Joel exclaimed. ‘Except Geelong.’

  ‘And I sleep with a signed Carlton footy under my doona.’

  ‘I do that!’ Joel repeated. ‘Except Geelong.’ The previous year, Joel’s hero, Gary Ablett had signed his Gary Ablett ball. He thought about that perfect day, and what the great man had said to him. ‘My dream is to one day play.’ Joel stopped. It felt mean to say that he dreamed of playing for Geelong. Especially when Ray’s condition meant he couldn’t possibly dream the same thing.

  Ray continued to beam his thousand-watt smile. ‘You will, Joel! We all hope you will. We love watching you play. Mr Richards says you’re the best player the Sharks have had in thirty years.’

  It was a cold night, but Joel felt a warm flush in his chest. They walked on in silence for a moment. Joel was wheeling his bike with one hand, and carrying the Hale-Bopp helmet with the other. Ray had his arms full of white sheet and the shoulder bag with the video camera.

  They arrived at the athletics track. It was deserted, except for one smallish kid and his coach, practising hurdles. There was only one light on, near the clubhouse. The back straight was almost dark. Perfect for the Hale-Bopp run.

  ‘It’s good to have dreams,’ Ray said, as they opened the gate. ‘You know what my dream is?’

  Joel didn’t.

  ‘I want to play one game of actual football. For an actual team. I reckon I’d only need to do it once. Just to have that feeling of running out with the team.’

  Joel nodded. ‘It’s great,’ he said. ‘It’s my favourite feeling.’

  SIX

  ‘Make a comet noise!’ Ray yelled. ‘You gotta hiss! And maybe “whoosh” a bit.’

  Joel started laughing. It was already the weirdest thing he’d ever done. He was hurtling down the back straight of the South Bendigo athletics track wearing a clunky oversized helmet that shone monster beams in either direction. With every step, the battery in his backpack thumped into the small of his back. It was difficult to see past the headlight attached to the grille.

  Still, this was ridiculous fun.

  ‘Keep going,’ Ray called. ‘Your blue tail. It’s seriously cool!’

  Joel sprinted again. His giant cape flowed out behind him. Unfolded, his Rapunzel tail had to be fifteen or twenty metres long. When he hit top speed, it flapped into the air and caught the beam of blue, shimmering and dancing. ‘It’s incredible,’ Ray said, from behind the camera lens. ‘It’s exactly like Hale-Bopp! Go faster! And hiss like you’re off-gassing!’

  ‘What’s off-gassing?’ Joel yelled. He stopped running. His tail had tangled in his feet again.

  ‘Off-gassing is what comets do,’ Ray said. ‘The comet has a head that they call a nucleus, and it shoots off gas and electro particles and space stuff, and that’s what makes the tail.’

  ‘Off-gassing is what my brother Scooter does,’ Joel said. ‘He can off-gas like you wouldn’t believe. We share a bunk.’

  Ray laughed. ‘Go again. I promise you. This is three Brownlow-votes space art. Mr Cunningham isn’t just going to give us an A. He’s gonna send it to NASA!’

  Joel jogged to the top of the straight again. He was ready to relaunch when he sensed two people hovering in his blue beam. It was the coach and the hurdler, the two they’d seen when they arrived.

  Joel’s head spun around. He spotlighted them with his front lamp.

  ‘Scooter? What are you doing down here?’ Joel asked in shock.

  Scott was so surprised to see that the caped weirdo in the whacked-out helmet was his brother that he just stood there dumbstruck.

  ‘Scooter, are you doing hurdles?’

  ‘I’m Mr Sexton,’ the coach said, waving at Joel. ‘And you, I’m guessing, are an alien from the planet Futon.’

  Joel giggled and lifted his helmet a fraction. ‘We’re making a video,’ he said. ‘It’s for our school space-art project.’

  Ray wandered over. ‘This is Ray,’ Joel said. ‘He made the comet costume.’

  ‘Well, I must say,’ Mr Sexton said, ‘you’re moving pretty well, kid. I’d like to see how you go over hurdles without that stuff on.’

  Scott fidgeted from foot to foot.

  ‘Hurdles,’ Ray said. ‘You know, that might look really cool.’ He turned to Mr Sexton. ‘Do you mind if we film Joel going over the hurdles in the costume?’

  Five minutes later, Joel was hurdling like a champion.

  ‘Beautiful!’ Mr Sexton laughed, clapping in excitement. ‘Keep your helmet head still, Mr Hale-Bopp. Lead leg straight. Powering forward, not jumping up. Right leg trails, ankle to knee height. You got it, Joel, you got it!’

  At first they found the comet’s tail kept knocking down the hurdles. Then Ray asked Scott whether he’d mind hurdling behind Joel, carrying the tail.

  ‘Keep up, Scooter!’ Joel called. ‘I don’t want to drag you over onto your face.’

  Those were the takes Ray ended up using. Strange, hilarious footage of Hale-Bopp whooshing down an athletics track, beaming a comet’s beam, a shimmering, blue-tinged tail rising and falling over the bumps of space.

  The hurdles had been Dad’s idea. When Scott had complained that Joel was better at everything than him, Dad had remembered Scott winning the eighty-metres hurdles at Little Athletics. ‘Do you want to learn hurdles, Scott? I mean properly. Learn some technique. Mum and I know a good hurdles coach — Mr Sexton. He’s coached champions.’

  Scott had agreed. He hadn’t told Joel because he hadn�
��t wanted Joel to come, too. Hurdling was going to be his thing. Like the twins had tennis. One day he was just going to casually challenge Joel to a hurdles race and whoop his backside.

  That had been the plan.

  But now Scott found himself clutching the sheet like a bridesmaid holding the bride’s train. He could feel Joel pulling him along. Joel was already faster over the hurdles than Scott. He already had Mr Sexton cheering. ‘What a beautiful lead leg. What a lovely low clearance!’

  Scott sighed. Joel had been doing this for five minutes and he was already beating him!

  And he was doing it in a Hale-Bopp costume.

  SEVEN

  It’s fair to say the first few space-craft exhibits weren’t exactly stellar.

  Henry Morrow went first. He was standing next to Riley, and they were both holding up plastic figurines. ‘Um, so, um, this is Lando Calrissian,’ said Henry.

  ‘And this is “tan vest” Luke Skywalker,’ said Riley. ‘They’re both in Star Wars, and as you know, Star Wars is set in space where comets are . . .’

  ‘Riley,’ Mr Cunningham said, with hands on hips. ‘Have you and Henry just brought in your Star Wars figures? Is that what you’re counting as a space project?’

  ‘Um . . . I’ve also brought in the Millennium Falcon Lego,’ Liam said from two seats away, pulling the Lego out from under the table.

  ‘I’ve brought in Star Wars, figures too,’ Harry W chimed from the back.

  ‘C’mon, boys, we can do better than this. I want real space information.’

  Harry C and Ben went next. Ben pulled a handful of small stones out of his pocket and scattered them over a table. ‘This is, like, an asteroid belt,’ he said, arranging the stones randomly on the table. ‘The asteroids are, like, really big in real life, but you know, these ones are, like, really small.’

  ‘Okay, Ben,’ Mr Cunningham said. He scratched his beard. ‘I can see you really slaved away on that one. Thank you for your contribution.’