Pivot and Win

by Lisa Gibbs

  ‘Actually, you know what I think? I think it’s Steven! He’s being suspiciously nice to me, and all my things have gone missing lately!’

  She could see by their raised eyebrows that her friends weren’t convinced, but Isabella nodded her head. ‘I have brothers. Sounds suspicious to me!’

  Chapter Five

  Janet called for the girls to form a huddle. ‘We’ve played all the teams in the competition once, so now we’ll start playing each of them a second time. We’re up against Sandy Bay today. You beat them last time. Let’s beat them again! I’d like to see some of that pivot action we practised at training. All right?’

  The girls nodded and accepted the bibs Janet handed out. Lily was pleased to see she would be playing Centre for the first half of the game. She loved being able to run the full length of the court, but she knew she might not be playing that position for the whole game: Janet usually swapped the bibs after the first half so the girls could try different positions.

  As soon as the starting whistle blew, Lily fired a quick pass to Isabella in Wing Attack, who was always fast off the mark. Isabella took the ball and pivoted outwards towards the sideline so that she could face Sienna in Goal Attack. But by the time she was facing the right way, the Sandy Bay Goal Defence had Sienna covered! Isabella had to pivot some more to be able to pass the ball to Lily, who had run into the goal third.

  After catching the ball, Lily spun away from the goal circle and then back around before passing it to Prani as Goal Shooter, who was calling urgently for the ball. Prani received the ball and pivoted to face the goals, but she spun too far, so that she ended up facing away from them! She passed the ball out to Lily, who was at the edge of the goal circle, so that she could reposition herself, but the Sandy Bay Goal Keeper intercepted the pass and sent the ball down the court.

  Sandy Bay scored the first goal of the game.

  As the quarter continued, each of the Marrang Gems was determined to try out the super-pivot. But they kept either spinning too far, or in the wrong direction!

  In the second quarter, the girls were starting to improve their pivots, but they were all so keen to try it that sometimes they used it when they didn’t need to.

  At one point, Jade as Goal Defence intercepted the ball. She passed it to Charlotte in Wing Defence.

  ‘I’m free, Charlotte!’ Lily called. But instead of passing the ball straight to Lily, Charlotte pivoted in a complete circle and by the time she was ready to throw, the Sandy Bay Centre was in front of Lily.

  Charlotte tried to pass it to Lily anyway, but the opposition Centre took it easily and sent it back to their team’s goalers.

  This is a disaster! Lily thought.

  After that, she wasn’t sure if she should use the super-pivot or not, and she hesitated for so long when she got the next pass that the umpire blew the whistle.

  Brrrp! ‘Held ball!’

  Lily knew you could only hold the ball for three seconds. She grimaced as she handed it over. Losing the ball that way was such a waste!

  The Marrang Gems’ efforts to use the super-pivot continued clumsily for the rest of the quarter and Lily was almost relieved to hear the umpire’s whistle blow for the half-time break.

  As soon as the girls had collected their drink bottles, Janet gathered them in. She began cautiously. ‘Well done, girls, for trying out the new pivot we learnt at training. I just have one thing to say: less is more.’ She gave them a significant look, only to be faced with eight blank stares.

  Janet took a slow breath and started again. ‘You’re overdoing it! Don’t pivot if it’s not needed and only use the super-pivot to turn away from your opponent if it will help open up a space for you to make a clear pass. Don’t pivot if it turns you away from the game. Okay? Less pivoting and more passing!’

  This time the girls all grinned and nodded.

  In the second half of the game, the Marrang Gems stopped trying to use the super-pivot at every pass and the ball began to move more smoothly down the court. Lily, who was now playing Goal Attack, almost forgot about the pivot until the Sandy Bay Goal Defence was standing right over her. Lily pivoted away for a clean pass to Isabella, who was Goal Shooter.

  It works! thought Lily.

  Another opportunity came later in the fourth quarter. Prani, the Centre, threw the ball to Lily, who didn’t bother with the series of quick pivot steps she was used to. Instead, she spun around in one fluid motion to send the ball to Jade in Wing Attack, who was standing behind her.

  It really works! Lily grinned to herself. I definitely need to practise these super-pivots. I bet Eliza would have been impressed if she’d seen me just then.

  After the game, Janet was all smiles. ‘Well done, girls, you nailed it! You played so much better in the second half. I can see you’re starting to use the super-pivot only when you know it will help. Did you know that you were down by five goals at half-time, but you ended up beating Sandy Bay by six goals?’

  ‘Yay!’ the girls all cheered, jumping up and down.

  Prani managed to add a spin to her jump, and then kept pivoting around and around. She got so dizzy that she spiralled onto the court where the next game had started.

  Brrrp! ‘Off the court!’ the umpire said sternly.

  ‘I’m trying!’ said Prani. She staggered as she tried to walk to the side, still dizzy.

  ‘Quick, Prani!’ said Lily, and she dragged her friend over the sideline.

  ‘My perfect Prani pivot still needs practice!’ said Prani, laughing.

  Chapter Six

  On Monday at school, Lily plonked down in the chair next to Maddy. A large group of students from two classes settled around the open learning area for a maths lesson. Lily saw Prani and Sienna and waved. Lily wished that the whole Marrang Gems team could hang out together at school but Jade went to a different one, with Isabella, and Phoebe and Charlotte were at a third school.

  Maddy’s books, ruler, pens and pencils were neatly arranged on the table in front of her. Lily, however, dumped onto the table a jumbled mess of workbooks with tattered covers, and an old pencil case. She opened the case and groaned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Steven again,’ said Lily. She showed the contents of her pencil case to Maddy. It was totally empty except for a collection of smiley-face stickers stuck to the inside, laughing at her.

  Lily and Maddy both started to giggle and Maddy passed her spare pencil to Lily. ‘Does he ever stop playing tricks?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I guess it’s fair since I get him all the time, too. I put salt on his cereal this morning when he wasn’t looking. He took three mouthfuls before he realised something was wrong!’

  Maddy laughed, then looked up as the teacher came in.

  ‘Are we still doing the measurement stuff?’ asked Lily.

  ‘I think so.’

  Lily moaned. ‘It was sooo boring last week.’

  ‘Hopefully it’ll be better today. Look what she’s got.’ Maddy pointed to all the measuring equipment their teacher had piled into a tub on the floor, including metre rulers, tape measures and stadiometers.

  Mrs Lake met Lily’s eyes and grinned. ‘You are exactly the person I need,’ she said.

  Lily’s eyes narrowed. ‘But Mrs Lake, what do I have to do?’

  ‘Just lie on the floor. That’s all.’

  Lily grinned at Maddy and jumped to her feet. ‘I can do that!’

  Lily lay down on the floor near her teacher, carefully tucking her school uniform beneath her. She looked expectantly up at Mrs Lake.

  Mrs Lake invited the rest of the students to form a circle around Lily. For the first few minutes, they talked about the different ways of measuring they had explored in the last lesson.

  ‘You found out that when you measure things, you need to be really accurate,’ said Mrs Lake. ‘Today you will try measuring some things for yourselves – you’ll be measuring your bodies!’ She pointed at the board behind her. ‘You’ll see some stat
ements there about body proportions. You’re going to measure your body to discover if they’re true.’ She swept a hand in Lily’s direction. ‘Lily’s going to be our demonstration dummy!’

  Lily grinned as the laughter started at the description of her as a ‘dummy’.

  ‘Let’s read the statements together,’ said Mrs Lake.

  ‘The distance between your wrist and elbow is the same length as your foot,’ chanted the class.

  Two of the students measured these distances on Lily, using the tape measures from the tub. The distance was almost equal between the two. The class decided that this statement could be true, but that they would need to test it on their own bodies to be sure.

  The class read out the next statement. ‘The length of your nose is the same length as your thumb.’

  A few noisy minutes followed as everyone debated whether this could be true or not, while Sienna measured Lily’s nose then her thumb. Once Sienna had finished, Mrs Lake called for attention and the class read the next statement.

  ‘The length of your outstretched arms is the same as your height.’

  ‘Okay, Lily, put your arms by your sides so that Maddy can measure your body length from the top of your head to the heels of your feet.’

  Lily made faces at Maddy, while she carefully measured Lily’s body length.

  ‘You’re 149 centimetres,’ said Maddy.

  ‘That’s probably about average for your age,’ said Mrs Lake.

  Lily frowned, because Mrs Lake had reminded her of her worries. Average! I can’t be average! I need to be tall. The Australian Diamonds don’t have any average players!

  ‘Now let’s measure Lily’s arms.’

  Lily huffily stretched her arms out on either side of her body so that Maddy could measure her arm span.

  ‘It’s 152 centimetres,’ said Maddy.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ said Mrs Lake. ‘Lily has long arms!’

  Lily’s eyes opened wide and she stared at Mrs Lake. She started to sweat. Oh no. I’m out of proportion and now everyone knows it! She felt her cheeks burning red.

  ‘You are so lucky!’ said Maddy.

  Lily looked at Maddy, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

  ‘Netball, silly,’ Maddy explained. ‘Long arms make it easier to get the ball!’

  Lily nodded slowly, processing the thought as everybody else grabbed a tape measure to test the statements with a partner. She didn’t care that Sam at a table nearby had begun to call her ‘gorilla arms’. She had net ball arms!

  But then Lily started to worry all over again. Will long arms be enough to make up for not being tall?

  Chapter Seven

  After school, Lily decided to give her cousin Eliza a call. Despite their age difference, the cousins had always had a special bond. Right now, Lily needed Eliza’s advice.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Eliza! It’s me, Lily. Guess what? I might be average height, but I have long arms!’

  Eliza gave a warm laugh. ‘Good for you, Lil! How do you know that?’

  Lily explained about the body measurements they did at school and how her arms were longer than normal. This time Eliza took it more seriously.

  ‘You know what? That’s a huge advantage for netball. You should be able to get lots of intercepts! Not only that, but your opponents won’t be expecting it.’

  ‘Awesome! But …’ Lily wondered if Eliza would understand her worries. ‘… Eliza, will that be enough for talent scouts? I’m only average height. What if I don’t grow any more? Will I be selected?’

  ‘Hmmm. To be honest, Lil, it’s too soon to tell. All you can do at this point is work on your skills. Are you coming to Mum’s party? I was hoping to see some of your netball moves.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll definitely be there. And I can show you my super-pivot!’

  Lily hung up. She was still worried. Who else could she talk to?

  She dialled Phoebe’s number and launched into an explanation of what had happened in maths class, and what Eliza had told her. ‘So what do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘I think that it’s great you have long arms!’ said Phoebe.

  ‘But it’s not as if the netball talent scouts are going to notice … They’ll just see I’m not tall,’ said Lily.

  ‘They’ll notice if you keep getting the ball!’ Phoebe said.

  ‘Hmmph,’ Lily grumbled.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Phoebe. ‘Caitlyn’s shown me a really cool drill for jumping high. We could practise that. If you could jump high and use your long arms, then people would notice!’

  ‘Who’s Caitlyn?’

  ‘She minds Max and me when Mum and Dad go out. She’s really good at netball.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lily agreed. ‘When can you come over?’

  The next afternoon, Phoebe stood scanning Lily’s backyard while Lily went in search of a netball. Phoebe saw a solid-looking chair and dragged it over to the edge of the concrete driveway. When Lily passed her the netball, Phoebe stood on the chair and held the ball out from her body, in the palm of her hand.

  ‘All right, Lily. All you have to do is run up and knock the ball out of my hand. Each time you get it, I’ll move it higher to make it harder. Caitlyn says it teaches you to jump higher in a game.’

  Lily’s eyes lit up. She ran down the driveway and leapt up, knocking the ball cleanly out of Phoebe’s hand.

  ‘Obviously you can already jump high,’ said Phoebe, laughing. ‘I’ll make it harder this time.’

  Phoebe held the ball higher and higher. Lily found that even if she couldn’t get it the first time, after a few tries she would manage to jump up and tap the ball out.

  ‘Look, Mum,’ she called when Janet brought some rubbish out to the bin in the yard. ‘How cool is this drill?’

  Janet watched for a moment. ‘That is a good drill. I’ll have to include that at training sometime!’

  Phoebe and Lily grinned at each other and swapped over so that Phoebe could have a go.

  Can I get so good at this that nobody notices I’m not tall? Lily wondered.

  Chapter Eight

  At training the next day, Lily ran out onto the court wearing a bright blue cross trainer on one foot and a multi-coloured casual sneaker on the other.

  ‘Nice work!’ Sienna clapped appreciatively. ‘Let me guess. Two of your runners are missing?’

  The other girls turned and grinned when they saw Lily in mismatched shoes. Janet just shook her head and said nothing.

  ‘Yes.’ Lily said. ‘My feet had different needs today!’

  ‘Your brother?’ Isabella asked.

  ‘Yep! It has to be. Time to plan a bit of payback.’

  ‘I have just the book for you,’ Isabella said in a low voice. ‘It has the best tricks ever. It’s called Teenage Brothers and How to Even the Score. My uncle gave it to me last Christmas. I’ve played some of the tricks on my little brothers. They’re great! I’ll bring it for you on Saturday.’

  Lily gave Isabella a thumbs up and they moved into line for passing practice.

  After that exercise, Janet arranged them all in a wide circle.

  ‘Last week at the game you were starting to get the hang of the super-pivot. We’re going to work on it some more today so that you can keep improving. For this drill I want you to pass the ball around in a circle. Step towards the person who’s going to pass you the ball and then pivot to throw to the next player in the circle.’

  Awesome! Lily thought. We get to practise the super-pivot again!

  She waited eagerly for the ball and pivoted neatly around to pass it to Jade, who was standing next to her. The ball travelled around and around the circle. Gradually all the girls were able to pivot in one smooth move and pass to the girl on their right. When Janet was satisfied with their progress, she reversed the drill so they had to pivot in the opposite direction.

  We’re getting so much better at this, Lily thought, but I wonder if we can do it in the game?

  After trai
ning, the teammates gathered on the side of the court. Lily noticed that Charlotte was standing to the side, looking unhappy and glancing anxiously towards her mum, who had been watching training.

  ‘Are you okay, Charlotte?’ asked Lily.

  ‘I guess.’ Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s just that my dad might be getting a new job.’ She blew her nose.

  Lily wasn’t sure why that would be upsetting Charlotte, but she decided that distracting her might cheer her up. ‘Come on. Let’s see what the others are doing.’

  Charlotte nodded and followed Lily over to the team bench.

  ‘Hey Lily,’ said Maddy, ‘how good was maths yesterday?’ Maddy turned to the others. ‘Lily has extra-long arms!’

  ‘Nice,’ Isabella nodded. ‘That will come in handy for netball!’

  Lily grinned back at Isabella. ‘That’s what Maddy and Phoebe said!’

  Chapter Nine

  It was a cold Saturday morning and a blustery wind swept across the netball courts. The Marrang Gems were playing against Barton. It had been windy the last time the girls had played Barton, too. They had lost that game, and today was going to be even harder because none of the girls would get a rest on the bench: this week they only had seven players, because Jade was at home with a bad cold.

  For the first half of the game, both teams discovered that soft passes into the wind were a recipe for disaster. Intercepts were happening often as passes swerved out of line and into the wrong hands. Lily was playing Wing Attack. She threw one pass to Maddy, who was their Goal Attack, and actually saw it arc through the air as the wind carried it off court. When the Barton Wing Defence threw the ball back in, instead of it going to the Barton Wing Attack as intended, it landed in Prani’s hands. She was more surprised than anyone; she had just turned around and there it was!

  At one point in the second quarter, Isabella as Goal Keeper leapt up and caught a rebound. But the wind had pulled some of the hair out of her ponytail and whipped it around into her face.