The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain by Cath Crowley Read Free Book Online

way to play.
    Â 
ALYCE
    Gracie’s got brown hair, like me. She’s about the same height too. People notice her. I think it’s her voice. It’s always louder than you expect and covered with laughter.
    I was surprised when she said she didn’t want to work with me. I don’t know Gracie very well, but I remember once in Year 3 she gave me an invitation to her party. She spelt my name right. Everyone always spells it with an ‘i’, even the teachers. Ever since then I thought she would be nice. I never thought she’d look at me like I was nothing.
    Â 
HELEN
    I held Gracie on the day she was born and thought, she is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. She is fragile. Alive. Ours. ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘we’re in trouble now. This kid is going to run all over us.’
    Things come easily to Gracie. Before she was born I felt her name on my lips. Grace. I knew then that she would have something special. It’s in the way she smiles, the length of her lashes. Her fingers. In her run when she’s playing soccer.
    In school, I was always the last one picked on the netball team. It’s not that I want Gracie to know what that feels like. I’ve always been proud of her strength. Sometimes I worry, though. She’s so impatient. I see it at the nursery. She can’t understand why she kills the plants. She can’t see that some things need nurturing before they’re strong enough to take off on their own.
    Sometimes you need to wait, Gracie, and then things happen. Beautiful things. You can’t see them at first, like vegetables growing under the soil. Like tiny shoots, arriving unexpectedly, green on old branches.
    Â 
BILL
    The day Gracie was born I thought, she has her mother’s eyes. They were eyes of fire. I knew then that I would do anything she asked me. She’s so much like Helen, even though neither of them can see it.
    Helen is harsh sometimes, tells Gracie and me to get off our arses and take the rubbish out, or clean up the mess in the damn kitchen. If she finds a spider in the house, though, she won’t kill it, she’ll put it back in the garden. She’ll order three tonnes of manure and talk about life and death while she’s unloading it. Helen’s soft when she’s thinking about Gracie and hard when she’s talking to her.
    Sometimes they fight and roar at each other like rough winds along the coast. I wait until it’s quiet, and then I find Gracie and I tell her the story of her beginning. I remember for her a mother with tired eyes, crying with relief because her daughter has been born, crying because she is safe.

12
    nemesis noun : the retribution of fate
for wrongdoing
GRACIE
    There are only two other times I’ve felt exactly right like I did at that moment with Nick. The first was when I was much younger. I used to have this dream. I was staying at a farm. There were acres of trees, tall, and far enough apart so that the sun lit up the day between them. The first thing I remember about the dream is that it was warm. The second thing is that I could fly. The wind took me up and I was swimming through air currents like waves. I’d wake and still have the feeling that it was true. The second time I feel right is when I’m on the soccer field. It’s the closest thing I have to that dream.
    We lose the toss today. Flemming kicks off and Martin and I run out to the side. Their defender is close but I’m fast. I get the ball. Martin shouts at me to cross. I pretend not to hear him.
    He’s saying what he always does when I get the ball. Kick it to him, to Flemming, to the centre and then move back to defence. I don’t need to. I can make it. I run fast. My feet areflying. I want Nick to see me score this goal. I want him to see it come off my boot and fly. I love the look on the face of the goalie. He can’t believe a girl kicked it.
    I don’t see the defender coming