The Year My Life Broke by John Marsden Read Free Book Online

concentrate on the game better. And I am good at maths.’
    â€˜Well, I guess it’ll be OK, as long as your parents sign the consent form, of course.’
    Bromwich Primary reminded me of Abernathy: old buildings, lots of trees along the street, big houses with heaps of flowers and stuff. Like our old house before we lost our money. The game wasn’t at the school though, it was at a park down the end of the street. It was a pretty big oval, with a turf wicket. Our kids lost the toss but the Bromwich captain wanted to field for some reason, so he sent us in. I opened the score book and went to work. I did six dots in the first over, and three more in the second over, and then suddenly I got busy. KABOOM! Wicket, dot, wicket. Two wickets for no runs. Marty and Michael both taking off their pads, looking angry and frustrated. Great.
    Red went in and for the first time I found myself seriously barracking for Tarrawagga. I’d hated the school from the first day but you can’t stay in a place forever without finding a few things that aren’t too bad. Somehow hanging out with the five-year-olds had made me feel more a part of Tarrawagga. I felt kind of protective towards those little critters and that made me want the school to be a good place for them. Besides, it was just plain embarrassing to be associated with a bunch of losers, and at two for nothing Tarrawagga were looking like serious losers.
    Red settled in fairly well, and at the end of the third over scored our first runs, with a sweep that wasn’t too well timed but got 2. He and Shelley were batting and they survived two more overs before she went LBW for 5. That put Rolf in, and I felt a bit more confident with him and Red at the wicket, because they were our best batsmen by far. Unfortunately though a minute later I had to write a zero beside Rolf’s name as he walked back again, clean bowled for a golden duck.
    Apart from a kid called Nathan who went in at number nine and scored 11, no-one except Red got double figures. We had five ducks. Sundries got 6, which made them our third-highest scorer. Red was 16 not out, and our total was 43. I suppose it could have been worse, considering at one stage we were 8 for 26.
    The Bromwich innings started and I found myself busy again, but for the wrong reasons. The Bromwich openers were scoring so fast that I thought they’d pass our score in the first five overs. I was so busy that I didn’t take any notice of a boy standing in front of me watching the game until he shifted a bit to his left and blocked my view. Then I called out, ‘Excuse me, can you move please, I can’t see.’
    He turned around to answer and we both did a double take. I didn’t know his name but he obviously knew mine, because he said, ‘Josh! What are you doing here? How come you’re not playing?’
    I took a quick look to find Mr Barnes, and luckily he was busy talking to the teacher from Bromwich.
    â€˜Well . . .’ I said, ‘the thing is, I’ve, um, pulled a muscle. So I’m just scoring.’
    â€˜Wow, bad news for you, good news for us.’
    He was a nice kid; he’d played a couple of times for Southern Districts when I was vice-captain. I glanced down at the list of names the Bromwich scorer had given me and recognised his straight away: Angus Beatty. He was batting at number four.
    â€˜What are you doing at Tarrawagga?’ he asked. ‘Have you moved or something?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said, wondering if he hadn’t even heard about Antelope. It had been in all the papers, and on TV.
    I decided to be honest about the cricket. I was a bit sick of lies.
    â€˜Look, Angus,’ I said. ‘I made that up about the pulled muscle. To tell you the truth, I’m not actually playing. They don’t know I can play cricket. I didn’t want to be in the team so I just never got involved. Please don’t say anything to them, OK?’
    He