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

shrugged. ‘OK. Pretty funny though. If they only knew! God, they could’ve used you today.’
    â€˜Yeah, well, it’s kind of a crap school and the PE teacher’s a real mongrel.’
    It ruined the morning because I spent my time worrying that Angus would say something to his coach who would say something to Mr Barnes, or one of our team would hear the Bromwich kids talking, or Angus would tell one of our players.
    The morning was in ruins from a cricket point of view as well, because Bromwich were way too good for us. Our kids had nothing to show for all that training they’d done. Bromwich declared at 2 for 100, then got us all out in the second innings for 31, even worse than the first. Outright defeat. Ouch. It was a pretty quiet bus trip home.

At least I was getting my cricket fix twice a week by training with Cypress and playing for them. I was going OK too, considering it was Under 14s. My batting average was 70.6 and I had 17 wickets at 11.8. I even got two Saturday afternoon games in the Under 16s, when they were short of a player, and I scored 61 for them one week, and 26 the other.
    Then came a Saturday morning when things changed slightly. I never knew who we were playing from one week to the next, especially when the games were at home. I didn’t care, it didn’t matter to me. This particular Saturday was a home game, but I was late; Mum dropped me off on her way to the optometrist with Callan, and because he was so slow getting out of bed I missed the start of the match.
    When we got there I ran across to Wally. He just said, ‘’Bout time. We’re batting, so you can pad up and knock a few balls around with Chris. I’ll probably put you in next.’
    Looking at the batsmen in the middle I could see that they were our openers, so we hadn’t lost any wickets. And these days I normally batted number three.
    Chris and I hit balls to each other to warm up, until after about ten minutes I heard shouts from the pitch and Wally yelled, ‘OK, Josh, you’re in.’
    I set off on the long walk. It wasn’t until I reached the centre and took guard, then got ready to face my first ball that I looked at the bowler. I also realised why he was standing staring at me instead of starting his run-up.
    The bowler was Red.
    I stared right back at him, in horror. This couldn’t be happening. I really liked Red, respected him even. The last thing I wanted was to have him know I’d double-crossed him and everyone else at Tarrawagga. What was he doing here anyway? I remembered then that he played for South Tarrawagga, so maybe they were in the same comp as Cypress. But this was Under 14s!
    I thought, ‘OK, I’ll hit a really pathetic shot and get out first ball, so he’ll still think I’m hopeless,’ but I knew that wouldn’t be fair on my team. And anyway, I was already busted. Not only would he know that I must be better than average to be in the Under 14s, but also I was batting number three, and no coach puts a dud batsman at number three.
    Besides, any serious cricketer gets a good idea of what a batsman’s like simply by the way he comes in, takes guard, checks the field placements, settles himself for the first ball . . . you just know right away whether he’s going to be a tough nut or a pushover, or somewhere in between. By now I’d played so much cricket that I arrived at the crease like I was coming home. I felt confident in that little rectangle, and anyone as smart as Red would have picked that up in the blink of an eye.
    The umpire looked around, frowning, wanting to know where the bowler had gone. Red shook himself, dropped his head and began his run-up. I knew right away that I was in for a lethal delivery, something truly venomous. Well, I got that right. I think it might have been the fastest ball I’d ever faced. And it was a sandshoe crusher, a yorker, the kind of ball that’d break your foot if