‘Not more boots,’ Alison said, when Matt put the shoebox on the spare chair in the restaurant. He’d just joined her for lunch. ‘Don’t you have enough pairs already?’
‘These aren’t new, they’re the fairy boots. The gen-u-ine article.’
‘Really …?’ Alison looked puzzled. Then she thought of something. ‘Oh, Matt, you didn’t go and get them back off that kid did you? I know this game’s really important to you, but …’
‘Course not. A good fairy left them.’ He handed Alison the note.
‘Well,’ she said, after she’d read it. ‘They’re a special pair of boots all right.’
‘Yeah, they are. I gotta live up to them now or that kid’ll be after me.’
Toggo looked around. The table was in the open air on the cafe strip and there were lots of passers-by. It made him feel uncomfortable. Too many people wanted to give him advice about his kicking. Or tell him, between coughs, that smoking never did them any harm. Those notes were on his mind. But he was feeling good. He wouldn’t let it get him down.
He decided, suddenly, to put the boots on. He wanted to see how they felt on his feet. As he tightened the laces he became aware of a pair of hairy knees near his head. Someone huge was standing very close to the table. Before he looked up he knew it was trouble.
It was. Two big full-back types were glaring at him and looking mean. He wished they’d changed tables after all.
‘I hope ya play better on Sunday than ya been doing, yer big girl. We need proper players, not AFL rejects.’
Matt didn’t say anything. It didn’t get you anywhere to answer that kind of stuff.
‘Excuse me,’ Alison said. ‘We’re trying to have our lunch.’
‘Can’t ya talk for yourself yer big poof?’ The second guy took a long drawback on his cigarette and blew the smoke into Toggo’s face. ‘Give fairies the boot,’ he said.
Suddenly it was like the boots took on a life of their own. Matt jumped onto the spare chair, pirouetted, and kicked the cigarette out of the guy’s hand with a neat karate kick. Then he jumped again, like a ninja, and landed lightly on his feet, facing their backs. What was this? He’d turned into a cross between Gero, Nureyev and the Ninja Turtles.
‘Get out of here,’ he said. Now he sounded like Rambo.
The two punks were so stunned they didn’t know what to do. Matt was stunned too, and really glad his hamstring hadn’t gone again. He was lucky. He took it as a good sign.
The punks turned and were eyeballing him from two metres. What happens now, he wondered. He’d fight if he had to but he kind of liked the shape of his face. And he didn’t like pain. And he especially didn’t want to be put out of action before the game on Sunday.
Just when he was starting to think that the general public were all note writers and haters, a guy at the next table stood up. He’d had a ringside seat at what was going down. ‘You heard the man,’ he said. ‘Get out of here.’ Half-a-dozen people stood up at their tables and stared at the punks.
The punks looked confused. They hadn’t been in a situation like this before. When a couple of waiters came over and asked them to leave, they did.
‘Where did you learn to do that?’ Alison asked, when Matt was back in his chair. ‘I didn’t know you could do karate.’
‘Nor did I. And don’t ask me to do it again because I don’t think I could.’
‘Once is enough, believe me,’ Alison said. They were both pretty quiet as they ate their lasagna. Matt wasn’t completely sure what had happened. It was like, when he’d really needed to call up everything he had, he’d been able to. They were special boots all right.
When they got up to leave the restaurant, someone called out: ‘Good luck for Sunday, Toggo.’
‘Yeah, kick a ton, Matt,’ someone else chipped in.
A couple other people looked a bit puzzled. Who is this guy with a funny name, they were wondering. And why does he need good luck?
It came as a shock to Toggo, sometimes, to realise that not everyone in Fremantle was a footy fan. And that not everyone was focused on the fortunes of his kicking boot. It was a bit of a relief as well.
Still, anyone who was in Freo on Sunday would be left in no doubt that Fremantle was a football town. No doubt at all.