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When we get to the indoor sports centre, I fully expect Jazz to give me a lecture on resting up before the Championships start, like she has done since I told her I made the rep squad, but she’s not there. The casual manager and maintenance man, Mick, is pulling apart the bowling machine. He tells me Jazz has gone away for a couple of days but isn’t sure where or what for. Some coaching thing, he thinks.
“What’s up with the machine?” I ask.
Mick pulls off the cover. “Skipping settings or something. Not sure if I can fix it, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Charlie and I leave Mick to it and head down to the nets where Ravi’s already bowling to Troy, who looks like he’s practicing his drives. Charlie and I drop our bags on the floor outside the nets and start padding up. Troy hits a ball back over Ravi’s head and walks down the pitch and leans on the netting. I introduce him to Charlie and she greets him with her usual ‘G’day’ and handshake.
“Nice article,” Troy says to Charlie.
“Thanks,” Charlie replies. “Did you see the Facebook page?”
Troy pulls off his batting gloves and nods. “Yep. Ravi shared it to the Devils group. They think it’s great.”
I snort out a breath. “I bet they do.” The Devils didn’t want me to play for them last summer, and after we beat them in the final a couple of months ago, I’m betting they really don’t care too much about me playing this week at all. “How’s Ravi’s bowling going? Is he getting it to spin yet?”
“Not even a little bit,” Troy jokes. “It’s hard on artificial grass though.”
“Ravi’s been trying some off-spin,” I explain to Charlie. “He thinks he wants to be an all-rounder.”
“Better chance of making a team if you can bat and bowl,” Charlie says.
Ravi pushes through the netting and sits down beside me. “Exactly.” He sticks out his hand to Charlie. “Ravi. You’re definitely Charlie.”
Charlie grins and shakes his hand. “Definitely. G’day.”
“G’day back,” Ravi grins. “Hey, thanks for the video attribution on your article.”
“No worries. Thanks for letting me use it. It’s made the post on Facebook a lot better.”
Ravi nods. “Have you checked the stats this morning?”
“Every five minutes,” I reply, rolling my eyes.
Charlie ignores me. “Fifty shares, heaps of likes and comments. The page admins said it’s in their top ten most popular posts already.”
Troy whistles. “Nice one.”
“Thanks.” Charlie stands up and adjusts her pads. “Are you coming to watch the State Champs?”
“I’ll be filming it,” Ravi says proudly. This is news to everyone, apparently, judging by all our surprised faces. “I got some work experience with the production company.”
“Wow, that’s amazing,” Troy says and high-five’s him. “What’ll you be doing?”
“Set up initially,” Ravi replies. “But hopefully I get to do a bit of everything.”
“That’s so cool,” Charlie says. “I’ll be able to get some more footage for my wrap-up at the end of the week.”
Ravi shrugs. “I don’t know about that, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“I guess I have to take care of the cheer squad then,” Troy says.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that,” Ravi apologises.
“Cheer squad?” Charlie asks.
“Wait til you see what we did,” Troy says.
“Don’t tell me you’ve made signs or something,” I say.
Troy opens his mouth to say something but Ravi interrupts. “Don’t tell her. She can wait until Monday.”
I pull on my batting gloves. “I hope it’s not embarrassing.”
“Us? Embarrassing?” Ravi says, hand to heart. “Never.” Then he grins and I know I’m in trouble. “Hey, you could write another article about Alice’s biggest fans,” he says to Charlie.
“That’s a great idea,” Charlie says. “The blog loves local content like that. You could give us the goss on what it’s really like playing with Alice Henderson.”
“What sort of goss are we talking about?” Ravi asks, holding the net open for Charlie.
“You know I’m going to smash you, right?” I call, as I head into the nets after them. Ravi ignores me and continues on talking to Charlie about her next article.
“You know we’re not really going to embarrass you,” Troy says, pushing through behind me. “Well, Ravi might.”
I wouldn’t put it past them, but I’m secretly glad they’ll be there to support me. After what I went through to play over the summer, it means a lot.
***
Later that night, after Mum has kicked all our butts at Uno, I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom when Charlie leans on the door. I look at her in the mirror and I can just tell she’s itching to tell me something. Charlie cannot hide how she’s feeling no matter what. “Hey,” I say around a mouth full of toothpaste. “What’s up?’
“Are you nervous? About tomorrow?”
I shrug. “Yeah. You?”
Charlie nods, which surprises me. Nothing fazes Charlie too much from what I’ve seen. The only thing I’ve ever seen Charlie nervous about was meeting her favourite cricket player, Jules Livingstone, at camp last year.
I rinse my mouth out and wipe my face on my towel. “I guess... the stuff in the paper makes me a bit nervous,” I say. Charlie follows me back to my room and drops onto the air bed. I sit on my bed and pull my pillow onto my lap. “I feel like there’s a bit of pressure on me, being the only local player.”
“I get that,” Charlie says. “But you’ll be fine. You’re Alice Henderson.” She says that last bit with a grin, and I just shake my head.
“What are you nervous about?” I ask. Charlie’s always been so casual about cricket that sometimes, you’d think she doesn’t really care that much about playing.
“It’s my first tournament,” Charlie replies. “I’ve never played so many games in a row before.”
“It’ll be awesome, though,” I say. “So much cricket!”
Charlie chuckles and then she stops and looks down at her lap. I feel like there’s something she’s not telling me.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’ just... so many changes over the last few months. I feel like my head is spinning a bit.”
“With cricket, or other stuff?” I ask. I know Charlie’s family is planning on moving off their farm, and Charlie has been boarding at a girls’ school in Brisbane. That would be huge for anyone, but especially Charlie, who has lived on the farm all her life, and has been home-schooled for the last few years.
Charlie nods. “A bit of everything.” She lays back on her pillow, one arm under her head. “I feel like Dad’s relying on me to do so well at school now that I’m at a posh one. What if I stuff it all up?”
“Charlie,” I say. I stretch out and nudge her with my foot. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be great, even.”
“What if I’m not?” Charlie asks. “What if I don’t live up to Dad’s expectations? What if I’m not who he thinks I am?”
This sounds like much more than just school but I don’t really know what to say to her to make her feel better.
Charlie sucks in a breath and lets it out. “I just...” She shakes her head. “Alice I...” Charlie’s phone buzzes, cutting her off. She checks it quickly, and a grin spreads across her face.
“What?” I ask. “What’s the matter?”
“They want me to write another article,” Charlie replies.
“Who?”
Charlie rolls her eyes. “The Girls in Cricket blog.”
“That’s great, right?”
Charlie’s eyes grow a little wider. “It’s amazing, Alice. I could become a regular contributor if they like what I write.”
“Wow, that’s really cool,” I reply. “What do they want you to write?”
“Match reports, player interviews, that sort of thing,” Charlie replies, scrolling on her phone.
“Are you going to have time though?” I ask. “We still have games to play.”
Charlie waves me away. “It’ll be good to focus on something other than playing. And I’ll have plenty of time between games to talk to people. Actually,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “How would you like to be my first player interview?”
I shake my head. “Pick someone from your team.”
“Come one, Alice,” Charlie says. “It will be good practice for my other interviews.” She flutters her eyes at me. “Please?”
I roll my eyes and give in. “Fine. But I don’t want you to publish it without me reading it.”
Charlie crosses her fingers over her heart. “Promise.” She scrambles over to her bag and pulls out a notebook. “Let’s see...”
I’m glad Charlie’s gone back to being happy, and I hope she can work out whatever it is that’s worrying her. I especially hope she doesn’t let whatever it is affect how she plays this week because she’s better than she thinks she is.