I don’t like seeing my own blood. No-one does. But I saw a lot of it that day and it was gross.

After I was hit in the face, blood started pouring out of my nose. Some of it splattered on the netball court, leaving a dirty red stain. But most of it splattered onto my top.

The whole team crowded around me, with Mr Dwyer telling them all to move back. I could hear Angie next to me, almost sobbing. ‘Sorry! Gosh, I’m so sorry, Alex.’

Mr Dwyer sat me on the bench with a big blue ice-pack on my nose. Not very attractive! My nose wasn’t broken, it was just bleeding from being hit so hard.

I felt terrible. Not because of the pain. That stopped. And not because of the blood, either. I felt terrible because of that gremlin ball. Why, why, why hadn’t I caught it?

Angie had spent so much time practising with me. But when it really mattered, I still couldn’t catch the ball.

Mr Dwyer clapped his hands and looked at Callum. ‘You folks will have to play on with six players,’ he said.

Callum nodded and shrugged. But I couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

Six players. Not good at all.

Everyone else ran back onto the court to finish the game.

I sat like a sack of potatoes, feeling glum and full of doom. I knew what was going to happen. The Dream Team was going to lose this game, and lose our chance at the grand final.

And all because I couldn’t catch a ball.

When everyone started playing again, something amazing happened. Our team got the first goal.

It was only a short time into the second half. And we were already ahead! I moved the ice-pack a bit, so I could see better.

Angie was amazing, racing here and dashing there. And all the others played so hard that soon their faces were glowing red and their hairlines were sweaty. But it was working.

Our team was winning.

I sat on the bench, peering past the icepack, watching our score creep up.

Three goals ahead. Then four …

A strange, sad feeling came over me. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t playing – my team was winning without me.

The strange feeling grew stronger. I started thinking back to the start of term and how I was picked last on the team.

In our first game I had lost the ball to the other team. Our team lost that game because of me. Slowly I went though all our games and all my mistakes. A hundred mistakes with the gremlin ball.

I didn’t care about my nose anymore. I pulled off the ice-pack and dropped it on the bench. I felt all mixed up as I sat there, looking like Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer, watching my team’s score go up and up.

When they won the game, I clapped from the side while the team jumped and cheered out on the court. We were in the grand final.

But inside I felt kind of sad and left-out. Worried questions flashed through my mind.

What if I had kept playing today? Would I have made more mistakes and stopped my team from winning?

Maybe the Dream Team was better off without me.