hubris noun: arrogant pride inviting
punishment
All Dad’s talk about fate is well and good, but sometimes life’s like soccer. You’ve got to take the ball. No one’s going to give it to you. Some people make good defence. I like to attack. Shoot for goal. That’s why I’m on Nick’s train today.
Sure it means extra time on public transport. Sure it means Mum will explode because I’ll be too late to close up at the nursery. But how often do you know exactly where your destiny will be down to the last minute?
Mine’s travelling inside the 4.05 train bound for Eltham. It’s a chance too good to miss. Unfortunately, my destiny’s stuck in a carriage with thirty screaming girls all swinging school bags into my stomach. You can’t have everything, though.
I get on at the station after Nick. It’s one thing to follow someone. It’s a completely different thing for them to catch you doing it. I fight my way through two carriages before I see his hair. At last. It’s time for kick-off.
Nick is about five metres away from me. That’s a long way in peak-hour traffic. Imagine it. Bags carpet the aisle. Bodies squash in against each other. At least fifty people obstructing the ball. I’m finding out more than I want to about the man next to me. He’s not wearing deodorant and I’m forced to hold my breath beyond all levels of human endurance.
I’m at about the two-minute mark when I decide my destiny needs a little help. I elbow my way through thirty bodies hanging on to rails like plane passengers about to crash into the Atlantic. That’s not the hard bit, though. About halfway down the aisle, I hook my feet into the handles of a bag and fly into the back of an old woman. That’s not the hard bit either. I have to use the face of the man sitting down near her to stop my fall. That’s easy too. The hard part? Making it all look casual. And this is very important, because it was at about the two-and-a-half-minute mark that Nick spotted me.
‘Nick? Hi.’ Hello destiny, I think as I peel my hand from the face of the man who has broken my fall.
‘Gracie, hi. What are you doing here?’
I take a little time to think about tactics. There’s just no good way to say, ‘I’m following you in the hope you’ll ask me out because in Year 8 I saw you reading a soccer magazine.’
‘I’m staying at my aunt’s place tonight.’ Lying is much better.
‘Are you playing soccer this week?’ he asks.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’m going to see a film after the match with some of the guys. You should come.’
At last, I’m lining up the shot.
‘My brother said he’d take me in. We could pick you up on the way, about seven?’
I swing back and kick. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘That sounds great.’ It’s a perfect shot. The crowd goes wild. It’s a goal.
The thing I like about Nick is that he notices me. He watches all the games. He waits to talk to me after every one. Last week I walked off the field and he was leaning against the fence next to the change rooms. My heart made a quick trip down to my boots.
‘Hi, Nick.’
‘Hey, Gracie, you played a good match today.’
His words grabbed hold of my throat; they made it hard to talk, hard to breathe. I could see him looking at my hair, brown and pulled back in a ponytail, at my shorts and boots. At my eyes. Some people say I’m plain looking but standing there in front of Nick that day, I felt like I was exactly right.
Just like now.
I’m so sick of Gracie Faltrain hogging the limelight.
I’m so sick of Gracie Faltrain hogging the ball.
He asked me, Jane.
I can hardly wait to tell someone. I press send and wait for her to reply.
And you didn’t even have to hit him in the balls.