We played our first game that Saturday morning against Harrisville High. Theodore hadn’t had a chance to train with us at all. It was probably just as well. It might have scared him off.
All matches were best of three sets. Two sets to fifteen points and if it was one-all, a final, first to seven, set. For a while there against Harrisville, we were holding our own. But then the warm-up finished and the actual game started.
We lost 15–3; 15–5.
Believe it or not, the score actually flattered us. Four of our massive eight points came from the other team serving into the net. Another three of them were won by Razz virtually on his own. Our final point came when Ignatius tried to spike a ball, missed it completely and it rebounded off his big forehead over the net for a winner. That was one of our match highlights. It was celebrated with high fives all round.
Additional highlights included Melvin Yip leaping into the air, performing a 360-degree ninja spin and whacking the ball with a wildly swinging arm – straight into the umpire’s face, and Bill losing his balance while going for a low serve and landing on top of me. I thought the roof had caved in.
On the up side, we did have our Intimidation Factor. At least for a while. Razz was spot on about the Mudman. When we stuck him up at the net at the start of the game the Harrisville net guys took a couple of steps back and their server sent his first wobbly ball straight into the back of a team mate’s head. It was 1–nil. We were winning! If there had been a massive meteor strike right then that wiped out all life on Earth, victory would have been ours. But no such luck.
After our brilliant start, Harrisville won the following six points in a row. Then Theodore managed to work the Brown Undies Effect again on another one of their servers. That brought Ignatius into the server’s position. We didn’t know it then, but he was about to totally ace our Intimidation Factor.
Ignatius steadied himself behind the baseline and threw the ball up above his head. His long arm flapped through the air. To everyone’s surprise Prindabel’s hand actually made contact with the ball – but only just. Instead of sailing over the net, the ball rocketed to the left and down – right into James Scobie’s little round backside.
This set off an unfortunate chain of events. Scobie, who had been crouched over and totally unprepared for what became known as the Prindabel Butt Ball, was propelled forward like a swimmer from the blocks of the Olympic 50 metres freestyle final. It all ended horrifically, when James, in a vain attempt to save himself, grabbed desperately at the only thing within his reach – the back of Bill Kingsley’s shorts. As Razz said afterwards, it was the only time a full moon had ever appeared inside the St Daniel’s gymnasium.
It was just after Bill’s rump made its grand appearance that we heard the squeaking noise. It was like someone was strangling a hyperventilating guinea pig. Both teams looked in the direction of the sound. It was coming from Theodore. He was holding his stomach and pointing at us and shaking uncontrollably. His hard, dark marble face was shattered by the widest, whitest smile I had ever seen. Theodore wasn’t lying. We fellows really did make him laugh.
The problem was that laughing to the Mudman was like kryptonite to Superman. Whenever Theodore laughed he lost all his strength and coordination. This meant that if something slightly funny, weird or unexpected happened on court (which, thanks to our team, was just about every second rally) Theodore would fall apart and become as useless as a super-jumbo-sized rag doll.
And that caused another problem. Once the opposition saw the Mudman transformed from an awesome, threatening mountain of cold, black marble to a wobbly, giggling blob of chocolate sponge cake, it became almost impossible for him to work the Brown Undies Effect on them. To make matters worse, we discovered as the season wore on that our Intimidation Factor was, in fact, the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet.
After we’d lost the opening set to Harrisville in that first match and slumped to 12–nil down in the second, Mr Guthrie called a time-out and gave us a pep talk. It would set the tone for the rest of our season. We grouped in a tight circle around him.
‘Guys, I hate to break this to you,’ he said, ‘but I think I can hear the fat lady clearing her throat. Things are getting desperate.’
‘Maybe if Bill moons the opposition again, we could score a few points while they’re in shock,’ Razz suggested.
Beside me Theodore squeaked like someone was trampolining on a mouse, and everyone, including Mr Guthrie, laughed.
‘Let’s keep that as our secret weapon in case we make the finals, Orazio.’
‘Geez, keeping Billy’s butt a secret – now there’s a challenge, sir.’
More laughing – and squeaking.
‘So, sir, do you think we can actually come back from here and win this thing?’
We all looked to Mr Guthrie – St Daniel’s’ Patron Saint of Lost Causes. His eyes shone with optimism and hope.
‘Not a chance, Orazio,’ he said with a smile. ‘But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep fighting, keep trying our best, keep encouraging each other and keep having fun. And maybe we can have some mini victories along the way. Take some baby steps.’
‘Baby steps? Have you been watching us play, sir? Maybe we should start off with like embryo steps and work our way up,’ Razz said.
‘OK, how about this, then? Harristown need three points to win the match. Let’s make our first goal stopping them from beating us to nil. Let’s see if we can get at least one point. That’s our first … embryo step. If we do that, then we go for two. Who knows, maybe we can beat them to three points. What do you say?’
When there was a general rumble of agreement for this plan, Mr Guthrie reached behind him and pulled his sports bag into the centre of our circle. ‘And just for added incentive …’ he said, unzipping his bag and holding it open.
Across from me Theodore Bungalari’s eyes grew into a pair of white-walled tyres and his pink tongue poked out from between his lips. The bag was filled with mini chocolate bars.
‘OK, here’s the deal. One bar each for every point we score, a bonus chocolate each if get to three before them, and two bonus chocolates each if we outscore them.’
‘What if we win the set, sir?’
‘If you win the set, Orazio, I will text Willy Wonka immediately and book an all-you-can-eat tour of the factory.’
Then Mr Guthrie stretched his arm into the middle of the circle and seven hands piled in a heap on top of his. We were getting pretty good that. We gave the St Daniel’s shout and filed back out on to the court.
We ended up earning four mini chocolate bars each. And we played those last few points as we would every other point for the rest of the season – for each other, for Mr Guthrie, for St Daniel’s, for the chocolates and for the fun of it. And the best thing was, because no one expected anything much from us, there was never any pressure.
Until the day there was. Then there was a truckload of it.