I was worried about Hamish, but there was nothing I could do, and we had a match to play. It was the quarterfinals. I should have been excited. Pumped and raring to go. Instead I felt like I had lead in my sneakers and ice fog in my brain. Miri wasn’t on the top of her game either, and between the two of us, we botched up the first couple of games pretty badly.
Our opponents were another pair of sisters, as different from the Wong sisters as you could get. They were both blond, but that’s where the similarity ended. The older one was tall, slim and powerful, like Miri. Miri figured she’d be playing her in the semis if they both won their next singles. The younger one was much younger, maybe twelve or thirteen, and still looked like a kid. It was obvious she thought she was pretty good though. She threw a little tantrum whenever she thought we made a bad line call. I thought someone should take her to the optometrist for an eye checkup.
At 4–1, I could see the little kid thought they had it in the bag. And I wasn’t so sure I disagreed with her. We’d made stupid mistakes, letting the ball slip through the center line between us, missing easy volleys, lobbing the ball to have it smashed back at us, double-faulting. And double-faulting again. It’s those sorts of things that can lose you the match. The sisters weren’t winning it. We were losing it. And badly. But the smug look on the kid’s face really riled me. So what if she was twelve years old and playing in the 16 and Under? She just wasn’t that good, and without her sister and her own dodgy line calls, she’d have been done long ago.
“That pipsqueak’s really starting to piss me off,” said Miri as we switched ends. “If she calls one more of my serves out, I’m going to ask for an umpire.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “I can’t believe she called that last forehand out.”
“Tell you what,” said Miri with a gleam in her eyes. “We’re going to teach that kid a lesson. Pelt her with everything you’ve got. We’ll see how good she really is.”
And we did. If she was at the net, we fired the ball straight at her. If she was on the baseline, we made her run. Power forehands, short backhand slices, drop shots. She caught on pretty quickly. She knew what we were doing, and it made her mad. She stamped her foot when she missed a shot, smashed her racket on the court when we aced her. The next time we changed ends, I could hear her complaining to her sister. Loudly. I think everyone in the whole court heard her.
Gradually, we clawed our way back. We weren’t playing great tennis, but we didn’t stink either. When the score reached 4–5 against us, we thought we might have a chance to win. It was Miri’s serve.
She bounced the ball a couple of times, threw it up and served it at about 150 k’s to the short kid’s backhand. The girl threw her racket out and dived for it.
A perfect serve, I thought.
“Fault!” called the kid.
Miri’s jaw dropped, and I think mine did too.
“That was in,” said Miri, approaching the net.
“No, it wasn’t. It was long.” The girl’s jaw was pushed out stubbornly.
“It was in,” said Miri.
“It wasn’t!”
I glanced at the girl’s sister. She looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere.
“Maybe we should replay it?” she said.
“No,” said Miri. “I’m requesting an umpire.”
It doesn’t happen very often, but any player can request an umpire if he or she doubts an opponent’s line calls. The hitch is that the umpire comes from the opposing team. Which meant that Miri’s umpire was the sisters’ dad.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s finish this off fair and square. I’ve noticed you two have been playing to Kara an awful lot. Let’s keep it clean. No bullying.”
Bullying? We were playing to the weaker team member. It was called strategy.
The kid’s smug smile as she walked back to the baseline was enough to set anyone off. Miri was smoldering. She smashed a serve at Kara that almost took her head off.
“Fault!” called the umpire, aka Kara’s dad. He pointed a finger at Miri. “I’m warning you. One more trick like that and I’ll disqualify you.”
I didn’t know if he could do that or not, and I didn’t want to find out. I gave Miri a meaningful look. Cool it.
“If she can’t handle the hard serves, she shouldn’t be playing in the 16 and Under.” Miri was looking at me, but the comment was clearly aimed at the dad. He chose to ignore it.
Miri popped in a soft serve just over the net. The kid ran for it and lobbed it back. Miri could have gone for an overhead smash and probably would have won the point. Instead she hit a soft forehand to the girl, nice and easy. The girl brought her racket back and let fly with a forehand. I tried to volley it, but it flew out across the tramline.
“What are you doing?” I said to Miri.
Miri smiled sweetly. “He said she couldn’t handle the power shots. I’m just taking it easy on the poor little thing.”
The girl was throwing dagger glares at us now. “Dad!” she whined.
“What?” said Miri. “She can’t have it both ways.”
“All right,” said the umpire. “Enough of the cheek. Just get on with it.”
Miri positioned herself on the baseline and served to the older sister, a nice hard serve with just a touch of slice to make it spin. We’d lost any momentum we’d gained in the last few games though. The dad’s eyesight was almost as bad as the kid sister’s, and a couple of bad shots on our part meant the game was over pretty quickly. We’d lost the match.
I should have been devastated. That was the end of the tournament for me. But as soon as the game was finished, I remembered Hamish and the drug test. It still seemed suspicious to me. Dray Yule had acted too pleased at the end of Hamish’s match. I had to find him and figure out what he was up to.
Miri went to find out what was going on with Hamish, and I set off to find Dray. I didn’t have time to search the whole grounds again. He could be anywhere. But I had Miri’s phone. We’d exchanged phones earlier. I wasn’t sure the camera on mine would work after Dray dropped it. I pulled it out now and hit New Message.
Dray. We need to talk. Meet me
Where? It had to be someplace quiet, but somewhere I could easily hide from him.
outside Rod Laver Arena. Miri.
I crossed my fingers and hit Send. That should lure him in. Then all I’d have to do was follow him and hope he did something to incriminate himself.