‘Hey, Herschelle,’ Max says, waving one of his hands in front of my eyes. ‘Earth to Herschelle.’

He’s holding up a tennis ball.

‘Sorry, I was in a dwaal,’ I tell him.

He bounces the ball. ‘Well, we need you over there.’ He points to the marked-out area. ‘Harry and Ben are up for doubles.’ He bounces the ball again, and turns to walk to the others before saying, ‘What’s a dwaal?’

The first thing I feel is annoyed.

‘How can you not know “dwaal”?’

It’s Max I’m talking to, but Lachlan Parkes I’m picturing. And even now all I can hear is my accent and how dumb it sounded coming from Lachlan and Josh. All I can see is them and their stupid grins, Lachlan’s big head rocking from side to side as he did his stupid version of how I speak.

And now dwaal’s a problem in this country. It’s another word I’ve never thought of as South African, another word to laugh at, another stamp on my forehead that says, ‘Alien’.

But Max isn’t laughing. He’s frowning and not saying a thing.

‘Sorry. It’s like a daze,’ I tell him. Max isn’t Lachlan Parkes. He’s done nothing wrong. He asked me a question, that’s all. ‘It’s probably Afrikaans, but everyone says it. In South Africa.’

‘Dwaal,’ Max says, and not in a mean way. He’s just trying it out. He bounces the ball my way, and I catch it. ‘Well, snap out of it, whatever it is. Less dwaal, more handball. Ben and Harry reckon they can take that shot of yours, so we need to kick some butt.’