Down the Line Read online

  Jimmy Paisley mishit a backhand and Bubba pounced on it, belting it away for a winner. Removing his shirt angrily, Fisk glared at Jimmy, before flinging it to the side of the court. Now everyone was wearing just shorts, except Bubba who still had one sock on as well.

  Fisk called for the ball. It was his serve. Bryce was receiving. Fisk’s serve caught the inside of the centre line and flew away for a clean ace. Bubba signalled that he would make the big sacrifice and bent to take his sock off.

  Bubba started the next rally by serving up a dolly – a high, lazy, loopy serve – to Mazis who tapped it back to him. Bubba hit the ball back again. Jack, buzzing around near the net, was itching to tear across court to smash one away but the balls were too high. Bryce and Bubba were doing okay, though. Bubba was loving it. Bryce looked tense.

  A few points later, everyone except Jack was down to underwear. Bubba was wearing Mr Men boxers and Bryce’s boxers had something about Einstein – that famous scientist.

  I looked at my watch. ‘One minute left,’ I shouted.

  I heard a rustle from behind me and turned round. It was Luci and Becky.

  ‘Hey! Mitchell! What’s going on?’ Luci asked, a puzzled frown on her face. Becky was looking totally shocked.

  Six boys playing tennis in their boxers was probably a scene they hadn’t seen often.

  Bubba gave them a huge grin.

  ‘Having fun, boys?’ asked Becky.

  They whispered to each other, then raced off. Travis’ team were trying hard to pretend they hadn’t noticed the girls.

  They reappeared a moment later down at Fisk’s end of the court.

  ‘Okay, let’s finish this match,’ I called quickly, trying to keep the smile from my face as well as keeping Travis and his mates focused on the game. No one on Fisk’s team had noticed the girls or what they’d just done. But the rest of us had!

  Bryce tapped a ball over the net to Travis’ forehand side. It sat up beautifully for him. I could see his eyes light up as he wound up to smash the ball away for a winner.

  Fisk belted his shot past Jack at the net and away from Bryce who was stretching to his right. It was going to be a close call. The ball was heading for the line. I was in a perfect position to watch the ball. It just missed.

  ‘Out!’ I yelled. Fisk glared at me. Mazis and Paisley were suddenly looking a bit concerned. They looked down at their boxers, then across to Fisk, who was standing still, staring at me.

  ‘Right then, who’s gonna be losing their boxers first?’ I called across to Fisk and his mates.

  ‘Stupid game,’ said Fisk. ‘C’mon, boys. Let’s go.’

  Everyone moved off to get their clothes except Bubba, who was on for a chat. He was enjoying freeing the flesh.

  ‘So, Mitchell, was that one really out? It looked–’

  ‘Hey – where are our clothes? What’s going on?’ Mazis looked around, confused.

  I pretended to look puzzled.

  ‘Well, it obviously wasn’t us,’ said Jack, sitting down to put on his socks and runners.

  We left quickly, a few moments later noticing a pile of clothes dumped behind a tree about 30 metres from the court.

  ‘If that pile of clothes is still there tomorrow morning, then we’ll know Fisk and his mates had to sneak home,’ said Bryce, smiling.

  There was a rumour going round that Luke Huer was coming to school on the day of the tennis tournament finals, to present the winners with their trophies and certificates for tennis. Recently retired, Luke was an Aussie tennis legend himself. He had been in the top ten ranking for men’s tennis for heaps of his career. Plenty of kids were hanging out to get his autograph.

  The whole Legend set-up for tennis was a bit like the cricket. There was going to be a knowledge quiz. This year it would be about the Wimbledon Grand Slam tournament, along with general tennis questions. Then there was the skills section, to be held on the court. Jack told me about ‘the wall’ – an elimination skills test, sort of like the slips cradle we used for the Legend of Cricket testing. You had to keep hitting the ball into a target zone, making sure you didn’t go forward past a line drawn on the court. If you made 50 hits in a row you were allowed to retire, or you could continue but risk going out. A whole afternoon was going to be set aside for the skills session.

  And then, of course, there was the tournament. Miss Lamb would be seeding the top sixteen boys and girls, which meant putting them in order from best downwards.

  Everyone interested in being in the Legend of Tennis had to fill out a form telling her our tennis background. She’d also watched everyone playing during lunchtimes and sport, all the while taking heaps of notes to make sure she could rank everyone accurately.

  The draw was organised so that the top two players, or seeds, were in different sections. This meant that there was a good chance they would meet in the final.

  Jack was over the moon about Luke Huer. His room was plastered with posters, photos and articles about the Aussie legend. He’d even shaved his hair – not totally, but pretty severely – so he could look like his hero.

  There was plenty of action around the Legends noticeboard. Kids spent ages just staring at the tournament rules and even the blank draw.

  One day, Fisk came to school with an amazing new racquet. It looked really, really expensive. Like a pro’s racquet. Even Mia (who had three racquets with pink covers to match her head and wrist bands) was impressed.

  ‘Just to make sure’ was Fisk’s favourite saying for the next few days.

  Lurch, the bowling machine for cricket, had long since departed. Now we had Shooter. It was like a cannon that spat out tennis balls for us to hit back. There were always plenty of people wanting to use the machine, so a list had been put up on the noticeboard for us to put our names on.

  Jack, Bubba, Bryce and I booked Shooter for an hour at a time and then shared her out.

  Bryce was amazing. He had this freaky ability to tap the ball back. It was like watching some version of a computer tennis game. He liked the fact that Shooter could be programmed so you could predict, quite accurately, where the ball was going to land.

  Jack asked Miss Lamb to program Shooter to fire off the tennis balls at all angles so he could work on his running shots. It didn’t take him long to work up a sweat.

  I also liked the variety of angles. Shooter blasted the ball to my forehand side. I raced across and managed to keep the ball in play. As soon as I was back in a central position, another ball popped out of Shooter’s funnel. This time, I charged towards the net. Shooter had just played a neat drop shot. Then Shooter spat out a huge lob, so I tore back towards the baseline, sun in my eyes, trying to get around and behind the ball before it bounced a second time. I got my racquet to the ball and managed to hit a high ball back into play.

  Then Shooter fired off a low cross-court shot to my backhand side. I didn’t even bother chasing that one.

  ‘Sorry!’ called Miss Lamb. ‘Sometimes I think Shooter has a mind of her own.’

  ‘Shooter won’t be in the tennis comp, will she?’ I panted.

  ‘Now, that’s an interesting idea,’ said Miss Lamb.

  Bubba, unlike Jack and me, got Shooter tossing up nice lobs so he could work on his overhead smashes. He enjoyed giving the ball a good belting and finishing a rally as soon as possible. The weather was hot, and we swapped turns often.

  There were four courts alongside each other, and Luci, Becky, Jack and I had booked the end court for an hour – the longest you could have a court for – from four till five o’clock. We were playing doubles, Luci and me versus Becky and Jack.

  Becky and Jack were a really strong doubles pair. It was lucky for the rest of us that there weren’t going to be any doubles games in the tournament; they would have smashed the opposition.

  Luci and I were doing plenty of running and chasing. We were hanging in there, but never really controlling the rallies. The score was 4 – 2 in Becky and Jack’s favour when, after one long rally, Luci slump
ed to the ground. She looked pale and exhausted. I thought it must have been the heat. She was just sitting down with her arms flopped over her knees, taking short breaths. Jack and Becky seemed very concerned, though. Jack raced off to find a teacher.

  ‘She suffers from anaphylaxis,’ Becky said to me. ‘This happened last year, too. Stay here with her, Mitch. I’m going to get her bag.’ That was where her medication would be, I guessed. Both Becky and Jack seemed to know what they were doing.

  Miss Lamb was on a mobile phone as she jogged over to us.

  ‘Luci, can you hear me? Luci, squeeze my hand,’ said Miss Lamb.

  Luci was quietly groaning. I noticed that her left arm was red and puffy.

  ‘Let’s move her out of the sun,’ Miss Lamb said. Gently, we moved Luci over to a bench seat by a tree.

  ‘Luci, where’s your EpiPen? Luci, listen to me!’ Miss Lamb was talking in her ear.

  ‘Miss Lamb, Becky’s gone to get her bag,’ I told her. Fisk had arrived and I was surprised at how concerned he looked.

  ‘Mitchell, did she bring a bag out? Think!’ Fisk demanded. It was the first time that I could ever remember Fisk calling me by my first name. And it was the first time that I’d heard him show any concern for another human being. For a moment I just stood there stunned. Then he was shouting in my ear again.

  ‘Grady? Did she?’

  I nodded. But by then, Becky had returned.

  The wailing of an ambulance in the distance added more tension to the scene.

  Miss Lamb took the bag from Becky and pulled out a plastic cylinder – Luci’s EpiPen. It was orange at one end, blue at the other. Miss Lamb pulled the blue cap off one end. It made a clicking sound as she pushed it firmly against Luci’s thigh. Luci didn’t even flinch.

  After about ten seconds, Miss Lamb quickly rubbed down the area around where the EpiPen had been.

  The ambulance arrived and we were told to move away. Only Miss Lamb stayed close.

  ‘So, what set Luci off?’ I asked Jack and Becky.

  ‘Like I said. Luci has this allergy thing. If she gets stung by something, like a bee, it can be dangerous. That’s why she carries around that EpiPen with her,’ Becky said.

  ‘Wow, she must have been so focused on the game not to have noticed being stung by a bee,’ I muttered to myself.

  Jack nodded. ‘It happened last year, so we sort of knew what to do.’

  ‘Fisk seemed to be in the know about everything, too,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. He doesn’t like to miss out on anything that’s happening,’ Jack said.

  The next day I met up with Bryce at recess. Luci wasn’t at school, but that was hardly surprising since she’d left in an ambulance the day before.

  ‘Will she be okay to play?’ I asked Bryce. For once he looked unsure.

  But Luci was made of strong stuff. Lying on the tennis court, she’d looked like a sun-dried fish. But a few days later she was back at school and ready to go.

  The Wednesday after Luci’s collapse, we had one of those freaky storms that seem to come from nowhere. The heat fizzed out of the school as the rain washed down the buildings and playground. A lot of kids left for home after all outdoor tennis activities were cancelled for the afternoon.

  But Jack, Bubba, Luci, Becky, Bryce and I decided it would be a good chance to spend some time on the Net (the Internet, not the tennis net) doing a bit of tennis research.

  Jack, the tennis nut, was especially excited and raced over to one of the computers as soon as we got to the library. Bubba, grabbing the first tennis magazine he saw, strolled nonchalantly over to the soft cushions to put in a quiet hour or two of reading and dozing.

  Bryce was talking to Miss Javros about Hawk-Eye, the electronic sensor that beeps in tournaments if a serve is too long.

  ‘So, I was just wondering,’ Bryce was asking Miss Javros, ‘if we could research whether there has been any increase or decrease in the number of line disputes.’

  Miss Javros was looking impressed and confused at the same time. ‘Well, let’s see what we can dig up, shall we?’ she said.

  They headed off to another computer to start their research.

  ‘Right! Well, that leaves us with –?’ Luci was wondering aloud.

  ‘We might as well research the Wimbledon tournament to give us a better chance at the quiz. You know, the history and that?’ Luci and Becky just stared at me. ‘Wimbledon, you know, on grass–’

  ‘Yeah, we know, stupid. Great idea. Let’s do it,’ said Luci.

  They were both grinning as we headed off to the special display of tennis books at the far end of the library.

  We all heard the noise at the same time. We paused and looked at each other.

  ‘What was that?’ Becky whispered.

  No one else in the library had heard the muffled noise. It sounded like it had come from behind the shelves of books. We all looked at each other, half waiting for the sound to repeat. But there was nothing.

  ‘What did it sound like to you?’ Luci asked a few minutes later.

  ‘Like a sort of thump, but not that loud,’ said Becky.

  ‘I thought it might have been a book falling, but it seemed too heavy for that,’ I added. ‘We could pull all the books out and see if there’s another shelf or something,’ I suggested.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Becky. ‘Probably just this storm. Maybe the rain moved something in the ceiling.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Bec,’ agreed Luci.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I added. But none of us was convinced.

  Two days before the Legend of Tennis competition’s first challenge, Miss Lamb put up the draw for the tournament. Jack was seeded number one. This meant that he was regarded by Miss Lamb as most likely to win the tournament. He was due to play the kid seeded number sixteen – regarded as the easiest game in the draw.

  Fisk, who was seeded number two, had to play the fifteenth seed.

  I was seeded number four, one behind a kid called Shane Corelli. He was a real talent. He played tennis every weekend, and had played in tournaments. But he wasn’t a natural like Jack was. If Jack had had all the lessons, training and equipment that Shane had, he would almost have been giving Luke Huer a run for his money. Actually, probably not, but still, he’d have walked this comp in. This is how the boys’ and girls’ draws looked:

  The winner from the A side would play against the best player from the B side.

  Everything was set up for a Jack versus Travis Fisk final, with the two of them being at opposite ends of the draw. But I couldn’t help looking at who lay ahead of me. If I won my first match, then I would have a quarter-final match against either Jamie or Chaz. And, if everything went well, I’d find myself in a semi-final against Bryce.

  It was great to see Bryce get a seeding of five. I reckoned that was pretty smart of Miss Lamb.

  I thought that Bryce would play better the tougher his opponent was. But he did have a very tough run. He would have to face up to Travis in a quarterfinal and then, if he managed to get past him, he’d be up against me in a semifinal. Still, it was great that he’d got a top seeding.

  There were no surprises really. I wasn’t sure how Mazis and Paisley had managed to squeak into the final sixteen. Maybe Mr Fisk had been throwing a bit of beef around – though Bubba insisted firmly that there wasn’t much beef in Mr Fisk’s sausages anyway.

  Of course, Mia was seeded number one in the girls’ draw. There were still a few names I didn’t recognise. But Luci was right up there as the fifth seed, and Becky was seeded fourth.

  I caught up with Bryce at recess and asked him what he thought about his ranking.

  ‘Oh, are they up? Did I make it into the top sixteen?’

  ‘Bryce, you’re fifth. That’s fantastic!’ I yelled at him.

  Bryce grinned from ear to ear. He slapped me on the back.

  ‘I’ve got to tell someone,’ he said to me.

  ‘Great, let’s go!’

  ‘No need.’


  Putting his hand into his pocket, Bryce pulled out what looked like a thin, black pencil case. He pressed a button, turned slightly so he was facing away from the buildings, and waited. Trust Bryce to have a mobile phone that looked like a pencil case. You couldn’t even see the buttons. He must have seen me looking a bit curious.

  ‘I’ll show it to you one day, Mitch. Hi! Dad?’

  I left him to his news and wandered off.

  Fisk had been keeping a really low profile since the Bryce incident after the cricket assembly. He had been spotted many times working in the library, practising against the wall and playing tennis matches on the courts. Maybe he’d changed his ways. The schoolyard thug seemed to be at peace with the world.

  I reckon some of the teachers must have loved this sports-crazy school, because whenever there was a Legend sport coming up, Travis Fisk was totally into the sport and kept himself right out of trouble.

  Miss Lamb had decided to do the skills test before the quiz. We’d been working pretty hard hitting up against the wall, but no one really knew for sure what the dimensions of the target would be. You know, how far back from the wall you’d be, or how much of a target zone you’d have to hit.

  But we soon found out. We got to school that Friday, the day of the wall challenge, and discovered chalk marks, orange cones and roped off areas all over the courts by the wall. Miss Lamb was setting up a big whiteboard. Someone had arranged a whole lot of seats, and there were umbrellas and a big fold-out table with drinks and fruit on it.

  ‘Dad said there was a kid a few years back who kept going for two and a half hours or something,’ Jack said to me. ‘The whole school ended up coming out to cheer her on. Then the school bell went, and she got distracted for a moment and mucked up the rally. No one’s come near her record since.’

  ‘Wow, how long ago was that?’ I asked.

  ‘Must have been about fifteen years or something, I think,’ Jack replied.