Hat Trick! (17 page)

WE
fell in a bundle onto the carpet in my bedroom. At once we jumped up, expecting the hooded figure to be on top of us, but he wasn’t there. Four frightened faces looked at me.

‘I can explain,’ I gasped, getting up to sit on the bed.

‘Th-that was h-him?’ Jay stuttered. ‘Why didn’t anyone h-help us?’

‘No one can see him. You only see him if you are travelling.’

‘But someone must have seen us disappear?’ Rahul insisted.

‘Maybe—’

‘Toby?’ It was Mum.

‘Coming, Mum.’ I got up and opened the door.

‘Is everything all right? Where have you been?’

‘What do you mean?’ I said, pretending innocence.

‘Well, Scott Craven’s here and I told him—’

‘Scott Craven?’ I gasped.

‘Yes,’ Mum said, looking surprised. ‘I sent him up, but he said no one was in here.’ She looked at the others.

‘We were playing—um, hide and seek, Mrs Jones,’ Georgie mumbled. Rahul was looking at his feet. ‘Very cleverly too, I might add,’ Georgie said, nodding her head. ‘Right, guys?’

We all nodded.

‘You’d never have found me,’ Jay piped up.

‘Well. That’s great. Now come down and say hello. There’s a man with Scott and I think they’re doing a very nice thing.’

I had no idea what Mum was talking about, and by the look of the others, neither did they.

‘Toby?’ Nat said, tossing a sock in the air.

‘In a minute, all right!’ I snapped. It was like I’d slapped her. Her bottom lip quivered. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Nat,’ I said, holding my hand out for the sock.

‘Come here, Nat.’ Georgie grabbed her hand. ‘You and me against the boys, okay? We’ll kill ’em.’

I got the shock of my life when I walked into the living room. Scott Craven really
was
standing there.

‘Scott! Hi,’ I said. ‘Um, sorry we missed you upstairs. We were…’ I didn’t finish the sentence. I sensed Georgie stiffen beside me and I looked to the kitchen door.

Dad and Phillip Smale came into the room. My face must have gone white. I felt my hands become
sweaty. Georgie’s hand brushed mine, but she didn’t take it.

Dad and Smale were both laughing at something Smale had said.

Mr Smale looked over to us. ‘Hello again, Toby,’ he said. ‘And how’s your girlfriend now?’ Georgie gave him a dirty look.

‘Ah, the disappearing five return,’ Dad exclaimed heartily. ‘Where on earth did you get to?’

‘They were playing hide and seek,’ Mum said. I saw Scott snigger. Yeah, and we were too smart for you to find us, I thought.

‘Scott probably did see us,’ I said suddenly. ‘He couldn’t be that blind.’

I looked at him. He seemed about to say something, then clearly thought better of it. My heart sank. I sensed he knew something was going on. Maybe he’d seen us come back, or leave. And the open
Wisden
on the floor of the room—what would he make of that?

‘Well, never mind,’ Dad said. ‘Scott has some news for you all. He’s already spoken to Mr Pasquali. This is Mr Smale. He’s the manager of the Scorpions team.’

This was too much.

‘The Scorpions?’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘But you work in the library!’ My mind was racing. ‘
Scorpions
!’ I said again, looking from Scott to Smale.

‘Now, steady on, young feller,’ Smale said. ‘You’ve probably heard we’ve lost our strike bowler, Greg Mackie, but I think Scott will more than adequately fill his shoes.’ He looked over at him. ‘Scott?’

‘Yeah, well…’ Scott stopped for a moment and looked at Smale, who was standing next to him. ‘Phillip reckoned I should come over and tell the team members personally, and since you were having your party here, I thought I’d get most of you in one hit.’

No one said anything, though I saw Georgie mouth the word, ‘Phillip’. Why would Scott be calling Smale Phillip?

‘It’s not till the finals. We’ve got to organise the transfer and clearance,’ Mr Smale added. He was wearing a dark blue sports jacket with his glasses tucked neatly into the top pocket. He avoided all eye contact with me, spending his time looking at Scott or Jimbo.

You’re not taking him as well, I thought, suddenly having the awful thought that he’d got his eye on Jimbo too.

‘Well, then,’ said Mr Smale. ‘We’d best go. Thanks, Peter, for allowing us to talk to the team, and I’m sorry to intrude. But I do feel it was the right thing to do, don’t you?’

I didn’t hear Dad’s reply. Mum and Nat followed them out. The rest of us sat down on the couches.

‘You look really bummed off with the news,’ Jay said to me. ‘I reckon it’s great. We don’t need him on the team.’

‘Jay, we do,’ I said.

‘We’ve got Jimbo as a newy and Martian is set to return. We’re okay,’ Jay continued cheerfully. ‘Now, what say we head back to—’

‘No!’ we all said together.

Rahul was thinking it through. ‘Okay. Down side? We lose one of our top three batters and probably our best bowler. Up side?’ He paused.

‘We’re waiting,’ said Jay.

‘Up side: we’ll be a happier team, and maybe play more
as
a team.’

‘I agree,’ Jimbo said. ‘That catch he dropped on Saturday from your bowling, Toby—I reckon it was spite, to stop you getting a hat trick. He never drops catches.’

The thought had crossed my mind a few times.

‘Well, it’s done now,’ Georgie muttered. ‘Come on. We owe Nat a game of corridor cricket.’

Thursday—afternoon

‘Can we talk, Toby?’

‘Hey, Rahul.’ I thought I knew what was coming.

‘I was thinking about India and my brother. I think we should maybe try once more.’

‘Rahul, no way—’

‘This time
you
would be in charge, totally.’

‘I was in charge last time and look what happened! You left me for dead in that whacky hospital and went looking for your family. It was a disaster!’

‘Toby, I
saw
my brother. How can that be a disaster?’

‘Rahul! As soon as we got to Chennai you changed. It was like some force had taken you over. You were out of control. It was crazy. We were lucky to get away with
it.’ I held his gaze. ‘Listen, I know what you want to do. But the chances of getting back to the right time to save your brother are remote. There’s probably not a game in
Wisden
near enough in time—’

‘Ah, well, I have—’

‘Nor in space,’ I added. ‘And anyway, that’s not the main reason. You can’t change things that have happened. The poem, Rahul—remember?

‘But every word that boasts ahead

Means lives unhinged, broken, dead.

Don’t meddle, talk, nor interfere

With the lives of those you venture near.

Respect this gift. Stay calm, stay clever,

And let the years live on forever.

‘It’s not right. You’re trying to change things in history. Think about it. There’d be an extra seat in a classroom somewhere. Another bed in your house. It can’t just happen. We’d be making a new life.’

‘Yes. My brother!’ Rahul shouted. ‘How can that be wrong?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It just would.’

‘What do you mean?’ Rahul snapped. ‘It counts for everything.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Rahul, I can’t explain, I just know it’s wrong.’

‘And if it was Nat you were trying to bring back to life?’

‘I wouldn’t know about her to bring her back.’

‘But that’s just it. I know about my brother.’ Rahul was shaking. I looked away across the ovals.

‘Toby,’ he said, quietly. ‘You’ve already changed time.’

My eyes were fixed on a sprinkler pumping water in an arc on the other side of the pitch.

‘Toby?’

I thought back to the trip I’d made with Jimbo to watch his father get hit on the head by a vicious bouncer, bowled by Scott Craven’s father of all people. Jimbo’s dad had vowed from that day on never to play cricket again. His vow had applied to Jimbo too.

‘Jimbo wasn’t playing cricket matches last week. You’ve changed the past. Now he
is
playing cricket matches.’

‘That was a little thing,’ I said.

‘Not for Jimbo.’

I said nothing.

‘Well, can I ask one thing then, since you’re being so stubborn about it?’

‘What?’

‘Talk to Georgie about it.’

‘Why?’

‘Just talk to her. Ask her what she thinks. We…I mean,
I
think there’s a way to do this.’

‘
We
?’ Rahul sure had let that one slip through to the keeper.

‘Well, we thought that if we did go, she could be my guardian. She would make sure I didn’t do anything stupid.’

‘Rahul…’

‘Yes?’ he said eagerly.

‘Forget it.
Totally
forget it.’

He stood still, looking away from me.

‘Rahul?’

‘Okay, okay. Forgotten.’ He drifted away from the bench outside the gym where we were chatting. And then I had the most amazing thought.

‘Rahul,’ I called. He turned around hopefully and headed back towards me.

‘No, not that. Listen, I’ve just realised something. Even if we did go back—well, it never worked!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Right now, in this time, you aren’t with your brother and you haven’t seen him. So it never worked.’

He was still looking blank.

‘Okay. Say I agree to take you to India. We try and rescue your brother. If we’d
managed
to rescue him, he’d be here, or somewhere, and you wouldn’t be asking me to rescue him.’

I saw his face drop as he realised the truth in what I was saying.

‘If we did get back and somehow saved him from the river, then he’d be here now, a part of your family. Or else we did go back, but we didn’t save—’

I’d gone too far. Tears were brimming in Rahul’s eyes and he turned away.

‘Rahul! I’m sorry.’ He headed away towards the nets. ‘Rahul, I’ll work on it, okay? I’ll talk to Georgie.’ He didn’t respond. ‘And Jim!’

I watched his drooping shoulders as he walked away, made my decision and ran after him. I didn’t know if I would ever go through with it, but maybe it would make him feel better to talk about it anyway.

‘Rahul, wait up.’ I walked alongside him. ‘What happened? Where? When, exactly? All I know is that he pulled you out of a river and saved your life. But then…’

Rahul stopped walking and leaned against the wire mesh of the cricket net.

‘Of course I remember nothing about it. I was three. Sunni, my older brother, was eight. We were having a picnic. A
family
picnic, by the river. Dad said that we wandered too close to the water. Sunni was carrying me on his shoulders. He was strong.’

Rahul paused. He was trying hard to keep his emotion inside.

‘He must have slipped near the edge. He screamed. Maybe I did too. My father heard his cry and rushed down to the river’s edge. A great wall of water had appeared from nowhere. Like a tidal wave. Sunni held me up above the water as he struggled himself. Dad plucked me from his arms and put me down on the ground. When he turned back to the river there was no sign of Sunni. He jumped in, but Sunni had gone.’

‘Gone under?’ I asked, swallowing.

The bell went. It seemed so out of place at that moment.

Rahul shook his head.

‘He disappeared. Completely. They never found his body.’

I was about to ask if he might have survived, but stopped myself. Kids were running in from play, laughing and yelling.

‘Gee, I’m sorry, Rahul. I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a brother.’

‘Sometimes I feel I’m not completely me. Like there’s a bit missing.’ Rahul squinted in the sun’s glare. ‘C’mon, Tobes. Let’s go.’ He thumped me on the back and we walked towards the classrooms.

‘You coming around tomorrow?’ I asked. Since the party had ended on such a flat note on Tuesday, Mum and Dad had said that whoever wanted to could come around again on Friday.

‘Think so.’ He looked at me and smiled. ‘So, any travelling?’

I shook my head. ‘Not tomorrow. Probably not for a while.’

The only hat trick to be taken in an international Twenty20 match was by Brett Lee. He picked up three wickets in three balls against Bangladesh on 16 September 2007 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Friday—evening

WE
sat around the table, the diary in front of us.

‘Don’t you think you should tell Jim you’ve got it?’ Rahul asked.

‘I’ve tried, heaps of times, but no one’s seen him anywhere. It’s happened before. He just disappears.’

‘Time travel?’ asked Georgie.

I shook my head. ‘I doubt it. Remember, you’ve only got two hours to travel before bad things start to happen. And he’s not at the hospital either. I’ve checked.’

‘What bad things?’ Jimbo asked.

‘Not exactly sure, but Jim really drummed it into me that you only ever have two hours out of your own time.’

‘You don’t think…’ Jay started.

‘What?’ I turned to look at him.

‘Well, he’s old, isn’t he? I mean…’

‘What?’ I said again.

‘Nothing. So let me get this straight. Someone sends Jim this old diary which belongs to his family. And then for some reason he leaves it in the library behind the old
Wisden
s. Toby here gets an invite to a fake award ceremony—’

‘We don’t know it was fake,’ Georgie interrupted.

‘Oh, come on—’

‘Maybe that explains why Jim’s not around,’ Rahul said quietly. ‘Maybe Jim
did
organise the award thing but never made it.’

I looked at Georgie.

‘It’s possible,’ she admitted.

‘Yeah, well, as I was saying,’ Jay went on, ‘this creep Smale, who we now discover is manager of the Scorpions, forces you to give him the diary and looks for the scorecard.’

I nodded. ‘That about sums it up.’

Jay pulled the diary towards him. He seemed transfixed by it. ‘Come on,’ said Georgie, getting up. ‘Let’s go see if the paper’s arrived. Maybe Smale was fibbing about Scott not playing with the Scorpions till the finals. Maybe he’s already in their team.’

The paper hadn’t arrived so we decided to walk down to the milk bar to grab a copy. Jay stayed behind to read the diary.

There was a game of street cricket going on in the laneway behind the milk bar. The Nash brothers, all four of them, often got games going and kids from round about would wander across and join in. Their eyes lit up when they saw us stroll by.

‘You want a hit?’ the oldest Nash called out.

I shrugged, then looked at Rahul and Georgie. They nodded.

‘We’ll take you on,’ I called.

They were tough kids who seemed to spend most of their life outside playing. They ‘owned’ the laneway. They’d even changed the sign from Noel St to Nash St. Their dad had laughed and left it.

We batted first. One batter, 18 balls. Side fences were worth a run, two on the full. Any shot getting back past the bowler was four. And if you hit the ball past the bowler before it hit the ground, it was six.

The Nash kids scampered and scurried, diving to stop the ball, laughing and joking even though after 10 minutes they were all cut and bruised. I didn’t think our team was going to show the same dedication in the field.

I’d just gone out, with the score on 57, when Jay turned up.

‘You’re in!’ I called to him, handing him the old, splintered bat.

He lasted four balls. The extra fielder didn’t really help us either, though Jay managed to knock down a full-blooded drive and deflect the ball over to me. I swooped on it, picked it up with one hand, and threw down the stumps while I was still turning. The stumps at the bowler’s end went flying. The Nash boys knocked up 81 before we decided it was time to leave.

‘You want to play tomorrow?’ the littlest one said to us.

‘We’re playing
real
cricket tomorrow,’ Rahul said, a little too strongly.

‘Anyway,’ Georgie said as we headed back, ‘the oldest Nash kid’s gotta be about 16!’

‘Yeah, but the youngest is about seven,’ I added.

Jay seemed preoccupied—quiet, but jumpy. ‘Did you read all the diary?’ I asked him.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

We looked at him.

‘Discover anything interesting?’ Rahul asked.

‘Nah.’

‘Hey, we forgot to get the paper!’ Georgie said.

A car was pulling away as we arrived back home.

‘Oh, Toby. You just missed the man from the library—’

‘Jim?’ I called, racing back down the drive.

‘No, no, the man who works with him. Phillip Smale.’

‘The diary!’ I cried. ‘Jay, tell me you didn’t leave the diary sitting out on the table?’

‘You don’t have to worry about the diary,’ Jay said. ‘I gave it to your mum before I left to meet you guys.’

‘Yes,’ said Mum, ‘and I gave it to Mr Smale. He said that he was working on old documents and books with Jim in the library and that they wanted it back to verify it and make copies. I think perhaps it’s in safer hands over there, don’t you?’

I looked at her, horrified, but before I could say anything Georgie bustled past me and went inside.

‘Spot on, Mrs Jones,’ she said. ‘C’mon you lot.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Jay wailed when we got up to my room. ‘What was I supposed to do? Bring it down to the milk bar and chuck it behind the stumps while you played?’

‘I’m not saying it was your fault, Jay,’ I snapped.

‘Anyway, like I said, you don’t need to worry. It doesn’t have the scorecard in it.’

‘We know that,’ Rahul muttered.

‘We’ve got to find Jim,’ Georgie said. ‘He’s been missing too long. We’ve got to find out the truth about this guy, Phillip Smale. Maybe we should sneak a visit to the Scorpions’ training. I wonder when they train?’

‘We could always ask Scott,’ Rahul suggested.

‘Oh, goody. Toss you for it,’ Georgie muttered.

Nat walked in with the paper. ‘Mum said you wanted this.’

Georgie took the paper from her and ruffled her hair. ‘Thanks, Nat, you’re a star!’ she said, as she opened it. ‘There you go. Scott Craven is still one of us.’

I checked the ladder. There was only one round to go before the finals. The top four teams would be playing.

Benchley Park were the movers. Not big movers, but they were hanging on to fourth spot and a semi-final against the Scorpions.

‘Well, whoever wins that game between Benchley Park and St Mary’s will be in the finals,’ Rahul said, looking over my shoulder.

‘Unless we get flogged by TCC,’ Jay said.

‘Hey, look, Martian’s in.’ I pointed. ‘And so is Ally. Wonder who’ll keep?’

‘Mr Pasquali might give them both a go. Ally deserves the finals though,’ said Georgie. ‘She’s done all the work.’

I nodded but didn’t say anything. Nor did the others.

We went downstairs to watch a World Cup one-dayer I’d taped, settling in on the beanbags to watch the game. I couldn’t wait to see Andrew Symonds’ innings. Dad and I agreed that it was the best innings of the whole tournament. He blasted 143 not out. But that wasn’t all. He came in when the Aussies were 4 for 86 and struggling.

‘Now this is one innings we should go and see,’ laughed Rahul, as Symonds belted another four through mid-wicket.

‘What do you mean? You’re seeing it now,’ Dad said, flopping onto the couch next to Georgie. He rolled his eyes at her. She shook her head and smiled.

The rest of us kept our eyes glued to the TV.