Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (26 page)

‘Losing is
NOT
an option!'

When, we started our match against Windermere we had everything going for us – overwhelming home-crowd support, the incentive of a championship trophy for motivation and an opposition who had nothing much to play for.

On top of that, during Monday's training Mr Hardcastle had taken Razz aside for special tuition and made him practise his serving for ages against the Firsts. All the hard work paid off. As well as his stock serve, Razz now had a slow serve, a swinging serve, a top spin dipping serve and a bullet-out-of-a-gun serve that Scobie christened the ‘Razzinator'.

Also, because of their last forfeit, Windermere had never seen Theodore morph into a giggle blob before. That meant that ‘the Brown Undies Effect' was back in full swing and not only that, but the Mudman had brought along his A-game.

We had more good fortune when we won the toss. Razz's first six serves were virtually unplayable, including one sandshoe-crushing Razzinator that knocked the Windermere receiver clean off his feet. Then they finally managed a return of serve and one of the Windermere players successfully blocked one of Theodore's shots at the net. The Mudman cranked his death glare up to ‘Annihilate' while Razz leapt in front of him shouting, ‘No, Bunga! Stay! Bad! Mustn't touch! Remember what happened last time. You don't want
to get that sticky red stuff all over your clothes again, do you?' Windermere's blocking didn't seem quite as committed after that.

Unbelievably, we ended up taking the opening set easily 15–5. Our embryo steps had gone straight to puberty!

The second set was a
slightly
different story. The word had got around about why we wanted to win the match so badly. Now Windermere had something really worth playing for too – crashing our party and stopping St Daniel's winning the championship trophy. As other matches finished and more and more of their supporters and players turned up to watch our game, our overwhelming home-crowd advantage dwindled away.

But we had even more problems than that. Windermere had started to work out our strengths – i.e. Theodore and Razz – as well as our glaring weaknesses – i.e. the rest of the team. They began concentrating most of their efforts on Ignatius and Scobie and directed everything they could towards them. Scobie in particular became a very popular target for serves.

We ended up losing the second set 15–9.

It was all down to a third and final tie breaker set. First to seven. No advantage. We had a quick break filled with heaps of encouragement from Mr Guthrie and Razz and then returned to the court determined to get off to a good start, just like we did in the first set. The last thing we wanted was to find ourselves tied at 6—all with all the weight of the school on our shoulders and everything hanging by a thread on the very next point.

Ten minutes later the game was tied at 6–all, we had all the weight of the school on our shoulders and everything was hanging by a thread on the very next point.

Both coaches simultaneously signalled for a time-out. It was looking bad for us. Windermere would be serving the last point. Their best player had the ball in his hand. Scobie was stuck in the back court. He was giving it his all but he'd hardly
dug a serve out all match. He'd be in their sights for sure. Razz, Scobie, Bill, Ignatius, Theodore, Melvin and I gathered in a close circle around Mr Guthrie. We waited for his words of wisdom.

‘Well, boys,' he said, ‘you're probably wondering why I called you all here.'

A circle of grim faces relaxed into smiles.

‘Has it got anything to do with the possibility of all of us being exiled to Siberia if we lose this next point, sir?' Scobie asked.

‘Yes, James, I was going to touch on that very possibility,' Mr Guthrie said. ‘OK, look, boys, I've got no magic words. But I want you to know this: whatever happens, win or lose, being your pretend volleyball coach has been great fun … and an honour. And if things don't go our way, then I couldn't think of a better bunch of fellas to be exiled to Siberia with. So just go out there and do your best.'

Mr Guthrie was wrong when he said he didn't have any magic words.

‘And now,' he continued, ‘I think I should pass you over to someone who actually knows more about the game than me. Razz, anything you want to say to the team?'

‘Well, we gotta give ourselves a chance. We have to at least make these dudes fight for this point and earn it. So the first thing is, we gotta dig this next serve and get it back in play.'

We all knew whose name would be on that serve and we didn't like our chances.

‘They'll serve to me, won't they?' Scobie said.

Razz nodded. ‘Yeah, they will. Mad if they didn't – no offence, man. But don't worry, I'll take it for you, Scobes. As soon as he serves, you back off and I'll get across in front of you.'

This seemed like an excellent plan and probably our only chance of staying in the game. Razz's suggestion was met by a circle of nodding heads. All except Scobie's.

‘No. I'll take the serve.'

We all looked at the pale, chubby figure before us blinking the sweat away from his short-sighted eyes.

‘You don't have to, man. I'm pretty sure I can …'

‘I'm taking the serve, Razz.'

Something in James Scobie's voice told us that was the end of the discussion.

‘I know you're captain, but I'm the reason we're here. I wanted to play a sport and you all helped me out. So if anyone's going to mess up and be held responsible, it's going to be me. I'm taking the serve.'

Scobie twisted his mouth defiantly to one side and held it there.

‘OK, I'm glad I sorted all
that
out then,' Razz said brightly. ‘Now here's what I think should happen and I don't want any arguments, OK?
Scobie
here will take the serve and the rest of us will be ready to chase down anything and everything after that. It doesn't really matter how we do it, we just need to get the ball over their side as soon as possible, then we defend like crazy and hope they make a mistake.'

Razz thrust his hand into the middle of the circle. We all piled ours on top.

‘The quest for the volleyball championship stands upon a knife edge, dudes,' he said. ‘Let's show 'em what the mighty Fighting Fifths are made of.'

We all pushed our hands down hard together and gave a rousing St Daniel's shout. Above us our supporters clapped, cheered, stamped and whistled as we took our places for the final time on the court.

Ignatius, Melvin and Theodore had the net positions. Razz and I were back on the baseline with Scobie in between us. Bill had twisted his ankle in the last set and was on the reserve bench beside Mr Guthrie. The umpire blew his whistle. My heart rate went off the scale.

The Windermere boys broke from their huddle and took up their spots. I looked across at Scobie. He was crouched over with his arms stretched out and his hands cupped in front of him waiting for the serve. He was wearing his glasses for the first time all season. They kept slipping off his sweaty button nose and he had to constantly push them back.

On the other side of the net Windermere's best player was waiting for the umpire's signal to serve. His hair was shaved short around the sides but hung in a long fringe to his eyes. He was tall. The ball was going to spear down into our court from a great height.

I wondered what was going through his mind. He'd have to be thinking about the serve, trying to make up his mind what he'd do. Would he play safe or would he give it everything
he had and go for the big hero-serve to win the match?

The umpire called play. Fringe guy flicked his head back to get the hair from his eyes. He scratched his groin for a bit, then twirled the volleyball on the tip of his finger. Definitely a big hero-serve man. We waited. Forget the knife to cut the tension. You'd need a chainsaw.

Fringe guy grabbed the spinning ball in both hands, bounced it three times then tossed it high into the air. As it came back down he bent his knees, arched backwards and with his hand cocked behind his head, launched himself up to meet it. A sound like a gunshot echoed around the gym as his open palm met the full face of the ball at maximum velocity right in the sweet spot. The serve that resulted really was a thing of beauty. Unless of course you happened to be James Scobie and you were watching an angry white sphere hurtling towards you like a runaway comet. Then it was your worst nightmare.

The ball sizzled over the middle of the net with just a few centimetres to spare then it dipped wickedly and speared towards Scobie's chest. It was on him so quickly he hardly had time to react, but he held his ground and somehow managed to get his arms up. The ball thudded into his wrists. James' head reeled backwards and his glasses flew from his face as he was sent tumbling to the floor.

All the St Daniel's supporters' hearts sank as they watched the ball fly high over Scobie's head and sail towards the back wall. All the Windermere supporters cheered. Everyone on our team took a few frantic steps after the ball and then stood mesmerised by the inevitability of our impending defeat.

Everyone except Razz.

He was now charging at full pace beneath the flight line of the ball, peering back over his shoulder as it peaked high above him and started its rapid descent. It was a race to see who would reach the back wall first. The best bet looked like a tie but then about a metre out Razz leapt up and belted the
ball as hard as he could with the back of his fist. It sailed into the air at the same time as Razz sailed into the wall. There was a sickening crunch as shoulder met solid masonry. And for the second time in two years, the masonry won. Razz bounced off the wall and landed with a thump. A sympathetic ‘Ooooooooo' filled the air.

Razz seemed OK but there was no time to check. Everyone's eyes, including Razz's, were back on the little, white, synthetic globe that was soaring its way in an arc towards the ceiling. If it touched any part of it, St Daniel's could kiss the championship goodbye. The ball edged its way closer to one of the exposed girders and began to slow. Closer. Slower. Closer. Slower. Clossssser. Slowwwwwwwer. Closssssssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer. Stop!

A mass moan rose from the Windermere supporters. A roar burst from St Daniel's. Miss Tarango squealed. We were still in it. But the ball was dropping and it was impossible to tell which side of the net it would fall on.

Everything I'm about to describe now happened within the space of five seconds. Firstly, just before the ball propped and dropped from the ceiling, I began running back into the court in case I was needed. What I didn't notice, because I was watching the ball, was Scobie on his hands and knees looking for his glasses. The first sign of trouble was when I felt a crunch under one of my sandshoes. That was just before I somersaulted over the top of James and skidded on my sweaty back across the polished timber floor.

I probably would have slid right under the net and on to the opposition's side if I hadn't collided with what felt like two cement pylons. They were in fact Theodore Bungalari's legs. Now normally, me smashing into the back of Theodore's legs would have had about the same effect as a pillow smashing into a couple of giant redwoods. But not this time. This was because the Mudman's feet weren't in contact with the ground. You see, Theodore at that moment was in the process
of leaping up to spike the ball (remember the ball?) to win us the match.

Well,
that
didn't happen.

Perhaps Theodore would have been able to complete the almost certain winning spike, even while I was smashing into his legs, but something else was occurring at exactly the same second. That something else came in the flying form of Melvin Yip. Yippy, who up to this point in the match had somehow been able to contain his enthusiasm to just within the bounds of sanity, suddenly snapped under the tension. When he saw the ball falling and the game hanging in the balance, he decided this was the perfect time to unleash the full fury of his inner ninja.

From a running start Melvin Yip leapt like a flying assassin at the ball. I have to admit that as leaps go, Melvin's wasn't all that bad. Sadly though, his timing, as always, was. Whereas Theodore had only just left the floor, Melvin had already flown over a metre into the air and was already on his way down when they met. So you see, while I was busily taking the Mudman's legs out from under him, Melvin Yip was landing on his chest and back-flipping him right over the top of me and on to the floor.

Afterwards Miss Tarango said the gym looked like the last scene in
Hamlet
where the stage is strewn with the dead and dying. Razz was watching everything from down by the back wall lying on his stomach and clutching his shoulder. Scobie was still scrambling around on his hands and knees trying to reassemble the various pieces of his glasses. And I was in a tangle of arms and legs with the Mudman and Nutcase Ninja.

Only one St Daniel's man was left standing.

Ignatius Albert Prindabel.

Somehow Ignatius had managed to stay out of the way as the chaos erupted around him. He was the only one who could save us and he knew it. With all the grace of a heavily drugged giraffe, he started loping in the direction of the ball.
But there was no way he was going to make it in time. The ball was always going to beat him.

And it did … kind of.

But instead of coming down on one side of the net or the other, the ball took everyone by surprise and hit the edge of the tape almost dead centre. The net shook and dipped, absorbing most of the impact. The volleyball rebounded about 10 centimetres in the air. As it rose, it tilted and rotated and began to drop towards our court. At the same time Prindabel lost his footing and stumbled. The Windermere players started to raise their arms and turn to each other in triumph.