Play the Game (18 page)

‘I’ll race you home!’ yelled Finn as he started pedalling. I chased after him, refusing
to be beaten again. ‘You owe me an ice-cream if I win!’

The poor old trophy was only just managing to stay in the basket as Finn and I sped
along the road.

My house wasn’t far, and I’d only just caught up with him. I’d have to ride even
faster if I was going to beat him. Checking that there were no cars behind us, I
sped up and managed to overtake him on the outside. But he was pedalling even faster
now, and it wasn’t long before we were alongside each other. I looked over and he
grinned at me. I couldn’t believe what a great night I’d had. At least I didn’t regret
going, even if I did feel a tiny bit guilty. Which was lucky. I would have felt even
worse about lying to Tess if I’d had a bad time.

As we reached my house, I cut in front of him and rode up the driveway, touching
the door a second before he did.

‘You owe me a triple scoop!’ I said, puffing, a massive grin on my face.

‘Baby cone,’ he laughed. He doubled over. ‘Oh god, I’ve got a stitch!’

I was about to invite Finn in for a drink of water when Mum opened the front door.
She looked like something awful had happened.

‘Mum?’ I asked, worried.

‘I’m glad you two are back. Edie, you have a visitor. She’s waiting in your room.’

Tess.
I sagged, wishing I didn’t have to go inside and face my best friend. Finn
was looking at me, concerned. I smiled weakly, and gave him his trophy.

‘I’d better go,’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

Mum disappeared back inside. I think she knew we didn’t want to say goodbye in front
of her.

‘Do you want to do something on Saturday? Maybe see a movie?’ asked Finn.

‘Um, maybe,’ I said.

‘Oh, that’s okay, don’t worry about it …’ He turned to go.

I realised it sounded like I was trying to get out of it, but I wasn’t. I was just
distracted, knowing that Tess was waiting for me. ‘No, no, I do want to go to the
movies, but I have a practice game on Saturday. I’m not sure what time we’ll be back.’

He looked so relieved. ‘Okay, then! Monday after school?’

‘Training.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll find a time. Maybe next year, when the season’s finished!’

I slumped. If it wasn’t so true, it might be funny.

‘I’d better go. I think Tess’s upstairs.’

He nodded. Just as I was about to walk away, he leant over and kissed me gently on
the cheek. The kiss was so soft that as I watched him ride off with his trophy tucked
under his arm, I wondered if it was all in my imagination.

But then he called back over his shoulder, ‘Okay, you can have three scoops – and
maybe even topping!’

I laughed. He was sweet. And funny. And he’d kissed me on the cheek! Wishing I could
savour the moment for a bit longer, I turned to go and face Tess.

Trudging up the stairs to my room, I checked my phone. There were three more text
messages from Tess. The first one was reassuring me that I wasn’t missing much. Then
she was checking in again to see how I was. And the last one said she’d bring me
some chocolate. I groaned. If only I’d texted back that I was going to sleep. Then
she wouldn’t be here, and I could go to bed dreaming of Finn instead of facing a
grilling from my best friend.

I took a deep breath and walked into my room. Tess was sitting on the edge of my bed,
still in her training clothes, eating chocolate.
The
chocolate, I guessed.

‘Tess …’ I started, then stopped. I didn’t know what to say. She looked up at me
and I was surprised to see she didn’t look angry. Actually, it was worse – she just
looked sad. ‘You got better quickly.’

‘Um, yeah …’ I sat down next to her, wondering if Mum had told her where I’d been.

‘Didn’t think you liked dancing, Edie.’

Well, that answered that question.

‘I’d already said yes to him when Justine called the extra training session.’

‘To who?’

I took another deep breath. ‘Finn.’

Tess jumped up off the bed and looked at me like I was nuts. She might not have been
angry before, but she was fast heading in that direction. ‘Are you kidding me? You
went out with Finn?’

‘Yeah. To his football club disco.’

‘Does Maggie know?’

I shook my head, wondering what Maggie had to do with it.

‘So you lied about being sick so you could go on a date.’

I really wished Tess would sit back down. This was starting to feel a little like
an interrogation. ‘It wasn’t a date,’ I said, sounding a bit pathetic.

‘So you lied about being sick so you could go out on
not
a date. That’s worse, Edie.’

When she put it like that I couldn’t really blame her for being angry. I probably
would have been too. ‘I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean to lie to you.’

‘Yeah, you did.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry. But I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. I would never lie to you.’

Now I felt really awful. This wasn’t about playing netball. This was about the fact
that I’d lied to my best friend.

‘You lied to me about Jenny Potter’s birthday party,’ I said, sounding totally pathetic.

Tess pulled a face. ‘I was seven! It’s hardly the same thing.’

I nodded. ‘I know. I’m really sorry, Tess. I just really wanted to go to the disco.’

Tess surprised me by plonking down on my bed and looking at me seriously. ‘But you
didn’t have to lie to me. I might not understand why you’d rather go to a disco than
training, but it’s up to you. I just hate that you lied to me.’

I threw my arms around Tess and gave her a huge hug. ‘I’m sorry.’

She finally hugged me back. She didn’t hug me as long as she normally would, though,
so I knew she was still angry with me. She stood up and headed for the door, then
stopped and said,‘Edie, I would never miss a training session. Not for anything in
the world. I don’t get it. Do you even want to play state?’

‘Of course I do. But I also want to have a life.’

‘Do you think you’ve been playing good netball?’

I thought about it. ‘Yeah,’ I said, sounding unsure, even to myself.

Tess walked back and sat down on my bed. ‘Edie, I know you’re a natural netballer,
but sometimes it’s like you think you don’t have to work at it. That was fine when
we were playing with the Sapphires, but this is state. You can’t just cruise in and
out when you feel like it.’

I thought back to what Finn had said as we rode home, about how a team is only as
good as the players in it. ‘But I’m not letting anyone down.’

‘Aren’t you? You’re not playing as well as you could. You know you’re not,’ Tess
said, looking sad.

‘But I love playing netball with you. It’s great,’ I said.

Tess smiled. ‘Yeah, but
I love playing netball full stop. Sure, it’s more fun with you, but I’m not just doing it to hang out with my bestie.’

I wondered if that was the real reason I was playing state netball. Did I only join
the team because of Tess? Before I could say anything, she nudged me gently.

‘Remember how annoyed I was when you got picked for regionals and I didn’t, and you
turned it down?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to play without you.’

‘That’s the difference. I would never have turned it down, even if you didn’t get
picked. This is what I want to do – I want to play professional netball. We were picked
to play for our state, Edie. We could go all the way.’

I’d never thought about it like that. I’d kind of just gone along with it because
I loved netball, and I loved my best friend. But she was right. This was the big
league.

Tess stood up and walked towards the door. As she left, she lobbed the half-eaten
chocolate bar back to me. I caught it with one hand. ‘Nice catch,’ said Tess.

‘Nice throw,’ I said, feeling guilty.

I knew she was right. Just because I’d always managed to skate through without much
practice, I’d assumed I could get away with the same thing at state level. But of
course I couldn’t. Tess had committed everything to playing state. So had Maggie,
and the others. But not me. I’d lied about being sick just so I could go out with
a boy. We hadn’t even played a game yet and I was already complaining about how hard
it was. I had to make a choice. Was I willing to give up everything else and really
commit to state netball? Or should I drop out and let someone else take my place
– someone who really wanted it?

I stared out the window, thinking of Finn. He’d sounded really disappointed when
I’d called to explain I couldn’t go to the disco with him. He said he understood
about training, but I still felt bad. I probably wouldn’t get to hang out with him
anymore, unless I ran into him at Maggie’s. And that made me a bit sad, because he
was cute and funny and I really liked him. But I’d decided that for now, I had to
give state netball a proper chance.

‘I know it’s not all about winning, but I really love it when we do!’ said Tess,
leaning against my shoulder. We were in the back row of the minibus, coming home
after our practice game, and we were pretty knackered.

‘Plus, it means Justine’s in a good mood, and she won’t call any extra training sessions,’
said Maggie.

As pumped as I was about the amazing game we’d just played, I was distracted by the
row of new blisters that had sprung up on my feet.

‘I might need some more of that udder cream, Mags.’

Tess laughed. ‘You and your blisters.’

‘I think it’s because I never stop moving. Unlike you, down in goal, slacking off
and waiting for us to feed you the ball …’ I was deliberately winding Tess up. Sometimes
I played Goal Shooter, but since joining this team, Justine had kept me in Goal Attack
and I loved it. I’d always hated being stuck in the goal ring, waiting for the game
to come to me. Now I was much more active in getting the ball down. It was just my
feet that didn’t like it. The rest of me was fine.

Tess leant across, making sure Maggie couldn’t hear, and whispered to me, ‘Are you
still
happy to be in the team?’