Extra Time Read Free

bathroom.
    Uncle Cliff arrives.
    â€˜Matty,’ he says. ‘Are you alright?’
    Matt nods, still grinning.
    The angry officials start to have a go at Uncle Cliff, probably because they think he’s Matt’s parent or guardian. Uncle Cliff steers them away from us.
    Matt’s grin disappears. I know why. He’s worried they’ll tell Mum and Dad.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Uncle Cliff’s calming them down.’
    We watch Uncle Cliff calming down the angry officials.
    â€˜Fair go,’ Uncle Cliff is saying to them. ‘If you want cattle running round for the news cameras, you should have warning signs. Health and safety, page one. And production assistants with luminous vests.’
    Uncle Cliff is good with angry people. He reckons it’s a skill you develop in electrical stores because of the damage electricity does to some electrical products.
    Matt is rubbing himself on the shoulder. He sees me notice.
    â€˜One of the cattle pronged me,’ he says.
    I check him out. But there’s no blood. His shirt isn’t even torn. Which is a huge relief.
    â€˜Doesn’t hurt much,’ says Matt. ‘No need to panic.’
    Sometimes older brothers can be really dumb. Matt should know by now why I panic. He’s had nearly two and a half years to work it out.
    It’s because I’m scared of losing him as well.

After Mum and Dad finish work, we tidy Pete and Danny’s graves like we do every Sunday arvo.
    Dad sweeps, Mum does the flowers, Matt pulls out the weeds and I pick the tree seeds out of the gravel. Birds poo the seeds out. They don’t do it on purpose. It’s something they were born with, like Matt scoring goals.
    Mum hates having any sort of tree seeds on the graves. I think it’s because it was a tree that killed Pete and Danny. That and an out-of-control cattle truck with brake pads Uncle Cliff reckons probably came from a pizza shop.
    Today Matt is quiet as he weeds.
    I know why. His shoulder must be getting stiff, which happens when you’ve nearly been killed by cattle, and he doesn’t want Mum to see.
    I try to cheer things up a bit.
    â€˜Dad,’ I say, ‘tell us a Pete and Danny story.’
    On Sunday arvos Mum and Dad often tell us things about when Pete and Danny were little. The twins were eleven years older than me and I wasn’t born when they were small, so it’s a way for me and Matt to get to know them better.
    Dad smiles and wipes the sweat off his face with his hand. I love the way his hands are so big. He’d have made a great goalkeeper. But that’s OK, because he’s a great removalist.
    â€˜One Christmas,’ he says, ‘Nanna and Grandad were visiting from Scotland.’
    I smile too because I know this one. It’s about Pete and Danny when they were toddlers, thinking Nanna and Grandad’s whisky was wee.
    â€˜Matt,’ says Mum. ‘What’s wrong with your shoulder?
    Matt tries to look like nothing is, but the effort of pulling some crabgrass extra hard just made him wince.
    â€˜Let me see,’ says Mum.
    She pushes up the sleeve of his shirt.
    Oh no.
    A few hours ago it was just a scrape. Now Matt’s shoulder is half covered with a huge bruise from where two hundred kilos of beef pronged him.
    â€˜It looks worse than it is,’ mutters Matt.
    Silently I ask the gods of soccer, the ones Uncle Cliff reckons players pray to before cup finals, to make a galah fly down and poo a seed on Mum’s head so she gets distracted and doesn’t ask how the bruise happened.
    No galah appears. The gods of soccer must be English and don’t know what a galah is.
    Mum is still staring at the bruise. I can see she’s getting upset.
    Any mum probably would after what she’s been through. Two and a half years ago, when we first got the news about the crash, we thought Matt was dead too.
    â€˜Matt,’ says Mum. ‘You promised you