Gracie Faltrain Takes Control Read Free Page A

thank me?
    I know what Martin would have done if he’d been there today – he’d have stood back like he always does. He’s been different since we came home from the Championships. I thought we’d be closer this year but we’re not. He’s quiet; thinking about his mum all the time, and how she left them. No one in the Knight family talks about her leaving, not Martin’s little sister, Karen, not his dad. I wonder sometimes if they all agreed to lock her memory out one day, or if it happened slowly, like a door closing and clicking shut.
    A few months ago he and I watched this television show about a woman who’d left her family. Martin had the remote and I kept expecting him to switch the channel, but he didn’t. He sat through it, right to the end.
    After it’d finished I wanted to say something to make the air breathable again. It went into my mouth and clogged my lungs like wool. Martin’s the only one who can make me feel like that. I worry about Mum and Dad, and Alyce and Jane, but I don’t feel what they’re feeling, like I do with Martin.
    â€˜Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked.
    â€˜Talk about what?’
    What did he think I meant, who was going to win the World Cup? ‘Your mum, Martin.’
    â€˜I told you before, there’s nothing to say.’
    Call me crazy, but if my mum had left me, you can bet I’d have plenty to say. Like, why did she leave, and when did she think she’d be back, and was this some sort of midlife crisis like Dad had last year?
    Martin barely talks about his mum at all, though. He says he doesn’t need to. He reminds me of that movie about the cyclones, the one where the wind is spinning cows and cars in the air, and the people in the town think they’re safe because all of a sudden everything’s quiet.
    Only they’re not safe. Any idiot can see they’re right in the middle of the storm. There’s a huge cow coming their way and they’re cooking dinner or taking the rubbish out. ‘It’s the unexpected cow that’ll kill you,’ Jane said after we’d watched it, and she was right. A storm like that only circles for so long. And then it hits, ripping everything in its way to ribbons.
    The last time Martin really spoke about his mum was on the way back from the Championships. It was nearly night and I was sleepy and he talked so low I almost couldn’t hear him over the hum of the engine. ‘She loved soccer, Faltrain. She said the game reminded her of life. “People weaving in and out of each other, Marty, all looking to get the same thing, all desperate for it.” ’
    â€˜What are they desperate for?’ I asked, but I fell asleep before he answered and I haven’t asked him about it since. I thought on that bus ride that things would be better for Martin when he got back, but I don’t think that they are. Mr Knight might be trying, but from what I can see, he’s not trying hard enough.
    Martin’s different on the field, too. Even Coach can see it. He doesn’t have the edge anymore, like he’s sitting back and waiting for someone to give him the ball. ‘You’re playing like a girl,’ I said to him in the off-season games.
    â€˜You’d want to watch who you’re calling a girl, Faltrain,’ he answered, and kept packing his stuff into his bag.
    â€˜You know what I mean. You’ve lost something out there.’
    â€˜And what’s that, Faltrain?’
    I didn’t answer. I couldn’t say he’d lost a part of himself. What good would that do unless I could tell him how to get it back? Martin’s mum took a piece of him when she left all those years ago, but for a long time the hole in Martin was too small to see. For some reason this year it’s getting bigger. And it doesn’t look like his mum is coming back to mend it any time soon.
    Coach made him switch positions with