Hat Trick! (2 page)

IT’S NOT JUST A GAME—IT’S TIME TRAVEL!

Thursday—afternoon

‘
OKAY
. Here’s the equation. Listen up. Six balls to go. Nine runs to win. Can they do it? Jono, check your field. Toby, are you ready?’ he said to me.

Mr Pasquali was excited. Boy, does he love his cricket. He is our cricket coach, and our class teacher too. Everyone wanted Mr Pasquali as their class teacher. Even the Year 3s were talking about him and hoping that they’d get put in his class when they got to Year 6. And if you were mad about cricket—like I was—then his class was the place to be. Mr Pasquali had a way of bringing cricket into most of the subjects we did.

It was the end of centre-wicket practice. We were tired, but Mr Pasquali always managed to keep us interested. Better still, I was batting. The only downer in the situation was the bowler, Scott Craven. He was fast, mean and ugly. Jono, our captain when we play against other schools, was going on the attack. He had two slips, a gully, third man, fine leg, then a ring of fielders
around me. If I could go over the top and score a two or maybe even a four (you hardly ever ran three on our small school cricket oval) then Jimbo and I just might score the nine runs we needed to win. Win what? Nothing, but still, getting one over Scott was something.

The first ball thumped into my pads. Scott yelled his appeal. Mr Pasquali had a good long look at me, then at my pads, and said firmly, ‘Not out!’

Five balls left, still nine runs to get. Jimbo Temple strolled down the pitch.

‘Toby, I’m running this ball, no matter what.’

You didn’t argue with Jimbo. He was an awesome cricketer, but there was something about him that made you think twice before you spoke to him. He liked to keep to himself, and even Scott Craven kept pretty well clear of him.

I didn’t see the next ball. It whacked me on the body. Jimbo was screaming at me to run. He was halfway down the pitch before I’d got my balance and set off. I felt clumsy and slow. My pads were flopping everywhere and my bat was heavy. And I had a throbbing pain in my ribs.

I hobbled up the pitch. WHACK! The ball smashed into my back. I groaned and stumbled on, finally making the crease at the other end. I really needed to work on my batting.

Once again Jimbo strolled up the wicket.

‘Smart running, Toby. You saved your wicket. You okay?’

This was just about the most Jimbo had ever said
to me in one go. I was in pain, but Jimbo was on strike. What had I been imagining—putting Scott away for a four?

‘You’re history, loser,’ Scott sneered at Jimbo as he walked past us.

Jimbo didn’t seem to notice. ‘Back up, and listen for the call, okay?’

I nodded.

Jimbo strolled back, took a look at the field, which hadn’t changed, then settled down to wait for Scott. The boys in the field were clapping and urging the bowler on.

Scott raced in and sent down a thunderbolt. It was a beamer. A massive full toss heading straight for Jimbo’s head. He ducked out of the way, just, as the ball flew past him. It was too hot for Martian—Ivan (Ivo) Marshall, the keeper. The ball bobbled down towards fine leg. Jimbo looked at me. I can’t have looked too keen. He held up a hand and shouted, ‘No!’

‘You’re a wimp, Toby Jones. Gutless wonder,’ Scott sneered at me as he walked past.

‘Okay. It’s going to be tough,’ yelled Mr Pasquali. ‘Four balls to go, seven runs to win.’

‘Hang on. What do you mean four balls? I’ve bowled three already.’

Scott Craven was looking mean. He knew the answer.

‘That last ball was a no ball, Scott. Extra delivery and a run to the batting team. If you’re good enough you should win it from here. Look alive, everyone!’

Jimbo tapped his bat on the crease and waited. He looked as calm as ever. Scott started his run-up. He was actually a very good bowler.

Suddenly there was a mighty THWACK. I almost missed it. One minute Jimbo was tapping his bat in the crease, the next he was leaning back, bat high in the air, watching the ball sail over covers and out towards some sheds near the school fence.

‘Hey, Jay. Did that clear the line?’ Mr Pasquali called.

Tough call for Jay, but he was in the best position to judge. He nodded.

‘I think so,’ he shouted, then jogged off to get the ball from up against an old hockey goal.

Scott Craven was fuming. In one shot, Jimbo had reduced the equation to three balls and one run. We were level.

‘Control and focus,’ Mr Pasquali was saying to everyone. ‘Each of you, think of your role here.’

Jono was bringing all the fielders in close to the wicket.

‘Good thinking, Jono. No good having anyone out now. You’ve got to stop the single,’ Mr Pasquali said.

I looked at Jimbo. His expression hadn’t changed. There was no excitement on account of his six. We hadn’t won yet.

I turned round to look at Scott Craven. He was waiting at the top of his run-up, looking down at the ball. He was changing his grip. Being a bowler helped me know about these things. He was going to bowl a
‘slow’ ball. You know, when everything looks the same: run in just as fast, and then out it comes—slow—either through the back of the hand, or with a finger tucked behind so it doesn’t come out with all the power it should.

Jimbo played all round it. He completely missed the ball. It made him look clumsy, but luckily the ball was wide of the stumps.

‘Two balls, one run,’ bellowed Mr Pasquali. He didn’t need to. Everyone knew.

Scott’s next ball was probably his best of the over. A fast yorker. Jimbo just managed to get a bit of bottom edge onto it, which was just as well: otherwise he would have been lbw.

Now everyone was tense. Scott Craven was talking with Jono Reilly at mid-off, nodding his head. I looked at Jimbo and started walking towards him.

‘I can tell if it’s a slow ball. I’ll raise my bat if he’s going to bowl it.’

Jimbo looked at me. ‘Good idea, Toby. Then get ready to run.’

I had a job to do, but I didn’t want to make it too obvious. I turned away from Jimbo and looked out past Mr Pasquali to where Scott was standing.

‘Okay everyone. This is it. I want a winner here,’ called Mr Pasquali.

Scott hadn’t looked down at his hands. He started to move in. I stared at his bowling hand, desperately trying to see his grip. He was halfway in now, almost at full speed. Suddenly his other hand shot down to
the ball. He was changing his grip. I pushed my bat up into the air as Scott approached the bowling crease. I just hoped like anything that this was going to work.

Scott swung his arm over and let go. Jimbo waited. The ball seemed to take ages to get to him. Jimbo stepped back, but the ball was bang on line, heading for middle stump. He pushed at it with all his force, looking for the gap between bowler and mid-off.

‘Yep!’ he shouted, as Scott dived towards the ball. I took off. A moment later I heard a yell from behind. Scott had grabbed the ball and flicked it at the stumps. Everyone looked at Mr Pasquali, who was staring at the broken wicket.

He pointed both his hands up to the sky and drew a box in the air. He was asking for the third umpire, the way they do in cricket matches on TV. Jimbo had kept on going, not even interested in the result.

‘Too close to call that one, boys. Great finish though.’

‘I thought you wanted a winner,’ said Scott Craven. He looked tired.

‘You’re all winners today,’ Mr Pasquali beamed. ‘Now let’s get this gear packed up. And don’t forget that tomorrow some of you are coming on the excursion to top all excursions: the MCG visit.’

As if any of us could forget that. I couldn’t wait!

Thursday—evening

At the dinner table, I told Mum and Dad about cricket practice. They were always interested to hear how
practice went—I reckoned Dad was sometimes more interested in cricket than he was in any of my school subjects. Even Natalie, my eight-year-old younger sister, was tuning in.

‘Anyway, you can bowl faster than Scott Craven can’t you, Toby?’

‘Of course I can, Nat. I can bowl faster than Brett Lee!’

‘And I’ve climbed Mount Everest in a kilt,’ Dad said, ruffling my hair.

‘Well, I might bowl as fast as him one day.’

Mum looked across at me. ‘Yes, Toby, one day you just might.’

The best bowling figures in a World Cup match are held by Glenn McGrath of Australia. He achieved 7/15 against Namibia during the 2003 World Cup. Two other bowlers have taken seven wickets in a World Cup game. They are Australia’s Andy Bichel (7/20) and the West Indies’ Winston Davis (7/51).

Friday—morning

THE
next morning I was up early. It was the day of the excursion to the MCG—
the
Melbourne Cricket Ground! You could choose to go to other places, but any chance to get to the MCG—and with Mr Pasquali as well—was something you didn’t knock back. My best friend, Jay Bromley, felt the same. He’d never been there, but he’d heard me talking about it often enough.

There were 10 of us going from my year—all boys, except for Georgie—plus Mr Pasquali and Jono’s dad, Mr Reilly. Georgie loves sport, and it didn’t bother her that she was the only girl taking the MCG tour.

Georgie was great. She lived with her mum at the other end of our street, and we’d played together since we could walk. Our house was like a second home for her. Often Georgie’s mum would call round and end up staying for dinner. Georgie and I, and
sometimes Nat, would play cricket outside, or down the hallway if it was dark.

Most of the cricket team were going on the tour except for Jimbo, who was doing the Old Melbourne Gaol. Jimbo was different, somehow. He was friendly if you spoke to him, but he didn’t seem to be too interested in being with other kids. Georgie said that the opposite was actually the truth, that he really wanted people around him. I wasn’t so sure. There was something about him that I liked all the same.

Anyway, Mr Pasquali, Jono and his dad, Jay, Rahul, Martian, Cameron, Minh, Georgie and I, as well as Scott Craven and his best mate Gavin Bourke, were taking the tour from heaven.

When we arrived at the MCG we passed through a modern front section with lots of glass and then went through an older-looking gate. This was the back of one of the big stands, which we walked around underneath.

Jay was looking pretty impressed, but he really wanted to get out to the actual ground, which we kept getting little glimpses of. He wasn’t really listening to the stuff we were being told about the dressing rooms and other places.

They took us upstairs past some fantastic pictures of old players; they were massive. I kept thinking how much Dad would have loved this. It was sort of like a museum.

Then we came to a little library, stacked with books—all on cricket. The floor creaked as we movedquietly into the room. It was cluttered and busy. There
were piles of books on tables and on the floor. The place was messy, but you got the feeling that this was how it was meant to be. There was a heap of brown and yellow books in a bookshelf just on the right.

‘
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
s,’ said a small voice behind me. I jumped. An old man with a wrinkled face and a kind smile was looking at me. ‘Would you like to see one?’ he asked.

I looked across at Jay. He shrugged.

‘Um, yeah, okay. Thanks,’ I replied.

The old man unlocked a glass door and pulled down one of the brown books. It had ‘1949’ in gold letters on its thick spine.

‘Have you heard of the Invincibles?’ the man asked me. His eyes were sparkling.

‘Wasn’t that Sir Donald Bradman’s team?’

‘He was part of the team, yes, and other great players too. Go on, open it.’

I must have been holding the book as if it was some kind of treasure, too afraid to open it and turn the old, musty-smelling pages. The rest of the group were leaving the library, but I couldn’t put the book down. It felt so warm and comfortable in my hand.

The nice old guy was smiling. ‘My name is Jim Oldfield—and do call me Jim, boys,’ he said. ‘I was wondering, would you mind opening the book and telling me what you see?’

‘C’mon, Toby,’ called Jono’s dad from the library door.

It was as if a spell had been broken.

‘Coming, Mr Reilly,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Mr Oldfield—er, Jim—was just showing me these old books.’

‘You want to stay on a bit? We’re just heading out onto the ground,’ Mr Reilly said.

‘Yeah, okay. I’ll catch up with you soon. See ya, Jay.’

I looked over at Jim’s friendly face then back down at the book I was holding in my hands. Jim was nodding at me, urging me to open the book.

My first reaction was that there must be something wrong with my eyes. Maybe they had dust in them. There was probably plenty of that floating around an old room like a library. Everything on the page—the words and numbers—was blurry and shimmery, as if it was in water. The words kept dissolving, then reappearing. I closed my eyes and shook my head. Then I looked back at the open book in my hands. It was the same again.

‘See if you can find page 221,’ Jim suggested.

It was so weird. ‘What’s going on?’ I stammered. ‘I can’t read this.’

There was a pile of different cricket books on the oval table where Jim was sitting. He pushed one towards me.

‘You open it,’ I said.

He smiled and did so.

We both stared at the open page. Everything looked normal. There were no swimming words. I grabbed another book and flung it open. It was the same. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

There was something about the old brown book. I turned it over in my hands, peering at the sides and the spine, trying to work out how the blurry effect was achieved.

‘Toby,’ said the old man, ‘page 221. Go on.’

‘Are you coming, Toby?’ It was Jay, standing at the door of the library. He must have come back to find out what had happened to me.

‘Jay…come over here and look at this wisdom book.’

‘
Wisden
book, Toby.
Wisden
.’

Jay was looking a bit surprised. He glanced over at me with a questioning sort of look. I was glad I hadn’t told him what I’d seen. I was wondering whether the book would have the same effect on him.

Jim passed Jay the book.

‘Is there a famous cricket match in here or something?’ asked Jay, sitting down and opening the book at its first page.

‘Try page 221,’ I suggested.

Jim sat there, nodding his head.

Jay flicked through the pages fast, then stopped turning, presumably at page 221. I sat down next to him.

Jim was staring at me, almost sadly. Then his eyes went to the book. ‘Read it, Jay,’ he said.

‘He probably won’t be able to,’ I offered, my eyes finding their way back to the page.

‘What do you mean, “won’t be able to”?’ scoffed Jay, and he started to read.

‘“Essex v Australians. At Southend, May 15, 17. Australians won by an innings and 451 runs. In light-hearted vein, they made history by putting together the highest total…”’

Jim was chuckling, the wrinkles on his face crinkling like cracks in dry mud. His chuckles turned to coughs.

Jay looked up from his reading. ‘What’s the joke, then?’

‘Tell him, Toby. Tell Jay here what you see when you open the
Wisden
.’ Jim was speaking softly, his voice a bit raspy.

I picked up the book yet again and opened it. The letters were a blur. Now and again vague shadows would appear, then just as quickly they would vanish into the white mist of the page. I pushed the book towards Jay, who was looking at me oddly.

‘Jay,’ I said, ‘can you really see the stuff on this page here?’ I pointed at the page. I even touched it. It felt warm and alive, like the book had when I’d held it.

By now, I knew that Jay sensed something was up. ‘Is it your eyes or something?’ he asked me.

‘Close the book and look at me. Both of you.’ Jim was speaking softly but firmly. ‘There is nothing wrong with you, Toby. On the contrary, we have discovered that there is something quite special about you. If you give me five minutes, I can explain exactly what I mean.’

Jay and I looked at each other. He shrugged and
said, ‘You tell me later, Toby. I’m heading back to the group.’

Jim stood up and made his way over to the glass bookcase where all the heavy brown and yellow books stood. He reached in and took down another
Wisden
. It looked even older than the one lying on the table in front of us.

‘You see, Toby, you and I share a special gift. These pages are the doors to cricket matches from the past. It’s a funny thing, but I knew that you would eventually arrive here in the library. That’s the thing about time travel—you learn all sorts of things about the future that you normally wouldn’t know.

‘Let me explain. In 1930 I was nine years old and living in Leeds, in England. Don Bradman was touring with the Australians. My father had bought tickets for both of us to go to the first day’s play. But the night before the match, I became very ill; I’m afraid I deteriorated so badly that by the time Don Bradman walked out to bat on that second day, I was lying in a hospital bed.

‘I missed one of the most remarkable innings ever played in the history of Test cricket. Instead of marvelling at the greatest batsman anyone will ever see, I lay on a hospital bed fighting for my life.

‘Well, as you can see, I survived the illness. But six months before the Second World War started, my father died quite suddenly. My mother and I came out to Australia and she let me bring my father’s collection of
Wisden
s, all 11 of them.’

I had a thousand questions flying through my brain, but Jim raised a finger to his lips as I was about to speak.

‘Now that I’m an old man my powers have weakened and I can’t travel, without the help of someone else who has the gift,’ he explained. ‘And even with you here now, Toby, and even if you were willing to help an old man like me, I fear that my time for travels of this kind are well behind me. Alas, that match of 1930 will remain a dream. As it always has been. You see, I have a memory of six words that I have played and repeated in my head all these years. “Don’t ever come back here alone.” I took it to mean don’t come back to the time of 1930 alone. I don’t remember who said the words to me. My father? Perhaps my grandfather. Anyway, I have obeyed the instruction.’ Jim looked away for a moment. ‘But you, Toby, with my help, have the opportunity to, to…’

I swallowed.

‘To travel back through time. To watch any game you choose. To…’

There was a noise behind me. The wall opened and a lady walked in with a plate of food. I jumped.

Jim chuckled and said, ‘This library is full of surprises.’

‘Jim’s spinning his stories to you, is he?’ the lady asked cheerfully, setting a plate of sandwiches down in front of him. She headed out again, but left the door open. I bounced up and looked at it, checking
both sides. From the inside it looked like a solid wall, but there was a handle on the other side.

‘Alas, I fear the spell has been broken,’ Jim said quietly.

I went back to my chair and stood behind it.

‘Here, Toby. Take this.’ Jim had pulled a small sheet of paper out of his shirt pocket and passed it over to me.

‘That’s my father’s handwriting. He copied it from a letter that his father wrote to him.’

I took the sheet from him, and without looking at what was written on it, slid it into my shirt pocket.

‘Come back will you? Sometime?’

I walked over to the door. ‘Thanks for the story and all that, Jim.’ I turned towards him but was afraid to make eye contact.

Jim didn’t reply.