Part 2
We are winning. Twenty to eleven. Score! No, the Australians just scored another goal! Twenty to twelve. Come on New Zealand, you can do it! Suddenly, Kathryn spots me in my seat from the courts. We make quick eye contact, then she looks away like she never even saw me.
I yell out her name,
“Kathryn!” She doesn’t respond. I yell again,
“Kathryn!” She turns her head slightly towards me to the sound of her name. All the spectators glare at me. I turn bright red with embarrassment and run to the toilets.
I hide in the toilets, until I hear the loudspeaker boom,
“Australia leads by one point. Twenty four to twenty three!”
I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, to the scoreboard control room. There I found the technician, whom I told that the security guard was looking for him at the entrance to the stadium. Bingo! He got up straight away and rushed down to the entrance like a madman.
It took me a while to take in my surroundings. The room was filled with CCTV cameras on the walls, a wide flat screen T.V, over-viewing the players playing the game on the netball courts. Under the security cameras, lay all the different controls for the scoreboard. Many switches lay at different levels. They all looked very confusing, but I didn’t have time to carefully work out which each one was meant for, so instead, I decided to gather all the tools I would need for this hard and patient job. In less than a minute, I had found the scoreboard-operating manual and I had also pinched a pair of scissors too.
I locked the door and started cutting and reconnecting wires. Oh no! I had just added another point to the Australian side instead of the New Zealand! Let’s try again. Finally. Success! Just as I was about to add another point for New Zealand, there was a sudden power-cut, and it went pitch black.
There was total silence, then screams erupted in the stadium. I stumbled through the darkness to find the door handle to unlock it. As I found my way outside like a blind person, the lights instantly turned back on. It almost felt like when I walked outside, I threw a light switch on, so that the light came back on!
When my eyes had adjusted to the bright lights, the first person I saw was Kathryn, staring at me wide-eyed. Oh. She was staring at the scoreboard-operating manual that I was still clutching in my hand.
“I think we have some explaining to do,” said Kathryn. I nodded.
I went to confess to everybody.
“Coach, Kathryn, everyone; I’m so sorry and ashamed. I really didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but things just got more and more complicated and harder and harder to put right again”.
So, after a very deep breath, I sat down and told the whole story from the beginning.
Kathryn and I grew up together; we first met on our first day at daycare. There we both were, away from our Mums and out of our homes - alone! I don’t know who was crying louder, but somehow I caught sight of her through my tears and suddenly realised someone needed help more than me. From that moment on, we were totally inseparable. People even thought we were actually sisters!
All through Primary School, Intermediate and High School, we somehow managed to be in every class together. It even got to the point where we would both answer to each other’s names when people called out to us and no-one seemed to work out that they weren't necessarily talking to the right person. We shared food, clothes, thoughts and feelings - I’m sure that we could almost read each other’s minds. Of course, we both had other friends and spent time apart, but our bond never weakened - until we went to University.
At first, life for us was just like it had always been over all those years. The only difference was the setting (University is such a big place!). Then it happened. One night, I was attacked while walking home to the boarding hostel from the library. I knew those kung fu lessons would be useful one day, and my attacker quickly found himself taking a close look at the footpath. It turns out that he had mistaken me for my older sister, Lily, who had gotten mixed up with some very bad people and now owed them $10,000.
How could she do that? When I confronted her, she admitted everything and told me she was terrified that something really bad would happen to her if she didn’t pay them soon - but how? Then to make things worse, she swore me to secrecy, I couldn’t even tell Mum and Dad. I was sitting in my room trying to work it all out, when Kathryn came in holding something in her hand.
“Hey Ems, can you look over this play I wrote?
I was thinking of entering it into the Shakespeare
Competition but it might not be any good, let me know what you think.”
Kathryn’s play was brilliant, I couldn’t have done better myself - that was it, the answer to my problems! First prize in the Shakespeare Competition was $10,000. We were like sisters right? She’d do the same for me, so she’d definitely understand right?
It was so easy to change the name on the play and tell Kathryn that I didn’t think it was worth entering. Kathryn didn’t give it a second thought, we were soul mates after all, so why wouldn’t she trust me? She was so excited for me when she heard that I had won, I felt so guilty, but just couldn’t bring myself to come clean.
Then disaster struck, the Shakespeare Society were so impressed with the play, that they decided to put it on stage! Kathryn couldn’t understand why I didn’t share her enthusiasm at the prospect of seeing “my” play performed … until she watched it. She didn’t say a word to me - ever again.
We never spoke to each other again, we both graduated and Kathryn moved to Australia. I didn't even go to the airport the day she left and I hadn’t seen or heard from her since, until now.
I trained and trained. I wanted to be the best Wing Attack New Zealand had ever seen and it paid off when I was selected for the Silver Ferns. My brother in America even phoned me to congratulate me just before my first game and promised me a $10,000 prize if the team won!
At last, here was my chance to repay Kathryn.
What I didn’t know was that Kathryn had been selected for the Australian team and when I saw her, I just couldn’t face her, on or off court. Somehow, I still needed to ensure that the Silver Ferns won even if I didn’t play, and that’s when I came up with the idea of taking over the scoreboard.
My brother is a high-powered lawyer in America and is way too busy to watch netball games, he’d never know that I never played and I would still get the money to pay back to Kathryn. Or so I thought …
