Number 12

Chapter 12

So you don’t want to be in there? Have you told Mr Dixon?’ he asked.

‘I tried but he says that it is an honour and won’t let me pull out’ I told him.

‘I give you permission to not attend or be vice president and if he tells you off get him to talk to me’ Coach said.

‘Thank you so much’ I smiled before heading back to the team. We were up against the team that won our State last year. I really wanted to win especially after not being about to play last week and this is the last game. If we win we might make it out of the State as we have a State with very few teams. The guys were gathered round and listening to Jake talk.

‘We got thrashed last week. We dropped passes we shouldn’t and stopped playing how we should. We can play better than that so let’s do that’ Jake said and we disbanded to train in our different teams.  This meant that I am in charge of the defence.

‘What do you think that we have to work on?’ I asked the guys.

‘We missed tackles we shouldn’t have’ someone called. I decided that is what we would work on then. Together we set up the tackling bags and spend almost an hour tackling them and each other. I got crush many times by people from behind me.

‘Why are you targeting me?’ I ask them when we stop for a drink.

‘Because we can’t get you otherwise’ Zac called.

‘What about a game of tag where you tackle rather than tag? If you get tackled then you are also a tagger’ I suggested and got a round of cheers.

‘It’s the whole field but avoid the other groups’ I said noticing Jake running the offence in strict patterns.

‘Zac is the first tagger’ I called as the rest of us sprinted away from him. I noticed that the first person he was targeting was Bentley. This was smart on Zac’s behalf as Bentley is a good tackler so with two of them it would be harder. I was the last one left. I in one of the corner with the whole defence running towards me.

I dodged Zac who was the first one. I jumped onto Bentley’s back as he was in crouching position. I used him as a spring board. I threw myself off and did a flip in the air jump because I could. I sprinted off to the other side. I sprung into my cheerleading routine. I finished facing the boys. Michael was the only one moving as he had seen in before.

‘Are we playing or not?’ I called and they followed me. I jumped the railing into the stands and took the stairs three at a time. Once I was in the top row I ran across so that I was directly above the offence training. I jumped down the rows taking them three or four at a time.

I reach the offence training and saw Jake prepare to throw. I ran and grabbed it out of the air before throwing it back to Jake.

‘Sorry it was for taking’ I called before sprinted away as I saw the defence looming. I laughed at their efforts. Coach called us together so they never caught me.

‘Remember training on Thursday’ Coach reminded us before letting us go.

I quickly changed before going home to start to organise the attic. It was dusty like no one had been up there in years. There were boxes piled up in odd places and balancing on top of other boxes. I sighed before opening the first one.

The box had nice print on the front that looked like my mothers. When I looked inside it was my mother’s stuff. Or who I assumed who was my mother. It held photos of from before she ran away. The first was a musty photo with two people on the beach together with their backs to the camera. I assumed it was Father and Mother.

I managed to sort out five boxes. All of them were of Mother and Father.  After an hour I got sick of sorting things out so I decided to have a look around. There were probably about 100 boxes which will take me about 20 hours or so.

One box in the corner caught my eye. It was placed so that you couldn’t see it from most angles of the attic. On the side was Father’s writing which surprised me as all the other’s had my Mother’s. It must have something in it he wanted to hide. On the side it said Helena’s stuff. I opened the box and pulled everything out.

It only held a diary with my Mother’s neat writing and an empty picture frame. The frame was golden with signs of the paint coming off. I started to read the diary but it also only had one entry. It took me only minutes to read but it shocked me. I picked up my phone and dialled Michael’s number.

‘What?’ Michael asked.

‘I know who my Mother is.’

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The Wise One