The Life and Times of Gracie Faltrain Read Online Free Page A

it close, Gracie Faltrain,’ I whisper to the dark before I sleep. You’ll need it soon. I can’t tell you why yet. But you’ll need it soon.

4
    lost adjective : no longer to be found;
verb : that one has failed to win
GRACIE
    Mum sleeps through the smell of coffee the next morning. Toast burning. Eggs cooking. I ring Dad’s mobile and leave a message: ‘Call me, Dad. It’s urgent.’ I have to get to New South Wales. I mean, I can’t be the only one not there when we win at the Championships.
    I go to Jane for advice. Her front door is open; I walk through the hall, stepping over cricket bats and washing folded in piles at bedroom doors. I love going to her house; it’s warm and messy and comfortable, like an unmade bed on a winter’s day. Mrs Iranian is in the kitchen drinking tea when I arrive. ‘Go on through, Gracie,’ she says without looking up from her paper.
    I curl up next to Jane and tap her until she wakes.
    â€˜Faltrain, what time is it?’
    â€˜Ten o’clock.’ I tap again.
    â€˜You better have some serious problem to be waking me up at this time.’
    â€˜Mum can’t afford to send me to New South Wales. The nursery isn’t making enough money.’ It seems better just saying it to Jane. ‘She can’t even afford to keep Sam on, the guy who works at the nursery.’
    â€˜Why don’t you work for her? You could save her some money.’
    â€˜I kill plants, Jane.’
    â€˜If you really want to go to New South Wales, then you need to learn quick,’ she says, and puts her hand on my shoulder. There’s something about the way it’s resting there. It’s like she’s holding me up.
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜Mum and Dad told us last night. Dad got the job in England. We leave in a week.’ Her voice is clumsy, tripping as she speaks.
    â€˜A week?’ What were her parents thinking? My mum takes longer than that to decide we should go shopping . Jane was going to the other side of the world .
    Jane and I have been friends since Year 1. She walked into our classroom on her first day and everyone stared at her. It wasn’t because she was new either. She was taller than everyone else, and she had this look that said, nobody – nobody – mess with me. Everyone saw it. Everyone but Rebecca Jackson. She put her hand up and asked, ‘What’s a grade two doing in our classroom?’ Jane looked her right in the face, glanced over her short hair and answered, ‘What’s a boy doing in a dress?’ I grinned at her. I had short hair too, but I knew she wouldn’t laugh at me. I just knew it. Jane was best friend material. Without her I’d be lost.
    She couldn’t leave. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t there some sort of parenting manual that said they couldn’t do this?
    â€˜You knew it might happen, Faltrain. I told you Dad had applied for the job.’
    â€˜But a week?’
    â€˜The people at Dad’s work already found us a place to live.’
    â€˜But what will happen to your house?’
    â€˜We’re renting it out, with all our stuff, just till we see if we like it in England.’
    I tried to imagine another family in the kitchen, cooking dinner with the Iranians’ pots. If I dropped in on Sunday morning, a family I’d never met would be eating off Jane’s plates. There would be another person sleeping in Jane’s bed.
    â€˜Mum wants us there for the start of the next term. She thinks it’ll be easier that way.’
    Easier for who? I have so much to say, huge sentences about how I will miss her. I have so many words they won’t fit in my mouth. I try to break off a tiny piece of them. I can’t. I shrug her hand off my shoulder and leave.
    I want to ride back to Jane’s and tell her what I’m really thinking. Life won’t be anything without her. It will be a room with no television. No