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appearances. This put Border 47 Test matches ahead of his nearest rival, Sunil Gavaskar, from India.

4 The Gym
    Tuesday—afternoon
    THE gym was booked; Georgie hadn’t forgotten. I often met up with friends there at the start of lunchtime and usually other kids would call by and end up joining in. Even Jimbo had stopped in for a look one lunchtime a few weeks back. He sat on one of the long benches at the back of the gym and watched. He was eating a salad roll. I remember this because you are not allowed to eat in the gym. But no one was going to mention this little rule to Jimbo.
    We played with three pieces of equipment: a stump for a bat, a set of kanga wickets and a tennis ball that was half-covered with black tape. It swung like crazy.
    We picked a couple of teams.
    ‘Where’s your secret friend?’ I asked Georgie as I took my place behind the stumps to be keeper. Martian, the regular keeper, said he had a bit of a headache and was sitting out this game.
    ‘She’ll be here soon. And when she gets here, I want her to have a go at keeper, okay?’
    ‘Yeah, sure,’ I said.
    Rahul whacked the first ball back past Jay and into the back wall for four. He had a great eye—even if he did wear glasses—and it always looked as if he was playing with a real bat.
    ‘Hey, Georgie, I’m here.’
    A tall girl with long hair was standing at the door. I had seen her before, though she wasn’t in any of my classes.
    ‘Hey, Ally,’ Georgie called out. ‘Get in here. Toby, get out in the field, would you? Ally, go behind the stumps and just grab the ball if it comes your way, okay?’
    ‘Watch out, Marshall, looks like a girl’s gonna take your keeping job,’ said Scott Craven, who had just arrived with Gavin Bourke. I wondered if they had come with Ally.
    I looked over at Martian to see if he would react to this teasing from Craven. But amazingly, he had his eyes closed and his head tilted up towards the roof.
    I walked over to him.
    ‘Hey, Martian, you okay?’
    He didn’t open his eyes but smiled slightly and put one thumb up in the air. ‘Sort of. Bit of a headache, but I’ll be okay.’
    Meanwhile, Ally had got herself behind the stumps and was waiting for Jay to bowl. It was a wide one. Ally took it easily and flicked it back, low and hard, to Jay.
    ‘Okay? Now can I go?’
    ‘Ally! C’mon,’ said Georgie. ‘You said you’d stay for at least 10 minutes.’
    ‘Okay, 10 minutes. Nine now. Let’s do it!’
    She was amazing. She didn’t miss a ball. And most of the deliveries went to her as most of us still couldn’t hit the ball with a stump. Her throws were neat and strong too. True to her word, though, she waved goodbye to Georgie about 10 minutes later and headed out the door.
    ‘Hey, Ally, did you enjoy it?’ Georgie called.
    ‘Yeah. Actually it was good. I’d like to stay, but I’ve got some stuff to catch up on.’
    ‘Ally’s a good keeper, huh?’ Georgie said, as we headed off to afternoon class.
    ‘Awesome,’ I replied.
    ‘She plays representative softball. She’s the catcher. I just thought it would be interesting to see if she could handle being a keeper.’
    ‘No problems there. Does she want to play?’ I asked.
    ‘Not sure.’
    ‘You want to add to that answer?’ Jay asked.
    Georgie thought for a moment.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Pity,’ Jay responded.
    We all turned. Martian had joined us, obviously having heard our conversation. Suddenly he stopped and headed for the library.
    ‘Hey, Martian,’ Georgie called out, ‘I don’t mean for her to take your place.’
    But Martian didn’t turn around. He kept on walking.
    ‘Bummer! Toby, will you see him in class this arvo?’ Georgie asked.
    ‘Yeah, I’ll talk to him.’
    ‘Thanks. I really didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that it’d be nice to have another girl in the team, you know.’
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said.
    As it turned out, I didn’t catch up with Martian during the afternoon. He didn’t show up at all.