Free The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong

to win it,’ I venture.
    ‘We’ve made our point.’
    I feel a surge of irritation at this. ‘Don’t you want to bury those snobs?’
    He thinks for a moment before responding.
    ‘Not really. It’s rep cricket. It’s there for people to get a look at us, and they got a look at us.’
    Why doesn’t he feel these things? He’s placing a rolled-up towelinto each pad as Mum did for me. Which reminds me, my pads are on the floor where I left them.
    Walking down the same flight of stairs I’d earlier used to go for a dart, I look at Wally with his bag slung over one shoulder, me with mine, and for a moment I could imagine autograph hunters awaiting us at the foot of the stairs. Passing through the gateway at carpark level, the light has brightened a little, though there’s still a heavy haze that shrouds the canopy of the big trees.
    There’s a huddled group waiting for us, but they aren’t autograph hunters.
    The skipper of Eastern Suburbs, now dressed in brand-name track gear. Hundred-dollar gym shoes. He’s gelled his hair and he’s leaning casually on the bonnet of a car. Beside him, their keeper. Beside him, the sledger from short leg.
    As soon as we emerge from the gateway, the keeper scuttles round us and seals off the exit. I hear Wally sigh in a way that says this is going to hurt . He puts his bag down, and I know he’s not thinking right now about the thrashing that’s imminent nor harbouring any concern for his kid brother’s safety, but weighing the prospect of getting through this without having his gear smashed up before his eyes.
    We’ve stopped walking. The skipper and the short leg have got up off the car bonnet and are advancing on us.
    ‘You fucking dirty bogan cunts.’ That’s the skipper, charmer of private-school mothers. ‘Did you try to backchat my friend here?’
    He’s looking at me. ‘Fuck, seriously, you’re a weed. What were you thinking?’
    Short Leg hasn’t spoken. Suddenly he leaps forward and swings a punch at Wally, who’s slightly closer. He staggers as he pulls up from the swing and extends a leg to try to kick Wally, who does the obvious and grabs the leg. They both tangle themselves faster than fishing line, but Short Leg’s got the better of it and he’s landing a few on Wally’shead as he clings on grimly. There’s clothes tearing and scuffing sounds from dragging footwear. I’m cursing Wal’s insistence on fighting fair—there’s ample opportunity to grab his balls or bite him, but oh no, not Brother Wally. And I shouldn’t be watching this because it means I’m not watching the skipper.
    Next thing, I’m lying on the gravel, face up with a clanging sound in my right ear where he’s hit me. I can’t work out how it took me down so easily, and how the world is swinging and tilting. It makes no sense, and then I see him coming again and I know why. He’s got a cricket bat. Wally’s cricket bat, raised above his right shoulder and coming down.
    I roll left and it smashes into the ground, but that only delays the inevitable, because he’s got it golf-style beside my head now and he nine-irons me hard in the ear.
    This one hurts. I squeeze my eyes tightly shut as he starts getting into my ribs with those expensive boots; again and again, grunting slightly with the effort each time. I watch him wind up the backswing for another kick when he’s struck from the side with enormous force by a flying human who isn’t any of us. From inside my private cloud of pain and disorientation I struggle to recognise the bulky stranger.
    My new best mate, Craig Wearne.
    The skipper’s winded by the impact, lying on his side a few metres from me, gasping like a goldfish. And Craig has left my field of vision. He comes past again seconds later with Short Leg under his arm in a headlock. He’s just trotting, calm and unhurried. His left fist is holding a ball of Short Leg’s hair, and Short Leg is half-running and half-letting himself be dragged.
    I find myself