Free My Private Pectus by Shane Thamm

to what?’
    â€˜Explain the position. Have you got a ball?’ She looks at me and I realise how stupid the question is. Despite this, she takes her bag off and rummages through it.
    â€˜Nope. Forgot it,’ she says, her head practically submerged.
    I think again. ‘What about an apple, an orange?’
    â€˜No. No.’
    â€˜Hang on.’ I put my bag down and pull out a bruised apple of my own. ‘Let's pretend this is the ball.’
    â€˜Bit small, isn't it?’
    â€˜That's why I said pretend .’
    She smiles. ‘Okay. The apple is the ball. Got it. What next, Einstein?’
    â€˜Um.’ I look about. I feel good, feel nervous. ‘Pretend I'm the person doing the play-the-ball.’
    â€˜Play the ball?’
    I'm getting nowhere. ‘Let's pretend I've been tackled, right?’
    â€˜By who?’
    â€˜By anyone. By the opposition,’ I say. ‘There.’ I point to a fence post. ‘That's the opposition player.’ I stand in front of the post, bend over and put the apple under my foot, mimicking the position of the play-the-ball. ‘The hooker often goes at dummy half—that's behind me—and picks up the ball, runs with it or passes.’
    â€˜You want me to pick up the apple?’ she asks.
    â€˜It's the ball, remember.’
    â€˜While you're bending over?’
    â€˜C'mon.’
    â€˜With my head near your butt?’
    â€˜Just pick it up.’
    â€˜Forget it,’ she says and picks up her bag. ‘What other positions are there?’
    I toss the apple into a bush. ‘There's the bench,’ I mutter.
    Whacking me on the arm, she says, ‘I know what that means.’ She starts walking again. I laugh and catch up. She's trying to keep a straight face. I'm not sure what to say next, so I listen to our feet slap on the concrete as we head down the hill. My heart is thumping. I can't believe I'm so worked up over one stupid conversation with a girl I don't want to like.
    She slows as we pass an old house on stilts that has peeling paint and rusting gutters. The place is famous in the suburb for its array of junk. It's surrounded by a yard of long grass, strewn with old planks of timber, corrugated iron sheets, metal pipes and other piles of useless stuff. Even beneath the house, in between the stilts, there's junk piled up.
    She rests her hands on the flaking white paint of the fence. ‘I've always wanted to go in there,’ she says. ‘See what stuff he's got.’
    â€˜Why haven't you?’
    She shrugs. ‘Have you seen the owner? He looks like a pervert.’
    â€˜Charlie's harmless, you know.’ Dad and I refer to the owner as Charlie the Hoarder. We don't know his real surname. ‘I go there sometimes with my old man.’
    â€˜Really? What for?’
    I rest my hands on the fence, next to hers. She doesn't edge away. ‘Dad gets excited about things sometimes, goes into building frenzies. He doesn't usually finish anything, but.’
    â€˜What does he build?’
    â€˜He's building an aviary at the moment.’
    â€˜What for?’
    â€˜Birds.’
    â€˜Duh, what kind of birds?’
    â€˜Finches.’
    She looks at me critically.
    I feel stupid for saying it and go on the defensive. ‘Hey, it's Dad's idea, not mine.’
    â€˜So the football coach of St Phil's breeds finches? Sounds kinda soft, don't you think?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I say, ‘but, he hasn't started yet.’
    â€˜I'd like to see them.’ She looks up at me. ‘Once he's got some.’
    Did she just invite herself over?
    â€˜Sure,’ I say, but not really meaning it. I wonder what she'd think of our house, of Dad? He'd probably be on the couch, comatosed by a migraine and Panadeine Forte, or doing Sportsbet on the laptop.
    We walk again and settle into a comfortable chatter. She tells me about her weekend job at a Gloria Jean's café in the city, how her parents