‘See that huge girl over there?’ she pointed. ‘She plays ruck for the local football team.’ There was no way that I could miss her. ‘She’s super tough,’ Caroline added. ‘Make sure to keep out of her way.’ And then she said, ‘See that girl there?’ pointing to a small nuggetty blonde girl. ‘She’s really fast. Keep your eyes on her at all times. She comes from nowhere for the steal.’

‘And what about the rest of the team?’

‘Yeah, they’re all really good. We’re going to have to work hard.’

Excellent, I thought. I just wanted to get lost in the game, forget about everything if I could. But that was pretty much impossible because for one thing, I was starting to wonder where the hell Mum was. She should have already been at the stadium. I’d told her a hundred times what time the game started. I hoped she hadn’t missed the bus from the train station to The Village, because that would mean that she’d miss most of the game – maybe all of it.

When the umpire stepped out onto the court, I started to panic. I really wanted Mum to be with me, to watch the game, especially with Dad and Caitlin away in New Zealand. I secretly hoped that after watching me play, Mum might think about playing social basketball again. Dad always said that Mum was much happier when she was playing basketball.

The ball was tapped down to me and I started running towards the basket. Just as Caroline had said, the nuggetty blonde girl sped up and put herself between the basket and me. I put my body between her and the ball as I waited for my teammates to get down our end of the court. Hayley burst out towards me and I was able to get a pass to her. She spun through the key and the huge footballer got in her way so she pushed back off her and put up a jump shot that fell through the basket with a swish.

Hayley gave me a high five as she ran back up the court although really, I felt like I hadn’t done much at all.

The nuggetty blonde girl brought the ball back down the court, sprinting around Caroline and Ashley and then putting in a shot that dropped for two points.

I threw the ball back into Ashley, who passed it back to me, as I saw Trent walk into the stadium. A wave of embarrassment and anger coursed through me and I wanted to run off the court and scream at him. Instead, I ran down the court taking everyone on, ducking and weaving through my opponents. Eventually I cut beneath the basket, swung around and put up a shot. As I fell off balance and slid across the court on my arse, I watched the ball roll around the ring and luckily drop through.