Gracie Faltrain Takes Control by Cath Crowley

win. Martin shrugs. ‘Okay. You want a coffee?’
    â€˜Thanks, mate.’
    I smile at him and then follow Martin inside. About a month after we won the Championships, Martin invited me round to his place for dinner. ‘Your dad looks so sad,’ I said to him as he walked me home afterwards.
    â€˜He’s a hundred times better than he was before, Faltrain. He’s moved from the couch to the front steps.’
    If he’s a hundred times better, Martin, then what’s bothering you so much? If things are really going to improve you have totake a chance and find your mum. Martin doesn’t take chances, though. He’s like Alyce. What the two of them don’t realise is that if you never take a risk you wind up sitting on your verandah, dreaming about a life that only exists in your head.
    I listen to Mr Knight’s mumbled thank you as Martin takes his coffee out to him. I hate the way everyone talks in this house. It’s a made-up language that means nothing. The real stuff is being yelled underneath everyone’s skin, way down in their blood. You keep all your yelling in your blood for long enough and it’ll poison you.
    Martin walks back into the kitchen and starts pulling meat from the freezer. He puts it in the microwave to defrost. He starts slicing into vegetables.
    â€˜Was it like this, before she left?’ I ask.
    â€˜Like what?’ He takes the meat and presses it onto the frying pan. I hide my answer under the spitting fat. ‘Empty?’
    He squashes the steak until it’s flat and dry. ‘I know you don’t get it, but Dad’s different since I came back from the Championships. You didn’t know him before. He never even hugged Karen. He didn’t have the energy. He asks about our days, now. Mum hasn’t been here to do that since I was a kid.’ He looks at me. ‘So what does it matter what it was like before she left.’
    I don’t answer. Because it wasn’t a question.
    â€˜Mum,’ I say later in the evening while we’re watching TV, ‘what if you knew a way to make things better for someone, but they were too scared to let you. Would you still do it?’
    â€˜That depends on what you’re really talking about, I guess.’
    â€˜I think maybe I know a way to find Martin’s mum. Alycegave me the idea when she wrote in to the paper. I thought I could put an ad in or something.’
    â€˜No, Gracie Faltrain.’ Her voice is a slap. ‘You mind your own business.’
    â€˜But I want to help him.’
    â€˜Sometimes help can be the thing that breaks a person.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜Because it’s the thing that gives them hope.’
    â€˜But hope’s a good thing.’
    â€˜Only when there’s a chance; other than that it’s just bad news in disguise. Imagine that your father hadn’t come back to us last year, and we’d had to find a way to make it through without him.’
    â€˜But he didn’t do that. He loves us.’
    â€˜But imagine he did leave, and you spent every day wishing that he would come back – because you would, Gracie. Every soccer game you’d search for him. After a while, though, you’d have to stop hoping. If you didn’t, you’d be stuck looking up into the stands for the rest of your life.’
    â€˜That’s why I have to do something. Martin still thinks about his mum.’
    â€˜Of course he does. But he doesn’t hope for her to come back, Gracie. You’re the one who’s doing that.’
    â€˜How can you be sure?’
    â€˜I’ve watched your team play for almost five seasons now. Martin nearly broke my heart in those first few years. Your father used to say he looked as though he was out at sea, searching the crowd for something to stop him drowning. He doesn’t look into the stands for his mum anymore, Gracie. He looks at you. He trusts something again and