The day is hot and the ball in Jack’s hand is hard and red. Opposite her is that girl from Saint Sebastian’s, drowning in her whites and dragging a large bat. Good thing Jack is a good sport.

She throws the ball and catches it with a satisfying smack of skin on ball. The ol’ pig skin. She throws it up again. She imagines it’s an apple, and the girl opposite a suckling pig. Like a tudor feast. Like Jack is Queen Elizabeth the—Elizabeth the—like she is old Liz herself, okay, seated atop the rushes on the floor about to tuck into a delicious pig from some huntsman’s chalet. In a chill sportsguy like-way, of course. Chill. Totally chill. Out of the corner of her eye, Coach Jo is out there. Somewhere.

Jack tucks her hair behind an ear and begins to walk her paces out. Somewhere Jo is out there, and Jack slows her pacing. Lente Jacqueline, says Ms. Mannon as Jack scrapes away at the violin, somehow benevolent, somehow like, irked? Home troubles maybe? Pianissimo now, Jacqueline, pianississimo! Jesus Christ, child, pianiss—Lente, Jack, she now tells herself. Lente, mon cherie Jacqueline. She resists a pirouette, a jazzhand, a gallop, and slows her walk.

The ref sighs and closes his eyes behind his sunglasses under his hat. The dads crack another beer on the sidelines, and begin to chop orange quarters morosely. Under the oak tree, Jo stands crisp in the shade, muscles fanning in her forearm as she knocks a finger against the notebook with the batting order, collar popped. The whole area around her smells like leather, and male hair product, and something smirking and adult.

Adult, like the rumble of Jack’s parents’ voices Jack hears from the lounge, night after night as she falls asleep: kleptocracy, coup d’etat, financial year.

One day Jack just knows she will say those husky-toned words to Jo over a red-checked tablecloth, who will be unduly impressed by her precociousness and enthusiasm for writing (her teacher’s words!), and then say something fitting and equally grown-up in return, like Xenophobia, or Gross Domestic Product. Jack will smirk precociously, and Jo will look back at her adultingly, and together they will—uh.

And Jo will smell of leather, leather like leather couches in a library. A big library that needs one of those ladders. Those ladders that span the whole wall? Like in Tomb Raider? And the library’s always cool despite the sun outside the windows. And maybe Jo will be wearing boots, riding boots, bootes de…mare? Boots anyway, with those pants like a huntsman. Like okay, Jo’s wearing jodhpurs now, and leather riding gloves, and maybe holding a crop in her firm hands, and Jack guesses sure, outside the library in the sun is a sweet-smelling stable, with high spirited yet ultimately well tempered horses from Spain, or like the Gold Coast, with which Jo sometimes rides—no— canters in her jodhpurs and boots with the stable girl to nearby paddock—no, a field—no, a meadow and then they—they—well together, they will—uh.

Jack ceases her pacing.

Okay, so if Jo were to wear riding boots, they would crack with every step on the exposed floorboards in the library, right? Yes. Yes, the library. The library that is always cool with many books and ladders, and that holds leather couches which smell like Jo.

She scuffs, and as she scuffs she thinks there are so many things she wants. Or she wants some things so much. She turns, and thinks Jo.

She polishes the ball on her leg. She wants Jo so much. God, she wants to sit on the grass, watching this very match, with Jo. She wants to be leaning against Jo’s torso with Jo’s long legs on either side of her, so that she is sitting in the valley of Jo’s knees, so Jo’s breath will gather above Jack like storm clouds above a parched land.

And boy, Jack will be grateful for that rain.

Boy, she will be so grateful she will do a little rain dance, right here on this scuff.

She will be so grateful she will seduce the tall faceless ref, in front of Jo even. And Jo will see she knows her adult stuff, she’s got what it takes. She’ll steal the ref’s hat to wear in victory, after which she’ll pretend to steal his nose with her thumb between her fist and say gotcha!

And he’ll know she’s a good sport then, under it all, and Jo will see she’s a good sport then, under it all.

Jack begins her run back to the wickets with a skip at the thought, ball ready.

She will be so grateful, she’ll sprint to the wickets wearing her Seducer’s Prize Hat of Sex, and, holding the ref’s nose in her fist and being a good sport under it all, jeepers creepers, she’ll sprint to the wickets and gnaw Jo’s name into each one like a huge, literate beaver and launch them into the wet air with a payload of her heart smeared on the top of each.

Dude, she will be so grateful that as the wickets of her heart rain down into the mud around her, she will know what to do. She will see Jo is impressed, as Jack stands in the field of mud with her Seducer’s hat, and she will know what happens next. They will— they will—

She bowls the ball with an extra little hop at the end of her run. It flies down the pitch, red and true like her heart. Like Jo’s heart. Like their hearts.

She knows what will happen next with Jo! She can see it! It’s this:

She stands with Jo in a paddock—no, field—no meadow, and Jack can smell Jo’s breath now, which smells like what a good, nice whiskey must smell like, can see the fine freckles of her face as she looks up at her, raindrops soaking them both. And Jack will be so grateful for the rain she will take the hard little ball and stuff it into her own mouth. She will stuff her cardiovascular cavity full of cricket balls like she is 12 suckling pigs and it is Christmas Eve and Jo is some kind of queen. And Jo closes her eyes and purses her lip and—

But ow! Oh oh oh what is this? Her mouth? The ball? The batter has somehow whacked the ball and—oh my god where is her mother and her father? This is so painful. So so pissing piannissimo farking painful. And then the ref is there holding his hat as a bib under her chin, and the outfield has run in to cluster around her like a pack of curious Gold Coast horses and Jo. Jo is out there somewhere, walking briskly toward the cricket team with ice. She brings a towel, and a mug of milk for Jack’s teeth to bob in.

***

Heather Holdaway is a recent grad of the IIML Masters Programme at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Her work has previously appeared in Turbine, The Spinoff, and Landfall, and was recently shortlisted in the Frank Sargeson Short Story Competition 2025. She is currently based in Ōtepoti, Aotearoa New Zealand.