Page 31 of Autumn at the Oak Leaf Café
‘Good for you.’
‘You want to come and help in the scorebox? I’ll do the actual scoring. You can just flip the numbers over.’
‘Sure, why not?’
In behind the tall plywood scoreboard was a cramped little room with a window underneath the numbers through which they could observe the game. Ruby marked down every ball in a complicated book, then instructed Madeline which of the levers above their head to pull in order to change the numbers on the outside.
‘So,’ Ruby said, once they were settled on a bench, peering out at the game. ‘What do you think about Darren?’
‘Ah … he seems nice.’
‘Nice? Is that it?’
‘I didn’t really speak to him.’
‘He’s totally smitten with you. At practice the other night, after he’d found out that I worked with you—sorry,foryou, lol—he just kept banging on about it. Honestly, it was getting on my nerves.’
‘Is he a bit weird?’
‘He’s a vet, of course he is. What kind of clown spends five years at university learning how to be hated by animals?’
‘Well, I—’
‘Only joking. Wow, look at that, he just hit a six!’
Ruby began cheering and banging the inside of the scoreboard. Madeline looked for the ball, but could only see a man climbing up into a hedge on the far side of the ground. After a couple of minutes of poking among hawthorn bushes and weeds, he held up the ball to a triumphant cheer from the other fielders.
‘Darren’s on forty-nine,’ Ruby said. ‘If he gets one more, he has to buy a jug.’
‘A what?’
‘A jug. A pitcher of beer. You get a fifty or a hundred, take five wickets, or five catches, you have to buy a jug in the pub after the game for the rest of us to share. Come on, Darren, just one more run….’
The bowler ran in. Darren took a horrid swipe, and his stumps exploded. There were cheers from the opposition, boos from the Milton Road players as Darren tucked his bat under his arm and started walking off. As Darren reached the boundary rope, theatrically shaking his head, there were a few ironic claps from the home team.
‘Well batted, lad,’ Ruby’s father said, patting Darren on the shoulder as he passed him on his way out to bat.
‘Jug avoidance!’ Ruby shouted out of the scorebox window.
Darren gave her a shrug. ‘It hit a divot,’ he said with a smile.
Milton Road ended up with what Ruby considered a decent score of 175. Madeline poached a deckchair as Milton Road went out to field. She was just settling in for an hour of watching the opposition bat, when she noticed Ruby and her father in discussion by the boundary edge. Ruby was shaking her head, but her father kept glancing in Madeline’s direction. In the end, Ruby came jogging over.
‘Ah, you might have noticed we only have nine players,’ she said.
‘Isn’t that how many you’re supposed to have?’
‘No, we’re two short. Dad wants to know if you can field.’
‘Field? Me?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got a white t-shirt you can wear. Don’t worry, we’ll put you at fine leg, down behind the ‘keeper. You probably won’t have much to do. If the ball comes to you, throw it back to the ‘keeper. And if it’s in the air, catch it.’
‘I’ve never played before.’
‘I’ll buy you a coffee.’
‘From my own shop?’
