Lying on grass

Featured in

  • Published 20230801
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-86-3
  • Extent: 200pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

JAMIE RUSCOE ISN’T the most popular boy at school, but he has enough hand-eye co-ordination to be part of things. If there’s a game of stingers during recess, he’s handy to have on your team. Footy, cricket, soccer? Never the first picked, but a useful extra body. He can run, though he isn’t the quickest; he can throw, though not the hardest; and he can kick, though not the farthest. Catching is easy for him, and that’s his best asset. Most of all, he can read a situation. Jamie knows he’s too quiet to be well liked, and not quite good enough to be admired. Because of this, he makes an effort to speak when he’d prefer to say nothing – and any time a game breaks out, he plays as hard as he can. 

It’s a surprise then when Todd Mitchell invites him to hang out after the last day of school in 1982. Todd’s the halfback of the under-twelve footy team, and wicketkeeper/batsman of the under-twelve cricket team. Although not mates, they’re friendly enough, mainly because they live on the same street and, occasionally, walk home together. 

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

felix and jango

Poetry two black cats patrol our street felix and jango I can’t tell them apart when I see one of them walking past I say, ‘hey felix or jango’ they...

More from this edition

We will never be modern

Non-fictionMy Instagram feed, an information-stream cosplaying as a hyper-relevant town square, has undergone a radical transformation in the past few years. Whereas once that endless deluge teemed with benign yet revealing snapshots of friends moving through the motions and milestones of life – brunches, holidays, weddings and pregnancies – today’s experience is far removed.

The rise and decline of the shopping mall 

FictionPerhaps it is instructive to consider how archaeologists of the future may conceive malls. How might they seem, these empty labyrinths – like rituals that had to be endured in order to receive goods and services? As great monoliths, colosseums constructed for our entertainment? As places of worship? Or perhaps malls will seem more like pyramids do to us: mysteries to be unravelled when the tracks of global trade and communication have faded...

Revolutionary wave

Non-fictionThis was the late ’60s, early ’70s and surfing in Wales was regarded by the parent generation as delinquency. It was for losers, layabouts, rogue males. In those early days Welsh surfers numbered around one hundred, congregated on half a dozen beaches down fifteen miles of coastline west of Swansea, known as the Gower. I knew each one of those surfers by the styles they deployed on the waves. So idiosyncratic was early Welsh surfing that out on the road if you saw a car with boards on the roof coming at you, both drivers would pull over for a chat.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.