Alice Henderson On Debut

Nineteen

The next morning when I wake up, Charlie's not in her bed, so I head down to breakfast without her. Our schedule says we have to be at the downstairs common room at ten, so I've got a couple of hours to kill before then. I look around the dining hall but don't spot Charlie, so I head over to the breakfast table and grab some cereal and a glass of juice. Some of the squad girls are down already but since I don't know any of them, I sit at a table by myself. I figure I'll just meet up with Charlie in our room later.

When I get back up to the room, I find Charlie spread-eagled on her back on her bed, her joggers still on her feet. She looks up when I come in. "Did you know it's almost three k's around the outside of the school?"

"You ran that?" I ask.

Charlie nods. Her face is flushed but rather than looking tired, she looks exhilarated.

I pull some shorts and a t-shirt out of my bag and dig around the bottom for a pair of socks. "Why would you do that?"

"Stay fit," Charlie replies, sitting up onto her elbows. "No-one expects the wicketkeeper to be as fit as everyone else. I'm going to be the fittest 'keeper they've ever seen." She jumps up and heads to the cupboard where she pulls a polo shirt off a hanger and grabs a pair of training shorts from the pile at the bottom. She's taken all her clothes out of her bag and put them away, like she's staying for a month rather than a week. She turns back to me and says, "I gotta go shower and have some brekky. I'll meet you in the common room and we can watch the new arrivals from the balcony."

"Sounds good," I reply and watch as she rushes off out the door.

Charlie points to a girl with blonde hair getting out of a VW Beetle car and says, "Bet she's a bowler."

"How can you tell?" I ask. We're sitting on chairs on the balcony outside the first floor common room, watching as the girls for our camp arrive. We've already counted seven plus us, and this girl makes ten.

"Lanky," Charlie replies, munching on a choc-chip muffin she swiped from the breakfast table earlier. She offers it to me and I break off a piece and pop it into my mouth. "And look at the way she walks. She's so upright and her shoulders are straight."

I have no idea how she knows these things if she doesn't interact with people much, but I've had fun speculating about the new arrivals with her while we kill time before orientation. We watch as a shiny black four-wheel-drive rolls up into the car park. "Ooh," Charlie says. "This looks promising." The girl who steps out of the passenger side at the back is tall and lean with jet black hair. She pulls it back with her hands and flicks it over her shoulder. Interestingly, she lets her parents get her bags for her, and she doesn't even wait for them before she starts striding towards the dorm. She looks up as she approaches and Charlie waves. She doesn't wave back.

"Do you know her?" I ask.

"No," Charlie shrugs. "But we're going to soon enough. She looks friendly though, doesn't she?"

I'm pretty sure Charlie's being sarcastic so I laugh. We watch as two more cars roll up and Charlie says, "We should probably head down to the common room. I can't wait to meet the others."

As we head downstairs, we meet the girls coming up with their bags, and Charlie says 'G'day' to every single one of them. Most of them smile at her or say hello back. We don't see the girl from the four-wheel-drive until we get down to the lobby. She passes us at the bottom of the stairs without even looking at us. Charlie says 'G'day' anyway and just smiles when the girl ignores her. "This is going to be fun, isn't it?" Charlie says as we head into the big common room.