Watching From The Sidelines
Tegan was determined to play on… but her mum had her best interest at heart
That’s not fair! You let Cory play!”
Gail studied the determined set of her eleven-year-old daughter’s jaw, which was now missing a tooth knocked out in a rugby tackle. A large bruise also darkened one cheek.
Watching from the sidelines, Gail had been horrified to see blood pouring from Tegan’s mouth. Instead of allowing herself to be escorted from the field by a medic, the girl had argued to play on.
Fortunately, the medic was firm.
Seated beside Tegan at the table, her twin brother Cory sniggered.
“That’s ‘cause I’m a boy and you’re not, even though you act like one.”
Tegan punched him.
“Ow!” Cory rubbed his upper arm. “Muuuumm,” he whined.
“Apologise to your brother, Tegan,” Gail ordered. She turned to Cory and stopped him in mid smirk. “And you apologise to your sister for teasing her.”
“Sorry,” Tegan said. “But you deserved it,” she muttered under her breath.
“Tegan!”
“OK, sorry.”
Cory forked a broccoli floret into his mouth. “Sorry.”
Gail was going to tell him not to talk with his mouth full but couldn’t be bothered. She was fighting a battle, and that was just a skirmish.
She looked back at Tegan. She’d just told her the sport she loved was too rough and she was pulling her from the team.
“How about trying out for soccer? I doubt many kids get their teeth knocked out playing soccer. Better still, what about netball, or maybe tennis?”
Tegan put a hand to the side of her mouth but didn’t flinch even though her cheek was swollen.
“The tooth was loose anyway.”
“Well, what if it had been a front tooth that was knocked out?”
“That’d be an improvement,” Cory mumbled.
Gail slapped her hand on the table to distract Tegan from landing another punch.
“One more comment like that, Cory, and you can go to your room.”
Tegan’s eyes turned from hostile to pleading.
“I don’t want to play another sport, Mum. I want to play rugby. I’m good at it. Coach says I’m the best winger he’s ever coached. The team needs me.”
“I said no, and that’s the end of it.”
Tegan pushed her plate away and stood up, furious.
“I want to go and live with Dad!” she announced and stormed from the room.
Gail leaned back in her chair and sighed in exasperation. Cory looked up sheepishly from his plate.
“She is actually really good, Mum,” he stated, one cheek bulging with half a baked potato. “She’s better than most of the boys in my team.”
Why he had suddenly decided to support his sister, Gail had no idea. She shook her head when a piece of potato fell from his mouth and plopped into his lap.
The house was unusually quiet next morning; Tegan was giving her mother and brother the silent treatment.
When the children had left for school, Gail did a quick tidy up and headed to the bus stop. The salon where she worked was a long bus ride from home.
As she waited on the bench, she couldn’t get the image of her daughter being led from the field out of her mind.
It had been a rainy Sunday and Tegan’s game had been late in the morning. By the time her team went on, the field was already churned up and slippery.
She’d come off not only bruised and bleeding but covered in mud.
She felt responsible for allowing Tegan to participate in such a gruelling sport. Tegan’s argument that Gail let Cory play was a valid one. But Cory had a stockier build, and being a boy he was used to rough play with his friends.
The bus arrived and she got on. She enjoyed the ride to and from the salon. It was a break from the busyness of her days – work, running a household, caring for her kids – and gave her time to think.
Her mind drifted over Tegan’s two main arguments for playing rugby in the first place: it was a way of making friends, and it proved that girls can do anything.
She wondered whether she was being fair to her headstrong daughter.
Tegan was a child who always stood up for her beliefs, who had taken on a boy bullying her brother in the park when they were just six years old.
Gail did a mental somersault.
She would let Tegan see out the season and re-evaluate things then.
Tegan might decide the sport was not for her after all. But right then, the child was passionate about it and Gail felt she might regret stifling that passion.
By the time the bus had pulled up at her stop, she was comfortable with her decision. She could already see the look on Tegan’s face.
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