Shielding The Truth

By Michael Panckridge and Laurie Daley

Michael Panckridge, author of the toby Jones cricketing series, joins forces with Australian Rugby League legend Laurie Daly to bring us an exciting new sporting series - League of Legends. Sam Davies loves rugby league more than anything - and now he's been chosen to train in the Country squad! He loves league so much that he even sneaks out to watch the Salamanders, his most despised team, play - any football is better than no football. Sneaking out leads to serious complications when Sam witnesses something on the way home from the match that is somehow tied up with the Salamanders football team and the missing Fogherty Shield. Something really weird is going on, and with the help of his friends, Sam is determined to find out just what it si. But in the process it looks like might end up discovering more than he's bargained for ... Ages: 10-13 years

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Feb 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780730444381

Michael Panckridge

Michael Panckridge has published over 20 books, including the bestselling Toby Jones cricket series and the new Legends of League series with Laurie Daley.  

Book preview

1

Night Ride

‘They’re fighting,’ Lochie hissed, stepping back quickly.

Someone was being slammed into the fence.

‘WHAT a joke.’

Silence.

‘I said what a joke!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Lochie asked.

‘Being so close to a league game and not being there to watch,’ I muttered from the small spare bed against the wall.

‘We can sneak up and watch the replay on TV later tonight,’ Lochie whispered, trying to hide a yawn. ‘That’s if your aunt’s got a TV,’ he added drily. ‘And anyway, it’s only the Salamanders. You hate the Salamanders.’

Lochie and I were bedded down for the night in my Aunt Jasmine’s spare room. We’d come to South Port from our own town 50 kilometres away for a rugby league clinic early next morning.

Mum liked me visiting Aunt Jasmine. Aunt Jasmine was married to my mum’s brother—Uncle David. Visits to their house used to be great, but ever since Aunt Jasmine had come back from her mysterious soul-searching mission to South America, life in Uncle David’s house had changed. Generally for the worse. Instead of chips, TV and the most awesome collection of music this side of town, we had incense, dried banana pieces and this weird South American jungle music. There’d always been something a bit weird about Aunt Jasmine. Nothing I could ever really put my finger on. And because she’d once been mad keen on football, even if it was being a passionate fan of the Salamanders, I never let it bother me. She used to drag poor Uncle David to every game. She’d even chosen this house because it was only a block or two away from the Salamanders home ground.

But all that had changed since her trip to South America. She’d returned about eighteen months ago and had suddenly taken a dislike to the greatest game of all—rugby league. It had taken me months to recover from the shock.

‘I just remove it from my consciousness, Sam,’ she’d said, smiling vaguely. ‘Meditation is a powerful thing, you know. You should try it some time. It makes the impossible really quite possible.’

I looked across at Lochie, curled up like a caterpillar with his green quilt wrapped around him, fiddling with his iPod.

‘I’m bored. Even a Salamanders game is better than here.’ I sat up and stared at the open window on the other side of the room. The dull roar from the night game at the stadium about 200 metres away suddenly swelled. A try? ‘Lochie, I’m going,’ I said, rising up from my bed.

I threw on a pair of jeans, stepped over his mattress on the floor, and was at the window before he realised what I was up to. ‘You just stay there, Lochie,’ I said, grinning.

‘Hang on, I’m coming.’ But footsteps approached in the hallway. ‘Sam!’ Lochie hissed. Hurdling Lochie’s mattress, I threw myself back into bed, diving beneath the quilt as a face peered around the door.

‘Early start tomorrow, boys,’ Uncle David’s cheery voice called. A blast of incense—or something—wafted into the room. I closed my eyes tighter.

‘Yep, absolutely, Mr Jamieson, we were—’

‘Night, Uncle Davo,’ I interrupted, trying to sound sleepy.

‘Should I close that window?’ he asked, stepping into the room. ‘That’s an awful noise coming through.’

‘Actually, a bit of air is probably good, Uncle David. Lochie, you know, what with his asthma and all Aunt Jasmine’s…um, cool-smelling incense stuff…‘

Lochie coughed gently.

‘Well, just as you like,’ he said, and closed the door.

And that was another thing different from before. Being in bed at such a stupidly early hour. Aunt Jasmine was out at one of her night classes. She had them every time the football was on. Probably to get as far away from Holbrook Stadium as she could.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we were so close to the stadium, home of the famous and currently most successful rugby league club going around, the South Port Salamanders, I think I would have tried seriously hard to talk Mum out of sending me to stay with Uncle David and Aunt Jasmine.

And tonight, Lochie and I were lying in bed listening to the roars and cries of 10,000-plus people screaming their hearts out for either the Salamanders or the Lincoln Park Leopards. Probably most were barracking for the home team.

‘Shove some pillows or something under my quilt, Lochie.’

‘Are you sure this is a good idea, Sam?’

Lochie was the thinker. The analyser. The weigher of the pros and cons. But it usually didn’t take long for him to be there with me. Look before you leap, was Lochie’s motto. That was fine. As long as he was there to bail me out, there wouldn’t be a problem.

‘Back in half an hour, Locho.’ I knew he’d be with me soon.

I tossed a couple of pillows at Lochie, quietly slid through the window and looked at the steeply sloping ground below. A tall, thin cypress tree grew only a metre away from the house.

Even at this height it was sturdy with thick branches for me to lean across to. Quickly I spun around the trunk—just as a beam of light broke into the bedroom.

‘You’ve both cleaned your teeth, haven’t you?’ Uncle David called, poking his head around the door again. Lochie was standing in the middle of the room surveying his handiwork with three pillows stuffed carefully to make a Sam shape beneath my quilt. Since when did guys care about brushing teeth anyway?

‘Yes, Mr Jamieson,’ Lochie muttered, crawling back into his own bed. I crouched in the tree, a short broken branch jabbing me in the thigh.

I closed my eyes, praying that Uncle David wouldn’t choose this moment to start up one of his ridiculous conversations, or ask for a quick game of twenty questions or something. No one spoke.

‘Well, g’night,’ he called, closing the door.

‘G’night!’ Lochie fired back.

I waited a few moments, then eased myself off the branch and started the climb down. The ground felt good. Waiting another few seconds just to make sure there was no one missing me, I slipped out the side gate, darted past the last few houses on Mangrove Terrace then turned right into a cobbled laneway that led down to Holbrook Street—and the stadium. Lochie was going to have to find me.

My heart leapt as another roar suddenly filled the air. The smell was football. Hot food and the sweet aroma of people and excitement. It was the most magical thing in the world and I breathed it all in deeply, clearing away the last traces of Aunt Jasmine’s incense.

A couple of guys in blue coats stood at the gates but made no move to stop me as I passed them. It was too late in the game to be worrying about payment now.

‘What’s the score?’ I said, turning to an old guy holding a pocket radio.

‘Salamanders up by four,’ he said, the small radio pressed to his ear. His dirty, gnarled hand curled around the transistor and his whole world was the tinny voice screaming at him. I stared at the man, who was totally enthralled by the action happening thirty metres away over his left shoulder.

‘Penalty! Twenty out!’ his stubbly, lined face coming to life, eyes dancing with joy.

I raced around the back of the main stand and scampered up onto the hill to join the masses. Jostling my way into a good position, I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the action.

Matty Watford, the Salamanders’ best player, had just kicked the ball into touch. The crowd was yelling in delight. Salamanders on the attack, up by four, a set of six to come. I checked the scoreboard. Seven minutes to go.

Hopefully Lochie was on his way to the ground, though we had fat chance of bumping into each other.

Ken Barham, the hooker, touched the ball to his foot to restart the game, then passed the ball to one of the front rowers, big Jamie Forrest, who charged at the defensive line-up of players waiting for him. He smashed into the Leopards defence, taking two tacklers with him another five metres down the field before the ref finally signalled the first tackle had been made.

I joined in the yelling and fist pumping as Jamie got up to play the ball.

‘Steady set!’ a guy yelled out next to me.

‘Throw it wide and break ‘em!’ someone else shouted.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ the first guy said.

‘Nah, he’s right,’ someone else chimed in from behind us. ‘Leopards ‘ave got plenty o’ time. We’re gonna have to score again, I reckon.’

The Salamanders made no progress on the next two tackles, maybe even losing a couple of metres. Then on the fourth, Ken Barham hurled a long cut-out pass to the second guy on his left. The Leopards were thin on that side and the Salamanders hooker had spotted it.

The receiver crashed through the first tackle and managed to pass the ball out to a player who’d run up alongside him. Another cut-out pass, then a small pass back the other way and suddenly Matty Watford had just grass between him and the try line. But inexplicably he fumbled the take and the ball dropped from his grasp just metres from the line. He fell to the ground, probably more in frustration than anything else.

The crowd’s roar turned to one humungous groan, and plenty of swearing from nearby too, including from both the guys standing next to me.

‘Geez, will that cost us!’ one of them muttered, kicking at the grass. ‘C’mon Salamanders!’ he roared, angrily. ‘Heads up!’ But he was still staring at the drink can slowly being crushed by his enormous boot in the dirt below him as the scrum was set.

The Leopards had the feed into the scrum and they made forty metres with their set of six then kicked deep into Salamanders territory. The chase by the Leopards players was amazingly energetic for so late in the game.

The Salamanders fullback was brought down only fifteen metres from his own goal line. The home team tried desperately to gain some territory as they went through their next set of six, but the Leopards piled on the pressure, not giving the Salamanders any easy metres. I clenched a fist in satisfaction.

The Salamanders halfback kicked ahead under massive pressure, after the fifth and last tackle, but there was no chase. They were tired and struggling. The crowd was roaring, trying to inject some life into the home side’s players.

The Leopards pounced on the ball around the halfway mark and charged in a massive line. After three tackles they were within sight of the try line. A minute later they got to it, their speedy winger tumbling over despite a desperate tackle, scoring out wide, only a few metres inside touch.

I looked up at the scoreboard. Twenty-four all. The countdown clock read 0:43. This would be the last play of the night.

The Leopards kicker was taking his time setting up the conversion. The crowd screamed angrily, trying to put him off his kick and it seemed to work. There was definitely something wrong with him. He put his hands to his head trying to shake off whatever was bothering him but he looked sick. Two trainers came out to attend to him. He staggered back, raising his arms up for balance. The crowd gasped when he collapsed to the ground.

‘Geez, what’s wrong with him?’ someone behind us asked, saying out loud what we were all thinking.

Another Leopard came up to take the kick. He stepped back carefully, looked at the sticks, down at his feet, then up again.

‘He’s got the jitters,’ another person laughed.

His approach to the ball was stuttery. I had the perfect view. The ball started too far to the right and slowly curved further away from the posts. It was always going to miss.

I stifled a groan of disappointment. I’d probably inherited my hatred of the Salamanders from Dad. I barracked for the Blackwood Thunder, my home-town team, and I’d never, ever barrack for the Salamanders—not that I’d be telling the two guys covered in Salamanders black and red standing next to me.

The game ended with the teams locked together at twenty-four all. The original Leopards goal kicker shrugged off the two trainers supporting him, shook his head, then walked unsteadily away from them. Then the teams left the field.

The ground emptied quickly. I stood there alone, watching the mass of black-and-red covered people pour out of the exits. A scattering of kids scampered about on the oval, throwing passes, kicking bombs and running about, not seeming to care about the score, unlike the glum faces that had surrounded me.