The Hole in Court Two

The volleyball tournament at the Eastfield Sports Hall began at ten o'clock. By half past eight, Dina had dropped a box of whistles and lost a roll of tape. She had also walked into a glass door.

She was fifteen, and this was her first day as a volunteer. Her job was simple. She had to help Tala, the organiser, and do exactly what Tala said.

Tala was sixteen and carried a clipboard everywhere. She kept a pen behind each ear. She walked fast and talked even faster.

"Court Two," Tala said, without slowing down. "The net has a hole. Fix it before the first match."

"Fix it?" Dina asked. "How?"

"I don't know. You're clever. Just fix it." Tala was already ten steps away, shouting at a boy about a missing scoreboard.

Dina stood alone on Court Two and looked up. The net hung across the middle of the court, white and tight. She walked along it slowly and checked the top, the bottom, and both ends.

At last she found it. Near the left pole, one square of the mesh had a tiny rip. It was about the size of a coin.

"That is a very small hole," she told the empty hall. "But if a ball hits it, the whole net might come apart."

She found a roll of fishing line in the equipment room and a needle in her bag. For twenty minutes she sat on the floor and sewed. Her stitches looked like a spider had written a long letter. When she finished, the hole was gone, but the net had a lumpy scar.

Dina stepped back and frowned. A boy carrying chairs stopped and looked at her work.

"That looks like a bandage," he said, and he walked on.

The words stayed in her head. A tournament net should look perfect. The referees would notice the scar, and the players would laugh. Tala had said to fix the problem, and a bandage was not a fix.

She decided to find a spare net. The caretaker was drinking juice in the corridor. He was a tall man with a ring of keys on his belt.

"A spare net?" he said. "Yes, there is one in the back store. But it's heavy, and it needs three people and a ladder."

"I can find three people," Dina said. She had no idea where she would find them. She only knew that Tala had given her a job, and she wanted to finish it.

In the hall she found two tall boys from a visiting club. A girl beside them was eating an apple. They looked bright-eyed and idle, and they agreed to help. The caretaker gave them the ladder and a look that said he expected trouble.

The spare net was in a long, dusty bag. It weighed more than all four of them together. They carried it down the corridor like a very large, very sleepy animal.

"What is wrong with the old net?" one of the boys asked.

"It has a hole," Dina said. "A small one. But I want everything to be perfect."

"Then I hope the new one is perfect," the girl said. She bit her apple. "It smells like a basement."

They opened the bag on Court Two, and the net slid out in one long, knotted wave. It was tangled around itself in a dozen places. The boys pulled one end, and the girl pulled the other. Somehow the net wrapped around all three of them at once.

"Don't move," Dina said.

"I'm not moving," the taller boy said. "The net is moving me."

It took ten minutes to free them. By then the hall was filling up. Players in bright shirts walked past the court. A few of them stopped to stare at the people trapped in the mesh.

Dina climbed the ladder and unhooked the old net from the left pole. The boys held the new one ready. Everything went wrong at the same moment.

A volleyball rolled across the floor and hit the ladder. Then another ball rolled past, and another. A fourth one bounced off the girl's shoe. Soon there were balls under the benches and balls beside the doors. One ball spun quietly near the water fountain.

"Where are all these balls coming from?" the girl asked.

"Somebody was careless," Dina said from the top of the ladder. "I will pick them up in a minute."

She did not look down. She was holding the old net in one hand and the new one in the other. She was also, she realised, very high above the floor.

"Dina!"

The voice cut across the hall. Tala was marching towards Court Two, and her clipboard was held like a shield. Behind her walked the caretaker, who looked almost happy.

"What are you doing to my court?" Tala asked.

"I am fixing the net," Dina said. "Like you told me. The old one had a hole, and my stitches looked bad, so I got a better one."

Tala looked hard at her. Then she looked at the old net, which hung from Dina's hand like a sleepy flag. Then she looked at the stitches. Then she looked at the two boys and the girl. They were still half wrapped in the spare net.

"Dina," she said slowly, "which net did you think I meant?"

"This net. The one on Court Two."

Tala closed her eyes. Then she opened her bag, which was lying on a bench, and pulled out a long mesh sack. It was the kind that holds volleyballs. The bottom of it was open, and a few loose threads hung from the hole.

"This net," Tala said. "The ball net. Everyone in our club calls it the net. I thought you knew that."

"Nobody told me," Dina said.

"I told you on the phone last week."

"You said 'bring the net,'" Dina said. "I thought you meant the one for the court."

For a moment nobody spoke. Then Tala started to laugh. It began as a small noise, like a hiccup. It grew until she had to sit down on the bench. The caretaker laughed too, and then the boys, and then even the girl with the apple.

"I am sorry," Tala said, wiping her eyes. "It was my mistake. I should have said the ball net. But your stitches are very, very brave."

"They look like a bandage," Dina said.

"They look like a bandage with confidence," Tala said.

Dina climbed down. She felt her face relax, and she began to laugh as well. Together they untangled the helpers and put the spare net back in its dusty bag. Then they hung the old net again with its lumpy scar. The caretaker said it was the most interesting net in the building.

At a quarter to ten, the first players walked onto the courts. A referee checked the net, touched the scar, and nodded. "Good strong repair," he said. Dina decided not to tell him how long it had taken.

Tala picked up the broken ball net and turned it upside down. A single volleyball fell out and rolled slowly across the floor. She watched it go. Then she looked at Dina, who was standing beside a bench with three balls in her arms.

"Dina," Tala asked, "how many balls did we start with this morning?"