SARAH BRILL’s Catch is a YA coming-of-age story about 16year-old Beth, who discovers she has a life-saving gift. A novel about finding out what it takes to be an unlikely hero. Read on for an extract.
ONE
SOMETIMES life suddenly changes. For me, everything changed on a Friday.
I was walking home with two shopping bags stuffed full of everything Mum needed for dinner when I had a sudden urge to throw up. It was so sudden, so strong, I stopped walking. I put the bags down, looked up and there he was. Falling towards me. He’d been painting a sign above the bookshop and fallen from a long ladder.
I stretched out my arms and he fell into them.
Everyone around us kept walking like nothing had happened. Like it was normal for a 16-year-old to be standing on the footpath holding a man in her arms.
He looked only a little older than me. Solid and unshaven. Blue eyes and strawberry-blond hair. I could feel the muscles in his back and legs as I held him. I would have blushed if I wasn’t so surprised. He was wearing overalls covered in dried paint of various colours and he held a paintbrush in his hand.
He cleared his throat like he was trying to interrupt my thoughts and said, in a strong Irish accent, ‘Would you mind putting me down now?’
I reluctantly let him go. I liked holding him. I liked that large, solid body in my arms. He didn’t feel heavy to me. He felt like comfort. I helped him get steady on his feet.
He looked at me, and then he looked at the paintbrush, covered in light blue paint, in his hand.
‘Thank you.’
It was weirdly formal. ‘No problem.’
We stared at each other for a bit longer. ‘Well . . .’ he said, as a kind of goodbye.
‘Okay,’ I said, like I was giving him permission to leave.
He tried to smile. I think he was in shock. I might have been too. He looked up to the sign he’d only half finished, and shook his head a little, like he’d decided to never go up a ladder again. The sign read More Boo in light blue script. The rest of the sign was the clean, bright white of the background. He walked away in the opposite direction from me, the paintbrush still in his hand.
The bookshop was one of the few low-rise buildings left on the street. Buildings were being knocked down now to make room for taller apartment buildings with shops below. The bookshop owner was going to be a bit surprised by the half-finished sign and the ladder still in place.
I picked up the shopping bags and kept walking.
***
At home Mum was frantic. She’d left work later than she wanted to and was trying to clean the house and prepare dinner at the same time. It wasn’t good. The house was getting messier and the dishes for dinner were all only half made. Some of them were waiting for the ingredients I’d just bought, others had been put aside because she’d become distracted by cleaning.
Mum’s hair, which was short and curly and often out of place, looked as chaotic as the house. My sister Meg had invited her boyfriend Rik and his parents over. Mum was freaking out because she didn’t know what to cook or how to behave.
‘I just want everything to be right, you know, Beth? For Meg.’
I put the yoghurt, pomegranate and basil on the bench along with everything else I’d bought and took the broom from Mum’s hand. I had grown over the summer, in a sudden and surprising burst, after being the smallest one in the family for so long. I was still trying to get used to my bigger feet, my bigger frame. But mostly, I was still trying to get used to looking down at the top of Mum’s head.
‘I’m sure it will be fine, Mum.’
I swept the floor. It wasn’t really dirty, but I wanted to look busy so Mum didn’t ask me to get the seeds out of the pomegranate. Mum was hunting through the cupboards looking for salad bowls and starting to fire out her questions. Mum was a social worker. Conversations with her were often more like interviews. I kept my head down. Mum’s questions didn’t always need answers. Sometimes she just needed to ask the questions.
Today they were things like:
‘Why do you think Meg wants us to meet them now?’
‘Why here rather than a restaurant?’
‘Are you sure your new uniform is long enough?’
‘How are you feeling about starting Year 11?’
‘Do you think your father will get home in time?’
‘Is it going to rain?’
Dad got home from his bike shop in time to shower, change and finish off a few of the dishes Mum had started. I assured Mum that my uniform was long enough and Year 11 was most likely going to be just like Year 10. It was probably the wrong thing to say, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. I managed to avoid answering any questions about Meg by going to set the table. I knew what the evening was about. I’d known for a few weeks, but it wasn’t my news to tell.
When Rik and his parents arrived there was a lot of polite handshaking. Mum and Dad had been debating whether they should do a traditional Japanese bow to greet them, but Rik’s parents put out their right hands straight away and introduced themselves as Mariko and Tadashi. They asked us to call them Mari and Tad. Everyone seemed happy with that and moved inside to have a drink.
Meg waited until we were all sitting down at the table and the dishes had been passed around before she just came out with it. By that point Mum was probably thinking it was going pretty well. Everyone had food, Rik’s parents seemed to be enjoying themselves. Mum must have thought she’d passed the hardest hurdle of the night.
Then Meg spoke.
‘Rik and I are having a baby. It’s due in June, which is pretty good timing school-wise. We aren’t going to get married or live together, but Rik will be here a lot to help with the baby while I’m studying for my exams. At the end of the year we’ll work out whether we move in together, but for now the baby and I will be here and Rik will be at his home. No one will be giving up their study or plans.’
Meg looked around the table. Everyone had stopped eating. She said in a quieter voice, ‘We’re really excited about this, and we want you to be too.’
Meg waited, but when no else spoke up she started to eat again. Everyone sat watching her. Mum looked at Dad, then at Rik’s parents. Dad looked from Mum to Meg, but then somehow his gaze got stuck on Rik. Rik’s mum, Mari, couldn’t look at anyone but Rik. Rik’s dad, Tad, was looking around at anything, anything that wasn’t a person.
I sat looking at my hands. There was light blue paint on them I hadn’t noticed until this moment. I knew Meg would want me to say something to break the tension. I thought back to the Irishman in my arms and considered telling the story to the table. I tried to imagine their reactions, and all I could see was them staring at me for telling such a ridiculous story at a time like this.
Mari stood up. She said, ‘Riku,’ in a tone that made Rik stand up too. They walked out into the backyard, shutting the door behind them. Then she started. We could hear everything, and even though she was speaking in Japanese the message was pretty clear. Rik hung his head for a bit, then tried to talk to her, but she cut him off and spoke some more.
At the table Meg kept eating. I scratched at the paint on my hands and wondered what the painter was doing now, whether he’d ever climb a ladder again or even keep working as a painter. Tad tried to continue to eat the salad on his plate. He smiled at us and complimented Mum on the meal. After a few more minutes of trying to be polite, he excused himself and went to retrieve his wife and son.
Tad came back into the house with his family behind him and announced that they would be leaving now. Mari wouldn’t look at anyone.
Rik kissed Meg quickly. ‘I’ll call you later.’ Meg nodded into her food and kept eating.
Mum followed them out. ‘It was lovely to meet you both.’ Tad herded Mari and Rik into the car.
Mum kept trying. ‘We should do this again soon.’
He closed the car doors, trapping his family, and came back to Mum.
He took her hands. ‘It will be okay. She just needs some time.’ Mum nodded. She needed some time too.
TWO
NOTHING really happened after Rik and his parents left. Dad questioned Meg on why she thought announcing a pregnancy that way was a good idea. Meg rolled her eyes and took herself to bed, and I slunk after her to my room. Mum was too stunned by Meg’s announcement to insist we stay and do the dishes.
The next day, though, was a big talking day in our house.
In the morning, I came down the stairs first. Mum was mad that I’d known what was going on with Meg and hadn’t told her.
‘How long have you known about this, Beth?’ She had me cornered in the kitchen.
‘Not long. But you know, we share a bathroom and Meg’s been a bit sick the last few weeks, so—’
‘Meg’s been sick? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It wasn’t my news to tell, Mum.’
Mum accepted this, at least. She’s always been so proud of what good sisters Meg and I are. Our closeness. How nice we are to each other. Even if it did mean she often felt left out.
The conversation reminded me of the nausea I’d felt on the street just before the painter fell into my arms. I’d been feeling sick for a few weeks. Not strongly like yesterday, but a little bit. I thought it was because I’d been listening to Meg cough into the toilet every morning. I thought the sound of her vomiting was making me feel sick too. But ever since I’d caught the painter that sickness had gone away.
Meg came into the kitchen. Mum stopped questioning me and moved on to her.
‘How could you tell us like that? In front of Rik’s parents when we’d never met before? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
Meg shrugged. The pregnancy made her slow in the mornings, but because it was school holidays Mum hadn’t noticed. She’d been leaving the house for work before Meg got up.
Meg went into the lounge room and crawled onto the couch to lie down.
Dad was in there taking off his shoes after an early-morning ride.
‘I thought it would be nice. Memorable. It could have been if Rik’s mum didn’t ruin it like she did.’
Mum couldn’t speak for a bit after that. She let Dad come in with some questions about how Meg was feeling and whether she’d seen a doctor.
I could see how hard it was for Mum. She’d thought she was the kind of parent her kids could talk to. She wanted her children to come to her with their problems. To confide in her. But what kid ever really tells their parents everything?
When Mum was ready to talk again, she repeated her questions to Meg about why she didn’t tell them sooner.
‘I needed time. I had to think about what I wanted, and then what Rik wanted. Then we had to work out how we were going to manage. I wanted to have all that straight between us before we brought parents into it.’
I thought again about telling them the story of the painter. I could have shown them the few small spots of paint I’d left on my hand as a reminder that it really happened. Instead, I sat quietly while Mum, Dad and Meg talked through what she wanted to do and how she thought she could juggle her final year of school and a baby.
The conversation kept going around and around with Mum and Dad questioning everything Meg was saying. I went upstairs to my room and rang my best friend Lin. I’d been wanting to call her since I caught the painter, but with everything else going on I hadn’t had a chance. I started by telling her about Meg’s announcement and how Rik’s mum had reacted. Lin had known the announcement was coming too, but I’d sworn her to secrecy.
I had just said, ‘But listen, something else happened. Something really weird,’ when there was a whole bunch of shouting in the background. Lin’s parents were chaos. Nice people, both well-respected doctors, but loud and disorganised. Their house was full of half-finished projects, and things like phones and keys often got lost. Lin was the opposite. She loved order and finished everything she started. With me, she was calm. But when she was at home, her family’s chaos got to her. Lin shouted that she hadn’t seen the car key before she came back to me.
‘I’m really sorry, I’ve got to go.’
I tried to say, ‘No, wait, just a minute,’ but Lin was already gone.
I walked back down the stairs to see how the conversation there was progressing. Mum had moved into planning mode, saying she might need to take time off work. Meg didn’t want Mum changing anything for her. She was convinced that she and Rik would be able to manage the baby and keep up with schoolwork. That wasn’t the point for Mum.
‘You know, bringing a baby into this house is going to change things. Not just for you, but for all of us. Surely you understand that, Meg. This isn’t just about you.’
Rik arrived. It had been about a year since he and Meg met at a university open day. Rik was a first-year, and her guide. They went from chatting about uni options to dating in about three months. Mum and Dad had been cautious at first, but they liked him and he was generally a welcome visitor.
Today was a little different. Mum greeted him at the door and led him through to the lounge, where everyone was sitting. Rik sat next to Meg and held her hand.
‘Mum’s not happy.’
‘I think we all got that last night.’ Meg took her hand from Rik’s. She was getting tired.
‘I mean really not happy. Mum was brought up to think that having a baby when you aren’t married is not something good people do.’
‘She’ll calm down.’ Mum said it like a statement, but it was more of a question.
Rik shrugged. ‘Maybe. But at the moment she’s pretty insistent that we get married.’
Meg stood up and stretched her arms above her head. ‘I’m going to go lie down. You should get home and let your mum know that’s not part of the plan.’
THREE
ON the first day of school I let Meg have the bathroom before me so she could get her morning vomit over with. The nausea I’d been feeling had returned in a vague sort of way, but it couldn’t compete with Meg’s. I splashed my face with water and dressed in my larger, longer school uniform.
They all watched me from the kitchen as I came down the stairs, and I could see my parents preparing nice things to say about the day and the way I looked. Dad started with, ‘Here’s our Beth,’ and Mum quickly followed with, ‘I like the way you’ve done your hair.’
As Mum moved in for a closer inspection I ducked out of the way. I took a few things from the fridge to put my lunch together. Meg was making a sandwich and eating her breakfast at the same time. The morning sickness didn’t seem to do anything to dull her appetite – she’d crowded the bench with bread and cheese, milk and yoghurt.
As she tried to make space for me, Meg pushed some bowls to the side. The bowls pushed the milk to the edge of the bench. I watched it wobble there. I watched it fall. I reached out quickly and grabbed it mid-flight, my now-long arms easily making the catch.
I looked around. Dad had his head in his bike pannier making sure he had everything he needed. Mum was at the sink rinsing out her teacup. Meg was scrolling on her phone.
No one had even noticed. I put the milk back in the fridge.
***
Meg and I left the house soon after Dad rode off. I had what I thought was that usual first-day knot in my stomach, but Meg was bright and happy and ready to go. She wasn’t at all fazed by having to tell the principal she was pregnant and would need some special study provisions later in the year. She’d always been more comfortable talking to teachers than I was. She took my hand as we left and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’s just school, Beth. It’s going to be okay.’
We’d walked about two steps out of the house when Meg let out a little scream and dropped my hand. I looked up and saw Etienne walking towards us.
Etienne and Meg had been friends ever since his parents bought the house across from ours about four years ago. I considered him my friend too, and they often included me in whatever it was they chose to do. There had even been a time when Etienne and I were obsessed with a car racing game he’d brought back from a holiday that Meg had no interest in. The two of us had played that for hours while Meg sat nearby reading a book. But even then, it was clear that he was Meg’s friend and I was there as her little sister.
Etienne was the boy at school everyone wanted to know or date. He was stupidly good-looking. Even when he was 13. He was also kind and fair. He was polite and respectful. It made him different to most of the other guys at school. The girls in my year were always asking me about him. They were absolutely convinced there was something more than friendship going on between him and Meg, no matter how many times I told them there wasn’t.
I’d actually expected he and Meg would end up together too. Maybe even Meg did, though she never said it. But then she met Rik. I remember watching Etienne at the time. Watching him around Meg and Rik to see if there was any jealousy or sadness. But there didn’t seem to be. He never looked upset or lonely when they went out together and left him behind.
Meg ran to Etienne. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. He laughed and hugged her back, and looked over her head towards me. I was hanging back, feeling even shyer than I normally felt. Etienne kept one arm around Meg and raised his other to give me his usual high five, but something about me made him stop. I put my hands to my hair – maybe my ponytail looked weird.
Etienne let his hand drop, but he smiled at me and said, ‘Hi,’ in a way that made me think my hair might be all right. I smiled back, and Meg looked between us as we stood, locked in place, smiling at each other. She pushed Etienne towards the footpath, saying, ‘Yes, yes, Beth grew tall and beautiful over the break,’ which made me blush and Etienne laugh.
We started walking to school.
‘So remind me, where were you this time?’
Meg had forgotten the details but I hadn’t.
‘Hong Kong, Aspen, Manhattan. How was Manhattan?’ I tried to look at him as I asked my question.
Etienne smiled at me again. ‘Noisy. Cold. The snow at Aspen was okay.’ Etienne and his parents went away most summer holidays. His parents always managed to have business to attend to in beautiful or interesting places. For years I’d thought it was all about theme parks and ice-cream and his parents introducing him to the world. Later I’d found out it was mostly Etienne in a hotel room on his own while his parents held meetings in the restaurant downstairs.
‘When did you get back?’
‘Last night. Pretty late.’
He answered me the way he’d always answered my questions, but he looked at me differently, like he wasn’t sure who I was anymore.
I would have spent longer thinking about Etienne and the way he looked at me. I would have spent longer worrying about how other kids at school were going to look at me now that I was taller than most of them. But I couldn’t.
I’d started to feel sicker, a slow, creeping nausea that started at the knot in my stomach and was working its way up to my throat. The closer we got to school, the sicker I felt. I tried telling myself it was nerves, that it was my normal first-day-of-school weirdness, but the nausea just got stronger.
I lost focus on Meg and Etienne’s conversation, which had moved to Friday night’s dinner. Underneath my nausea was a feeling, a pull towards the school; it absorbed all my attention. Etienne and Meg didn’t notice my silence. It’s not unusual for me to be silent. Especially in their conversations. By the time we got to the school gates the nausea was so bad I felt as if I was going to throw up. Meg and Etienne were still talking.
I could barely take in what they were saying. I think they tried to include me at some point by turning and asking me a question, but I couldn’t hear the words. As we walked into school, something inside of me took off and I felt like I had to run. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t just run like that. No matter how I felt. It would be too weird. I mumbled something like, ‘Goodbye, have a good day, see you later,’ and tried to head as quickly as I could away from the main entrance.
Meg called after me. She knew I was meant to be meeting Lin at our usual spot. She was probably thinking I was in such a dream state I didn’t know what I was doing. But I wasn’t feeling dreamy, I was feeling desperate. I needed to get away from everyone.
So I waved my hand at her like I knew exactly what I was doing, and made my way to the back of the school. The area behind the school, at that time of day, was out of bounds to students. I knew kids weren’t meant to be here before the school bell rang, but I wasn’t thinking about rules at this point. I had no idea what I would do or say if a teacher caught me. I was just walking as fast as I could. This part of the school was the right place to be.
I walked towards one of the classroom blocks. The building was older than the rest, with red brick and white wooden windows. I looked up and saw Peter, the school’s general assistant, trying to open one of the windows from the second floor.
Peter was well known to all the students at school. He was the one who got the balls off the roof and fixed the leaking taps. We all liked him because he wasn’t a teacher and because he was pretty friendly, in a dry, sarcastic way.
The sight of Peter through the window made me stop. I watched him as he pushed against the window to force it open. I kept watching as he leant out to scrape at the paintwork. He was trying to get it smooth so the window would easily open. The painters had been in over the school holidays and painted these windows shut.
I positioned myself below the window Peter was working on. I could feel his frustration, his annoyance that the painters had done such a bad job. I could almost hear the speech he was preparing to deliver to the principal about it.
I had a vague thought that I should move away and go find Lin, and another that recognised the nausea was easing but I couldn’t move. I felt completely calm. I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be. I didn’t want to lose this feeling.
Peter hadn’t seen me. He was focused on the window with his lips pursed and his brow furrowed. He was putting everything he had into fixing that window. I couldn’t tell you what else was happening around me. I couldn’t tell you if the school bell had rung or if there was an angry teacher behind me. All I could do, all I could focus on, was Peter.
And then it happened.
For me, it happened in slow motion. As I watched, it was like I knew. Like I’d always known.
Peter leant out of the window to do one final scrape. He used all his weight against the paintwork, as if he was mad at it for not giving way more easily. He pushed against the wood and stretched just that bit further.
And then he fell.
He tried to stop himself by grabbing onto the window sill but the force of that last big push had thrown him too quickly off balance. His head dragged him towards the ground. Towards me. At some point he realised he was falling and tried to turn himself around.
I took a moment to shift my position a little. I had plenty of time. I watched him with the patience of a loving parent. When Peter saw me standing there his eyes locked onto mine. He waved his arms wildly. He wanted me to move out of the way.
I stood my ground. I stood where I was because it felt right. Because I felt calm. Because I could see everything happening in precise detail and knew, just knew, I could do this. It wasn’t like catching the painter on the street. It wasn’t a surprise or any kind of mystery.
I judged the distance he had left. I held out my arms. I heard him shout, ‘Move!’ I heard the panic in his voice. I stayed where I was. I flexed my knees a little, and I waited until Peter fell into my arms.
When he was safe, I held him to me.
Everything around us went back to normal speed. We were back in real time. Back in life’s fast motion. Peter was looking at me, our noses practically touching. Neither of us had anything to say. So we just stood there, me holding him like he was my overgrown baby.
The school bell rang and jolted Peter out of wherever he was. He looked at the ground. I didn’t want to let him go. I wasn’t ready. I thought, If I let him go I’ll lose this feeling of calm I have right now, but Peter looked up to the window he’d been working on. I guess he still had jobs to do.
‘You’d better put me down now.’
I put him carefully back on his feet.
‘Thanks.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘You should get to class. Don’t want to be late on the first day.’
Suddenly all the calm I was feeling disappeared. Peter was right. I didn’t want to be late on the first day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Brill grew up in Perth, Western Australia and began writing at the age of fifteen. She initially focused on playwrighting but also wrote for film and radio. After having children, Sarah started working in sustainability-related fields and writing when she could. Her first novel, Glory, was published in 2002. Her second novel, Symphony for the Man, was published in 2020. Sarah lives in Sydney with her three sons and two cats.
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