Battle Royale, page 6
Then one day, after teams were picked, Ray spoke.
‘Can I be on your team, Joel?’ he asked, almost in a whisper.
‘Yeah, of course!’ Joel said in surprise.
Joel felt terrible that nobody had invited Ray to play before.
He began playing from that lunchtime on. Truth was, Ray still spent most of his time watching, only now from on the field. He hung around the forward pocket, and never called for the ball or made a serious effort to win it. He sometimes waved a stick-thin arm, or did a little trot, but he never really got a kick. He just pottered around and smiled a lot. Ray seemed to enjoy being involved, without the hassle of possessing the footy.
Because he never touched the ball, Ray was always picked last. He didn’t seem to mind.
Joel sometimes felt like picking him earlier, just to show Ray that he was welcome on Team Selwood. And also because Fish never, ever took Ray. Fish might not have even noticed that the small skinny kid had started playing.
But Joel knew what Lewis and some of the others would whisper.
‘What are you doing, Sel?’
‘Don’t get Ray! You can still get Henry Morrow!’
They wanted to win. They wanted the best team they could get.
So it was the same every day. ‘My team, Ray,’ Joel would finish, even as Fish and everyone else was running for the start of the game.
Ray always gave Joel a smile.
ABOUT THE SELWOODS
The Selwood brothers are four of the AFL’s favourite sons. Troy Selwood played for the Brisbane Lions from 2005 to 2010 and his twin brother, Adam Selwood, was a Premiership player for the West Coast Eagles. Joel Selwood is a three-time Premiership player, five-time All-Australian, four-time AFLPA Most Courageous Player and the current captain of the Geelong Cats. Youngest brother, Scott Selwood, was vice-captain of the West Coast Eagles and their 2012 Best and Fairest, before joining Joel at Geelong in 2016.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TONY WILSON is a much-loved Australian children’s book author and one-time Hawthorn draftee. His books include Harry Highpants, The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas, Stuff Happens: Jack, Emo the Emu and The Cow Tripped Over the Moon, which was an Honour Book in the 2016 Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards. Tony lives in Melbourne.
COPYRIGHT
The ABC ‘Wave’ device is a trademark of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia.
First published in Australia in 2016
by HarperCollinsChildren’sBooks
a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Text copyright © Tony Wilson and Troy, Adam, Joel and Scott Selwood 2016
Illustrations copyright © Mike Jacobsen and Troy, Adam, Joel and Scott Selwood 2016
The rights of Tony Wilson and Mike Jacobsen to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978 0 7333 3545 7 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9781460707111
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Wilson, Tony.
Battle Royale / Tony Wilson; illustrator, Mike Jacobsen.
Wilson, Tony, 1972– Selwood boys; 1.
For primary school age.
Selwood, Troy — Juvenile fiction.
Selwood, Adam — Juvenile fiction.
Selwood, Joel — Juvenile fiction.
Selwood, Scott — Juvenile fiction.
Australian football — Juvenile fiction.
Australian football players — Juvenile fiction.
Biographical fiction.
Jacobsen, Mike, illustrator.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
A823.4
Cover design by Stephanie Spartels, Studio Spartels
Internal design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover and internal illustrations by Mike Jacobsen
Tony Wilson, Battle Royale
