You Can't Catch Me

Life’s enduring lessons are often learned the hard way, as Brad Watson found out.

Polly Waffle was big for Year 5, and very, very quick. His coordination was impressive and when he smacked the ball with one of his big paws, it was like a Scud—fast, low and deadly. Left hand, right hand—it didn’t matter. Average in the classroom, he was a playground legend and he ruled the handball court. He was king, and he knew it!

This day I’d worked my way patiently up through the squares. Strategy is important and I was sort of like a stingray gliding along the bottom, keeping a low profile in a sea full of sharks.

Polly was the Great White cruising confidently above. He just didn’t know that the slinky little stingray was about to turn into Killer Whale!

Finally I was in range, and the ball came my way. Let’s party, I thought, as I belted the ball into the back of his box and watched him thunder backwards. His return was low and well struck, but I’d anticipated well, and no sooner had the tennis ball crossed the line than I tapped it back into the front of his square at an impossible angle.

As it dribbled over the line a smile began to play at the corners of my mouth, but froze in disbelief as Polly recovered and dived, launching his body full length into the air. He reached out and tapped the ball neatly into my square, beyond reach. The ground almost shook as his big frame crashed onto the cement.
“You’re out,” someone yelled. “Unreal.”
Polly stood up and stared. He didn’t even seem relieved—like, I hadn’t been a threat at all.

It was too much! For too long I’d been relegated by this menace to society. For too long he’d hogged the king’s square. He didn’t deserve to be so good, and I didn’t deserve to be so average.
A rage welled: “You’re a big fatso, Polly,” I yelled mockingly, unwisely adding, “Polly Waffle, Polly Waffle—you can’t catch me!”

Then I took off across the basketball court and up the rise of the front lawn. Having won the blue ribbon for the 100 metres, I knew I was safe.

With a glance over my shoulder I noticed that Polly was puffing and had already slowed. It was glorious. The force was with me; the wind streamed victoriously through my hair. “Nah, nah, nah, nah—you can’t catch me!”
In the split second it took me to turn back, I realised two things: first, Polly had a strange look on his face and, second, the school flagpole was about half a metre from my nose and closing fast. I dipped my head and blinked as my forehead crashed into the post . . .

When I came to, I was flat on my back and trying to focus on two of Polly. His faces looked concerned and they sort of blurred into each other before splitting again. Dizziness came in waves as an icepack attached to someone’s hand descended and placed itself on the huge egg welling up on my forehead. Inside it, round and round rang those words, Nah, nah, nah, nah. You can’t catch me!

Somehow, through the passing of years, the sight of Polly looking down at me with concern became lodged somewhere in the back of my mind where even concussion can’t dislodge it. It constantly reminds me that all of us will one day be stopped. No matter how fast we run and how hard we laugh, how annoyed we feel now, there’s a very large post ahead in everyone’s life waiting to crunch even the greatest ego.

And when that time comes, God will be looking at us, concerned, thinking, Why couldn’t he be satisfied? Why does humankind constantly try to prove itself?
Thanks, Polly. You still are a legend!

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