I've stepped into a very uncomfortable parallel universe where I'm wearing a short skirt and am sitting on splintery bleachers, constantly getting stabbed in my behind while I watch my jock boyfriend wrestle other jock boyfriends for a ball.

This is not making sense to me, and I don't just mean the violent game being played on the field a few steps down from where I'm sitting. I mean everything! Especially the part where my boyfriend is Ethan Fletcher, the guy who loves to burp loudly and scratch himself in public.

Whenever we're sharing a blanket while watching a movie, he tends to fart horribly and then shove his sister's and my heads under the blanket to enjoy his masterpiece, which is why I insist on my own blanket. It doesn't really matter, though; he always finds a way to make me part of the fun.

No! Just no!

Maybe it's still Friday, and I fell asleep in class and have been dreaming everything from the first message Ethan sent me straight to this warped scenario I'm stuck in now.

"That was bad, right?" I ask Dell when Ethan gets tackled by about three giants and just manages to pass the ball to a teammate before he disappears under the piling-up bodies.

"No, he sacrificed himself to allow Jet to get through aaaaaaaaand... we have a try! Yay!"

I rise and pump a fist in the air, going yay, with everybody else, but seriously, I have no idea what is going on, and I just want to go home. It's only just gone half past eight... I should still be sleeping! How long is this thing?!

Besides, seeing Ethan being tackled and pounded is not half as much fun as I thought it would be. For some reason, I find it rather upsetting.

Delia and Simon have been educating me on the rules and nuances of rugby, but all I see is violence involving a ball. The guys run in a diagonal line, passing the ball backwards... Yes, backward! Seems strange to me. Why would you pass backwards when the aim is to go forward? That's just looking for trouble.

The forward-moving line stops every few minutes for some rowdy floor action, spitting up bits of grass and mud. We're sitting near the bottom of the bleachers, close enough to the action for me to wonder what kind of organisms I would find if I were to crawl over the rugby field with a magnifying glass.

I think I know what I'll be doing after this match... if there's any rugby field left to explore...

My thoughts are interrupted by Delia and Simon and other Corbin spectators around me jumping to their feet and cheering again. Another try? So quickly? They weren't even running. I admit I was a bit distracted by thoughts of secret rugby field ecosystems.

"Now what?"

"Lurch converted the try," Delia explains, frowning at me. She doesn't care that there are little critters living under that green grass, just waiting to be discovered. My curiosity about it will be lost on her if I tried to explain it.

"It needed conversion? There's more than one religion in play here?"

'What?!"

"Nothing. Yay!"

"Is that really the only level of enthusiasm you're capable of?" she is frowning at me now, and I realise that I should try a bit harder. I'm here to learn something, after all, and I'm always passionate about learning things. I should approach the world of rugby players and their supporters as an ecosystem of its own.

"Sorry, it's just really confusing," I admit to my best friend... my boyfriend's sister...

Oh, my word! That is just too weird!

"All I see are guys trying to strangle each other or crush each other under a heap of bodies, and what are they trying to do now, playing Roman soldiers hiding from arrows? They keep on doing that."

I've seen it a few times, they all bend over and form a nice tortoise, but they're pushing against each other, and then someone tosses the ball inside, and they move over it. I don't get it!

"That's a scrum. It's a kind of tussle to decide who gets the ball."

"Why don't they just flip a coin? So much more civilized..."

And now Simon is laughing at me again; he's been doing that a lot this morning. I don't mind; I'm not being serious half the time.

"You're impossible," Dell tells me, shaking her empty soda can. Mine is empty too. Simon was kind enough to buy us each a soda and a packet of chips earlier. It kept me occupied for a while. Perhaps I should go buy more.

My heart leaps into my throat for the umpteenth time this morning, and I grab Dell's hand, seeing Ethan once again going down, covered in big dudes. I'm pretty sure that wasn't one of the depraved fantasies he once told us about... against our will...

"Why does Ethan keep on getting buried every now and then? I thought he was supposed to be really good, but he hasn't scored even one try yet; three others got tries!"

And the other side also got two, but we're apparently not supposed to talk about that...

"Ethan is a good team player, that's why," Delia says through her teeth. I know that she hates seeing it too.

"What does that mean exactly?" I really want to know because it just seems to me like he's being abused.

"He creates opportunities for his mates," Simon explains. "He cares more about getting the ball in place for his team to score a try than he cares about being the guy who scores it. He'll go for it if he's in the right place for it, but he'll pass it on to a teammate if they have a better chance of getting it across the line. Unfortunately, the St Albany guys are targeting him, which makes it hard for him to get into a position to score tries, but he is using it to our advantage."

"That sounds very clever! I thought Ethan was an idiot!"

A few people around me are giving me amused but confused looks (I've been receiving way too many of those), and then I once again remember that I'm talking about my boyfriend, the supposed love of my life, and not the fiend living next door.

"A very lovable one..." I add quickly, smiling as sweetly as I am able to.

"He actually had a huge hand in all three of our tries," Delia informs me.

"Oh, that's very selfless of him!" I'm not faking my surprise. "And here I was thinking that he is an obnoxious windbag, always hogging the TV remote and the popcorn. He should show that same team spirit next time we're having a movie marathon. The only team effort he puts in then is the effort of getting us to smell his farts!"

Enough with the looks already! I'm sick of grinning like a simpering idiot to make light of every honest thing that inadvertently slips from my mouth. Why are people listening to our conversations anyway?

Ethan is not part of the action right now; he has managed to release himself from the latest heap he got trapped in and is just about to jog back into the fray when a big guy sprints at him, blindsiding him and slamming his shoulder into his gut in passing. From some angles, it might look unplanned and accidental, but from where we're sitting, it was clear that the opponent meant to hurt him.

"Oof!" I grunt, clasping a hand over my mouth in shock. "Is that another self-sacrifice for the sake of a stupid try?!"

"No, that bastard, Marshall Gibbs, is always playing the man. He is trying to get Ethe off the field," the guy on my right growls, and I can hear many spectators shouting at the referee.

"Why aren't you blowing the whistle?!"

"That's a red card!"

"The fifth time he's done that to a player!"

"The third time he played Ethan!"

"Is the ref blind?!"

I stand with Delia, waiting with held breath until Ethan gets to his feet before we release it in identical sighs of relief and sit down again.

I don't like this game! I don't like it at all!

I hear the whistle going off, wrongly thinking it is in answer to the angry horde around me so that the bully can be dealt with, but everybody is coming off the field now. They're finally done! Well, we won... I think... and frankly, I expected a little more enthusiasm about that.

It seems to be water-the-jock-time because many of the girls, dressed like me, are storming down the bleachers with water bottles at the ready, rushing the field, eagerly feeding water to the sweaty players.

"Well?" Delia says, giving me a raised eyebrow look and a cheeky grin. "Aren't you going to go take care of your man?"

"Me? Oh... right... I didn't bring any water." There's a lot about this ecosystem that I don't know yet. Don't the players provide their own refreshments? I do see a bag of ice pops getting passed around the team.

"Fortunately, your wingman came fully prepared," Delia smiles, taking two bottles of water from her backpack. "Go pour some on his head. He must be very hot."

"He sure is..." A girl near us giggles, whispering to her friend, and they are giving me looks now.

What? Am I supposed to get all jealous and huffy, or what is the expected behaviour here? I've never had girls ogling my boyfriend or calling him hot before.

"W-weeeell, he's mine now... uhm... Bitches..." I say, standing up, and Delia is cracking herself, laughing while the two girls are looking confused. I vaguely know them, and they're not bitches at all, but... whatever. I smile to show them that I was joking, and now they're giggling and whispering again.

This is so not working for me!

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