Lacy, oh Lacy 🎀

Training at Dawn

The next morning, Gia woke up to the muffled sound of clanging metal. The kookaburras' dawn song crooned through the open windows, and she rubbed her eyes before pushing herself to her elbows. A gust of wind made the curtains dance and she sneezed. The clanging sound stopped.

'Gia, you awake?'

'You just saw me sneeze.'

Hayley scrunched her nose.

'Good point. Sorry, am I being too loud?'

'No. What are you even doing?'

Hayley smiled and carefully tiptoed across the hotel room to where Gia was. She handed the girl a mug, steam puffing into the cold morning air.

'Coffee.'

'Oh, wow, thanks!'

Hayley nodded.

'It's technically your first day being my new friend, I don't want you to be put off our friendship by how crabby I can be in the morning. This coffee is my mask,' she joked, sipping out of her own cup.

'I've already seen you be pretty crabby on the pitch, you had a bit of a squabble with my goalkeeper.'

'She untied my ribbons!"

'Accidentally! And she apologised,' Gia retorted playfully.

'Hey - noone damages my ribbon and gets away unharmed.'

'Alright, alright, keep your ribbon on.'

Gia smiled at herself, quite proud of her pun.

'You're so proud of yourself right now, aren't you.'

'Is it that obvious?'

'Yeah, you're grinning like you just did a back flip or something.'

'A back flip? Why would I grin proudly if I did a back flip?

Hayley shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed.

'I don't even know.'

'Can you guys shut up?'

Hayley stifled a giggle, burying her head into Gia's shoulder as a grumpy Ellie yelled through her blanket.

***

The four roommates walked onto the training pitch, exchanging sleepy good mornings and looks of sympathy. Gia laughed to herself as she walked past Sam Kerr who lay stretched out against the grass, face buried in the floor and her arms and legs askew. Alannah sat beside her, absentmindedly twirling a blade of grass between her fingers as she stared toward nothing. The only person who seemed happy to be here was Hayley, but Gia wasn't surprised, she had just watched the girl down 3 cups of coffee in their hotel room.

The sun had begun to rise, and bright beams of golden light began to creep across the grass field. The dark blue night sky was chased away by pink and gold, and the stars twinkled a final goodbye as they disappeared over the horizon.

'Hey, run a lap around with me for warmup?'

Gia shook her head in disbelief as Hayley jogged up to her.

'Warmup for what?'

'Before Tony comes and makes us warmup.'

'You want to warmup for the warmup?'

She shrugged.

'Yeah.'

'Hayley, I just-'

Gia cut herself off to pull the girl down beside her, the two sitting side by side as more sleepy Matildas slowly trudged onto the grass. Hayley's leg jiggled, and Gia gave an exaggerated sigh as the shorter girl untied a hair elastic from around her wrist and shot it towards Mackenzie Arnold who turned around with a sleepy glare.