Don't Kiss Girls and Other Silly Stories (13 page)

He points at me, and hands the money to Kane. Then he turns and walks off.

‘Sorry, Rossy,' says Kane, pocketing the cash. ‘I was going to split it with you but I'm a man of my word.'

Lacey sniggers. ‘You never keep your word. And you're definitely no man.'

I laugh. She just paid him out a good one.

As we walk off the golf course, Lacey links her arm in mine. ‘I'm proud of you, Rossy.'

I look at her. ‘Do you think he's right? About me being a loser?'

She stops. ‘Well, I've known you a long time and I have to say … yes. But I'd rather hang out with a loser like you than morons like them, any day.'

‘Thanks,' I say. ‘I think.'

Operation Get Rich Quick

Devo's family has more money than a casino. Apparently they play Monopoly with real cash and whatever Devo wins he keeps. No wonder he won the school Monopoly tournament.

But if I can become richer than him, I'll win. If he buys Ashleigh a milkshake, I'll get her a milkshake maker. If he buys her a movie ticket, I'll get her the pirated DVD. It's a foolproof plan.

As long as I can pull it off, that is.

But getting
rich can't be too hard, I reckon. Plenty of people have
done it, like the Queen, and that chick who wrote
Harry Potter, and Bill Gates. The Queen gets paid to wave,
that chick is JK rolling in it for writing books about
a nerdy boy wizard, and Bill Gates is a kazillionaire for
… umm, I don't know. Maybe he invented gates?

Think about it, there's money everywhere. Shops, post offices, banks – all full of the stuff. I just need to convince someone to give me a whole heap of it. Someone dumb, preferably. And according to Kevin ‘Brains' McMahon, there's only one place to find dumb people. The internet.

Here is the email I'm about to unleash on the world.

Dear Everyone

I am just an ordinary boy.

A while ago I had a girlfriend. It was cool. Then I dumped her when she got braces and now she goes out with a rich dude. This is not cool.

I want her back, and not just because she got her braces off, but because she's hot and a good kisser and a pretty nice chick too. To do this I need to become richer than the rich dude and buy my girl everything she deserves. Like a gold ring, or if I don't get enough money for that, a ticket to the Gold Class movies. But I need your help.

Would you please send me cash so that I can win my girlfriend back and be a happy boy again?

Five dollars would be okay, but $50 or $100 would be a lot better.

If you send me money and forward this email to seven people all your dreams will come true.

If you send me money and forward this email to one person then only one out of every seven of your dreams will come true.

If you don't send me money or forward this email then your dreams will turn into nightmares

about a doll that throws knives at you when you're asleep and it will definitely come true.

I show my little bro, Simon, and ask him for feedback. In other words, I want to hear how great I am.

He reads it intensely. ‘I can describe this in two words.'

‘Yeah? What's that?' If I was a betting man, I'd put money on him saying ‘most excellent'.

‘Total crapola,' he says.

I throw a pencil at him but he ducks.

‘Well, what would you write then,
geni-arse?' I say.

He picks up the pencil and puts it in his mouth. ‘You need to make people feel more sorry for you.'

‘How do I do that?'

‘You need to say you're handicapped or something.'

‘In other words, say I'm you?'

He doesn't give me any more advice after that. He throws the pencil like a spear at my head. Luckily for me I've got a hard head.

His idea isn't a bad one, though, so I make a few adjustments and show Belinda.

‘For someone as untalented as you,' she says, ‘it's actually not that far below average.'

I'm not sure if that's a compliment or a putdown.

‘But you should say something about true love because that's what everyone wants,' she adds.

I don't know about that. I don't really care if I get true love or false love, just as long as I get to kiss Ashleigh again.

‘You can't really ask for money, either,' Belinda says. ‘People who work at the post office will steal it. Ask for Instant Scratch-Its.'

Scratch-Its, ay? That's a good suggestion – I could win thousands of dollars and get to scratch something at the same time.

After Simon and Belinda's advice, this is what I come up with.

Dear Everyone

I am just an ordinary boy. Well, I was
until a car sped through a red light
and knocked me off my bike. W
hen I woke up four weeks later the Dr told me I'd spend the
rest of my life in a wheelchair. B
ut worst of all, I also found out my beautiful girlfriend had
broken up with me to go out with a rich kid
with two good legs. The only thing that
will give me the will to live again is if I
win her back. For this I need to buy her something she'll
never forget. A diamond ring. Please send me Instant Scratch-Its and with
the winnings I'll buy her a diamond ring and she'll take me
back, I know it. If that happens my life will be great.
If it doesn't my life will suck like it does now.

Please help me.

Mr Broken Heart (and back)

If you send scratchies to me and forward this email to seven people then you will
find
true love.

If you send me scratchies and don't forward this email to seven people then you will get to kiss your true love but he or she will dump you afterwards like a ton of trucks.

If you don't send me scratchies or forward this email then your true love will go out with your best friend and they will live happily ever after.

Okay, so it's not exactly the truth anymore, but everyone lies on the internet.

I send it to my entire address book and bingo! That's what I get in the mail the next day – one Instant Scratch-It bingo ticket.

It takes a long time to scratch and even longer to
figu
re out if I've won or not. Eventually I
find
out that the answer is not.

The next day I get no scratchies and think that maybe someone is intercepting my mail, like Kane. But then on the third day, it happens. When I get home from school I've got so many letters that the mailbox couldn't hold them all. Mum said that the postman had to come inside and dump the letters on the kitchen table, and then he stayed for a cup of tea and complained for an hour about getting attacked by magpies and dogs. Mum said that if he stayed any longer she was going to start attacking him herself, and let me tell you, that would have been much worse for the postman.

Just after I start scratching, Belinda and Simon join forces and do a commando raid on my room.

They reckon they deserve something for helping me. I whack them with pillows but they're armed with high-powered Nerf guns, and they take off with half of the scratchies.

‘Hope you lose!' I yell at their backs.

A few minutes later I hear whooping and hollering, so I go to Belinda's room to check it out. Between
fits
of laughter they tell me that they both scratched winners at the same time. Simon got $200 and Belinda $250.

I tell them I've won $250,000, and walk out.

But I was lying.
After an hour of scratching all I've got is twelve bucks.
I've still got about
50 tickets
left but my arm is
killing me. I think I've got
scratchies
elbow.

I'm about to offer Simon money to help me scratch when I come up with an idea. Grabbing an old pair of ice-skates from the shed, I put one on and start skating over the scratchies.

It works like a charm, except when I skate too hard and slice one in two.

Darn!

An hour later I'm done. Hundreds of scratchies have earned me a total of … $87. Talk about rigged. Still, it could be worse, and there's no reason why I shouldn't keep getting scratchies for the next few years and win lots, lots more. No reason at all.

Until I check my email.

*

At
first
I smile because I can see that it's my own email sent back to me. It's really getting around.

But then I notice that the title is different.

THIS IS A FAKE! DO NOT SEND SCRATCHIES!

Far out! It's been
fiddled
with!

Underneath is a large photo of me. I'm on my bike, and below the photo it says:

ONE THING IS TRUE. TONY ROSS IS HANDICAPPED. CHECK OUT THE HAIRCUT!

And there it is, me with hair that's blow-dried and jagged and poofed up like fairy
floss.
It's even worse than I remember.

Under the photo are comments like:

What an Emo!

and

The biggest loooooser of all time!

and

That's so funny! ROFL

My
firs
t thought is: Who the heck is Rolf?

My second thought is: How could Lacey do this to me?

As I'm trying to
figu
re out what to do, I get another email. It's from Ashleigh.

I need to talk to you. Can you come to my place right now?

I'm not sure what to do. She probably wants to kill me in person. But I decide to take a chance.

I
grab something from my underwear drawer, mumble something to Mum about
being home later, and jump on the bike. It's
crunch time.

Ash opens the door when I arrive. ‘You've got some explaining to do.'

‘Yep,' I say. ‘You see—'

‘Not here. In my room.' She turns and starts walking down the hall.

Phew, I think. Gives me a bit of time. I had no idea what I was going to say after ‘You see'. But as I'm walking past the closet where I once locked Ash and me in while we were making out, I start having second thoughts. Devo could be in her room, behind the door or under the bed, waiting to kill me.

I think about turning around and running out, but I can't. This is my date with destiny, only her name isn't Destiny, it's Ashleigh.

I sit on the chair and she sits on the bed. No sign of Devo. Yet.

‘I know about the video,' she says.

‘Oh.'

She must have seen the email and realised that people know she gave me the worst haircut in the history of hairdressing.

‘Lacey called me up. She told me what happened.'

‘She did?'

Uh-oh, I think. Who knows what Lacey said? It could be even worse than the email.

‘And I must say, Tone, it was hard for me to believe.'

‘It was?' This doesn't sound good.

‘Yep. When she told me that you asked her to
film
the haircut because you wanted to show the world how great it was, I was gobsmacked.'

I know how Ash felt. I'm gobsmacked right now and I don't even know what the word means.

‘But then when I remembered what you said about the men at the council holding you down and shaving off all your hair, it started to make sense.'

‘That's good.' And it was, because it was as clear as mud to me.

‘So is that what happened, Tone? Did you really love the haircut like Lacey said? Or did you hate it? You can tell me, I just need to know the truth.'

Ah, the truth. It's a funny word. Kane says to never tell girls the truth, only what they want to hear. And he does pretty well with the chicks. What should I do?

‘Well, Ash …'

She looks at me with puppy dog eyes.

‘That
haircut …' I start blinking really fast. ‘… was the
best thing that ever happened to me. When those mean
council dogs shaved it off I was shattered. And then
when you didn't believe me it was like a kick
in the goolies.'

I put my head in my hands and peek at her through the gaps in my
fingers.

She looks horrified. Maybe I went too far with the word goolies?

‘I'm
so
sorry,' she says. ‘I should have known not to listen to my mum. She can be such a cow sometimes.'

Yes! She bought it hook, line and sucker.

‘Yep,' I sniff miserably. ‘You're right. She is a cow.' Before I go any further, I need to know something. I stop snivelling. ‘So, umm, where's Devo?'

Now it's her turn to get watery eyes. ‘I … I broke up with him.'

‘Really? That's terrible.'

Yes! Awesome!

‘What happened?'

‘Well,' she says, ‘he kept giving me really expensive gifts. It was like he was trying to buy my love, you know?'

‘Yeah. Of course I know.'

‘I want someone to love me here.' She pats her heart. ‘There's only one guy I've ever felt that from.'

‘Who?'

She points in my direction, and I turn to make sure there's no one behind me.

There is. Buddy Franklin
flexe
s his huge tattooed arms at me, but I reckon I could rip him in two. Especially as he's only on a poster.

‘I know that my mum and all my friends told me to never, ever,
ever
give you another chance,' Ashleigh continues, ‘but now I think that what they all said about you can't be true.'

‘What did they say?'

‘That you're a total loser.'

I shake my head. ‘I've been mister-judged my whole life. It's so unfair.'

She gestures me over to the bed and I sit next to her. Cool.

‘I think that anybody can make one mistake,' she says. ‘Even a big one like breaking up with me.'

Oh. The dumping thing. I was hoping she wouldn't bring that up.

‘Yeah. I'm sorry about that,' I mumble.
‘I … umm … liked you
so
much I think I got scared.'

‘That's sweet. So, Tony Ross, do you have something to say to me?'

‘Yep.' I hop off the bed and get down on one knee. ‘Ashleigh …'

She looks at me expectantly.

‘… would you like to go to the monster truck show with me?'

She laughs. ‘Well, I was hoping for an apology, but …'

She reaches down and touches my arm. ‘I think you deserve another chance. Even though I hate monster trucks, I'll go.'