Mucked Up (12 page)

Everyone goes ‘AHHHHH!’

We are safe behind the glass window as all the gorillas get eggs out of their shopping bags and throw them at the window,
SHHHHPLATT SHHHHP-LATT
. Funny how every time an egg hits we all jump back in fear even though we know glass is protecting us. They must have about a million eggs in their bags and they keep throwing one after the other after the other.

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTTTTTTT

The window is all yolky ’n’ yellow, it’s hard to see through it. And Boring Brown/Brady/Brown/Bennett/ Brown has given up trying to get everyone to go back to their seats and just starts doing his teaching again to no one.

orrrrrrr you could alsooooo consider … the motion
of aaaaaaaaa car … onnnnnnn the road

SCHPLATTTT

soooooo as the wheels spinnnnnnn

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT SCHPLATTTT

they grip the road annnnnnd

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT

pushhhhhh the road backwarddddds

SCHPLATTTT SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTTT

SCHPLATTT

SCHPLATTTTSCHPLATTTT

action-reaction force pairrrrrrs … make it possible
forrrrrr

BRNNNNNNNNGGGG
, the bell goes and the gorillas get scared and run off. I can see them through a little corner of the window that isn’t yolked-up, running with their shopping bags and chucking eggs at other windows as they go past.

The PA makes a crackle and it’s Assistant Principal Bitchface Fruehling again. Her voice sounds stressed-out: ‘Staff and students, you may be aware, there has been another incident on the schoolgrounds involving damage to school property. Several classrooms in Blocks A and B have been defaced. Classes will continue as timetabled for Years 10, 11 and 12, however, students in Years 7, 8 and 9 with fourth period classes in A or B Block please go direct to the library and wait quietly until a teacher advises you where to go. Thank you for your patience while we deal with these developments.’

Everyone’s all excited cos we get to go to the library and we’ll miss a bit of fourth period. Nobody even notices Boring Brown/Bennett/Brady/Brown as we go out of class. If it was Valderamma we’d be hanging out round her, taking it slow, trying to breathe in some of her Pez-shampoo-smell before we leave. But this guy is an inviso teacher. If he didn’t stand back against the wall we would probs step on him.

Jack S is behind
me as I go out the
door into the corridor. He must be really mad because when I stop and wait for him, he keeps walking right past me and now I have to catch up to him.

‘Hey Jack,’ I go, ‘you should’ve seen those gorillas, it was classic’ but he doesn’t look at me or nod so I try harder. ‘Y’know, Jack, I kind of get this Newton law stuff now. Like when the gorillas chucked the eggs at the window, that was a force, and when the egg hit the glass, the glass is the other force, pretty cool, hey? Hahaha.’

But I don’t think he’s hearing.

‘And the equal and opposite reaction is the glass smashing the egg. Equal and opposite forces, get it now, Jack? I should teach physics, hey Jack? I’d be better than Brown/Brady/Bennett, hey Jack?’

But he takes off and I can’t keep up with him so I’m behind him all the way to the library.

11:50 a.m.
Fourth period: Library

Somebody chundered on China. Nobody knows who did it, it happened years ago before I was even at this school, but the chund is famous and everyone knows about it. There’s an orange stain where they tried to clean it off and it smeared a bit. It doesn’t smell but we all know it’s there which is why nobody wants to go near it but Mrs Gaffnee’s telling us that’s where we have to go right now.

‘Year 9s to the Map of the World Rug, hurry up.’

‘Mizzzzz, nooooo,’ goes Richard Brincat, ‘it’s got vom there, mizzzzzz,’ but Mrs Gaffnee is not interested in his mizzzzzing: ‘This is a trying day for everyone, Richard, go to the rug and sit quietly, no arguments!’

We all go into the library past the front counter, then turn left towards the Fiction L to Z aisle at the side of the library where the Map of the World Rug is. Jack S is about four people in front of me. Richard Brincat is right in front of me, following Mandy Karaniki. ‘You can sit on China, Mandy, haw haw.’

‘You are so moronic, Richard.’

Crazy-hot inside the library because so many classes are packed in. Kind of stinks like somebody dropped one. The Year 8s are in the reference section. Girls are on the floor in a circle talking about the Gorillas in Netball Skirts.

It was definitely Ash’s brother / Which one? / The
one with the sunglasses

Year 8 boys are at the spinning magazine rack looking at a famous surf mag that every boy at school has looked at because of the pics of a super-spicy chick in a blue bikini windsurfing.

What’s her name? / Who cares what her name is /
Just wanted to know

The Year 7s are up the back in the reading nook. Lucky little gimples are all chilled on the floor cushions and diving on the yellow beanbags, making crunch-crunching noises when they land.

Here we are at the side of the library where the Fiction L to Z aisle is. And here is the Map of the World Rug. It is massive and takes up the whole floor. It’s really detailed with all the countries in different colours. And right in the middle of the rug you can see China with that chunder stain, a sick orange colour.

Heaps of Year 9s are already sitting on the rug and all the good countries are taken. Way down the far end of the Map of the World Rug, someone’s waving. It’s Jarrell and she’s got the whole of New Zealand to herself; she’s making come-here signs but it’s not to me, it’s to Jack S in front of me. When he sees her he guns it across the rug, stepping over all the countries and oceans until he gets to New Zealand with Jarrell, and they sit together and hold hands. Bet they’re going to talk about me, bet he’s going to tell her what I said, bet they’re going to say bad stuff about me.

I’ve got to find a country to go to. I could stay here in Canada but gap-toothed joker-man Angus Smits is already here, with Dougy Mansour. Angus Smits points at my T-shirt and says ‘Found yourself a BOY yet, Zurbo?’ And Dougy Mansour covers his clackerhole and goes ‘Backs to the wall, lads’ which is the same joke he made in I.T. Jeeeeez, joke’s old, Mansour.

Got to get away from Canada so I go down into America but there is no room: it’s pretty much solid Jacks – Jack W, Jack G, and Jack P. They are talking about something that happened to Mrs Duckworth the history teacher.

Hear Duckworth’s car got egged? / Yeah she went
completely batshit and started chasing the guy

Most of the soccerdicks have taken over South America and they’re kind of fake-fighting each other so I don’t want to go near them.

Crossing the ocean over to Europe but Bronte Panckhurst and the Acty Drama Chicks have taken over, looking all posey with their thick hipster-glasses.

Mandy Karaniki and Lynn Lin (with two names the same) are up in the Arctic at the top of the rug: it’s comfy up there cos they have a wall to lean against, but there’s no room for me. Brisley Weng and the HAGZ are stretched all over Africa, owning the continent, so I go over there.

‘Can I squeeze in?’

Brisley looks up at me and smiles like she’s not sure who I am; then she turns back and talks with Krissy Klang, Mae Nguy, Angie Maningas, Dante Cho and Ji-Hyun (Jack). I am too unworthy to stand close to them or talk to them and they all just keep circle-talking like I am not even standing there.

Don’t be silly, Bris, the cupcakes were ummmy / I
thought they were a bit dry / No, they were super
moist and UMMMY

Ji-Hyun (Jack) is the only boy on earth who would say UMMMY.

Next time I’ll bring mini-pizzas / Yayyyyy

Brisley’s parents do catering for weddings and stuff so she always has leftovers to bring to school and she used to bring them for us but I guess she is going to be giving them to the HAGZ now. No more cupcakes or mini-pizzas for SCUM. I loved those mini-pizzas most of all.

I walk off into the ocean. Pretty poor how Bris wouldn’t talk to me Actually might go back to my original. just then. After I’ve been so bloody nice to her, letting her join SCUM when she came to this school and was new and had no friends. All those recesses and lunches where we hung with her and now she’s like a big up-herself blondie anime-HAG who won’t even look at me. Makes me feel like an unworthy nobody little loser-lamer.

Arghhhh, the world is full up, I don’t have a country. India is packed. So is the Middle East. Australia’s filled with footydicks: Jake Mladek and Wiggy and Cody Carruthers and JD Joseph taking up the whole space.

New Zealand is taken of course, don’t want to go anywhere near there, not even for a rully quick luttle trup, which is how they talk in New Zealand.

Even the oceans are full: there’s Charlie Chehab and Theo Chalkis sitting in the middle of the Pacific and Boniqa Newitt in the Atlantic, floating round by herself.

‘Hey Boniqa, can I sit here?’

She doesn’t even answer, just stretches out so I can’t fit near her. She must be pissed about the Yard Duty biz when I made her take my bin-liner.

Could go north to Russia but Hannah ’n’ Steph ’n’ some other girls I don’t know very well are there.

Don’t use the bubblers / I know, they stuck tampons
in them / Yeah I got sprayed

Nobody wants me. Just China is free. It’s big and empty. I am not going to China. I am NOT going to—

‘
ATTENTION PLEASE, STUDENTS!!
’

That is Mr Greg Moss yelling at us from down the end of the L to Z aisle. He is my English teacher and he is also an ex-footy-star with the Doggies, so everyone looks over and goes quiet because he is massively respected.

‘
SIT DOWN AND LISTEN, PLEASE
.’

The Canada boys sit down and the soccerdicks in South America stop fake-fighting and sit down, and now I am the only one standing in the whole world.

‘
SIT 
DOWN
_,
TOM ZURBO-GOLDBLATT!
’

There is no choice: I have to sit in China, but I sit away from the chunder, right on the edge of China where the sea is. More in the sea than in China really. One of my arse-cheeks is on Japan.

Someone in Australia laughs: ‘Zurb’s on the chund!’ and Mr Greg Moss goes ‘HUSH IT!’

Mr Greg Moss looks serious and dog-tired: ‘
YEAR
9
STAFF ARE GOING TO HAVE TO ATTEND TO SEVERAL URGENT MATTERS AROUND THE SCHOOLGROUNDS SO FOR THE REST OF FOURTH PERIOD, I WANT ALL OF YOU TO READ OR STUDY QUIETLY
.’

There’s a hummmmm of happiness because there will be no fourth period.

‘
QUIETLY!
’

The hummmmm of happiness stops.

Mr Greg Moss goes off to do whatever urgent matters he has to attend to and as soon as he’s gone everyone whisper-talks about what the urgent matters are that staff need to attend to. Hannah and Steph over in Russia are saying