Mucked Up (22 page)

Ravo and Bris are laughing, because Jack S’s question was not a joke, it was serious. Laughing at Jack S’s denseness is the kind of thing we always used to do at SCUM so it’s nice to be doing it again.

Behind me someone says ‘Get your hands off my pig.’

He’s huge AS. He’s in a big fat sumo-suit with his sumo-gut sticking out the front and a big sumo-nappy on his bum and a big black sumo-wig over his head. He’s the guy who was in the corridor this morning doing the rude Turkish hand-gesture to Mr Pooks and he is looking down at me.

‘I’m Grassy.’

I’m looking up at him: ‘Hi … Grassy.’

Jack S and Brisley and Ravo are not laughing anymore. They have worried looks on their faces. Hard to tell what Jarrell’s thinking, nothing’s going on in her eyes.

because

‘You’re the one in the BOY shirt.’

I look down at my shirt: ‘Oh yeahhh,’ like it’s even a surprise to me.

‘And you’re telling people you’re my mate?’

‘Just the once …’

He bends down a bit: ‘There are cops and teachers all round here so I can’t beat your arse here. You are going to come with me over to the cricket nets where no one can see us, then you are going to give me back my pig, and then you are going to die in a crapwell.’

‘Well the thing is, Grassy,’ I say, giving him a big toughy face, ‘I happen to be a member of the Students Combined Underground Movement and we always look out for each other. So if I die in a crapwell, my mates will go over to the cops and report you and you will get into huge trouble and probably get sent to juvie.’

He goes ‘What mates?’ and I turn round to show him but they are not there. Bris and Jack S have run off out of the gates and are way down the street already. Ravo is legging it fast behind them. Bravo? – haha yeah right.

Looks like SCUM is just the way it used to be: a pack of scaredy little dickweeds.

But for some reason Jarrell hasn’t gone with them. She’s still there, outside the gates by herself. She looks worried: she’s watching me and I wish she wasn’t because the next thing that happens is pretty embarrassing. Grassy gets my arm and does this thing where he lifts me in the air, then flips me sideways, holding me under one of his arms the same way I am holding the pig in one of my arms. He is very strong: I am actually in the air with my legs off the ground, my head poking out the back facing Jarrell.

Before I die in a crapwell, there is an important thing I need to sort out really quick.

‘Jarrell!’

She doesn’t say anything.

Grassy is walking off with me in his arm so I have to yell: ‘Jarrell, I didn’t mean that stuff I said! … Please will you come back to
SCUM?
… I want you to come back! … I like seeing your face every day!!!’

I don’t know if she heard that last bit cos I’m far away now, being carried down the side of Teachers’ Carpark – all I can I see of Jarrell is her hair moving in the wind, it looks nice and flowy, then we go around the rosebushes and I can’t see her anymore.

Grassy carries me to the cricket nets then stops there. When he puts me down on the ground, his massive sumo-shadow is over me. No idea how much of him is sumo-suit and how much of him is just his own built-in fatness.

‘First gimme my pig back.’

I take a last look at Sumo-pig: I don’t think you can save me this time, little friend. I got through a whole day without getting a mark on me. I survived eggs and shaving cream and jizz-raids and green-slime. I almost got to the end untouched. But nah, not going to make it now. So goodbye Sumo-pig, it was very nice spending the afternoon with you.

I hold out the pig for Grassy to take but before he takes it, someone says ‘Excuse me, Grassy.’

Jarrell’s here. She must’ve followed us down here behind the rosebushes. ‘I know you are very busy with this arse-beating but I have one question that I’m DYING to know.’ She points to the oval and up to the top of the footy posts, ‘How DID you get the bins up there?’

Grassy doesn’t get mad with her at all like I was expecting. He actually looks kind of pleased and forgets about beating my arse for a sec.

‘Whatta rippa, eh?’ He steps backward to point at the posts, all proud of himself. ‘Me and the lads got them up there last night. We got some rope and we got one of those hooks with the clip that locks back … you know those hooks with a clip? …’

Jarrell’s hmmming like she’s mega-interested.

‘… we got a milkcrate and … you see the middle post? …’

‘Hmmmm …’

‘… see how there’s pads tied onto it? We put the milkcrate next to that post … then we got up on the milkcrate and—’

Jarrell steps up to him and pushes him into a rosebush. A massive rosebush right behind him. He falls really hard into it because of his big fat sumo-suit and now he can’t get out because the more he moves round, the more his sumo-suit gets stuck in the thorns.

‘
RUN, YOU DUMMY!!!
’ she yells to me, and we’re running, going back into the teachers’ carpark, back past the teachers and the cops and the police car and Mrs Contogeorge and the sideways blue Barina. It’s hard to run and talk and hold a pig at the same time with a bag on your back and a belt-wiener flapping around but I’m trying: ‘Jarrell … that was … like … the most … perfectest … bushing … ever …’

She’s just looking ahead as we run out of the teachers’ carpark gates and …

About the Author

Canadian-born Danny Katz came to Australia at a young age because his geologist father felt there were interesting rocks here. Danny worked as a car washer, a belt salesman and a musician before stumbling into stand-up comedy, where he made his name in the 1990s. He is a columnist for
The Sydney Morning
Herald, The Age
and
The West Australian
.

Danny lives in Melbourne with his wife and two children, and is the author of
SCUM
as well as
Spit the
Dummy, Dork Geek Jew
and several children’s books, including the Little Lunch series.