Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (11 page)

Then she gave me a big hug.

I was glad I was Razz's friend too. But later that night as I walked alone behind Razz and Sally and watched them holding hands and laughing together, I couldn't stop myself imagining what it would be like to swap places with the Razzman. Even just for a little while.

Yeah, right, I thought as I shook the idea from my head, like that'd ever happen.

Our first semester of Senior School finished in the usual blaze of assignments and exams. A few people were warmed by the glow, many suffered minor burns and some perished in the inferno.

Debating-wise, the second semester didn't start too well. Our third-round contest resulted in an unexpected loss. Miss Tarango diplomatically described the judge's decision that night as ‘just a little curious and hard to fathom'. Razz described it as ‘totally mental, man!' When Miss reminded him that we must never criticise the adjudicators he said, ‘Yeah, you're right, miss. You should never speak ill of the brain-dead.'

The loss meant that our hopes of making the fourth term debating finals now hinged on us winning the final round. We had gathered in the library to prepare for just that, but as usual Razz wasn't quite with us.

‘
Hamlet
? We're doing
Hamlet
? I still don't get why Slattery's making us do
Hamlet
when all the other classes get to do
Macbeth
, which is heaps better 'cause it's way shorter.'

Razz and Mr Slattery had already had a discussion on this very issue in a previous lesson. It went something like this:

‘
Hamlet
? How come we're doing that, sir? Everyone else is doing that
Macdeath
one.'

Mr Slattery hoisted up his trousers by the belt to make
sure they remained unfashionably high on his thin waist. Everything about him was neat and precise, from the razor-sharp creases on his pants and shirt, to his never-out-of-place, slicked-back, straight-from-a-bottle, fiery red hair. He waltzed across to Razz's desk. Literally. As well as teaching English and French, Mr Slattery was apparently an enthusiastic ballroom dancer. He posed in front of Razz with one hand on his hip. If you threw in a cape and a couple of those swordy things, he would have made a pretty good bullfighter.

‘That would be
Macbeth
, Mr Zorzotto, and while that is a very fine play indeed – a masterpiece in fact – we are doing
Hamlet
because I believe it shows Shakespeare's genius at its most … sublime.'

Razz didn't look like he was that into ‘sublime'.

‘But how come we're doing some play written thousands of years ago anyway? Why can't we do something relevant?'

After twenty years of teaching, Mr Slattery was fully prepared for this and his eyes lit up. ‘Oh,
Hamlet is
relevant, Mr Zorzotto. It's all about the conflict between thought and action. You see, Prince Hamlet – or the Melancholy Dane as he has become known – is a thinker, philosopher and poet and
yet
,' Mr Slattery said, shooting his finger into the air Prindabel-like, ‘he is called upon by his father to be a warrior, an action hero if you will. As such, Hamlet finds himself torn between thought and action, between thinking about the deed and the doing of it. I'd say the issue of thinking before you act is relevant to everyone,
particularly
teenage boys like yourself, Mr Zorzotto, who tend to be somewhat
impetuous
in their actions from time to time.'

Razz wasn't impressed.

‘What, so the play's just about some prehistoric prince dude who sits around thinking about doing stuff but doesn't actually do anything?

Mr Slattery tapped his fingers together like a spider bouncing on a mirror. ‘Well, yes … that … and murder,
revenge, incest, betrayal, death, madness, suicide, love, lust and the supernatural.'

Razz stared back, unimpressed.

‘What? No car chases?'

Mr Slattery pretty much gave up trying to convince Razz of the benefits of studying
Hamlet
after that.

Back in the debating meeting Razz scrunched up his hair in frustration.

‘And can someone tell me why those dudes didn't speak English back in Shakespeare's time? I haven't got a clue what they're talking about most of the time. And another thing, old Willy's supposed to be a genius, right? Well, instead of all that talking, why not just have Hamlet's old man come back from the dead and say, “Hey, Hammy, that Claudius dude knocked me off so he could be king and pinch my wife. Kill him for me, will you?” And then just have Hamlet say, “Sure, Dad. You bet I will. Watch me go.” That way at least something would
happen
and we'd get to see some action. Plus it would be way shorter.'

‘Interesting theory,' Scobie said. ‘You don't think it might undermine the complexity of Hamlet's character just a touch?'

‘Aw, man, don't talk to me about Hamlet's character. I've had a gutful of old Slats rabbiting on about the Telescopic Dane or whatever he calls him.'

Prindabel had his head buried in a
New Scientist
magazine, and without lifting his eyes off the page he raised a crooked finger into the air and mumbled, ‘Melancholy Dane.'

‘Yes, thanks for your input, Professor Pointer. OK, yeah, right, the
Alcoholic
Dane, whatever.'

Prindabel's finger rose up again in silent protest before losing interest and sinking back down to the desk.

‘All I'm saying, Scobes, is, wouldn't it be better if Hamlet forgot about everything else and just got on with it?'

‘Perhaps we could discuss that at some other time, Orazio,' Scobie suggested, ‘because what
we
really need to get on with
is preparing this debating topic. We're up against Claremont and they're easily one of the best teams in the competition. If we can't come up with some very solid arguments to match theirs, then we will certainly lose this next debate and then we'll be out of the finals again.'

Unfortunately, to put it simply, we couldn't, so we did, and we were.

A few days after our fourth-round debating defeat, Scobie scheduled his usual debriefing and review meeting to find out what we did right, what we did wrong and how we could improve for next year. We didn't know it, but we were about to find out something a lot more than interesting than that.

As usual, Razz was the last to arrive.

‘Sorry I'm late, Herr Scobemeister. Uniform detention. Hey, by the way, any of you guys seen my tie? Or my Senior badge? No, forget it, doesn't matter. Listen up. You know how I'm going to the Lourdes Semi-formal with Sally?'

How could we not? Razz had been talking about it non-stop for weeks.

‘Yeah, well, some chicks still haven't got partners so they're looking for volunteers. Just going to draw names out of a hat and match people up. You guys wanna be in it? Come on, it's two weeks from this Saturday.'

‘That rules out Ignatius and me,' Scobie said, checking his student diary. ‘We're away on the Accelerated Science Course that weekend. It's live in.'

Razz let out a high whistle. ‘A two-day science slumber party, eh? Wicked! You guys must be nearly bursting your Bunsen burners with anticipation. Now make sure you pack plenty of clean lab coats, you hear? Oh, and at dinner
time, be sure to remember your Periodic Table manners.'

Scobie gave an exaggerated Cheshire Cat-type smile. ‘We'll take
lots
of notes and photos and post them on your Facebook page, Orazio.'

‘Peachy, Scobes. I am fighting
so
hard to contain my excitement, and hey, what do you know? I have. So OK, you guys are definitely out. But what about you, Ishmael? You might get lucky and draw out another Kelly Faulkner.'

‘I don't think so, Razz. I don't want to be matched up with someone I've never met.'

‘What are you worried about, dude? Stranger Danger? Well, never fear. The Razzman will come to your aid if some chick refuses to take advantage of you.'

‘Gee, thanks, but I think I'll be fine.'

‘Come on, man! Hey, maybe I can get Sally to pull some strings. You know, make sure you're not lumped with one of those brainy chicks who look like the Bride of Frankenstein or something.'

‘So how did that
History of Feminism
unit work for you, Orazio?'

‘What?'

‘Doesn't matter,' Scobie said and began humming a few bars of what sounded suspiciously like ‘I am woman'. Razz ignored him.

‘So what do you reckon, Ishmael?'

I shook my head. I was sick of being talked into stuff I wasn't sure about. I didn't care if Razz thought there was something wrong with me. For once I wanted to go out with someone
I
chose.

Razz rolled his eyes at me. ‘All right, dude, yeah, whatever.' Then he waved across the table at Bill.

‘Hoop Boy! Looks like it's left to you, Billy, to fight off all those desperate chicks. Better bring the light sabre along.'

Bill shifted his eyes around the table and mumbled, ‘Sorry, Razz … I don't want to go either.'

Razz slapped his forehead.

‘You too, Bilbo? What's
your
excuse, man? Got the Accelerated Jedi Course on or something? Or are you too busy moping over some chick who's a million miles away like Ishmael here? Come on, dude, what's
your
problem?'

The vague clouds seemed to shift from Bill's eyes a little as he focused them on Razz.

‘I haven't got a problem. Just don't want to go, that's all.'

‘Well, why not?'

Bill shook his head. ‘Not really … interested.'

‘Not interested? Not interested? How can you not be interested? There's gonna be food, dancing and chicks,' Razz said, holding up a finger for each item. ‘I'm thinking that's gotta be pretty close to three out of three for you, big guy.'

Bill stared hard at Razz then down at his own chubby hands.

‘Two out of three … if you really want to know.'

‘Well, forget the dancing then. Just feed your face and hit on the chicks. It'll still be a top night.'

Across the table Bill gave Razz's words some serious thought before he replied.

‘It's not the dancing. I like dancing,' he said. ‘I used to dance all the time when I was little. Mum and me used to dance to her old tapes. The ABBA ones were the best.'

‘Are you watching what you eat then, Bill?' I asked.

‘Not really,' he said. ‘Cutting back a bit maybe, and hooping.'

‘Well,' Prindabel said, ‘if it's not the dancing and it's not the food, then by a simple process of elimination, you mustn't be interested in …'

Ignatius stopped in his tracks as it dawned on him where his logical process of elimination was about to wind up.

Bill finished the journey for him. ‘Girls,' he said.

There was a bit of a gap in the conversation at that point and then Ignatius ventured, ‘Not interested in girls … at the
moment
?'

‘Not interested … ever.'

Bill kept his eyes trained intently on his fingers. ‘You might as well know. I wanted to tell you all for ages anyway.'

Silence. Stony cold, what-the-hell-do-we-say-now kind of silence.

Prindabel frowned. ‘So … you're telling us … you're one of the very roughly estimated 2.1 per cent of the population who claim to be …'

Bill nodded.

Silence. The Extended Version. I tried to process what Bill was telling us but it kept getting blocked by a confusing image in my mind.

‘But Bill … last year at my dad's concert … you danced with Sally … and you looked … pretty
happy
?'

Bill smiled without looking up. ‘I was. She's really nice. And she's a great dancer too. It was like when I used to dance with Mum.'

‘So it wasn't because …'

Bill shook his head.

‘Right.'

Silence. The Director's Cut this time, with extra embarrassment and never before seen awkwardness. As always, it was left to Scobie to build a life raft of words and come to our rescue.

‘Well, Bill,' he said, thrusting his hand forward, ‘I'd say congratulations are in order. You definitely win the award for Best and Most Original Excuse for Not Going to the Lourdes Semi-formal with Orazio.'

Relieved laughter spilled around the table as Scobie and Bill shook hands and Bill at last found the strength to lift his eyes and smile. But it was only a second before his face collapsed in worry and doubt.

Scobie, Ignatius and I followed the path of Bill's gaze across the table. It led to Razz. His face was distorted with disgust and the full force of it was levelled at Bill Kingsley.

‘Razz?' Bill said, just barely managing to get the name out. ‘Razz … you OK?'

Everyone at the table held their breath and waited for the reply. Razz shook his head slowly and twisted his mouth into an ugly, bewildered sneer.

‘You like …
ABBA
?' he said.

After Bill's surprise announcement any thought Scobie had of running a debating season review meeting pretty much went out the window.

As for Razz, apart from the fact that according to him it showed a ‘complete lack of taste', he insisted he was ‘totally cool' with Bill ‘going for the other team'. To prove his point he added, ‘Geez, I've even got friends who support Manchester United. Can you believe it? Manchester
United
!'