Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (21 page)

And so it was.

What James Scobie was doing for Charlton House, he was also doing for the whole school, only on an even bigger scale.

Every fortnightly assembly he preached the gospel of Participation. And when Scobie spoke, people listened. In some ways it worked against Operation Tarango as the rising tide of school spirit overflowed into the inter-house competition. But as James kept telling us, ‘It's all good.'

And Scobie wasn't just empty words. It wasn't long before it was pretty clear to everyone that when it came to school captains, James Scobie was as good as it was ever going to get. Only one person at St Daniel's thought he could possibly do any more – James himself. We were all at our regular lunch table one day when he explained how.

‘Orazio, I really need your help.'

Bill, Ignatius and I lapsed temporarily into a state of mild shock. Razz, however, seemed completely unfazed.

‘At last! So you've finally seen the light, hey, Scobes. I knew you'd eventually recognise my superior brain power. Start taking notes, Prindabuddy, you're about to witness a master at work. So what can I help you with, O Great One? Having a few probs with the old theory of relativity? The origins of the universe? Bantam physics?'

Before Ignatius could jump in with a bony-finger protest,
Scobie answered. ‘I want to play a sport for the school. I need you to help me find one I can do.'

‘You? Sport? Why?'

‘I'm always telling everyone else on assembly to get involved in school life. I have to lead by example, and sport is about the biggest thing there is at St Daniel's.'

At least now it made sense why Scobie was asking Razz for help. When it came to anything that even remotely involved throwing, running, jumping, catching, hitting or kicking, Razz knew all about it and could do it without even trying.

‘But you do tons of other stuff already,' Razz said, counting them out on his fingers. ‘Debating, Public Speaking, Chess Club, Amnesty, Student Council
plus
you lead the cheering and write all the war cries for the rugby Firsts and
then
there's all your House and School Captaining stuff, for crying out loud. Geez, Scobes, no one does more than you. You're practically running the joint.'

‘Except I don't do sport.'

‘True. But there's a
very
good reason for that, My Honourable Stupendousness.'

‘What?'

‘You totally
suck
at sport, dude.'

Cruel but fair.

Over the last two years Scobie had tried a number of sports at St Daniel's, all of which ended up being considered too risky. It had a bit to do with that brain tumour operation he had when he was younger, but it was mostly due to Scobie's almost total lack of size, strength, fitness, vision, speed, agility and coordination.

‘There has to be
something
I can do. I'll try anything.'

Razz blew out a long puff of breath.

‘Well,' he said. ‘Let's see. Cricket's out.'

A murmur of general agreement rose from the rest of us.

Scobie had attempted cricket in Year Nine. As a bowler he wasn't
too
bad. He was actually quite tricky to score runs
off. This was because very few of his deliveries ever landed anywhere near the batsman. Quite a few of them did, however, land on his own close-in fieldsmen; usually on the back of their heads, much to their surprise, annoyance and pain. Once, in a feat of bowling that almost defied the laws of physics, a wayward ball from Scobie knocked out a fielder who was standing
behind
him.

As far as batting went, it would be fair to say that Scobie had certain … limitations. One was that after he got fitted out with a helmet, pads, box and every other form of cricket protection known to man, he could barely move. He practically had to be carried out and placed on the pitch like some kind of chubby, soft-toy version of a white knight. That's when it got even trickier for him. The smallest set of pads still came up to his stomach. This made it almost impossible for him to run. The only way for Scobie to counteract this problem was for him to hit fours or sixes. That was about as likely as me dating all the Miss Universe contestants at once. Not only did Scobie lack hand-eye coordination, it didn't seem like his hands and his eyes had ever actually been introduced to each other before.

After a couple of games it was unanimously agreed that Scobie should resign from cricket before he either got killed or killed someone else.

‘And rugby's
definitely
out.'

The murmur of agreement increased another notch.

Last year Scobie shocked everyone by announcing he was trying out for rugby. We all did our best to talk him out of it, of course, by explaining there was a definite down side to spending the rest of your days in a full body cast on life support, but he wouldn't listen. Nothing ever scared James ‘No Fear' Scobie.

The person who
was
afraid was Mr Hardcastle, the sports master. He insisted that Scobie get medical clearances before he played, and even then Mr Hardcastle made Scobie wear two sets
of headgear and the biggest shoulder pads he could find. Then he made James play on the wing, ‘well out of harm's way'.

Word spread pretty quickly about Scobie's first rugby trial. On the day itself it looked like half the school was packed around the sidelines. When Scobie shuffled on to the field he was greeted with raucous cheers, a stirring rendition of the school song and laughter. Mainly laughter. Apart from his hands and a squished-up portion of face, the only other part of James Scobie that was actually visible was a brief flash of pale knees between the top of his socks and the bottom of his circus-tent shorts.

Amazingly, for the first twenty minutes of the trial game Scobie did pretty well. This was because the football didn't come within ten metres of him. Then, tragically, it did. Someone on the opposition team miscued a kick and the ball tumbled and spun across the grass and came to rest right at his feet. Scobie picked it up, tucked it under one arm, gritted all of his little white teeth, and ran.

Well, when I say ‘ran', I mean that Scobie's feet moved
quicker
than they normally did and his knees pushed up
higher
than they normally did and his little arms pumped
harder
than they normally did. But the only problem was, Scobie didn't actually go any
faster
than he normally did. A James Scobie run was everyone else's dawdle. He looked like he was one of those mimes trying to run against a strong wind – and failing.

Of course the lethal combination of Scobie's complete lack of speed and his total inability to change direction to avoid an opponent made him the easiest target ever to grace a football field. He wasn't just shooting-fish-in-a-barrel easy. He was more like totally-nuking-fish-that-were-already-filleted-and-on-display-in-the-deli-section-of-the-local-supermarket easy.

To make things even worse, the first person to confront Scobie that day as he gamely took his maiden ‘run' with the football was Tommy ‘Flatliner' Manu. Tommy Manu loved to tackle. It's what he was born and built to do. In fact, Tommy
just loved to run into things period – people, trees, walls, buildings, large animals. I'm pretty sure that Tommy would have tackled his great-grandmother if she was on a football field carrying a football. Maybe even if she wasn't.

People still talk about that day Tommy ‘Flatliner' Manu tackled James Scobie at the rugby trials. Razz described it as ‘sledgehammer meets soft-boiled egg'. Amazingly there were no broken bones, although Scobie did come out in so many purpley-blue bruises that for the next week or so everyone called him Mini-Avatar. Mr Hardcastle said the school couldn't afford to pay for Scobie's funeral expenses and promptly banned him from the rugby field.

‘And I think we all agree, after recent evidence, that we can also give swimming a big swerve.'

That was a no-brainer too. Scobie hadn't earnt the nickname ‘The Stone' at the Inter-house Swimming Carnival for nothing.

‘Basketball?' Razz said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I think not. Some people are “height-challenged”, Scobes, but you're more like “height-totally defeated”, dude.'

Razz pulled at his mop of hair. ‘So what have we got here? We need to find something that doesn't require too much speed, height, strength or any actual sporting talent of any kind whatsoever.'

We all waited as Razz became lost in deep contemplation. Then his eyes twinkled and he clicked his fingers. ‘Is sleeping a sport?'

Scobie hung his head. I'd never seen him like that. He looked beaten.

‘There has to be
something
. I don't have to be any
good
at it. Just as long as I can convince Mr Hardcastle I won't fatally injure myself … or anyone else.'

‘Well, let's do a Prindabel here and look at this logically using a process of elimination. First up, it can't be anything to do with water, so there goes water polo and your synchronised swimming dreams, Scobes. Secondly, you need all the help
you can get. That means it should be a team sport. Thirdly, you can't run very fast … or very far … or very well. So forget stuff like cross-country, athletics or anything on a big field. Fourthly, we need to avoid anything where you have to catch, hit, kick or possibly just see something too small. So bye-bye hockey, tennis or badminton. Fifthly, for obvious reasons, it can't be a contact sport or one requiring strength or endurance. So no wrestling, boxing or weightlifting for you, I'm afraid, my liege.'

Razz drew in a deep breath.

‘What else do we have at St Daniel's?' Scobie asked without much enthusiasm. ‘Is anything left?'

‘Only one I can think of,' Razz said. ‘And you know what, man? It just might work. Six guys on a team – so plenty of help. Small court – so not much running. Fairly big ball – so easier to see. Opposition on the other side of a net – so no body contact. Hey, Scobes, I think we might have cracked it, dude. You just might be able to survive a game or two of -volleyball.'

Scobie and Razz were in the process of congratulating each other when Ignatius poked a tentative finger into the air.

‘Ah, just one
minor
point. Aren't volleyball nets fairly … high?'

‘I see what you're getting at, P-man. But not everyone on a volleyball team needs to be tall. Like, here's your classic play. The opposition serves the ball and then your team has a max of three hits to get the ball back over the net without anyone hitting it twice in a row and without it touching the floor. Simple as that. So the guy who receives the ball from the serve ‘digs' it out. That means he controls the serve and knocks the ball up in the air with his hands or arms. The second dude gets under the ball and ‘sets' it. That means he tries to push it up high into the air so that it comes down nice and easy, close to the net. The third guy leaps up and ‘spikes' it – which basically means he thumps it as hard as he can – into the opposition court. Dig. Set. Spike. Three hits. Scobes could be the setter
dude. They're normally shorter than the spikers anyway so they can get under the ball and push it up into the air for the easy put-away.'

Scobie was now grinning widely and showing all of his little pointy teeth.

‘There's only one problem though. And it's a pretty big one.'

Scobie's row of little pointy teeth slowly disappeared behind his thin lips.

‘The volleyball season starts Saturday week, so they've already had the open volleyball trials and they picked all the teams last weekend. They wanted to get five teams of six players plus two reserves for the inter-school comp, but only enough guys turned up to scrape together four teams. I know because Melvin Yip trialled and he missed out. Hardcastle made him the reserve, reserve for the Fourths. Yippy wasn't too happy about it.'

‘Well then, all I have to do is get a Fifths team together.'

‘Don't like your chances, Your Supreme Leadership,' Razz said with a shake of his head. ‘Hardcastle tried and couldn't. I mean there's you and Yippy, but even if you don't have any reserves, you still gotta come up with four other guys.'

‘Four other guys?'

Scobie's gaze moved from Razz to Ignatius to Bill. By the time he got to me, his little pointy teeth were well and truly back on show.

‘Us, Scobes? You want all of us to be in the team? You do realise, don't you, that the closest Prindabel's ever got to playing sport was last year when he got beaten up by a Year One nerfball team?'

‘If you all join up I can tell Mr Hardcastle we've got a team. He'd have to let me play then. What do you say? Please? I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't important to me.'

‘Well, I got nothing till soccer starts up, so it'd be fine by me,' Razz said.

Now Scobie was looking right at me. What could I say? It was James Scobie. How many times had he been there when I needed him? How many times had he stood up to Barry Bagsley? How many times had he rescued us all from debating disasters?

‘Well, if you really want to do it, then, yeah, me too I guess.'

Razz draped an arm over Bill Kingsley's shoulder. ‘And what about you, Big Bill the Man Hill? Feel like throwing your hoop into the ring with us?'

‘Sure.' Bill shrugged. ‘Why not?'

I'm fairly certain that would have been Bill's answer if Razz had asked him to join the Mount Everest downhill skiing team.

That just left Ignatius. Everyone turned his way. Two terrified eyes stared back at us.

‘No, no, you don't understand,' he said, holding up his hands. ‘For once in his life Orazio's right. I don't do sport. I'm sorry, James. I don't. I
can't
. Sport and me, we're … mutually exclusive. We're binary opposites. I'm the natural enemy of sport. I've tried – I have, honestly. I just end up getting laughed at or yelled at or both. I'm hopeless. I'm not just the last one picked. I'm the one who's
never
picked. You'd be better having a player short than to have me on your team. Ask anyone.'