My Life and Other Massive Mistakes (2 page)

Just act normal, just act normal, just act normal.

Skroop is ten metres away and he still hasn't bagged the culprit. Why isn't he stopping? Why doesn't he suspect any of these kids? What about Jonah Flem? What about Brent Bunder? How suspicious do those guys look? They're about the most suspicious-looking guys I've ever seen. They would steal an old lady's porridge faster than they'd help her across the street. They rip the wings off flies for fun. They almost have moustaches. They should be in high school already. They –

He's here.

Skroop.

Walton Skroop.

He looks deeply into Lewis's eyes and even more deeply into mine. I can't look away. His stare is a straw, reaching in through my eyes to suck out my soul. Skroop sniffs. He can smell
the lies seeping from my skin, I'm sure of it. I reek of fibs. I am a wanted criminal and this is the end of the line. I'll be expelled and my mum will send me to Brat Camp, where we'll be the stars of a reality TV series and people all over the world will know me as the Nit Bandit, the kid who used head lice as a biological weapon to shut down his school. Maybe Lewis's nits are right – we need to fess up now. Criminals on TV always get off lighter when they admit they're guilty. I open my mouth, ready to confess…

He moves on.

He takes a quick look at Jack and says, ‘Your scab is bleeding. Get yourself a bandaid.' Then he walks past.

Gone.

It's over.

We're off the hook.

Free as birds.

Total school shutdown before Monday's exams becomes a real possibility once more. I try not to smile. Lewis's leg stops shaking so badly. Jack dabs at the blood on his nose with a tissue. I can breathe again. I feel good. Mum always tells me I'm a worrywart, and I guess I am. I really am. I had noth–

Mr Skroop stops and looks back over his shoulder at us. At me. But I'm not worried because I don't feel so guilty anymore. I feel relaxed. I give him a pursed-lip smile that tells him just how seriously I'm taking this and that I know how hard it must be for teachers to have scallywags like these nit bandits on the loose.

Skroop turns, tilts his head to the side slightly and sniffs the air again like a dog
considering attack. His dead-black eyes are trained on us. I must admit, I do feel a little nervous again.

Jack whispers, ‘Oh no,' in my ear and I whisper, ‘Shhh!' without moving my lips. I do it pretty well. I decide that if I make it out of this alive I might become a ventriloquist.

Skroop slides back towards us. The entire school looks on. Fire burns behind his eyes. He stops in front of me. He is the Voldemort to my Harry. I'm pretty sure I can see a drop of unicorn blood at the corner of his mouth.

Lewis's leg starts dancing again.

‘Look around the hall,' Skroop says, keeping his eyes locked on me.

I look around.

‘What do you see?' he asks.

‘K-kids,' I say.

‘And what are they
doing
?'

This feels like a trick question. They just seem to be standing there but I don't want
to say, ‘Standing there,' because he'll think that I'm trying to be smart. See, I know how teachers' minds work. But the kids really do appear to just be standing there.

‘Um … Standing there?' I offer.

‘What else?' he says, stretching the ‘s' on ‘else' as though he might be part snake.

I look around. I feel like the exams have started early. I wish it were multiple choice. I have no idea what he wants to hear. After a long time he snaps, ‘They are
scratching
, you imbecile. Don't you see?'

I look around. And I do see. They
are
scratching. All of them.

‘But you and your little friend here –' he looks at Jack ‘– are not. Tell me why.'

‘Um.' I can't believe we forgot to scratch.

Just act normal, just act normal.

‘Is it because,' Skroop asks, ‘for some reason, you were not infected with head lice while every other child and teacher in the
school was?' He scratches his head just behind the ear.

‘I saw the two of you – and the new boy here, with the ridiculous hair – slip into the back of this week's school assembly late. Is that correct?' Skroop asks, a hint of a smile crawling across his sickly lips. He looks like the cat that got the cream. And I am the cream.

‘Is it or is it not true,' he snarls, ‘that the three of you infected the entire school with head lice in a feeble attempt to avoid the upcoming examinations?'

‘What does “feeble” mean?' Jack asks.

‘ENOUGH! Not only will you be present for next week's exams, but you will handwash every hat in the school. And –' he raises his voice so that everybody can hear ‘– you will all spend Saturday at school in the hall at a boot camp in preparation for the national standardised tests, under
my
supervision, to
make up for the disruption of the past few days.'

Kids gasp and call out ‘Nooooo!', but Skroop doesn't mind at all. He's enjoying it. Jonah Flem says, ‘But I've got soccer!' Miss Norrish shakes her head, disappointed. Jack and I have really done it this time.

‘And
if
this school does below par in the exams, you three will have a one-hour after-school detention every day for the remainder of the year. Do you understand?' he asks.

‘Yes, Mr Skroop.'

‘Now, as a show of unity with the rest of your schoolmates, I would like you to rub heads with the new boy.'

I look at Skroop, not believing what I have heard. This is not the way deputy principals are supposed to behave. But Mr Skroop is not your everyday deputy principal. He is a deeply disturbed individual.

‘Go on,' he says. ‘Chop-chop.'

‘But…' I look around to some of the teachers, waiting for them to step in. But none of them does. A few parents have gathered at the side and rear doors. They watch on – teachers, kids, parents – all hungry to see our public downfall.

I look at Lewis's hair. It is alive with nits, like a tree full of small birds. I can't do this. I'm going to run. It's the only way.

But, before I do, Skroop grabs Jack's head and my head and smooshes them into Lewis's hair. My ear is pressed against Lewis's ear. I swear I can feel those filthy little minibeasts scurrying onto my scalp. The kids erupt in applause and I realise, at that moment, that humans are sick.

Skroop releases his grip and Jack and I spring away from Lewis. Everyone watches on, silent once more.

I feel a slight tingling, then a definite itch at the back of my head. But I refuse to scratch.
I won't give them the satisfaction.

Now it's really itchy on top. And the sides. And my eyes start to water. The whole world is watching me and my head is ready to explode. I can't take it anymore. I scratch like mad and the crowd goes crazy, like their team just scored.

‘Dis-
missed
!' Skroop announces. ‘Have an enjoyable day!'

‘Hi, Tom-Tom,' Tanya says, walking into the kitchen. My sister. Evil genius. Four years older than me, hair in a ponytail, grin on her face. I glare at her from the dining table and slurp milk and cornflakes off my spoon.

‘What are you doing today?' she asks, grabbing a can of Coke out of the fridge and popping the top with her teeth.

I move the giant cornflakes box across the dining table so I can't see her. I suddenly become really interested in the nutritional information.
0.1 grams of fat in each 30-gram serving.

‘I was thinking we should call a truce,' Tanya says, coming over to the table.

23.1 grams of carbohydrate. Thiamin. Riboflavin. Niacin.

Tanya holds out her hand. ‘I'm sorry, okay?'

I look around the box and stare at the hand. Nails freshly painted with black nail polish. Thumb poking through a hole in the shredded cuff of her jumper. I check to see if there's a trick buzzer or anything in her hand. I look up at her. She looks like she's being honest, which is creepy because it's school holidays and Tanya and I have been at war for five solid weeks. We're like arch-enemy super-villains.

First day of the holidays she slopped bright orange fake tan onto my face while I was sleeping. My new nickname is ‘Pumpkin-head'.

So I mixed a bunch of dead flies into the
box of Coco Pops, her favourite cereal. But then I forgot about it and ate a bowl myself the next morning.

After eating the flies I was so angry with her that I planted a pack of Tic Tacs on the kitchen table. I mixed in six of my baby teeth that were hidden in Mum's ‘special things' box on top of her wardrobe. Tanya swallowed two of my teeth, which was cool. Except that I immediately thought about where they might exit her body, an image that will be with me till the day I die.

When she found out, she threw a copy of
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
at me and it hit me in the face, breaking my nose. I'm still wearing giant, crisscross, heavy-duty bandaids on my snout. Who knew that
Shakespeare's plays were so heavy?

That was week one of the holidays. Things have gone downhill since then. Now I live in fear. Every step I take, everything I eat, every time I sit down, I'm on guard.

‘I feel bad about your nose,' Tanya says. ‘And Mum's going to lose it again if we keep fighting, and then she'll ground us. I need to go out on the weekend, so can we just be friends?'

I look at her hand again. ‘What if you're tricking me?'

‘I'm not. Seriously. I know I've been horrible but it's not because of you. It's other things that I'm annoyed about. Sorry for taking it out on you.'

I feel my hand slowly moving towards hers.
Stop
, I think. But I can't help it. I like it when she's nice to me. It only happens once a year for about four minutes but it still makes me feel good. Maybe this is my four minutes. Maybe I should get a photo of the two of us or something?

‘Cool,' Tanya says, shaking my hand.

I move the cornflakes box out of the way and she sits down and puts her feet up on the dining table. She sucks the froth off the top of her can.

‘Oh, I had an idea,' she says.

‘Yeah? What?' I kind of hope she wants to play Scrabble. About two years ago we had a game in her room, but I was so excited that she was being nice to me I dropped my guard,
lost muscle control and accidentally cut a stinker. She threw me out. That was the last time I saw the inside of her room.

‘I want you to do all of my jobs for the next week or I'll tell Mum you stole that bubble gum from Papa Bear's.'

Papa Bear's is the shop on the corner of our street.

‘What?' I ask.

‘I said, either you do all of my jobs for the next week or I'll tell Mum you stole that bubble gum from Papa Bear's.'

‘But I didn't steal any bubble gum from Papa Bear's.'

Tanya winks at me. ‘Mum doesn't know that, Pumpkin-head.'

I sit there thinking about this, trying to understand the inner workings of one of the great evil minds of our time. ‘But you just said you wanted to be friends. And how would you prove that I stole something that I didn't steal?'

‘As if I would
ever
want to be friends with you. I've hidden some gum in your room,' she explains. ‘Grape Hubba Bubba with two pieces missing. When Mum gets out of the shower I'll tell her that you stole some bubble gum and, when you deny it, I'll just tell her where you hid it. Simple.'

I look at her sitting opposite me at the table, still trying to get my head around her scheme.

‘So?' she says, letting sticky Coke saliva
drip down past her chin before sucking it back up again. ‘Do we have a deal? All my jobs for the next week?'

‘And what do I get?' I ask.

‘You get to keep your secret.'

‘I don't have a secret.'

‘Yes, you do. You stole a packet of grape Hubba Bubba, hid it in your room, confided in me and I'm doing what any responsible big sister would do. I'm telling Mum so that she can deal with the matter like an honest, upstanding citizen, by taking you to Papa Bear's to admit to the owner what you stole.'

‘But I didn't steal anything,' I tell her.

Mum walks in with a towel on her head. She flicks on the kettle. ‘Morning.'

‘Hi, Mum,' Tanya says, cheerful. ‘Tom's been telling me about something he did, and I really think it's best you know.'

My eyes widen.

‘If this is you two dobbing on one another
again, I don't want to hear it,' Mum says.

‘It's kind of big, Mum. I think you would want to know.'

Mum turns to us. ‘What have you done this time, Tom?'

I look at her. I look at Tanya. ‘Nothing,' I say. I stand, walk to the dishwasher and start emptying it.

‘That's Tanya's job,' Mum says.

‘I know. But I don't mind doing it.'

Mum looks at me and then at Tanya. ‘Whatever it is, leave me out of it.' She heads down the hall.

‘Good boy, Tom-Tom,' Tanya says, crushing her can and tossing it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Brown, sticky liquid seeps out onto the floorboards. ‘Clean that up for me, will you?' She walks across to me, leans right into my face and unleashes the loudest, most violent burp I have ever witnessed. She blows a mixture of Coke stink
and morning breath right up my nose.

‘Tom, don't be disgusting!' Mum calls.

‘Sorry,' I yell back. I ball both fists, scrunch my toes and bite down on my teeth so hard I'm in danger of bursting an internal organ.

Tanya laughs at my stiff-as-a-board body. ‘Good boy, Tombles.'

Mum is at work all week and I spend the next five days searching for the bubble gum and doing
everything
for Tanya: