Screw Loose (10 page)

‘Swimming pool, sauna, housekeeper, good address. Me.

Think about it.'

Craig put his head in his hands. His girlfriend had told everyone he had a big tongue, and now this freakoid was suggesting he live with her?

‘NO WAY!' he shouted again.

‘Okay then.' She put up her hands. ‘But desperate times require desperate measures.'

‘Get out.'

‘Listen, Craig, this is serious. Our parents cannot be allowed to live with one another. So I've told my mother you have Tourette syndrome.'

He looked up. ‘What's that?'

‘It's where you have an uncontrollable need to scream obscenities in public places.'

‘You're sad.'

‘I told her you're always yelling out filthy things in class. So all you have to do is come over to my place and scream something incredibly obscene in front of my mother, and she'll dump your father, and life will go back to normal.'

Craig shook his head and, despite himself, started to laugh.

‘Sorry, Chelsea. No way. You're a nutcase, babe.'

‘Don't call me babe, Craig. If you don't agree to that then I'm introducing Plan B.'

‘What's Plan B?'

‘I tell my mother you got me pregnant.'

FOR
THE LADIES

A
NGELO
T
ARANO WAS
sitting in the barber's chair waiting for his grandfather to give him his regular haircut.

Some people made you feel really good; his grandparents did that. They never criticised or disciplined him – he was their little
principe
. At family functions, Angelo didn't have to do any work, just sit and relax while his nonna brought him food and his uncles tried to convince him that soccer was the only game.

His grandfather thought about his grandson's hair more than his grandson did, and took twice as long with him as any other customer. Sometimes he suggested new styles – in Grade 5 Angelo got a mullet before anyone else – and he always gave Angelo a Chupa Chup when he'd finished.

But today Angelo felt uneasy. It was the morning of the calendar shoot, and Melanie, the Cockatoos' publicist, was sitting behind him in a low-cut black dress, waiting to take him away to the photographer's studio. Angelo watched her reflection in the mirror. He knew his nonno wasn't happy she was there; Nonno didn't like anyone else interfering with his grandson's hair.

Angelo wasn't sure he wanted to be in the calendar any more. One of the guys on the team had said the rumour was that they had to do it in their team jocks.
Come on – too stupid
. And what about his little finger? A finger in splints would not look good. But you had to obey them. His focus was to get the splints off and get selected again. It would still be a few more weeks.

On top of these worries, the Cockies really were going to have a players' review, to build team spirit, club loyalty and self-confidence.
Cinderella.
To raise money for National
ADHD
Awareness Day. In front of the whole club, and the members, in Hobart Town Hall. And pushy Paul Vasilevski hadn't been bluffing – they'd chosen him to be Cinderella!

At first he'd thought they were joking. This was a football team. But they were serious. It was going to be a total guy thing, with everyone dressed as girls. It was creepy.

The Cockies didn't know about Angelo's fear of disguises and masks. He'd had it most of his life. He couldn't look at those Ronald McDonald models, Santa, drag queens, Batman or Spiderman. He had to see the real face. His mum said it had started with Humphrey B Bear – Angelo used to scream the house down when creepy silent Humphrey waddled onto the screen, and if he heard sounds in the night he'd thought it was Humphrey creeping around the house. The only thing that had made him feel safe in bed was his Sherrin; he'd slept with his footy until he was twelve.

Otherwise Angelo was extremely normal, of course, and a fair bit above average on the footy ground.

He sighed.

‘Whatsa matter,
principe
?' asked his nonno. Being called
principe
in front of Melanie was a bit embarrassing, but you couldn't tell your nonno off for loving you.

‘Nothing Nonno, just pressure.'

‘Pressure.' His nonno patted him on the neck. ‘Big boy now.'

‘Yep.'

Talk about pressure
. The main issue worrying Angelo was Zeynep. It was making him very moody. The club still wanted him to give her up – five Cockatoo-approved girls had texted him recently, all of them his age, and all of them listing their hobbies and interests. Why would any girl think a guy was turned on by hobbies like banjo playing, quilting and boxercise?

The more the Cockies pushed, the more he resisted – Zeynep didn't know a lot about footy, and she was almost certainly not going to have sex with him, but she was so neat and perfect.

When he put his arms around her, it was like she fitted just perfectly into his body. How could he ever give her up – a girl who didn't wear makeup? He couldn't tell the Cockies that, though. Or tell Zeynep what was going on, for that matter.

Because he felt so tense, he and Zeynep weren't getting on so well. You don't assault your girlfriend's old man with a cake and get away with it. When she'd returned his shoelaces, he hadn't been decent. At this rate, she could end up dropping
him
.

He'd have to ask Joshua Yeatman for help. Josh was the only bloke Angelo could talk to about his love-life – he was a kind of expert on the way girls thought, and he understood Zeynep because he used to go out with her. If Angelo decided to cave in to the Cockatoos and dump Zeynep, he could even ask Josh to dump her for him – Josh was in the Supportive Friends Program at school, so it was his job to sort out other people's hassles.

Melanie piped up suddenly. ‘The style has to emphasise those eyes. He should flaunt them.'

Angelo felt his grandfather crackle with indignation. ‘We not make him girly,' he replied gruffly.

Melanie looked at Angelo and laughed. ‘Nonno, that wouldn't be possible.' She smiled. He wished she wouldn't call his grandfather
Nonno
.

‘Angelo, sweetie,' she said, ‘we want you tanned all over for the photos. I'm taking you down to South Yarra after this,
AKA
solarium central.'

His stomach tightened. All he wanted to do was play footy!

‘But what about today's game?'

‘There'll be time. Your seat's reserved.'

‘Tanned?' his grandfather asked. He put down his scissors and turned to Melanie. ‘He no need to be tanned. He is the right colour.'

‘We're going to take a few photos of your grandson for the
Afl
's New Drafts calendar. He has to look stunning. A lot of girls will have him on the wall.'

That sounded okay.

His nonno was frowning. ‘Ridiculous.'

‘For the ladies, Mr Tarano.'

His grandfather relented – smiled a little. ‘You don't fry the boy!' he said. ‘Skin cancer.'

‘Of course not!' Melanie laughed, and his grandfather resumed his snipping.

This was insane. What if the photo was a bad one? Angelo examined his face in the mirror. He had very good skin; in his whole life, he'd only ever had three pimples – he'd taken a week off school with them, though. He had great hair – straight and black and good for flopping about when you were taking a speckie.

‘What's the matter?' his grandfather asked.

He realised he'd just made two small explosive noises when he thought of the speckie. ‘Nothing, Nonno.'

His grandfather worked in silence, and he tried to relax. He had to get a grip on himself. Life should be fun. The club doctor had told him he had to learn to meditate, and the club psychologist had said he needed to burn lavender oil. No way!

Put it all out of your mind. Think of nothing.
He thought of his bum. Did his bum look okay in photos? Probably.

He supposed he'd always been a worrier. Someone had once told him to imagine he had a genie who would grant him anything he wanted. He'd imagined that genie – but his genie was from a bizarro universe and granted only negative wishes.

‘You must make your wish now,' his reverse genie had announced (folding his arms the way genies do). ‘You may wish for only one of these things: that you contract genital herpes; that you turn gay; or that you will have an unsuccessful knee reconstruction. Now choose!'

He'd chosen the genital herpes.

His grandfather was carefully removing the sheet. Angelo got out of the chair and people looked up from their newspapers. He was careful to try to think of other stuff and not consider who was looking at him. People knew about him. The draft had made sure of that – and the photo of him on the wall.

Tarano, the Colt That Got Away
. And the finger. His nonno began to brush him down. The grandson always got an extracareful brush.

Melanie got out her wallet.

‘No!' His nonno raised his palm. ‘He never pay!' He pushed her hand away.

She laughed and put her wallet back. ‘Okay, Angelo?' she said.

He had to kiss his grandfather.

‘Ciao, Nonno!' Quick kiss. He followed Melanie outside. Off to be tanned.

‘How come I need to be tanned all over?' he asked. He was afraid of the answer.

She looked at him and grinned as she got out her car keys.

‘Angelo, honey, it's a clothes-free shoot.'

‘Clothes-free?'

‘No clothes.' She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

‘What? At all?'

‘You'll get used to it, honey. You want to be an
Afl
star, you have to look like a star. Now tell me, do you know what a Brazilian is?'

WHAT'S
GOING ON
HERE?

‘N
EED F2F UR
place afta skool.'

Joshua Yeatman's stomach somersaulted. Angelo Tarano had texted him! Angelo was coming round!
O frabjous day,
callooh, callay
, as his father would say. Joshua had been wondering if Angelo would ever talk to him again after Mr Dunn had exposed him in front of the whole school the previous week.

After that humiliation he had avoided large groups of Vistaview students, particularly in the combat zones of the canteen queue and the end-of-day charge through the gates, but it wasn't as bad as he'd feared. Although he had been publicly outed, the Vistaview students didn't really give him a hard time. In fact, he'd noticed that whenever someone called a thing gay, like a salad sandwich, and then noticed him nearby, they apologised and sometimes gave him a peace sign.

Where should they talk? Last time Angelo needed advice, they'd gone up to Josh's room and his mother had appeared just when Angelo – in gratitude for the advice – had said, ‘I really love you, man.' She'd completely misinterpreted it.

In the bedroom again? Yes, it was the best place – informal and discreet. He dashed to the bathroom, grabbed the Glen 20 and bounded back to his room to spray extensively.

He heard the knocker as he finished. Angelo bashed way too hard. Joshua hid the Glen 20 and jumped down the stairs three at a time. Angelo was at the door wearing his Cockies T-shirt: it had a great squawking cockatoo head on it, and
Hobart Cockatoos
emblazoned across the stomach. He looked like a god.

Joshua heard himself breathing too heavily. He stood aside and Angelo entered.

‘It's funny how I always ask you for advice. Can't ask the old man, can't ask the guys at the club, can't ask my mates, definitely can't ask girls. So that leaves you.' He ran both his hands through his hair and stared at the blinking security sensor up in the corner. ‘Boy!' he said. ‘I've got real problems with Zey now.'

Joshua nodded. Obviously Angelo hadn't come to offer sympathy about the assembly. But it was great to have him, confused and needing help, standing right here in the hall, reflected in the hall mirror. ‘Her dad threw a cake at you and you threw it back.'

‘Right. But wait, there's more.'

‘We'll go upstairs,' Joshua said in a firm psychiatrist's voice.

As he led the way he reminded himself a few times:
Angelo
Tarano is not gay. He likes girls. He likes Zeynep. He is not gay.
HE IS NOT GAY!

‘Sometimes I wonder if I really like girls,' Angelo said as they reached the bedroom door.

Joshua felt his heart bang.

‘Then I say to myself – of course you bloody do! You worship them.'

‘Of course you do.'

Angelo strode into Joshua's bedroom. ‘Open the window, man! This place smells like a toilet! Trying to hide your farts?'

Josh grabbed the window and pushed it up as far as it would go. He laughed feebly. ‘My mum sprays this crap everywhere.'