Spud - Learning to Fly (35 page)

‘Oh, an actor!’ replied Wombat in her shrill voice. ‘You see, I thought he said tractor. He needs to improve his diction, doesn’t he?’ There were some hushed whispers and then I heard Wombat saying, ‘But there’s no money in it.’ Mom shrugged her shoulders and whispered to Wombat that it was just a phase that I was going through and that I’d eventually grow out of it.

Dad brought up my ‘relationships’ over breakfast again. He said if I needed any advice on anything pertaining to girls or sex, he was the right man to talk to. Then he said that he wanted to have a good, man-to-man chat where we could both put all our cards on the table and be open and honest. I nearly swallowed my tongue and thereafter resolved to avoid my father at all costs for the rest of the holiday.

Spent the evening at Franky’s with Mom. Dad was busy serving drinks behind the bar and making small talk with the men seated on barstools. It wasn’t anywhere near as packed as the opening night, but there were enough drinkers and pool players to make the place feel like it was still buzzing. After Frank had come across to say hello, Mom told me in a confidential whisper that Shannon is seeing somebody else and that there was great tension in the air between her and Frank. Shannon didn’t greet us and looked to be extremely busy in the kitchen.

‘That girl made a cuckold out of poor Franky,’ said Mom. ‘Just like that snooty redhead did to you.’

I ended up nodding because I didn’t know what to say or how to explain that things are a little more complicated than she always makes them sound.

‘You’re not still seeing her, are you?’ asked Mom in an accusing tone of voice.

‘No,’ I replied and then wondered if I was lying or not.

‘Because she’ll drive you over the edge that one,’ said Mom. ‘A real little madam she was.’ With a look of distaste, she added, ‘Wrap you around her little finger.’

Mom held out her empty wine glass and Dad charged around from behind the bar to refill it. He then gave her a huge smile and darted back.

‘Debbie’s doing well,’ said Mom suddenly.

‘Oh good,’ I replied.

‘Saw her last Thursday at the Hypermarket,’ she continued, as if she was imparting some vitally important information. ‘She looked radiant.’ She watched me for a reaction. I didn’t reply and gave nothing away, and after a pause Mom took a swig of wine and said, ‘Lovely girl that. You should have done better by her, Johnny.’

As always, I kept silent. Inside I was screaming with indignation, but what was the point, and where would I begin.

I pretended to fall asleep in the car on the way back from the pub. I couldn’t bear any more talk about how I supposedly blew it with the Mermaid.

Here I am, my first holiday at home in months and already I’m avoiding both my parents and counting down the days to get back to school. Now that’s saying something, considering what awaits me is a vile psychopath hell-bent on savage revenge for a crime I didn’t commit.

15:00 Decided to pack my Swiss army knife in case Pike attempts to slaughter me in the night. Unfortunately, it usually takes me about ten minutes to pull the blade out of the knife itself, which isn’t exactly ideal when confronted with pure evil in the darkness. I suppose at the very least I could poke him in the eye with the corkscrew.

6:30 Woke up sweating and terrified. I staggered out of bed and fumbled around in my cricket bag until I found my Swiss army knife. I then hurled it back into my drawer and slammed it shut before collapsing onto my bed, panting with exertion.

I dreamed in the night that Pike slit my throat with my own Swiss army knife, and then ruthlessly sucked all the blood out of my neck, until I lay utterly deflated on the dormitory floor.

‘The Final Act’

19:30 ‘It’s Spud!’ shouted the mad Malawian from his perch on the windowsill of our dormitory. I had cautiously entered the quad after carefully scoping out the scene for Pike. Garlic’s shouting wasn’t the sort of under-the-radar arrival I was shooting for.

‘It’s Spud!’ shouted Garlic again in absolute delight. He then turned to whoever was in the dormitory with him and shouted, ‘It’s Spud!’

There was a traffic jam at the house door because Plump Graham and Rowdy had succeeded in wedging Meany Dlamini’s trunk between the two doorframes, and Norman Whiteside was in the middle of a long lecture about common sense around the house. Spike and JR Ewing had also gathered but only because they were sensing trouble. Standing in front of me was Meg Ryan’s Son, who stood patiently listening to Whiteside’s sermon in a blazer that almost reached down to his knees.

‘Coming through!’ I raised my voice, and stepped forward with great intent. The group of bodies parted for me like the Red Sea and I strode, bags in hand, straight over the top of Meany Dlamini’s trunk, into the house and up the stairs.

Everyone watched me go in shocked silence, and I marched up the stairs feeling like something monumental had just changed inside me.

I threw open the dormitory door and was met by the grinning pink face of Garlic.

‘Spud!’ He shot out his right hand to be shaken. ‘Boggo said you’d died!’ he said with huge relief after making sure it was really me.

‘I was talking about his acting career, you toss,’ came the irritated voice of Boggo.

‘Hey, Spud, look who’s back!’ said Garlic, and stepped aside while pointing at a tanned figure with blonde hair sitting confidently on his locker oiling his cricket bat.

‘Simon!’ I shouted, sounding disturbingly like Garlic.

‘Hey, Spud man,’ said Simon grinning like he was genuinely happy to see me.

Simon seems different to how I remember him. I’m not sure if it’s an act, but he seems more relaxed and laid back now. In fact it looks like he’s spent the last six months suntanning on Clifton beach. I didn’t know what to say to him. What do you say to somebody who’s just recovered from a nervous breakdown?

‘Wow!’ was all I could come up with in the end.

‘I’ll show you wow,’ said Boggo in a loud voice as he flashed us a poster of a lady whose boobs were twice the size of her head.

Thankfully that was when Fatty bustled through the dormitory door.

‘Simon!’ Fatty’s face lit up.

‘Fatty!’ exclaimed Garlic. The Malawian was delirious with excitement.

‘Bullshit!’ said Rambo in disbelief as he entered the dorm after Fatty.

‘Rambo!’ screamed Garlic.

‘How you, buddy?’ grinned Simon and jumped off his locker and ran up to Rambo. Rambo dropped his bags and started laughing. The two of them hugged while the rest of us stared.

‘Oh, get a room, you two,’ came a grumpy voice from Boggo’s cubicle.

‘Get a life, Boggo,’ said Rambo and sauntered off to his own.

Then there was an almighty crash from the general direction of the staircase. We all charged out to find Vern sprawled on his back at the bottom of the stairs, covered in a great number of bags and suitcases. Obviously the weight of his bags had sent Rain Man crashing backwards all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. Garlic rushed down to help the stricken Vern, and nearly wiped himself out in the process. Eventually the cretin staggered to his feet and Garlic helped him slowly ascend the stairs.

Not sure if it was the fall or perhaps the brightness of his tan, but Vern seemed extremely disturbed by Simon’s return and refused either to speak or look at him directly. He slunk low on his bed and spied around the side of his locker in a mysterious fashion.

06:00 I awoke half expecting Penny and Brenda to charge in with tea and loud announcements. Only Vern was awake, and he lay in bed with Roger thumping away at one of his new calculators like he was on the verge of a major mathematical breakthrough.

06:14 I heard the footsteps of a boy running across the quad.

FIVE … FOUR … THREE … TWO …

And then the rising siren. Like a programmed machine, I stepped out of bed, grabbed my soapbox and towel and joined the migration of sleepy boys stumbling down the stairs to the showers.

9:00 Mr Bosch was delighted to see Fatty, Boggo and me and gave us a friendly welcome back to the land of the living, before beginning his class on population density. The other boys stared at us like we were crusading womanisers, who had just returned from a highly successful rape and pillage mission. (Obviously Garlic has been spreading wild stories about our supposed orgies.)

After History, Lennox called Rambo and me over and informed us that he had dissolved the African Affairs Society while we were away.

‘I’m sorry, boys,’ he said with a mournful expression, ‘but there didn’t seem much point in keeping it alive.’ The good news is that Lennox will begin a new society next year and asked us both to sign up for it. Unfortunately, this means that we have to join another society for the rest of this year, which Rambo quite rightly termed ‘a ball ache’.

Eve was wearing a see-through blouse during our Drama practical. Underneath it her sexy black bra seemed to be struggling to keep her assets in check, especially when she bent over to demonstrate the perfect spinal stretching technique. Boggo was beside himself with horniness and passed me a note that read:

Imagine 3some Eve + VPH!

Eve’s sexy attire also seemed to have Rambo acting in an erratic manner and he wasn’t his usual cocky self.

Overheard Spike telling other boys in the common room that he had kissed VPH and felt her up. In his dreams perhaps?

Reverend Bishop was deeply alarmed that aside from Garlic, we had all missed an entire term of his confirmation guidance. ‘We’re terribly behind, boys,’ he said shaking his head sadly.

He became even more concerned when we informed him that we had been worshipping in a Methodist school chapel for the last eight weeks. Obviously the chaplain has very little respect for Methodists and only stopped just short of calling them outright heathens. We then spent the rest of the class discussing different denominations of Christianity and other religions.