They Told Me I Had to Write This (4 page)

I was yelling and the Rev waited for me to get normal like he does whenever I chuck a hissy fit in the session. But this was the worst one ever. This was red-mist murderous.

Gram, it was horrible but that’s how Dad is and how he’s never had room. And I stalked around in the Rev’s office and was going on about how I used to think up ways to hurt Dad even when I was little and I still do sometimes and I hate it when I get like that.

How did the Rev know all that? How did he know about that bike seat? Coz he was right, Gram. That’s the worst part. I wasn’t really talking about the motorbike at all. But when I saw the Rev on his bike with his little boy on the back I wasn’t thinking all that toxic stuff, really I wasn’t.

Gram, do you think there’s a cover on me like there is on Dad? If there is the Rev sure got it off in that session. And I sat down again and cooled off and got back to normal, whatever that is. The Rev asked me what I wanted to do with the rest of the session and I didn’t know. I was pretty washed up by all the toxic waste, and you know what we did? We went mountain biking.

‘Let’s get a couple of bikes from the shed and take one of the flat trails for a while.’ That’s what the Rev said. And so we got a couple of the school bikes and went for a ride in the bush. And when we got back I asked him if that was his son on the motorbike with him and he said next time he sees me in the street and he’s on the motorbike like that he will stop and introduce me.

It’s funny, Gram. He still didn’t say who that boy was or anything. It’s as if the Rev’s always got this family kind of stuff covered up and I can’t really see inside.

And that’s where we left it. I think I need some time out from this stuff.

Clem.

FRIDAY, MAY 29
LITTLE PEOPLE

Dear Gram

Some things you have to hear straight off. A three day walk through the mountains. Mr Sykes proves, once again, that he is not the come-back king.

Walking this trail to the top of a cliff and there was a lookout up there with a fence and a long drop. Way across this valley was another lookout with a bunch of people, probably five or six people, a kilometre or more across the valley. Mr Sykes pointed to them and said, ‘Wow, look at the size of those people over there.’

Jacko said nice and quiet, ‘Probably the same size as us, I reckon.’ Mr Sykes looked up and was about to say something but he couldn’t think fast enough and stood there with his mouth a little bit open but his brain wouldn’t take up the slack. And we stood around laughing like crazy.

And that’s Jacko. He can be fully out there like when he does something that sends the teachers right off, or he can be almost silent and he just gets funnier. Still, I feel sorry for Mr Sykes on that one, he was goosed up proper.

That’s it for me. Just another week of laughing and crying. Does this stuff ever end, Gram?

Clem.

MONDAY, JUNE 1
ONE HOT METAPHOR

Dear Gram

You know what I’ve been thinking? I’ve been thinking about what it might be like if I was writing to Dad instead of to you.

Trouble is, after that session with the Rev I kind of understand what he does to me when that cover goes onto his passenger seat. And if I was to be writing to him I think I would just try to yell my way through that cover and every letter would be the same. So I started to think what I can use to explain what he is like. And this is what they’ve been teaching us in school.

In English we learned that when something is like something else it can be a simile or a metaphor or an allegory or a symbol. A simile is when we say something is something else, and a metaphor is when we say something is like something else, and an allegory is when one thing is kind of hidden inside another thing.

So a simile is saying, ‘The moon was a soft brush painting light across the bay.’ How’s that for romance? That’s what happens when you have English after talking about girls all lunchtime. Ha ha.

And a metaphor is saying, ‘The moon was like a beacon, drawing our love into its own embrace.’ I got these lines from Hamish. Hamish thinks up romantic stuff easy, which means he’s always talking about girls, which means I like to hang with him at lunch.

‘As the moon rose across the bay my lady’s love rose to illuminate the darkest places of my heart.’ I’m on a Hamish roll here, Gram. Guess what I’m going to be like when I’ve got a girlfriend. Who cares about similes or metaphors anyway?

But that’s not really what I was thinking about. Girls, I mean. Well I probably was a bit. OK more than a bit.

Though I was really thinking about writing letters to Dad. I want him to know what’s happening in me. But my stuff is not love and moonlight, it’s pain and darkness, and it keeps coming up from inside like lava. No way can I tell him this stuff. We’d be burned alive before I got it right.

Trouble is, I don’t know if this is a simile or a metaphor.

Anyway, I wanted you to know that they are teaching us stuff in English, even though this school doesn’t put too much energy into it like in a normal school.

Clem the Super-Heated.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3
JACKO DOES GERMAN

Dear Gram

I’m on a roll here. Must be starting to like English coz here’s another story of what happened in English this week. Jacko’s our class clown and a great bloke and I like him, even if he gets a bit high sometimes coz he’s fully ADHD and on Rit and everything. At first meeting with Jacko you can tell there’s a pretty wild party going on upstairs.

Well, we’ve been learning fancy words and stuff. How’s this for a fancy word? Onomatopoeia. You ever heard of that? When Mr German started out on this Jacko said, ‘Why use a big word when a diminutive one will do?’

Mr German’s eyes give him away and we can tell when there’s serious work happening inside. So, he looked at Jacko like something in there was saying, ‘Is this going to be another one of Jacko’s days?’

Now, the ‘Onomato’ thing means a word that sounds like its meaning. Tricky, that is, really tricky. So Mr German was trying to get us to think of words that sound like their meaning. He suggested some to start us off, like click and knock and smoooooth. So we started off to think of some, trouble was Jacko thinks faster than any of us and he stood up and said, ‘I’ve got one.’ And Mr German asked him what it was and he said, ‘Faaarrt,’ and at the same time he said the word niiice and slooow he let loose a beauty. We all laughed except Mr German coz that’s how the world runs. And then the smell hit. He was radioactive. I reckon he must have specially prepared that one.

Mr German said, ‘OK everyone outside while the air clears,’ and he took us for a run around the sheep paddock and by the time we got back English was back to normal.

That was stand-up funny and that’s how Jacko is and the teachers are mosdy pretty patient about that sort of thing, but I guess it’s not the worst thing that’s happened in this school. We sure do a lot of laps around the paddock in this place.

One time Mr German asked Jacko to give him two personal pronouns and Jacko just said, ‘Who, me?’ Mr German thought for two seconds and said ‘That’ll do’ and he went on to the next question for the next kid. Everybody looked at Jacko and said, ‘What?’ I think Mr German let him off the hook with that one. Probably just wanted to have an easy day.

Somebody should make a movie! He is the most fully serious mate I’ve got.

Clem.

THURSDAY, JUNE 4
MORE JACKO & OTHER STUFF

Dear Gram

Before you start thinking about Jacko like he’s a hooligan or something, I should tell you that in this school kids like him are pretty normal. We’ve all had a tough time in normal school and some kids can’t ever go back. I don’t think Jacko is one of those kids, but some of the kids here are really off the planet.

There’s kids with ADHD and on Rit or Dexies like Jacko and Pete. I don’t have medication but Dad reckons I should be tested for ADHD, but I don’t think I’m really doing it like those kids who seem to run full-boost turbo most of the day.

It’s a bit like when I was in year six with this group of boys and we’d eat a stack of Redskins at recess and then be really off for the next hour or two. We’d be doing all this crazy stuff and saying crazy things. It was pretty nangtastic at the time and we had this competition to see who could be the first to make the teacher yell at him between recess and lunchtime.

Well ADHD kids are like that all the time, except they get it for free and we had to buy the Redskins.

Sometimes in group we talk about this stuff and we learned about this super-heated ADHD thing called Conduct Disorder which is CD and those kids mess up their lives coz they can’t help it and sooner or later the coppers get them for something illegal. And if those kids can be kept safe from themselves then they can level out a bit and stay out of jail after all.

One time somebody’s group camp finished up early because some kids set fire to Mr Sykes’ tent. Seems Bundy & Co. wanted to get Mr Sykes back for confiscating a placcy bag of dope so they saved up the fuel for the Trangia burner. That night they poured it over his tent and lit it up. Mr Sykes must have come fizzing out of there fit to burn them in hell.

We were fired up in group about what to do to those guys, and Mr O’Neill asked us a question. ‘What does real justice look like? Do we chuck a teenager in jail for something like this, or can we do something different?’ It took us a bit of time but we mostly agreed that it’s better for somebody not to have been in jail coz that can really count against you.

Drug stuff gets talked about around here, and the last time somebody got busted for dope he had to give a ‘Don’t Do Drugs’ talk at lunchtime one race day when we had a visiting team. But that’s another story and I’ve said enough.

These guys could have burnt Mr Sykes up bad and they still did it. I was so mad. Some of the boys here can be dangerous, but most are just kids trying to keep the lid on a volcano. Emotional problems are easy to find around here and I think that is where I am.

Another thing I have learned about is ODB which is Oppositional Defiant Behaviour which is when a boy just fights against everything. It doesn’t matter if it’s his dad or teacher or anybody, as soon as somebody asks him to do something he tells them to stick it. And ODB is what I feel like lots of the time and it is something that causes me grief.

But emotional problems come in all shapes and sizes and most kids are running on things that have happened to them when they were little. And ADHD and CD and ODB and EP are piled up pretty high at RV.

There’s a couple of kids whose mum or dad or both have died or they’ve been adopted or something and they don’t fit in anywhere. We’ve got one Koori kid who was adopted by a white family and they didn’t know how to look after him properly and he kept running away. There’s a Koori family who pick him up sometimes and I hope they are his relatives.

I think I’m a bit like him and I can see how not having a mum comes up in the way I think. And sometimes I almost say stuff about that teacher in primary school but that stuff is private and I just can’t do it.

That thing with the teacher in year five is another thing that kids here have got, like I told you about Jacko and the Little Nipper coach.

That stuff really hurts and I don’t tell anyone coz not even Dad believed me back then. Talking about that would be too much corrosion on me. I don’t even talk about it around the campfire, but that’s when I say a lot of other stuff.

Last time we were on camp I could even talk about Dad not having a passenger seat like I told the Rev. You know what, Gram? The other boys knew what I meant and everything. They can be really different around the campfire. It’s like this place where people understand each other.

Mrs H says we choose between bridges or barricades. The campfire is where we build bridges.

Your hopeful grandson,

Clem.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6
ANOTHER METAPHOR BITES THE DUST

Dear Gram

It’s race weekend. This time with visitors.

Sometimes we get to race a team from somewhere else, but it’s hardly ever a team from another school. I don’t know why they do it like that. Anyway, today we raced a team from the PCYC. Anything with the word police in it used to get me started, but the coppers have improved a lot since my time of trouble with them.

We’ve raced these PCYC kids before and I was bit nervous the first time, but the coppers don’t come in uniform or anything. Some of their kids bring BMX bikes and even take them down the gully. That’s pretty crazy I reckon but those kids can be deadly reckless I tell you. But I don’t care how reckless they do it. I am going to wham into first place every time. Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser, that’s what I reckon.

Anyway, I’m always training for the team and I mostly get picked but not always coz they’ve got to get everybody in the mix if you know what I mean. I don’t like it when I’m not in the team when I’ve done the work. And this week I got dropped, just like that. I was fully steamed when I found out, but they did this really weird thing.

Mr O’Neill got the guys who missed the team and took them for a special group session on another part of the track. We did some follow-the-leader where we had to stay in formation and as close to the bike in front as possible and things can get pretty hairy when you do it like that for too long. And after some follow-the-leader, Mr O’Neill ran a group.