Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain (14 page)

RACHEL

My town

is exactly

four hundred and twenty-two kilometres

from the ocean.

I check the distance

driving home from holidays

with Mum and Dad

the day before school begins

and while Bondi Beach

gets frothy waves

of cool, salty water on white sand

my town suffers

waves of dust storms

and locust plagues

and heat that melts the bitumen

and the first thing I do

when we get home

after driving all day

is run down to the dam

in the near paddock

and dive in.

The water is warm and brown.

My toes squelch in the mud

while the windmill clanks.

A pond-skater buzzes the surface

and starlings fantail

across the sky

the day before school begins.

Laura

My new teacher

wears a flowing summer dress

with red pianos printed

on white linen.

Her hair is crow-black and messy

and she pulls it back

from her face

and ties it with a red ribbon.

She wears black ballet shoes

and casually sits on her desk

before asking us

to tell her something, one thing,

that we like about ourselves.

Selina, Mick, Cameron, Pete and Rachel

immediately

raise their hands

while I slink as low as possible

behind my desk.

SELINA

Ms Arthur said we should

bring in a photo of ourselves,

our favourite,

to paste on the Class 6A wall

and we could draw a design

around the photo

with our name, in bright colours.

And underneath our photo

we could write,

once a week,

what we've done lately

or what made us happy, or sad.

‘Just like Facebook,' I said.

On Tuesday we spent all morning

drawing our names in big letters

with swirling colours

of red, yellow, green and blue.

Except Cameron

who wrote his name in
tiny
letters
.

His writing was so small

you had to go really close

just to see if it was there at all.

And he'd chosen a thumbnail photo

of when he was a baby

lying in a cot asleep.

Cameron spent the whole morning

admiring his
little
photo and his
teeny
name

surrounded by glaring white cardboard.

Sometimes he stepped back

and looked at the photo from different angles,

like an artist.

Then he'd move close and adjust it,

just slightly.

Finally Ms Arthur couldn't stand it any longer.

She asked Cameron

if he planned to add anything

to his cardboard.

Cameron looked shocked

and said, in his usual loud voice,

‘No way, Ms.

I want to have lots of space

to write about everything I think!'

Mick

I'm staring out the window

minding no one's business but my own

because Ms Arthur is teaching maths

and that's not really my go.

What do we have calculators for?

Charlie Deakin from 5C comes in with a note

and Ms Arthur tells me the Principal

‘requires my presence in his office'.

So I follow Charlie along the verandah

and he's smirking the whole time

because no one gets called out of class

for good news,

it's always trouble,

but I don't say anything

and I don't act nervous

because I haven't done anything wrong,

not lately anyway.

Well, not that Mr Hume knows

and I trust my classmates not to tell anyway.

Charlie Deakin is still grinning

like he's won a prize,

yeah, first-prize boofhead.

He knocks on the Principal's door

and says to me,

‘Hume's madder than a nest of bull ants.'

Charlie Deakin opens the door

and walks away down the hallway

leaving me standing there

with Mr Hume looking at me

and he's not smiling.

First published 2014 by University of Queensland Press

PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

www.uqp.com.au

[email protected]

©
Steven Herrick 2014

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research,

criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act,

no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior

written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Cover design and illustration by Jo Hunt

Typeset in 12/16.5 pt Stempel Garamond by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

National Library of Australia

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au

Herrick, Steven, 1958- author.

Bleakboy and Hunter stand out in the rain / Steven Herrick.

ISBN 978 0 7022 5016 3 (pbk)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5266 2 (pdf)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5267 9 (epub)

ISBN 978 0 7022 5268 6 (kindle)

For primary school age.

Bullies–Fiction.

Schools–Fiction.

A823.3

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