Cool School (16 page)

o your relief the fire seems to have gone out at last. The lockers have been reduced to ashes and there's still some smoke hanging around, but the danger is over.

Well, one danger is over. There's another that simply won't go away.

Coming in the door at the end of the corridor is the caveman himself, looking as mean and ugly as ever. He looks at the remains of the lockers and gives a satisfied smile.

‘Lighting fires in your locker,' he grunts. ‘You're going to be in a lot of trouble.'

You almost have to agree with him. There seems to be no way out of this. You stand there looking at the smoking ruins. A moment later a teacher appears at the other end of the corridor. She's a tall woman with glasses and she gazes at the wreck of the lockers with no expression on her face. You try hard to think of something to say that'll get you out of trouble, without dobbing in the big thug standing next to you. You know if you dob him in he'll kill you. But the teacher speaks first.

‘Who has done this thing?' she asks.

You try to speak but the words stick in your throat. Then you realise that the walking gargoyle next to you has his finger firmly pointed at you. Seems like
he
doesn't mind dobbing people in.

Before you can get your finger pointing back at him the teacher has pounced on you.

‘Oh you poor poor thing,' she says. ‘How unhappy and disturbed you must be to commit such an act. You must have had a terrible childhood. Tell me, how often did your parents beat you?'

‘Every day,' you say, thinking fast. ‘And twice on Sundays.'

‘And there must be so many other unhappy experiences,' she says sympathetically.

‘Um,' you say, desperately scanning your mind. ‘My goldfish died when I was three.'

You don't mention the fact that it died because you cleaned it with Mr Sheen.

The lady gives a cry of triumph. ‘Come with me,' she says, ‘to my office. I'm the school psychologist. I'll give you some chocolate biscuits and you can tell me all about it.' She leads you away, muttering about a man called Fraud or Freud or something.

You smile sweetly back at your defeated enemy. Already you can taste those chocolate biscuits.

ou wrestle Alex off, shouting, ‘No, no, the team needs me!' Alex walks slowly away. But you don't care. Well you do a bit, but you're the complete football fan: nothing means more to you than Norths winning this match. There's a huge roar from the crowd and you leap back up onto the seat, stepping on your meat pie and knocking over your can of soft drink. For a moment you can't work out what happened. The players are shaking hands; half the crowd is cheering and the other half have their heads in their hands. And you realise the sad truth.

During your brief moment with Alex, the player had his kick and scored the goal. Norths have lost the premiership and it's all your fault.

Sadly you pick up your team scarf and walk away. It's terrible. You feel like a real loser.

You get outside the ground and to your amazement, there's Alex, leaning against a tree and watching you. You rush over there. ‘I'm sorry,' you say, ‘but they needed all the help I could give them.'

Alex shrugs. ‘I don't know about that. But I figure there's five months to go before the next football season, and that gives me five months to persuade you that there are some things in life more important than footie.'

‘You're welcome to try,' you reply, with a big smile, and the two of you walk away, hand in hand.

ook,' you say, ‘I would be a pretty happy Vegemite if you could tell me something about the Cosmic Criminal computer game.'

The kid looks kind of troubled.

‘I know everything about that game,' he says. ‘I can certainly teach you how to solve it. But are you sure you want to?'

‘What do you mean? Of course I do.'

‘It's just that sometimes . . . sometimes the solution to a mystery can be more dangerous than the mystery itself.'

The way he says it makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, but you push those feelings away.

‘Of course I want to solve it,' you say. ‘Every one wants to solve it. I don't believe you know the first thing about it. I think you're just bluffing.'

He shrugs. ‘Come to the computer room,' he says.

You follow him there, wondering what you're getting yourself into.

In the computer room it only takes you a few minutes to get the game loaded. You play it fast and furious with the kid watching over your shoulder, until you get to the point that you always stick at, the point at which everyone gets stuck. There's nothing in front of you but a blank wall and no matter what you try to get through it, you can't.

‘OK, what do I do?' you ask.

‘Are you still sure you want to solve it?'

‘Yes! Stop asking me that.'

‘All right,' he shrugs. ‘It's it on your own head. You have to fire bullets at the bricks in the following order: third from the top in the fourth row, fourth from the top in the third row, fifth from the bottom in the second row, second from the bottom in the fifth row.'

He sounds so confident that you no longer doubt him. You do as he says, and to your astonishment the wall suddenly collapses. You're looking at a wonderful new landscape. It takes you a while to realise what it is: it's the Science block of your own school, right there on the screen. You look up at the kid with your mouth open. It's amazing. You can hardly believe it. But suddenly you see mortar fire, coming straight at your character from a guerilla hiding in the window of one of the laboratories. You don't hesitate. You aim your rocket launcher at the Science block on the screen and fire. ‘No!' yells the kid, right in your ear.

The building on the screen disintegrates. From outside the window there's a rumbling noise. The computer room is rocked by a giant explosion.

Bits of rubble go flying past the window. You hear screams and sirens.

You look at the little kid again.

‘Well,' he says. ‘Don't say I didn't warn you.'

K,' you say. ‘Do it.' Almost at once a row of
A
s appears on the screen. Not only have you now got
A
s for subjects like English and Maths and Social Studies, you've also got them for Divinity and Attendance. You've even got an
A
for Violin, and you've never touched a violin in your life. You can't tell the difference between a violin and a guitar.

But there's no time for second thoughts. You can hear someone coming along the corridor, so you ask the kid how to save your new marks. ‘
F
for file,' he whispers. You hit the key, turn the computer off, and get out of the room fast.

A couple of months pass. You don't do any schoolwork, you muck around in classes, you get in trouble every day and twice on Tuesdays. ‘How come you never seem to have any homework?' your parents want to know.

‘It's cool,' you answer, as you flick another button on the remote control. The holidays roll around, and on the second day the reports arrive. You're totally confident. You take them in to your parents and throw them on the kitchen table.

‘Have a gander at these,' you say. ‘I think you'll be surprised.'

Your mother tears open the envelope and takes out the sheet of white paper. She slowly reads out the grades.

‘F, F, F, F, F, F, F.'

‘What?' you scream. ‘There must be some mistake!'

You rip the sheet out of her hands and read it. There's no mistake.

You even got an
F
for Violin. You still don't do Violin. Your parents are going sick at you. You're gated for the whole holidays. The TV is sold. You have to spend six hours a day doing schoolwork. You can't wait for term to start, so you can find out what went wrong. Also, so you can get away from the prison routine at home.

Sure enough, first day back you see the butter-menthol kid. You rush straight up to him, and pour the whole sad story out.

‘Don't blame me!' he says. ‘We did everything according to the book.'

Ten minutes later you still don't have any explanation, despite yelling at each other till you're both red in the face. Finally he says: ‘Look, let's go through this carefully and see where we went wrong.'

Carefully you discuss everything you did in the computer room, step by step. Nothing seems wrong, until:

‘And then you pressed Alt
F
to save it?' he asks.

‘Not Alt
F
,' you say. ‘Just
F
.'

‘
F
!' he screams. ‘
F
?! You pressed
F
? You stupid turkey! Don't you know anything? You gave yourself straight
F
s! And you know something else? You deserve them!'