Mucked Up (4 page)

‘… hhhHHH … you should’ve texted me, Zurb, or called me … hhHHHH … I thought we’re s’posed to look out for each other …’

‘Yeah sorry, Ravo, forgot you aren’t on Facebook, but you know, think about the positives – maybe we can get some spring rolls for lunch and dip them into you for flavour.’

At least that cheers him up a bit, calms him down: ‘Yeah … maybe I’ll get sprayed later with coconut milk and lemongrass, then I can finish the day as a deliciously fragrant Thai curry,’ which is a better joke than my joke by far. Even when he’s fish-sauced, he’s still da joke-master.

‘
STUDENTS!
’ Bursar is poking her turtle neck over the office counter, ‘
ANYONE REQUIRING A CHANGE OF CLOTHES, COME IN NOW AND WE’LL SEE WHAT WE CAN FIND IN LOST AND FOUND.
’

Bursar lifts the counter bit that goes up like a door. Ravo looks at his rank clothes, goes ‘Awww Gran’s gonna kill me, she’s probably going to have to make me a new uniform.’ (Yep, his gran made his school uniform, sewed it herself. She also cuts up his food at dinner. And he also told me he sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to take a pee, and when he comes back, his bed is made.)

Ravo walks away all wet and fishy, joining a line with the blue-waterbombed girl and the vommy baked-beaned Year 10s and the mad green-snotted girl and the eggy little flat-faced freckle-freak. They all go behind the counter where the Lost and Found Box is, then Bursar closes the counter bit and they are inside the office.

Loud foot-stomps are coming down from the other end of Admin Block. Assistant Principal Bitchface Fruehling is coming down, looking savage, eyes popping out with anger. You can almost see the eyestrings holding them in.

Whooten the P.E. teacher is with her and also Mr Greg Moss my English teacher who is an ex-footy star. There are also a couple of other man teachers who are strong. At the back is King Bozz the Yard Guy carrying his bucket and rag. We call him King Bozz because he is from Bosnia and he is king of the schoolyard. No one is sure if he has an actual proper name.

Bitchface Fruehling and the teachers stop in front of her office and they’re all soft-whispering in a circle. Can’t really hear what they’re saying but bits of it are …

‘… can’t get in …’

‘… need to ring the bell …’

‘… all over the handle …’

‘… it’s 9:10, I need to get in …’

‘… Vaseline on it …’

Assistant Principal Bitchface Fruehling points at the handle of her office door and King Bozz the Yard Guy gets a rag out of his bucket, gets down on his knees, and rubs the handle to get off whatever’s there. Must be Vaseline. He mumbles swear words in Bosnia-language when he cleans. All Bosnia-words sound like swears but you can tell these are actual swears cos of the way he says them, like ‘jebe GA … POS … kur-AC.’

Bitchface Fruehling and the teachers whisper more stuff as they wait for King Bozz to clean the handle, I
can hear bits.

‘… not acceptable …’

‘… have you seen the schoolyard? …’

‘… a disgrace …’

‘… very disappointing …’

‘… not funny or clever …’

‘… there will be consequences …’

‘… bins on top of the footy posts …’

‘… how did they do that?? …’

Fruehling’s eyes get bigger and poppy-outty-er every second.

‘… make them pay for damages …’

‘… need to keep a normal schedule …’

‘… what is that reek? …’

‘… smells like fish sauce …’

King Bozz has got the handle clean and he stands and opens the door. Bitchface Fruehling kind of pushes past him to get inside and then

BRNNNNNNNG

I put my bag on the ground and lean against the wall next to the bulletin board, which is where you’re supposed to wait if you are on Yard Duty. You wait for King Bozz the Yard Guy to give you your Yard Duty cleaning equipment and tell you what to do.

The PA makes that fizzy noise when it turns on and now you can hear Bitchface’s voice on the PA, going out of all the speakers around the school.

‘Students and staff, I think we’re all aware that there has been a disgraceful incident on our schoolgrounds.’

Her voice is trying to sound calm but you know she’s not.

‘The staff of this school certainly have a sense of humour and we understand Year 12s want to let off a bit of steam, but we expect it to be done in a responsible and appropriate manner …’

While she blah-blahs on with her big important announcement I wait here and think about what happened to Ravo. Because I should’ve texted or rung him; I knew he wasn’t on Facebook. Why didn’t I warn him about the Quad Raid? Poor form, Zurb, he’s s’posed to be your best mate.

‘… very disappointing how a small minority spoil the day for everyone and we would like to acknowledge the vast number of Year 12 students who were not involved. Please rest assured, students, that the school is in lock-down and we are confident that this will prevent any more appalling behaviour from certain individuals who are spoiling it for …’

That’s what SCUM has always been about. We are the Students Combined Underground Movement, we are losers and lamers who have nowhere to hang out at school and no one else to hang out with. Our job is to stick together and look out for each other, me and Ravo and Brisley and Jack S and Jarrell.

‘… it is unfortunate that first period has been cut short by twenty minutes because of the late bell, but I am confident we can carry on with our normal school timetable as scheduled …’

But now everything’s gone wrong, SCUM is all stuffed up. Maybe that’s another reason I snawked into school this morning. Because I don’t want to bump into Jarrell. I’d be happy if I never saw her sucky face again.

‘… thank you for your attention, students and staff.’

9:22 a.m.
First period: Yard Duty

We’re walking behind King Bozz, going down Admin corridor. There are three of us on Yard Duty: Lorraine Harun is in front of me and Boniqa Newitt is behind me and she is snapping at my arse with her garden-grabber.

Snap snap

‘Getorrffff, Boniqa.’

The garden-grabber is the best thing to get on Yard Duty. It’s a long stick with little grabbers at the end that open and close when you squeeze the handle so it’s easy to pick things up from the ground with them. Boniqa Newitt got it cos she’s got small-legs that never grew normal and King Bozz the Yard Guy felt sorry for her probs. But now she’s really crapping me, snapping my arse with them. They hurt too, there’re pointy bits on the end that grab your skin.

Snap snap

‘Aighhht enough, Boniqa.’

Lorraine Harun got the second best bit of Yard Duty equipment: the scooper-sweeper. It’s a broom that comes with a scooper on a long stick so you can sweep things up without having to bend down, you can sweep standing up; it is an amazing invention. I am trying hard not to perv at her arse because she is wearing cazh clothes: nice jeans with a shirt and a Muslim scarf on her head. I probably shouldn’t perv because she is Muslim and it could be disrespectful.

I got the bin-liner which is the worst thing to get on Yard Duty. It is just a black plastic bag and you have to follow the other Yard-Duty-ers around with it and when they have garbage that needs to be got rid of you hold it open with your hands and let them drop their garbage in and if you’re not careful, bits of sloppy rubbish can get on your hands. It’s a very stressful job, holding the bin-liner.

Snap snap

Sometimes when people bug me too much, I lose it with them and Boniqa’s pushing me as far as my brain can go. I turn round: ‘Seriously, ENUFF, BONIQA!’ and I flick my bin-liner at her legs to make her go away and she gets all upset and yells ‘Idiot! I could’ve tripped and fallen over!!’

King Bozz stops, turns, points his big Yard Guy finger at me: ‘
THIS IS NOT APPROP-RIATE TIME FOR BLUDDY GAMES! YOU OFFER AP-OLOGY TO GIRL!!!
’

‘Sorry, Boniqa.’

King Bozz is scary so you do what he says: he was in some war in his old country and he saw people get killed in front of him so you don’t want to piss him off because he’s mental. After I say sorry to Boniqa we all start walking again: she probably hates me now but at least she’s stopped snapping at my arse. We go out the doors at the end of the corridor, down the steps into the quad.

Awwwwwwwwwcrap.

If God had eaten a bad pizza or something dodgy and did a massive vom all over earth, this is what the world would look like. Totally sick. Shaving-cream-crap is smooshed along all the asphalt and the basketball courts. Flour bombs have exploded all over the benches. Glass bottles are smashed into bits on the sides near Assembly Hall. Trees have all got wet toilet paper and silly string hanging from the branches. There couldn’t be a worse day for Yard Duty ever in history, like EVERRRRR. Not even in Pompeii High School when the volcano exploded on everyone and covered the whole town in burning hot lava. Yard Duty that day would be pretty bad I reckon, but still not as bad as this.

King Bozz the Yard Guy looks a bit sad because this is his schoolyard and he is in charge of it and it’s pretty much wasted.

He says ‘We have a big job of unpleasantness to do at present. Small girl is in charge and I want big effort around can-teen and benches, no? I will keep eye on schoolgrounds to discourage bluddy Year 12 riff-raff!’

King Bozz goes off toward the portables, probs so he can hide behind them and drink alchie (that’s what Ravo reckons he does all day).

Boniqa looks all proud because she’s been put in charge, it makes her even more arsey than usual.

‘Okay gang, let’s split into two groups. I’ll take care of Station One which is from here to the assembly hall, and you two can do Station Two which is all around the canteen. Good with that?’

Lorraine goes yep and I go yep but we say it in a way like we’re not interested.

‘Also be aware of the school’s green initiative. We should use recycling bins wherever possible: general garbage in the garbage bin, and glass goes in the …?’

She’s actually expecting an answer. ‘Glass bin?’ says Lorraine, all sarcastic.

‘That’s right!’

I say ‘Boniqa, what if it’s a glass bottle with a paper label? Do I peel off the label and put the label in the paper bin and the bottle in the bottle bin?’

Boniqa goes ‘Not the slightest bit funny, Tom. Come on, let’s get to work, Team Unity’ (flarp, she’s given us a name). Then she walks off to the assembly hall – she’s wearing a yellow dress for her cazh clothes and it’s too long and tight on her, she has to do quick little footsteps because she’s got no leg-room to move.

Me and Lorraine stand round a bit then Lorraine says ‘S’pose we should get started’ and I go ‘Right.’

Don’t know much about Lorraine Harun: she is really nice and I have always liked her even though she is Muslim and I am half-Jewish and we are not supposed to get along. But I think Muslims and Jews should stop hating on each other: we’re both just human beings, we both come from the Middle East, we both like falafels.

Lorraine doesn’t seem to mind being with me though. She’s sweeping up a flour bomb off a bench and I stand behind her holding my bin-liner (don’t perv at her arse, respect, respect), then she turns and goes ‘Ready?’ So I open my bin-liner and she pours in the flour and none of it goes on my hands. We’re a good team, Muslim and half-Jew working together.