Don't Call Me Ishmael (15 page)

Inside the envelope I found a typed note.

After I read his letter I remembered what Scobie had said about the last operation using up all his fear. I wondered if that was true. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like being in his position and having to face it all again.

I guess it made Barry Bagsley seem like a minor skin irritation.

… what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms.

Herman Melville,
Moby Dick

A few days after I received his letter, Miss Tarango announced to our Homeroom that James Scobie wouldn't be returning to Year Nine. She didn't go into any details. She just said it was for ‘personal' and ‘family' reasons.

Suddenly Barry Bagsley lurched back to life, as if he'd just had a million volts of electricity channelled through the bolts in his neck. ‘What are ya gonna do now, Le Turd, without that little freak to hide behind, hey? You got the guts to take me on all by yourself? Or are ya gonna go running to Barker and Jerome? Hey? Are ya? Or I know, maybe you and the other girls in your little debating club are planning on giving me a good talking to? Is that it? Hey? Hey?'

Barry Bagsley was certainly full of questions. Naturally, I countered his taunts with some pretty impressive eye avoidance and some stinging silence.

‘Just as I thought. You're a gutless wonder without that little dork around, aren't you?'

Of course I could have pointed out that the ‘little dork' he was referring to had kept him locked in his cage for half the year, but I decided this might be unwise. After a final parting shove, Barry Bagsley sauntered off as happy as a psychopath with a brand new chainsaw. The opportunities for mayhem must have seemed endless.

He took one of those opportunities the following week.

It was a Thursday, and it seemed to get off to a good start. At the assembly, all the members of the debating teams were presented with certificates of participation, and our team received a special one for making the finals. Brother Jerome gave a speech and said how impressed he was by our performance. We all left the hall feeling pretty good about ourselves. Bill Kingsley said it was the first certificate he had ever received. Prindabel said it was his forty-seventh. Razza told him that medical certificates didn't count.

Barry Bagsley struck that afternoon. Looking back, I guess all the warning signs were there during the lunch break. Danny Wallace and Doug Savage had been hanging around the lockers, and later both of them were huddled around Barry Bagsley at a computer in the library. That by itself should have been enough to set the alarm bells clanging. Barry Bagsley at a
computer …
in the
library
! My only excuse was that my radar had been dulled by my recent Barry Bagsley-free months.

It was after school that I came across Bill Kingsley at the lockers with his bag lying open at his feet and all his books and folders on the ground.

‘What's up, Bill? Lost something?'

‘Yeah, that debating certificate thing.'

I must admit, this didn't particularly surprise me. Bill Kingsley was always losing stuff. Last year he spent an entire day looking for his ‘good' pen until someone took pity on him and pointed out that it was behind his ear.

‘Where'd you put it?'

‘I'm sure I put it straight in my locker. I'm positive I did.'

‘Did you lock it?'

‘I can't–lost my key last term.'

‘You can get a replacement, you know. Five bucks from Mr Grayson.'

‘I did. That's the one I lost.'

‘Oh … do you think someone might have nicked it?' I said, as the memory of Danny Wallace and Doug Savage skulking around this very spot flashed into my mind.

‘Who'd want to steal a debating certificate-with my name on it?'

I had to admit he had a point there. ‘Have you checked your bag?'

‘Yeah, it's not there.'

‘You sure you didn't take it to class?'

‘I'm sure. I put it straight in my locker so I wouldn't lose it,' he said dejectedly. ‘I wanted to show Mum and Dad.'

‘Maybe it got caught up in one of your books or one of your folders. We should check your Homeroom desk just in case.'

‘All right,' he agreed reluctantly, ‘but I bet it's not there.'

He was wrong. That's exactly where it was. When Bill opened up his desk, the certificate leapt out at him. It had been pinned to the inside of the lid by two tacks. But its discovery didn't make Bill Kingsley happy. I watched as his face fell and his eyes clouded like molten glass. Someone had glued a picture of Jabba the Hutt right in the middle of his certificate and at the bottom some of the words had been crossed out and crudely written over. Now, instead of saying:

Awarded to:
William Kingsley

For:
Reaching the Year Nine Debating Finals

scrawls from a thick black pen had changed it to:

Awarded to:
William King-SIZE

For:
BEING A FAT TURD!

I looked at Bill. I remembered his face after that last debate. Now he looked numb and broken.

I ripped the certificate from the desk. ‘That's it. I'm taking this to Barker.'

‘No, Ishmael, don't!'

‘Look, Bagsley and his lot did this. I know. I saw them hanging around the lockers today, then I saw them in the computer room–that's where they downloaded that picture. I'm not going to let them get away with it.'

‘Wait. Just forget about it, all right? It's only a bit of paper. It's not that important. It doesn't matter-just leave it.'

‘It
is
important. It
does
matter. Those bastards have got no right …'

‘Look, Ishmael, it's
my
certificate, all right? It's not your problem. Just give it here … please.'

I couldn't ignore the pain in Bill Kingsley's voice. I handed him the certificate. Without looking at it he screwed it up and stuffed it into his bag.

‘They shouldn't get away with it, Bill.'

‘I don't care. No one else has to see it.'

That afternoon we walked together in silence till we got to the bus stop.

‘See ya tomorrow.'

“Yeah, OK … and thanks for helping … you know, with the certificate and everything.'

‘Yeah … well …' There wasn't much else I could say. Some help I'd been. It seemed to me that every time I tried to help someone it ended badly. First I helped that primary school kid get his hat thrown in the creek, then I helped the debating team get beaten,
twice
, and now I'd helped Bill Kingsley to feel lousy about himself. Something wrong in the neighbourhood? Who ya gonna call? Not me!

When I left Bill at the bus stop that day I vowed I would do two things. The first one was to ask Miss Tarango if she could make a replacement certificate. And the second thing? Well, my dad reckons that whatever you give out, you get back. ‘The bill always comes,' he says. If you do good things, then good things come back. If you do lousy things, then they come back too. I don't know if that's true or not, but he believes it. He's told me plenty of times, ‘Don't ever think you've got away with anything or got something for nothing, because the bill always comes.'

So that was the other thing I vowed I would do that day–make
sure that Barry Bagsley paid for every lousy thing he'd done. It was just a matter of figuring out how I was going to deliver the bill.

When I spoke to Miss Tarango about the new certificate she asked why Bill Kingsley hadn't seen her about it himself. I told her that he was too embarrassed because he was always losing stuff. That seemed to do the trick. She promised to have the replacement ready for me in a few days. As I was heading out to lunch I had another delightful encounter with Barry Bagsley.

‘Hey, Le Turd, what's up your bum?'

I'm not sure, but I think that was an example of what Miss Tarango would call a mixed metaphor.

‘Come on, Fish Dick, what's up? You don't look happy. You haven't had a fight with the other debating girls, have you? You can tell me. I'm
always
here to help,' Barry Bagsley said, putting on a syrupy voice.

Apparently the anger that had been churning around inside me since the previous afternoon was pretty obvious. I spoke before I really knew what I was saying. ‘That was a shitty thing to do.'

‘Such language,' Barry Bagsley, said covering his ears. ‘Whatever do you mean?'

‘You know,' I said, both angry and scared at the same time.

‘No, why don't you tell me?'

I had started now and there was nothing I could do but go on. ‘What you did to Bill Kingsley–wrecking his certificate.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Yes you do. I saw Wallace and Savage hanging around Bill's locker and I saw you all in the computer room.'

‘Just doing some extra study, that's all. I'd hate to think you were accusing us of some
foul play
, Le Turd. ‘Cause if you are,' he said, stepping in closer, ‘you better have some proof or you could get yourself in serious trouble.'

‘Why can't you just leave him alone?'

‘Maybe I don't want to. Are you going to make me?'

And there it was. The question we'd all been waiting for. The question whose answer I knew, and Barry Bagsley knew, was ‘No'. I looked at the smug, arrogant face before me, a face without a shadow of a doubt that it had nothing in the world to fear. I hated it and I hated how it was making me feel. I wanted to blow it away.

‘What's he ever done to you?'

‘Plenty. I have to look at all that blubber all the time and it puts me off my lunch. Besides, when he walks around I can't do my schoolwork because the whole building shakes,
and
he's always knocking my desk trying to squeeze all that lard down the aisle
and
his fat arse is always blocking out my view. So, Manure, I'll say and do whatever I want-unless, of course, you
think you can stop me.' He glared hard at me for a few seconds then gave a snort. ‘Just as I thought. You haven't got a prayer, Piss-whale. You have not got a prayer.'

As Barry Bagsley walked away it was as if he had taken a part of me with him, torn a limb from my body and left me there bleeding.

I thought the feeling would go away the following week after I slipped a brand new certificate into Bill Kingsley's bag during afternoon Homeroom, but it didn't. And it still didn't go away the next day when Bill Kingsley thanked me and told me that his parents were having the certificate framed. I still felt as if a part of me was missing.

I tried to convince myself that everything was all right. After all, Bill Kingsley had his certificate back, so he was happy again, wasn't he? But the truth was, the look I saw on Bill's face that afternoon when he opened his desk hadn't really gone away. It was still there like a deep and ugly bruise. And there was something else, as well. After our little discussion, Barry Bagsley was directing more taunts Bill Kingsley's way, as if he was daring me to do something about it. Instead of helping Bill Kingsley, all I had done was make him a bigger target. It was as if I had thrown a lead weight to a drowning man.

I was still feeling bad the following week when Razza cornered me before school. ‘Ishmael, just the dude I wanted to see. You're going to come to the debating final Wednesday night, aren't you? Prindabel and Kingsley have piked out.'

Going to a debating final was the last thing I felt like doing. ‘Look … I might give it a miss, too.'

‘What are you talking about? Come on, you gotta go.'

‘I don't know … I just …'

‘What's the matter with you, anyway? You've been moping around like someone's superglued your bum shut.'

First Barry Bagsley and now Razza. Why was it that whenever I looked a bit down everyone immediately assumed the problem originated from my backside? ‘It's nothing. Forget it.'

‘It's gotta be something. There are guys on death row chirpier than you.'

‘It's just …'

‘Out with it, Leseur. You know that vee hef vays of may-kink you talk!'

There was no way Razza was going to be denied. I gave in and told him.

Razza took it all in without comment, then gave his considered opinion. ‘You're right. You're a menace to society. You should top yourself.'

‘Thanks, you've been a big help.'

‘Don't mention it,' Razza said, before transforming into a voice-over man, ‘And after the break on Doctor Razz we'll continue our talk with young Ishmael Leseur, the boy who takes everything too seriously'

‘Not everything's a joke, you know, Razza. Bill's not laughing.'

‘Look, you want to know the way I see it?'

‘Have I got a choice?'

‘Not really.'

‘Great, then. I'd
love
to know how you see it.'

‘OK. Bagsley's a wanker, right?'

‘Right.' A no-brainer, that one.

‘So who cares what a wanker says? You know what he calls me? Or
-arse-
i
-hole.
Or-arse-i-hole Zor-
zit
-to. Zit-arse for short. Has he cut me up? Am I wounded? Nuh, not a scratch. Now if my mum called me something like that … or you … that's different. But we're talking about Barry Bagsley here … and he's a wanker, right?'

‘Right.' Maybe there was some truth in the old ‘sticks and stones' argument for someone like Razza. You couldn't dent his confidence if you rammed it with a monster truck. I wondered if it was that easy for everyone.

‘But it's not just the names. What he did to Bill Kingsley sucked.'

‘Yeah … yeah, you're right … so what do you wanna do? You wanna give him back some of his own medicine? You know, trash his stuff or something?'

A tempting thought, but realistically it didn't sound like a war we could win. ‘I don't think that's such a great idea.'

‘Well, there is another way,' Razza said, quietly shifting his eyes from side to side. ‘We Zorzottos have
connections
, you know … back in Italy …
Sicily …
you get my drift? Just say the word, Ishmael, and your problem disappears,
poof!
Gone, forget about it. Or if that's a bit drastic, I'm sure we've got some old horses' heads lying around at home somewhere …'

‘Thanks, Razz, but I might save that for my last resort,' I said, hoping that he was joking.

‘Well, if you won't listen to reason, I guess all I can say is,
if you need me, I'll be there. I mean, if you have to take them on–Bagsley and that lot–I'll back you up, OK? Now, don't worry, I know what you're thinking, that the Razzman is a lover, not a fighter. But don't be fooled. When I was a little kid I was brought up on
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
, so I know how to handle myself. I still have my Donatello costume at home if we need it. However, I should point out, that if it does come to serious fisticuffs, and my face is in danger of being marked in any way, I owe it to my legion of loyal female fans to get down on my knees and beg for mercy. Apart from that, I'll be right there with you, one hundred per cent. You and me, Ishmael, scared shitless–the thin brown line.'

Razza just stood there, staring at me with that dopey know-it-all look on his face and bobbing his head up and down to some manic beat that only he could hear. At the debating semi-final Dad had called him ‘mad as a cut snake'. Maybe he was, but I knew one thing about Orazio Zorzotto. If I really did need him, he
would
be there–one hundred per cent.

‘What time does the final start?'

‘Seven. Mum's dropping me off and I'm ringing her when it's finished. We can pick you up at your place at six-thirty. You in?'

‘Razza, this has nothing to do with debating, has it? It's all about that Preston girl, isn't it–the blonde one?'

‘Yeah, of course,' he said happily.

‘Then why do you need me? I thought the Razzman was a bit of a superhero with the chicks.'

‘Yeah, well, that might be a
slight
exaggeration. Besides,
even superheroes need their sidekicks, you know, to sort of make us look good in comparison. You'd be wicked at that. It could be your special calling.'

‘Gee, thanks.'

‘Don't mention it. So? Are you coming or what?'

Sidekick for the Razzman. There were worse jobs.

‘I'll be there,' I said, ‘one hundred per cent.'