Mucked Up (15 page)

He came in here / Y’sure? / Yeah, there he is!

All the footsteps go into the cubicle next to mine with no door. There’s banging-round and splashing-sounds and I try not to move or make a noise. The noises go for ages. Then there’s laughing haw haw haw and the hundreds of footsteps go out of the toilets and it’s all quiet now except for a strange suck-in noise
coming from the next-door cubicle.

‘… hhhHHH … ’

Definitely not a pig.

‘Ravo?’

‘… hhhHHH … yeah?’

‘It’s Zurb.’

‘oh … hhhHHH … hi …’

‘Thought you were a pig.’

‘Nah … hhhHHH … it’s me …’

‘What happened?’

‘They … hhhHHH … got me … hhhHHH … again …’

Sadness and funniness have been getting mixed up together all day and it’s happening again when Ravo starts telling me what happened. How he heard the PA announcement about the sausage sizzle fundraiser outside A Block. How he went to the fundraiser stall to buy a sausage at lunchtime. How a bunch of Harry Potters were waiting at a table all dressed up in wizard clothes. How he asked the Harry Potters if he could buy a sausage in bread to support the Bangladeshi Orphanage …

‘Y’serious?’ I’m yelling through the wall. ‘The fundraiser thing was a trick, Ravo, everyone knew that!’

‘Nobody … hhhHHH … tells me … hhhHHH … anything …’

He keeps going with his story and I know it’s meant to be a not-funny story but I start haw-hawing and I can’t stop: he tells me how the Harry Potters gave him a sausage in bread and asked if he’d like sauce with that. How he said ‘Thank you very much, sauce would be great’. How the Harry Potters brought out squirty bottles of tomato sauce and sprayed him bad all over his face and clothes.

‘Haw haw haw sorry haw haw.’

‘… hhhHHH … it’s not funny, Zurb … hhhHHH … I thought I was helping the orphans … hhhHHH … of Bangladesh … ’

‘Haw haw haw sorry, Ravo, haw haw haw haw.’

He goes on about how he ran across the quad to get away from them. How they chased him and kept spraying him with sauce. How he ran all the way to B Block and went to the toilets because he thought he’d be safe in here. How the Harry Potters found him in the cubicle and held him upside down over the toilet with no toilet seat.

Classic: Only Ravo would get into that situation. Funnysad stuff just happens to him without him meaning it to happen: one time he told me he went shopping at Northland with his gran and he got vomited on by a policehorse in the carpark. Another time, on the Year 7 excursion to Scienceworks, he got stuck in the giant human heart that you can walk into, between a lump of arterial fat and a blood clot, and it took three teachers to get him out. And now he went to a fake fundraiser and asked for a sausage with sauce and got toileted by a bunch of Harry
Potters.

‘HAW HAW HAW SORRY, SORRRRY, HAW HAW.’

He starts laughing too because he realises it is pretty funny, laughing and crying at the same time: ‘… hhhHHH … HAW HAW … hhhhHHHH … HAW HAW HAW …’

Which makes me laugh even more and everything starts loosening up below …

‘HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW.’

‘… hhhHHH … HAW HAW … hhhhHHHH … HAW HAW HAW …’

… everything starts relaxing down there …

‘
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW
…’

‘… hhhHHH … HAW HAW … hhhhHHH … HAW
HAW HAW …’

‘
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW
…’

‘… hhhHHH … HAW HAW … hhhhHHHH … HAW HAW HAW … hhhHHH …’

And I’m finished. Look, I made a pissaccino: it’s a piss done with so much force, it has a frothy top on it like a coffee.

Quickly zip up, open the cubicle door and pop my head round to the next cubicle.

Ravo’s sitting on the edge of the toilet with no toilet seat. His hair’s soaking wet from the toilet head-dunk and it’s all covered with sauce and water, hanging down his face. He looks like one of those penguins they pull out of the oil slicks in the sea.

‘Don’t come too close, Zurb, I stink bad.’

‘Look, you still got your sausage in bread.’

He looks down and sees he’s still holding a sausage in bread and somehow it’s all in one piece. He holds it out: ‘Wanna share?’

‘Aiiight.’ I take it from him and check for dirt but it looks clean enough. ‘Mind if I grab some sauce?’

He kind of shrugs and I dip the sausage into a blob of sauce on his shirt pocket. ‘Remember this morning, I said we could dip spring rolls into your Vietnamese fish sauce? Now we’re kind of doing that, but with sausage and sauce.’

‘Yeah, I’m a mobile cafeteria, tuck in, enjoy all my meal choices.’

It tastes pretty good and I’m pretty hungry so I dip the sausage into some sauce on his collar, have another bite then give it back to him and he dips it into a blob on his shoulder and takes a bite. ‘Hmm, not too toilety.’ He seems better. We share the sausage in bread and while we eat, I feel like I should tell him something.

‘Hey, I did something real stupid in Science today.’

‘You’re always real stupid in Science, you’re real stupid in most subjects.’

‘No I did something bad to Jack S, told him that he should break up with Jarrell.’

‘Why you got such a problem about them being together?’

‘Because she’s destroying SCUM by being a massive cocker and I want things back to how they were.’

‘Ever think YOU’RE the cocker who’s destroying SCUM? Saying stupid things to everyone, driving away Bris, Jarrell, Jack?’

‘Come on, admit it, they’re a lame couple, right? They don’t belong together, they just look so—’

The bell goes but once again I can’t stop my mouth going.

‘They look weird when they hold hands. Don’t you think? It looks, like, wrong.’

Ravo gets up off the edge of the toilet and I have to step out of the cubicle so he can get past. ‘Well, better clean myself up,’ he says. ‘Just two more periods and Muck Up Day will be all over. What you got?’

‘Double Food Tech. You?’

‘Double Jap. Hate double Jap.’ He stops at the sinks and looks at his face in the dirty mirror that has fingermarks and dried zit-spurts all over it. ‘This has been the worst day of my life, Zurb. And you know, the worst bit isn’t the fish sauce or the tomato sauce or the lost and found pants or the double Jap. The worst bit is Bris leaving SCUM.’

‘Nahhh, she thinks she’s too good for us anyway.’

‘You think she’ll ever come back?’

‘Once you get into HAGZ, you don’t come back to SCUM. She was just hanging with us until something better came along. I mean, look at her and look at US.’

‘Yeah, just a couple of nob-buckets.’

‘Is that a bucket made of nobs?’

‘No, a nob made of buckets, OB-viously. Hey, what’d you think of Bris’s new look?’

‘Hardly didn’t recognise her.’

‘I actually prefer how she used to look. Her old look was really indie. I always liked her look …’

He looks sad and I’m starting to think Ravo is actually kind of into Bris, like REALLY into her. Maybe he always was and never told me and was too shy and unconfident to do anything about it. He bends down at the sink and turns on one of the taps, but water sprays all over his face and shirt and pants and just keeps spraying. Somebody stuck a tampon up there.

1:35 p.m.
Fifth period:
Double Food Tech

It’s a No-Talking All-Hating Triangle of Ovens and the three of us are in it. Eyes go back ’n’ forth between me and Jarrell.

Eyes go back ’n’ forth between me and Jack S.

Eyes go back ’n’ forth between Jack S and Jarrell.

Don’t know why they’re hate-staring at each other, they don’t look happy at all. Something must’ve happened in Philosothon and I want to find out: ‘So … Jack … how did your first Philoso-fon go?’

Jarrell answers before he can say anything: ‘You have no right to make that joke, Tom, that’s OUR joke.’

Jack S looks at Jarrell, ‘Actually Jarrell, it was never a funny joke in the first place so I’d rather you didn’t do it anymore either.’

‘Yeah Jarrell,’ I go, ‘we should ALL stop making that joke.’

This hate-staring is hurting my eyeballs. I try and keep my eyes still and talk to Jack S: ‘Sorry for making that joke, Jack. It’s not funny’ (even though it is). ‘So how did you go in Philoso-THON?’