Mucked Up (16 page)

‘Why do you care anyway, Tom? You’ve been horrible to me all day so why should I tell you anything?’

Jarrell gives me a smug look that she excels in: ‘If you really want to know, Tom, I was very impressed with Jack in Philosothon today. He totally got all these very difficult philosophical concepts about the Socratic meaning of happiness and I was very—’

Jack S says ‘Then why did you have to put me down in front of everyone, Jarrell?’

‘Oh PUH-leeez, Jack, stop being so sensitive. Everyone thought it was cute and funny.’

‘I don’t want to be cute and funny, I just want to be treated normal.’

Jarrell looks at me: ‘What happened was, Tom, we were discussing Socrates and his theories of happiness and Jack cracked everyone up when he pronounced it Sock-
RATES
instead of
Soc-RA-TEEEEZ
.’

‘How am I supposed to know how to say someone’s stupid name that I’ve never even heard of?’

‘Anyway, Tom, like I was saying, Jack is a naturally astute thinker. Way sharper than you. If you came to Philosothon, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. The philosophical concepts would go right over your head.’ She picks up a wooden honey-dipper on her benchtop.

Jack S picks up a roll of filo. I put on my apron. Something big is about to go down in Food Tech and it’s called …

Baklava.

Mrs Goonaratna is standing next to the whiteboard out the front of class. She has a weird long name because she is from Sri Lanka, which I think is somewhere near India and is smaller.

She is kind of small too, but her face is friendly enough. On the whiteboard she has written:

Baklava is a funny name for food and Angus Smits the Gap-Toothed Joker has already done an arsey joke when he walked in and saw ‘Baklava’ written on the whiteboard. He asked Mrs Goonaratna whether we could wear it on our heads if we robbed a bank. ‘Like a balaclava, miss? Get it, miss? Like bank-robbers wear?’ But she kept shaking her head like she meant no.

It gets confusing with Mrs Goonaratna because in Sri Lanka all the people shake their head like they’re saying ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’. So we don’t know if she understood Smits’ joke or not. It makes it hard to ask Mrs Goonaratna any kind of question, so everybody tries not to.

‘Please have all of your ingredients ready BEFORE you unwrap your filo! Also remember to wear gloves and preheat your ovens. Also, what must we always do before starting to cook any dish in Food Tech?’

…

‘The first rule of cooking! Anyone?’

‘Read and re-read the recipe, miss.’

You’re not going to believe who said that.

‘Thank you, Cody! Good job.’

I know, right? Cody Carruthers, the evil cunjevoidal mass who ruins my life every day at school and who’s probably going to end up in juvie one day like his brothers already are. Well, something freaky happens when he goes into Food Tech. He turns into the best student you’ve ever seen and Mrs Goonaratna even calls him her special helper. Look at him, wearing his apron and standing at Oven 1 beside the teacher’s desk, reading and re-reading the recipe off the whiteboard and getting his ingredients all ready to go. He is actually the best cook in the class. He’ll make a san choi bao in ten minutes, then finish up with a mini-pavlova that wasn’t even part of the lesson, just because he finished before everyone else and wanted to fill in time. He’s like profesh. He makes the best food you’ve ever seen and is polite to the teacher and keeps his benchtop clean. Then next period in Maths, he’ll sit behind you and stick a plastic ruler right up your clackerhole.

Jarrell switches on her oven, I switch on my oven. Jack S does not switch on his oven: he’s unwrapping his filo and laying it on the table. Jarrell looks over at him: ‘No Jack, you’re supposed to preheat your oven and get all your ingredients ready BEFORE you get your filo unrolled. Didn’t you hear the teacher?’

‘I know what I’m doing, Jarrell, you do your own thing.’

‘But your filo will dry out now because you unwrapped it. Get a damp tea-towel and put it over the sheets to keep—’

I butt in: ‘No Jack, it’s actually easier to just spread melted butter on each sheet and that should keep it moist.’

‘Both of you leave me alone, I’m not an idiot!’

Bloody cooking shows on TV. Look what they’ve turned us all into. We all watch those shows every night on TV and so we think we’re profesh cooks, we all have a bad case of Mastercheffiness. We all think we know how to keep filo moist and roast a lamb leg and make a ganache and cook a ‘Croquembouche’ which is a cake-dessert thing that sounds like French porn. I get attacks of Mastercheffiness at home: Mum will be cooking her usual spag-bol and I’ll stick my finger in the sauce and go ‘Too bland. Season it to bring out the more robust explosive flavours.’ Dad’ll be making toast for brekkie, I’ll look at his toast and go ‘Hmmmm, tad pale. But a nice caramelised crust. Plate up and garnish it with jam, yah?’ Seriously. I’ve become like one of those cooking-show wanker-judge chubbers.

Someone should start a new TV cooking show called Masterbaker, just about baking cakes. Masterbaker haha. Say it out loud if you don’t get it yet. It’s a Ravo joke, I cannot take credit for it.

Mrs Goonaratna is coming over to Jack’s oven: ‘Why is your oven not on? You cannot have filo sitting there, drying out.’

‘That’s what I told him, Mrs Goonaratna,’ goes Jarrell and I give her a look like, awwwww, shut your mouth-hole.

‘The first rule of cooking is read and re-read the recipe!’ says Mrs Goonaratna to Jack S. ‘You did not do that.’

‘Sorry, miss. What do I do with my filo now? Do I just leave it on the bench?’ Mrs Goonaratna shakes her head like no, which could mean yes or no. Then she goes to help Taleeesha Monk at Oven 11 who is having problems separating her filo sheets.

Jack S looks confused so I go over to his oven and switch it on to preheat it. ‘Don’t worry, Jack, let me help you.’

‘Leave my oven alone, Tom.’

‘Start by laying your filo out flat, get some melted butter—’

Jarrell comes over and picks up his pastry brush: ‘Yeah, melt some butter in a saucepan and … get your pastry brush …’

I grab the brush off her. ‘No, you need to hold the pastry brush like this, and using quick, little strokes—’

Jack S grabs the pastry brush off me. ‘
GO AWAY TOM, GO AWAY JARRELL, GO BACK TO YOUR OWN STATIONS AND DO YOUR OWN COOKING
!’

‘Fiiiiiine,’ goes Jarrell, ‘let your filo crack,’ and she goes back to her oven while I go back to my oven: ‘Your baklava, Jack. Your life.’

Jack S looks at the recipe on the whiteboard and starts reading the recipe out loud, saying the ingredients like they’re swears: ‘PIS-tachios … le-MON … SUG-ar.’ He’s mad.

Jarrell’s melted her butter and spreads it on her filo sheets with her pastry brush. She’s almost finished her first sheet, so I quickly put melted butter on my first filo sheet with my pastry brush. She works in from the edges. I work in from the edges. Jack S reads from the whiteboard: ‘… hon-EY … CINN-o-nin …’

I snortlaugh: ‘It’s
cinnamon
.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘You said cinn-o-nim. You’re getting
cinnamon
mixed up with
synonym
which is a word that means the same as another word.’

‘He knows what a synonym is, Tom,’ goes Jarrell. ‘Don’t talk down to him all the time.’

‘That’s the way
YOU
always talk to him.’

‘How Jack and I
TALK
to each other is
NONE
of your BUSINESS, Tom. Though sounds like you
WANT
to make it your business,
DON’T
you?’

Try not to stab her with your pastry brush, Zurb. Do not poke it into her neck using the pointier non-brushy end. ‘So anyway, Jack,’ I go, ‘as I was saying before,
cinnamon
and
synonym
are two completely different things, but it’s an easy mistake to make. Although you could have a
synonym
for
cinnamon
, see what I mean?’

He stares at me; not sure he sees what I mean. ‘Cinno-nim? Cimm-o-nin? Ohh sorry, Tom, sorry I don’t know how to say all your big uh-mayyy-zing words. And you too, Jarrell. I’m sick of you making me feel stupid all the time. Sorry that I’m not smart enough to know how to say Sock-rates or whatever the dude’s called, but y’know sometimes you can be a big show-off and you didn’t have to make me feel embarrassed in Philosofon today, however you say it. Philo-so-flon. Whatevs. And Tom, you think you’re soooo smart with words, don’tya? You always go on about how good you are with English and stories and writing songs but you’re not smart at all – your songs are all crap, seriously, your songs are the crappest. You’ll never be a songwriter or a story-writer or anything, Zurb, no offence, but that’s a fact and we all think so.’

Something happens when I get Xtremely upset about stuff. I kind of lose it, go all psycho-crazy in the head like I got with Boniqa this morning. But this is even bigger because he’s saying I’m crap at the only thing I’m good at in the whole world. Makes me feel sick because it’s not true, I’m a freak at making up stories. And I’m a great songwriter with the potential to be one of the greatest. And my rock opera HumanKind is going to win 860 awards and be famous round the whole world – when the main guy Peter O’Devlin sings that song about being lonely the whole audience is going to start crying and go, ‘Ooooo, this is my fave rock opera ever’ AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST SONG. Jack S shouldn’t say that about me, it’s a flarping lie. So I can’t control what I am doing right now: I grab a whole bunch of chopped pistachios from my bowl and just chuck them at his face. Most of them miss and go behind him, all over Taleeesha Monk’s benchtop, but some of them go on his face and his clothes. He’s got this whaaaaa?-look, but he doesn’t say anything back. Jarrell says it for him: ‘
THAT COULD’VE GONE IN HIS EYES, YOU DUMMY!!!
’ Then she gets her wooden honey-dipper from out of her jar of honey and comes over to my oven … and …

The hell. Y’serious?????

She hits me on the hand with her honey-dipper. Honey’s all over my hand and up my arm.

I go ‘Ouchhhhh’ in a fake baby-voice, ‘That weally hurt, booo hooo!’ Then I go over to her oven. ‘Hey Jarrell, I think you forgot to read and re-read the recipe! It says you have to fold your filo pastry into thirds! Here, let me help you with that!’ I pick up one of her buttered filo sheets from the benchtop, hold it up so she can see what I’m doing, then I fold it once, fold it again, then just smoosh it up up up up with my hands until it’s a big wet filo blob.

She doesn’t look like she cares: ‘Thanks for your help, Tom,’ then she looks down at my buttered filo sheets on my benchtop: ‘Oh look! Think you forgot to read and re-read the recipe too! It says you have to cut the baklava into little diamond shapes, let me help YOU!!!’ She picks up one of my buttered filo sheets and gets a knife from my knife-block then stabs holes in the sheet like a crazy-stabber until it’s all destroyed and falls apart in bits.