Mucked Up (8 page)
Mister - Pooks - is - a - plopper -
Steph and Jackleen-Dellulah laugh at anything Angus does, so they’re both laughing their heads off (they both want to get hooks with Angus but they’re best friends so neither of them can have him cos they don’t want to start a love-triangle).
piggggggy-plopper - plo—
Pooks has come into class and Angus Smits turns off robo-lady fast. Pooks sits down at his computer at his teacher-desk in the front, all tired from so much yelling and stress.
Angus and Dougy go back to their Me In 30 Seconds movies and pretend they’re such hard-workin’ lads haw haw. I can see Angus’s computer from here and he’s got a cool vid of him skating in a carpark with Cesar Hildago; they filmed themselves on a mobile phone while they were riding, looks pretty sick actually. Not Dougy Mansour’s though, he’s just got a stack of LeBron James dunk shots he got off Google Images and he’s whacked them all together using that Ken Burns effect.
If Dougy’s just getting pics off the net, maybe I should do that too. Just get some pics of famous footy players taking speckies. Everyone loves footy specky-shots. And I will look like I’m into footy even though I am not. And if I play Thom Yorke’s ‘Paranoid Android’ in the background, I’ve pretty much got my Me In 30 Seconds …
1. TITLE (3 secs)
2. Pics of random footy players taking super-speckies, using Ken Burns effect (10 secs)
3. Pic of Fluffy the cat, I’ll bring one from home (3 secs)
4. Pic of Thom Yorke from Radiohead, who is the greatest singer-songwriter of all time, though I will beat him one day (3 secs)
5. Pic of Abie my twelve-year-old sister. The one where she is drinking from a juicebox with a straw and looking cute. It is my favourite photo in the world and she’s my favourite person (3 secs)
6. Some pics of Mum and Dad when they went to Cambodia long ago before I was born. They went for a holiday, just the two of them, and it’s got nothing to do with me but they are nice photos because the two of them look happy together. Yeah that was when they were—
BRNNNNNGGGGG
, bell goes, everyone saves their files.
—when they were really happy. I could show some of the temples they visited because they took about 400,000 photos with them standing in front of temples. Eight seconds of that and I’m done.
Press Command-S on the keyboard to save my title. Still not sure about the title font. Next week I might try some others.
PA crackles and it’s Bitchface Fruehling’s voice talking …
‘Students, please feel free to go outside and enjoy recess in the quad. All gates are being monitored and the yard is completely secure. Again, we are sorry for the disruptions, we are doing everything we can to keep our daily routine normal. Thank you.’
Brincat and Carruthers are away from their desks first and passing Pooks: ‘Hope ya didn’t step in any piggy poo-poo, Ezzzzzra.’
Poor Pooksy just ignores them and taps at his computer with his head down like he didn’t hear. You just know he’s wishing he could grab Carruthers and Brincat and bash their cunjevoidal heads together until they are dead, then go off to the teachers’ staffroom for morning tea, like teachers could in the olde days.
Everyone else is gone and Wiggy and I are the last to get up. I follow him out of the room: I want to tell him how good his Me In 30 Seconds movie is, but I don’t want him to think I was peeking so I just walk behind him out the door. On the other side of the corridor, something tiny is peeking round the corner that goes into Art Block, something no one else has seen. The pig in the nappy. When it sees me, it takes off back round the corner.
Funnysad.
The tree near the handball courts had a bad disease so King Bozz cut off all the branches and now it’s just this dead tree with cobwebs and a bench under it. Nobody ever sits under the cut-off dead tree because the bench is old and broken but that’s where Jack S and Jarrell are sitting at recess. I can see them as I walk across the quad: they are vommy-holding hands as usual and talking to each other. When Jack S sees me he starts waving and yelling ‘
OVER HERE, ZURB, WE’RE SITTING OVER HERE
.’
Derrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Jack S. He’s sucking on a Golden Pash juicebox as usual, that’s why he’s so skinny-arsed, it’s all you’ll ever see him eat. Juice.
Jarrell’s eating one of her disgusting eco-vege-biscuits: her parents are Xtreme-health super-ripped fitness-freaks so pretty much everything she brings to school is made with nuts or seeds or beans or grain, or sometimes, for a special treat, a delicious bag of husks. See how she won’t even look at me when I get close? See how she’s making like she’s looking at other stuff going on? – so obvious she’s just pretending.
Someone who I don’t know is sitting with them, someone wearing weirdy clothes that don’t fit right but when I get closer I see it’s actually Ravo. He is in a funny school uniform that is not his normal uniform. Big pants that look stupid and a small shirt that is too small with his head poking out like a Chupa Chup.
‘Hey Mr Clown, where are your big shoes?’
Normally he would laugh at that joke because that’s how we talk to each other, we always bag each other in our special language called Bagglish – but he doesn’t look like he’s in a Bagglish-talking mood today.
‘Yeah, well it’s all they had in the Lost and Found Box.’ He points at my cazh clothes: ‘Anyway, you can’t talk, you look like an old drunk hobo’ and I go ‘Bloody Yard Duty’ and I sit beside him and now we both look sad.
Jack S leans forward: ‘Hey Zurb, didya know they sprayed fish sauce all over our bench! That’s why we had to move here’ and Ravo goes ‘Forget the bloody bench, Jack, they sprayed fish sauce all over ME’ and Jack S goes ‘Yeah that was pretty bad too.’
Jarrell does a pfff-smirk, her mouth all biscuit-scungy. ‘You are such a dumbo, Ravo, why’d you even go to the bench this morning?’
‘Because I didn’t know about the Quad Raid, okay? Nobody told me. I thought you’d all be there like usual but you weren’t so thanks everyone for warning me, thanks heaps.’
We all just sit there, feeling bad for him, while he chews on his scone. His gran makes scones and sells them in Ravenscroft’s Gift & Craft Shoppe and Ravo brings old ones to school that are all dried and hard. I open my ziplock pack of salt ’n’ vinegar chips. Mum buys one cheap jumbo bag of chips and puts them into lots of little ziplock bags cos it is cheaper than buying lots of expensive mini-packs. Ravo doesn’t look like he’s enjoying his scone so I offer him a chip but I don’t offer one to Jarrell or Jack S.
‘Thanks, dickweed,’ he says, taking one.
‘Is that a weed made of dicks?’
‘No, it’s a dick made of weeds, OB-viously.’
Good to see him joking round even if he looks shocking. His hair’s all wet and stuck-together and he smells rank AS. And those pants are so big that a bit puffs up at the front where his dick-area is.
‘Got yourself a bit of an air-stiffy.’
He looks down: ‘Yeah, won’t go down.’ He leans on it with his arm so the air pushes out but it kind of pops back up again. ‘See? Stupid pants. And anyway, why would there even BE pants in the Lost and Found Box?’
‘I know, right? Because that means somebody must’ve taken off their pants at school and then lost them.’
‘I know, right? Which means there was something about the pants that made that person want to take them off in the first place and leave them lying around. And why would someone take off their pants at school? What was it about the pants that required urgent removal?????’
Jack S starts to haw haw: ‘Somebody probably did poo in them, Ravo, that’s why they took them off!’ and Jarrell says ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Jack, they were probably left in the gym lockers during P.E. and someone unintentionally went home in their P.E. gear, it’s the most rational explanation.’
Ravo looks round to make sure no one’s watching then stands up: ‘Actually, I think Jack may be right, check this,’ and he shows us his arse where there’s a little mark on the back of the pants.
Jack S leans right in close to have a look: ‘Did you do that?’
‘No I did not do that; it was on the pants when I got them. I don’t know what it is, it’s some kind of—’
Jack S studies it like he’s a science-professor: ‘Hmmm … dark … kind of brown …’
Ravo pushes his arse closer: ‘Smell it, Jack, tell me what it is.’
Jack S goes ‘Aiiight’ and leans forward to smell it but Jarrell grabs his shoulder to stop him, ‘He is not going to smell it, Ravo, that is disgusting, I can’t believe you asked him to do that!’
‘But I gotta know if it’s food or – blood – or whatevs. C’mon, I’ve got to get through the day with this on my arse and I need to know what it is,’ and he pushes his bum in Jack’s face.
A voice near us says …
‘Morning all, enjoying a bit of pleasant bum-sniffery?’
It is Brisley Weng’s voice but when we look up, it is not Brisley Weng standing there. There are two sexxxy legs with high socks to the knees. Then a short school skirt that looks really short and sexxxy. Then a tight white school shirt that is undone a bit in the front. Then out of the shirt sleeves are two nice arms holding a paper plate of iced choc cupcakes. And right up the top is a beautiful face with dyed-blonde hair, cut into a little square shape around her sexxxy eyes with lots of make-up.