The Crazy Dentist and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls (4 page)

Mr Fleming, our teacher, was so angry he was shaking. He went straight up to Mr Singh during morning recess and said, ‘Is it me or is Richard Parsons a nightmare? He'd have to be the most difficult little monster I've ever had the misfortune to teach. Can there be a worse kid in the world?'

I was standing nearby and heard the whole thing!

On Monday, Richard threw a rock at Mr Fleming's car. On Tuesday, he smashed a window and then threw broken glass at Sarah Blewett. On Wednesday, he flushed three kindy kids. On Thursday, he spat in my lunchbox. And on Friday, he dacked our PE teacher, Miss Fay.

Richard seemed to spend more time up at the principal's office than he did in class. But it didn't make any difference. If anything, he became worse. He must have had really rough brothers and sisters, too, because he always seemed to have bruises on his face.

The teachers spoke to his parents, but they didn't seem to care.

‘You're the teachers,' said his mum. ‘You fix it.'

One day I heard that Richard's dad reckoned he'd have a go at Mr Fleming if he didn't leave them alone. I think the police had something to say about that, but I'm not sure what.

Our principal, Mrs Stacey, was a really nice lady and she wanted to keep Richard at our school. She probably could have kicked him out, but since Richard had to go to school somewhere, she thought it might as well be with us. With people that cared. I'm not sure that I cared too much.

Strangely, a few weeks went by without anything really bad happening — and then Richard suddenly became worse. He came to school with a huge bruise over his eye and I could tell he was really angry. He went straight up to Gavin Spencer's desk and just chucked all his books on the floor. Next, he grabbed me by the jumper and yanked it till it ripped, and finally, just as Mrs Stacey went past, he did a full moonie.

As usual, Mrs Stacey took Richard into her office and gave him a good talking-to, but by lunchtime he was at it again. He blocked up the boy's toilets, threw Angelo Rossi's marbles on the road, gave Daniel McDonald a Chinese burn and tipped a rubbish bin over Fiona Tyer's head.

I tried talking to Richard once. I said, ‘If you hate us all so much, why do you come to school? Why don't you just nick off to the park and bang your head against a brick wall for a while?'

I wish I hadn't. He stuck a banana down my dacks and gave me a five-minute wedgie. Can you imagine the mess?

And then came the day.
The worst day of my life.

For some reason, Richard's mum decided to have a birthday party for him. Maybe she thought it would make him nicer. Richard didn't want to have the party but his mum said he had to and that was that. What's more, he had to ask the whole class.

Guess who was
the
only
one
stupid enough to turn up?

You can imagine how embarrassing it was. All this food, all these silly party hats, heaps of balloons and no people.
Just
me
and Richard.

Richard said he was glad because the other kids were jerks anyway. But I knew he wasn't glad because later I saw him crying behind a tree. And then it got even worse.

Richard's dad came home and I could tell he was drunk. He burst through the door into the kitchen, and Richard's mum screamed, ‘Sorry!'

And then the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. Richard's father staggered outside and grabbed Richard by the ear. He swore at him for keeping the party a secret, screamed, ‘I'll teach you to lie!' and slapped Richard really hard right in the face.

Richard reeled backwards and fell to the ground in terrible pain, bleeding from his nose. I couldn't believe it. I stood there, shaking, and then threw up against a tree.

Later, when I told Mum and Dad what had happened, they called the police.

The police came straight away and also a lady from community services. They're people from the government who keep checking to make sure everyone's OK.

The community services lady said they had thought for a long time that Richard was being hit by his dad, but it was hard to prove. Now they had a witness. Someone who actually saw it happen. Me. I felt sick all over again.

I won't go into all the stuff that happened after that, but it turned out Richard's dad had done a lot of other wrong things and he went to jail for a while. Poor Richard, when the police asked why his dad had hit him, Richard said it was because he was naughty. As if it was his fault.

Richard is a much better kid these days but still not as happy as he deserves to be. One good thing has happened, though. At least now he's got a friend. A friend who knows what he's had to put up with. A friend who feels so lucky that he's got a normal mum and dad that he's going to stick by Richard for the rest of his life.
Me.

I don't want to sound like a hero, because I'm not. Richard's the hero. But I think I might have helped him a bit. He had long ago given up all hope of being anyone's mate, let alone a best one. And now we've got each other.

Three years later, Richard's dad was let out of jail early for good behaviour. As he walked out of the gates, he looked around. Although he knew he didn't deserve it, he somehow hoped that one of his mates might be there to greet him.

But there was no-one, except a couple of kids staring from across the road. One of them happened to look like his own boy, Richard — only much bigger.

Richard's dad had cried a lot in jail. And now he was crying again. You see, the kid that looked like Richard was coming towards him. And the kid was saying,
‘Hi, Dad.'

Forgiveness isn't the answer to every-thing. But it's a very good start.

Spider Summers had challenged Snowy Seward to a dim-sim eating competition, and the rest of us could hardly wait.

The two of them had been carrying on for months about how many dimmies they could wolf down in one go, and it was time to sort things out. The challenge was to take place on a Friday after school at the Top Food Take-away shop, and the rules were simple.

One dimmy each every two minutes, and the first one to spew was the loser.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of eating a dim-sim, I had better describe one to you. It was originally, though not exactly, a sort of Chinese sausage roll with pork and vegies.

Then we got in on the act, and nowadays the filling of an Aussie dimmy could be anything. Rotten vegetables, cat's guts, sawdust — who knows?

‘Mystery bags,' my dad called them. Of course, some dimmies are made from good stuff, but I've got terrible doubts about the ones we'd buy from the Top Food Takeaway. Run by Tony Wouldn't-Know-What-Day-It-Was.

The Top's dimmies looked like something the cat had dragged in, sitting there as they did in a pool of oil in a half-warm tray. I'm sure I saw one move one day. And what about that gnarled old one in the corner! Stuck to the bottom of the tray with a couple of Tony's hairs on it. I'd swear it was the same dimmy, brought out day after day, until some poor fool felt hungry enough to buy it.
Me
.

That's the bit I forgot to tell you — no matter what they're made of, all dimmies taste great!

Finally, it was the night of the big challenge, and I reckon half the school turned up to watch. And the Top had been warned to have heaps of dimmies hot and ready to go. Or warm anyway. I doubt if Tony knew what ‘hot' meant.

Well, Snowy and Spider had been at it for half an hour and the first fifteen dimmies slipped down easily. The next fifteen, well, that was a test.

Snowy was starting to look a bit green around number twenty, but when he did this massive sickie burp right into Spider's face, he looked much better. I'm not so sure about Spider.

Spider ate in a very steady way. Deep breath, pop the dimmy in whole, chew, try to think of something else, close his eyes and swallow. Always taking the full two minutes. Whereas Snowy would gobble, forever trying to make out how easy it all was.

And then we hit a problem. The stupid Top had run out of warm dimmies, so now it would be cold or nothing. And I should warn you that cold, unfried dimmies are not a pretty sight.