by Pat Flynn
“Coach well, Chief.”
“Always do.”
Alex called out as Chief started up the old sigma.
“When do you leave for Russia?”
“Two weeks.”
“You and Mum talking yet?”
He shook his head.
Inside Sam was dressed up in a red hipster skirt and crop top.
“Another party?” Alex asked.
“The Hyperdome,” said Sam. “Seeing a movie.”
“Can I come?”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m meeting kids from school.”
“Afraid I’ll cramp your style? You got a boyfriend yet?”
“Have you met any Year 7 boys lately?” said Sam. “They are so immature.”
“You want me to introduce you to some high school guys?”
“I wouldn’t go out with Jimmy if you paid me,” said Sam.
“Jimmy’s all right. And he’s not the only friend I’ve got.”
Her expression softened. “Yeah, I heard something about you hanging out with some hotties at Maccas last night?”
“Who told you that?”
“I have my sources. So who are they?”
“Your sources are clueless. I was at Jimmy’s last night.”
“I can get Mum to check with Mrs Homan if you like?”
“Sam! Don’t!”
“Then don’t lie. And bring those guys around some time.”
“They’re not your type.”
“How do you know my type?”
“They’re in Year 10.”
“I like mature guys.”
Alex rolled his eyes and left. As he went into his room the photo on his desk caught his eye. He and Becky looked so happy — she on his lap with her arm around his shoulders, his arm around her waist. It was only six weeks ago, and now they were on the rocks.
He thought about what she wrote. Would he still want to be friends with her if they broke up? If she told him she was going out with a fool called Roberto? If she was sneaking into his room during their skiing holidays, wrapping those long arms around him as their lips met …
He threw the photo into the bottom of his underwear drawer. Not bloody likely.
CHAPTER 18
The Nightmare Continues
On Monday Chief dropped Alex off at school, raving about Ben’s fight. Ben knocked the guy out with a left hook “as good as any punch I’ve seen by an amateur”, he said.
Chief was on his way into town to organise stuff for the trip. Alex could tell he was starting to get nervous. Chief had only been overseas once — on his honeymoon with Sharon to Vanuatu. The day they were meant to fly home he lost his passport, plane tickets and all their money.
“Ready for today, fellas?” asked Mr Graham as he walked past Alex and Jimmy before morning bell.
“You know us, sir. We’re always ready,” said Jimmy.
“Good to hear. You can go first then.”
First for what?
Alex and Jimmy looked at each other. It was hard to tell which face turned white first.
“The presentation is today!” said Alex.
“Oh, shiiiivers,” said Jimmy.
“Did you put it on PowerPoint?” asked Alex.
“Forgot. Did you bring the video?”
“It’s at home.”
“We’re stuffed.”
They quickly found John. At least he said he was prepared.
“You said talk one minute about Romania,” said John.
“About skateboarding in Romania,” said Jimmy.
“Of course.”
“Will your bit be any good?” asked Jimmy.
“Not good. Great.”
“Well, you’re going first then.”
Jimmy and Alex made a plan. Jimmy would write his part during double Tech studies in periods one and two. Alex would try and get hold of a skateboarding video. Hopefully, they could do enough to pass.
At recess Alex found Kim and luckily she had a video in her bag.
“It’s a real good one, too,” she said. “Make sure you watch the start.”
As they walked into English, Alex prayed for a fire drill. A real fire, even.
“How’s it going?” he asked Jimmy.
“Shocking,” Jimmy said. “I’d written two pages when Mullet confiscated it. Wouldn’t give it back to me after class, either.”
Mullet was the nickname given to Mr Relf — the technology studies teacher — on account of a haircut he’d had last year. As soon as he found out about the nickname he’d changed his hairstyle — but the name had stuck.
Mr Graham lived up to his word and made Alex, Jimmy and John go first. As they stood up at the front Alex felt his insides churn like a milkshake. Ollieing down the courthouse steps was hard, but doing an English oral without preparation was near impossible. Before they started, Jimmy handed him a palm card.
“What’s this for?” Alex asked.
“When you can’t think of anything to say, look down,” said Jimmy.
“But there’s nothin’ on it.”
Jimmy shrugged.
Jimmy introduced the presentation. “Umm, today we are going to speak about the attitude of skateboarders. John will start by talking about how skateboarding is portrayed in Romania. I will tell you about a skateboarder I know. And Alex will analyse a skateboarding video for you. After this talk you should have a very good idea about skateboarders and how they are shown by the media and stuff.”
John took a few confident steps forward. “Skateboarding in Romania is seen by media as popular not. Skateboarders usually get beaten up, so they don’t have good attitude. Rapping is much better. Eminem, Tupac, Dr Dre, Snoop Doggy Dog — all famous in Romania. One day I want to be famous rapper. I rap like this:
I take out my biscuit coz I’m prepared to risk it If I’m caught by the cops, my AK-47 will make ’em stop …
When John finished his rap he summarised his powerful argument. “So you see, skateboarders in Romania are shown as bad by media. Rappers are good. I’m finished now.”
He stepped back to let Jimmy take over. He looked over at Alex. “How I do?” he whispered.
Jimmy looked down at his blank palm card. “Umm, I am going to tell you a story about a skateboarder I know. His name is All … an. Once he was content with going to the skatepark and mastering lots of impressive tricks. He was awesome, probably the second best skater in the whole park. He did it because he loved skateboarding. Now he has joined a gang called SWA and they skate downtown Beeton on Friday nights. Last Friday he even got chased by the police. If my friend isn’t careful, he could get into lots of trouble.”
Jimmy looked at his palm card again.
“I think my friend should skate because he likes it. Not for the thrill of doing bad things.”
He stepped back, and Alex gave him a dirty look. Jimmy shrugged. “I could n’t think of anything else to say,” he said.
The video came on and Alex watched it closely. Like the rest of the class, this was the first time he had seen it.
It began with a boarder mooning a group of schoolgirls from the back of a tour minibus and went downhill from there. There were obscene gestures, obscene language, and obscene music. After a minute Mr Graham got up and pushed the eject button.
“I hope you have a very good reason for showing us this,” he said.
Alex cleared his throat, looked down at his palm card, and cleared his throat again. “Skateboarding, umm, represents the youth of today. The youth of today are angry. Everybody always tells them what to do. When the guy mooned the girls …”
Some kids giggled.
“… he was doing something that wasn’t, like, acceptable. He was doing something that might get him into trouble. Taking risks is what skateboarding is all about. So what the video is showing is how skateboarders really act … well, some of them.”
Alex looked down at his palm card again, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“I’d like to see you b
oys after class,” said Mr Graham. “And please show me all your notes and palmcards.”
Teachers at St Joey’s have different ways of getting students into trouble. Some yell, to make the student feel embarrassed. This feeling usually lasts only a few seconds, until the kid whispers something like “old fart” under his breath as the teacher walks away. Some teachers, though, take a different approach. If they do it right, they can make the student feel bad all day.
“I’m very, very disappointed in you boys. I expected much more, especially from you, Alex and Jimmy. What happened? Your ten-minute presentation went for three minutes, and it looked like you had no idea what you were doing.”
Alex shrugged.
“I asked what happened?”
“Alex and I forgot about it, sir,” said Jimmy.
“You had three weeks to prepare and you forgot about it?”
“Yes sir,” Jimmy mumbled.
“Didn’t you find this topic interesting, Alex?” Mr Graham asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Then why didn’t you make a better effort?”
“Umm, dunno. Busy, I s’pose.”
“Busy getting yourself into trouble, according to what Jimmy said.”
“I was talking about someone else,” said Jimmy.
“Mmm, I see. Well I have no option other than to fail you.”
“Fail?” said John. “My mum kill me.”
“Can’t you give us another chance, sir?” said Jimmy. “We promise we won’t stuff up this time.”
“I don’t think so.”
“C’mon sir, please?” Jimmy put on his best hangdog look, his top lip quivering slightly. He saved this look for special occasions. The last time Alex saw it was when Jimmy was practising casting his fishing-line in the backyard and accidentally hooked the neighbour’s cat.
Mr Graham sighed. “I’ll let you boys give the presentation again, next week. At the moment you’ve failed, but if you do an excellent job I might raise your grade to a C. Prove to me and yourselves that you are better than this.’’
“Thank you, sir.”
“And no obscene video footage, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And John. No rapping.”
Outside Peter Callaghan and Adrian Dorry were waiting for the inside scoop. “What did Graham say?” Peter asked.
“Said we failed,” said Jimmy. “We gotta do it again next week. If we do good we can still pass.”
“Don’t worry,” said Adrian. “The girls are doing a speech about the bloke who wrote Romeo and Juliet, and I heard that Sarah Sceney got a D+.”
“That’s impossible,” said Jimmy.
“It’s true. Emma Barney told me.”
“I know that movie,” said John. “Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes. They meet at fishtank. Who wrote it?”
“James Cameron,” said Peter.
“Nah, it’s an old guy,” said Jimmy. “William Skatesbeard or something.”
“Mr Yates is friends with him,” said Alex. “He told me about him the other day.”
“He must be old if he knows Yatesy,” said Peter. “He’s been librarian for, like, 50 years.”
“Well, I hope we don’t have to study him,” said Adrian. “If Sarah failed it must be hard. She’s a nerd.”
“She was until she kissed Billy,” said Peter. “He sucked her brains out through her tongue.”
“Shut up, Callaghan,” said Jimmy.
CHAPTER 19
Interrogated by Letch
The fog of secrecy that surrounded SWA was slowly being lifted, at least for Alex. Though not an official member he was now on the inside. “What my brother taught me,” Steve said, “is that we can’t trust anyone in authority. Teachers, cops, judges — they all exist to keep us in our place. To keep us down. We started SWA to stand up for ourselves.”
“Why don’t you just talk to them?” said Alex.
“Who?”
“The teachers and cops.”
“They don’t listen. But we’re going to make ’em listen. And skateboarding is our microphone.”
“Come along on Friday,” Kim said. “We’re gonna make you part of our gang.”
“Yeah, we can use a grommet like you,” said Steve. “People listen when you’ve got something they want. All of us skate hard. Every kid in the school wants to be like us.”
“Soon, every kid in the school will know us,” said Kim. “We’re going to be famous.”
“Infamous more like it,” said Steve with a grin.
* * *
Each afternoon Alex stopped by the library, and each day he became more frustrated that Becky hadn’t written back. If nothing was going on, surely she would have denied it by now?
At home Chief was almost ready for his big trip. He asked Alex to read him the travel list that Queensland Boxing had given him.
“Passport and plane tickets?” said Alex.
“Check,” said Chief.
“Travellers cheques in US dollars?”
“Check.”
“I said cheques.”
“Very funny.”
“Seven sets of training clothes, including socks, underwear and the team tracksuit?”
“Check.”
“Boxing kit, including first aid stuff?”
“Check.”
“A very warm jacket.”
“Check. I’ve got my 80s leather jacket.”
“A new brain so you won’t forget everything?” Alex had to skip away when Chief tried to punch him in the stomach.
* * *
Kim and Steve were right. At school on Friday everybody was talking about SWA. Their initials were sprayed across the Block 4 wall — in humungous writing. Not only that but they had left a message addressed to the school principal:
DEAR MR STAHL
IT’S OUR TIME NOW
SWA
The outside clock — donated by the police and proudly hung at the top of the Block 4 wall — was gone. It looked like someone had scaled 10 metres clinging to the outside drainpipe to get it down. A crazy thing to do unless your name was Spider-man. The school was taking the theft seriously — two police had arrived and were inspecting the scene. Alex thought he recognised one of them from Friday night. He slipped to the back of the crowd. Dozens of kids were milling around, talking about SWA.
“It stands for Satan Worshippers Association,” said Peter Callaghan.
“No, it’s Students who Want Acceptance,” said a Year 11 girl. “The nerds are striking back.”
A Year 10 boy spoke up. “It’s Skateboarders With Attitude, you idiots. You know, Steve and the gang.”
“Good on ’em,” said another student.
“Yeah, sucked in, Mr Stahl,” said someone else. “When does he ever listen to what we want?”
Later in Religion, while Alex was trying to figure out the difference between Paul and Saul, the classroom phone rang.
“Alex, you are wanted in the office,” said Mr Bath. “Go forth young man and speak the truth.”
The truth was what worried him.
He walked into the office expecting to see Mr Dowden, but instead was face to face with Letch.
“ALEX, DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE?”
Letch had two volumes. Loud and louder.
“No sir.”
“HAVE YOU SEEN THE DISGRACEFUL ACT OF THEFT AND VANDALISM IN OUR SCHOOL?”
“You mean the clock?”
“AND THE GRAFFITI.”
“Yes sir.”
“MR DOWDEN IS AWAY FOR A FEW DAYS SO I WILL BE GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF IT. I’LL ASK YOU AGAIN, WHY ARE YOU HERE?”
“Because you rang me up in religion, sir.”
Letch’s voice went up a few decibels.
“ARE YOU PLAYING GAMES WITH ME, SON?”
“No sir.”
“DID YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHAT HAPPENED?"
“No sir.”
“DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS SWA GANG?”
Alex hesit
ated for a second.
“No sir.”
“DO YOU KNOW WHAT SWA MEANS, ALEX?”
“I’m not sure, sir. I’ve heard some kids say it means Satan Worshippers Association.”
“WELL, I’VE HEARD IT MEANS SKATEBOARDERS WANTING ATTITUDE. I’VE ALSO HEARD THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME SORT OF LINK WITH THIS GROUP. IS THAT TRUE, ALEX?”
Alex looked down.
“IS IT TRUE?”
He looked straight at Letch. “I don’t know anything about it.”
Letch stared at him. Alex felt like there was a flashing sign across his forehead that said “LIAR”.
“I have always found you to be truthful, Alex,” he said, more quietly. “I hope there is no reason for me to change my opinion of you.”
“Yes sir.”
“Yes, there is a reason?”
“I mean, no sir.”
Steve was sitting on the chair outside and he winked as Alex walked past. Alex couldn’t believe it. He looked as cool as a Kelvinator.
“Alex,” Letch called out.
“Sir?”
“How’s Becky doing in Italy?”
“Umm, I’m really not sure, sir.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
As Alex walked back to class he could hear Letch interrogating Steve. Probably the whole school could. “HOW DARE YOU SMIRK AT ME LIKE THAT, BOY!”
After school the gang went straight to Kim’s place. Alex had told his mum the same story about staying at Jimmy’s house, and although she wasn’t keen, she eventually agreed. Jimmy also wasn’t keen.
“If you keep playing with fire, mate, you’re gonna get burned,” he said.
“Yeah, especially when someone’s mate lights the match.”
“I told you, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
“Well, you could have changed the initials at least. Why did you have to use SWA?”
“How was I supposed to know they were going to flog the school’s clock? I can’t believe you want to be a skateboarder with attitude, anyway. It’s such a stupid name.”
“Shut up, bent nose.”
At Kim’s they cross-checked the day’s events. Everyone except Goof had been called up to the office and questioned about the incident. They all had denied it, of course. Goof felt left out.
“When did you steal the clock?” Alex asked.
“The less you know, the better,” said Steve. “We’ll all be questioned again, I reckon, when Dowden gets back.”