by John Larkin
English was the first lesson after lunch on Fridays but he wasn’t even able to run around at break time because it was raining and surprisingly cold for that time of year. He’d spent the lunch break alone in the library trying to acquire both knowledge and warmth.
He was officially out of the Science Brains thanks to scoring a meagre twenty per cent on the first math’s test. He wasn’t that bad at maths but had simply ‘trued’ where he should have ‘falsed’ and vice versa. Iggy had a loosely tested theory, which Eric often followed, and that was the answers to a true or false quiz usually followed a set pattern; that is, the first answer is ‘T’ followed by two ‘F’s, this in turn is followed by a ‘T’ then an ‘F’ and then three ‘T’s just to get you excited. The theory was that the quiz could be answered like this without the tedious need to actually look at the questions. It had served both Iggy and Eric well in the past, and it might have even worked this time. But Eric had failed to take into account that only the first ten questions were of the true or false variety; the remaining thirty required some degree of mathematical involvement. So out of the Science Brains he went, thanks to his own rule. He didn’t like the way the rest of the gang said they would make a special consideration for him. He didn’t like the implications of that at all. The fact that they had mentioned it seemed to indicate that he didn’t belong in the gang in the first place. And while the math’s test seemed to support this theory, it did nothing to calm Eric’s anger towards his former friends. On top of that Veronica Roberts was going with Boyd Bannister, the leader of the Science Brains, who had apparently wooed her by doubling her home in the rain on the back of his bike while quoting from Shakespearian tragedy.
Eric realised that without any effort on his part, he had become the class dag. He could even feel his top front teeth starting to stick out, and he had to fight off an overwhelming urge to go out and buy a couple of ABBA records.
He wasn’t brainy enough to get away with grey pants, and he wasn’t quick witted enough to toss in any funny lines that the rest of the class would laugh at. He was caught in a kind of classroom blind spot and there was no escape.
He had no friends. The girls looked right through him. He’d smashed a mallet to bits in Woodwork and was not allowed to touch any tools other than sandpaper. On top of all that he was coming last in Maths, his ‘ball foot’ blunder had earned him nothing but ridicule every time he saw Mr McManus, and to make matters worse he couldn’t even impress Mr Lawrence any more since he’d had a nervous breakdown and was carted off uttering something about choppers.
Nobody picked on Eric, they just ignored him, which he thought was worse. At least when he was being picked on his existence was being acknowledged. Now the whole school seemed to be part of a plot to look right through him. So he started spending his school breaks in the relative sanctuary of the library, and his time at home tucked under the safety of his doona.
Eric gazed out of the window in English and wondered what he could do to bring himself to the attention of his classmates again, particularly that babe Veronica Roberts. He had to be careful, though. The last time he’d tried to attract instant fame had brought nothing but trouble. It was during a fourth grade lesson on frogs that Eric had begun to feel himself drifting into the background. In an effort to make himself noticed again, at the end of the lesson he announced, in a loud, confident voice, that he could outdo the Bush Tucker Man, Densey Clyne or anybody else for that matter when it came to amphibians. In order to prove it, he was going to catch a record number of tadpoles from Toongabbie Creek. Unfortunately he didn’t think this through clearly, the end result being one hundred very confused frogs hopping around the Underwoods’ backyard a few weeks later. It had taken him forty-seven trips to the creek before they were all finally deported.
Then there was the time before that when his third grade class were staging Pygmalion for the school concert. A couple of Eric’s classmates convinced him that he’d got the main part. He raced home and told his parents that he was going to be the star of Pygmalion, and that he would be playing the part of the pig. They spent the next half an hour rolling round on the carpet in fits of laughter. They were such dags. It was a while before Eric told them anything again.
Eric had to admit that the Pygmalion and tadpole incidents had been disasters. This time he would have to find something that didn’t involve anything slimy or stupid sounding plays. And then it struck him what he would do. It had been there all along! Instant fame was his for the taking like it had been since his family had moved to Toongabbie. In the past he had been too young and scared. But now having turned thirteen, he reckoned he could handle it.
‘I’m going to cross the Pipe of No Return,’ said Eric out loud. A few of his classmates started to laugh.
‘Excuse me?’ said the relief teacher.
‘Oh, ah, I’m sorry, Miss.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing, Miss.’
‘Now come on: you sit there day after day and we never hear a peep out of you and then you suddenly blurt something out. I for one would like to know what it was.’
‘I said that I was going to cross the Pipe of No Return.’
‘What’s the pipe of no…’
‘Don’t be stupid, Underwood! A little wooss like you wouldn’t have the guts.’
‘You wait and see, Nelson. I’ll show you who’s a wooss.’
‘Are you called me a wooss, Underwood? You little loser.’
‘If the cap fits, moron.’
‘You wait, Spaghetti Legs. You’re dead.’
‘When you two are quite finished the rest of us would like to get back to the lesson.’
‘Not really, Miss, let them have a fight,’ said Noel Stevenson.
‘Eric and Billy, outside! And if I hear so much as a squeak, you’ll both be keeping me company in detention this afternoon.’
Eric walked proudly out of the room. He had forced his way back into the attention of the class. Now all he had to do was live up to his boast and they wouldn’t forget him so easily again. Unfortunately Billy Nelson stole a bit of his limelight by walking out of the class squeaking like a gigantic mouse.
‘Iggy Suede is not always going to be around to protect you, Spaghetti Legs, and when he’s not, you’re mine,’ whispered Billy out in the corridor. ‘And if you think what he did to me and Ferny was bad, just wait till you see what we’ve got lined up for you.’
‘Billy, is it just an ugly rumour or are you really sleeping with Greg Fern?’
The chase went through B-block, under C-block and over A-block before they were finally collared on their third lap around the auditorium.
‘That’ll be thrrree days’ detention for both of ye,’ said Mr McManus as he dragged them back to class by their ears.
Eric was suddenly enjoying school again.
Crossing Toongabbie Creek, not too far from Eric’s house, is a yellow pipe. Eric could never find out what this pipe was for. But judging from the discoloured waste that billowed from some of the smokestacks of the nearby factories, he wouldn’t have been too surprised to discover that it was carrying raw mercury to dump into the surf at Bondi Beach.
The Pipe of No Return, as it was called, joined the banks at the highest point of the creek. It held a special place in the lives of all the people who hung out at the creek. Whoever was brave or foolish enough to cross it usually went down in history and had folk songs written about them. What made the pipe so dangerous, apart from its height above the jagged rocks, was that it had a plastic yellow coating which made it extremely slippery.
Nobody in Eric’s class or indeed the whole of year seven had crossed the pipe as far as he knew. But he realised that if he could make it across, signing his name halfway, the class would be forced to stop ignoring him.
When he was finally released from detention in the afternoon, he raced home, put on some old clothes, collected a marker pen and raced down to the creek ready to immortalise himself.
H
e sat down on the pipe and made deliberate coughing noises to catch the attention of Billy Nelson and Greg Fern, who were already lighting up their first smokes of the evening.
‘Ahem, ahem,’ said Eric.
Nothing.
‘Ahem, ahem.’
Nothing.
‘Ahem, ahem.’
‘What are you doing up there, Underwood?’ said Greg Fern. ‘You creep.’
‘I told you, Fern-tree, I’m going to cross it.’ Eric held out the marker pen to show them he was serious.
‘If you get halfway out and panic, don’t call your mummy, only the fire brigade can get you down if you get stuck, you little fag,’ said Billy. He looked at Greg knowingly.
So that was it. Greg Fern had tried to cross the pipe and had to be rescued by firemen.
‘Hey, Fern-tree?’ yelled Eric.
‘What do you want, wooss? Your teddy bear?’
‘He haw, he haw, he haw, he haw,’ said Eric, doing his best to imitate a siren.
‘Get nicked, Spaghetti Legs! I bet you can’t do any better,’ said Greg, throwing the gauntlet well and truly at Eric’s feet. And with this parting remark they disappeared around a bend in the creek where there were plenty of better places to smoke.
Eric’s feet dangled around the pipe but still touched the safety of the bank. He edged out a bit further and immediately scurried back to safety.
An hour had passed since he first straddled the pipe, and in that time everything seemed to have grown wider and higher. In the long run Eric felt that he’d had enough pipe gazing for one day and went home.
He went to bed that night and thought about great achievers. His mind was blank.
He thought about having a nervous breakdown but he reckoned nobody would notice. So he got up and played computer games instead.
The following afternoon Eric sat on the pipe again, his feet and hopes dangling high above the water. The sound of the creek as it babbled over the jagged rocks did nothing to soothe him. In fact it was irritating.
Every day for the next month he sat on the pipe and stared out into uncertainty. Occasionally he would be jerked out of this hypnotic state by some smart-arse comment from either Billy Nelson or Greg Fern.
‘Maybe if you sit there long enough, continental drift will help out and pass the pipe right under you,’ said Billy Nelson, who was obviously brighter than he let on.
Eric didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.
The pipe crossing, or rather lack of it, started to affect him. His school work, his appetite, in fact everything suffered.
One miserable Saturday afternoon Eric put on the rain gear and headed off again. It was cold, damp and horrible down the creek but he was going to fight on.
He sat in his usual position and watched the rocks disappear under the brown muddy water. The rain pelted hard against his hat.
‘You’re never going to cross it,’ yelled Billy Nelson. ‘Why don’t you go home and play with dolls?’ And with this both he and Greg Fern headed off. The rain had dampened their cigarettes if not their desire for them.
Charged with anger, Eric reached out as far as he could and took a firm hold of the pipe. He dragged himself out until he caught up with his hands. He wiped the rain from his eyes and reached out again and again until he found himself past the point of no return. It wasn’t as far down to the water as he’d imagined it would be. The pipe was made extra slippery by the rain and with his raincoat wet he could slide along quite easily. The drop to the water seemed even less than before.
Terror gripped every muscle of his body as he realised that the reason it wasn’t so far down to the water was that the water was coming up to meet him! He was caught in the middle of one of Toongabbie Creek’s notorious flash floods. He wrapped his arms and legs tight around the pipe, too petrified to move. The noise of the rushing water drowned out his screams. Motorists, keen to get home before the bridge was washed out, didn’t even see the creature clinging to the yellow pipe.
When the water began to lap against his feet he just about gave up hope. The choice was simple: lie there and die, or try to make it to the other side. Eric realised if he chose the second option he would probably get swept to a watery grave anyway. So why bother? His left shoe was removed and he could feel the water round his foot. This was it. Death had begun to tickle his toes.
He summoned all his strength and courage and reached out, as before, to pull in a handful of pipe. A rat, swept down from further up the creek, humped itself for a moment over the pipe before being washed off into the current again. Eric managed to make his way slowly along the pipe until finally, with one last effort, he reached out and caught the branch of a low hanging tree, and pulled himself to safety. He glanced back and saw about a dozen rats scattered along the pipe now; ten seconds later it was completely underwater. Eric fainted.
The following Monday morning he sat in his History class and looked back on his brush with death.
He didn’t care if the class knew that he’d crossed the pipe, he was just glad it was all over. He swore he would never go down to the creek again.
Surprisingly the pipe had revealed more about him and Greg Fern than he could have guessed.
A kick on his chair yanked Eric out of his thoughts. He turned around and saw Billy Nelson and Greg Fern leering at him.
‘A little wooss like you will never cross the Pipe of No Return.’
‘You’re wrong, Nelson, I’ve already done it. And there wasn’t a siren to be heard, Fern-tree.’
‘You have not, Spaghetti Legs,’ said Greg Fern.
‘I have.’
‘Prove it!’
‘Okay. Greg Fern loves Leanne Oakley, Greg Fern loves Leanne Oakley, Greg Fern loves Leanne Oakley,’ said Eric in a sing-song voice. And while the rest of the class looked at the shocked face of Greg Fern and the surprised face of Leanne Oakley, Eric turned around and sat smugly looking ahead.
The first term’s break had loomed up quickly, and as Eric lounged about in bed on day one he thought back on his high school life so far.
It hadn’t been a major success by any standards. His Pipe of No Return crossing, while not bringing him exactly fame had brought him some sort of toleration amongst his classmates, but it had nearly cost him his life.
Much to Eric’s annoyance, his outing of Greg Fern’s love for Leanne Oakley, that he’d found etched on the Pipe of No Return, backfired quite badly. It caused quite a stir amongst the class at first, however the end result was that Greg and Leanne started going together and became the hot item of 7.A4 when Eric desperately wanted that position for himself and Veronica Roberts who was getting better looking by the minute.
When he first saw her he thought she was cute. Now he reckoned she looked like Julia Roberts, Madonna, Demi Moore, Liz and Sunflower all rolled into one. She was a babe to the max. But unfortunately she was practically engaged to that science brained loser, Boyd Bannister.
Love life aside, it wasn’t all bad during the first term. In the last week before the holidays, Stephen Brown resigned from his position of vice-president to the vice-president of the Science Brains and he and Eric became friends, ‘united outcasts’ Stephen called them.
They struck up their friendship when in a weak moment, in woodwork, Eric embarrassingly told Stephen about how he’d started wetting the bed again, and what the hell could he do to stop it.
‘You’re not wetting the bed, they’re wet dreams,’ said Stephen.
‘What?’ said Eric, trying to hush Stephen down a bit but still clearly interested.
‘Wet dreams.’
Eric smiled, nodded and made a few ‘ahh ahh’ noises before finally giving up. ‘What are wet dreams?’
‘Are you usually dreaming about girls when they happen?’
‘Yeah, Veronica Roberts usually, but sometimes Sunflower Fox, she was this girl from my class at primary, and there’s my ex-neighbour, Liz Campbell and…’
‘Underwood?’ interrupted Stephen.
&
nbsp; ‘Yeah?’
‘I get the point. The question is do you?’
‘No.’
‘Man, you can become a father.’
‘What?’
‘You heard. If you did any of those things that you dream about with all these girls that your mind seems to have access to, and they were ovulating, there’s a good chance that your parents would become grandparents.’
‘But I’ve only just turned thirteen.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Do you think as your sperm is making its way towards the egg that it’s going to turn around and say “don’t fertilise me you nasty little tadpole, you’re only from a thirteen year old?” No way. In the world of reproduction when you’re old enough, you’re old enough.’
‘I thought it was a bit gooey for, well you know, for…’
‘Wee? Yeah you’re right, it is. Welcome to adolescence.’
Like Eric, Stephen wasn’t allowed to touch any tools in woodwork because he’d broken the lathe and the two of them usually spent the lesson locked in the back room trying to sandpaper a bird house into shape. The end result was that they spent their time in the back room talking and making sandpapering noises in an effort to keep Mr Whittle, the Woodwork teacher, of their case.
‘Er, Stephen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You mentioned something about girls and ovals, what’s that?’
‘Not ovals. Ovulating.’
‘Yeah what is it?’
‘Don’t you know anything about anything?’
‘I know where Chekhov’s buried, and what Gandhi did.’
‘That must come in handy. What about anything useful? You’re friends with that smart guy who lives near you, what’s his name? Iggy Suede isn’t it?’
‘Yeah but he’s moved to England. Don’t tell anyone, though, cause if Nelson and Fern-tree find out, I’m history.’