‘I’m sorry, Major Manners, Sir,’ I say. ‘About the ants, I mean.’
I notice that the ants have eaten the little bit of skin from the top of his skull.
No worries, says a voice in my head. Take it easy, mate. I can’t feel a thing.
Major Manners is smart and he likes me. Even though I stole him from his resting place.
‘I’ll get the ants off you as soon as I can,’ I say. ‘I have to go to the Loony Bin today.’
No such place, he says.
‘You’re wrong there, Sir,’ I say.
Another thing, mate.
‘What’s that?’
Be a good sport. Don’t call me Sir.
I nod my head as I turn to go. At school we have to call the teachers Sir. And Dad calls some people Sir, like his boss, Mr Brockhouse. He does not call the Dunny Man Sir. Most fathers in Australia don’t call anyone Sir. Major Manners must be Australian.
I leave the sack where it is and head off towards the Loony Bin.
And my doom.
13
inside the loony bin
I ARRIVE AT the front gate of the Loony Bin at nine o’clock like it says in the letter. I am cold all over even though I am perspiring. I am wet with fear.
I have a note that tells me to report to the Office but I don’t want to go inside. The tall iron gate has the words BILLABONG HOME FOR RETARDED BOYS written on it with metal letters. I am horrified to find that this gate is not locked. The loonies can get out whenever they want. Surely they must lock it at night. The beach is behind the back fence so the grave is well out of sight. But it is not out of mind.
What if the loonies kill people and bury them in the sand dunes? One of them could jump out now and cut my throat. No one would know. A quick hole in the sand and there would be no trace of me. I would be buried. Gone forever. Like Major Manners. Maybe that is what happened to him.
I am so scared.
Usually my legs decide what to do. Either I turn and run, or my feet carry me forward without instructions. But this time it is like they are nailed to the ground. I have never been this frightened before. Not even when I saw the skull for the first time.
My brain is swirling with all the terrible things that could happen to me in this place.
Stop thinking, I tell myself. Turn your thoughts to something else. I know. Count out loud. I will count my steps and push the horrible thoughts out of my head.
‘One …
‘Two …
‘Three …’ This is better. I am inside the Loony Bin gates getting closer to …
‘Four …’
Four murderers.
‘Five …’
Five madmen.
‘Six …’
Six loonies.
Oh, what am I thinking about now? Counting my steps is no good. But at least I am on my way.
I stop counting and force myself to walk across the asphalt playground. There is no one around. On one side there is a double-storey building with lots of small windows. I am pleased to see that they are covered in bars. This must be where Victor Baker and the other inmates live. There is a football oval and on the other side of it a high red-brick wall. Behind that wall is probably where they keep the adult inmates. It is like a prison. I feel goose pimples running up my arm. At least I don’t have to go in there.
Close to where I am standing are some long metal huts which are joined together to make up a U shape. This is the school. I can tell this by the paintings and cut-out letters that are pasted on the windows. I can hear singing coming from one of the classrooms. It is loud and mixed up with crazy laughing.
There is a sign that says HEADMASTER’S OFFICE and an arrow pointing to a door.
I step inside, trying desperately to not let my trembling legs collapse under me. I am looking at a long corridor with shiny lino on the floor. Everything is very clean but it smells of antiseptic like a hospital. I walk slowly towards the Headmaster’s Office. My boots squeak on the lino and I half expect a loony to jump out and murder me for making a noise. Finally I reach the office. Inside is a big wooden desk with a typewriter on it. The Headmaster is not there.
But there is someone in the corridor. I go cold all over.
A weird kid is leaning against the wall. He is standing on one leg with the other tucked up under him like a seagull. I have never seen anyone with a leg as thin as this. His stomach is big and sticks out like a lady about to have a baby.
I am so scared that I can’t find any words.
Finally I find my voice.
‘Excuse me,’ I say to Seagull Boy. ‘Do you know where Mr Hooper’s class is? I …’
‘Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody …’
I jump backwards and fall over. The mad boy continues to scream. He screeches so loudly that his face turns red. He yells the same word over and over.
‘Bloody, bloody, bloody.’
I shuffle backwards on my bottom. This is really scary.
Seagull Boy does not move, however. In fact he doesn’t even look at me. I slowly get to my feet. He doesn’t attack. He is standing in the corridor outside the office. He must be in big trouble. Yes, that’s what it is. In my school you would get the strap for even whispering that word. For yelling it out like that they would probably call the Police.
I stand as still as I can. If I move he might start swearing again.
My father sometimes swears when he is working in the garage. He is allowed to, but I am not. My mother doesn’t know that Dad swears. If he hits his head on a cupboard he will say, ‘Bloody hell.’
I once asked Mum why no one can say ‘bloody’ when it just means covered in blood. She said, ‘It does not mean covered in blood. It stands for “By Our Lady”, which is blasphemy. The Catholics don’t like it at all and neither do I.’
‘What’s blasphemy?’ I ask.
‘When you say something God doesn’t like,’ she said. ‘It’s a sin. In England that word you just said is a very bad word. Over here everyone says it. But not us.’
I have just started to say ‘bloody’ when I talk to Ian Douglas and his gang. It makes me sound tough like them. Thank goodness Mum doesn’t know I am a blasphemer.
This is what I’m thinking about while I am standing here next to the Seagull Boy who by now has fallen silent. It’s funny how in dark and dangerous times my mind will wander into a different place. Mum says I have a good imagination. At other times she says I am a dreamer. Dad says I think too much.
My wanderings are interrupted by the arrival of Mr Hooper. As soon as Seagull Boy sees him he starts yelling out ‘bloody’ again.
Mr Hooper smiles and pats him on the shoulder. ‘Good boy, Randolph,’ he says. ‘That is much quieter today.’
Good boy? Quieter? I just cannot figure this out.
Mr Hooper holds out his hand and I shake it. I have never shaken a teacher’s hand before. It feels good. If Mr Hooper notices my fear he doesn’t mention it.
‘Welcome to Billabong, Hedley,’ he says.
The way he says it makes me feel a bit better.
I follow Mr Hooper along the corridor to his classroom. I can’t see into any of the rooms because the windows are too high. This is the same as our school. You can’t look outside or into the corridor. The reason for this is to stop you staring out at interesting things when you are meant to be doing lessons, which are not interesting.
As soon as we get into Mr Hooper’s classroom I can see that nothing else is like our school. For a start there are only about fifteen pupils in the room. My class has fifty-four pupils and we all sit in rows of double desks. Each desk has two inkwells with grooves next to them where we put our pens.
The room doesn’t have desks. Instead there are low tables like in infants’ rooms. But the students look like they are all aged about thirteen or fourteen. Some are sitting on the floor cutting out paper shapes. Others are playing a sort of big Ludo game with numbers written on the dice. When they throw the dice they have to say the number
that comes up and count it out. One group of kids is building toy aeroplanes out of scrap wood.
There are no girls in Mr Hooper’s class. This must be a ‘boys only’ school.
In my school we all look with interest at new people who walk into the room. But these students really take a big gander when they see me. They lift their heads as a group and turn them all together. They stop talking and stare. It reminds me of a picture I once saw: a whole herd of gazelles lifting their heads at the same time as they sniffed something in the air.
‘This is Hedley Hopkins,’ says Mr Hooper. ‘He is Victor’s new friend.’
Victor comes over with a big smile.
‘Hello, Victor,’ I say.
‘Hello, Victor,’ he says happily. He puts his face right up close to mine. Too close. His nose almost touches mine.
‘Victor has echolalia,’ says Mr Hooper.
This time Victor does not copy the sentence. He is trying to pick something out of his teeth with a fingernail.
I have never heard this word before. It must be some terrible disease. ‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘He repeats what you say.’
Mr Hooper holds up a toy fish. He gives it to Victor and says, ‘What’s this, Victor?’
‘What’s this, Victor?’ says Victor.
Mr Hooper gives a little sigh. ‘We all want him to name something. Anything,’ he says. ‘It would be wonderful if he could say a word or sentence which he had not copied from someone else. Just a single word of his own would mean that he was on the way to talking properly.’
Mr Hooper thinks this is important. It is important. The poor kid isn’t a murderer. He just can’t talk.
In the corner of the room is a large trunk with a padlock. Mr Hooper unlocks the trunk and takes out a hammer. He holds it up.
‘Get your tools, Class,’ says Mr Hooper. ‘We are going to mend the hole in the fence.’
14
a gap in the fence
ALL THE BOYS rush over to a large wooden box and take out a tool each. Two of them fight over the same hammer but in the end it is sorted out. The students put on their coats and we troop outside and head off into the bushes. Mr Hooper is carrying a roll of fencing wire.
I realise with a shock where we are heading. No matter where I go or what I think, my steps and my thoughts always lead me back to the same place. And my heart is beating a little faster than it should.
One of the students named Russell is thin boned and has an enormous head. I remember him from my night in the grave. There is another boy, Michael, who is also about twelve but quite small. He sits in a folding pram with his legs twisted and his feet resting on the step.
Mr Hooper drags Michael’s pram behind him as we head out into the playground. We cross the hard black asphalt space which has no trees. There is a sandpit with two sets of swings that have wooden seats held up by chains. And there’s a monkey bar like the ones you see in parks which are a sort of ladder on high legs. You can swing from rung to rung like a gorilla. I’ve never seen a school with a monkey bar before. There’s also a shelter shed just like the one in my school which smells of mouldy sandwiches. There are no flowers. There are no decorations. The buildings feel old. Not old like a palace or a mansion but old like … like a prisoner-of-war camp. All the buildings are faded as if the owners can’t afford any bright paint.
After a bit we reach the edge of the asphalt. The whole set of buildings and yards are surrounded by small twisted ti-trees which stop people outside from staring in. I know that on the sea side where we are heading the scrub turns into sand dunes.
The wire fence with the hole in it runs through there.
And on the other side …
… is the grave.
I try to hang back but Mr Hooper urges me forward.
We push our way through this scrub. Sometimes I help lift Michael’s pram when it gets bogged. Some of the other children like to bend back branches and let them whip the person behind them. This causes a lot of laughing and some crying but Mr Hooper somehow sorts everything out and keeps us moving.
Each one of these children is different and yet in some way they all seem to look alike. There is Seagull Boy with his long legs and fat stomach. And Victor with his almond-shaped eyes and stubby fingers. But then another boy, Richard, is totally different. He has long powerful arms and legs and big hands. Jeremy keeps throwing stones at things. He is a dead-eye dick. He never misses what he aims at.
Finally our journey ends. We are inside the Loony Bin property looking out through the high wire fence at the sand dunes. All the way my heart has been beating faster and faster but now it is going like the wheels of a train racing down a hill.
I stare at the grave in shock. Someone has been there. The heavy concrete slab is back in place.
Who did it?
Do they know I have the skull?
Am I being watched? Do the ti-trees hide evil eyes?
Are loonies involved?
Or murderers?
And what about Major Manners? Is his spirit lurking nearby? Will I ever hear his voice again after he finds out that I can’t return his skull? The slab would be much too heavy for me to move. My racing heart has slowed and now beats like a train going up a hill. A great sadness sweeps over me.
A thought that I don’t really want comes into my mind. Now I can give the skull to Ian Douglas with a clear conscience. I can’t put it back in the grave even if I want to.
All the boys plop down on the sand as if they have just hiked a hundred miles across the desert. They pant and complain in loud voices.
‘I’m knackered.’
‘Puffed out.’
‘Stuffed.’
There is much laughing and holding of sides. Could one of these boys be insane? A secret grave robber? No, surely not. I push the dark thoughts down into a deep space in my mind where they can’t get me and concentrate on the job in hand – the hole in the fence.
Mr Hooper starts to cut pieces of wire from a roll with a pair of pliers. They remind me of the nippers on the ants crawling over Major Manners in our back garden. Gradually Mr Hooper starts to close the hole in the wire fence. One by one the others help. But they are not really helping. They bang with hammers and jab with screwdrivers but really they are just making everything worse. Richard is a real problem. He is cutting a new hole in the fence while Mr Hooper is repairing the old one.
Mr Hooper leads him to one side and gives him a long length of wire.
‘Will you cut this into small pieces for me please, Richard?’ he says.
Richard happily cuts the wire into pieces about one inch long. I can tell that Mr Hooper doesn’t really want these pieces. It’s just a smart way to keep Richard busy. All the others are banging and poking and making quite a racket. They are not doing much harm.
‘Good work, everyone,’ says Mr Hooper.
Good work? They are hopeless.
My father says that I am hopeless when I try to help him. Once he said that I was ‘only fit for the workshop’. But these people are worse than me. No one would give them a job.
Still and all, I am starting to like them. They don’t seem as if they could hurt a fly. They really are like big babies more than lunatics.
Victor, however, is being a bit of a pest.
Seagull Boy is yelling out ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody.’
Victor copies Seagull Boy’s last words. He is having fun. ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody,’ he echoes.
They stand there face to face screaming at each other. They get louder and louder. It is like a record stuck on one track. On and on and on. First one yelling and then the other. The same swear word over and over and over. All the other kids drop their tools and gather around. They laugh and laugh and laugh. They kill themselves laughing. Tears run down their cheeks. Some of them start saying ‘bloody’ too. I have never seen anything like it.
Mr Hooper goes over and taps Victor on the shoulder. Then he holds out his right hand to shake hands. Victor hold
s out his hand and Mr Hooper quickly pats him on his bald head.
‘Got you,’ he says.
Victor starts to cackle away like a hen. He thinks this is really funny and cocks his head to one side waiting for the next time. Victor holds his hands like someone about to catch a ball. He is not going to let this happen again.
‘What’s that?’ says Mr Hooper.
Victor looks around but there is nothing there.
‘Shake,’ says Mr Hooper.
Victor holds out his hand automatically and Mr Hooper pats him on his bald head again. I can see that this is an old game between them. Victor is laughing like crazy and he has forgotten all about yelling out ‘bloody’.
Nobody gets the strap. Nobody is sent to the Headmaster’s Office. It is just as if nothing has happened. Weird. But smart.
Victor suddenly rushes over to Mr Hooper’s toolbox and pulls out a jar. Inside is a mixture of boiled sweets. Victor shakes the jar at Mr Hooper who takes it from his hand.
‘Okay,’ says Mr Hooper. He hands the jar to me. ‘Victor loves boiled lollies,’ he says. ‘But if he gets more than he can eat he throws them at people.’
Suddenly the penny drops.
My mouth starts talking before my brain can get into gear. ‘That’s what he was throwing when I was down the gr–’
I suddenly shut my mouth. Fool that I am. Mr Hooper stares at me with a question on his face. He throws a glance at the concrete slab, puzzled.
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’
I have just realised that when I was down in the grave Victor was throwing boiled lollies at me. Not stones. Sometimes things are not what they seem to be.
15
dog, dog, dog
‘HEDLEY, TAKE VICTOR for a walk around the playground,’ says Mr Hooper. ‘If he wanders off, just hold out one of these lollies and he’ll come back. It’ll be a good chance for you to get to know each other. Don’t go outside the fence though.’
How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare... Page 6