How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare...

by Paul Jennings

  Ian Douglas raises an eyebrow. He wants the skull. Stinker is looking at me as if he is just going to ask me what nine eights are. Victor grins at me crazily. He is dribbling from his mouth. I am ashamed of my thoughts but I can’t help it. Victor is embarrassing.

  ‘Well, Hopkins,’ says Stinker. ‘I believe you have been giving Victor language lessons. What words does he know? Show us your new-found skill.’

  ‘Victor,’ I say. ‘Tell us a word.’

  I see his lip tremble and for a second I think he is going to say ‘Tell us a word’. But he doesn’t. Victor jumps up and bends over. His backside is pointing at my face.

  ‘Fart,’ he yells. He lets rip with the biggest, longest fart I have ever heard.

  The whole class breaks up. There is nothing that breaks a class up like a fart. This is true in England as well. Even a mean teacher like Stinker can’t stop the hoots of laughter that flood the classroom.

  Victor is the loudest laugher of all. He thinks he has done something brilliant. He laughs with a huge wide open mouth. So does everyone else. Victor is laughing with the class. But they are laughing at him. And at me.

  The whole nightmare reminds me of Luna Park fairground where laughter is played out of all the loudspeakers in the Giggle Palace and the open clown mouth at the entrance. The world can hear it bouncing off the sky.

  Somebody else in the classroom farts and the laughter doubles. Now Stinker does not think it is amusing. The class is getting out of control. Whoever did that fart is in for big trouble.

  ‘Heads on desks,’ shouts Stinker.

  This order means we have to cross our arms on the desk and place our faces down on them so that we can’t see anything. Everyone does what they are told but shoulders are shaking with the effort of trying to stop the laughter. Suddenly someone lets go with another loud snort and all the others lose control. It is like trying to stop a river with your fingers. Because our heads are down, the laughing echoes under the desk and fills the whole room with an incredible roaring sound.

  ‘Stop this. Stop this,’ yells Stinker. ‘I am getting my strap out of the cupboard.’

  The laughter turns to giggles but still does not stop.

  ‘Bum,’ says Victor. It gets a roar from the class. I turn my head and peep at Victor. He doesn’t have his head down on his hands like the rest of us. He is very impressed by the laughter the last word aroused, and is staring around wildly.

  Shrieks of mirth erupt from the bent heads. Victor is beside himself with happiness.

  ‘Poop,’ says Victor.

  The laughing doubles again.

  ‘Tits,’ says Victor. Everyone gives up keeping their head down. It is too much effort. Henderson laughs so much that he actually falls out of his desk.

  Victor is saying all the naughty words the other kids at Billabong have told him. Goodness knows what he will say next. Another voice speaks out.

  ‘Hopkins.’

  Through the din I hear my name. But it’s not Victor who says it. It is Stinker.

  He roars down the aisle and grabs me by the scruff of the neck with one hand. In his other hand he holds his thick leather strap. Now everyone falls silent. This is serious. No one knows who could be next. He throws me stumbling onto the platform at the front of the class.

  ‘Hopkins,’ he yells. ‘You think flatulence is funny? I’ll teach you to break wind in my class. I am going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget in a hurry.’

  ‘It’s not my fault, Sir,’ I say. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  His face is red and his mouth is foaming like a horse. ‘Don’t talk back to me, boy,’ he yells. ‘Hold out your hand.’

  He is going to give me six of the best.

  I have had enough of this. I don’t care if he is a teacher. I don’t care if he is appointed by God himself. This is wrong.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ I yell. I can’t believe I am saying this, but it’s not fair. ‘It’s not my fault that the class can’t stop laughing.’

  ‘Hold out your hand,’ shrieks Stinker. Everyone has fallen silent now. They put themselves in my place in their minds. It is not a place they would like to be.

  ‘No,’ I shout. ‘You are not giving me the strap. You are a horrible, mean …’

  ‘Shit.’

  The missing word has been provided by Victor. He is grinning, still looking for laughs. But his word hangs in the silence. It almost seems as if I have provided the missing word.

  Stinker lashes out at my legs with his strap. But I jump. He grabs me by the collar and whips at my legs. My socks are hanging down around my ankles. If only I had put on my garters they would have held my socks up and given me some protection. The strap curls around my leg as it hits. The pain is terrible. Hot and hard.

  One …

  Two …

  Three …

  ‘Stop, stop,’ I cry.

  Four …

  Five …

  Six …

  Seven …

  My mind starts to swirl. I remember the talk in the playground. Teachers are only allowed to give you six by law. And not on the legs.

  Eight …

  Nine …

  Ten …

  Oh, it hurts. I am not taking any more. I kick Stinker in the shin. He lets go with a shriek and stares at me in disbelief. He is panting like an enraged bull ready to charge. But he won’t get me. I turn. And run for it.

  I leave that classroom like a cork out of a popgun. I belt across the asphalt playground and out of the steel gates. I race down the quiet streets past the watching houses. I leave that school like a boy running from teachers and a loony and the Police and the strap of a cruel man. I leave like a lunatic. I leave like that because that’s who I am. I am a loony on the run. My life is a total disaster.

  I have no friends, I’ve caught a terrible disease, I made a fool of myself about the pee, I’ve stolen a skull and I have run off from school. The back of my legs are burning. They are already turning purple and blue.

  Soon they will put out a search party. I have to get back to Major Manners before they do. Does the Headmaster call the Police if a boy runs away from school? I don’t know. I kicked a teacher in the shin. The teachers will come after me for sure. Ian Douglas will tell them that I have the skull. I am a criminal now.

  The streets are quiet because all the children are in school. If you are out of school with your parents when everyone else is hard at work in the classroom you feel terrific in this quiet, unusual world. But if you are on the run you feel like a criminal. You are not meant to be here. You are unusual. You are weird.

  My school boots pound the footpath loudly as I run. Skull, skull, skull, they seem to say. Why does Ian Douglas want Major Manners? Is it just to make himself look big in front of everyone? Or does he want to use him for some sort of ritual with his gang? Like in Inner Sanctum where a cult of naked people dance around a skull before throwing it into a bonfire.

  Suddenly I make a big decision. They can do whatever they like to me. I am alone in the world except for Major Manners. No one cares except him. He is my friend. Dead, yes. But sometimes he speaks inside my brain. I have to look after him. More than that – I have to take him back to the grave.

  I run even faster.

  ‘Major Manners,’ I say. ‘I won’t be long.’

  21

  a wild man

  AS I THUNDER into our front garden I hear loud footsteps behind me. I dodge around the back of the garage and press myself against the wall. Was someone following me? Ian Douglas? Stinker? The Police? Or was it just someone running along the road because they were late for a bus?

  I creep up to the kitchen door.

  All my senses are alert. I am like a mouse who knows there is a cat somewhere in the room. Suddenly there is a loud crash from inside. It sounded like someone dropping something heavy on the floor. Burglars. Burglars must have come to rob the house.

  Another thought comes into my mind. Ian Douglas and the others. They have come for the skull
. They must be inside the house at this very moment.

  I rush into the kitchen. What I see does not make sense. It is sort of like looking at one of those squashed ink-blot pictures where you have to try and make something out of it. I see what I see but my mind just can’t take it in. It’s probably only a few seconds but it seems like hours. Finally I manage to understand.

  My mother is lying on the floor. Well, not lying. She is sort of crumpled as if someone has taken the bones out of her legs and she has just collapsed. Her eyes are closed and she looks as if she is dead.

  Next to her on the floor is a cardboard box with pink and white and green ice-cream flowing out of it.

  The fridge door is open and so is the freezing compartment.

  Staring out at us is a frozen skull, covered in frozen bull ants.

  My brain, which is also frozen, starts to thaw. Mum must have seen the melted ice-cream and gone to put it back in the fridge. When she opened the freezing compartment she saw a skull covered in frozen bull ants staring out at her.

  Then she had a heart attack and died.

  Oh, what have I done.

  ‘Mum, Mum, Mum,’ I cry.

  There’s no response. I lift up her head but it’s floppy. What can I do? Should I turn her over and try to get her breathing by pressing on her back like the life-savers do when someone has drowned? Does she have a pulse? I try to remember first aid from school. I just can’t get my brain to think properly.

  Her eyelids start to flutter. She is not dead. She has fainted. Phew.

  And she is waking up. Quick, quick, quick. I must get rid of the skull before she sees it again. I grab the broom, which is still where I left it over by the door, and shove it into the base of the skull. I hold it up straight so that it doesn’t fall off.

  Mum opens her eyes and looks at me.

  What does she see? She sees her son standing there like a wild cannibal from years gone by. I must look like an ancient head-hunter with his prize fixed on the end of a pole. Mum sits up on the floor.

  ‘Hedley Hopkins,’ she screams at me. ‘You wicked boy. What have you done?’

  My mouth is hanging open like one of those plastic clowns which are lined up next to each other at Luna Park. People drop table-tennis balls into their mouths to see if they can win a prize. I move my head from side to side like the clowns but nothing comes into my mouth or out of it. I am speechless. And I am wicked.

  My mother often uses this word. She has a little saying about me which she often repeats:

  When he is good he is very, very good.

  But when he is bad he is wicked.

  I am wicked. I am a wicked person. Bad. Sinful.

  And I am not alone in the kitchen with my mother. There is another person there. He bends down and peers into my mother’s face. Then he puts one finger against her nose and presses it.

  ‘Nose,’ he says.

  It is Victor. He grins at me. Then he grins at the skull on top of the broom handle. Victor has followed me home. His were the footsteps I heard behind me. Mr Hooper told him to stay close to me and that is what he’s done. My mother stares up at him in fear and amazement.

  How can I explain all this? Soon Mr Hooper and Stinker and the Police will arrive. No one will believe that I didn’t break open the lead coffin and take out the skull. I know it was Ian Douglas and the gang who did it. But they will never own up. Everyone will call me a vandal. They will say that nothing is sacred. They might even read my mind and know that I’ve been thinking about naked ladies. If I stay here I’ll be caught. I could be put in prison. My picture might be in the paper because I am a criminal.

  Will I run for it? Or will I stay and face up to what I have done?

  Suddenly my mind is made up for me. Victor grabs the broom from my hands and holds the skull up high. He rattles it above his head. Then he gives an enormous wild cry and runs out of the door. He is taking Major Manners. He is rushing off with my friend.

  ‘Head,’ he yells. ‘Head.’

  When Victor first saw the skull back at the grave he was terrified. But not now. My friendship with him seems to have changed all that. Now it is my turn to be scared. Scared of losing Major Manners.

  ‘Come back,’ I scream. ‘Come back, you idiot.’

  I race out of the door after him.

  Behind me I hear Mum calling out, but I can’t make out the words. A louder voice is speaking inside my head. It must be Major Manners.

  The voice says, You are using this as an excuse to run. You should stay and tell the truth. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re running away again.

  The voice is only small and in a second I have shoved it down inside my own skull. I am belting down the street after Victor. He comes to a halt at the bus stop where an old lady is standing next to her shopping cart. The cart is like a pram without a baby – all the mothers have them. Mum has one just the same which she takes to the shops and loads up with the week’s food.

  The old lady starts to tremble as she is faced by Victor – a wild bald crazy kid who is laughing like a baby being tickled. He leaps around with the skull on the end of the broom handle. Victor suddenly grabs a loaf of bread out of her basket and yells out, ‘Bread’.

  Before she can even scream he puts back the bread and is off again, down the road towards the beach.

  ‘Hedley,’ comes an urgent voice from behind me. ‘Hedley, wait for me.’

  I do not wait. I follow Victor and Major Manners.

  And Kate follows me. What is she doing here?

  Victor charges down the road with the skull on the end of the broom handle. Everyone stares at the weird sight. Whenever Victor sees something that he recognises, he names it at the top of his voice.

  He grabs the handlebars of a postman’s bike and yells out, ‘Bike.’

  He races into a public toilet holding his skull up high. Oh, what? It is the Ladies’ side.

  ‘Dunny,’ he yells. He is out again in a flash, thank goodness.

  He names everything in our crazy world.

  ‘Bus.’

  ‘Tree.’

  ‘Butcher.’

  ‘Pier.’

  ‘Sand.’

  ‘Bird.’

  ‘Dog, dog, dog.’

  22

  wagging it

  KATE AND VICTOR and I are on the beach and we are playing truant from school. ‘Wagging it’, as they say in Australia. And we are not the only ones doing it. There is a tiny terrier wagging its tail and chasing seagulls. It pauses to look at us. Victor is scared. The dog senses his fear and starts to yap. Victor stops running and hides behind me. He is trembling, making the skull on the end of the broom rattle like a set of false teeth tied to a branch in a storm.

  ‘It won’t hurt you, Victor,’ I say.

  ‘Shoo,’ yells Kate. She charges at the dog and it turns tail and runs.

  I gently take Victor’s hand and lead him to a sand dune where the three of us sit down. Victor glances nervously at the dog which is now chasing seagulls along the pier.

  Kate stares at the skull.

  ‘What’s going on, Hedley?’ says Kate. ‘Did he steal that from the grave?’ She gives a little shudder.

  For just a second I think about letting Victor take the blame. It would get me off the hook.

  Tell the truth, says Major Manners.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I did.’

  Kate’s mouth falls open. ‘Hedley,’ she gasps. ‘You promised me. You said you wouldn’t go back there.’

  ‘It’s a dare,’ I say.

  I know this explanation sounds weak and the look on Kate’s face tells me that she thinks so too. I can just hear myself saying ‘it’s a dare’ to the judge when the Police take me to court.

  ‘I told Ian Douglas and his gang that whatever they said I would do it.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ says Kate. ‘What for?’

  Victor rattles the skull on the end of the broom handle.

  ‘To make friends.’

  ‘No one ne
eds friends like them,’ says Kate.

  ‘Everyone needs at least one person,’ I say.

  ‘What about Victor?’ she says. ‘Isn’t he your friend?’

  ‘Victor doesn’t count,’ I say.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He is just a little kid in a big body. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. None of them would. But he doesn’t know much. He’s … simple.’ Victor is listening. He doesn’t understand but he nods his head as if he does.

  ‘Friend,’ says Victor.

  Kate stares at the little dog that is running along the pier. ‘What’s man’s best friend?’ she says.

  I’m not quite sure what she’s asking me this for. ‘A dog?’ I answer, remembering the old saying. Kate nods.

  ‘Victor knows a lot more than a dog,’ she says.

  I don’t answer for quite a bit. I think about this. Finally I say, ‘So do you, Kate.’ We smile at each other. And Victor.

  ‘We have to take the skull back,’ says Kate. ‘Before we get caught.’

  I stare up at the skull.

  Take me back where I belong, mate, says Major Manners.

  I don’t tell Kate that Major Manners can talk to me. She’ll think I am crazy.

  ‘The only trouble is,’ I say out loud, ‘someone has put the concrete block back and we’ll never be strong enough to lift it off.’

  ‘You could just bury him here in the sand,’ she says. ‘No one would know.’

  I would, says Major Manners.

  ‘I would,’ I say.

  ‘I would,’ says Victor. I peer into his eyes. His words are not an echo. He takes the broom from my hand.

  I look up at the sky. There is a cloud that looks like a smiling face. ‘Let’s go … mate,’ I say to Victor.

  Without another word we jump to our feet and start to walk along the deserted beach towards the grave.

  We must look strange. Three children carrying a bony head on a broom handle, one of them a great big student from Billabong who is not as clever as the small girl who holds his hand. I wonder what all the others would think: Ian Douglas and his tough mates, Rev Carpenter who made me repeat his words, Stinker the cruel teacher, my father who can’t bring himself to tell me how babies get started and my mother who has never kissed or hugged me. What would they all think of us?