Getting Air

by Debra Oswald

  Jycinta and her friend Marissa were both in Year 10 like us. The two of them sat down on the low brick wall. Sometimes, groups of girls would hang around the Town Hall steps so they could talk to any hot guys who might suddenly appear – by some miracle – in the main street of Narragindi. Jycinta and Marissa could sit there for an hour, putting on lip gloss and bitching about people.

  Jycinta was one of those girls who wears the tightest clothes possible and a shovel-load of makeup. In my opinion, covering up acne with a thick glob of brownish makeup makes it look worse – but hey, what would I know? Jycinta’s hair was a different colour pretty much every week. This week it was a toxic orange colour, as if she’d stuck her head in a nuclear reactor. Marissa did her best to copy everything about the way Jycinta looked, which was probably a mistake. Those tight little tops and skirts didn’t exactly suit Marissa.

  Jycinta always had Marissa following her around like a faithful puppy. My theory is that Jycinta thought of herself as some kind of princess. Yeah well, there wasn’t much chance to be Princess Jycinta of Narragindi.

  ‘Hey guys,’ whispered Corey. ‘Stone’s coming.’

  Corey spotted Ray Stone marching down the main street before the rest of us. Corey always kept his eyes open – to avoid trouble if he could.

  What can I tell you about Ray Stone? Apart from the fact that he was a maggot. Stone was oldish – about forty, I guess – and he owned the main real estate business in town. He was already on the council but his big ambition in life was to be the next mayor of Narragindi. He was a nuggety guy – an okay footballer at school – but so bloated and unfit now, he looked like someone had pumped him up with a bicycle pump. When Ray marched around town wearing his fancy suits, he thought he was a Very Important Guy.

  The second we saw Ray Stone, everyone cleared off the steps. That didn’t stop Ray making a big deal about the fact that we were blocking the way (which we weren’t).

  ‘I’m trying to get into the building,’ he snapped.

  ‘Need a hand up the steps, do ya?’ asked Travis, being a smart-arse.

  ‘Are you kids blind?’ Stone waggled his finger at the NO SKATING sign on the footpath.

  ‘Oh, sorry, sorry, you’re right,’ said JT. ‘We should skate at the skatepark but – Oh! Gasp! There isn’t a skatepark in this town!’

  Stone ignored JT and made a big show of inspecting the steps. ‘I should send a bill to your parents for the damage you skateboard riders do here.’

  When he turned to go inside the building, Travis growled, ‘Maggot.’

  Stone spun back and snapped, ‘Something you want to say?’ He glared at Travis and puffed out his chest, ready for a fight. Travis took a step forward, his jaw muscles clenched tight, ready to take on this maggot in a suit.

  I had to move fast. If any skater (in this case Travis) thumped Ray Stone, it would only make things worse for everyone. I lunged forward so I was standing in between Travis and Stone. That way I could block their view and intercept the evil death stares they were sending each other.

  ‘He doesn’t want to say anything,’ I said in the calmest voice I could manage.

  Stone twisted his mouth with disgust, like we weren’t even worth squishing under his shoe. He stomped inside and slammed the door behind him.

  ‘You can’t win against a guy like Stone,’ I pointed out to Travis. ‘So don’t take him on.’

  Travis let rip with a spray of foul words about Ray Stone and then grabbed his stuff to leave. Other people were making to head home too. The mood was wrecked and no one felt like hanging around. I glanced over at Corey and he shrugged – what can you do?

  It definitely looked like the skating session was over for the day – until Lauren Saxelby appeared on the footpath.

  Chapter Three

  It wasn’t really Lauren who made everyone decide to stay. It was what she held in her hand: a video camera.

  ‘Do you guys mind if I film you skating?’ she asked.

  Did they mind? No, they didn’t mind. They loved it. If there is one thing skaters love, it’s being filmed. If someone turns up with a camera, skaters will show off like crazy. And that’s what happened on the steps of the Narragindi Town Hall that afternoon. Corey, JT, Stella, Travis, Riley and every skater there started showing off for the camera.

  Not me. I found a little corner where I could keep out of the way. I wasn’t a big fan of Lauren Saxelby. She’d been in my class every year since kindergarten at Narragindi North Primary. Mum reckons Lauren and I used to play together under the sprinkler in the backyard when we were seven years old but I don’t remember that.

  Now we were fifteen, it was as if Lauren lived in a separate universe to me, even though we sat in the same classrooms. She was the perfect Good Girl. Came top in most of her school subjects. All the teachers loved her. Captain of the A-grade netball team. Captain of the debating team. Had her little group of Good Girl friends. Never got in any trouble. I mean, never. Rich family with one of the biggest, flashiest houses in Narragindi. Everyone said Lauren would be scooting off to a fancy private boarding school in Sydney for Year 11 and 12. Yeah, that’d be right. Narragindi High wasn’t good enough for a precious girl like Lauren.

  I don’t think you should automatically dislike a person because her family has bulk money and a big house. But I don’t like it when people think they’re superior to the rest of us. And you could tell by the way Lauren flicked back her hair and stared that she thought me and my friends were a low species of animal.

  ‘What’s the video in aid of?’ JT asked.

  ‘It’s for a competition I want to enter,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Cool. How much you gonna pay us to be in your movie?’ asked Travis.

  ‘Sorry?’ Lauren was confused and then embarrassed. ‘Oh … nothing. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Stella, flashing Travis a look (shut up, you idiot). ‘Is it a video competition about skateboarding?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. It has to be on some aspect of “youth activity”,’ Lauren explained.

  JT spluttered into uncontrollable laughter. ‘“Youth!” That’s us, Travis. I reckon we’re “youths”!’

  JT and Travis started pronouncing the word ‘youths’ over and over in stupid voices. In the end they were grunting and hooting and thumping their chests like chimpanzees. ‘Youths! Youths!’

  I thought for sure Lauren would screw up her nose at those two monkeys and walk away. But amazingly, she didn’t.

  ‘Yeah, “youth activity” is pretty tragic,’ she said with an embarrassed smile. ‘I didn’t make up the idea for the competition.’

  ‘Why did you choose skating?’ asked Stella.

  ‘Skating looks good on video. Better than making a video about girls sitting around painting their nails and bitching about each other.’

  Jycinta made a catty ‘ooh’ sound and threw Lauren a drop-dead-you-cow look. Lauren glared back at her – stared without blinking until eventually Jycinta rolled her eyes and turned away. I had to admit it was impressive, the way Lauren stared Jycinta down.

  Lauren wasn’t considered one of the hottest girls in Year 10. I never really understood who decided which people were hot and how they decided. The fact is, Lauren was good-looking with beautiful green eyes, a really good figure and whatever. Look, the point I’m trying to make is: I could imagine a guy thinking Lauren was hot – if they didn’t mind I-know-everything-and-I’m-so-perfect Good Girls.

  ‘You should put Zac in your video,’ blabbed Riley. ‘Zac’s the best skater in Narragindi.’

  ‘Yeah, Zac,’ said Corey. ‘Do some stuff so Lauren’s video turns out excellent.’

  I didn’t want to show off for Lauren. Especially after Riley had said I was the best skater in town. (Not true.) But then again, I didn’t want to not skate just because Lauren Saxelby was there with a video camera.

  Eventually I picked up my board and did a few runs along the front of the old bank building. I could feel Lauren’s camera f
ollowing me. When I stopped for a second to fix my wheels, I could tell she was looking at me.

  ‘Do you mind me videoing you?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t stop you,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll burn a copy for you guys when it’s finished,’ said Lauren. She didn’t fool me. Lauren Saxelby might sound friendly but she still thought we were scum.

  ‘Whatever,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Is that all you can say? “Whatever”?’

  ‘You were wanting a few lines of poetry?’ I said, being a bit of a smart-arse.

  ‘You’re top of the class at Charm School, are you, Zac?’

  ‘I’m just a skater. What do you expect? You think skaters are all –’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Lauren, getting really snitty now. ‘You don’t know what I think.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I interrupted and sloped back to my corner.

  Corey was usually shy with new people, especially posh types like Lauren Saxelby. But I could see him watching her, curious.

  ‘I don’t get why Lauren is doing this,’ I said to him. ‘She hates skaters.’

  Corey shrugged. ‘Well, she’s here. So she can’t hate us too much.’

  ‘You know Ray Stone is her uncle.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But she can’t help who her family is. You can’t hold that against someone.’

  ‘Fair enough. But Lauren’s too full of herself.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Corey looked across at Lauren and smiled. ‘I was in sick bay with her one time, at the start of this year. She burnt her hand with acid in science and I was crook from a dodgy hotdog. We talked a bit – in between me chucking up.’

  ‘Mm, romantic.’

  ‘She talked to me. She was nice,’ Corey insisted in his quiet Corey way.

  ‘Oy!’ I thumped him on the shoulder. ‘How come you never told me about your romantic sick-bay meeting with Lauren? Been keeping secrets from me, you sly dog?’

  Corey laughed. Was he blushing? Before I had a chance to ask more questions, he jumped up. ‘Are we gonna skate, or what?’ he said.

  Corey slapped his skateboard on the top of the ramp, ready to go.

  ‘Cop alert! Cop alert!’ crowed JT.

  Constable Alexakis was walking slowly up from the police station round the corner. Alexakis was young – mid-twenties maybe – and she’d been working at the Narragindi cop shop for about six months.

  ‘G’day guys,’ she said. ‘I have to ask you to stop skating here.’

  ‘That maggot Ray Stone rung you up, I bet,’ complained Travis.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, Travis,’ she answered. ‘There’s the NO SKATING sign.’

  There was a bit more whining and complaining from JT and Travis and others. Alexakis was actually pretty sympathetic but in the end, she had to do her job – be a cop – and make us stop skating.

  Corey was collecting up his gear to leave when Alexakis wandered over.

  ‘Hi Corey,’ she said. ‘How’s everything going?’

  Alexakis wasn’t trying to give Corey a hard time. She was being friendly, worried about him. But Corey always went very quiet and strange with police. I guess he got sick of the police always picking him out because of his family. He could never forget he was a Matthews.

  ‘All right,’ murmured Corey and quickly turned away to escape Alexakis. He didn’t like her being curious about him.

  By now all the skaters had stopped skating. All the skaters except one. Me. I was swooping my board backwards and forwards from the top of the curved wall to the edge of the path.

  ‘Come on, Zac,’ said Alexakis. ‘You know you have to stop.’

  I kept going – back and forth – with the wheels making a rhythmic whooshing sound on the concrete. I wasn’t having fun. I wasn’t doing it for any logical reason. I just didn’t stop skating.

  ‘Stop now, Zac, or I’ll have to confiscate your board. You know that.’

  I stepped off the board and let it roll forward. Alexakis picked it up. ‘Can you promise me you’ll stop skating here if I give you back the board?’

  ‘No.’ Don’t ask me why I said that. I could’ve just promised and kept my board. But at that moment, I was feeling so pissed off. Pissed off with Ray Stone, with Narragindi, with the way kids got dumped on. I didn’t want to go along with one more stupid rule about anything. Then again, maybe I wasn’t thinking at all. The word ‘no’ came out of my mouth without my brain switching on at all.

  ‘Then I’ll have to confiscate it,’ Alexakis said. She tucked the board under her arm and left.

  JT, acting like a goofball as usual, yelled after Alexakis, ‘Thank you, officer! We feel much safer in our community now with those dreadful skaters off the streets!’

  Lauren was staring at me like I was a champion idiot. ‘What did that prove, that little macho display? Now you can’t skate anyway. I mean, if you want to go in for the big symbolic stand, why don’t you push for a skatepark?’

  I didn’t bother to answer. I just walked off. There was no point explaining to someone like Lauren Saxelby. Behind me, I could hear Corey talking to Lauren, explaining about the whole skatepark thing.

  At this point in the story, I should fill you in on some ancient history. I’m not talking pyramids or guys in togas – I’m talking about three years ago in Narragindi.

  Back then, there was a major campaign to get a skatepark built in the middle of town. A group of older guys started the campaign and a few parents helped out. I was twelve years old, in Year 7, and I got totally into it.

  We worked our guts out on the campaign for months. We got excellent plans drawn up for the skatepark. We arm-twisted people into donating money to help pay for it. We filled out four thousand official forms. We sat through council meetings that were so boring it made you want to chew your own head off.

  It was all looking good. The only thing we needed was for the council to say ‘Okay.’ I was deadset excited – Narragindi was definitely going to get a skatepark, no problem. (I was only twelve years old, remember.)

  Well, yeah … you guessed it. Ray Stone and the other old mongrels on the council said no. They went completely schizo about the idea of ever having a skatepark.

  ‘It’d be a shocking waste of public money. Skateboarding is a passing fad.’

  ‘The thing would be covered in graffiti! It would be a disgusting eyesore in our town.’

  ‘Everyone knows those skateparks attract youth gangs and drug dealing.’

  Blah blah blah …

  One old guy was so deaf he didn’t even understand what we were talking about. He stood up and croaked, ‘What do these ratbag kids want? A snake park? We don’t want snakes in Narragindi!’

  The skatepark campaign fell apart after that. The older skaters finished school and moved away from town. The parents figured it was hopeless and gave up.

  Three years later, when I started Year 10, I had two hundred and thirty-four bucks in my bank account. I would have bet every dollar of that money that we would never get a skatepark in Narragindi.

  That afternoon, with no board to ride, I walked home through the carpark behind the shops. Corey, Stella and JT caught up with me.

  ‘Bad luck about your board,’ said Stella.

  ‘Yeah,’ I groaned.

  ‘Mate, at least you gave us a show,’ laughed JT. ‘It was like a scene out of a movie.’

  Corey smiled and shook his head. He thought I was crazy to make any kind of scene with a cop. He would never go looking for trouble.

  When the Narragindi cops confiscated your board, your parents had to go down to the police station with you to get it back. Mum had rescued my board from ‘jail’ twice already that year and she wouldn’t exactly be thrilled about doing it a third time.

  I was thinking about the hard time I’d get from Mum when there was a loud crunch of steel behind us. Then the shriek of a car alarm echoed around the carpark.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Look out!’ yelled JT as a big old green car drifted across
the carpark towards us. We scrambled out of the way. The car swung off in the other direction, totally out of control.

  Behind the steering wheel of that ancient car was an ancient bloke – Mr Proudfoot. He was eighty-five years old and we’d often see him driving his battered green Holden around Narragindi, weaving from side to side. The good part was that he drove so slowly that people could usually dodge out of his way.

  We watched Mr Proudfoot swerving across the carpark. He was so blind, he didn’t realise he’d nearly skittled us. He was so off-the-planet, he didn’t realise he’d just slammed his Holden into a glossy new red car parked there. He was so deaf, he hadn’t heard the shrill wah-wah of the alarm. He just swung the green Holden out into the street and drove away.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ bellowed Ray Stone. The red car belonged to him. He came belting out of the Town Hall office but by the time he reached the carpark, Mr Proudfoot had disappeared around a corner. All Ray Stone saw was the side of his new car bashed in and a group of skaters hanging around a few metres away.

  Stone ran his hand along the scratched and buckled body of his car. He loved that car like it was his girlfriend. He was quivering with anger as he turned to bark at us, ‘Which one of you skateboarding morons did this?’

  JT and Stella tried to explain it wasn’t us but they were both gabbling at once and Ray Stone wasn’t listening anyway. His eyes locked on to Corey.

  ‘Corey Matthews. That’d be right. Trying to break into my car, were you?’

  Stone took a few steps towards Corey, ready to bark at him, grab him, who knows. That’s when Corey took off on his skateboard.

  In one way, taking off was crazy – it made Corey look guilty, even though he had nothing to do with damaging Stone’s car. But Corey knew that no one would believe anything a Matthews said. So I understand why his first instinct was to make a run for it.

  And even if running away was a stupid thing for Corey to do, he was my best mate. So I didn’t even wait for my brain to make a decision.

  ‘JT, lend us your board, quick,’ I said.