On the Buzzer

by Michael Panckridge

  ‘If you beat me, I won’t bash you,’ Rat said. There was a roar of laughter from the group, though I sensed that some of the kids recognised Rat. Fisk certainly didn’t, though.

  ‘You little fool. You can’t speak like that to me.’ Fisk walked up to Rat and pushed him fair square in the chest. I don’t think Rat was expecting it. He staggered backwards, stumbling into the kids behind him. Anger flashed across his face. He looked mean.

  ‘Twenty-one,’ he said to Fisk, straightening up.

  ‘Fine,’ Fisk hissed. ‘C’mon then.’

  ‘No five-pointers,’ said Rat. ‘That’d make it too easy.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  The next ten minutes were pure joy. Rat pulled on a pair of sunglasses and shoved his cap more firmly onto his head. He was a totally different person with a basketball in his hand, effortlessly nailing basket after basket. It was his game. Fisk was at a loss. He looked around for Mazis, but he had left. I figured it was Mazis who’d shone the red laser light into my eyes during my play-off with Fisk. But even if Mazis had been around, I doubt the red light would have put Rat off his game. Especially with those dark glasses he was wearing.

  Rat swished in seven three-pointers in a row. Fisk had hit two three-pointers, along with another three two-pointers and a one-pointer. The final score was 21 to 13.

  ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Fisk bellowed at Rat.

  ‘It’s my first day of school.’ Rat beamed an ugly grin at Fisk. ‘And I love it!’

  Fisk stormed off, his pride dented and, more importantly, his chances of being the Legend of Basketball hit for a huge, swishing three-pointer. By a little Rat!

  ‘Hey, Travis!’ I yelled, ‘what about your secret?’

  Travis made a rude gesture and kept on walking.

  On the way to the gym we told Bryce about our tunnel adventure. He didn’t seem too impressed, especially with the Bubbaman, for arranging with Jack to meet us at the other end.

  ‘So how did Paisley handle Miss Javros?’ Bryce asked.

  ‘Actually, he did well. He copped it for the mess, but never let on,’ I said.

  We threw a few baskets from the basketball court key and then from outside. Bryce didn’t seem to like the dribbling, but his underarm shooting was awesome.

  ‘You sure that’s actually legal, Bryce?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not that much different from how people do lay-ups,’ he replied. ‘They bring the ball up from low with an underarm action.’

  Bubba was attempting one as we spoke.

  ‘There are many exceptions, of course,’ Bryce laughed, as Bubba’s shot smacked into the underside of the backboard and rebounded, just missing his head. Bubba collapsed onto the court, arms and legs everywhere.

  Mrs Cartwright applauded from the stadium door.

  ‘Good to see you practising,’ she bellowed, the suggestion of a smile almost cracking her face. ‘But you, boy. The roly-poly one on the ground. You’d better work on those lay-ups before I see you next!’ The hard line to her mouth returned. On our way out, Bubba nudged me.

  ‘Look, isn’t that Mr Fisk?’

  Mrs Waite and Mr Fisk were laughing together outside her office. Travis Fisk stood a few metres back, as if hoping no one would see him.

  ‘Hey, Travis!’ I called.

  He looked up and scowled. Mr Fisk looked over too. He stared at me. I held his gaze for a moment. I thought he was about to say something, but he turned away.

  ‘He’s as creepy as his son,’ I mumbled to Bubba and Bryce.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Mitch,’ said Bryce.

  The next day we fronted up for the quiz. No one had any idea what to expect. It would have suited the kids who didn’t bother much with study. Mazis and Fisk looked happy and relaxed. Bubba was working through a little pocketbook of basketball stats he had. Bryce was engrossed in a book about caves and tunnels.

  ‘Right then, you lot,’ said Mrs Cartwright. ‘Sit down. Each of you take a test paper. Good. I’m going to call out each question once.’

  That caused a few heads to glance up sharply.

  ‘You’re going to read the questions?’ a voice behind me asked.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Mrs Cartwright scowled. ‘Is there a problem? It’s none of your business anyway. If you don’t concentrate, you’ll miss the question. Are you lot ready?’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Cartwright!’

  She groaned loudly, rolled her eyes and turned towards the voice.

  ‘What?’ she boomed.

  ‘Well, I was just wondering if we would be given a pencil, or something, or–’

  ‘Did I forget to say bring a pen, did I?’ Everyone looked up, stunned at the new, gentle, sing-song voice coming from Mrs Cartwright. The silence lasted a whole three seconds.

  ‘Well, silly me!’ she yelled. ‘Go and get something and hurry up about it!’

  That was more like it.

  ‘Can’t be right all the time,’ a voice sniggered behind me.

  The whole room broke into laughter again.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she bellowed.

  People shuffled off to grab a pen or pencil. Bryce was distributing them from his pockets. He must have had a dozen different sorts.

  ‘Thanks, Bryce.’

  ‘You’re the man, Bryce.’

  ‘Ta, mate.’

  ‘Good one, Flavel.’

  ‘Question one. What do the letters N–B–L stand for?’ said Mrs Cartwright.

  Well, that wasn’t so difficult, I thought. Maybe this quiz wasn’t going to be too bad. Bubba was giving me the thumbs up.

  ‘Question two. What number is closest to the most points ever scored by an individual in an NBL game?’ Confused faces stared at Mrs Cartwright – except for one. Bubba, tongue poking out, was scrawling away, even before she began reading out the four multi-choice options.

  Bubba looked up at me again with his thumb in the air. He seemed to have no idea that nearly everyone else had written nothing. The big Bubba grin was set in concrete. He was in heaven. Rat also looked pleased with the way things were going.

  ‘Question three. How many substitutes are allowed?’

  It looked like the quiz would be a real mix of questions and that Mrs Cartwright would plough on, hardly pausing for breath. You needed to be a quick writer to keep up with her. That’s if you knew the answers to the questions.

  ‘Question four.’ Then Mrs Cartwright groaned. ‘I can’t be bothered reading out all these questions. The questions are printed on your test paper. Read them yourselves.’

  She had been looking at Rat as she barked out this latest instruction. I turned round to look at him myself. Now Rat wasn’t looking so happy. I turned back to my own paper and pressed on. The room was silent, but for the odd cough and scrape of a chair leg.

  ‘And if you’re thinking of telling your girlfriends all the questions, well don’t bother,’ Mrs Cartwright chuckled. ‘You got the easy test.’

  I looked over at Rat. He was staring at the quiz paper and muttering. He had a finger on the words. Suddenly he looked up at me. He smiled. But it wasn’t a very convincing smile.

  Most people looked dejected as they filed out of the room. I saw Bryce place his scrap paper onto the teacher’s desk.

  ‘Hey! I don’t want your scrap paper. Do something useful with it, like sticking it in a recycle bin,’ she bellowed.

  Bryce shrugged, and put the piece of paper back into his pocket.

  Then I noticed Bubba almost skipping as he left.

  ‘Rat, can we talk?’ I called. He was scuttling down the stairs. ‘Rat!’

  Rat stopped and turned, wiping his face with a dirty sleeve.

  ‘Something in my eye,’ he muttered.

  ‘You want a tissue, Rat?’ Bryce asked, catching up to us.

  ‘Nah, whaddya want?’

  ‘Well, I was just wondering whether you knew anything about the trophy that was nicked from our library last week.’

  Rat ey
ed us carefully in turn. Me, Bryce and then Bubba.

  ‘Nope,’ he replied and walked off.

  ‘We’re gonna be the first to win all four winter sports, Rat!’ I called after him.

  ‘You’re one of us now, Rat,’ Bryce called. He stopped, but didn’t look around. Then he moved on.

  ‘That went well,’ Bubba said. ‘Joking!’ he added, noticing my look.

  ‘There’s one thing we can do,’ said Bryce. We waited for him to continue. ‘Take a really good look in the tunnel and see if there’s anything that might suggest that the Hoods stole the trophy.’

  Bubba was nodding. ‘Good thinking, Brycey,’ he said. ‘I’ll go.’

  The tunnel was becoming Bubba’s second home.

  ‘Thanks, Bubba, that’s very good of you, but I think we’ll all go,’ said Bryce.

  ‘Everyone except Luci,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t like the tunnel. Not one bit.’ I thought about how she had grabbed my hand and nearly squeezed the life out of it. ‘But we should ask her, anyway,’ I added.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Bryce. ‘Now, I reckon we’ve run our race with the Wednesday afternoon jobs. Miss Javros has got to be getting a bit suspicious over the whole thing. Or else she’s blind.’

  ‘Night-time, huh? Sure, I’ll just say, “Hey Mum, I’m just going to break into the school library, crawl through a tunnel and see if I can find me a football trophy. Back about nine o’clock – if I make it back”. Can’t see any problems with that,’ I said, shaking my head.

  Bryce was looking at me, smiling.

  ‘You know me better than that, Mitch. Leave it with me. I’ll have plans for each of you by Monday.’

  ‘Okay. Hey, Bryce, how did you go in the quiz?’ I asked.

  ‘No idea,’ Bryce replied.

  We took every opportunity we could to get to the gym the following week. Luci and Becky were fired up and eager to improve their skills. Mia was a good basketball player and they knew they would have their work cut out to get near her by the end of the Legend of Basketball competition.

  Mrs Cartwright held a one-and-a-half hour practice for the firsts and seconds on the Wednesday afternoon. She made us work on fitness and flexibility. We didn’t even touch a basketball until the last twenty minutes of the practice.

  Bryce, who had more courage than anyone else, finally tackled Mrs Cartwright.

  ‘Mrs Cartwright, I wonder, perhaps, given that the tournament is next week whether we could–’

  ‘I thought I told you that I wouldn’t allow anyone playing in glasses on my teams. Now, get out!’

  ‘Well, Mrs Waite has actually said–’ Bryce persisted.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me about my job.’

  Bryce looked shattered, but I suspected this wasn’t the end of the story.

  To involve everyone, we played a game in which we numbered off and lined up along the sidelines. When Mrs Cartwright called out a player’s number, that player ran onto the court and joined the game. If a player made any sort of error, they would have to sit out for the next five minutes. Some kids only got to play for a few minutes. Two numbers were never even called out.

  The next morning Bryce handed out a sheet of paper with instructions for our next expedition into the tunnel. Here’s what mine looked like:

  Dear Mitch

  DO NOT SHOW THIS

  DOCUMENT TO ANYONE!

  Please meet in the library at 1:00pm this Friday for a briefing.

  We will be going into the tunnel at 6:30pm that night. Please tell your parents that you will be going to my house for a visit from 5:00pm till 8:00pm and that you will need to be picked up from there.

  I was the last to get to the library the next day, arriving just after one o’clock.

  ‘Okay, now here’s the plan,’ said Bryce, who seemed to be enjoying his role. ‘Luci and Mitch, you meet by the big tree between the top oval and the workers’ sheds. Make your way to the library wall by 6:25.’

  I looked at Luci.

  ‘I’m not going in, Bryce,’ she said firmly.

  ‘No, I know. We need you to stay back and provide support and information.’

  Luci now looked more eager to be involved. Bryce continued outlining his plan and, after about 37 questions from Bubba, we left for afternoon classes.

  I checked out the Legends noticeboard on my way home from school, but there was nothing new to see. I had been hoping the quiz results would be posted. I was curious about Fisk’s score. Another hundred per cent from him and I would really be getting suspicious. The basketball section still looked tatty; just a few scrappy notes written in Mrs Cartwright’s scrawly handwriting.

  As things turned out, it was quite easy to get to the tree by 6:20. Everyone’s parents assumed we were at Bryce’s place, except Bryce’s parents, who thought Bryce was at my place. The risk, of course, was that one of the parents might ring Bryce’s home. If that happened there’d be strife. But Bryce had done some probability calculations (I think that’s what he’d called them) and figured it was worth the risk. He’d even timed it so the alarms would still be off, as the cleaners were still working in the junior classrooms at the other end of the school.

  Bryce had left one of the library windows slightly open earlier in the day. Becky scrambled over the railing alongside the library’s external stairs and walked along a small section of roofing to the window.

  Whenever a car passed, Becky ducked and hid her face, remaining still until the beam from the headlights swept over her. When she reached the window, she pulled it wide open and crawled through. A moment later she appeared at the library entrance and let the rest of us in.

  As we crept inside, the headlights from a passing car helped illuminate our way to the sports end of the library. There we got our first shock. The year boxes had been pulled out and were scattered on the floor.

  ‘Someone could be in the tunnel,’ Bubba whispered.

  ‘This is not good,’ said Luci.

  ‘C’mon Bubba. We need to find the catch,’ said Bryce.

  ‘But what about the boxes?’ Becky asked. No one answered.

  Bubba found the catch and the panel slid open. He took out his torch and jammed it up against the panel to hold it in place.

  ‘Okay, Luci. Believe it or not, you’ve got the toughest job of all. At least we’re doing something. You’re just sitting up here, alone, in the dark, wait–’

  ‘Yeah, okay. I’ve got the picture. Just get in there fast and get back even faster, okay?’

  We made our way down the staircase and into the tunnel. But this time we went slowly, each of us scanning the wall, the floor and even the roof of the tunnel for possible exits.

  About halfway along, when we must have been right underneath the sports ovals, Becky gasped.

  ‘Look, guys! Check this out.’

  On the wall we could make out something that looked like blobs of white paint. Had they been there before? Surely we would have noticed it though.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Hold your torches on different sections so we can see all of the white at once,’ Bryce said, stepping back.

  It became clear very quickly what the paint was. Each blob was a badly written, yet still recognisable, letter.

  The dob of paint in the middle could have been a doorknob. Or maybe a full stop. Or maybe it was just a dob of paint.

  We checked all over for entry points, loose stones, anything that might reveal a way in. But the wall was solid. The minutes ticked by, and nothing moved except our hands and our torches.

  ‘Bryce, maybe it’s just graffiti. Maybe it’s nothing,’ Becky whispered.

  ‘No, it’s got to be here. There’s got to be something,’ said Bryce.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  We’d been in the tunnel for twenty minutes. I was worrying about Luci.

  ‘Hey, everyone! It’s here!’

  On the other side of the tunnel, Bubba was on his hands and knees, pushing a big square stone into the wall.

>   ‘Careful, Bubba!’ Bryce warned. ‘That could be the entrance to the Hoods.’

  The stone to the left could also be pushed in, creating a hole similar in size to the wooden panel entrance at the Sandhurst library.

  ‘Okay, this is it. Let’s go,’ Bryce said.

  Bubba crawled through first, followed by Becky, then Bryce and me. We stood on a raised landing. A short flight of stairs led down to the right. From this side we could see the two hunks of stone had handles. Maybe the stones could be pulled out if you were entering the tunnel from this direction.

  We left the stones as they were and slowly descended the stairs.

  I knew straight away that something was wrong. The damp smell was stronger, and yet there was another smell, too. We passed two openings to smaller tunnels in the first fifteen metres. It was spooky. After about ten metres of walking we stopped.

  ‘Bryce, we’re heading back. Now!’ Becky hissed.

  And then came the sound of voices.

  ‘Bryce!’ Becky was frantic now.

  The sound of a door crashing open and banging against stone thundered through the tunnel. Becky let out a scream and pushed past Bubba.

  ‘Torches off, quick! Grab hands and follow me!’ whispered Bryce.

  We stumbled forward and then turned into a side tunnel on our left. We pressed ourselves up against a wall in the darkness and waited, afraid the sounds of our breathing would give us away.

  ‘Get out here, quick!’ an ugly voice called from further down the tunnel.

  The sound of footsteps echoed through the tunnel.

  ‘Someone’s got in,’ came the cry. I knew that voice.

  ‘Totem, go seal Ascot end. Snake, take Leech and seal up Sandhurst.’ The footsteps and curses receded.

  We were trapped. We had found the Hoods, and they had found us. There was only one thing in our favour: Bryce. And he did the most stupid and most brilliant thing you could possibly imagine.

  He boldly took us deeper into the Hoods’ lair. We went back into the main tunnel and discovered the door that had been flung open. On the other side was a chamber-like room. Inside were chairs and a table, an old couch and cupboards. A bare light bulb hung over the middle of the room, suspended from a tattered cord. It was gloomy and horrible. And then I saw it. Over on a small table to one side stood the football trophy. I went to grab it.