Harry: Harry

by Alex McDiarmid

  Contents

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Alex McDiarmid had stuff happen to him at school too.

  The time he remembers best was when he came as a pudding for a ‘food parade’ at school – but everyone, including the teachers, mistakenly thought he’d dressed up as a big poo.

  ‘Punch buggy blue!’ my friend Lou shouted as his fist rocketed into my arm.

  ‘Ow!’ I yelled, pulling back.

  An old rust-bucket Beetle roared down the road next to our bus. My bad. I should have spotted it first and beat Lou to the punch. He’s such a sneak.

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ Lou said, trying to hide his laughter behind his hand. Well . . . at least he was having a good time. I was so done with that stupid game. Punch buggy started as the go-to thing on excursions, but guys in my class had taken it into the schoolyard and were playing it at lunch, standing by the fence. Beetle goes past? Someone gets socked in the arm. It was all anyone ever played after You Play, You Pay was banned that time Fadi broke Jack’s arm on the oval.

  The bus trip was usually the best part of a school excursion, and today was no different. But it would only be a matter of time before our bus pulled up at the gallery and we’d have to start learning art stuff, so everyone was trying to have fun while they still could. A couple of boys volleyed a tennis ball between rows of seats. One of the girls sat up the front clutching her stomach, pale-faced and sick from the ride. Some other kids a few seats away were giggling about something – I hoped it wasn’t about me.

  Then, I saw it. Another old Beetle. Green this time, right next to my window! I smirked, winding up my arm to tag Lou.

  I shouted, ‘Punch buggy gr–’

  ‘Hey guys, I think we’re here!’ Lou said, cutting over my sick call.

  The green Beetle had passed. It was too late for me to hit him now.

  I slumped back into my seat as the bus pulled to the kerb, right outside the art gallery. There were these giant fountains that stood to either side of a massive marble entrance, and the entrance was decorated with multicoloured exhibition posters that looked like rainbow spirals . . . a wormhole out of a space cartoon or something. In block letters, the words COLOURS OF CHANGE were printed on the front.

  There were people everywhere, walking up the steps into the building. I couldn’t believe it. People went to see art galleries even when they didn’t have to?

  Our teacher, Miss Hobbie, stood up the front of the bus and clapped her hands to get our attention. It took a few more loud ones to get all of us to settle down. She was a nice lady, one of the more patient teachers. She always wore really bright dresses with vibrant patterns on them. Today’s dress looked like the pattern from a multicoloured bowling ball, swirling into a rainbow vortex.

  ‘Good morning, everyone!’ she said brightly. ‘Now, before we show you around Colours of Change, I believe the ever-wonderful Mr Slater would like to have a few words with you before we go inside.’

  I rolled my eyes. Colours of Change? So lame.

  Mr Slater stood up from his seat. He looked as old as my dad, but a lot taller. He wore a wide-brimmed sun hat and a spotty blue-and-yellow bow tie. If hot chocolate could have a voice, it would be Mr Slater’s – deep and rich. When he talked, the thick moustache on his upper lip wriggled like a fat hairy caterpillar.

  ‘Now I know that some of you don’t take art very seriously . . .’ he started.

  Close enough. I just saw art class as free time.

  He gave us this giant smile. ‘The funny thing is that art is all around you. Your Saturday morning cartoons are art! The music played at your favourite restaurant is art! The clothes you wear are art! Art is the most fantastic way to understand this world, because it is never wrong or right, good or bad. It comes from a place of expression . . . and freedom. So when you walk around this gallery today, look at each painting as a window into another world. Be imaginative. Don’t be imprisoned by your mind!’

  A few kids were already yawning.

  ‘So, let’s jump straight into it,’ he said, exiting the bus. He waved at us to follow. ‘Curiosity awaits!’

  With that, our class started getting off the bus. Lou and I had a method to avoid learning stuff on excursions. It was pretty genius . . . and it was all about choosing the right seats.

  Our day started by getting to school right on time which meant we were first into the 5H classroom. We sat right by the door, so after rollcall Lou and I were behind our teacher on the way to the bus. First in line for the bus meant we had our pick of seats, so we sat up the back. This meant we would get off last, which meant we’d be last in line during the excursion, which meant we’d be further away from Mr Slater who was up the front, which meant we wouldn’t have to hear him talk about his stupid art stuff.

  As we got off the bus last, Lou and I were beaming. We’d perfected our method. I was pretty good at stuff if I put my mind to it. Mum always said that. Truth is, I didn’t really want to be pretty good at anything because that meant getting attention from teachers or other kids in my class.

  Another reason I liked sitting up the back of the bus? I was happy there.

  All I wanted was to be like a submarine, under the radar so nobody would notice me. I didn’t really like talking to people much, so the less that everybody noticed me the better.

  I told Mum this once. She said I should get out of my ‘comfort zone’. Whatever that meant.

  My comfort zone was comfortable for a reason, so why would I ever leave it?

  Walking into the gallery was nothing like going under the radar. If anything, it was over the radar, with most of my class storming through the front doors of the gallery laughing and yelling to one another.

  ‘5H, please keep it down!’ Miss Hobbie asked sweetly. Nobody listened.

  ‘Everybody!’ Mr Slater said loudly.

  He waved an arm in the air, motioning to the gallery space we found ourselves in. Then, he said one simple word. ‘Respect.’

  Everyone went dead quiet. Was that meant to be a magic word? Did Mr Slater have some sort of superpower?

  Miss Hobbie took the opportunity to begin shuffling us around into some sort of messy line. Mr Slater was up the front. Miss Hobbie kept up the tail end with us, which I didn’t think was as bad. She was sweet and lovely like Mum’s cheesecake.

  Walking through the white-walled rooms of the gallery, I could only think about how nutty the place was. Like I’d been transported into a whole new world. There were lots of strange stone figures of naked people and paintings that didn’t do much apart from weird me out. Then there was one man made of rock . . . his arms were really long and wavy, and he had an open mouth that nearly took up his whole face. I imagined that he was just really upset because his arms had turned to spaghetti. Then there was this sweet painting that looked like sunrise on the surface of the moon.

  As we walked, I lost track of time looking at everything. Each room became the next and after a while we stopped at this huge painting. It was big . . . really big. So big that it took up the entire wall! It didn’t take long before I started imagining things again. It started with a black line right down the middle. That was a character, sure, but what character wears all black? Black, black, black . . . a samurai wears black armour because he doesn’t want people to see him, just like me!

  But people aren’t his real enemies. People are boring.

  The painting had some green blobs to the side, which totally had to be aliens . . . that would mean that t
he samurai was in space . . . like . . . a . . . like a cosmic samurai! My mind went into turbo now. He needed some kind of weapon, right? A sword. Cosmic Samurai wouldn’t just have any normal sword because he’s, well, cosmic. I spotted some light-blue streaks through the painting. Maybe they were sparks of lightning leaping off Cosmic Samurai’s sword! Maybe Mr Slater was right about paintings being like worlds. For those couple of minutes, the inside of my head felt like a pretty fun place.

  ‘Now, you’ve probably never seen a painting like this before,’ Mr Slater told us as we stopped behind him, interrupting my awesome train of thought. ‘This is because it’s abstract.’

  I didn’t know what abstract meant, but I was hoping it would explain why I saw something in that painting that I think nobody else did.

  ‘Does abstract mean boring in French or something?’ a boy in our class called out with a clueless grin on his face. People called him Mullet because his haircut was short at the front and long at the back. A few kids laughed along with him.

  Mr Slater shook his head. ‘You’re only calling it boring because you don’t understand it, Gilbert.’

  Oh yeah . . . that was his name.

  Another boy threw up his hand, piping up before Mr Slater gave him permission to speak. ‘What makes abstract art different from other art?’

  ‘Abstract art came about when artists began to feel like something was missing, like their work was losing meaning. At that point, life was changing very quickly with all kinds of things like big factories, cars and even cinemas coming along. Artists started finding new ways of seeing, new ways of thinking and new ways of explaining the world around them.’ Mr Slater said, looking at the rest of our class enthusiastically. He made a broad gesture with his arms at the huge artwork behind him. It looked like he was preparing to hug an invisible giant panda.

  ‘This is what happens when you think outside the box! This is the result of people who pushed their own boundaries to create something completely unlike anything anyone had seen at the time. You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish when you keep an open mind.’

  After forty-five minutes of standing in front of all those paintings, we were getting restless. Some shifted on aching feet, others had conversations – a couple of boys even tried to stretch out on the comfy couches in one of the rooms. Miss Hobbie started to lead the class, with Mr Slater following up the back to stop us from losing focus. By the time I realised what was happening, he’d already caught me.

  ‘What do you think of the paintings, Harry?’

  Uh oh . . .

  Lou made his escape, joining the rest of our group. What a friend.

  ‘Uh . . .’ I said, words slowly dribbling from my mouth. What did I think of the paintings? I wasn’t sure. Would Mr Slater think I was a big baby if I told him about Cosmic Samurai destroying space monsters with his sweet lightning sword? ‘They’re kinda weird,’ I replied.

  ‘Do you think weird is bad?’ he asked.

  Yep. Definitely the wrong thing to say.

  ‘Uh . . . I dunno. It depends what everyone else thinks. Can I go back to the others now?’ I asked, eager to get away.

  Mr Slater kept walking beside me. ‘Different can be interesting, Harry. Interesting can be cool.’

  Cool? What would Mr Slater know about cool? He’s a grown-up who wears spotty bow ties. Cool people don’t wear spotty bow ties.

  I looked up and saw that the rest of our class had moved into the next room with Miss Hobbie.

  Mr Slater tapped my shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s catch up with the others,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘I look forward to seeing you in art class tomorrow, Harry.’

  More art classes with Mr Slater? That wasn’t lame. That wasn’t super lame. That was extra lame with big lame cherries on top and a side of the lamest whipped cream ever.

  He was going to try and make me think about weird stuff and probably do some stupid drawings. Why was he trying to get me to work hard? Was this to push me out of my comfort zone?

  The next morning Mr Slater stood front and centre in the art room, his smock splattered and smeared with different colours.

  ‘Now, we covered a lot at yesterday’s trip to the Colours of Change exhibition,’ he said, then spent the entire class going over the paintings we saw at the gallery.

  The only thing worse than a boring excursion is talking about the boring excursion.

  I checked the clock on the wall. Five minutes until lunch. Then I remembered that clock was five minutes fast. I leaned back on my stool, waiting for the next ten minutes to pass. I knew it would feel like another hour by the time Mr Slater was done.

  ‘Harry, don’t lean on your chair,’ Mr Slater said, clicking his fingers in my face.

  Ugh. I dropped my chair back.

  At least I liked our art room. It was small, but not too small, and had a really high roof. Along the back wall was a row of deep sinks that looked like they really needed a clean, with crusty paint clinging to the metal.

  Two long pieces of string were tacked to opposite walls, paintings pegged over them to dry. The year twos had done them. They were always the ones that left the class in a mess, never cleaning the sinks or the brushes.

  I started digging around in my new black pencil case, pulling out a blunt pencil and a sharpener. It gave me something to do. I sharpened a lot of pencils in Mr Slater’s class.

  ‘For tomorrow’s class, I want you to bring in a work-in-progress art piece,’ Mr Slater announced. ‘They’ll all be displayed next week at the Monvale Art Fair.’

  My pencil dropped, clattering loudly against the table. What did he want us to do again? Did I miss something?

  ‘Make whatever you want,’ he continued. ‘A painting, sculpture, drawing . . . Express yourselves.’

  ‘Why can’t you just tell us what to make, Mr Slater?’ one of the girls protested, crossing her arms angrily. ‘Imagining stuff is hard!’

  Josie Yang’s the smartest person in year five, but that doesn’t make her any less annoying. All the teachers love her. She always gets gold stars and makes the rest of us look bad.

  ‘Because,’ Mr Slater replied very matter-of-factly, ‘it’s important for you to experiment. Remember the abstract artists? Nobody told them what to make, they found inspiration and did it themselves. If I told you what to make you’d all be handing me the same thing.’

  Another groan. Josie huffed, shaking her head. Her pigtails jiggled all over the place. They always did when she got upset, which usually happened twice a week.

  Before she could open her mouth to protest again, the bell rang.

  ‘All right, everyone, that’s all we’ve got time for. Have a good lunch, and remember to do your homework!’

  Chairs scraped against the floor as everyone rushed to leave the room. I picked up my things.

  ‘You coming, Harry?’ Lou asked. ‘Eddie, Gregor and I are gonna go play downball.’

  There was a pretty large group of kids that played downball at recess and lunch, but not long ago the four of us had found a new square of concrete behind the sports shed. We just chalked up our court and it was good to go. It was nice to play without anybody else wanting to join in, or stand and watch.

  It was our little secret.

  ‘Hope you brought your lunchbox!’ Eddie chimed in, ‘because you’re gonna get schooled!’ he puffed his chest like a pigeon, grinning wildly. It was kind of weird that he was the best downball player in our little group because he was so clumsy the rest of the time.

  ‘Yeah, yeah . . .’ I replied. Another thing about Eddie is that he beats me whenever we play downball. I never stand a chance.

  ‘What’s on your pencil case?’ Lou asked. ‘It looks like paint.’ Then he laughed. ‘And it’s hot pink!’

  I flipped my pencil case over and saw it.

  Pink paint. Sticky, gloopy, hot-pink paint. It must have already been on the desk when I put my things down.

  Eddie was laughing so hard I thought his head might explode.
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  ‘Like you’ve got anything to laugh about, Eddie, you had such bad head lice last week you weren’t allowed to come to school!’ I said defensively.

  ‘Not cool, Harry!’ I could see he was cranky now. ‘Let’s go play, guys, and leave Harry to his stupid pencil case.’

  So much for a fun lunch. I turned to Lou.

  ‘I’m going to stay here and clean this paint off. Wanna hang with me?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah, I’m gonna go smash downball,’ Lou said, heading for the door. ‘Find us when you’re done.’

  Again. What a friend.

  He caught up with Eddie and Gregor, leaving me alone with Mr Slater. Again. He was stacking his laptop and books into a bright yellow tub.

  ‘Off to lunch?’ he asked.

  I showed him the pink blot on my pencil case. ‘I need to clean this first.’

  ‘Need to?’ he sounded surprised. ‘I think it’s quite cool.’

  It wasn’t cool.

  Nothing Mr Slater thought was cool.

  He tucked the yellow tub under his arm. ‘I have a meeting in my office, Harry,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to stay in here, just lock the door on your way out,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Slater,’ I replied.

  He left the art room and I walked to the metal sinks with my ruined pencil case. I looked at the year twos’ pictures.

  One caught my eye. A little boy stood on the lawn with his parents, brother and dog. All stick figures. At the bottom was the boy’s name, in messy capitals – DARCY. It was boring, nothing like the stuff at the exhibition. It just needed a few extra touches . . .

  I spied a clean brush next to the sink. A tin of paint sat beside it. I knew I shouldn’t be touching someone else’s painting, but I just couldn’t help myself. I picked up the brush and popped the lid off the tin of green paint with a pair of scissors. It was time to get to work.

  I started with the stick people, standing to either side of Darcy. I made them angry aliens with big claws and sharp teeth. Then I turned the house behind them into a space station with a domed roof and a huge telescope. The grass beneath it all became grey and rocky like the surface of the moon. The stick figure of Darcy in the middle got special treatment. I found some black paint, and turned him into Cosmic Samurai.