Deadly Unna?

by Phillip Gwynne

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  DEADLY UNNA?

  Phillip Gwynne is one of eight children and was raised in country South Australia. He has a degree in marine biology and has travelled the world. He now lives by the sea in Coogee, New South Wales, with his family.

  Deadly Unna? was the recipient of the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award for Older Readers in 1999, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award Cross Pen Prize for Young Adult Fiction and the Children’s Peace Literature Award, also in 1999. In 2000, it was awarded the National Children’s Award in the South Australian Festival Awards for Literature. It was also shortlisted for the 1999 New South Wales State Literary Award Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature and highly commended for the 1998 New South Wales Family Award for Children’s Books.

  Other books by Phillip Gwynne

  Nukkin’ Ya

  Jetty Rats

  The Worst Team Ever

  Born to Bake

  DEADLY UNNA?

  PHILLIP GWYNNE

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Books, 1998

  Copyright © Phillip Gwynne, 1998

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Penguin Books website: penguin.com.au

  You can write to the author at: phillipgwynne@ozemail.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228390-6

  To my mum, Gaynor

  WINTER

  1

  We’ve made the grand final.

  Next Saturday we play Wangaroo for the Peninsula Junior Colts Premiership. The whole town is talking about it, it’s the biggest thing to happen here since the second prize in the S.A. Tidy Towns Competition (Section B). Just shows what sort of town I live in. Hopeless.

  Our coach, Mr Robertson, runs one of the two local stores. I call him ‘Arks’, behind his back of course, because he says ‘arks’ instead of asks and ‘arksed’ instead of asked.

  ‘If I’ve arksed youse boys once I’ve arksed youse a thousand times, don’t buggerise with the bloody ball on them flanks, kick the bugger up the bloody centre.’

  Arks’s son, Mark, is the captain of our team. He also says ‘arks’. Mark has two sisters; both of them say ‘arks’. It’s definitely in the family, this ‘arks’ thing. Arks’s shop is the quieter of the two, it doesn’t have much of a turnover, and the Pollywaffles are always stale. I buy mine there though, just on the off-chance I can entice one of the Robertson family into saying ‘arks’. It always gives me a thrill.

  We’ve made the grand final and I’m the second ruck. First ruck is Carol Cockatoo. He’s from the Point, an Aboriginal mission just up the coast. Carol is the best footballer in our side, probably on the peninsula. He’s about the same size as a wheat silo. He also has quite a lot of facial hair – unusual in a fourteen year old. Once, during training, I asked him why he had a girl’s name. He punched me. I never asked again.

  The ruck’s job is to follow the ball. When the first ruck gets tired, it’s the second ruck’s turn. Carol never got tired. Never. Even when the game was over he’d still be going – kicking the ball and chasing it, kicking and chasing. Often he’d be eating a pastie at the same time, a trail of tomato sauce dribbling behind. So I never did any rucking. I just hung around the forward line and hoped my mate Dumby Red would pass the ball to me so I could have a shot for goal. If you kicked a goal you got your name in the Peninsula Gazette on Thursday.

  Half of our team is Aboriginal, boys from the mission. We call them Nungas, it’s what they call themselves as well. They’re the Nungas and we’re the Goonyas. We’re the only town on the peninsula with Nungas in our team. Without them we wouldn’t be in the grand final; without them we wouldn’t even have a team. They’re incredibly skilful, but they infuriate Arks. He’s all for directness, for going down the guts, for grabbing the ball and booting it as hard as you can. The Nungas, they just love to buggerise around on them flanks.

  It’s like they’re playing another game, with completely different rules. The aim is not to put the ball through the big white sticks, not to score the most goals, but to keep possession, to make your opponents, and your team-mates, look slow and cumbersome. They zigzag the ball across the field, they kick it backwards, they handball it over their heads, they go on wild, bouncing runs. When the Nungas played like this, by their rules, we just stopped and watched. They never gave the ball to us – we weren’t part of it, we didn’t understand. Arks would be bellowing from the boundary line, his face getting redder and redder, ‘Stop buggerising around and boot the bloody thing. Boot the bloody thing. For Chrissakes boot it!’

  Eventually, when they finished buggerising around, when Arks’s face was so red you could see it glowing like a tail-light from the other side of the field, they’d pass the ball to one of us Goonyas, usually right in front of the goals, so we couldn’t miss.

  Disaster! Four days before the grand final. Some snoop from Wangaroo has been out at the Point, poking about in the birth register. Carol Cockatoo is actually Colin Cockatoo, Carol’s eighteen-year-old brother. Arks is devastated. He drove out to the Point to find the real Carol Cockatoo. He was short and fat and hopeless. Arks has no choice. The team has no choice. The town has no choice. I’m the only other tall player: I’ve got to be first ruck.

  The news spreads like diesel on water. A footy game is won and lost in the ruck. Everybody knows this. It’s one of the facts of life. Suddenly I’m the most important person in the town.

  ‘How’s that knee, Blacky?’

  People who had previously barely acknowledged my existence were now asking intimate questions about my bodily parts.

  ‘Groin holding up, is it big fella?’

  Somebody even risked a first name.

  ‘Ankle okay, Tim?’ Tim’s my brother. I’ve got three others, besides him, and three sisters as well. Usually people just call us Blacky. You can’t blame them.

  ‘It’s Gary, and ankle’s fine thanks.’

  ‘Sure it is, just go out and wallop ’em, Blacky.’

  2

  Wangaroo is a one-man team. That man is the Thumper (another one of my nicknames), and he really is a man, even though he’s only my age. He’s the same size as C
olin (who used to be Carol). When we played Wangaroo, the two of them would cancel each other out – like King Kong versus Godzilla. The umpy would bounce the ball, Godzilla would come thundering in from one side, King Kong from the other, there’d be an almighty collision, and the footy would end up on the ground. But now Colin (who used to be Carol) isn’t playing. Without King Kong, Godzilla’s gunna run amok. God help us.

  Arks drove up to Wangaroo, to check out their birth register. Hard to believe, but the Thumper really is only fourteen. Apparently his old man dragged him out of school when he was twelve. He decided his son had a big future in the family business. The Thumper’s been digging graves ever since.

  You have to feel sorry for Arks. The Thumper plays footy exactly the way Arks thinks it should be played. He never goes anywhere near the flanks. Straight down the guts every single time he gets the ball. The perfect footballer, except for one small problem – he plays for them, Wangaroo, the opposition.

  I reckon Arks even thought about moving to Wangaroo, just so he could be the Thumper’s coach. But he’s a terrible businessman. He only survives because the Nungas buy their supplies from him. And the Nungas only buy their supplies from him because he’s the coach of the footy team. Arks has been the coach for ages, ever since I can remember. Nobody else really wants the job, except perhaps Porky Fraser, but he can’t get to training on time, on account of his pigs.

  All the kids in town, like Dazza and Pickles, hate school. Useless. Don’t learn nothing. Can’t wait to leave. Not me, I like school. Some of the stuff they teach is really useful. Of course the teachers try to make it useless, by using stupid examples that have nothing at all to do with the real world. But you can’t take too much notice of them. Take the Thumper for example. What is it that makes him so scary? Momentum, that’s what.

  Momentum = Mass × Velocity.

  Momentum equals mass times velocity. If you multiply the Thumper’s mass (approximately one wheat silo) by his velocity (considerable once he gets going) then you get his momentum – awesome.

  There’s no stopping a momentum like that, not if you’ve got the mass of a stick insect like me. I worked it out on my calculator. To equal the Thumper’s momentum, to stop him once he got going, I’d have to travel at 1.47 times the speed of light. At the last school sports carnival I did the 100 metres in 18.4 seconds. That’s 0.00000012 times the speed of light. See what I mean? It’s hopeless.

  You’ve got to look like you’re trying to stop him, though. If you don’t then you’re a gutless wonder. A gutless wonder is about the worst thing you can be in our town. If you’re a boy that is. If you’re a girl then it’s a slack moll. Slack boys, gutless girls – nobody cares. Once you’ve been labelled a gutless wonder, then that’s it, the label sticks. Like it’s been superglued to your forehead. It’s there for life, no matter what you do.

  I’m down at the beach. Twelve kiddies are splashing about in the shallows. Then I see it – a huge grey fin slicing through the water. I dive in, knife clenched in my teeth, and reach the shark just as it’s about to make a snack of little Annie Ashburner. I wrestle, Tarzan-style, with the kid-eating monster. The water turns red with blood. The shark dies. Unfortunately, so do I. I’m dead, but a hero. I’ve saved twelve little lives, the future Year One of Port Primary School.

  At my funeral, one father whispers to another, ‘Gutsy effort, eh? Saved all those kids.’

  ‘S’pose,’ the other replies. ‘But remember the day he didn’t tackle the Thumper and they kicked that goal right on the siren and we lost the grand final by the barest of margins?’

  ‘Christ, that’s right. I’d forgotten all about that. What a gutless bloody wonder, eh?’

  ‘Too right,’ says the other.

  If I tackle the Thumper I’m gunna get clobbered. If I don’t I’ll end up with ‘Gutless Wonder’ superglued to my forehead. There is, however, a way out. It’s called the Thumper tackle. It’s my invention. What you do is launch yourself at a point just behind the galloping Thumper. Then at the last moment you desperately fling out your hand. From the boundary this looks like a legitimate tackle, but the risk to your personal wellbeing is minimal. You’re not gutless. Hopeless, but not gutless. Your reputation survives. Your forehead remains label-free.

  You can’t beat the Thumper once he gets the ball. No use even trying. The idea, therefore, is to not let him get the ball. Personally, I wouldn’t even let him on the ground. I’d done some research – the Thumper always ate three meat pies before a game. With sauce. I wanted to sneak into the canteen and put Ratsak in his pies. Not a lot – I didn’t want to kill him. It was only a game of footy after all. Just enough to slow him down a bit. I told Arks my plan. He thought it was a great joke.

  ‘Blacky,’ he said, ‘you’re a funny lad.’

  I wasn’t joking.

  3

  They reckon Arks was a real champ in his day, the best footballer ever to come out of the Port. He was playing A Grade when he was only fourteen. Then some talent scout from town found him and he ended up down at Norwood, playing for the mighty Redlegs.

  There’s a photo of him on the wall in the pub. His hair is black and glossy, slicked back and parted in the middle. He’s looking straight at the camera, square chin tilted forward, not smiling. His arms are folded against his chest. Beneath a pair of those old-fashioned baggy shorts are muscly legs, slightly bandy. Donald B. Robertson. 232 games. Runner-Up 1962 Magarey Medal. 1964 All Australian is written underneath.

  All Australian. Runner-up in the Magarey. Arks must have been some footballer. I often wondered why he came back to the Port. Then one day I heard them talking in the front bar.

  ‘Great player in his day, Robbo.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘My oath he was. But he was getting on a bit, and they offered him a fair whack to come down here as captain-coach. In them days, there was still some money around. We had a bloody good team.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Robbo did well too, always got ’em into the final. For some reason, and for the life of me I don’t know why, they never pulled it off. They got close, bloody close, but they never won the big one. When Robbo did his knees, he hung up his boots. ‘Bout that time the arse dropped outta the wheat market, money wasn’t there no more. Couldn’t pay no more coaches.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘So he bought the deli. Not long after the missus shoots through. Adelaide girl, good sort too, but she never took much of a liking to sitting behind a shop counter all day. Took off with the Amscol man, leaves poor Robbo with the kids.’

  ‘Well I’ll be.’

  Arks hasn’t changed that much since they took that photo. A lot of footballers blow up like balloons once they stop playing. Not Arks though. He’s put on a bit of weight, but not much. His hair is grey at the sides now, but he still slicks it back. Arks doesn’t mind the old Brylcreem. But I suppose he gets it wholesale, because of the shop.

  On Wednesday night he rang me at home. Said he wanted to pick me up at the bus stop after school so we could go up the oval and have some rucking practice.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ I said.

  ‘Never too late, lad. Never too late.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Mr Robertson. Maybe I should ask my mum.’

  ‘Already arksed her. She said it’s fine. I’ll see you there.’

  And then he hung up.

  4

  ‘Wanna come down the jetty?’ asked Pickles as we got off the bus.

  ‘Nah, Arks is gunna pick me up. We’re going up the oval. He wants to give me some tips about rucking.’

  ‘You’re joking, bit late for that isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to tell him.’

  Then came the unmistakable sound of the Arksmobile, the exhaust making huge farting noises.

  ‘That’d be him, then,’ said Pickles. ‘See ya round.’

  ‘Yeah, see ya,’ I said as he walked away.

  I could
see the Arksmobile now, coming up the main street, a cloud of thick black smoke following behind. It pulled up next to me.

  Our town was full of old utes, but the Arksmobile was something special. Full of rust and not a straight panel on it. It only passed rego because Deano Davies plays on our side (Deano’s old man is the local copper).

  ‘Gidday,’ said Arks as he leant over and pushed the door open. There was no handle on the outside.

  ‘Gidday Mr Robertson,’ I said as I sat down. Inside it smelt like Brylcreem.

  Arks dropped the clutch and we skidded off.

  He didn’t say anything as we drove back down the main street. Then suddenly –

  ‘How ya been?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  ‘Not nervous?’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘Christ, I used to get so nervous I’d be spewing me guts out. One game there, reckon it must’ve been the ’63 final ’gainst the Bays, I was still spewin’ when we run on.’

  ‘Geez. What was that like?’

  ‘Spewin’ me guts out?’

  ‘Nuh, playing in a grand final in Adelaide.’

  ‘What was it like? Can you imagine running onto the field with fifty thousand people yelling and screaming at ya?’

  I tried to imagine but it didn’t seem to work.

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  Arks gave me a funny look.

  ‘Crikey, Blacky. It’s just impossible to describe.’

  ‘What about when ya won?’ I said. ‘What was that like?’

  We turned off into the oval, and stopped behind the goal posts. There was nobody else around. Arks turned the engine off.

  ‘Got done. Been in eight grand finals – three in town, two here in the Port as a player and three as a coach and I never won, not one of the buggers, not a bloody one.’

  Silence, just the ticking of the engine. I knew what Arks was waiting for. I was supposed to say, ‘This’ll be the first one, then.’ Football breeds optimism like Pickles Mickle’s groin breeds the munga. Three-quarter-time, your team’s losing by a hundred goals, and some idiot’s bound to say, ‘Come on fellas, let’s get out there and murder ’em.’ Yeah, sure. But before you know it the whole team’s getting excited, getting all optimistic.