by Tony Wilson
Lewis and Katrina Lo produced a bright-yellow tennis ball, trailing two metres of toilet paper. ‘Hale-Bopp,’ they said in unison.
Mr Cunningham’s eyebrows shot straight up. ‘I’m guessing you made it at recess?’
Lewis and Katrina seemed genuinely surprised. ‘How did you know?’
Ivy and Amy were next. They’d wrapped a table-tennis ball in foil, and Mr Cunningham had agreed to light the comet. ‘Hale-Bopp’s about to shoot its gassy tail,’ Ivy squealed as the teacher struck the match. Sure enough, as the foil blackened, the ball started hissing and belching out clouds of smoke. A coughing Mr Cunningham dropped it into the safety container.
‘That’s Amy and Ivy with something called “Hale-Bopp Stink Bomb”. Thank you for that. And now our last space crafters for today, Joel and Ray.’
Mr Cunningham had set up the TV to show their video. Ray popped it in the VHS machine, while Joel did the introduction.
‘Um, we made a costume of Hale-Bopp,’ he coughed. ‘Well, Ray did mainly. But I wore it. Actually I hurdled in it. And Ray did the voiceover. So, um, this is it. We hope you like it.’
Ray pressed play. Suddenly Joel was on the screen, a streak of light. Ray had somehow tricked it to make him whoosh and run in slow motion. It made it seem like he was going faster. Ray’s voice came over the top. Joel didn’t even notice it was a bit different anymore. It just sounded like Ray.
‘Hale-Bopp is one of the most visible comets ever. It was named after Mr Hale and Mr Bopp, who saw it two years ago. They weren’t professional astronomers. Just stargazers, a bit like me. Hale-Bopp is visible to us because it’s so close to Earth, about two hundred million kilometres. This is apparently close, although not if you have to walk.’
Mr Cunningham laughed loudly at Ray’s joke. A few other kids joined in. Ray was too shy to look at the audience. He stared at the TV. Then some kids on the far table started laughing, but not in a nice way. Joel thought he heard someone say, ‘His voice is freaky.’ He wasn’t sure, but it might have been Lewis who said that. Joel’s chest tightened. He didn’t like his old friend saying mean things about his new friend.
The video rolled on. Joel’s celestial run continued, and so did Ray’s voiceover.
‘Space is seriously big, man. Hale-Bopp’s head or nucleus is about sixty kilometres wide, which is big for a head or nucleus. Its tail is sixty-five million kilometres long and sooo beautiful. That’s halfway from here to the Sun. Don’t tell Hale-Bopp it’s beautiful or it will get an even bigger head or nucleus. Ha-ha.’
Nobody except Mr Cunningham laughed at that joke. Mr Cunningham laughed hard. Again there was some mean giggling from the back table. Something about ‘captain of the nerd patrol’. Mr Cunningham was laughing so much he didn’t hear it.
Ray’s words mumbled on:
‘Hale-Bopp is orbiting the Sun, which means it will come back one day. Yeah, in another 2392 years. That’s seriously ages. Longer even than it will take for Collingwood to win another premiership. Ha-ha.’
The class really laughed at that, except for Henry, Jennifer and Lewis, who yelled out, ‘Hey!’ Those three barracked for Collingwood.
The video ended by cutting from a freeze-frame of Joel and his fluttering sheets, to a still photo of the real Hale-Bopp.
Mr Cunningham clapped loudly. ‘Well, this isn’t a competition,’ he said, ‘but if it was . . .’ He seemed to regret starting the sentence. ‘No, it isn’t a competition. Well done to everyone on their terrific work. But Joel and Ray, five stars. In fact, make that five Supergiant stars, which are the largest and hottest stars in the universe.’
Joel and Ray sat down. Theirs was the last presentation before home time. Joel offered Ray a high five. Ray laid some skin with his good hand. ‘Seriously incredible,’ Joel whispered. ‘You’re a freak.’ Joel saw Ray’s mouth flicker. He suddenly remembered the comment at the back. Had Ray heard it? Oh no, what if Ray thought he was making fun of him? ‘Freak in a good way,’ Joel whispered, ‘to be able to make the costume and the video.’
Ray was beaming that smile again. ‘You’re the freak,’ he said, ‘to be able to run that fast.’
Mr Cunningham shushed the class. ‘Before I let you go for the long weekend, I’ve got a note here from the Sharks coach, Mr Gallus, who says the Under 10s are short this weekend. He’s looking for volunteers. Any takers?’
Joel glanced around. He couldn’t believe they might be short. Where was the commitment? The Selwoods never went away on a long weekend if it meant missing a game. For a long time, nobody’s hand went up. Almost all the boys in 4C were either already in the team or not interested.
Eventually, a girl called Polly raised her hand. ‘I’ll play,’ she said.
A few of the boys jeered. Ruby and Ivy cheered.
Polly was a very keen soccer player, and Joel had seen her kick the footy, too. She was more than handy. Joel wasn’t knocking back anyone. They had the Scorpions this weekend. He didn’t want the Sharks playing short.
‘Any others?’ Mr Cunningham asked. ‘Let me know and I’ll tell Mr Gallus. I think he needs four or five extras.’
Joel suddenly had an idea. He tapped Ray on his bony shoulder blade. ‘Maybe Ray wants to?’ he said.
Some kids started laughing.
Ray’s eyes opened wide. His head wobbled from side to side. Joel couldn’t tell if he was saying ‘no’ or just panicking slightly. Joel looked from Mr Cunningham, to Ray, then back to the teacher. ‘Um, sorry, that was just an idea. I didn’t mean to speak for Ray.’
The class was a noisy rabble once more. Mr Cunningham shushed them again. He was about to speak when Ray’s arm snaked into the air next to Joel.
‘Actually, I do,’ he said quietly.
Mr Cunningham missed it the first time, so he asked Ray to repeat himself.
‘I do,’ Ray said defiantly. ‘I’d really like to play.’
EIGHT
This was their first serious twin trick. Adam and Troy had always wanted to try one. They were identical enough to think they’d get away with it. Nobody beyond the family noticed that Adam had a scar under his nose, or that his nose was slightly crooked. Really, they were a twin trick waiting to happen.
There were footy games when Troy had been tempted to wear Adam’s number eight jumper, and Adam Troy’s number thirteen. But they’d never had the guts. What if the Bendigo Junior Football League found out? The twins played for Sandhurst Under 14s now, since they’d graduated from the Sharks. What if their team lost the points in a league investigation? What if Adam kicked the best goal of his life and everyone thought it was Troy? So although they’d always planned to try one, because surely every set of identical twins has at least one twin trick in them, Troy and Adam never had.
Until now.
At the end of school, Adam lent Troy the uniform for Catholic College. Black blazer with blue trim, tick. Grey jumper with blue V, tick. Charcoal pants, tick.
From a cubicle in the science block toilets, Troy emerged, as Adam.
‘Mess your hair a bit,’ Adam said. ‘You don’t look as cool as me yet.’
Troy ran a hand through his blond hair.
‘That’s better. Man, you look amazing as me. I’m just gorgeous.’
‘Go to interleague training, loser,’ Troy said. ‘Before I change my mind.’
Adam grinned. ‘This is quite nice of you,’ he said. ‘I seriously owe you one.’
‘You mean you owe me about a hundred,’ Troy said. ‘You’ll never pay me back for this. Make sure you put in a good word for me at interleague. Tell them the X-rays were clear. My ankle will be good to go in a week.’
‘Absolutely.’ Adam moved to leave. ‘D’you know where to go?’
‘You wrote it out. Admin block C.’
‘You remember the guy’s name?’
‘Fleming.’
‘You remember what I said about him?’
‘Yeah, that he’s a psycho.’
‘Anything else?’
Troy wrinkled up his nose and grimaced. ‘Yeah, there is actually. Your jumper. It stinks. Wear some deodorant.’
Mr Fleming paced across the front of the room like a drill sergeant. His slicked-back hair was particularly shiny today, and his reading glasses were balanced on the edge of his nose for perfect sneering. When Not Actually Adam entered the room, Mr Fleming wordlessly pointed to an empty chair. ‘Sit,’ he mouthed, without making any noise.
Troy didn’t like him from the get-go. He didn’t like him even more when Mr Fleming did some silent roaring of the word ‘late’, while tapping his watch.
Had he lost his voice?
Two seconds later, he had his answer. ‘Discipline,’ Mr Fleming rumbled aggressively. ‘That’s what you three are going to learn today.’
There were two other students, both seated to his right. One was a bored-looking, overweight boy with a bright-red face. Troy might have suspected sunburn if it wasn’t the middle of June. The other had to be Fiona Leigh. She was tall, with brown hair and giant almond eyes. As he’d walked in, she’d grinned at him with such warmth that he’d found it hard to believe Actually Adam was in the middle of a feud with her.
Then he sat down on the stapler she’d planted on his chair. Crunch!
He smiled at her, he couldn’t help it, and Fiona had her face in the desk to avoid looking at him. Troy could tell from her shuddering back that she was silent-laughing.
He went to move the stapler. He couldn’t. He glanced down and saw that somehow it had been screwed into the wood of the chair.
Man! His brother was right. This girl was good.
Mr Fleming clicked a pen in his right hand.
‘Okay, you all know why you’re here. You’re here to learn about priorities. And that means lessons, Mr Selwood. I know how keen you are on your football, but I want a bit more concentration on old-fashioned academic learning. And so to emphasise these priorities, you will write something out for me, and you will write it thirty times.’
Troy felt confident. Lines were easy. Boring but easy. Bring it on.
‘I want you to write your weekly timetable,’ Mr Fleming said. ‘Write out every subject and every teacher. Monday to Friday. Thirty times.’
Troy almost fainted. He didn’t know the weekly timetable. Only Adam knew the weekly timetable.
‘So, for example, Monday, 8.45, what do you have, Selwood?’
Feelings of panic overwhelmed him. He had to say something.
‘Um, um, English I think?’
‘You think? You think! Come on, Selwood, it’s homeroom for goodness sake. Every day starts with homeroom. And who’s your homeroom supervisor?’
Troy felt a cold sweat creeping across his body. His heart was beating fast. This twin trick was suddenly not going very well.
‘Mr Chrisss . . .’ Who was that teacher Adam sometimes talked about? He took a tentative stab. ‘Mr Chriss-tian-sen-gen-sen?’
Fiona guffawed. ‘What are you talking about, Selwood? Christiansengensen teaches maths.’
Mr Fleming was not in the mood. ‘Enough! Stop playing the fool, both of you. Yes, you have Mr Christiansen for homeroom. So you get the idea. Write out the rest of your classes, do it thirty times, and then hand it in at the end of the hour.’
Troy spent an hour in the grip of cold fear. He and Adam were done for now. He wrote out his own timetable, the one from State High a few times, just to be seen to be writing. Then he wrote out the last Fitzroy team, his beloved Royboys. The Roys had folded at the end of the previous AFL season, although strictly speaking they’d merged. Troy wrote out the names of his favourite Fitzroy players who were playing with the new Brisbane Lions, starting with the old captain, Brad Boyd. He’d been against the merger when it happened, but Troy was beginning to warm to Brisbane. Dad was a Lion, too, and had bought him his first Brisbane Lions jumper last birthday. It was hard not to love Michael Voss.
‘Daydreaming, Selwood?’
Troy jumped a mile in his seat. He was lucky not to come back down on the stapler.
‘Um . . . no, yes, sorry, Mr Fleming.’
‘The hour is up, students. Bring your work to me.’
Troy ran his hands through his hair. This was what Dad might call ‘a pickle’. He had to stand up at some stage and hand in his wrong timetable and list of Fitzroy footballers. It wasn’t going to go down well. Mr Fleming looked like the type who would check it carefully.
He stood up and started to gather his pages. He had them in a neat pile, when suddenly another pile arrived on the desk next to them. He did a double take. There were thirty neatly handwritten sheets of a Catholic College timetable, presumably his.
The hand that placed it there had light-blue painted fingernails and was weighed down with friendship bands.
‘You wouldn’t know this, but “we” have practically the same timetable.’ Fiona grinned.
‘How did you know?’ Troy whispered. ‘How did you spot it?’
‘I’ve got Mr Christiansengensen, too.’ She stifled a laugh. ‘And your hair grew a fair bit overnight.’
Troy smiled and mouthed a relieved ‘thanks’. It was great work from Fiona. She’d even done his timetable in capital letters to disguise her handwriting.
Mr Fleming slapped the desk with his hand. ‘Okay, no dillydallying. Hand your work in and let’s get home.’
They did so, and Mr Fleming actually okayed it all with barely a glance. Maybe he would have got away with the Fitzroy team sheet after all?
Outside he looked for Fiona to say thanks again. She was already rolling away on her beloved dragster.
‘See ya, Selwood,’ she called without looking back. ‘Nice to meet you. And tell your manky brother to wash his jumper sometime. It stinks!’
‘I know!’ Troy yelled, as she rode away. ‘I said exactly the same thing!’
NINE
The Strathdale Sharks were warming up in the rooms before the game.
Joel suspected some of his Sharks teammates weren’t ecstatic with him. There hadn’t been the usual laughing and joking. Lewis and Riley stopped talking when Joel edged over to join in hot-pepper handball.
Ray was in the far corner of the change rooms, talking to his mum. He was cradling his sparkly new yellow boots and wearing his maroon-and-yellow Sharks footy jumper. His mum was snapping a few photos. The jumper looked enormous on him, and his skinny brown arms poked through the looping armholes like twigs. He seemed giddy with excitement.
Joel hoped he wouldn’t get hurt out there. Ray had reassured him that he wouldn’t. ‘It’s very unlikely I’ll get close enough to the ball to get hurt.’ Ray laughed. ‘Although I can always dream.’
While Ray’s mum continued her happy snaps, Joel tried his luck again with Lewis and Riley.
‘Why’d you get us Ray?’ Lewis muttered. ‘We could have just played short.’
‘Shhh,’ Joel hissed.
‘My brother wanted to play,’ Macca added. ‘He can run at least. Or we could have recruited a few more girls. Polly will be better than him.’
Joel glared at Macca. He was a freckly kid with soft arms and a pudgy tummy. His nickname came from his surname, MacFarlane, and Macca was not the greatest footballer himself. Joel felt like pointing this out but stopped himself.
Fish glared at Macca and then at Joel. ‘He’s good at science,’ was all Fish said. ‘Good Hale-Bopp.’
‘Thanks,’ Joel said. ‘I liked your comet cake. Wish we could’ve eaten it. Shame about Noah’s allergies.’
Fish shrugged. He had nothing more to add.
The coach instructed them to get into their boots and insert their mouthguards. He gave a special mention to players playing their first game. ‘Get around Polly,’ he clapped. ‘I’ve seen the girl play soccer. She’ll go beautifully off halfback. And get around Ray, a little goal sneak who’s our crumbing forward out there today.’
In the corner, Ray’s mum stopped taking photographs to applaud her son and the other new players. Then she bent down to
strap some moulded plastic splints to Ray’s ankles. They were light blue, with navy-blue Carlton emblems printed on them. Once they were on with velcro, Ray’s mum pulled a second pair of Sharks socks over the top.
Joel watched with interest, and didn’t see his dad approach. ‘You know what those things are called?’ Dad asked.
Joel shook his head.
‘AFOs,’ Dad replied. ‘It stands for Ankle Foot Orthosis.’
Joel began to do up his own boots.
‘Do you know how I know?’ Dad continued.
‘No,’ Joel said.
‘You actually wore a pair for a while.’ Dad ruffled Joel’s hair. ‘Joely, when you were two, you were what doctors call a “toe-walker”. It means you didn’t put your foot down flat for each step. You walked around on your toes. So they gave you AFOs, a bit like Ray’s, to fix it.’
Dad grinned. ‘Your AFOs had dinosaurs on them. You hated them. You hid them in the compost bin.’
Joel narrowed his eyes. How could he not have known this? ‘Really? I had a — disability?’
‘No, not really a disability. A short-term problem. We addressed it, and you grew out of it. The doctors were never very worried, so neither were we. Although you still walk and run more on your toes than other kids. I sometimes think it helps you. You’re sort of cat-like.’
‘But I could have had a disability,’ Joel said, his voice filled with concern. ‘If it was worse.’
‘We all could have had a disability,’ Dad said. ‘Ray didn’t ask for his condition. It’s just rotten luck. He’s a phenomenal kid. That project you boys did! Smart and funny and gutsy. Look at how small he is! He’s actually going to play. And he’s got one hand that he finds hard to control. I think it’s fantastic you boys have all welcomed him.’
Joel glanced around the change room. They hadn’t all welcomed Ray yet.
But they would, Joel thought. When Ray kicked a goal, then the team would get behind him. He’d kick a goal, and they’d cheer him, and he’d become a true Shark, which was his ultimate dream.
Joel puffed out a big lungful of air and did ten high knee jumps.