by Alison Hart
We all fall silent. He’s right.
Mr S’s marker malfunction is going to bring us all down.
At this moment, we all have the same thought: Miss Agostino and the girls must never see what faces us now.
A kid is sent to the bathroom to get a wet paper towel. Mr S rubs it over the whiteboard which, if anything, just cleans the board and results in the diagram gaining clarity.
Alex says, ‘How about lemon juice?’
Then a whole bunch of suggestions are yelled out:
‘Bleach?’
‘Banana skin?’
‘Margarine?’
‘All right, all right,’ Mr S says. ‘No more ridiculous suggestions. Let me think for a minute.’
Jun says, ‘We have eight minutes left, sir.’
I look over at Wesley, who has turned a familiar pale green. That’s when I have a brilliant idea.
‘I know!’
Mr S looks over at me.
‘You know when someone pukes at school?’
‘Pukes?’
‘Yeah … when someone throws up. The teacher has to go and get this bright green stuff in a bottle and a mop and bucket to clean it up. The green stuff! Just the smell of it nearly makes your eyes fall out. Maybe we could try that?’
Mr S nods. He either recognises my genius or is so desperate he’s willing to try anything.
Wesley is selected as the kid who has just thrown up. He offers to do it for real but there’s not enough time. Mr S says I can go to the office with Wesley because the plan was my idea.
We arrive at the office and Wesley sits on the little bed with flowery sheets looking convincingly miserable. I grab the gloves, mop, bucket and the whole bottle of bright green stuff.
So far so good.
Miss Creighton doesn’t look suspicious at all. She probably has Wesley’s parents on speed dial. (When this happens for real, the actual puker is sent home immediately before they contaminate the whole school.)
Wesley’s a bit disappointed he won’t get to see if the plan works but he can rest assured that the role allocated to his weak stomach is an important one.
When I return to the classroom, the door is locked. I whisper through the keyhole and the door opens a crack. Mr S pulls the bucket inside with me attached to it. He is now in a state of total panic. He pulls on a pair of rubber gloves and pours the green stuff undiluted onto a yellow cloth and wipes it across the board.
The diagram disappears.
So does the surface of the interactive whiteboard.
Underneath the white layer is a kind of silvery metal. Big streaks of silver stand out in glaring contrast to the white bits left around the edges. Mr S stands back a bit. Maybe he’s hoping it doesn’t look so bad from a different angle, but it looks bad from every angle. The interactive whiteboard’s interactive days are over.
‘Why don’t you wipe the whole board over so at least it’s one colour?’ Alex suggests.
Several ideas of how to dispose of the entire thing are put on the table and dismissed as impractical given that the thing is massive. Equipment worth thousands of dollars usually is.
Mr S has regained his composure now that the diagram is gone. ‘I will explain to Mrs Overbeek that I accidentally used the wrong thing to clean the board,’ he tells us. ‘It’s more or less what happened.’
After school, everyone crowds around Minha wanting to know about the eleven puppies. She takes out her phone and shows us some photos of a big brown and white dog. The dog is asleep in a giant washing basket. It looks like there are even more than eleven puppies because they’re climbing all over the dog and out of the basket: white ones, brown ones and black ones. They’re so cute but Minha says they all have homes already.
‘We’re keeping Becky, though,’ she says. ‘The mum.’
She puts her phone away and gets into her dad’s car. About fifty dogs are jumping around in the back.
Mr Wilson comes out of the office building with Mr S and Ian. When they get a bit closer, I’m relieved to hear they’re discussing the staff carpark and not Life Education. I hope Mr S isn’t thinking about confessing. He doesn’t need to worry about any of us blabbing. Before Mr S gets in his car, he says, ‘Okay, see you later’ to Ian.
They must do something together after school.
I’m still relieved, though. The true fate of the interactive whiteboard may never be revealed. It will dissolve into our memory and disappear forever.
Just like the yellow cloth and rubber gloves.
We’ve been on the bus for hours now but it’s impossible to tell how far we’ve gone because we keep stopping. Once for morning tea (warm apple juice and a mini choc-chip muffin with hardly any choc chips), two toilet stops and three times for Wesley to throw up, even though he’s sitting at the front of the bus where you’re not supposed to get sick.
Some of the parents complained that we didn’t get to go on Grade 6 camp and so the school are making us go on a three-day field trip. During the last week of term! School breaks up for holidays on Friday – if I make it through until then.
The Ovens Valley Recreational Facility is in financial ruin since it flooded so we’re going somewhere less recreational called Kamp for Kids. If it’s only half as ridiculous as it sounds I’m still expecting it to be the worst three days of my life.
The bus slows down and pulls up at a weird-looking place in the middle of nowhere. Four or five white buildings stand in a V-shape about two metres from the road, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. The windows are tiny square ones right up the top, taped up with faded newspapers. The only way in is a narrow driveway covered with weeds and the weeds are covered with rubbish: food wrappers, bottles and cans. There’s no one around. Not a car or anything. It’s really creepy.
We all assume this is another puke stop but Wesley is sitting in his seat looking normal.
A sign out the front says, ‘Budget Accommodation. Business for sale’. Two goats are pulling at some weeds growing up the signpost, making it lean towards the creepy white buildings. The bus driver glances over at Ms Kendall for instructions. Ms Kendall is just staring at the droopy sign.
Alex says, ‘Oooh. A ghost town.’
Then Jun says, ‘No … It’s a goat town. Geddit? Goats.’
Half the kids on the bus start yelling, ‘Goaty Town! Goaty Town!’ until the bus driver takes us into the complex and we all fall silent.
There are maybe thirty or forty goats watching us pull in. They’re standing around in groups of two or three behind the creepy buildings. They turn their heads slowly and follow the bus as the driver tries to find a clear place to park.
It is Goaty Town.
All the buildings are labelled with big letters. A, B, Centre Block, then D and E. The windows on this side of the buildings are a bit bigger and the newspaper has been torn off so you can see the two centimetres of dead insects on every windowframe. Miss Agostino makes an urgent phone call then looks over to Ms Kendall and nods.
Goaty Town is Kamp for Kids.
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Budget.’
‘Yeah.’ Alex laughs. ‘Maybe all the excursion money is paying for the new water pipe at school.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Braden asks, looking panicky. We all stare out the bus windows at the creepy camp place and feel a bit panicky ourselves.
An old lady in gumboots carrying two buckets full of something green and sloppy comes out of Centre Block and climbs onto the bus steps.
She says, ‘Blocks A and E are the bunkrooms, bathrooms and toilets. B and D are the dining area and Activities Room. Centre Block is out of bounds.’
That’s all she says.
Nothing else.
Then she steps down off the bus and empties the buckets onto the ground, which makes all the goats go berserk.
Mr S is the first to recover. He stands up and tells us what to do while he and Ms Kendall and Miss Agostino ‘have a quick meeting’. A guy with long hair stands up from the seat next to him. It’
s Ian. I’d forgotten he was even coming to camp with us. He’s got a T-shirt with a picture of a cow in sections. All the sections are labelled according to what the meat is called: T-bone, eye fillet, etc …
I hope the goats can’t read.
We file off the bus, collect our bags and go into buildings – A (girls) and E (boys). Each room sleeps four; two bunk beds. I grab a top one in case the goats can get inside.
We all meet in the Activities Room.
‘This is going to be an inside camp, with team exercises and games using your minds, and cooperation,’ Ms Kendall says. ‘And you’re going to prepare your own meals and clean up according to the roster that Miss Agostino will put up on the kitchen wall. This afternoon’s activity is going to be walking into town to buy enough food, water and supplies to keep us fed and occupied until Friday.’
There is obviously nothing for kids to do here at all. Whoever thought up the name ‘Kamp for Kids’ should be arrested. It has to be the worst name given to a place in the history of the world.
Town turns out to be a hundred kilometres away and is not so much a town as one shop and a petrol station. By the time we return, we’re exhausted. We’re so tired, nobody minds that five or more goats follow you from building to building and that there’s a cluster of them at every doorway waiting for the next person to come out.
At 5.30 we meet in the dining area. There’s a whole bunch of triangle-shaped tables along the wall and a tower of milk crates in the corner. Ms Kendall and Ian help us push all the tables together in a long line. It looks like we’re getting ready to have a board meeting.
Jun stands on a milk crate at one end of the table. ‘Ladies and gentlemen of Goaty Town!’ he says. ‘I suppose you’re all wondering why—’
We’re all left wondering why because Ms Kendall orders him to: ‘Hop down immediately and help Braden find some knives and forks.’
Alex does a few calculations on a piece of newspaper and tells Ms Kendall we should arrange the tables so we sit in groups of four. Ms Kendall is happy for us to do as he suggests because she knows Alex has a special interest in geometry and triangles in particular.
Later, while everyone’s busy finding something to put on their milk crate so they don’t get a milk crate pattern on their bum, I see Peta approach Leini and Gina’s table. As Gina closes the gap with a vacant milk crate, Leini stands up and says something to Peta. I don’t know what she says but I think it’s something mean because Peta stops suddenly and lets her arms drop. She glances around at all the full tables, resting her milk crate on the floor.
‘Peta can fit on our table,’ Alex says, looking where I’m looking.
‘I know,’ I say, ‘but she might think we saw her get upset.’
‘We did see her get upset,’ Jun says, confused.
I stand up and wave Peta over to our table; Alex, Jun, Braden’s, and mine. She walks over and squashes her milk crate in next to us. Just as she sits down, though, our food arrives, and we all regret sitting at any table.
On each plate is a section of what we assume is a giant omelette. Mr S stands up and admits he made it himself. ‘Tonight we’re having an old favourite of mine. It has ten ingredients,’ he explains, ‘all of them nutritious. I lived on it while I was travelling and I hope you enjoy it too.’
He said he lived on it.
He didn’t say he ate it.
We play a bit of a game on our table: who can identify the most ingredients? I think I can see five. Peta says she can see seven. Alex says he knows all ten. We’re not really in a position to challenge him and he refuses to confirm it with Mr S. He’s worried Mr S will misinterpret his enthusiasm and offer him another bit.
The only person other than Mr S who seems to be eating the omelette voluntarily is Ian. He’s acting like he eats it all the time – not just in emergency survival situations.
Ms Kendall gives us five minutes after tea to clean up and meet in the Activities Room for some ‘fun’ before bed. Our rooms are freezing and the smell of goat seems to have intensified throughout the day, so we can’t wait to return to the Activities Room. When we get there, Ian’s waiting for us. He’s brought his own book of brain teasers for us to do, which makes me think he must have been to Goaty Town before. We have to form into groups and then a group leader will report what we talked about.
‘It’s more about the process than the answer,’ Ian says.
Jeez.
He’ll make a good teacher.
Who does he remind me of? I wish I knew.
Later, after we climb into bed, no one can sleep because it’s so cold. The wind is whistling through the cracked windows. It sounds like a documentary about Antarctica. I remember hearing something ages ago about wrapping yourself in newspapers to keep warm. Oddly, newspapers are the only thing Kamp for Kids has in plentiful supply. It must have something to do with goat management.
Alex and I decide to do a supply run. When we get to the Activities Room, Ms Kendall is already there in a fluffy dressing-gown and bunny slippers with Minha, looking for blankets to warm up the occupants of Block A. I tell her about the newspaper idea. She looks a bit doubtful but grabs a big pile. I hope the goats don’t eat newspaper. They might think she’s a giant sausage roll walking back past forbidden Block C.
The newspapers work really well. It’s a bit uncomfortable at first, having newspapers underneath our pyjamas, but we all go to sleep eventually once we get used to the crinkly noise. Alex doesn’t need newspaper in his sleeping bag. His dad bought him a sleeping bag like the one that people take to Mount Everest. It keeps you warm to minus twenty degrees Celsius and it’s probably only about minus ten degrees at Goaty Town.
At breakfast, Peta tells us the reason Ms Kendall took Minha with her to the Activities Room last night.
‘It was strategic,’ Peta says. Apparently Minha has the same effect on goats as every other animal she meets. They love her. She walks freely amongst them, patting their weird little heads as if they were kittens. ‘Minha’s getting sick of running around, getting stuff for people,’ Peta adds. ‘She can’t even clean her teeth without being interrupted.’
As we’re leaving the dining area, Ian hands out a list of the day’s activities. Today’s T-shirt reads ‘The World is My Classroom’ and there’s a picture of people running around a basketball-sized earth. I’m surprised Mr S hasn’t said anything about the T-shirts. His would probably read ‘My Classroom is the World’ because he thinks he knows everything.
Day Two’s activities have obviously been put together in about five minutes because they are:
• Craft with Ms Kendall (boring)
• Brain teasers with Mr S and Ian (boring)
• Survival skills with Miss Agostino (survival of what is not specified).
We have to tidy up our rooms and meet in the Activities Room in half an hour.
When we get back to Block E, the door is open. Three satisfied-looking goats casually step out into the sun and join the others. Alex volunteers to go in and check for other goats because he’s small and can run really fast.
He comes out and declares the area safe, but he looks like he’s seen a ghost.
What can three goats possibly have done in the time it takes to eat breakfast?
Our bunkroom is a bigger mess than how we left it before breakfast. Clothes and shoes are scattered all over the floor. I do a quick check of my stuff. The goats have eaten my pyjamas, runners, bathers, most of my underwear and probably some other stuff I don’t remember having. They’ve eaten some of Braden and Jun’s clothes too. But not Alex’s. The stuff in his bag is untouched, except all that remains of his Mount Everest sleeping bag is a long blue zipper coiled up on his pillow like a dinner mint.
The three goats that ate our stuff are probably telling the other goats all about it – like a restaurant review. Alex’s sleeping bag would get five stars.
Oddly, the sleeping bags with newspaper in them are untouched. When we return to the Activities Room, we dis
cover the same thing has happened in the girls’ block. The goats will eat anything. Anything not protected by newspaper or in the company of Minha.
In the girls’ block, they’ve eaten toothpaste.
They’ve eaten most of the camp journals, too, so it’s not all bad.
After a bit of discussion about what happened in the bunkrooms while we were eating breakfast, the morning’s activity list is revised. We can either combine craft and survival skills with Miss Agostino and make anti-goat suits out of newspaper or do boring brain teasers with Mr S and Ian.
Everyone wants to make a newspaper suit. Ms Kendall says, ‘I need two volunteers to come into town with me to buy tape, staples and glue.’
Only forty-three kids volunteer so four kids must be in the toilet or something.
I hope they’re not the goats’ breakfast.
An hour later, all of us except Minha are busy making a newspaper suit. She spends the morning clearing a path for a million ants to carry a piece of barley sugar across the carpet. I see a piece of Mr S’s omelette has made its way to the Activities Room. There are two or three ants walking around it. They’re doing much the same as we were last night; looking at it from different angles, trying to decide whether it’s edible or not.
By lunchtime, our newspaper anti-goat suits are finished. Ms Kendall asks us to write our name on the back because, apart from Jun’s suit, they all look a bit similar – four tubes stuck to a few panels held together with a thousand staples and twenty metres of sticky tape.
Jun’s suit is a three-piece, button-down, fully lined masterpiece with waistcoat, pleated pants and pockets. None of the staples or tape are visible.
He would be overdressed at a wedding.
I get out of tidying up because it’s my turn to help prepare lunch.
Ian is waiting for me in the kitchen. His T-shirt reads ‘Kids are the future. Listen!’
‘Why do you wear all those T-shirts?’ I ask him.