by Nick Earls
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
From the Author
In the car, Hansie goes crazy. I’d been waiting for that. He bashes his Spider-Man action figure against the arm of his booster seat, then throws it on the floor and throws his hat after it.
‘Don’t want to go!’ he moans. ‘Don’t want to goooo.’
He has no real idea of where he’s going, other than away from Mom and me. That’s nightmare enough. Snot comes out his nose. There’s a string of it stretching from his nostril to his left shoulder.
‘Look, Hansie! Web!’ I say to him. ‘You’ve made web! You’re more like Spider-Man than we thought.’ It’s supposed to distract him, but he’s too caught up in the tantrum.
Just two minutes ago all was looking good. Hansie had yet to process what was ahead and Mom was posing us on the front steps for first-day photos – first day at Australian child care for Hansie, first day at an Australian school for me. He struck all kinds of finger-cocked web-shooting poses then, without the aid of any snot-web.
‘Look at him in his big hat and Spider-Man shirt,’ Mom said. ‘Shame. You stay just like that, Hansie, and I’ll take a photo for your pa.’
She sent the photo while I buckled Hansie’s seatbelt.
The hat is now on the floor, with one of Hansie’s shoes on top of it, and his feet are pounding on the passenger-seat headrest.
Mom uses her calm voice, then threatens to turn off his nursery-rhyme CD. Somehow, with that threat, Hansie manages to take the tantrum up a level. Tears are squirting from his eyes and his little pale fists are flailing. I scramble to get my phone out in time before the moment of maximum insanity passes.
Mom starts shouting to try to cut through the wailing. Hansie’s a streaky blur of limbs and bodily fluids when I get the shot.
‘Herschelle!’ Mom shouts. ‘Not helping!’
‘It’s a follow-up for Dad – before and after.’ I turn the phone so that she can see it, but she refuses to look. ‘It’s quite artistic.’
It’s 8.30 in the morning, but Dad will have just finished his shift at the mine. His new job has started with two weeks of night shifts. He used to work nights in South Africa too, but it wasn’t just the four of us back there. We had fourteen other family members in Cape Town – I counted them last week, when having zero around started to feel very different. And we had friends, loads of them. We never ran out of people to see. Here it’s just us.
The car is still all snot and tears and noise when we get to the drop-off zone outside One Mile Creek State School.
As Mom’s door opens, Hansie’s screaming makes everyone look at us – students, parents, teachers, all arriving at this same precise inconvenient moment. This is not the perfect beginning to my first day.
I am supposed to look cooler than this.
Once we’re out of the car, Mom wipes some of the snot from Hansie’s face and he grips her leg so tightly she can’t get him off. I stand a few steps away, checking my phone, trying to look as if I’ve never met them before in my life. But that just depresses me. Double depresses me. My phone’s got yesterday’s pictures of a hockey game I should have played in – my team won, on the other side of the world – and I’m still part of the stupid Hansie screaming-and-snot spectacle.
‘What if I carry you?’ Mom says to Hansie, and he gives in.
She picks him up with one arm and with the other she tests that the car doors are locked before stepping away. We both keep our eyes on it on our way to the gate. It’s not like it is at home. In Australia, when you park your car, there’s no one to give money to to look after it. So far we’ve been lucky. We’ve parked at the shops and come back later and the car’s still been there, every time. I wonder if it will be there when Mom gets back.
As we get to the gate, Hansie starts moaning again, and then wailing. He was never this miserable in Cape Town. Mom hugs him and tries to say soothing things. She doesn’t get it.
There was no family meeting about this move. We have meetings about holidays, and plenty of other things. We all get to talk about where we might go out to dinner. We got to decide the colour of our bedrooms. And then this massive life-changing move came along out of the blue. No discussion.
‘It’s okay,’ Mom says uselessly to Hansie. ‘It’ll be okay.’
I type ‘Loving Australia’ into my phone as the caption for the tantrum photo, and I send it to Dad.
‘Hansie,’ I say, as toughly as I’m allowed to, to get his attention. ‘This one’s not you. This is my school. I stay here, then you and Mom go off together. You can scream at her later.’
He blinks, wipes his face and turns to Mom, who nods, before giving me a look. I’ve just booked this one in to come back to bite her, which is fair enough. I didn’t make us come here. I don’t deserve to be taken down by the tantrum. The next phase of it is all hers. There’s sweat spiking Hansie’s hair and his cheeks are bright red. This is Volcano Hansie – dormant, between eruptions. It’ll work well enough as far as I’m concerned.
The principal’s office is on the second level of an old yellow wooden building. Most of the school is old yellow wooden buildings, all up on concrete posts, with benches underneath and markings on the concrete for handball and hopscotch. There are a couple of games of handball going on as we walk past. I don’t know what rules the players are going by, but I think I could take them. The biggest boy there hits one shot with everything he’s got and it slams into the leg of one of his opponents, who overbalances.
One of the others says, ‘Lachlan . . .’ in a complaining voice, and the big one raises his hands in the air and says, ‘Victory is mine.’ He picks the ball up and ricochets it hard into a nearby metal bin and back into his hand. It’s a cool move.
Maybe these are the guys I need to find. Maybe I could have some fun with them.
Bergvliet Primary was on one level, all white buildings that weren’t this old. And where are the security guards? Anyone could walk in. There are signs asking all visitors to report to the office, but that’s not going to help anyone if things get difficult. Mom just keeps heading for the steps, talking to Hansie. She doesn’t seem to notice there’s no security here at all.
The admin window’s just near the top, and the woman there says she’ll let Mr Browning know we’ve arrived. She asks us to take a seat. There’s a row of plastic chairs against the verandah railing. Hansie sits on Mom. I can already see snot on her sleeve.
‘So, you okay with this?’ Mom says to me, as if we can’t mention ‘this’ by name. ‘You ready to get started?’
‘She’ll be apples, Mom,’ I tell her. ‘That’s Australian for “it’ll be okay”.’
‘Why is it a she?’ She’s looking puzzled.
‘Why is what a she?’
‘The thing that’s apples. And why is it apples? Are you sure it’s apples? They’re not particularly Australian.’
‘Mom, it’s just how they talk. Don’t overcomplicate it. If you’d put the work in looking at the Aussie slang
websites, you’d know all that. I’m ready. I couldn’t be more ready. You should know this stuff. You should be fair dinkum too. Don’t embarrass me.’
‘Fair what?’
Fortunately, before she can say more, Mr Browning opens his office door.
‘Herschelle, all ready then?’ he says, looking from me to Mom to snotball Hansie.
He’s smiling. He has steely-grey stubble around the bald top of his head and he’s wearing steel-framed glasses. My paperwork is in his hand.
He glances down at it and then back to me, and says, ‘You’ll be a great addition to One Mile Creek.’
There’s someone else in his office. She has long straight black hair. I think she’s from China or somewhere close.
‘This is Ms Vo,’ he tells me. ‘She’ll be your teacher. I’ve been showing her your reports from . . .’ He pauses, to try to get the name right. ‘Bergvliet.’ He goes a bit hard on the ‘v’, but he’s close.
‘Some very good results there, Herschelle,’ she says, in a totally Australian accent, not Chinese at all. ‘We only have two weeks left of this term, and that’ll give you a good chance to get to know the place. From what I’ve seen, you’ve studied different things, so don’t be worried that the others are ahead in some areas. You’ll be on level pegging when the new term starts. We’ll start new work then. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ I hadn’t thought about anyone being ahead, or studying anything different. How different could it be? School is school, isn’t it?
‘And here’s Max Kennedy,’ Ms Vo says, before I’ve had a chance to adjust to what she’s just told me. She’s looking past me. ‘Right on time as always. Max’ll be your official buddy to show you around the place and help you with fitting in.’
A small nerd is making his way up the steps. They have misunderstood and paired me with a nerd. This isn’t how it’s supposed to start. And Max Kennedy doesn’t look like he’d fit in anywhere.
Max Kennedy has large amounts of brown curly hair, a battered blue school sun hat and a matching blue backpack as big as a fridge. He’s spinning an old tennis ball in his hands.
‘Max,’ Ms Vo calls out as he reaches the top of the steps. ‘Are you ready to give Herschelle his guided tour?’
‘Sure am, Ms Vo.’ Max looks at me, and then at Mom and Hansie, who is back to grabbing Mom’s leg. He turns towards me again. ‘Hi.’
‘Howzit.’
‘It’s . . .’ He looks like he’s actually thinking about it. ‘It’s good.’
Someone should have told Max that howzit doesn’t have an answer.
‘So, twenty minutes, boys,’ Ms Vo says. ‘I’ll see you at the classroom. Actually, maybe you should start the tour there, so you can both put your bags down.’
Or maybe Max’s bag could put its nerd down and let him run free until school starts. It’s at least twice as big as him. What could he be carrying in there?
My mother puts her hand on my shoulder and says, ‘You have a great first day now. I’ll be back at three, eh? In the spot where we’re parked now. And isn’t it good to have a friend already?’
Friend? Wasn’t she paying attention at Bergvliet Primary? Didn’t she see who I spent time with? I would have been school hockey captain one day, if we’d stayed. I was the guy you picked first for any team, the guy everyone wanted to be friends with, and who got to be selective. I didn’t have teachers lining me up with friends. I suppose I’ll find the cool people here when I need to. Or they’ll find me.
Max and I turn to leave, and Ms Vo goes to talk to Mom just as Mom tries to peel Hansie from her leg.
‘Don’t worry,’ she tells him in her most patient voice. ‘I’ll have a chat with Herschelle’s new teacher and then we’ll go somewhere with lots of toys and fun and other kids.’
Plus screaming and snot when he realises she’s leaving, but she doesn’t say that bit. He might even vomit if he gets worked up enough.
‘So, Herschelle,’ Max says on the way to our classroom block, ‘my dad said there was a South African cricketer once who was called Herschelle.’
‘Yeah, Herschelle Gibbs. Scored a few runs against you Aussies.’ Why would it take his dad to tell him that? How would he not know? Herschelle Gibbs is famous. ‘My mom and dad saw him score one of the fastest double centuries ever in a test in Cape Town. That’s where we’re from. It’s partly how I got the name.’
‘And “van duh murway”? Is that right?’
At first I think he’s joking, but then I realise his face is totally serious. He has no idea how to say my last name. I say it for him, and he gets me to repeat it before trying again himself.
‘Fon de mer fuh?’
‘That’s good.’ It’s not, but it’s close. ‘Don’t you have many van der Merwes around here?’
‘In One Mile Creek?’ Max laughs. ‘I think you guys’d be it. My dad said it’s an African name. I thought you’d look different.’
It takes a second or two to work out what he means. ‘Oh, black. You thought I’d be black because your dad said I was African.’ It’s hard not to laugh. And at the same time I wonder if he has any idea of South Africa beyond Herschelle Gibbs. ‘Sorry, chana. There’s white Africans too.’ As soon as I’ve said it, I realise it’s a joke he doesn’t get. Can’t get. ‘Chana’ is from a black South African language – Zulu, I think – and means ‘friend’. ‘Maybe your dad said my name was Afrikaner. That’d be right. Afrikaner people came from Holland to South Africa hundreds of years ago.’
‘African people came from Holland?’ He sounds even more confused. ‘Didn’t human life begin in Africa? And how come you don’t speak Dutch?’
‘I do. I speak Afrikaans, which is like Dutch, so I can understand Dutch. But luckily I also speak this language called “English”. You’ve probably heard of it.’
‘All right then.’ I’m being sarcastic, but he smiles anyway. ‘We have that language here. This’ll be okay.’
‘So, what made you come here?’ Max asks. ‘Why are you in Australia?’
It’s a fair question, but I don’t know how to answer it. Does he mean why did we leave? Or why did we come here?
I don’t think I can tell him why we left. I don’t really want to talk about it.
‘Good opportunities,’ I tell him, even though it sounds totally like what it is – a line borrowed from Mom and Dad. ‘My dad works in the mines. He’s an expert in some areas, so they paid for us to come here.’
There’s nothing untrue about that, even if it’s nowhere near the whole truth. ‘It’s complicated,’ my father has said, the two times I’ve heard people ask more questions.
Max just nods, so I don’t have to go there.
Outside our classroom are wooden racks loaded with bags, both schoolbags and bags with sports clothes hanging out. Max tells me it’s PE today, and then he says, ‘Sport,’ in case I don’t understand ‘PE’. No one told me it was PE today. My sports uniform is at home.
‘Your sandshoes have to be all white or close to it,’ he tells me.
‘Sandshoes?’
What are sandshoes? Are they like snow shoes? I picture a class of thirty kids with tennis racquets on their feet as sandshoes, trekking across a dune. I’m sure there are no dunes in One Mile Creek. There’s bushland, a few farms and land being cleared for houses, none of it sand. All of the northern bit of Brisbane is between One Mile Creek and the water. I’ve seen the map. Maybe they’re just special takkies for sand.
‘Is it beach volleyball today?’ As soon as I say it, I remember beach volleyball is barefoot. I feel like a total idiot.
‘No, sandshoes,’ Max says. He points to his feet, as if it’s the ‘shoe’ part that I’m struggling with. ‘Trainers. Runners.’
‘Ah, just takkies.’
‘My dad’s a trekkie.’ He’s got his confused look back again. ‘I’m more into Doctor Who . . .’
‘No, I said . . .’ But it doesn’t matter what I said. Where was ‘sandshoes’ in the online Australian dictionaries? Sa
ndshoes, trainers or runners – those seem to be the three acceptable options. Not takkies. I’m going to have to start writing this stuff down.
‘I’m just saying, ’cause one new kid turned up in thongs once,’ he tells me. ‘He thought we’d be doing swimming, but still . . .’
‘Thongs?’
I must look blank because he points to his feet again. ‘It’s rubber. It’s got a rubber sole and then a bit that comes up between your toes.’
‘Oh, flip-flops.’
‘That’d be them.’ He points to me now, as if I’ve given a correct answer to a quiz question.
I push my bag into a space on the rack and decide just to nod at everything Max says from now on. He leads me downstairs and shows me the nearest toilets, and a long row of steel sinks outside with taps, drinking fountains and hand-wash gel.
He points between two yellow buildings to show me where the oval is, and tells me there’s a ‘no hat, no play’ rule. We walk up a ramp to a newer building, the library, and he tells me he’ll bring me here at lunchtime to introduce me to the librarian and show me what I need to know.
Behind the library is the newest and biggest building of all. It’s made of brick and blue steel sheeting. The door is open, and Max leads me in.
‘This is our school hall,’ he says. There’s a stage at one end and seats piled up at the other, with the floor marked for basketball and other games. There’s a huge steel ceiling fan with at least eight blades. ‘The fan’s cactus already, and the hall’s only a few years old.’
I look around. There’s no cactus. I wonder if it’s the brand, but there’s no visible logo.
‘The fan’s carked it,’ he says. ‘It’s gone bung.’
I’m now working on a ‘three strikes and I’m out’ policy. I pretend to understand, just to make it stop. I get my phone out and type the words into notes. Three words to describe a fan, and what help have those slang websites been? Nothing to say about fans at all.
A siren sounds.
‘Five minutes,’ Max says, and it’s a relief that the tour’s almost over.
I’m standing beside Ms Vo when she starts to introduce me to the class. She gets as far as, ‘Everyone, we have a new student joining us today, all the way from South Africa, and his name’s Herschelle . . .’ She turns to me. ‘I might get you to say the rest of your name so they hear it exactly right the first time.’