Don't Call Me Ishmael

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  I took a few steps into the classroom. The prospect of sitting beside Bill Kingsley had never seemed so appealing. Not that there was anything much wrong with Bill Kingsley. I suppose he could be a bit … well … vague at times. (The resident class comedian, Orazio Zorzotto, once described him as ‘Still waters running shallow’, but that was a bit hard.) There were probably only two things that struck you about Bill Kingsley. One was that he was a sci-fi/fantasy nut and the other one was his size. Let me put it this way, if there’s a tug-of-war competition and Bill’s on your team, then you don’t need to have a vote for who should be anchor.

  I looked at Bill Kingsley’s face. As usual he seemed lost in his own little world, probably deep within Middle Earth or the far reaches of the galaxy. The empty seat beside him had my name on it. I was about to make my move when I realised that James Scobie was saying something to me.

  ‘What … sorry?’

  ‘I said, you don’t have to sit with me if you don’t want to.’

  Great, off the hook!

  I watched as Scobie made his way to the spare desk in the middle row, where he began the excruciating routine of arranging his books and pens. Soon all eyes were drawn towards the centre of the room, where the small figure of the new boy sat fidgeting like a black dot in the middle of a target.

  ‘Are you waiting for a personal invitation to take a seat, Mr Leseur?’

  The rumbling voice of Mr Barker jolted the class into a flurry of activity. You didn’t muck around when it came to Mr Barker. As Deputy Principal he was a busy man. His motto was, ‘You waste my time, and I’ll waste you,’ and he lived by it.

  I walked across the classroom. I looked at the seat next to Bill Kingsley. I looked at the seat next to James Scobie.

  ‘Any time before the next ice age would be fine, thank you, Mr Leseur.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  I sat down and quickly opened my book. Bill Kingsley was gazing dreamily out the window, probably fighting some desperate battle with ores or aliens. I stared numbly at the vacant seat beside him. Don’t ask me why I wasn’t sitting in it. I turned to look at James Scobie next to me. He stared back with unblinking eyes as if he could read every thought in my head, then he nodded slightly and smiled, showing a row of small neat teeth.

  Oh well, I thought, if you’re stuck on the Titanic, you might as well have the seat with the best view of the iceberg.

  14.

  BAD BARRY VERSUS TWITCHY JAMES

  It was around twenty minutes into the lesson when the intercom buzzed and Mr Barker had one of his usual in-depth conversations.

  ‘Yep. Right. Right. Yep. Righto. Right. I’m on my way.’

  Mr Barker was the school’s ‘go to’ guy. If ever a water or food fight broke out in the yard or someone had money stolen or accidentally swallowed the lid of his pen (Bill Kingsley) or put his fist through a window because he didn’t realise it was shut (Bill Kingsley again) or got his head stuck between the railings of the stairwell (yes, you guessed it) or if ever anyone had to be found, patched up, talked to, yelled at, disciplined, restrained or revived, then the inevitable cries would go up, ‘Get Mr Barker. Find Mr Barker. Go see Mr Barker. Try Mr Barker. Ask Mr Barker.’

  It seemed to me that Mr Barker was so busy dealing with everyone else’s problems that he couldn’t afford the luxury of having problems of his own. Therefore, whenever he was called away from class, which was often, his instructions came thudding down like a club.

  ‘Right, listen up, you lot. I have to leave for a moment. While I’m gone read pages thirty-eight to forty-five and start working through the exercises at the end of the chapter. Leave your seat only if it is on fire. Don’t speak unless it is to reveal your dying wish. Breathe only if it is absolutely necessary. I will return. I will check your work. I will be seeing you at lunchtime if I am not satisfied with both quantity and quality. Are we clear?’

  We were very clear. Yes, you always knew exactly where you stood with Mr Barker–and that was anywhere he told you to. The class settled down to work as Mr Barker looked quickly around the room.

  ‘Mr Kingsley, if you don’t begin showing signs of productive life immediately, I will switch my laser from stun to destroy. Thank you.’

  Without further comment Mr Barker strode from the room. A few minutes later the first missile arrived. It shot over James Scobie’s head, bounced across the desk and disappeared among legs and feet. The next one struck James Scobie on the back of the head, ricocheted into the air and lobbed on to his workbook. Scobie picked up the tight wad of paper and turned it over like a piece of forensic evidence.

  Barry Bagsley’s voice spilled across the room like a stain. ‘Hey, E.T., isn’t it time you phoned home?’

  OK, listen to me now. I’m an expert in this field. This is what you do. Just pretend nothing happened. Mr Barker will be back soon. Forget about it. Just ignore it. And, whatever you do, don’t turn around.

  James Scobie turned around.

  Oh. All right then, just take a quick peek, but don’t make eye contact and definitely do not stare.

  James Scobie stared.

  Oh my god.

  ‘What are you looking at, ya spazoid alien freak?’

  OK, now this is a bit like what Miss Tarango would call a rhetorical question. It doesn’t require an answer. So don’t answer it!

  ‘I’m not sure,’ answered James Scobie thoughtfully, as if he were a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. ‘As you point out, I’m new to your planet, but on the data available I’d say I was looking at some kind of rudimentary life form.’

  What!

  ‘Sorry,’ said Barry Bagsley with exaggerated concern, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  What?

  Somehow I think the difference between ‘rudimentary’ and ‘rude’ might have escaped Barry Bagsley.

  ‘Definitely rudimentary,’ James Scobie said to himself.

  By now everyone in the class was looking up from his book or twisting around in his seat to see what would happen next. Even Bill Kingsley had responded, but probably only to the mention of E.T. Scobie and Barry Bagsley faced off against each other. It was like one of those old “Western showdowns: Bad Barry versus Twitchy James. You could almost feel the street emptying.

  ‘What’s your problem, Ferret Face? Something crawl up ya nose?’

  James Scobie pushed his glasses up and frowned slightly.

  ‘I suggest you turn around now, ya mutant, unless you’d like ya head smacked in. ‘Cause I can smack it in for ya if that’s what ya want.’

  James Scobie held Barry Bagsley’s glare for a few seconds and then turned around and went back to work as if nothing had happened. Almost immediately a ball of paper the size of a small planet flashed into the side of James Scobie’s head and left his glasses hanging from one ear. Cheers and whoops shot up from the back of the class.

  ‘Hey, what’s that stink? Is that you, Le Sewer, or has Rat Boy there just shat in his pants?’

  James Scobie unhooked his glasses slowly and held them in his hand. His eyes rolled towards the ceiling as his mouth stretched first to the left then to the right. When he replaced his glasses, he leant to the side of the desk, picked up the ball of paper, carried it slowly to the front of the class and dropped it in the bin. Every boy in the class followed James Scobie’s movements like iron filings drawn to a magnet. He walked quietly back down the aisle. When he reached his seat, he kept going, and didn’t stop until he was standing right in front of Barry Bagsley. Then he spoke calmly.

  ‘When you said you could smack my head in, you were right, of course. I’d have little or no chance of stopping you. However, I should warn you that if you did take that course of action, I would immediately inform the appropriate authorities–Miss Tarango, Mr Barker, Brother Jerome–and my father. I would also have to insist that the police be contacted, since a ‘smacked-in’ head would certainly come under the banner of ‘aggravated assault’. Naturally my father and I would be consulting
a lawyer. By the way, I would suggest you do the same as soon as possible. I would also be checking myself in for a thorough medical examination in case compensation had to be calculated–medical bills, emotional and psychological damage, that sort of thing. At this stage, I don’t think the media need be involved over an isolated incident. After all, I wouldn’t want the school’s reputation to suffer unnecessarily. But, if it happened again or there was evidence of other victims beside myself or indications of a history of violence and intimidation on your part-well, you know how the newspapers and current affairs programs love that kind of hardhitting investigative reporting.’ James Scobie stopped and pushed out his bottom lip. ‘So what I am saying is that technically, yes, you were right about being able to smack my head in, but I must say, for all the reasons I have just outlined, I would strongly advise against it. Now, as for me having “shat” in my pants–by the way, do you think that’s an acceptable form of the past tense? I’d like to see what the experts say on that. Anyway, I assume that you are implying by your comment not that I am incontinent, but rather that you believe your very presence has filled my body with such a volume of fear and trepidation that the only way I could accommodate it was by the involuntary emptying of my bowels. On this point I have to inform you, you are mistaken.’

  The class stared at James Scobie. Something wasn’t right here. This wasn’t the way things went. When Barry Bagsley threatened you, you backed down. That’s just the way it was; the way it had always been. You couldn’t just go changing things–just doing what you want. The whole room was one big furrowed brow. Something was happening here–we just weren’t quite sure what it was. Perhaps that’s what it felt like all those years ago during that soccer game at Rugby College in England when that Webb Ellis kid picked up the soccer ball and started to run with it for the first time. Perhaps everyone just stood there, blanked out by the shock realisation that there might be a whole other set of rules you could play by.

  ‘You’re mad, Turd Brain. Why don’t you just run along before you wet your pants?’

  Luckily, as far as Barry Bagsley was concerned, there was no situation for which an insult wasn’t an acceptable response.

  James Scobie gave Barry’s comment due consideration before replying. ‘Well, of course, the individual is not the most reliable judge of his or her own sanity: only a psychiatrist could accurately rule on that. However, I don’t think I’m mad. But there’s one thing I am sure of: whether I’m sane or insane, I know I’m not afraid of you.’

  Barry Bagsley sneered, shook his head and pulled himself forward on the desk. Even though he was seated, his eyes still came level with Scobie’s and his big-boned face hovered as menacingly as a death star. ‘Are you sure you’re not afraid of me?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘And exactly why is that?’

  James Scobie squeezed his eyes shut, smudged his mouth around in a full circle, picked his glasses from his face and gave three wide-eyed blinks before settling them delicately back in position. He waited till his face fell still like the sea after a passing wave.

  ‘Because I’m not afraid of anything,’ he said blandly.

  15.

  WHOOSH!

  Not afraid or anything) This statement was greeted by hoots from Barry Bagsley supporters and general disbelief from the remainder of the class. I thought James Scobie had gone way too far now.

  ‘Wooooooo,’ said Barry Bagsley with his eyes bulging and his hands held up as if he were warding off some monster. ‘I think you might be telling a big fat porky there, Scobie boy.’

  James Scobie blinked twice and frowned. ‘Do I look scared to you?’

  You see, that was the thing-he really didn’t. Most people in a situation like that made the mistake of trying too hard to look brave or tough, but James Scobie looked as if he just didn’t care. It was the same when he was introduced to the class. Everyone knows that one of the worst things in the world is to be the new kid. And the very worst thing about being the new kid is the moment when you have to stand in front of a room full of the old kids. The usual way of coping is to look at the floor or the teacher or out the window-anywhere, in fact, but at your new classmates–and pray that the torture will be over soon so you can scuttle to the relative safety of a desk. But James Scobie was different. In between the times when his face was twisting and stretching as if he were trying to swallow a blender, his small dark eyes looked over the class as if we were all new kids and he was right at home where he’d always been.

  Barry Bagsley, meanwhile, was looking at Scobie as if he were something he’d just wiped from the bottom of his shoe. ‘Well, what’s your secret, Superman? Made of steel, are ya? Got some super power or something? Wait, I know, you’re really a boy wizard, right, with magic spells, and you’re gonna wave your wand and change me into a toad.’

  ‘Not much magic needed there,’ said James Scobie with a smile.

  A ripple of laughter broke out around the class. Danny Wallace laughed the loudest but quickly wilted under Barry Bagsley’s cutting glare before glowering at James Scobie as if he himself had been the target of the insult.

  There was a battle going on before our eyes, but it wasn’t like the Western shootout I had imagined earlier–this was more like a boxing match. In the black corner was Barry ‘The Annihilator’ Bagsley wielding the haymakers that had left all his previous opponents bruised and bloodied and ducking for cover. In the white corner was James ‘No Fear’ Scobie letting the big punches whoosh past his face before moving in to prod and jab. Of course I didn’t believe for a second that James Scobie could actually knock Barry Bagsley out, but he was landing some scoring punches and a room full of learned judges were marking them all down.

  At this point, Barry Bagsley’s patience (if there even was such a thing) had become as thin as the hair on my great-uncle Darryl’s head. (Which was pretty thin considering that whatever hair he had was forced to stretch from just above his left ear, right across his bare spotty scalp to the other side of his head.) Anyway, where was I? Oh right, Barry Bagsley’s patience, or rather lack of it. Barry Bagsley leant forward again and jabbed his index finger in the middle of James Scobie’s puny chest, where he tapped out an ominous beat as he spoke.

  ‘Mate, if I wanted to, I could snap you in half like a. pretzel. So if you’re not afraid like you say, you should be.’

  Whoosh! Another Bagsley haymaker sailed past James Scobie’s nose.

  ‘Look,’ said James Scobie with a little impatience of his own, ‘I’m sure you are very tough and brave–after all, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every day …’

  Jab!

  ‘… and perhaps I should be afraid of you, because if it’s true as they say, and “a little knowledge is dangerous”, then I suppose that you must be absolutely lethal … ’

  Jab!

  Around the room, eyebrows were raised, jaws dropped and points were added to scoring cards. Barry Bagsley stared at James Scobie with the look of someone who knew he’d been insulted but wasn’t sure exactly how or to what degree.

  ‘… but I’m sorry,’ Scobie continued unfazed. ‘I’m not afraid. It has nothing to do with you. It’s because of this.’

  With that he brushed his hair up over his left temple. A big oval-shaped scar sat above his ear. He turned around so everyone could see it.

  ‘What’s that, then? Where they removed ya brain?’

  Whoosh!

  ‘No, if someone had his brain removed–even someone like yourself with as much grey matter as a spectrum–’

  Jab!

  ‘… it would result in a much larger scar than this. Although when I think about it, in a case like yours, keyhole surgery probably would be sufficient.’

  Jab!

  ‘No,’ continued James Scobie casually, ‘this was the result of removing a brain tumour.’

  Silence crept around the room like a beaten dog.

  ‘Aw, I get it,’ said Barry Bagsley, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘
We all have to feel sorry for ya, do we, and hold ya hand and wipe ya bum for you ‘cause you’re sick, is that it?’

  ‘Not at all,’ James Scobie said, as if the idea surprised him. ‘I’m fine now. The tumour is gone. It’s just that there was a slight side-effect to the operation.’

  ‘What, it turned you into a dork?’

  Whoosh!

  ‘No, if that were the case, we’d be best friends.’

  Jab!

  ‘I don’t make friends with freaks.’

  Whoosh!

  ‘Well, keep trying. Perhaps they’ll start to feel sorry for you and lower their standards.’

  Jab!

  Barry Bagsley’s face darkened. Things were getting ugly Or in Barry Bagsley’s case, uglier.

  ‘Yeah, but what happened? You know, with the operation and the side-effect and everything?’ Barry glared again at Danny Wallace, who tried unconvincingly to cover his interest by adding quickly, ‘… as if I care.’

  ‘Well, as I said, the operation to remove the tumour was a success. But then one day I realised that something was different. I was different. I eventually worked out what it was. I could no longer experience fear. I tried to but I just couldn’t do it.’

  ‘But what did you do, I mean, like how did you know … ‘ Danny Wallace’s voice trailed off into silence.

  ‘The neighbours’ dog made me realise,’ Scobie continued. ‘He was a Rottweiler called Titan. He didn’t take to people too well. One day I was walking past the neighbours’ house. Someone must have accidentally left the gate open. I heard a growl, and when I looked up Titan was charging straight at me.’ James Scobie paused and looked Barry Bagsley in the eyes. ‘I just stood there and watched him. He was all teeth and slobber. He didn’t worry me at all. When he was only a couple of metres away he launched himself at me.’ Scobie stopped.