Don't Call Me Ishmael

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  Great. No pressure. This would be easy. All I had to say was, ‘Sorry, love to help out, but I think I’ll give it miss. Shame about those finals and letting the team and the school and Miss Tarango and everyone else down–after all that hard work, too. But as you say, it’s my call entirely, so if it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not.’

  I don’t, of course. I cling pathetically to one last feeble strand of straw as I sink blue and bloated into the watery depths. ‘But I’ll be hopeless …’

  ‘You’ll be fine. After all, you practically wrote Bill Kingsley’s speech for him, and you have a far better understanding of the topic and our case than he ever did. Just read it out. And look, even if you don’t go so well, what does it matter? Win or lose, we still get through to the finals … and we’ll have you to thank for it.’

  I could hear James Scobie breathing on the other end of the line. I imagined his mouth twisting as he waited for my reply and I thought of all the times he had put himself in the firing line-standing up to Barry Bagsley, facing up to the school assembly, taking on the might of Churchill Grammar, dragging our team of struggling first-time debaters across the finish line time after time. Yet James ‘No Fear’ Scobie had it easy, didn’t he? I really couldn’t tell you why I asked the next question, although I have often wondered about it. Perhaps being on the phone with just a voice between me and the answer made it easier somehow.

  ‘Scobie … you know that story … about the tumour and the operation and everything … and about never being afraid? Is it really true?’

  A long silence followed. I pictured Scobie’s face frozen mid-twist. Finally I heard his voice. It seemed different somehow.

  ‘Sort of … the tumour, the operation … they’re true. The other thing … not being afraid … well, it depends on how you look at it. Maybe it wasn’t a scalpel that did it. Maybe … when you’re lying in an operating theatre and someone is cutting into your brain … and you don’t know whether you’re going to …’

  For a few seconds all I could hear was Scobie breathing. When he continued it was almost in a whisper.

  ‘Well … maybe there’s just so much fear you can have … and in that one moment you use up all the fear you were ever supposed to feel … and it’s the fear that cuts you … and it cuts you so deep that you just decide that nothing else is worth being afraid of … and that nothing is going to scare you any more … because you just won’t let it.’

  I didn’t know what to say. The image of Barry Bagsley towering over James Scobie and counting to five with his clenched fist poised to strike leapt into my mind. Then it was quickly replaced by a pale boy with a spider wrapped around his face like a hand.

  ‘But what about the bugs and spiders and stuff? How …?’

  ‘My father is an entomologist,’ Scobie said calmly. ‘He studies bugs and spiders and stuff. I grew up with bugs and spiders and stuff. Some kids had rattles and squeaky toys in their cots. I had tarantulas and beetles. What happened in class was just the old Brer Rabbit trick. The Barry Bagsleys of this world can’t resist throwing you into the briar patch.’

  Before I could ask Scobie exactly what he was talking about he cut back in.

  ‘Ishmael. We really don’t have much time here. The debate starts in fifteen minutes. According to the rules we’ve only got ten minutes after that, then it’s officially a forfeit. If you don’t leave almost straightaway you won’t make it. You need to decide now. Can I tell them you’re coming?’

  As much as I wished it wasn’t true, I knew there was only one possible answer to that question. ‘Yes … I’ll be there.’ And that was it. I hung up the phone and checked my watch. Scobie was right. It was going to be close. There wasn’t even time to think about the other question I had wanted to ask him-about whether that last part of his story was true or not.

  You know, the bit about him being fine and the tumour being gone.

  28.

  DEAD MAN WALKING

  ‘Mum? Where’s all my school stuff gone? I can’t find any of my clothes. Mum? I need a clean school uniform. Mum? Mum!’

  Panic and hysteria were arm-wrestling inside me. Someone had taken all my school gear. I’d have to debate in my jocks. But why would someone steal all my school gear? This couldn’t be happening. Wait, maybe it really wasn’t happening. Maybe I was just having one of those crazy dreams where you turn up somewhere in your pyjamas or with no pants on. Of course! That was it! It was all just a dream. I was only dreaming! None of it was true. I didn’t have to debate at all. It wasn’t real. How could it be? What an idiot I was. Entire school uniforms don’t just disappear without explanation.

  ‘I washed yesterday. Have you checked the line?’

  Oh … right.

  I sprinted downstairs and out to the backyard. I madly grabbed my shirt, shorts and socks, wrenching them from the line and sending a half-dozen or so of the world’s most influential people cartwheeling to earth. Sorry, Prue. I checked my watch. Twenty past seven-oh my god–time for warp speed. I charged back to my room, tore off my clothes, and blasted on some sickly-smelling deodorant.

  ‘That shirt will need ironing,’ Mum called.

  ‘Haven’t got time–I’ll wear my jumper.’

  I quickly attacked my school uniform, flung on my shirt, strangled the buttons and yanked up my shorts. Hardly pausing for breath, I wrestled on my jumper, jerked up my socks, stomped on my shoes, snatched up a fistful of pens, jammed them in my pocket, ripped a comb through my hair, shouted goodbye, tore through the house, jumped in the car and lashed on the seatbelt.

  ‘You OK?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yeah.’ (Except that every meal I had ever eaten was on the verge of making an encore appearance.)

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’ (If you ignore the fact that some alien beast was growing inside me and was just waiting for the most appropriate time to burst through my chest.)

  ‘Feeling worried?’

  ‘A bit.’ (Yeah, that bit where my entire nervous system had gone into meltdown and was leaking into my shoes.)

  ‘Well, we’re all proud of you. You’ll be fine. Just stay positive and try not to worry.’

  ‘O?.’ (No problem. I’d sailed past ‘worry’ three or four levels of hysteria ago.)

  The rest of the journey was a blur. Apart from feeling the pens in my pocket jabbing into my leg, I was numb with dread.

  ‘Here we are, and five minutes to spare. Sure you don’t want me to come up for moral support?’

  ‘No, I’ll be right.’ (There were some things a father shouldn’t have to see.)

  ‘O?.’

  ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘No problem,’ Dad said, glancing quickly around as if he were afraid of being overheard. ‘Old jungle saying: Sometimes the Phantom travels the streets as a normal man … this is one of those nights.’

  For Dad’s sake I forced a smile. ‘Well, you don’t have to worry about picking me up–I’m getting a lift with Mrs Zorzotto.’

  ‘O?, I’ll see you then … And look, mate … just do your best, all right? You’ll be fine. Remember, stay positive.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Right, then-my work here is done. Back to the Skull Cave.’

  I watched my father drive off into the night. We had a lot in common. He was ‘The Ghost Who Walks’ and I was a dead man walking. I tried to push that thought from my mind as I headed upstairs to the debating room.

  Scobie was waiting at the door to usher me quickly to my seat. I knew every eye would be on me, and so as we came in I showed intense interest in the pattern and design of the floor tiles. We managed to make it to our desks, which were on the far side of the room, angled slightly to face the audience. I sat down between Scobie and Razza and pulled a stack of blank palm cards from my shirt pocket. I stared at them as if they had the answers to the greatest mysteries of the universe carved on them. My face was burning like a flare.

  Scobie handed me Bill Kingsley’s palm cards, the ones
I had helped to write over the last couple of days. Then he gave me what I interpreted as an encouraging smile but what in fact looked more like the demented leer of a homicidal maniac.

  I turned to look at Razza. He was scribbling something on a palm card. He slid it across to me. I picked it up. It had a stick figure drawn on it with its arms thrown into the air. A giant arrow was sticking out of its chest. Above the drawing was the word ‘Twang!’ in capital letters. I frowned and looked back at him. His face was one sickly smirk. He raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the other side of the room.

  I lifted my head for the first time. The girls from Lourdes College sat opposite us. They were huddled together whispering intently. One of them glanced up. My heart froze. I was staring into the ice-blue eyes of Kelly Faulkner. Razza pushed another card my way. I snaffled it up and nodded my head thoughtfully while I read it so that Kelly Faulkner would think it contained some deep philosophical debating point. All it said was ‘Hubba hubba!’.

  A scraping chair startled me back to reality. The Lourdes girl who was chairing the debate stood up. She was behind the desk that separated the two teams. Beside her was Bill Kingsley. He was holding a stopwatch and gazing palely into deep space.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this fourth-round debate between St Daniel’s College Moorfield and Lourdes College Hillview. The topic for tonight’s debate is: That the private lives of public figures should remain private. Our adjudicator tonight is …’

  As the chairperson droned on I peeked around the classroom. There were about fifteen or so people in the audience. Miss Tarango wasn’t there because she was with one of the Year Eight teams. Mrs Zorzotto was there, along with Bill Kingsley’s father and little sister. Down the back was the adjudicator-a young girl with spiky red hair. The rest were Lourdes supporters.

  I lowered my eyes to the empty space between the two teams and tried to imagine myself walking out there to speak. Suddenly my legs began to jump and shake and I had to grab them and hold them down like I was wrestling two baby crocs. Then my stomach started slurping and churning like a dying washing machine. I felt like I was about to pass out. I had to pull myself together.

  What was it that Dad said? Stay positive. All right. It was time to fill my mind with positive thoughts. Let’s see, positive thought number one-in about ten minutes it would all be over. Good! Positive thought number two-whatever happened, it wasn’t going to kill me. That’s true! Positive thought number three-a lot of people had to face much worse things like war, persecution, poverty or watching reality TV, so why should I worry about a silly debate? I shouldn’t!

  Hey, this positive thinking trick was actually working. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought. After all, what was the worst that could happen? Well, let’s see … the worst … the worst would have to be if I went totally blank and turned into a bumbling, stuttering, gibbering, dribbling, babbling, um-ing and ah–ing baboon, then had to stand there like a store dummy till I was stripped of every last shred of dignity and ended up having the self-worth of an amoeba.

  Looking back, I really wish it had gone that well.

  29.

  DEAD TO THE POWER DEAD

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, to open the debate I call on the first speaker for the Affirmative, Kelly Faulkner, to commence her team’s case.’

  Kelly Faulkner stood up, walked briskly to the front of the room, took a breath, looked up and smiled. For some reason my heart decided at that moment that it could afford to skip a couple of beats before thudding back to life with a mega jolt.

  ‘Twang!’ Razza whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  I rolled my eyes and ignored him. I had no time for his childishness. This was a serious business. I had to focus all my energy on analysing, dissecting and refuting the opposition’s argument. I held my pen poised over a blank sheet of paper and waited.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, madam chair,’ Kelly Faulkner began calmly, ‘imagine the following scenario. A politician dedicates her life to serving her community. She devotes her time to helping …’

  What was it about her voice? It sounded like … like … I don’t know … like something happy … something warm … and friendly and close … like a secret … or a Christmas present or something. And those eyes … how do you make your eyes do that? How do you make your eyes smile? My eyes just sit there like a couple of dead bugs. And look at the little bulges of her cheeks … Hey, wait a minute! What was I doing? I was supposed to be listening, you know, so I could analyse, dissect, and refute.

  ‘… and that is our theme for tonight’s debate.’

  Theme? What theme? I didn’t hear anything about a theme. Oh my god, I’ve missed the theme! I looked at Scobie. He was writing vigorously on a palm card. Thank god. At least Scobie had nailed the theme. When he had finished he stabbed a full stop and shot the note across to me with a knowing nod. I looked at the card. There was a word at the top underlined by two heavy pen strokes. That is, I was pretty sure it was a word. With Scobie’s loopy, slanted writing it could have been a doodle or even a decorative border for all I knew. I was guessing and hoping that it said ‘Theme’.

  Underneath that heading were three Unes of writing. They looked like rows of flattened bowling pins. I held the card closer to my eyes. I rotated and twisted it to every conceivable angle. I thought I recognised the word ‘bubblegum’. I turned back to Scobie. He smiled knowingly. I smiled back haven’t-got-a-clue-ingly. This was bad. I had no idea what their theme was. I decided to just forget it. The crucial thing was to get down the main points of their argument for rebuttal.

  I turned my attention back to Kelly Faulkner.

  She flicked over a palm card. God, she had cute hands. I wondered what it would be like to hold one, to feel those soft little fingers. And look at her nails–they were so clean and neat, not like mine, which looked like they’d been cut with a chainsaw. And her hair–all shiny and held back with those little clips. The more I watched her the more I realised that everything about her was just so neat and cute and …

  ‘… Now for my second point.’

  Second point! What happened to the first point? And what about the team outline? How could I have missed the entire outline of the Affirmative case? OK. Don’t panic. Just get the second point. At least I’d have one thing to rebut.

  ‘My second point is that privacy is a basic human right. Surely public figures are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Just because someone is well known it doesn’t make him or her public property. For example …’

  Yeah … that’s not a bad point, actually. After all, everyone’s got to have some privacy, don’t they? I mean, even if you are a public figure like a movie star or a politician, what gives other people the right to think that they should be allowed to know … Hold on! What am I doing? I can’t agree with her. There has to be a counter argument. Think … think … Think!

  Clunk!

  Bill Kingsley had attempted to ring the three-minute warning bell but had only succeeded in smothering it with his big mitt. A minute to go! I had to come up with something fast. Wait, what about the Four Steps of Effective Rebuttal? I was desperate. It was worth a shot. Let’s see, the opposition says that privacy is a basic human right. They are wrong because … because … because …

  ‘… so in conclusion …’

  In conclusion! No, it can’t be. I’m not ready!

  ‘… the private lives of public figures should remain private because people in the public eye are still living and breathing people–not public property.’

  The audience applauded enthusiastically. Kelly Faulkner sat down. Her teammates huddled in, whispering and smiling. One of them squeezed her hand. I wondered what that would feel … no, forget about it … I needed to think … I needed to calm down … I needed help! Just then Scobie pushed a stack of palm cards my way. I desperately flicked through them. More rows and rows of scuttled bowling pins. Wait! Was that the letter T? Or maybe a Q? And there, was that something ab
out a woollen balloon? Or possibly … but it was hopeless. I was just kidding myself. I was doomed. There was nowhere else to turn. Or was there?

  Razza tapped me on the shoulder. He held out a card. All right! The Big Z had obviously used his superior knowledge of the Four Steps of Effective Rebuttal to blow the opposition’s case apart. The Razzman to the rescue! I snatched the card and hungrily devoured his pearl of wisdom.

  ‘Your girlfriend’s got hot legs!’

  Orazio nudged me in the ribs, pushed out his lips and pretended to fan his face with his hand. I was dead. I was deader than dead. There were five-thousand-year-old mummies that weren’t as dead as me. I was dead to the power dead. I had no time left. The adjudicator had stopped writing and was trying to catch the eye of the chairperson. I was next up. Quickly I bundled up the blank palm cards with the useless ones Razza and Scobie had given me and pushed them aside. The chairperson began to stand. I squirmed in my seat. Something hard dug uncomfortably into my groin. I shoved my hands into my pockets looking for what I assumed was a missing pen, but my pockets were empty. What the …?

  ‘And now to open his team’s case I call on …’

  I felt around the front of my shorts. There seemed to be something in my pants and it wasn’t part of me!

  ‘… the first speaker for the Negative team … Ah …’

  Oh no. The Lourdes girl had squeezed her face into a prune and was squinting at her notes.

  ‘… Itch … meal … Les … soooer?’ she said, like she was gagging on a chicken bone. Thanks again, Dad.

  I snatched up my palm cards, fought with my chair and tripped my way to the front of the audience. When I got there, I told myself to relax, to breathe deeply, but my legs were performing some kind of wild tribal dance and the rest of my body seemed to be going into spasm. I clenched my palm cards and held on for dear life.

  Four minutes, I told myself. Four minutes and it would all be over.