Around the room, everyone starts work so they aren’t wasting time. I write a word. Weren’t. But I can’t think of any more. I don’t think I can do this. I bite my pen. Doesn’t our teacher have a heart, I wonder? Then I think of another word and jot it down. Didn’t.
Sophie is writing furiously. Well, she would, wouldn’t she? These days she sits quite near me. (this is because I moved closer. Lambert came too.) I could risk a peep at Sophie’s exercise book, but imagine if she caught me. No, I couldn’t do that. I daren’t. Another word pops into my head. Shouldn’t. That’s three so far. Only twenty to go.
Mr Boddie paces the room and pauses at my desk to read over my shoulder.
‘Come on, McPhail,’ he urges me. ‘You won’t win at this rate.’ Lambert puts his hand up.
‘Please sir, my brain hurts. May I leave the room?’
‘No, you mayn’t,’ Mr Boddie tells him. ‘You mightn’t come back.’
I think of another word. Shan’t. That’s four. I mustn’t let this thing defeat me. We never did stuff like this in my last school. Three more words pop into my mind. Down they go in the book. Hadn’t. Hasn’t. Haven’t.
No, in Queensland, we usen’t get exercises like this. But Mr Boddie is on the prowl again.
‘You needn’t finish them all now,’ he tells us. ‘And remember, there are twenty-three of them, so it oughtn’t be too difficult.’
I am miserable. I only have seven of the words. Plus the two examples. That Eugénie Telfer paperback might as well be sitting on the moon! But later, when we have a break, Sophie comes to me.
‘How many words did you get?’
‘Um, nineteen,’ I lie.
‘Right, I’ve just got to have one of those books, so what say we work together on it?’ She utters the magic words I’ve longed to hear. ‘At my place, after school? Mum said it would be okay and with my fifteen words and your nineteen, we might crack it.’
But nineteen is the magic number I don’t want to hear! Especially since I haven’t got that many! Later, Lambert is no help. He’s only got six-and-a-half words.
‘How can you only get half a word?’ I demand.
‘Forgot the apostrophe in one of them,’ he says. But when I check, his six-and-a-half words are the same as my seven. Bummer! I grease and oil my way around some other guys but they all hug their word lists close to their chest. They’ve also got their beady eyes on one of the paperbacks.
‘But they’re girls’ stories,’ I tell them. ‘Romance and stuff.’ But it seems every guy in the class is trying to impress some girl or other by winning a book for her. How shallow!
Sophie meets me after school and we start walking home together - only this time I don’t take in the delicate autumnal tones and filtered sunlight because my mind is working overtime. How would you be? I’m about to achieve every boy’s ambition by working with a girl at her place. And I am going to be found out as a liar!
As we walk, Sophie doesn’t talk about the words, she burbles on about other things and time slips by until we reach her front gate but this time, we go up the garden path together. Desperately, I look for a way out - not a way out of going inside with her, a way out of having to confess that my nineteen words is only seven.
But Sophie pauses on the doorstep. Her front door is one of those with a frosted glass window on the upper half.
‘Got a pebble,’ she says then leans on me to take off her shoe. Her hair falls on my arm, then she tips the stone out. I teeter and she laughs and asks me to hold her steady. Then Sophie straightens up and suddenly our lips are very close. Any second now, I think.
Conditions are perfect - we’ve been getting on well, enjoying walking together. The street is deserted so what does it take? Sophie sees the serious look in my eye and she becomes serious too.
Thirty centimetres between our lips. She moves closer. I move too. Twenty. Then it’s ten. (This is only an estimate. I don’t have a tape-rule.) For our first time, I decide not to use the tongue.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she whispers.
‘That’s one of mine,’ I tell her.
‘One of your what?’
‘One of my words. Shouldn’t.’
‘It’s one of mine too.’ Sophie’s lips are only eight centimetres away. ‘And don’t, mustn’t, oughtn’t, daren’t and can’t.’
‘All the warning ones,’ I say. This is as close as I’ve ever been to her. (To any girl, if it comes to that.) Then there’s a shape behind the glass and a click at the door handle. Sophie pulls back from me, but not fast enough. The door opens and a tall man stands there. He’s got father written all over him.
‘Oh!’ Sophie says. ‘You’re home?’ She’s surprised but not pleased to see him and he’s not smiling either.
‘And from what I saw through the glass, it’s just in time.’ Her stepfather frowns. He regards me as if I’m a specimen. Sophie straightens.
‘I had a pebble in my shoe.’
‘I see.’
‘And Sophie leaned on me,’ I explain, but too much explanation makes us sound guilty.
‘This is Fergus,’ Sophie says too quickly. ‘McPhail. Fergus’s in my class.’
‘Fergus.’ Sophie’s stepfather acknowledges me with a curt nod. ‘Well, we won’t keep you then, Mr McPhail. I’m sure you have a home to go to.’ He holds the door for Sophie to enter. She manages to give me a helpless sort of shrug and a quick look which I understand. Homework, and anything else, is off the agenda.
‘Yeah, see you, Soph,’ I say. ‘Bye, Mr Bartolemeo.’
‘It’s Carter,’ he corrects my error. ‘My stepdaughter insists on the other.’ Then with me dismissed, he concentrates his attention on Sophie.
‘You weren’t due back till tomorrow,’ I hear Sophie say to her stepfather as I go.
‘Just as well I did return.’ But the door closes and there’s no more.
Well, look on the bright side, I tell myself. Sophie won’t find me out to be a liar. But I’d have been willing to risk that.
As I walk home in the gathering dusk, I think about Sophie in class where she’s feisty and full of quick opinions and forthright confidence. I see her when she’s playing soccer, tackling guys and getting in amongst the action. Yet in front of her stepfather, she suddenly changes into something else. I search for a word and the only one I can conjure up is meek.
Then I think of my dad. He doesn’t go on with all that stern father routine. And when he ever tries it, Mum is there, calming everyone down and saying there, there, let’s compromise and do it my way. Dad and me are like mates and if he caught me nearly kissing a girl, I know he’d look away or something and give me a wink later. It hasn’t happened yet but somehow I’m sure I’ll be able to depend on my father not to shame me.
The whole subject of fathers of daughters is very complicated and sure to be a chapter in Every Boy’s Book of Cracking On To Girls.
At home, with my sister Jennifer at the other end of the table, I try to get on with the twenty-three n-postrophe-t words, but with all that heavy stepfather stuff on my mind, it’s not easy. Mum and Dad help out by finding another two words for me then they both have urgent things to do.
‘I notice you didn’t ask me,’ Jennifer sniffs when we have the room to ourselves. She has a little hurty-hurty edge to her voice.
‘Yeah, well it’s high school stuff,’ I soothe her. ‘For big kids.’
‘We did it last week,’ she tells me then gets up from the table and heads off with her nose in the air.
‘Um - Jennifer.’ I am on my feet. ‘Have you still got - you know -?’
‘Oh!’ She stops coyly by the door, a hand to her non-existent bosom. ‘Suddenly, I’m in demand. My brother needs little me.’ She rubs it in for a while then all it takes is a lot of grovelling from me, promising to stack the dishwasher for the rest of the week. Plus emptying it. Jennifer draws up a contract. And after all that, I get the list and greedily count the words. Jennifer has twenty-four of them!
‘H
ow come?’ I ask.
‘I included “ain’t”,’ she says simply. ‘It’s slang which doesn’t really count, but what the heck.’
‘You’re a genius,’ I tell my sister.
‘M-mm,’ she agrees. ‘Working on it.’ But twenty-four words! With this total, I can sweep the field. Eugénie Telfer, come to Daddy!
In the morning, Sophie catches up with me on the way to school. I tell her about the twenty-four words, but Sophie has something else in mind.
‘About yesterday,’ she begins.
‘Hey, it’s cool,’ I say.
‘You might be, but I’m not. It was - embarrassing. My stepfather’s a bit sort of-’
‘Heavy-handed? Nineteenth century? Medieval?’
‘It’s easier just giving in to him,’ she says. ‘He’s got firm views. About me and boys.’
‘He nearly caught us kissing,’ I point out. ‘So, did he give you a hard time?’
‘It was like the ice-age for a while,’ she admits. ‘Dark with permafrost.’
‘If we had kissed -’ I start to say.
‘We didn’t.’ Sophie dismisses the idea quickly.
‘But if we had,’ I persist, ‘if we had kissed, the next thing I was going to do was ask you to go -’
‘Out? A date?’
‘Yeah.’ There, it’s done. I’ve said it. But Sophie only smiles sadly.
‘Sorry, Fergus. Not right now.’
‘And what about doing homework together?’
‘That too. You won’t make it difficult?’ She is suddenly anxious. ‘I mean, coming around?’ I shake my head. Sophie smiles her relief. ‘See, yesterday was a one-off. He was supposed to be away.’
‘I get the picture,’ I say. Sophie changes the subject but her voice is strained. She’s making an effort.
‘And you’ve got twenty-four words? Show me.’
I could have gone on with it, trying to change her mind but in the end I knew it wasn’t Sophie’s mind that needed changing. Instead I pull out the precious word list and tell her about Jennifer doing the same assignment in primary school.
‘She must be very advanced for her age,’ Sophie says.
‘Or maybe we’re behind the times.’
Mr Boddie is off sick so we get a relief teacher and the list of twenty-three anomalous finites has to wait for another time. The relief teacher doesn’t know what they are either. Cretin.
Mitch has been an eager-beaver, making giant strides with his savings campaign. Worse than that, he keeps asking me and Lambert how we’re going.
‘Reached double figures yet?’ he demands.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Raking it in. Then hauling it to the bank.’
‘Me too,’ Lambert lies. ‘Definitely reached double figures.’
‘Dollars or cents?’ Mitch asks and we both have to confess we’re not actually making much progress, money-wise. Mitch is all for giving up the whole idea of forming a band but Lambert and I rush to assure him it’s a great idea.
‘Everybody’s got to have a goal," I say. ‘A target.' Mitch is not so sure.
At the breakfast table on Saturday, Mum announces to her small family that we’re about to get bigger by the addition of one baby brother or sister. But thanks to Sophie’s information, I am already well prepared for this news, which is more than I can say for my mother and father when they found out.
‘Where are we going to put it - her - him?’ I ask. With all the extra furniture in the house, plus Dad’s sawn-up lengths of timber, we are light-on, space- wise.
‘I’m working on that, Fergus,’ Dad says. ‘Slight change of plans. The new room’s gonna be a nursery with Teletubbies wallpaper.’ I am sympathetic to the idea of a new relative but Senga and Jennifer are a touch sniffy.
‘It’s a bit, it’s a bit -’ Senga is lost for words.
‘Yeah, it’s a bit -’ Jennifer supports her sister.
‘I mean,’ Senga explains, ‘the idea of having an expectant mother for a mother.’
‘Talking about expectant -’ Mum holds out her hand for some board money.
‘It was a bad week,’ Senga says quickly. ‘And I’m still paying off the hair drier I dropped in the sink.’
Dad says the new arrival will give him the motivation to get on with the extensions and renovations.
‘I thought it was only one extension,’ Mum asks.
‘Well, I’ll have to renovate a bit,’ Dad points out. ‘Just where I went through the wall. Here and there. Plus the architraves.’
Mitch lives three streets away in a big old house which has a garage with a lift-up door and spotty oil-stains on the concrete floor. On Sunday afternoon, Lambert and I go around to have a practice session. The truth is we feel guilty about not saving any money so we make up for it with a soothe, soothe, grovel, grovel routine. We start strumming our guitars together and trying out a few songs. Mitch has bought a pair of drumsticks.
‘Well, somebody’s got to make a start,’ he says pointedly. (I must introduce him to Jennifer.) Mitch has also set up some substitute drums and cymbals - a couple of tea-chests, two old kettles and some tin lids. Only problem is you can’t tune them the way you can real drums. Tea-chest one goes thud while tea-chest two says thod!
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘We’ll start saving up for real.’ Mitch feels a lot better so we spend the rest of the afternoon mucking about until it’s time for me to go home.
On the way back, I start thinking of some sure-fire money-making schemes. Or even trying to make peace with Rodney next door. From the silence, I think maybe he’s already sick of his drum kit. Maybe, too, he’s forgotten about my insensitive remarks.
As I walk, the sun breaks through the clouds and I feel better. It’s going to be all right. I talk myself into it. Next time Lambert, Mitch and I meet, we’ll have Rodney’s drum kit. Then a little pig flies by, only a couple of metres above my head.
‘You wish!’ says the pig then flies away laughing its fool head off.
There’s a shortcut Dad showed me, down a litde quiet, cobbled laneway, across a road then along another laneway. Which is where I see the car. It is parked under a shady tree with a man and woman sitting inside, their heads close together. As I approach from behind, they pull apart.
I notice that the car has a flat rear tyre on the driver’s side and wonder if the man knows about it. As I pass his window, I turn and point it out to him.
‘The rear tyre’s flat,’ I call through the closed window and then I wish I hadn’t bothered with my boy scout act. The man is Mr Carter and the woman is much younger and I can guess she’s not Mrs Carter! Uh-oh! It is time not to be here. I turn away and head off but Mr Carter is already out of the car.
‘Angus, is it?’ He sounds bright and comes to me, leaving the car door open.
‘Fergus.’ I correct him. Again I point. ‘Tyre’s flat.’
You have to say something! The young woman in the car has her head down, looking in the glove-box.
‘Thank you, Fergus,’ Mr Carter says. ‘I’d have driven off and done who-knows-what damage to it.’ I want to go but he needs to talk, to be friendly. He’s making it worse, it’s none of my business. He tries to explain. ‘A young friend - with a problem - we’re talking it through.’
I look at my watch. ‘Mr Carter, I’ve got to go.’ My face is starting to flush red. It’ll stop traffic.
‘Haven’t seen you around home these days,’ he goes on. ‘Sophie enjoys your company. She said. So, pop in one day.’
‘Yeah, bye, Mr Carter.’ I drop my eyes to the ground and go.
‘Make it soon,’ he calls after me. I don’t need to look around to know that his eyes are boring into my back. Then he’ll return to the car.
‘A problem?’ the young woman will say. She’ll be anxious.
‘All fixed,’ Mr Carter will tell her.
This isn’t Richmond and the silicone-in-the-lock thing. It isn’t me having only seven words then telling Sophie I have nineteen. This is a proper full- o
n dilemma.
Dad notices me toying with my dinner instead of eating conveyor-belt-style as I usually do. But good old Dad waits till everyone else has settled down in front of television or is doing homework then he comes to me in my room.
‘Fergus,’ he begins. ‘Not like you. Picky, picky, eat like a canary. I missed the old vulture routine.’ Dad makes a squawking noise which is supposed to be my diving on my dinner from a great height.
‘Wasn’t hungry, Dad.’
‘You eat out?’
‘No.’
‘Sick?’
‘No.’
‘Trouble?’
Maybe I hesitate too long before shaking my head. ‘No, no trouble, Dad.’ But he’s my mate and what are mates for? Dad sits on my bed and tests the springs but there aren’t any because I make do with wooden boards under the mattress. He’s not going away. Tell him, a small voice urges me, but Dad is a jump ahead.
‘You met a girl?’
‘Yeah, Sophie.’
‘Is that what it is? Girl trouble?’
‘In a way.’ Then out it comes. I tell him about us nearly having our first proper kiss and good old Dad doesn’t frown or make a remark. To him it’s just a normal thing that I’d want to kiss a girl, especially Sophie. Then I tell him about the frigid doorstep meeting with her stepfather and how it embarrassed Sophie and how I’d asked her to go out with me and why she put me off. Dad listens as if none of this is a real problem, then I tell him about the meeting in the lane with Mr Carter.
‘And suddenly you’re his friend?’ Dad asks.
‘Yep, invited home, red carpet, the works.’
Dad ponders for a long time. Every so often he says, ‘M-mm,’ and closes his eyes. Then he looks at me keenly. ‘So, there you are then, son. You got what you wanted. You’re in. Home and hosed. The old man needs you to keep quiet about his “young
Fergus McPhail Page 8