by James Roy
And Bunty Grierson was wearing a Little Bo Peep outfit, and several of her posse had dressed as sheep, which seemed like a pretty lame option, really, unless she was going to hold them down and shear them. A couple of the boys had come in cammo gear and black face-paint, and reckoned they were going to do some famous wartime speech from some book about bomber pilots. And Claudio di Marco had a guinea pig in a box, and when we asked him who he was, he said he was Do-wrong Ron, whoever that is.
And of course, Jared and me were wrestlers, and we’d made sure that we’d chosen wrestlers who always wear t-shirts and jeans, so we wouldn’t have to think too hard about our costumes.
Just before assembly was due to start, Jared said to me, ‘Where’s Nerdstrom? I haven’t seen him.’
‘Me either.’
‘Maybe he’s gone all chicken, as usual.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe he’s coming as the chicken from that movie. Or maybe he’s just putting on his Star Wars costume.’
‘It’s got to be out of a book, you idiot,’ I said. ‘And anyway, he doesn’t even like Star Wars.’
‘Well, excuse me,’Jared said.
And then Nerdstrom appeared, standing in the doorway of the hall.
‘What’s he come as – King Arthur?’ I heard someone behind me say.
Jared cracked up, and so did I, but maybe not as much as Jared. Nerdstrom was wearing a long shirt-thing that looked like it had been made out of an old sack, and he had a wide belt around his waist. He was carrying a large cardboard shield and a sword made out of something that obviously wasn’t metal, and on his head he had a slightly misshapen papier-mache knight’s helmet that had been spray-painted silver. As he got inside the hall he dragged the helmet off his head and held it at his side. I could almost feel the glow of the heat from his red face.
Nerdstrom slunk in and sat down at the end of the row, next to Vinod Rashan, who was dressed as a hobbit, I think. It looked like Nerdstrom was counting the floorboards at his feet as he stared straight down, and his lips were moving a bit.
‘It’s Sir Triffin the Bashful,’ I said.
And Jared said, ‘Yeah, Sir Triffin the Bashful, Earl of Papier-Mache.’
‘Careful, he might turn you into a pinata,’ said Tom Edwards, who was sitting behind us, and we cracked up some more.
‘I’ll bet Ulrika helped him with that,’ I said.
‘Who?’ asked Jared. ‘Who’s Ulrika?’
‘No one,’ I said.
‘Dude, who’s Ulrika?’
And I felt my heart kind of sinking down in my chest, because I knew he wouldn’t stop until he knew the truth. All of the truth. ‘That’s his mum,’ I said. ‘Nerdstrom’s mum is called Ulrika.’
Casey’s Year One class came in then, all walking in a double row and holding hands, led by their teacher, Miss Hopkins. They walked right across in front of where we were sitting, and as Casey went past he held out his hand for me and Jared to give him a high-five. I did, but Jared wouldn’t. He just kept his hands in his lap and looked at me through these squinty eyes.
‘What’s up your nose?’ I asked him.
He shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just don’t like that kid anymore.’
‘Well, I still do. I reckon he’s pretty cool,’ I said.
‘Whatever.’
Then Mr Sigsworth was at the front, tapping his finger against the microphone. The speakers went pop and thump, and gradually the kids in the audience started to quieten down. ‘Thanks, everyone, if we can settle down for a minute … Thank you … I’m still waiting, 4J. Good, thank you. All right, today the 6C class will be taking assembly for you, and they’ll be presenting excerpts from books that they have enjoyed.’ He looked at Hayley Delgrado and her friends and said, ‘At least, most are from books. Anyway, let’s get started with Gladys Mulholland, who’ll be acting out her favourite scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’
Most of us hadn’t seen the other acts, and some of them were pretty good, except for Hayley and her friends who just walked around on the stage pretending to text each other, and saying things like ‘Oh, my gosh, that it so awesome’ and ‘Isn’t he, like, totally hot?’ until I felt like screaming.
Then there was Marla Mackenzie and Eva Thoung who did some long and boring speech by Shakespeare, full of‘thees’ and ‘thines’ and other words that no one ever uses anymore, and eventually Mr Sigsworth had to stand up and quietly ask them to finish up, which they finally did. And they gave this big bow, even though hardly anyone was clapping, and those that were probably clapped because it was finally over.
And then it was Jared’s and my turn, and even though we’d practised heaps, it felt kind of weird as we stood up there. I could see all the kids in their rows, with the little ones near the front and the other Year Six classes at the back. I spotted Casey a couple of rows back and he waved, but I ignored him. I was in the zone, ready to perform.
I went up to the microphone and said, ‘Hi, everyone, we looked at this book’, and I held up the library copy of A Photographic Guide to the World of Professional Wrestling so everyone could see it. Then I said, ‘Today I’m going to be Bobby Bloodhound, and Jared was going to be Nemesis but we couldn’t find any gold face-paint, so he’s going to be Jake Typhoon instead.’ And most of the boys in the hall cheered, especially the little ones. Especially Casey, I noticed.
Then I stepped back from the mike, turned to Jared, and pointing right at his face I shouted, ‘Typhoon, you have come here tonight expecting to take the World Championship belt home with you, but you are wrong, my friend, you are so wrong!’
And Jared bellowed, ‘I ain’t no friend of yours, Bloodhound, so you can take that attitude and put it well out of sight, if you get my meanin’! I ain’t never backin’ down, I ain’t never givin’ in, and I sure ain’t goin’ home without no belt, you hear me?’
And I shouted, ‘Oh yeah?’
Then he shouted, ‘Oh yeah!’
And the whole time the kids in the audience were starting to scream louder and louder, and they wouldn’t have been able to hear anything we were saying to each other anyway so it was just as well that the next part of our act was the physical bit.
I grabbed Jared by the front of his shirt and threw him down onto the stage, and there was this huge thump as he hit the floor. And even though he knew in advance that I was going to throw him down, because we’d practised it, he still looked a bit surprised, and he made this tiny noise that sounded like I’d punched him in the back, right between the shoulderblades.
Then he was rolling on top of me and pretending to hit me while he slapped the floor at the same time, and then I jumped up and got behind him and put this stranglehold on him. He tried to pretend-punch me in the face by swinging his arm behind him, but he didn’t miss like he was meant to, but got me right in the lip, which really hurt. And the kids in the audience loved it, as I grabbed at my lip and saw some blood.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I asked.
But Jared was standing there with his fists clenched, and he had this snarl on his face that I’d never seen before. It was weird, seeing that face he was making, because I’ve seen Jared angry and mean before, but this time it was way angrier and way, way meaner.
‘What do I think I’m doing?’ he hissed. ‘I’m just being a wrestler. What are you doing?’ And he kind of leapt at me. I moved out of the way just in time, but his elbow bounced off my ear, which made it really sting.
The kids were screaming big-time, as I turned and saw that Jared was off balance. I hit him with my shoulder, right in the chest, and he sort of went ‘Oof’ and fell down. That was when I put a hammer-drop on him, but I didn’t try very hard to hit the floor first like you’re supposed to, and I heard him go ‘Oof’ again. I grabbed one of his ears then and started to twist it, and I think I heard him squeal. And that felt a bit good, actually, hearing Jared squeal, because I’d only ever seen him make other people squeal.
Then
Mr Sigsworth was pulling me off Jared, and he was sort of standing between us and saying, ‘OK, thanks boys, that was fantastic. Boys? Boys! Boys!’ And by then he’d actually pulled us apart, and when I looked at Jared he was puffing hard, and he seemed a bit angry and his fists were still clenched, and his ear was all red. I glanced down at my own fists and saw that they were clenched too. And when I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, it came away smeared with blood.
‘Not quite what I meant by settling it to the death, guys,’ Mr Sigsworth said to us. ‘Off you go. Go and sit down now.’ Then he said into the microphone, ‘Thanks, boys. That was a realistically graphic portrayal of the most dramatic chapter in … in whatever book you were working from. Mrs Booth, would you mind getting Max a tissue … Thanks, Mrs Booth. Wow, that was a bit more intense than it was in practice.’
We went and sat down, and I pressed the tissue against my lip, which was stinging and felt a bit fat. But me and Jared didn’t look at each other, and I thought that maybe we’d have to talk afterwards and try to work out what had happened, and how playing at being wrestlers had turned into me getting a bleeding lip.
Mr Sigsworth had the microphone again, and he checked the list in his hand, cleared his throat and said, ‘Now we’ve got a bit of a treat, because our next performance is from Triffin Nordstrom.’
And I heard someone shout ‘Nerdstrom!’ behind me, and Mr Sigsworth frowned in their direction. ‘Thanks, everyone, there’s no need for … OK, if you can just settle down … Triffin? Are you ready?’
And I was thinking how much of a rhetorical question that was.
Mr Sigsworth sat down on his chair at the side of the stage and Nerdstrom stood up slowly at the end of our row and walked towards the steps up to the stage. There wasn’t much sound from the audience. In fact it was really quiet as he walked up there. And he leaned towards Mr Sigsworth and whispered something, and Sigsy nodded and came over to the mike again and said, ‘Sorry, the next performance is by Finn Nordstrom. Thanks Finn.’
And there was Nerdstrom standing in front of the microphone, with his stupid potato-sack shirt and his cardboard shield and his not-metal sword and his papier-mache helmet. He stood there and looked so scared, and didn’t say anything for ages.
Then someone whistled, and a few people giggled, and a couple of the teachers shushed the gigglers.
Nerdstrom looked across at Mr Sigsworth, who just nodded once, as if to say, ‘You’re OK.’
But he wasn’t OK. He was frozen there, like an escaping prisoner caught in a spotlight.
Some kid shouted, ‘Get on with it, Finn!’ He got shushed as well.
And at last, after what felt like ages, Nerdstrom did get on with it, sort of. He started to talk but his voice didn’t work at all. So he cleared his throat and started again. He said, ‘This is one of my favourite poems. I like it because it’s nonsense but it still makes sense, even though … You’ll … you’ll see.’ He looked towards Mr Sigsworth again, and then he coughed a couple of times and adjusted his helmet, but it was still a bit crooked and still looked totally ridiculous.
‘Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll,’ he said, and a few kids tittered. Nerdstrom paused, as if he’d forgotten his words. Then he started, and his voice was a bit wobbly. ‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.’
A couple of kids laughed, and when I checked over my shoulder I saw a few raised eyebrows as well, as if the kids were saying to each other, ‘What is this?’
Nerdstrom took a deep breath, and because I was sitting in the front row I heard the breath shudder as he blew it out. ‘All … all mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe.’
Behind me, I heard Tom Edwards muttering, ‘I’ll mimsy your borogroves in a minute, you weedy little dweeb.’
And I glanced at Jared, who I expected would be laughing, but he wasn’t. He was just having this huge sulk.
It looked like Nerdstrom was stuck again, because there was another one of those long, uncomfortable pauses. Then he quietly repeated the end of the last line, just to get himself going again, I guess. ‘And the mome raths outgrabe.’
‘You already said that,’ I heard some kid say, and Mr Sigsworth must have heard it as well, because he scowled at the kid like crazy.
Nerdstrom tried to keep going. ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son, the claws that bite … sorry, the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.’
I felt myself take a deep breath. He was still going all right, even though some of the audience was a bit fidgetty.
But then he was stuck again. He opened his mouth to say the next line, but it didn’t come out. ‘Um … sorry. Um … Beware the Jabberwock, my son … no, I already … the frumious Bandersnatch … um …’ Nerdstrom was blinking a lot as he reached up and dragged the helmet off his head. It hung at his side, next to his cardboard shield and his not-metal sword. His face was glowing hot-red by now.
And then something happened. I could hardly believe it, but I heard my own voice calling out, not loudly, but hopefully just loud enough for Nerdstrom to hear. My voice said, ‘He took his vorpal sword in hand.’
Nerdstrom heard me, because his eyes flickered towards me, and I saw him straighten his shoulders a bit. ‘He took his vorpal sword in hand, long time the manxome foe he sought. So rested he … so rested he … um …’
‘By the Tumtum tree,’ I said.
‘So rested he by the Tumtum tree, and stood awhile in thought …’
But Nerdstrom’s memory had dried up again. He stood there, totally silent for ages, while the audience squirmed in their seats and the teachers checked their watches and bit their lips and scratched their foreheads.
‘Um …’ said Nerdstrom again. His face was the colour of a ripe strawberry, and he was swallowing like crazy.
‘It’s all right,’ I heard Mr Sigsworth say quietly.
‘What a loser,’ I heard Jared mumble.
Normally I would have agreed with him, and would have totally enjoyed seeing Nerdstrom look like a jerk. But this time I didn’t. This time I did something peculiar and unexpected. I stood up, walked across the floor to the stage and started to climb the steps.
Nerdstrom looked at me like I was about to do something awful to him. But I stood next to him and I said, quite loudly and into the microphone, ‘And as in uffish thought he stood, the Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came.’
I heard a swoosh as Nerdstrom drew his not-metal sword from his belt and held it high above his head. He’d found his spot now, and he was away. He said, in a louder voice now, ‘One two! One two! And through and through, the vorpal blade went snicker-snack.’
I wondered if I should sit down, but when I heard his sword swooshing and snicker-snacking in the air around me, I suddenly turned into the Jabberwock, with the jaws that bite and the claws that catch, and as Nerdstrom launched into the next line I knew that I was about to lose my head. I gave a huge, Jabberwockish roar and fell all twitchy onto the stage, while Nerdstrom carried on reciting, ‘He left it dead, and with its head he came galumphing back.’
Nerdstrom didn’t need me any more, but I lay there on the stage anyway as he kept going with his poem. ‘ “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” he chortled in his joy’
He was nearly at the end now, and he reached down for my hand. I took it, and he lifted me up onto my feet. ‘Together,’ he said under his breath, and we did the last verse totally together, totally, as if we’d actually practised it together.
‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome roths outgrabe.’
And we bowed.
First published 2007 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
www.uqp.com.au
© James Roy
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Typeset by University of Queensland Press
Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Roy, James
Problem Child
For primary school students.
I. Title.
A823.4
ISBN 978 0 7022 3604 4 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5654 7 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5655 4 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5656 1 (kindle)