by R. A. Spratt
As a result of all the pent-up frustration of his siblings, Fin was struggling to keep up. Even Vladimir, Loretta’s horse, was having to canter a little faster than usual to match their pace.
‘Slow down,’ complained Fin.
‘Speed up,’ snapped April.
‘My legs are on fire,’ complained Fin.
‘It’ll do them good,’ said April. ‘You’re too weedy. You need to build some muscle.’
This was a bit rich. April was very weedy herself. But her tiny muscles seemed to have endless energy and disproportionate strength.
‘We could travel to school in a much more relaxed fashion if you just accepted the nomination and embraced your role as a Potato Princess nominee,’ said Loretta.
‘I’d rather embrace a venomous snake,’ growled April.
‘G-g-got to get there,’ said Joe. ‘See you later.’
Joe stood up on his pedals and sprinted away, as if he was riding the last leg of the Tour de France down the Champs-Élysées.
‘I wish my legs could do that,’ said Fin.
‘You’ll never be able to ride a bicycle that fast,’ said April. ‘Your oversized head creates too much wind resistance.’
Fin didn’t even respond. It was probably true.
Joe soon found Mr Popov. He was marking a line on the football field using a paint roller.
‘W-w-w-w- . . .’ Joe couldn’t get one word out. He was really upset and out of breath from riding to school so quickly.
‘What you want, Peski?’ snapped Mr Popov in his thick Russian accent. He was always angry. He had become a PE teacher because he loved exercise himself, and thought he would enjoy sharing his passion with teenagers. Instead he found himself deep in a career where he spent his whole time yelling at youths who hated exercise and would go to enormous lengths to avoid it.
‘I d-d-d-d . . .’ Joe was so tongue-tied he was starting to go red in the face from frustration.
The sound of galloping hooves intervened. Joe turned to see Loretta slipping off her horse. She whistled once and Vladimir wandered off to graze on the long grass alongside the oval.
‘Joe would like to know how his name came to be in the paper saying he was captain of the potato team,’ announced Loretta.
‘What’s this to you, Viswanathan?’ asked Mr Popov. He was doing his best to be grumpy, but it’s hard to keep it up with someone as charming and polite as Loretta.
‘Joe is my brother,’ said Loretta.
‘N-n-n- . . .’ Joe tried to say ‘No, you’re not’ but the words wouldn’t come out either.
‘I’m concerned that you may be taking advantage of his good nature,’ said Loretta. ‘Saying he is in the potato team without talking to him about it. That’s very manipulative. Almost bullying.’
Mr Popov scowled. ‘I’m a PE teacher. This is my job – to bully students.’
‘Well, Joe isn’t always the best at expressing himself verbally,’ said Loretta. ‘So I am here to advocate on his behalf.’
‘B-b-b . . .’ Joe was trying to say ‘But I don’t want you to.’ But he couldn’t, so he was stuck watching two manipulative people negotiate what was going to happen to him.
‘Joe does not want to be captain of the Capture the Potato Team,’ said Loretta.
‘I don’t want him to be either!’ yelled Mr Popov.
‘Really?’ said Loretta. ‘Well, that was easy. He can pull out then?’
‘No, he can’t,’ said Mr Popov. ‘He was not my first choice. Sure, he talented athlete. But he got no fire, no aggressive, no ruthlessness.’
Joe hung his head in shame. It was true. He was nice.
‘I wanted someone who would stop at nothing to crush the opposition,’ continued Mr Popov. ‘I wanted Daisy Odinsdottir.’
‘Well then why didn’t you ask her?’ asked Loretta.
‘She was poached,’ said Mr Popov.
‘In b-b-boiling water?’ asked Joe. His thoughts were never far from food, and when Mr Popov said ‘poached’ it made him think of eggs.
‘No, poached, head-hunted, stolen from under my nose,’ complained Mr Popov.
‘But there are only two teams,’ said Loretta. ‘Are you saying that she has been poached by . . . St Anthony’s?’
St Anthony’s was Loretta’s former school. It was super posh. Only extremely wealthy people could afford to send their children there. Daisy’s family did well enough, but they weren’t wealthy on that obscene scale.
‘They got to her parents last night,’ said Mr Popov. ‘Offered full scholarship for Daisy.’
‘And they accepted?’ asked Loretta. She was surprised. Daisy was very aggressive and competitive. She’d only ever had mean things to say about St Anthony’s.
‘They offered her special one-on-one hockey coaching,’ said Mr Popov.
‘Ah,’ said Loretta. That explained it. Daisy was mad for hockey. It involved two of her favourite things – winning and whacking things with a stick.
‘Then I thought about asking April,’ said Mr Popov. ‘She’s weedy but vicious. But the rules say all the players have to be over thirteen.’
‘Oh dear, she would have been a good choice,’ agreed Loretta.
‘And I can’t choose you because of the cheating,’ said Mr Popov.
‘I think you mean my “creative interpretation” of the rules,’ said Loretta.
Mr Popov just snorted.
‘There was nothing forbidding the use of explosives,’ said Loretta. ‘It’s the founder of the game who people should be angry with, not me.’
‘So I’m stuck with him,’ Mr Popov said, tilting his head at Joe as though he wasn’t even worth the effort of pointing at.
Loretta looked Joe over from head to toe. ‘I’m sure we can train him up.’
‘Hey!’ said Joe. ‘You’re meant to be h-h-h . . .’ He was trying to say ‘You’re meant to be helping me.’
‘He’s like Ferdinand the bull,’ said Loretta.
‘Huh?’ said Joe.
‘Haven’t you ever read the picture book?’ asked Loretta. ‘It’s about a calm and peaceful bull who transforms into a vicious beast when he is stung by a bee.’
‘You think a bee sting would do it?’ asked Mr Popov, sizing Joe up and considering this option.
Joe took a step back as though afraid one of these two might whip out a bee right then and there.
‘No,’ said Loretta. ‘Not literally a bee. I’ve seen Joe get stung by a bee. He just gets sad and blotchy. We have to discover Joe’s own personal bee. The thing that makes him turn into a crazed, enraged beast.’
‘You’d better get on that,’ said Mr Popov. ‘The first training session is tomorrow after school.’ He turned away and went back to marking his lines.
The bell rang and Loretta started to walk to class.
‘W-w-what just happened?’ asked Joe.
‘You’ve accepted the quest to lead Currawong High to victory in the Capture the Potato Game,’ said Loretta.
‘But I never said yes,’ said Joe.
‘I agreed for you,’ said Loretta. ‘Trust me, I’m better at this kind of decision making than you. You did the right thing. Or rather, I did the right thing. Clearly this is your destiny. There’s no point fighting it.’
‘But I don’t know how to play,’ said Joe.
‘That’s fine,’ said Loretta. ‘I do. And I’ve got some imaginative ideas for strategy this year.’
Joe trudged after Loretta. He still wasn’t sure what had just happened. He had always thought April was the most troublesome sister in the world, but now he was beginning to suspect that his new self-adopted sister was just as bad, if not worse.
Dad was walking down Main Street. He didn’t often come into town, but to celebrate the Potato Pageant the Co-op was having a two for one sale on seed potatoes. Dad couldn’t resist, but he never made it to the Feed Lot. As Dad walked past the post office, he was grabbed by the arm and yanked into the alleyway next to it. His first thought was that he was g
oing to die, then Dad realised it was Mum who had grabbed him so he was optimistic that might not be the case.
‘A top assassin from Belarus is in the post office,’ whispered Mum.
‘Gosh,’ said Dad.
‘Gosh?’ said Mum. ‘Is that all you have to say? Do adults really say “gosh”? Aren’t you more alarmed?’
‘I’ve been constantly at maximum level of alarm for eleven years,’ said Dad. ‘Yelling or swearing won’t make it go any higher.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Mum, turning back to watch the post office. ‘If this was the city, I’d take her out, contact my handler and have an extraction team take her away in a helicopter.’
‘You’re not going to attack someone in the post office, are you?’ asked Dad. He was scared enough of the post mistress already. She didn’t like how he dithered over whether or not to send things regular or express post. If his ex-wife started a fist fight in the building, he was sure to be in her bad books forever.
Mum shook her head. ‘There would be no end,’ she said. ‘In the two days I’ve been here I’ve seen thirty-seven people who I believe to be operatives who have been missing in action for years, some of them decades. There’s something going on here.’
‘A festival,’ said Dad. ‘Currawong has festivals all the time.’
‘Not a festival – a conspiracy,’ said Mum.
‘Couldn’t we just leave well enough alone?’ asked Dad. ‘If they are all international spies, it’s really not our business.’
‘One of these people has betrayed you,’ said Mum. ‘Someone has let your location slip out. They have compromised your safety.’
‘That’s not very nice,’ conceded Dad.
‘The problem is with so many dodgy people roaming about the town,’ said Mum, ‘I’ve got no idea who did it. It was probably Ingrid or that waitress who went missing. Ahah! Here she comes!’
The front door of the post office pushed open and a short, thin, frail-looking elderly lady stepped out.
‘That’s her!’ whispered Mum. ‘For two decades she was the most feared woman in Eastern Europe.’
‘Her?’ said Dad, peering through the leaves. ‘But that’s the Cat Lady! She’s the person you call when your cat gets stuck up a tree. She’s a beloved town icon.’
‘That woman?’ asked Mum.
‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘Fin cleaned her gutters a couple of months ago. She drove him home afterwards. Are you sure you’re not confused? There’s no shame in being confused. I’m confused all the time.’
‘I am not confused,’ said Mum. ‘I’m going to confront her.’
‘Please don’t,’ said Dad. He grabbed hold of the back of Mum’s jacket as she moved to lunge forward.
‘Let me go!’ demanded Mum.
‘No,’ said Dad, holding on with a surprisingly strong grip. You get good wrist strength when you plant as many potatoes as he had in his life. ‘I’m not letting you attack a beloved senior citizen in the community.’
‘She could be a double agent,’ said Mum. ‘She could be spying on you and the kids and feeding information back to the Kolektiv.’
‘I’m prepared to take that risk,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t want to live a life where people keep hitting each other all the time.’
‘I’m not going to hit her all the time,’ argued Mum. ‘I’m just going to hit her once, drag her into a back alley then pump her for information.’
‘I’m not going to let you,’ said Dad.
‘Harold, don’t make me hit you instead,’ pleaded Mum.
‘Violence is wrong,’ said Dad. ‘There’s no excuse.’
‘You’re wrestling with me right now,’ said Mum. ‘Isn’t that violence?’
‘I prefer to think of it as purposeful hugging,’ said Dad.
‘You know I could purposefully hug your jugular vein and you’d be asleep in ten seconds,’ said Mum.
‘Please don’t,’ said Dad. ‘When I nap in the day I have so much trouble getting to sleep at night.’
Mum sighed. She didn’t want to knock Dad out so she compromised – she grabbed his middle finger and pulled it back the way it shouldn’t bend.
‘Ow!’ squealed Dad, letting go of Mum.
She scrambled to her feet, but the Cat Lady was already pulling away in her car.
‘Darn it,’ said Mum. ‘Now you’ve got me talking like an Enid Blyton novel!’
‘I like The Famous Five,’ said Dad. ‘They’re always eating tomato sandwiches. Such a delicious sandwich filling. People don’t think to have it all on its own these days.’
‘Harold, stop thinking about veg,’ said Mum. ‘There’s something major going on here!’
‘Oh dear,’ said Dad. ‘Do I have to know about it? I’m sure there’s nothing I can do to help. Couldn’t you just leave me out of the loop?’
‘It’s just you and me,’ said Mum. ‘If Maynard has betrayed me, I’m blacklisted, which means it’s just the two of us to protect the kids.’
‘Oh no,’ said Dad. ‘The kids are much better at looking after themselves than I am at looking after them.’
‘But they do need to be kept out of the loop,’ said Mum. ‘They’re children. If they get captured, they’ve got plausible deniability on their side.’
‘Can I have that too?’ asked Dad.
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘You’re a grown man who can speak six different key trouble-spot languages. No one would believe that you’re as ignorant as you really are.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Dad.
‘And you’re not as ignorant as you want to be,’ said Mum. ‘You’ve been in this town for eleven years. You’ve seen things.’
‘I promise I haven’t,’ said Dad. ‘And if I have, I would have forgotten them. I’ve got a mind like a sieve.’
‘I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on the children,’ said Mum.
‘How?’ said Dad. ‘Security cameras.’
‘No, cameras can be tampered with,’ said Mum. ‘Eyes work much better.’
‘Where is he?’ demanded April. She was standing in the school office, glaring at Mrs Pilsbury. Mrs Pilsbury had been school secretary for over thirty years and therefore hated all children. She tried to keep her glass screen shut as much as possible. Even teachers had to yell through the glass when she was grumpy with them, which she was more often than not.
‘Where is who?’ asked Mrs Pilsbury, coldly.
‘Mr Lang,’ said April.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ asked Mrs Pilsbury, which was sarcastic because no one ever made appointments with Mr Lang. Angry parents just barged in. There were never any happy parents dropping by.
‘No,’ said April. ‘He has an appointment with me. He just doesn’t know it yet.’
‘April Peski, is that you?’ called Mr Lang. He had been sitting in his office the whole time and had overheard the whole conversation. But he hadn’t spoken before because he was in the middle of interviewing a new teacher and he didn’t want a potential staff member to see him being intimidated by a student. He had been hoping April would get in a fight with Mrs Pilsbury, then storm off. He begrudgingly emerged to see what was going on.’
‘I want the sack,’ said April.
‘But you don’t work here,’ said Mr Lang. He was confused. He looked around nervously for the dog. He was even more afraid of Pumpkin than he was of April. But Pumpkin was amusing himself, unpotting a potted plant in the corner of the reception area.
‘No, not that type of sack,’ said April. ‘Not “sack” the verb. I want “the sack” the noun. I want the potato sack with the names of the nominees for Potato Princess.’
‘Why?’
‘So I can destroy it!’ said April. ‘I don’t want to be a ridiculous princess paraded about in front of the whole town like a Christmas decoration.’
‘I was Potato Princess when I was sixteen,’ said Mrs Pilsbury.
‘Really?’ asked April. ‘What was the population of Currawong back then? Were ther
e not a lot of teenage girls about?’
Mrs Pilsbury slid her glass screen back angrily. She would have liked to have slammed it. But she didn’t want to break the glass.
‘The sack has gone,’ said Mr Lang.
‘Somebody else has destroyed it?’ asked April.
‘No, it’s the property of the CWA,’ said Mr Lang. ‘They run the competition. If you want to withdraw, you’ll have to go and see them.’
‘That’s just ridiculous bureaucracy!’ snapped April.
Mr Lang shrugged. He was enjoying the fact that, for once, this problem with the Peskis was not his problem.
‘Fine,’ said April. ‘I’ll pay them a visit after school. In the meantime, I’m going to hunt down the idiot who nominated me. Come on, Pumpkin.’
‘You’re not!’ said Mr Lang. ‘You’re going to class. Vengeance and retribution can take place on your own time.’
As April stomped off to class, she was angry. It was bad enough she had been nominated, but now she had to sit through an entire school day before she could yell at someone about it. To make matters worse, the first lesson of the day was science.
April did not enjoy science at all. She liked science in itself, but she hated science lessons at school because she wasn’t allowed to do anything. Ms Quinn had banned her from partaking in any practical exercises. There had been an incident where April had tried to shove another student’s head in the flame of a Bunsen burner. Ms Quinn had not been impressed by her explanation that she was just researching the burning point of human hair.
There had also been an incident where April had thrown a beaker at a student’s head. April argued that, since it was Fin’s head and he was her brother it wasn’t such a big deal because they did stuff like that at home all the time. But again, this did not impress the teacher.
The final straw had been when Pumpkin attacked Animesh’s ankle while he was carrying a box full of thermometers. Animesh had panicked and dropped the box so all of the thermometers had smashed on the floor sending toxic mercury rolling everywhere and forcing the whole science block to be evacuated for three hours while the mess was cleaned up.