by R. A. Spratt
‘I’m a spy,’ said Mum. ‘Moving about undetected is what I do.’
‘Well, we’ve got a bone to pick with you about all that,’ said April. ‘What did you do with Ms Quinn?’
‘Who?’ asked Mum.
‘Our science teacher, Ms Quinn,’ said April.
‘She was lovely,’ said Fin. ‘She didn’t deserve to die.’
‘I didn’t do anything to her,’ said Mum.
‘Really?’ said April. ‘She just happened to have an “accident”?’ April made air quotes with her fingers. ‘You expect us to believe that?’
‘It’s true,’ said Mum.
‘There’s no point you even saying that,’ said Fin. ‘It doesn’t make us any more likely to believe you.’
‘It’s one thing for you to “disappear” terrorists or international criminals,’ said April. ‘But Ms Quinn was just a small-town science teacher. Sure, she smelled like boiled cabbage, she had a strange way of pronouncing the word “water” and she had a weird hang up about not letting dogs in the classroom, but she didn’t deserve to get taken out by you.’
‘I really really did not do anything to the woman,’ said Mum, starting to get peeved. ‘Apparently she had some kind of accident water-skiing on the weekend. A partially submerged log or something. She’s had to go up to the city to see a specialist and get knee surgery.’
‘This is Currawong!’ exclaimed April. ‘There is nowhere to go water-skiing. The river is really just a creek. And we’ve been in drought for so long the dams are too low. It would be mud-skiing.’
‘That’s what I was told,’ said Mum. ‘She hurt herself water-skiing.’
‘Whatever,’ said April. ‘You can say whatever you like. We’ve got no reason for believing a word that comes out of your mouth.’
‘I didn’t do anything to your science teacher!’ said Mum, her volume getting louder.
‘Yeah, Mum,’ said Fin. ‘But the thing is, that’s what you’d say if you had.’
‘You’re the boy who cried wolf,’ said Dad.
‘Except you’d never cry wolf,’ said April. ‘You’d choke the wolf out. And ship it off to a safe house in an undisclosed location. Well, I’m going to find out the truth.’
April was standing outside the CWA offices in the rain first thing the following morning, waiting for someone to arrive and open the front door. She was going to be late for school if someone didn’t show up soon – the first bell rang in seventeen minutes. That didn’t leave her much time to grab the sack, destroy the contents and run over to school for roll call. Luckily, at that moment President Sweet’s mobility scooter came around the corner. Pumpkin rushed forward to pee on it.
‘About time,’ called April. ‘It says on the door the office is open from 9 o’clock.’
‘It’s 8.54,’ said President Sweet.
‘That’s a pretty sloppy attitude if you think it’s okay to just slide in at the last moment,’ said April.
President Sweet stepped out from her mobility scooter and used a key to open the front door. ‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked graciously.
‘No, I want to stand in the rain until I get pneumonia,’ said April, sarcastically. ‘Of course I want to come in.’ She followed President Sweet inside. April was never one for observing the preliminaries of conversational etiquette so she just dove straight in. ‘I want the sack with the nominations for Potato Princess,’ said April. ‘I want my name taken out. I don’t want anything to do with this ridiculous, sexist, outdated competition.’
‘It’s too late. Your name has already been destroyed,’ said President Sweet.
‘It has?’ said April.
‘Yes, that’s the way it’s always done. The nominations are posted in the local paper and the original slips they were written on are composted,’ said President Sweet. ‘This year Mrs Bellamy popped them in her worm farm. Her worms are very efficient, you’ve probably been digested by now.’
‘Well, then forget the slip,’ said April. ‘I want my name taken off the list.’
‘It can’t be done,’ said President Sweet. ‘A nominee can’t withdraw.’
‘But that’s outrageous!’ protested April.
‘It’s really got nothing to do with you now,’ said President Sweet. ‘It’s up to the citizens of Currawong. The ballot papers have already been printed. They’ll vote on Friday. It doesn’t matter what you do or say or demand, they will be judging you and all the other nominees.’
‘But surely it’s some sort of violation of my privacy to force me to participate in an event when I don’t want a bar of it and that I morally object to for ethical reasons,’ said April.
‘This is a small town,’ said President Sweet. ‘There is no privacy. And no one cares about ethics. They care about potatoes and princesses and come Saturday they’re going to get both.’
‘What if I don’t turn up to the parade?’ asked April.
‘To be honest,’ said President Sweet. ‘Probably no one would notice.’
April must have looked deflated because President Sweet took pity on her. She opened her handbag and took out a familiar brown lump. ‘Here, have a scone. Now, hurry along or you’ll be late for school.’
Later that day, Joe was standing in the middle of the school oval with four other hapless ‘volunteers’.
‘Um . . . welcome to the first t-t-training session,’ stumbled Joe. As captain of the team, Joe had no say in who his team-mates were. Mr Popov had made those decisions for him. His team consisted of Kieran, Animesh, Simon Pomphreys (an incredibly large year 10 boy) and Wendy De Groot (a year 9 girl with very muscly, although extremely short, legs). ‘I-i-is this everyone?’
‘Duh, of course not,’ said Kieran. ‘We need six players.’
‘Where’s your sister?!’ demanded Mr Popov. He was striding towards them from his office on the far side of the field. Like most PE teachers he had an incredibly loud yelling voice and his bellow could be clearly heard.
‘Er . . .’ said Joe. He had no idea where April was, which he was actually rather relieved about. It was much more relaxing not knowing what trouble April was getting into.
‘She agreed to be in the team,’ said Mr Popov, now only twenty metres away and bearing down on them.
‘R-really?’ said Joe. Usually April never agreed to anything. Even if it was something she wanted to do, she always avoided participation as a point of principle. ‘Maybe April got a detention.’
‘Not April,’ snapped Mr Popov. ‘Your other sister – Loretta. She agree to be in this team. She fit, strong and ruthless. She our star player.’
‘Hey!’ said Kieran. ‘What are we? Chopped liver?’
Mr Popov looked Kieran up and down, ‘Next to her, yes.’
Wendy shrugged. ‘She is pretty good. She hit me in the nose with a potato last year. It knocked me out cold. I have absolutely no memory of the rest of the match or the Potato Pageant afterwards, and I’ve seen photos so I know I was there.’
‘I’m glad she’s on our side this year,’ said Animesh. ‘Last year I forgot to wear a groin guard and it’s like she knew. Every potato she threw at me homed in on that area.’
‘No matter,’ said Mr Popov. ‘She good already. We train without her today.’ He dropped two large sacks at his feet. From the distinctive rolling, thudding sound as they hit the ground, the sacks were evidently filled with potatoes.
‘We have just a few days to get you up to the speed,’ said Mr Popov. ‘You need to learn all the skills to survive the game of the potato.’
‘D-d-don’t you mean, win the game of potato?’ asked Joe.
Mr Popov made a scoffing noise, ‘Hah! You stand no chance of winning against Daisy Odinsdottir. First challenge for you is being good enough to survive with all your limbs still attached. Training go well, maybe we think about winning later.’
Joe gulped. What had he got himself into now? It was bad enough that Currawong High held all their lawn bowls expectations in him. Now they wanted him to captain a sure-to-l
ose potato team at a public event watched by the whole town. And apparently there was a very good chance he would get injured. Joe just hoped if he was injured, it would be in the first five minutes of the game. Although that would let the rest of the team down. Perhaps they would all get injured and they could all stop at once.
‘Um . . .’ said Simon. Like Joe, Simon was not good with words. ‘What are the rules? I’ve never played Capture the Potato.’
Kieran sniggered. ‘And you call yourself a Currawongian.’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Simon. ‘I’m from Bilgong. We never play it there.’
‘You think you’re so good with your canola fields, don’t you?’ accused Kieran. ‘Well, we grow real vegetables here and we know how to play with them.’
‘You know when you say things like that you sound like an idiot, right?’ asked Simon.
‘No rules for you,’ said Mr Popov, dismissively. ‘You no ready for rules. First you learn the skills. And today you learn the most important skill.’ Mr Popov opened one of his sacks, reached in and picked out a potato. ‘Today you practise the skill of not getting hit by a potato.’
‘Huh?’ said Joe.
‘Like this,’ said Mr Popov. He threw the potato at Joe, hitting him in the chest.
‘Ow!’ said Joe.
‘This what not to do,’ said Mr Popov. He reached into the sack and pulled out another potato and straightened up. ‘Why you all still standing here? You practising how to not get hit. Run!’
Everyone finally realised what was going on. The students took off, running in every direction. Mr Popov pelted them with potatoes as they fled. It was a miserable two-hour training session. After a while Joe did get the hang of not being hit. The trick was to watch as you ran away so you could dodge the flying tubers. But there was no reprieve.
Once everyone could handle Mr Popov throwing spuds at them, he went to the equipment shed and brought out the cricket bowling machines. He loaded the potatoes into them, pointed them at the students and set them all off at once. Now the team was being hailed with potatoes from all directions. They were still fairly easy to avoid, but only if you kept constantly in motion, watching and responding to Mr Popov’s adjustments of trajectory. It was exhausting.
By the end of the training session, Joe’s legs felt like rubber. Rubber that had been run over by a truck and stomped on by someone really angry. Sweat was pouring off him. He was struggling so hard to breathe, he thought his lungs might be sweating too.
‘Not too bad,’ said Mr Popov, standing over his collapsed team. ‘Tomorrow after school we have another training session.’
The entire team groaned.
‘I think my internal organs have gone into shutdown,’ said Animesh.
‘I no care,’ said Mr Popov. ‘You go to hospital if you like now, but you be here tomorrow after school or I put you in hospital.’
‘I know English is your second language, Mr Popov,’ said Wendy. ‘But I’m pretty sure in any language that sentence doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Tomorrow you be here,’ said Mr Popov. ‘Then we work on new skill. You work on hiding.’
Joe thought this sounded a lot better than the not-getting-hit training session they just had.
‘How do we train for that?’ asked Kieran.
‘You hide,’ said Mr Popov.
That definitely sounded better. Joe was good at hiding. He’d had a lot of practice from avoiding Daisy Odinsdottir.
‘And when I find you,’ said Mr Popov. ‘I pelt you with the potatoes.’
The entire team groaned.
Mr Popov blew his whistle. He enjoyed blowing his whistle almost as much as he enjoyed yelling. They were the two favourite things about his job. ‘Right, go home now and eat,’ said Mr Popov. ‘Fuel yourself for tomorrow.’
The team just started to turn away when they found themselves being pelted with potatoes again.
‘Hey, what’s that for?’ asked Kieran.
‘You can eat those,’ said Mr Popov. ‘Potatoes are a good source of carbohydrates.’
Loretta knew she didn’t need to practise Capture the Potato. She had a natural talent for the game, so while the others were at the team training session, she was researching a personal project instead. She was looking for Joy, the person, not the emotion.
Loretta had very few leads. Considering that Joy served them food several times a week they really knew so little about her. Loretta knew all about the other people in her life – her hairdresser, manicurist, horse groomer. She had long probing chats with these people all the time.
Loretta enjoyed finding out details about people. Not for malicious reasons – she just found others fascinating. When you looked closely, even the most apparently boring person was a complicated web of self-doubting contradiction. In fact, Loretta had long ago discovered that there was no such thing as boring people. To her, people who did boring things were actually even more fascinating. She loved uncovering the whys of human behaviour. So she was disappointed in herself for knowing so little about Joy.
Really Joy’s whole miserable goth appearance was the perfect cover. It seemed to sum up her entire character instantly. There was no need to probe deeper. Of course Joy was depressed – she lived in Currawong and served high-fat, high-sodium foods in a not terribly clean cafe. It made sense. There was no need to ask follow-up questions, which now made Loretta wonder. Perhaps Joy was a genius, and her clichéd appearance was a cover for a much more subtle and interesting life. Loretta was determined to find out.
Since she knew nothing about Joy, she only had one place to start. The Good Times Cafe. Loretta reasoned that the chef would not be much help. He was surly and held a grudge against the Peskis. She also knew that Bethany, the new waitress, was unhelpfully ignorant.
But Loretta understood enough about the working of restaurants to know that all chefs thought very highly of themselves. And as such, no chef ever washed the dishes. The waitress obviously didn’t do this either. When Joy hadn’t been begrudgingly trudging out to take orders or deliver food she had always hunched on a stool behind the counter, looking at her phone. Therefore, the Good Times Cafe had to have a third employee. Someone Loretta had never seen. They had to have a dish pig.
Loretta was not in any way a prejudiced person. She would never disparage the noble art of dish washing. As the daughter of two top surgeons she knew full well that the washing of dishes prevents a maelstrom of horrible diseases, many of which involve some sort of food poisoning, and food poisoning has exceptionally gross symptoms. She did not invent the term ‘dish pig’. But it was the term that kitchen staff use for the person whose job it is to do the dishes.
For some reason, despite having a job where they spend all their time creating delicious food, restaurants have a culture of bullying. So of course, they come up with a derogatory name for the person who is the least skilled and lowest paid among them. When Loretta snuck in the back door of the Good Times Cafe she did so with the intention of meeting and getting to know the resident dish pig.
Loretta pushed past the dust-clogged flyscreen door and made her way down a narrow corridor with white grease-stained walls. When she stepped into the kitchen she was shocked by what she saw. For a start, everything in the kitchen was about five times filthier than she had imagined. And she had never imagined that the Good Times Cafe had a particularly clean kitchen. But once her eyes took in the shocking mess of used utensils and discarded food scraps, she noticed an even more shocking sight.
‘You!’ exclaimed Loretta.
The dish pig flinched, dropped the plate he was holding and it shattered on the floor. He whirled around, not to see Loretta, but to grab his cane. Because the dish pig was Tom, the only vision-impaired student at Currawong High School.
‘Who’s there?’ demanded Tom.
‘It’s me, Loretta,’ said Loretta. ‘April’s sister.’
Tom frowned. ‘April doesn’t have a sister.’
‘She does now,’ said Loretta. �
�I adopted myself into the family when my au pair became engaged to Mr Peski. Of course my au pair has run off since then, but she didn’t take me with her so I guess that makes me even more a part of the family.’
‘I’m pretty sure that makes no sense,’ said Tom, warily.
‘I’ve never let a little thing like sense get in my way,’ said Loretta. ‘Speaking of things that aren’t sensible, why on earth are you here doing the dishes?’
Tom bristled, ‘What? Don’t you think vision-impaired people can hold down jobs?’
‘Well, no, I hadn’t thought that,’ said Loretta. ‘There have been lots of fabulously successful vision-impaired people. Ray Charles, Edgar Degas, Homer . . . But none of them had jobs that required them to see.’
‘I can do dishes without seeing them,’ said Tom.
Loretta looked across at the pile of ‘clean’ washing Tom had stacked on the draining board. There were clumps of food and stains on most of them.
‘Hmm,’ said Loretta, she didn’t want to be hurtful, especially not when she was about to pump Tom for information. ‘Let’s not dwell on that. I expect you’re wondering why I’m here.’
‘No, I was wondering when you’d go and leave me alone,’ said Tom. He may have been vision impaired but he was not a shy or retiring boy.
‘Perfect,’ said Loretta. ‘I’ll go when you answer a few questions. Tell me, how well did you know Joy?’
‘Who?’ asked Tom.
‘Joy, the waitress,’ said Loretta. ‘The one who has worked here for three years. She was always glum and dour.’
‘Oh, you mean Jacinta,’ said Tom.
‘What?’ said Loretta.
‘It said Joy on her name tag,’ explained Tom. ‘But her real name was Jacinta.’
‘Why on earth did she use a fake name on her name tag?’ asked Loretta.
‘She didn’t like it when people she didn’t know called her by name,’ said Tom. ‘She felt if she had a fake name at work she could separate her work self from her real self.’
‘Wow,’ said Loretta. ‘That is surprisingly impressive.’