Then we got in on the act, and nowadays the filling of an Aussie dimmy could be anything. Rotten vegetables, cat’s guts, sawdust — who knows?
‘Mystery bags,’ my dad called them. Of course, some dimmies are made from good stuff, but I’ve got terrible doubts about the ones we’d buy from the Top Food Takeaway. Run by Tony Wouldn’t-Know-What-Day-It-Was.
The Top’s dimmies looked like something the cat had dragged in, sitting there as they did in a pool of oil in a half-warm tray. I’m sure I saw one move one day. And what about that gnarled old one in the corner! Stuck to the bottom of the tray with a couple of Tony’s hairs on it. I’d swear it was the same dimmy, brought out day after day, until some poor fool felt hungry enough to buy it. Me.
That’s the bit I forgot to tell you — no matter what they’re made of, all dimmies taste great!
Finally, it was the night of the big challenge, and I reckon half the school turned up to watch. And the Top had been warned to have heaps of dimmies hot and ready to go. Or warm anyway. I doubt if Tony knew what ‘hot’ meant.
Well, Snowy and Spider had been at it for half an hour and the first fifteen dimmies slipped down easily. The next fifteen, well, that was a test.
Snowy was starting to look a bit green around number twenty, but when he did this massive sickie burp right into Spider’s face, he looked much better. I’m not so sure about Spider.
Spider ate in a very steady way. Deep breath, pop the dimmy in whole, chew, try to think of something else, close his eyes and swallow. Always taking the full two minutes. Whereas Snowy would gobble, forever trying to make out how easy it all was.
And then we hit a problem. The stupid Top had run out of warm dimmies, so now it would be cold or nothing. And I should warn you that cold, unfried dimmies are not a pretty sight.
For a start, you know that the fat inside them will just be sitting there, in one big hard lump. And the outsides, well, they’re usually sort of white and wrinkled, not unlike skin that’s been in the water too long. Both Spider and Snowy looked positively sick at the thought, but neither was giving in.
Then another problem. Snowy desperately needed to go to the toilet. ‘No way,’ said Spider. ‘Not unless someone goes with him to make sure he doesn’t chuck. And he better be quick.’
I could think of more pleasant jobs, but I suppose someone had to do it. ‘OK,’ I said.
Now, the Top’s toilet really was a sight to behold. Once you got over the most disgusting smell, you had to walk past a mountain of stinky, greasy boxes right up to the toilet door. Inside there were torn newspapers everywhere and an old brown toilet brush in the corner with some empty paper rolls. The toilet seat had long since disappeared.
When poor Snowy looked into the bowl and saw a couple of floating cigarette butts, I thought, Well, that’s it.
But somehow he hung on.
Finally, both Spider and Snowy were standing at an incredible thirty-two dimmies each. They stared straight ahead with bloodshot eyes and mouths gaping open.
And then out came Tony with two more dimmies. White and cold, lying dead in a pool of fat. With the Top’s usual specialty, several strands of Tony’s hair. And something else. A light sprinkling of dandruff.
Whether it was Spider or Snowy who spewed first, we will never know. We were all too busy getting out of the way. Bodies went everywhere, tripping, falling, lurching, as the tsunami of spew came sloshing towards us.
You would have thought a vomit bomb had exploded. Ugly scenes at the Top!
Neither Spider nor Snowy has ever eaten dimmies again. Not from the Top, anyway. It was only a week later that it was closed by the health police. Tony was charged with failing to tie back his hair or wear a cap while preparing food. Tie back his hair? I’m surprised there was any left.
Robyn Carter had everything a girl could ever want. Money, friends, lollies, good looks, excellent clothes, no stupid brothers or sisters to put up with, a pool in the backyard, every toy ever invented, two bikes and dopey parents who let her do just about anything she liked.
But Robyn Carter wanted more.
You see, Robyn had become bored with owning just things. Now she wanted to own people. To be the boss. To have everything she could think of, exactly to her liking.
So on the first day of grade six, Robyn Carter decided that every kid at Rokeby Primary School would be her slave by the end of the year.
It wasn’t that Robyn was such a nasty kid. Well, yes she was, actually. An absolute dragon. But you have to understand that spoilt kids always want more, because they think you can never have too much stuff. They’re never happy. So really, they’ve got nothing.
In fact, we should feel sorry for kids like Robyn. But try telling that to the kids at Rokeby Primary School.
Robyn’s plan to make everyone her slave was fantastic, and she decided to start with the other grade six kids. If she could get them, then the rest of the school would be easy.
First, she spoke to her friends Amanda and Kathy.
Amanda was the toughest kid in school. Even tougher than the boys. She was cool at fighting and excellent at corkies and wedgies, but her speciality was scratching. And guess who had the longest nails in school?
Kathy was pretty tough, too, but she was more into sneaky fighting, like coming up from behind and pulling your hair, or running her bike into your legs.
It was Amanda and Kathy’s job to be the school ‘heavies’. To make everyone do what Robyn wanted. And in return, Robyn paid Amanda and Kathy ten dollars a week, let them use her pool whenever they wanted and bought them as many lollies as they could eat. Which was a lot. We didn’t call Amanda ‘Garbage Guts’ behind her back for nothing.
Then Robyn told every kid in grade six that from now on, they had to do exactly what she wanted. If they didn’t, Amanda and Kathy would smash their faces in. And if anyone told the teachers or their parents, there’d be even worse to come.
Once that was done, Robyn decided to test whether everyone really was her slave. She was going to make every kid in the class be really rude to their teacher, Mr Gates.
Robyn hated Mr Gates. If she could make Mr Gates angry without getting into trouble herself, her life would be perfect. Unfortunately, Mr Gates was the type of teacher who got angry easily. Which is part of the reason Robyn disliked him so much. He was always yelling at her.
And so it began. Kids started to answer Mr Gates back, to talk during lessons and to make the classroom really messy. Everyone except for Robyn.
None of the kids had liked Robyn’s deal. But every one of them was afraid of Amanda and Kathy.
Mr Gates started to get so angry that he looked as though he might explode. Kids were banging desk lids all the time, leaving old bits of lunch lying around so the room would stink, doing silent smells when he was walking around the classroom and giving really cheeky answers when he asked them questions.
In fact, little Brendan Sheedy took it a bit too far. Mr Gates had put a whole lot of words on the blackboard and everyone had to find words that meant the same thing.
‘Can anyone see a match?’ asked Mr Gates.
‘Yeah,’ said Brendan. ‘My bum and your face.’
Poor Brendan got into terrible trouble over that one.
By the end of the week, Mr Gates thought he was going mad. ‘What is going on!?’ he’d yell, as everyone got naughtier and naughtier.
Mr Gates was in such a bad way that some of the kids even felt sorry for him. Actually, a lot of them did. And that was when Debbie Pringle and Lucy Grollo decided that enough was enough.
It was time to stop Robyn Carter’s plan and give her some payback.
One night, Debbie and Lucy got all the kids together to decide what to do. Not just the grade six kids. Everyone in the school. It was a really hot day so they knew Robyn wouldn’t catch them. She and her two thick-head friends had gone straight home to jump in the pool.
‘What I reckon,’ said Debbie, ‘is that we’re all too scared to do something be
cause Amanda and Kathy will punch us out. But if we do something secret, and all do it together, then they can’t bash us all up, can they?’
Secretly, the other kids weren’t too sure about that. But then they heard about Debbie and Lucy’s plan. An excellent plan. I won’t tell you what it was yet, except to say that all 158 kids decided to wait until it was dark and then sneak around to Robyn’s place.
The next day was really hot again. Which was just what Debbie wanted.
After school, so Robyn would hear, Debbie said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hot. I’d love to jump in a pool somewhere.’
‘Well bad luck, jerk,’ said Robyn. ‘Because you haven’t got a pool. And I have. Kathy and Amanda and I are going there right now.’
Excellent, thought Debbie.
As soon as Robyn and her heavies had disappeared, the 158 kids who had met the night before raced around to Robyn’s place and hid behind the fence. And just as Robyn and Amanda and Kathy dived into the pool, 158 heads popped up.
‘Oh, yuck!’ screamed Amanda.
‘Oh, no!’ shouted Robyn, splashing wildly.
‘Someone’s done a wee in the pool!’ shrieked Kathy.
And 158 voices said, ‘Yes, we have.’
Everyone laughed so much the fence shook. And when they found out the next day that Robyn’s hair had turned yellow, they laughed even louder.
Robyn was so worried about her hair that she offered everyone five dollars a week not to laugh. No-one took it, of course, and Robyn had to put up with the most terrible wee jokes for the rest of the year. Some people reckon the smell stayed with her for months.
Hardly anyone would talk to Robyn for a long time, except to make fun of her. Not even Amanda and Kathy. She had no friends at all. And when she really thought about it, that was all she’d ever wanted. Some real friends. People who liked her for herself — not just because she had money and a pool.
Eventually she did find a friend. You’ll never guess who.
Debbie.
After the wee trick, Debbie thought they were sort of even. One each. They realised they liked each other because they were both good at naughty tricks. And you can be sure the friendship isn’t because of Robyn’s pool. Neither would go near it if you paid them.
The Crazy Dentist and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls Page 3