The Super Freak

by Brian Falkner

  ‘Good one, Blocker,’ I muttered, but my feelings were more than a little mixed.

  Somehow the rest of Wednesday slipped by and I knew that the next morning Ben was going to excuse himself from the elections and all would be lost. I was starting to get a bit desperate when, after school, I saw Erica walking home. She went a different way to me, but it wasn’t too far from my route, so I traipsed along after her like a puppy dog following its master, feeling a bit pathetic.

  It took about half a kilometre before I overcame my nerves, steeled myself for the inevitable outcome and quickened my pace so that I caught up with her.

  She half turned her head as I walked up alongside her but said nothing.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, without looking at me.

  ‘I was wondering,’ I started, and then couldn’t get the rest of the words out.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘If …’ Jeez this was hard. ‘If you … were planning on standing for the student council.’

  What an idiot!

  This time she did look at me, as if she thought I was quite strange. ‘No. I’m not standing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Ten steps, I thought. I’ll take ten more steps and then I’ll ask her.

  Ten steps went by.

  Just ten more steps. Ten, nine, eight … oh this is stupid.

  ‘And I was wondering if you’d maybe, want to, like, maybe, you know, go out with me?’

  There! I said it.

  Silence.

  ‘To a movie or something?’

  Silence.

  ‘Or not.’

  She half glanced at me, and I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes, and then she was hurrying off, leaving me standing there on the grass verge of someone’s driveway feeling very stupid and more confused than I’d ever been in my life.

  ‘Well, at least I did it,’ I said out loud to nobody and started to walk home.

  SIXTEEN

  THE ELECTION

  I didn’t feel quite so bad the next morning as I did the night before. I had lain awake, for half the night it seemed, just feeling stupid and sad and angry all at once. I wasn’t even sure what I was angry about or who with. But things seemed clearer in the morning.

  Sometime during the night, I’d also figured out my plan for stealing the proceeds of the Spring Fever Fair. I wasn’t sure of the details; they would have to wait until I got some inside information from the school council. And that would depend on Ben winning the election.

  But I did know one thing for sure. I was going to need some seed money. In order to pull off my plan I was going to need about fifty or sixty dollars cash. But I didn’t have that kind of money, which meant another smaller crime to start with.

  My career as a criminal was beginning to take shape. Super Freak versus the world!

  The speeches were to start at 9 o’clock, so when the clock ticked around and Ben still hadn’t arrived; I started to worry. Not for long, though, as he showed up a couple of moments later and mumbled an apology to the teacher, Mr Hawthorne, as he found his seat.

  Luckily Erica wasn’t in our home class. I wasn’t sure I could have faced her that morning.

  ‘I did it,’ I told Ben in a whisper, forcing the words through a strange ache in my chest. ‘I asked her out.’

  ‘I know,’ he whispered back. ‘I saw her at the front gate. She gave me this.’

  My heart pounded for no obvious reason as he passed me a small yellow envelope. A letter. She had written me a letter!

  I was tingly, excited, and sorely tempted to open it and read it right away, but the speeches were starting. I saw Hawthorne looking at me.

  If Hawthorne saw you passing notes, he would take them and read them aloud to the class. I had no idea of what was in the letter but, whatever it was, I knew I did not want it read out to my classmates.

  I tucked the letter safely away and listened to the first speaker.

  It was Jenny Kreisler. She was a popular girl, and I thought she’d probably win the election, if I couldn’t swing it Ben’s way with my special power.

  She was supposed to be going out with Daniel Taylor, the league player, but I wasn’t sure if that was true. He was never around anyway. He was always off at training or something.

  She spoke well and persuasively, a succinct two minute speech in which she told us all about her abilities as a communicator and an organiser, and why she’d be good as a member of the student council. She was very good, so I thought this could be an even closer battle than I had anticipated.

  Johnny Howard was next. He was a lean, muscled boy, who could sprint like the wind, and was the number eleven on the school year nine rugby team. He too spoke of his skills, his ability to relate to other people and see their point of view.

  The next speaker, Sandra Greathouse, seemed to have borrowed Johnny’s script notes, as she said almost the same things, but not as well, nervously staring at her palm-sized note-cards the whole time. I didn’t rate her very well at all.

  And on it went through a succession of speakers, eight in all, every one of them telling us how wonderful they were, what wonderful skills they had, and why they’d make a great student councillor. Until we got to the last speaker, Ben Holly.

  He got slowly to his feet, and moved, with that robotic gait of his, to the front of the class.

  He stood there for a while, looking around at us all but not saying anything. He had no speech cards at all.

  I suddenly got worried. What if he made a real crap-fest of this? What if he really blew it? No amount of mental thought bending was going to get him elected if he totally bummed out in the election speeches.

  He spoke then, and his voice lost its usual mechanical quality, sounding clear and confident throughout the room.

  ‘I’ve heard you all speak,’ he said, nodding to the other nominees, ‘and all I can say is that I’d vote for each and every one of you. I think any of you would be great.’

  What was he doing?!

  ‘Jenny, you are a good communicator and a great organiser. Johnny, I know what you mean about relating to people, it is a rare gift you have to be able to do that. As for myself, I’m not so sure. I don’t really know how I’d go on the school council, and I suspect that none of us really do for sure, until we find ourselves in that situation.’

  He seemed to grow taller as he spoke, and there was a presence about him that took over and commanded the room.

  ‘Have I got the right skills? I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure. But ask me if I have ideas, and the answer is yes!’ He banged the desk in front of him for emphasis and a little jar of pens fell over, but no-one even noticed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if I was elected, and I’ve got lots of ideas. I’d like to see more field trips for students. Give us a chance to see the real world in action. I’d like to see new tennis courts to replace those worn-out crater-pits down past the pre-fabs. I’d like to see a points reward-system for students who volunteer for activities around the school, with real prizes at the end of the year for those who collect the most points. A school website with pages for each class to present news and show off examples of their work. I’d like to see …’

  And on he went.

  Whereas all the other kids had spent their two minutes telling us how great they were, Ben did none of that. He just told us all of his ideas for using the school council to stand up for student rights and to make the school a better place for students.

  When the votes were tallied, Ben was the winner, beating Jenny Kreisler into second place by a clear margin.

  I had blasted everyone in the room with a choose Ben Holly message when the voting started, but I don’t think it had made any difference.

  To my immense surprise, Ben Holly had won it on his own!

  I ripped open the envelope the second the period bell sounded. It turned out to contain not a letter, but a short note.

  Please meet me in the lib
rary after school on Friday.

  Erica

  That was all.

  Friday seemed like an eternity away. Would it turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing? I had no idea.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE OLD STUMP

  I walked home with Ben as usual on Thursday after school. We always took the same way. I was trying not to think about Erica, so I concentrated instead on the mechanical sound that Ben made when he moved.

  Through the short concrete path, overgrown with thistles, leading to Acorn Park. Step ssshhh, step ssshhh. Along the side of Mr Dover’s house. He was always at home limping around the garden, while his wife was out at work. Step ssshhh, step ssshhh. Past the old stump which all the kids avoided because it had a huge nest of nasty-tempered wasps inside. Step ssshhh, step ssshhh, step ssshhh.

  I was just about past the stump when I saw Blocker and Phil Domane standing amongst the massive oak trees of the park, half hidden from view, and I instinctively knew what they were going to do.

  ‘Run!’ I shouted, and Ben, although he hadn’t seen them, obeyed automatically. We sprinted into the park away from the danger.

  I saw the blur of Blocker’s arm. The rock that he chucked – on reflection I think it was a broken-off chunk of concrete – seemed to hang in the air almost indefinitely as it flew towards the nest in the old stump.

  Mr Dover was out watering his garden and he glanced up, his eye caught by the movement. I looked back and saw Caitlin Howard, Johnny Howard’s little sister, enter the other end of the concrete path. She was six-years-old I think, still young enough to let her mum put her hair in pigtails, and she went to a nearby primary school. Usually she walked home with her big brother. Not today though, he must have had sports practice.

  I caught my breath, unsure of what to do. Somehow, behind me, I was aware that Ben had also stopped and turned back to face the impending disaster.

  Caitlin walked. The rock flew. Mr Dover watered. I froze.

  The rock smashed into the stump with a muffled woody thump and cracked off, rolling over the grass to end up against Mr Dover’s back fence.

  The wasps’ nest exploded into a hurricane of hurtling furious yellow and black shapes, writhing around the stump. I involuntarily took a couple of quick steps backwards, even though I was well clear of the danger zone. The cloud around the stump spread, seeking targets, but not moving too far from the nest it was defending.

  Mr Dover was looking at the stump with a horrified glare and walking backwards as fast as he could, the hose in his hand spraying uselessly over his lawn.

  Little Caitlin Howard kept on walking. Her head was down. She was lost in some private world, oblivious to the escalating whine of the swarming wasps.

  As she neared the end of the path I heard someone shouting, ‘Caitlin, go back! Caitlin, go back!’ and realised with surprise it was me.

  It was too late by that stage, though, far too late. She looked up as she wondered what was wrong. The wasps were already buzzing all around her.

  Any kid would surely have run backwards out of danger, but she didn’t. Maybe six-year-olds think differently or, more likely, when faced with such terror, she instinctively headed for a place of safety – home. The problem was her path home lay right through the seething cloud.

  I watched, helplessly, as she took one tiny step after another, her arms waving frantically around her head. I am sure she screamed the first time she was stung, and maybe the second and third but, after that, it just became a long drawn-out wail, a single long breath until she was well past the stump. Thinking she was out of danger, or just unable to run any more, she dropped, hunched over, legs splayed on the grass, bawling. That was the second mistake she made and it was a bigger mistake than the first.

  She was well within range of the nest and the wasps followed her, gathering in a cloud around her as she sat on the ground, stinging her again and again as she wailed and squealed in anguish.

  Mr Dover had turned his hose on the nest. I think he thought that would help or maybe he just didn’t know what else to do, but even I knew that it is smoke that calms down angry wasps, not water. Water makes them angrier. As he poured, more wasps came spraying up out of the nest.

  Caitlin just sat there. I wanted to run up to her, to grab her and haul her out of there, but I couldn’t – or maybe just wouldn’t – move. I simply wasn’t brave enough to run into a swarm of angry wasps. Phil and Blocker, like me, were frozen, horrified, petrified.

  Without thinking, I looked back at Ben. The single bizarre thought in my mind was that he should go and save her. What did a few wasp stings matter to a robot anyway, even if they could sting through his rubberised robotic skin?

  He looked back at me, right into my eyes, and it was as if he could tell what I was thinking. He took a few faltering steps forwards, dropped his schoolbag and then began to run.

  Ben Holly, the new student councillor and my best friend, ran into the storm.

  He didn’t stop, he didn’t change direction. He just scooped Caitlin roughly up by the arm and pulled her, dragging her away from the swarm, to the far corner of the park.

  The wasps chased for a little while, and a few of the nastier ones followed for quite a long way, but they soon all retreated to their nest and resumed circling and threatening.

  I hadn’t seen Mr Dover disappear, but he was gone. Stupid fart. Maybe he’d been stung too. If so, he deserved it.

  I circled around the park to where Caitlin was, giving the nest a wide berth. Her face was a red raw mass, and her arms and legs were already rising into a wilderness of pain.

  ‘Where do you live?’ Ben was asking, over and over.

  She said nothing. Maybe she couldn’t. Her eyes were waxy and she was leaning against his arm as if she couldn’t hold herself upright. She had stopped crying, but I sensed it was a bad thing, not a good thing.

  ‘I know where she lives.’ It was Phil, behind me. ‘I’ll take her.’ He looked at me and flinched, and I knew that my thoughts must have been reflected on my face. Blocker picked up her school bag, and Phil picked Caitlin up, carrying her in his arms like a baby. Then they set off at a half-run, with just one backwards, guilty glance.

  Ben and I stayed where we were as they disappeared around the corner. I found I was staring at the raised welts on his neck and the back of his hands. He hardly seemed to notice.

  We stayed there for a long time, watching the gradually diminishing swirls of wasps, before heading off home.

  EIGHTEEN

  ASSEMBLY

  The next day there was an assembly at school. Just an ordinary Friday assembly except that Mr Curtis, the principal, made special mention of the wasp attack.

  ‘A little girl was seriously hurt,’ he intoned down at us from his dais on the stage, like a minister in church. ‘She’s in the hospital but she’s stable, and they think she’s going to be OK.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief at that and noticed that the other kids around me were unusually quiet for a Friday assembly.

  Mr Curtis was tall and thin with the most atrocious comb-over I’d ever seen in my life. Even now, long grey wisps had escaped and were hanging down past his ear.

  ‘Her mother has asked that the school thank the boys who saved her from the wasps, and the local community constable wants to nominate them for a special heroism medal.’ Mr Curtis was enjoying this. I think he was proud that some of his pupils had become heroes. As if, somehow, that reflected on his guidance as the principal.

  I looked behind me at Ben, sitting a few rows away. He looked back at me, but kept his face impassively, robotically, blank.

  ‘Would the heroic boys who did this brave deed, please stand up.’

  I looked back at Ben again, but he made no effort to move. Maybe he really was a robot, I thought. There was no emotion in his face at all.

  There was a strange silence, and I was almost going to call out Ben’s name, he deserved the recognition, even if he didn’t want it for some strange, unknowable re
ason.

  But I didn’t. Then there was a noise in front of me and I looked around to see Phil and Blocker – the rock thrower – get to their feet. I sucked in my breath to stop myself from crying out. They had taken her home but they weren’t the ones who rescued her!

  ‘Good,’ Curtis said pompously. ‘Well done, lads. And you might also like to know that as a gesture of our sincere appreciation, the school, with a little help from the local Rotary club, has decided to make a gift of one hundred dollars to each of you as a reward for your actions.’

  My mouth dropped open. The applause was spontaneous and seemed to go on forever.

  NINETEEN

  THE NAVY DESTROYER

  We had PE that afternoon, and Old Sea Salt was in a particularly sadistic mood. Mrs Winters was away, so her class had been combined with Saltham’s which meant that Tupai White, Daniel Taylor and Fraser (Fizzer) Boyd were among the others sharing the gym. Jason Kirk would have been there too, except he had sprained his ankle the previous day and had a pass.

  I was trying to concentrate on the exercises, but my mind kept going to the library and my meeting with Erica after school. Why did she want to meet? What did she want? Would it be good or was I going to regret it?

  ‘How are you doing?’ Tupai asked me with a grin, as we found ourselves at the bottom of a rope-climbing exercise together.

  I just nodded.

  ‘Is he leaving you alone?’ Tupai flicked a glance over at Blocker, leaning against a wall, talking to Phil.

  ‘Yeah, it’s cool.’ I deliberately didn’t tell Tupai about the text messages. I didn’t want to make matters any worse than they already were.

  Tupai started to say something else but Saltham shouted, ‘Go!’ and clicked a stopwatch hanging around his neck.

  I grabbed my rope but by the time I was halfway up, Tupai had already reached the ground again. He had just hauled himself up the rope on those powerful arms, scarcely bothering about his feet, except to steady himself. He’d reached the top, slapped the wooden beam to show he’d made it, and slid easily back down.