The Super Freak

by Brian Falkner

  Jenny came back from her locker to find her classmates tearing the room apart and trying not to giggle. She joined in the hunt immediately.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ she asked.

  ‘The ferret’s got loose,’ Erica told her, with a wink.

  ‘Erica,’ Mr Toppler cried, ‘go to the office and get them to announce it over the intercom.’

  So Erica did exactly that, and pretty soon the entire school was being turned upside down. They even had groups of students scouring the perimeter and the playing fields. Nearly a whole period was wasted before they figured it out.

  Mr Toppler was outraged and Erica ended up in front of the principal. She probably would have received a stronger punishment than she did, but Mr Curtis could hardly keep a straight face, so she got off with a detention.

  Which is why we were sitting there on the Wednesday afternoon making eyes at each other over our reading books.

  She scribbled a note quickly on a scrap of paper and held it against the back of her book, so that only I could see it. I love U, it said.

  I smiled broadly at her by way of a response. She held up another note. It’s my birthday tomorrow, what are you getting me?

  I winked at her as if I knew that already and had the whole thing planned, although, of course, I had no idea.

  It took me three jewellery shops in a mad scrambling dash after school to find what I was looking for, but I found it. It pretty much cleaned out the rest of my life-savings, but the gift was perfect.

  I gave it to her the next day before school, all wrapped in pretty blue paper and tied with a bow (giftwrapped by the jeweller’s assistant). Erica opened it and burst out laughing. It was a delicate silver chain with a little silver pendant, in the shape of a ferret. I laughed with her.

  Turned out the joke was on me, though. It wasn’t really her birthday at all.

  She’s a troublemaker, that Erica.

  TWENTY-NINE

  CATASTROPHE

  The Friday of that week, the day before the school fair, started off badly, got steadily worse, and by lunchtime was an unmitigated catastrophe.

  It was sunny and warm, a lovely spring morning. Gumbo was sleeping on the end of my bed. I was at a school where I felt, for the first time since primary, that I fitted in, and had friends.

  Even Blocker had stopped hassling me.

  It seemed that all was right with the world.

  The phone rang at 7:30 and Dad answered it. After a short greeting, he went silent. I knew something was wrong. He hung up the phone brusquely and stomped up the hall to the kitchen. A few moments later he was having a stand-up row with Mum.

  I made my bed extra-nice and tidied my room. It was the sort of morning that I’d get it in the neck if I put a single foot out of place.

  April just locked her door and stayed there. She’d skip breakfast to avoid the drama. Chicken.

  I could already hear what the problem was. Dad had missed out on the Shortland Street role. All that mangled English for nothing.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been so confident that he would get it; that his time as an actor had come. And we had all fallen under the spell of his confidence and started dreaming of riches and luxuries.

  I went quietly to the kitchen for breakfast but Dad yelled at me for slamming the fridge and then Mum yelled at him for yelling at me, saying it wasn’t my fault he’d missed out on the audition.

  Maybe April had had the right idea.

  Second period was English with Miss Pepperman. As always I felt more cheerful when I walked into her classroom. Her personality brightened the whole room, and I thought that if we had more teachers like her, there’d be fewer problems in schools.

  Or did all teachers start off like her when they were young? Maybe even old Frau Blüchner had once been a young, excited, inspirational teacher to her classes.

  Maybe, but it was hard to believe.

  It was the results day for the class haiku competition. I had put a little time aside from all my criminal activities and written the best haiku I could. I thought it was pretty good.

  Flowing water falls

  Leading to the salty sea

  I don’t want to fall

  It didn’t win though. In the end Miss Pepperman couldn’t choose between two poems and was going to send them both off for the international competition. Neither of them was mine.

  One was a mournful piece by Jenny Kreisler, pining for a lost love. The other, to my jaw-dropping amazement, was by Blocker Blüchner.

  Fast rushing water

  Swooping down, hitting sharp rocks

  Leaving bleeding scars

  Losing to Blocker surprised me and stung me in ways I didn’t expect. I think Blocker was a bit surprised too and scowled at anyone who even looked as though they might be going to congratulate him.

  Stephen Wilson from 3G came in with a note for Miss Pepperman just before lunchtime, and she read it carefully twice, frowning each time, before thanking Stephen and sending him on his way.

  She looked around the class. ‘Take out your reading books; we’ll have SSR for the rest of the period.’ That was Sustained Silent Reading. ‘Except you, Jacob.’

  I looked up in fright. Except me! Why?

  ‘Jacob, pack up your schoolbag and come with me.’

  Now I was really worried. Had somebody died?

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, as she walked with me towards the admin block.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she tried to give me a reassuring smile.

  The door to Principal Curtis’s office was shut. When she knocked, the door was pulled open abruptly by someone inside. Miss Pepperman gave me another of those not-so-reassuring smiles and left me to it. I wished she could stay.

  Sitting on the old leather sofa just inside the door were my parents. This was not a good sign.

  I inched inside, and it got worse. Mr Curtis was staring sternly at me. Mr Saltham stood in the centre of the room. Seated in the far corner of the office was Frau Blüchner, and the look on her face was venomous.

  Mum smiled at me, a little tentatively, but Dad just sat there. I guess he was having a bad day all round.

  Mr Curtis didn’t invite me to sit, so I just stood in front of the desk, holding my schoolbag. Mr Saltham closed the door.

  There was a silence for a little while, but it was silence heavy with menace, like those swollen black clouds you get just before it rains.

  ‘Jacob,’ Curtis said severely, ‘a very serious charge has been made against you by another student.’

  All I could think about was my planned crime. But I hadn’t done anything yet!

  ‘This student says you threatened to kill him. That you attacked him with a knife.’

  ‘A chisel!’ corrected Mrs Blüchner.

  ‘It’s not true!’ I burst out, although I had a horrible feeling who was behind this and where it was going.

  ‘Are you calling him a liar?’ Mrs Blüchner fumed, and if it wasn’t obvious before who the complainant was, it was clear as day now.

  Dad still said nothing, but Mum’s face was granite and her eyes were steel.

  ‘Are you calling my son a liar?’

  Curtis interrupted before the two women could go head to head.

  ‘Empty your bag out please, Jacob.’

  ‘Is this necessary?’ Mum wanted to know.

  Curtis nodded mutely.

  With a cold feeling of dread I emptied my schoolbag. One by one, I laid each article on the desk in front of me. Dad still hadn’t said anything, which was the most frightening thing of all.

  I emptied my bag and Curtis peered through the minutiae of my school life. There was nothing incriminating. Phew!!! He even opened my pencil case and looked inside.

  ‘There you go,’ Mum said, as if that was the end of that. ‘As I said before …’

  Saltham reached out and took the bag from me, as Mum rattled on about how I would never do such a thing.

  He flattened it on t
he desk and pressed down on it, then, with a strange look on his face, he opened it and felt around inside until he found the inside compartment.

  I hadn’t opened that. I never used it.

  Saltham unzipped it and pulled out a long yellow handled chisel with JS, my dad’s initials, burnt into the handle. The missing chisel from our garage.

  ‘Crikey!’ said Mum.

  Saltham laid it on Curtis’s desk where it stared up at all of us.

  ‘Is this yours?’ he asked my father. Dad nodded and looked at me strangely.

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Mum said.

  Mr Curtis said, ‘Anything you want to tell me?’

  ‘It’s not mine,’ I said.

  Curtis looked at Dad.

  I said quickly, ‘I mean I didn’t put it there. It went missing from our garage. I didn’t put it in my bag and I certainly didn’t attack anyone with it.’

  Mrs Blüchner was doing her volcano thing and just about to erupt, but Curtis held up a hand for her to be silent.

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t threaten anyone with this.’

  I had just said that, hadn’t I!

  ‘Absolutely not!’

  Curtis looked up at Saltham, who said, ‘He was pretty clear about what had happened. Better get him in here and get him to tell you directly.’

  Curtis pressed a button on the intercom and said, ‘Send for the other boy.’

  Then he looked at my parents and said, ‘We’ll sort this out right now.’

  I tried to say, ‘Blocker, I mean Markus, has been following me home after school. He must have seen the tools …’

  But Curtis cut me off. ‘You’ll get your turn to talk.’

  A moment later, Blocker entered and we both stood in front of the desk. Blocker towering over me.

  ‘Tell us what happened, Markus,’ Mr Curtis said gently. ‘Tell us what you told Mr Saltham.’

  It should have been obvious to anyone that Blocker had prepared this.

  He said calmly, ‘Yesterday afternoon after school I was walking home through Acorn Park and Jacob jumped out from behind a tree. He said he was going to kill me if I didn’t leave him alone and took a swing at me with the chisel.’

  My jaw dropped open. It was total bullcrap. I looked around. They were buying it! All of them. Even Mum and Dad.

  I stared out of the window, isolated in my frustration and despair. I saw a small flock of birds swoop down and settle on one of the wires that ran between the old wooden power poles on the opposite side of the road.

  Curtis said, ‘What did he mean, “If you didn’t leave him alone”?’

  Blocker looked suitably sorrowful. ‘Well, I guess I’d been razzing him a bit.’

  ‘Bullying?’ asked Mr Curtis sharply.

  Blocker shrugged. ‘I guess. I don’t mean to. It’s my size. Some of the smaller kids just seem scared of me.’ He stared at the floor as if in pain. ‘It’s hard to make friends sometimes.’

  I could not believe what I was hearing. ‘This is so …’

  ‘You’ll get your turn!’ Mrs Blüchner’s voice, wrung out through clenched teeth, cut me off like a guillotine.

  Blocker continued. ‘I did send him a few nasty text messages. But that was only because I’d heard he’d stolen my money.’

  ‘The money he was given for rescuing that girl!’ Mrs Blüchner thundered.

  ‘All right, Jacob,’ Curtis said. ‘Tell us why you did it.’

  ‘I didn’t do it.’ I said simply.

  ‘You have no proof of any of this.’ Dad finally found his voice and started to talk in a smooth, lawyerly tone.

  Curtis picked up my mobile phone from amongst the jumble of my belongings on his desk. He pressed a few buttons and then read out one of Blocker’s text messages, ‘You are dead meat.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it,’ Blocker said quickly. ‘It’s just stuff that kids say.’

  Curtis nodded, agreeing with him. I was raging inside, but unable to do or say anything.

  Somehow, those text messages from Blocker seemed to prove his side of the story. That I’d attacked him with a chisel because he had been bullying me.

  ‘Do you want to give me any good reasons why you did this?’ Curtis asked. It seemed there was no doubt about whether I had in fact done it.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’ I shouted.

  ‘He’s a strange kid,’ Blocker butted in. ‘Calls himself the Freak.’

  Mum and Dad looked at each other in surprise at that revelation.

  Actually it was Super Freak, but I didn’t think it would help to tell them that.

  Curtis raised an eyebrow at me.

  ‘Only because …’ I tailed off, there was no way of explaining it. The whole GWF thing and the special power.

  I looked desperately at Dad. Where was my defence counsel when I needed him? Mum was strong, but by herself she was seriously mismatched against the panzer tank in the corner.

  Still, Mum did her best, and for the next ten minutes butted heads with Frau Blüchner. She didn’t really stand a chance, though.

  Finally Curtis seemed to make up his mind. He looked firstly at Blocker. ‘Bullying is a serious offence in this school,’ he intoned slowly. ‘If I hear any more about you bullying other kids, by phone, or any other way, I will be forced to take further action. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Blocker nodded meekly. Inside he must have been laughing fit to bust.

  ‘Jacob,’ Curtis paused thoughtfully, ‘I’m sorry, but I cannot condone this offence. If you felt threatened by another student you should have talked to a teacher or a school counsellor. Violence is not the answer.’

  My face was red. Red with fury at the injustice of it all. Red with frustration at how other people were controlling my life.

  Curtis finished, ‘I have no choice but to suspend you from school for two weeks.’

  He looked calmly at my parents. ‘You might want to think about finding Jacob another school. He may not be coming back.’

  THIRTY

  SPRING FEVER

  Funnily enough, I think Mum and Dad believed me. At least they weren’t as angry with me as I would have expected.

  ‘Did you do it, mate?’ Mum asked once, just once.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head sadly and that was good enough for her.

  I was still trying to comprehend the scale of the catastrophe. I was probably going to be kicked out of school, just when I had started to fit in. I’d be in a different school to Ben. And Erica.

  This was a disaster beyond imagination.

  On Saturday morning, however, I woke up full of determination. I wasn’t going to let other people run my life. I was going to the school fair, suspension or no suspension, and I was going to rob them blind. Serve them right and all. The crime of the century was now an act of revenge.

  I listened to the weather forecast. It was for thunderstorms. There was no sign of them yet, though, the morning was hazy and warm. I hoped the storms stayed away. I wanted the school fair to be a good one. A highly profitable one.

  Moo-ha-ha-ha.

  I showered and dressed then wandered into the kitchen for breakfast. I was the only one up, which suited me fine.

  The only one apart from Gumbo, who was lying down staring at the TV.

  ‘The Warriors aren’t playing until next week,’ I told him.

  He looked at me, farted, and went back to watching the blank screen.

  ‘Crazy dog,’ I muttered, making myself some toast.

  Gumbo, the lazy, crazy, sometimes scary, farty, sporty, floppy, sloppy dog. And I loved him.

  ‘I’ll buy you a present when I’m rich,’ I promised, but he ignored me and continued watching the blank screen.

  The fair didn’t start till ten, but I cycled off as soon as I had finished breakfast. I wanted to be out of the house before Mum and Dad got up and started quizzing me about where I was going.

  I sent Ben a text to see if he wanted to come out and meet me somewhere, but got no
reply, which was unusual.

  I cycled all the way down to Manuka Park, just for something to do. It was deserted so I sat there on the kiddies’ playground watching the sun rise slowly behind the trees of the reserve.

  It was good. It was calm, and helped me focus my thinking on my big plans for the day. I had my bucket and twenty dollars borrowed from April’s purse, now changed into small change, stashed in my backpack.

  Roll on the Spring Fever School Fair.

  I finally got there at about eleven. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to go, so I gave any teachers I saw a wide berth.

  The first stall was just inside the school gate and run by Fizzer Boyd and his mates, Tupai, Jason, and Daniel the Warrior.

  Tupai nodded at me as I sauntered casually past. ‘Sorry to hear about the suspension,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘What can you do?’

  Tupai had his arms folded across his chest and looked quite tough, like a security guard or something. I suppose he was, in a way, because there was a fifty dollar note strung up at the front of their stall.

  A sign on the stand announced, ‘The Taste Test’. I wasn’t sure what it was all about. I smiled politely at the other three guys, who all seemed to be genuinely concerned for me, and wandered on.

  I passed the hot dog stand, and the huge white elephant stall. I was tempted to go and look through the bookstall but saw Miss Pepperman was helping run it, and I didn’t want her to see me.

  I eventually found myself down on bottom field where they were selling rides on farm trikes.

  Ben was there with his parents. I had only met his mum and dad once or twice before and they had seemed pleasant enough, if a little over-protective.

  They had grounded Ben after he had won that photo competition. Apparently, they had no idea he had been sneaking out to take photos of lightning, and all hell broke loose when they found out.

  Ben looked startled when he saw me and dropped his eyes guiltily.

  ‘Hi, mate,’ I said.