I Am Jack

by Susanne Gervay

  ‘I’ve got to go to work. Will you be all right, darling?’ I don’t mind Mum calling me darling when I’m sick. I nod weakly. That molten lava is still moving around in my head. ‘Samantha can stay home with you today to keep you company.’

  Samantha’s already arrived with the Monopoly. She sits at the end of my bed. There’s plenty of room.

  ‘I’ll call Nanna to come over at lunchtime. You can ring me if there’s a problem.’

  Excellent. Nanna is good at Monopoly and she’ll bring over some cookies. I look sadly at Mum and hold my head.

  ‘It could take another day before you’re better.’

  I nod again weakly. Another day. My head calms down a bit more with that news. No school tomorrow.

  No school. I feel the erupting volcano stop.

  3 Wipe Your Bum

  Rob’s home. Rob works in spare parts for cars. That is so great. We talk about mag wheels and power steering and V8 engines. When I’m old enough I am going to buy a dump of a car and do it up. Chrome bumper bars, super-charged engine, five-on-the-floor gears. Poor Mum rolls her eyes. Get it. Rolls. Rolls…ha, ha…

  Do you know why the man rolled his car into a lake?

  He was trying to dip his headlights.

  Mum’s not mechanical. She just doesn’t GET IT but she does get very mad when we say that to her. ‘Mum, you just don’t GET IT.’ She really doesn’t GET IT when Rob jokes. Some of his jokes are bad and, I have to say it, rude. Rob and I look at each other because we know Mum doesn’t really understand, especially the rude ones. My jokes are only a bit rude. This one is adapted from a joke Christopher told me. He isn’t very good at jokes, so he gave it to me to make into a masterpiece.

  Once upon a time, there was a little red man, who lived on a little red street, in a little red house. One morning this little red man woke up and looked out of his little red window at the little red sun. He thought it was a glorious little red morning. So he jumped out of his little red bed and skipped down his little red hallway into his little red bathroom. He threw off all his little red clothes and turned on his little red shower. While he was splashing around in his little red shower, he heard a bang on the door. He quickly turned off the little red shower, put on a little red towel, ran down his little red hallway, opened his little red front door and saw there was a little red newspaper stuck in his little red rose bush. He bent over to pull it out. As he bent down his little red towel fell off.

  The lady sitting at the bus stop who had been watching the whole thing, jumped up and ran across the other side of the road and was immediately hit by a passing truck.

  The moral of the story is:

  Don’t cross the road while the little red man is flashing.

  Rob likes that joke. Even Mum does.

  Samantha runs out of my bedroom into Rob’s arms. He swings her around and around making her laugh, BUT it’s me who is sick. I need the attention. Samantha is always pushing in. I struggle out of my bedroom. Rob has just given Mum some pink carnations. He is hugging her, BUT it’s me who is sick. ‘Rob, Rob, I’ve got to tell you how sick I’ve been. Did you bring home the car manual I wanted? Rob, I’ve got to tell you a new joke I made up. Rob…’

  Samantha’s carrying out a vase. It’s her job to arrange the flowers. Mum is checking the rice. ‘It’s sticky white rice tonight. You won’t get an allergy from this, Jack,’ she says. ‘It will help your headache. Maybe you can go to school tomorrow.’

  Samantha butts in. ‘Jack was all right today, Mum.’

  I put my hand over my right eye and moan loudly.

  ‘Well, we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.’

  Rob shakes his head and jabs his knuckles into my arm.

  ‘Ouch, that hurt.’

  ‘I think you’ve got your mother worked out all right. You don’t look sick to me.’

  I knuckle him back.

  Mum looks up from the rice cooking on the stove. Her hair is fluffing out. ‘Stop that. You’re supposed to be sick, Jack.’ Mum flattens her hair. ‘No fighting inside. Actually, NO fighting at all.’ Mum always says that because of her hippie days. There’s a great photograph of her in our album holding up a sign—‘Make Love, Not War.’

  Samantha grabs the cat because she knows wrestling is serious business. Last time Puss nearly got squashed when I fell on her.

  Rob laughs. ‘This isn’t fighting. We’re mucking about and Jack’s feeling better.’ We wrestle in the lounge room and Rob gets me onto the floor. I’m too strong and pull away from his grip, but then he grabs me in an armlock. I break away and grab him now. Rob’s laughing and pleading. ‘You’re too good for me, Jack. Too good.’ I release his arm and he jumps me. ‘Never let your guard down, Jack.’

  Mum’s shaking her head, making the bright green clip in her hair wobble. It matches her bright green shorts. ‘Dinner’s ready.’

  The rice is definitely white and sticky. It sticks to the top of my mouth like glue. Samantha rolls the rice into little balls and makes a rice man with a carrot for his nose and peas for his eyes. Mum laughs and makes an even bigger rice man—Rob eats the head off and we all laugh.

  Usually we have unsticky brown rice. Mum’s made her soy sauce and chicken special and there is passionfruit cordial and brown bread. It is Mum’s usual excellent dinner. Rob likes Mum’s cooking and tells her. That makes her smile. The pink carnations are in a glass vase right in the middle of the table, so it’s hard to grab the bread without hitting it. Mum likes the carnations there.

  After dinner Rob and I have to clear the table and wash up. That’s a bad thing about Rob. Before Rob, Mum did it every night and I got to watch television, or go downstairs with Samantha and see what Anna was doing, or work on my plans for the car I’m going to build one day.

  Rob is a maniac washer. It’s like an operation. When Rob moved in, he bought special implements for the washing-up operation. A long-handled scrubbing brush, three new dishwashing sponges, a stainless steel pad, good quality detergent and a creme cleanser. The water has to be so hot that it nearly burns your hands off. Dishes are scraped, then rinsed, then piled into categories. The cutlery is in one pile, the big dinner dishes into another, the pots into another, the glasses…Then we’re ready to go. The BIG WASH.

  The dishes do look good after we have washed them and the sink is very clean afterwards. I guess I don’t mind helping and it means Mum doesn’t have to do it.

  Even though Rob makes me wash up, there are some okay things about him. Rob mucks around, wrestles, sometimes does a bit of rugby with me. Mum’s not good at that sort of thing, but she does take a ball down to the back of the units and throws a few baskets with me. Mum got the body corporate in the units to let her put up a basketball ring. Anna and Samantha play basketball too sometimes.

  Rob’s taking me to see a big rugby game next week—without Samantha, luckily. We’re going early to get a good place on the hill. I’ve never been before. When he asked me I felt funny. My friends, Christopher and Paul, go a lot with their dads. Their mums complain about it. I wanted Mum to complain, but she didn’t. She was just so happy and said she’d drive us there and pick us up. Rob said ‘no thanks’ because this was between Rob and me.

  We have to do things there, like eat hot dogs with sauce, talk about the game, stand up when a goal’s kicked, shout and boo and cheer. We’ll probably meet Christopher and Paul and their dads. We might hang around afterwards drinking lemonade (for me) and just one light beer for Rob. (He’ll be driving.) There’ll be rugby stuff to do.

  Can you believe that Mum won’t let me play rugby at school? I know I’d be good at it. But no. Mum says, ‘I don’t want your nose or anything else broken and you’ve got headache problems as well.’ As if that matters. ‘Jack, you know if anything happened to you…’ Mum gets choked up and I have to hug her. She needs me. What can I do?

  Rob tried to tell Mum. ‘Let Jack play rugby if he wants. He’s already eleven.’

  ‘That’s right. He’s ONLY eleven. Don’t
interfere, Rob.’

  ‘Don’t I have a right to say what I think?’ They had an awful argument and Rob stormed out of the house. Mum cried and I felt rotten and Samantha said it was my fault. Later Rob came back but it was horrible because they didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the night.

  Mum makes me play soccer. I like soccer, but it’s just that I’m too slow dribbling the ball. I would be okay at rugby because I’m getting bigger and stronger. Five Saturdays ago, the rugby and soccer teams were playing. Mum came to watch me play soccer of course. It started off badly and got worse as the day went on. Mum didn’t wear her bright green shorts. She wore something nearly as bad. A rainbow-coloured cotton dress. She loves that dress, mainly because Rob told her she looked pretty in it. She does look pretty in it, but it’s just that she doesn’t look like the other mothers. Then she forgot her promise and called me ‘darling’ in front of the whole rugby team.

  After the game Mum spoke to the coach and gave him a long lecture about how good soccer is and how dangerous rugby is. I tried to stop her, but that’s pretty impossible when Mum is on one of her causes. What was worse was that George Hamel was standing around and heard it all.

  George Hamel is a rugby player. He’s a front forward. A big front forward with muscles that stick out of his chest like hamburgers. He’s a real meathead. Joke. Joke. Do you get it? Hamburger. Meat. Seriously, he’s one big guy.

  I avoid George Hamel ever since I beat him in the handball game. It was bad enough beating him, but I made this joke. It was a great joke, except George Hamel didn’t like it much and that’s dangerous. George Hamel isn’t like Anna. He’s not the type to forgive you, even if you beg.

  I was pretty hyped up after beating him at handball. My side was cheering me and I called out to George Hamel, right in front of his team: ‘Do you know how to improve your handball team?’ I waited until everyone was listening. Then I put my huge foot right into my mouth. ‘You should leave it.’

  Everyone laughed. Luckily, the sports teacher was there because George Hamel would have made me one of his hamburgers. That was last year, but George Hamel never forgets.

  When Mum left to go to the car while I took off my soccer boots, George Hamel started to have a go at me. ‘Do you always do what your Mummy says, Jack? She looks so weird. You’re a weirdo.’ He was laughing. His mates were laughing with him, adding other stupid comments. ‘Yeah, Jack does what his weird Mummy says, don’t you?’ ‘Jack’s scared of a scrum, poor little thing.’ ‘Might get hurt, mightn’t you, Jacky?’

  I hated them calling Mum weird. I hated it but George Hamel was snarling by then. Actually, he looked like a hyena leading a pack of hyenas. He’d just lost his last game and was in a rotten mood. George Hamel is never allowed to lose anything. I could see he was going in for the kill. ‘Don’t want my little precious Jacky to get hurt. Precious little Jacky. Precious little Jacky.’ That George Hamel’s stupid. He can’t even think of new insults and keeps repeating himself. He actually started drooling and the pack

  behind him were drooling. ‘Does Mummy wipe your bum, too?’ Unluckily for me, he seemed to really enjoy the word ‘bum’ and kept saying it.

  I started to get a headache. What could I do? There were at least six of them snarling. The coach was on the other side of the field. Mum says to ignore ignorant people like that and they’ll go away. I tried to ignore them, but it is pretty hard when George Hamel’s standing over me and he’s got to be two metres tall. He didn’t go away. I wanted to say something, but my voice choked up. I just walked off. Didn’t say a word. I could hear George Hamel shouting out, ‘Go on. Run away. Run away Bum Head, Bum Head, Bum Head.’ Everyone could hear ‘Bum Head’ all the way across the oval and out the front gates.

  Mum was waiting in the car, smiling at me. ‘I was really proud of you on the soccer field today.’

  God, Mum knows nothing.

  George Hamel and his pack wait for me these days at the school gates. They sing out Bum Head, Bum Head, laughing so much that some of those meatheads fall over themselves. Don’t the teachers see them, hear them? Teachers are supposed to stop them. What am I supposed to do? Fight? Maybe I could take on George Hamel. I’d probably be killed.

  I want to talk to Mum, but she’s got no time. Too busy. She’s tired a lot. I’ve got to work this out myself. Mum depends on me. Well, there is Rob now, but I’m the one she counts on. What would she do if I didn’t carry the shopping up the three flights of stairs every week? And what about all the light bulbs and tap washers I’ve changed. Without me we’d be living in the dark with a flood of water sloshing through the lounge room.

  I hate worrying her. She’s been doing two shifts at work for the last three weeks. Mum says she wants to pay off as much of the mortgage as she can and she’ll have more time with us soon. When will that happen? Never. Never. Mum will just work and work and the mortgage will never be paid off and I’ll be dead. George Hamel will kill me.

  Ooooohhhh, my head hurts. Those lava burps inside really thump. I can feel my head bursting.

  4 Late for School

  Mum is stroking my head. ‘Wake up Jack. You’re late for school. Come on Jack, you have to get up. Samantha’s already dressed.’

  I open my eyes slowly. Yes, yes. I’m late. My plan has worked. Last night Rob talked Mum into making Samantha and I go to school today, even if I was sick. But I’m late, late, late. George Hamel and his idiot mates will be in class by the time I get there. I’ll be safe. At least, for a while.

  Rob’s already gone to work, so it’s just Mum, Samantha and me. I knew Mum would let me sleep in. She always does after I’ve been sick. I hold my head and struggle into the shower. Mum is sympathetic. This is going to be the longest shower in history. Oh, no, Samantha’s thumping on the bathroom door like a maniac. What does she want?

  ‘Hurry up, Jack. I need a wee. Urgently. You HAVE to get out of the shower. I’m bursting.’

  ‘Jack you’d better finish that shower.’ Mum knows that Samantha has a weak bladder.

  ‘Jack, Jack, I HAVE TO GO or I’ll wee in your room.’ Samantha’s banging and banging at the door. She means business.

  ‘Okay, okay, don’t panic,’ I wrap a towel around myself and emerge from the bathroom clean and late, very late. Samantha nearly knocks me over in the rush. A giant moan of relief comes from the bathroom.

  By the time I’m dressed and arrive at the kitchen, Mum’s special breakfast for sick kids is ready. Hot porridge. Not the instant kind made in the microwave oven, but the big rolled oats kind, cooked in a pot on the stove. Delicious. There’s brown sugar, milk and a daub of butter.

  ‘This will be good for you, Jack.’

  I slide onto the kitchen stool next to Samantha who’s already wolfing down her porridge and she isn’t even sick. Her bowl is on the place mat I made for her birthday. I took an excellent photograph of Puss and had the photograph laminated on the place mat. I made up an excellent joke that’s printed on the place mat. Samantha thought it was a very clever joke. Mum did too.

  What do you get when you cross Puss with a kangaroo?

  A purrfect jumper.

  Rob gave me my place mat. It’s the back end of a 1964 Valiant with a chrome bumper bar, wide red tail-lights and a number plate—000 JACK. I guess it’s a bit corny, but Rob had it specially made for me. I really like it.

  ‘Hurry up and finish the porridge, Jack.’ Mum’s washing the porridge pot at the sink. She doesn’t do as good a job at washing as Rob, but then Mum is always in a rush. ‘I’ll drop you both at school. I’ll be late too if we don’t get moving.’ Mum’s hair is fluffing everywhere as she grabs her bag. I guess it’s late enough now, so I move fast. My lunch box, books and a tennis ball are stuffed into my bag and I grab my wallet. It’s got the front door key, bus pass and emergency phone money to call Mum.

  ‘Come on Mum, Samantha.’ They’re so slow. I jump two steps at a time down the stairs.

  ‘Don’t do that, Jack. You’ll fall,’ I
hear Mum calling out after me. She always calls that out. I jump four steps in one go at the bottom. I’m aiming for a record. I think I’ll try for five steps next time. Samantha can jump three steps at a time.

  Mum’s car is a nine-year-old sedan that needs a new muffler. We sound like a farting elephant as Mum drives up to the school gates. I’m really, truly lucky that George Hamel is in class already.

  ‘If you feel sick, Jack, call me.’

  ‘Sure Mum,’ as if I would call. Mum could lose her job and then she’d never pay off the mortgage and then we’d be thrown out of home and end up on the streets and then Rob would leave us because he couldn’t afford to support us all. No, I’ll never ring Mum even if my leg is half hanging off or I have a giant nail in my foot or George Hamel smashes me to pieces. I shudder. George Hamel.

  Mum scribbles a quick note to my teacher explaining why I was away from school. Then she scribbles a note for Samantha saying why she’s late.

  Samantha walks with me into the yard. It’s not a good idea to walk into the yard with your sister, especially a younger one. You get harassed by idiot guys for that. Someone should tell them that half the world is made up of females and guess what? A lot of them are sisters. Anyway, there’s no-one to see us now AND I’ve got to face George Hamel soon. My head is aching. Samantha’s chattering about Puss who she loves and Mr and Mrs Napoli who promised to give us a mango each this afternoon. Samantha adores mangoes but Mum doesn’t buy them often because they’re expensive.

  ‘See you at the bus stop, Samantha.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re better Jack’ she says as she runs across the grass with her brown pigtails bobbing and her skirt flapping in the wind.