by Neal Davies
There were quite a few sighs of relief at that statement, especially from the twins who were still feeling a little nauseated by the mere thought of the smell that had filled the air earlier. Sean paused for a second as if to capture the essence of that moment for posterity and then said, “Ok, Brian,” and Brian immediately opened fire on the target. On impact the paintballs left an imprint that looked exactly like bird poo.
Sean then said, “As you can see from this example the substance is indistinguishable from bird droppings. This gun is modified to shoot with very little sound from a distance of one thousand feet with pin-point accuracy which leaves the shooter undetectable.”
With pride Sean held the paintball up to us, rested between his thumb and index finger, and said, “The best thing about this little beauty is that once you’re hit with it, it takes two days for the odour to disappear, unless of course you have a neutraliser like the liquid that’s contained in those spray bottles on the table.”
And with a touch of sarcasm and a huge grin on his face he said, “Oh, yes. I forgot to mention that I’m the inventor of the neutraliser and the bottles in this room are the only ones of their kind. So it seems that if the bullies were to accidently get some of this bird poo on them, then they’d have to wait two days before anyone would want to go near them. That’d be a shame, wouldn’t it?”
The room buzzed with laughter and gossip about how the gun could be used in the future. We could all visualise Wally and his gang getting a dose of the paintballs and trying to get the smell off their skin, hair and clothes.
We had just begun to congratulate the boys on their efforts when Sean said, “Thanks, but that was just the fun part for me. What I have in my pocket is what I think will stop the bullying once and for all. Brian came up with the idea and Harry, Bonnie and I put the concept together.”
Sean pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and asked us to accompany him to the monitor room. He asked Harry to take over and Harry took the pen and removed the base of it and pulled a small adaptor cord from his pocket. He put the smaller plug into the end of the pen and the larger plug at the other end into the computer. We were absolutely amazed when we saw the information on the pen being relayed to our big screen. It was a replay of the events that had taken place in the meeting over the past hour. Everyone laughed when they saw me up there with the beads of sweat on my forehead and the fear in my eyes when I was about to open the box for the first time. They stopped laughing though when they saw themselves diving under the table when Bungles put his finger in the slime. The twins and Gerry watched themselves retching when he removed it again.
What amazed me more than anything was the versatility of the camera and how it focused on different images around the room. I was so stunned by its technology that I had trouble stringing a sentence together and I said, “How the? What the? Where...?”
Harry looked at me like a genius would a simpleton and said, “Elementary, dear Dylan, elementary. This little thing is a 24 megapixel video recorder with an automatic inbuilt zoom and microphone and has adaptors for any DVD, iPod or digital TV you can find.”
The meeting had been very productive and when it eventually came to an end we had more than enough plausible ideas with which to hang Wally and his crew out to dry. All that remained was for Gerry and me to develop a plan on the best way to put those ideas into action.
13
SOME LEARN SLOWER THAN OTHERS
The big day for action arrived and Peter “Tap Out” Lew was walking up the path towards the school when he spotted Bungles and Roo.
As he drew closer to them he could hear Roo saying to Bungles, “Go on, mate, take your best shot. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Bungles said, “All right then, here goes.”
Bungles pretended to hit Roo as hard as he could in the midriff but Roo stood there without flinching and said, “I told you I’ve been working on my abs. What do you think?”
“Incredible!” replied Bungles, an astonished look on his face.
Peter was keen to get a piece of the action and walked up to Roo with a snarly look on his face and said, “Let me have a go, fool.”
Roo replied in a quivering voice, “No way! You’re going to hurt me.”
Peter put a patronising grin on his face and said, “Hey, come on. I won’t hit you that hard, and it’s only fair I get a shot too.”
Roo was looking very sheepish at this stage and replied, “Do you promise you won’t hurt me?”
Peter shrugged his shoulders, showed Roo the palms of his hands and said, “Of course not, mate. I wouldn’t do that to you. Now tighten up those abs of yours and you won’t feel a thing.”
Roo frowned and replied, “Are you sure this won’t hurt?”
Peter was now growing impatient and snapped back, “Just do it!”
Roo stood rigidly upright with his eyes shut. Peter gave out one of his stupid piercing screams and then let rip with the hardest punch he could. His fist thundered into Roo’s gut and made a sickening thud.
“Ah! Oh! Ah!” Peter cried as he dropped to his knees while grasping his fist with his other hand.
Roo stood there looking down at Peter and said, “You’re right, mate. I didn’t feel a thing. Thanks for being gentle with me.” Roo walked off with his arm straddling Bungles’ shoulder and said, “Well, I guess my abs are better than I thought they were.”
Bungles smiled at his good mate and replied, “Very impressed, old mate, very impressed indeed.”
They quickly rounded the corner of the school building and Roo lifted his shirt revealing a solid metal plate which was designed to look like a midriff. He removed it and placed it in his bag and then looked at Bungles with a grin.
“Well, that worked a treat. Did you get all the action?”
Bungles pulled the pen out of his top pocket and waved it gently in the air.
“Yes mate, it’s all here.”
Bungles was so excited he forgot to watch where he was going and almost went head over heels after getting one of his feet caught behind the other one. Roo grabbed him by the arm before he completely went over and said, “Good, mate, but maybe you might consider me taking the camera for now.”
“No worries,” replied Bungles as he handed it over.
Peter went to the First Aid room and was later sent for x-rays where they found he had a fracture in one of his knuckles. He was way too embarrassed to tell anyone the truth about how it happened and he didn’t return to school for a few days.
The lunch bell rang and it was Brian and Sean’s turn to spring into action. The boys headed straight to the shelter shed where two paint guns and camouflage sheets were hidden on the roof. Brian cupped his hands and boosted Sean up to grab them and then they headed off toward the football ground. At the same time Carla and Bonnie had collected four boxes filled with pigeons that they had rented for $50 off one of the other students and had stashed under a bush on the opposite of the oval to Brian and Sean.
We all knew Wally and his boys (except for one) would be at the ground having a smoke so it was the perfect place for Brian and Sean to set their trap. The boys crawled like combat troops to their positions on high ground where they couldn’t be seen lying under the cover of their camouflage sheets.
Brian whispered to Sean, “Are you ready, mate?”
Sean leant forward with his eye focused down the barrel of the gun and replied, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Brian clumsily reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out his mobile phone and then texted a message to Carla which simply said, “Go.”
He then immediately lay back down to take aim.
Within seconds Carla and Bonnie had set the pigeons on their way across the ground and toward the gang. As they flew directly over Wally and his mates, the boys opened fire with the paint guns and in a very short time each of the bullies had been hit by a paintball carrying its putrid substance.
Wally and his crew had no idea it was anything but the pigeons that had
bombarded them. They were sent home from school that day due to the stench coming from their hair and clothing which was making quite a few of the other students physically ill.
We thought the gang may have learnt a lesson from all of this but they came back to school even worse than before. Soon some of the younger students were again handing over their lunch money or walking around holding back the tears due to the thumping they had taken at the hands of these thugs. Enough was enough. The final stage of our plan needed to be put into action.
During one recess, Carla approached the gang armed with the camera pen inside her top blazer pocket and gave Wally one of those smiles that a young man can’t resist. She said, “Hi guys. How are you going?”
Wally was keen on any girl who gave him a smile or for that matter even talked to him, so he replied, “Hello gorgeous. I’m good. How are you doing?”
He panned his eyes over his crew and gave them a smile and winked. They all grinned back in a sleazy way and began saying things like: “Go Scar,” “Smooth”, and “You’re the man.”
With the boys urging him on, Wally puffed out his chest like a rooster in a henhouse and said, “So what’s up, sweet lips?”
Carla hung her head a little and then brought her eyes up to meet his. She had a sad expression on her face when she said, “I just needed to talk to someone and you look like the type of guy that would understand what someone like me is going through.”
At this point you could almost see his brain ticking over by his expression. Not only was a girl talking to him but she was vulnerable as well. Wally grinned and nudged Andrew Humphries a couple of times as if to say: “I’ve got this one in the bag.” He put on a face that was supposed to show concern, but it looked more like a goldfish blowing bubbles, and he replied in a voice that resembled someone talking to a baby. “Is someone giving you a hard time? Do you want us to take care of it?”
Even though he was creeping her out Carla gave him another starry-eyed look and said, “No. It’s ok. It’s just Mr Gowdy. He’s picking on me a lot lately and although you guys seem to be able to deal with almost every situation this one is way out of your league.”
The trap had been set for the rat to put his head in it and Carla had the perfect bait – Wally’s pride.
All of a sudden the smirk left his face and he said, “Whoah! Hold up there. What do you mean out of our league?”
His head flew from one side to the other to eyeball the other guys and then back to Carla. She felt his steely eyes piercing hers and a chill ran down her spine. Carla could now understand the fear and intimidation that Sean and Brian felt during their ordeal and her fear soon turned to anger. Brian had become like a younger brother to her.
Carla knew she had to pull her emotions into line for the club’s plan to work and she just listened when Wally said, “Out of our league! Do you think Gowdy is out of our league boys? Fists, what do you think?”
Andrew replied, “No way. Not that old fart!”
Wally looked at Paul. “What about you, Cutter? What do you think?”
Paul shook his head and said, “No way man. He’s a stupid idiot!”
Wally was grinning again and he said to Chris, “What do you think, Pistols? Do we have a problem?”
Chris was standing next to Peter and they were both chuckling. Chris replied, “I had a pet pig that was smarter and cleaner than Gowdy. What do you reckon, Tap Out?”
Peter said, “That little bald man needs me to polish that shiny little head of his!”
Carla knew she had them eating out of her hands and said, “That’s great saying all that but no one has ever really stood up to Mr Gowdy.”
Wally crossed his arms and poked his chin out while placing his head towards one shoulder. He smirked and said, “Well we have, haven’t we, boys?”
All the guys smirked as well, like it was some stupid new fad, and replied, “Sure have, Scar.”
Wally’s ego had fully eclipsed his capacity to think through the information he was about to divulge to Carla and he said, “Remember that time Mr Gowdy brought his favourite bonsai plant to school, the one that took him ten years to grow? And do you remember how someone cut it into little pieces?”
Carla watched as his grin stretched from ear to ear and said, “Was that you?”
Wally replied, “Not just me. The boys and I are a team and after that silly old fool had finished giving us hell one recess, we snuck up to his office and mutilated his stupid little bush.”
Carla gave him one of those looks that showed that she was not only impressed by his story but wanted to hear more and said, “You guys are incredible.”
Wally couldn’t help himself and continued, “That’s nothing. Before that we put holes in his favourite umbrella and another time we superglued the lock on his office door so he couldn’t get in the next morning. So if that old ass thinks he’s untouchable he has another think coming.”
Carla smiled and said, “Well thanks, boys. You’ve really cheered me up and made my day, but I have to go now or I’ll be late for class.”
Carla began to walk away and Wally yelled out from behind her, “No worries babe, and maybe the next time we meet we can have a little more privacy. A one on one, if you know what I mean.”
The gang chuckled amongst themselves and Carla thought to herself, “In your dreams, loser.” Then she pulled the pen from her pocket and smiled knowing that the bullying at the school would soon come to an end.
That weekend Harry spent hours editing the film to ensure that all club members had been cut from it so it couldn’t be traced. Every Monday, assembly was held in the old converted church on the school grounds, and club members had been hard at work on the projector and the power point that Mr Gowdy would use to show the previous week’s achievements and negatives.
Sean had rigged Mr Gowdy’s computer so we could operate what we wanted to show by using our own remote control. As well, he’d made the remote look like a calculator so it wouldn’t be detected if our bags were searched.
Gerry had the remote, and halfway through Mr Gowdy’s lecture she flicked the play button and the fun began. The first thing that came up was Peter breaking his knuckle. The film only showed Roo’s stomach and no higher. Then came the gang talking about “Old Gowdy” and what they had done to him.
At this point Wally and his band of thugs were slinking down in their seats. Mr Gowdy had gone as red as a tomato and was peering over his glasses scanning the room full of students like a lion searching out prey.
Miss Fickle was on a chair and banging on the overhead projector after not being able to turn it off via the remote. The students had broken into fits of laughter as they watched the pigeons fly over and drop their load on the gang and then the students throwing up and holding their noses in the school’s corridor.
Mr Gowdy yelled at the top of his voice, “QUIET!”
Even Miss Fickle stopped banging on the projector.
Gerry quickly hit the remote and the power point came back on. Gerry slipped the remote back into the bag on the ground next to her. Mr Gowdy had finally figured out where the boys were and pointed at them and said, “You, you, you, you and you, go to my office now and wait. I will attend to you shortly. As for the rest of you, I want to know who is responsible for what has happened here.”
We all sat there, silently knowing that this had been a very successful mission and there was no way that we were going to fail on the final leg of it.
Mr Gowdy said, “Ok then, if no one wants to own up then everyone gets two days’ of detention!” He stormed out of the room and was quickly followed by Miss Fickle and then the teachers, who seemed to be smiling. As for the rest of the students they didn’t seem to be distressed about having to do two days of detention. Most of them were relieved and happy that Wally and his crew had finally copped their just desserts. It was only through some pleading from their parents and a rather large donation to the school that saved Wally and his gang from expulsion but from that day o
n they never bullied another student and were rarely seen hanging out together.
14
THE DIARY
One afternoon during recess I was walking up the corridor to my locker when Mr Gowdy approached and caught me a little off guard.
“Come here, boy. Where did you get that ring from?” he growled while peering over the top of his glasses.
My mind was racing which didn’t help matters and I was having trouble putting a sentence together. I felt like a little boy who had been caught red-handed in the lolly jar.
As he drew closer he opened fire again, “Well?”
I told him a few of us had seen it on some of the other students and liked it so much we each got one.
“RUBBISH!” he replied. “Kids have been wearing those rings since I went to school here!”
“Oh, that’s great!” I replied happily. “I’ve been trying to find out where they originated from. Maybe you can tell me something about them, Sir.”
Mr Gowdy’s brow wrinkled and his eyes lit up and pierced through me like a laser beam.
“Don’t try and pull the wool over my eyes! I know there’s a group of you wearing them. In fact, there are two students from each school level with one, and all of them are staying at the boarding house. What sort of secret club are you running?”
We had all been trained to remain calm at a time like this and I knew if I didn’t then Old Gowdy would tear me to shreds with his interrogation. Putting on my most innocent face and working hard at sounding sincere I replied, “No secret club, Mr Gowdy. There are rules against that sort of thing, Sir, and we have been told that clubs aren’t allowed. You yourself told us if any one of us were to break the school rules it would mean instant suspension with possible expulsion to follow.
“I love it here way too much to throw it all away on a silly club.”
Mr Gowdy became fidgety and I knew I had him on the ropes. He was a very impatient man, who only liked the sound of his own voice, so the longer I kept talking the more impatient he would become so I continued.