by John Michael
At that moment, we collapsed from exhaustion as the merciless sun beat down on us and finally, we gasped our last breaths. Barney looked at me with a solemn expression and mumbled his final words. “Avenge me Howie. Avenge my death.” I responded with a hollering cry. “No! Take me instead!” And then I collapsed. And that was that. We had both kicked the bucket.
Our funerals were a mournful affair, as funerals often are. Principal Ditherington provided a long (very long) eulogy and, yes, he did interweave unicorns into his speech. I won’t bore you with all the intricate details but the phrases “brave heroes,” “valiant and noble young men,” “courageous souls” and “ravenous appetite” were mentioned throughout the eulogy, a lot. Well, that last term was used exclusively for Barney but, on the whole, the funeral was well attended and there were tears aplenty. The one upside to our untimely deaths was that they did finally fire Corporal Punishment, he would never be able to inflict his torment on another poor student.
I opened my eyes and snapped out of my pirate nightmare, only to find myself back in the gym hall, facing my basketball nightmare. In comparison, I couldn’t decide which scenario was worse − the funeral or the suspense of whether or not the ball would go in. I watched as the ball circled the rim one more time, I didn’t want it to end this way -with Mr Perriman screaming out pirate insults at us and then us having to attend our own funerals. It just wasn’t fair... we were only fifteen minutes late!
I was on tenterhooks... the ball was
The entire class erupted in wild cheers – everyone was high fiving each other. Even Barney joined in the celebrations, he had forgotten about his torn shorts. It was moments like these where you just didn’t give two hoots if someone sees your underpants − even if they did have Sesame Street characters on them.
Cheers of jubilation continued to echo all around the hall. This was the first time in living memory that Corporal Punishment hadn’t been able to dish out some punishment and it was a collective victory. The teacher just stood there on the sideline, lifeless like an oversized mannequin, not knowing how to react. I could feel his eyes on me, then finally he stirred and strode towards me with that large gait of his and his giant fists all balled up.
“Here it comes,” I thought. “Mr Perriman is going to squash me like a gnat with those meaty paws of his!” I closed my eyes and waited for my inevitable doom.
“Well, well, well,” he uttered. “That was good work Howard! I better see you at basketball tryouts next Wednesday. It starts after school on the courts. Be there!”
I opened my eyes and noticed that for once Mr Perriman didn’t have a scowl on his face. I mean, he wasn’t smiling or anything, but he didn’t look like he was passing a kidney stone either.
“Yeah, sure sir... see you there,” I replied.
I didn’t really want to try out for the basketball team but, hey, Mr Perriman finally got my name right! And that was good enough for me.
Chapter nine
fishpot
The clang, clang, clang of the lunchtime bell was a welcome relief. To say that it had been an eventful morning was an understatement and it was only halfway through the school day − first the school break-in, then being hassled by Corporal Punishment, and then my whole basketball-maths adventure... or was it a maths-basketball adventure? I still wasn’t sure. I felt like I had just been to an amusement park and had ridden all the rides at once − the gravitron, the roller-coaster, the pendulum, the caterpillar, the kamikaze and, yes, even the pirate ship. Unlike the times I had actually been on those rides, I hadn’t barfed as yet but I certainly was feeling a little woozy.
The good news for Barney was that he had found some spare shorts in his locker and could reclaim his modesty. I had no idea about his Bert and Ernie fondness and sometimes such things are best left unsaid, even amongst friends. He was already munching away through his third sandwich like he didn’t have a care in the world, the horror of having to run laps around the oval already a distant memory.
“Fonks bor pettin doz bazgets en miaowee!” muttered Barney.
For a second I thought that Barney was speaking in tongues but then I realised that he was still finishing off his last few bites of food.
“What was that Barney?”
“Fonks bor pettin doz bazgets en miaowee!” he repeated.
At times I thought that Barney’s middle name should be Mumbles. I had no idea what he was saying − he was as clear as a jabbering toddler sitting beside a babbling brook.
“Barn! Remember what we talked about in the past? Chew then swallow!”
He then gulped down the mouthful of food and tried again.
“Thanks for getting those baskets in Howie!”
“Yeah, well... it seemed to have all worked out in the end... who would have thought?”
“You have great stats for a rookie Howard. For an opening game, you are at 100%. Just look at the Quockingpoll Flats Rockets this last season − you’re up there with Walt Pazlowski’s 3 for 3 and he went on to a scoring average of 16.4, rebounds per game at 6.7, and assists per game averaging 3.8!”
“Um... thanks for the vote of confidence Barney but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to join the Quockingpoll Flats Rockets just yet.”
“Well, maybe not just yet but you should definitely look into –”
“Plus, Mr Perriman wants to sign me up as his star player for the school team! Have you forgotten already?”
We both laughed, imagining the terror of being coached by Corporal Punishment before and after school, every day, five days a week. Then, suddenly, I was having that familiar sensation of cogs whirring away in my brain. Clues, signs and suspicion were falling into place and they were all pointing in the same direction.
“Perriman!” I muttered.
“What about him?”
“Perriman!” I repeated.
“Don’t worry, he’s no longer around.”
I yelled.
“Um... this is getting awkward now Howie.”
“Don’t you see Barney! It was Perriman – the break-in, the trophy, the cash! It all makes perfect sense.”
“You mean Corporal Punishment stole the trophy? But why?”
“As punishment!”
“Huh? I’m lost Howie.”
“Mr Perriman got banned from the student versus teacher dodgeball games, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And he dislikes the academic pursuits here at school, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“He would love to turn this entire school into some kind of sports academy!”
“I guess so.”
“Just one Gym lesson after another.”
“Ugh! No thanks!”
“If it was up to Mr Perriman, there’d be no Great Quiz − instead we’d have the Great Games!”’
“The Great Games?”
“It was punishment Barney! He wanted to punish the school for having an academic focus! So he stole the trophy!”
“That’s terrible!”
“Perriman would certainly be strong enough to bust through that foyer door!”
“He could run through a brick wall!” yelped Barney.
“And he’d be able to carry that trophy off with no effort!”
“Yeah he could... but Howie?”
“Yes Barney?”
“The burglary happened last night, right?”
“Yes it did! That’s what Eugene told us.”
“Wasn’t Mr Perriman running the school Fat Camp for the last three days?”
“Fat Camp? What Fat Camp?”
“The Fat Camp that the school runs every year.”
“Hmm... that’s odd. I never heard about it.”
“Mr Perriman sent a letter to my mum, insisting that I should go!”
“When did this so-called Fat Camp finish?”
“They all arrived back early this morning.”
“Hmm... interesting point! I guess I overlooked that one minor detail.
Good call Barney!”
“Ha ha Howie... you had me going there. I thought we’d be finally rid of Corporal Punishment!”
“No such luck Barn. No such luck at all!”
At that very moment a freckly face popped up from behind a shrub, like a jack in the box, and gave us both a fright.
“Oh! It’s you Freckles,” gasped Barney.
“Hi Barney... I’ve come for another round of Klonkers.”
“Oh, you have, have you?” replied Barney.
Klonkers was brought into Quockingpoll Flats by the early Scandinavian settlers. It was an ancient game which dated back to Viking times when men would settle their differences by ‘klonking’ each other on the head with big stones. These days, of course, that sort of behaviour was frowned upon and the game became less about brawn and more about tactics. It was a contest of strategy and risk and the game was a cross between checkers and conkers. Each opposing player had a king and three defenders, represented by a larger stone with a leather strap through the centre and three smaller plain stones. You drew a pentagram on the ground and placed your four stones on any point or intersection on the star. The object of the game was to jump your opponent’s piece and whoever captured the king was the winner of the first stage and would have the privilege of beginning the ‘klonking’ of the next stage. This second stage of the game was the sudden death phase where the leather straps of the king stones were unwound and each player would dangle their stone, taking turns ‘klonking’ each other’s king until one would break.
“You’ve come back for another defeat then?” enquired Barney.
“You should really take off that mask when you’re talking to me, it’s not Halloween yet!”
“Oh really Freckles? Talking about Halloween... your face is all trick and no treat!” retorted Barney.
“Well, your face could stop a herd of stampeding brabbensacks!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!” shrieked Freckles.
“Bring it on Freckle-Face!” screamed Barney.
This type of trash talk was common banter before commencing a game of klonkers — in fact, it was somewhat of a ritual. Apparently the Vikings* would use a barrage of insults in order to get the adrenaline pumping in preparation for their intense klonking battles. Of course, the nature of such trash talk had changed significantly since those days. Some of the old Viking smack-downs had lost their lustre and just didn’t have the same impact nowadays. If someone called you ‘a stuffed, gorbellied sheep-sack of spongy, dankish walrus entrails’ or said that you ‘reek like the greasy tallow-catch of a fishmonger’s yeasty fishpot’ or stated that your mother was ‘an infectious, lumpish, full-gorged vat of barnacled whale blubber,’ you’d probably just walk away. Despite their grizzly beards and fierce reputation, Vikings could be quite sensitive and any mockery involving dankish walruses, yeasty fishpots or whale blubber would be an offence to one’s honour and could only be settled with some hard-core klonking.
In regard to modern day klonking, Barney had been on a lucky streak lately. He was undefeated and was developing a bit of a reputation amongst the playground klonkers crowd. He had gone twenty games without a loss and I had even heard a nickname starting to do the rounds, Barney the Brute.
It was risky business accepting Freckle’s challenge during lunchtime and out in the open like this. Klonkers had been banned ever since the Van der Hoosen incident. It was a klonkers showdown like any other but the leather strap broke and one of the king-stones went flying through the louvre windows of the staff toilets, resulting in a cacophonous of and glass. Mr Van der Hoosen, our English teacher, came charging out of the bathroom, trying to pull up his trousers and run at the same time (while clutching a roll of toilet paper in his hand). He had almost made it clear of the building when he tripped and went head over heels into a bush of barbed brambles and stinging nettles. It took over half an hour to free the teacher from the prickly ropes of thorns and the bristly needles. As he was led away, with his clothes torn, face swollen and hair dishevelled, he screamed out “the horror, the horror,” before fainting altogether.
If Barney and Freckles were to finish their game they would have to get a move on, time was ticking away and lunch was about to end. A small crowd gathered around the two combatants with eager excitement. At that very moment the teacher on playground duty walked past and everyone pretended that they were just your typical bored teenagers, standing around aimlessly and staring at the ground with intense boredom.
“How’s it going boys?” the teacher asked.
There was an immediate smattering of typical one-word answers and grunts to get the teacher off our backs and to trick her into thinking that everything was as per normal.
“Dunno.”
“Good.”
“Yep.”
“Nothing.”
“Alright.”
“Ugh.”
“Duh!”
“Hmm... great conversation,” she replied and carried on with her lap of the playground.
As soon as the teacher was out of sight, everybody huddled around Barney and Freckles once more. The atmosphere was intense. Would Barney be victorious? Would Freckles cause an upset? Alistair Doncaster, our resident commentator for every match of klonkers, stepped up to the mark. His family had migrated from Britain and he was one of the older students in the year. In a more official capacity, he was also the public announcer at the school swimming carnival and athletics competition.
“Welcome everybody. It’s a spectacular afternoon as we gather at the end of lunch today. This will undoubtedly be a stirring match, one for the ages.
“In the one corner, we have Barney the Brute, a most gallant dabbler in the art of klonking with an enviable sequence of twenty games without a defeat. We haven’t seen anything like this since Caspian Suzlakov, just on two years ago, with his glorious run during what is now famously known as the Summer of Suzlakov.
“And in the opposing corner we have Rufus Magee, better known as Freckles, a most worthy adversary − attempting to establish a name for himself in this rather demanding arena of klonking. Make no mistake about it, this will be a fierce battle with no quarter asked, and no quarter given. Today we shall see the separation of the wheat from the chaff or, to be more precise, the men from the boys. Only one of these heroic gladiators shall sip from the cup of victory and taste adulation and glory, while the loser will leave with naught but humiliation and disgrace in this cruel and unforgiving game.”
“Hurry it up Alistair! We’ve got four and a half minutes before the teacher makes her round again!” yelled one of the students as he pointed at his watch in an animated fashion.
“Yes of course,” responded Alistair, “gentleman, let the games begin!”
Barney and Freckles quickly set up their stone pieces on a pentagram star which they drew in the sand under a nearby oak tree.
It was a fast and furious start, although Barney was making some calculated moves, it was obvious that Freckles had been practising and in no time at all he had taken possession of all of Barney’s pieces. Barney let out a deflated sigh as they both stood up and prepared for the ‘klonking’ part of the game and started to unravel the leather straps on their king pieces.
Alistair quickly stepped in between the two players and started to provide the obligatory half-time report while they got ready. “Well... it seems that the tables have turned here for Barney the Brute who, to be honest, hasn’t lived up to his name. In a surprising turn of events, Freckles has completely decimated the standing champion and will have the advantage of starting this next stage. Will this be the end of Barney’s winning streak? Will this be the beginning of a new era − the reign of Freckles the Fantastic perhaps? One wonders what Barney must be going through − the intense psychological pressure he must be experiencing at this very moment. If one were to look up ‘dejected’ in the Cambridge Dictionary, one might very well find a picture of Barney and if one were to look up the word ‘plucky,’ one would most like
ly see a picture of young Freckles’ freckly face. Needless to say, Freckles is certainly looking the more confident of the two with his resolute and steely gaze. Only time will tell the outcome of this bruising battle as there can be only one winner, and to the victor go the spoils while the loser will eat humble pie and taste bitter defeat.”
“We’ve got two minutes and thirteen seconds before the teacher comes round again!” yelled the time keeper.
“Righto... let stage two begin!” proclaimed Alistair.
The spotlight was once again on the two competitors − they were circling each other like a couple of jungle cats. Freckles started to spin his king piece, faster and faster, he was beginning to build some momentum and then, like a cobra, his stone flung out with lightning speed and gave Barney’s piece an almighty whack.
The sound reverberated around the playground. All the students quickly scoured the terrain to make sure that the distinct klonking sound hadn’t attracted some snooping teacher who would immediately give us all detention. Everybody waited a few seconds and seeing that the coast was clear, we all turned our attention back to the game. Barney checked his king piece, the circle of students around him leaned in to get a closer look.
“Still good,” uttered Barney in disbelief, and it was Freckles who let out a deflated sigh this time. It was indeed a punishing klonk from Freckles and everybody was surprised that Barney’s piece hadn’t shattered into a thousand pieces.
Alistair resumed his commentary. “Oh my! Freckles has given it his all but it seems that Barney lives another day. The gods of fortune are certainly smiling upon him... and now for Barney’s strike. Just a few seconds ago, he was down and out. But now it seems, he has risen like a phoenix from the ashes. The question on everyone’s lips is, can Barney snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?”
Barney started to spin his king piece with a confident swagger, this time the resolute and steely gaze belonged to him and Freckles seemed a tad hesitant and unsure − you could see it in his movements and in his expression. Once again they circled each other, while maintaining eye contact and simultaneously keeping track of each other’s king piece. The suspense was like waiting for the guillotine to drop at a public execution. We were all holding our collective breath and just when we thought that the two of them would dance around each other for eternity, Barney’s arm shot out like a bolt of lightning.