The Mudskipper Cup

by Christopher Cummings

  Fingers grabbed his hair and pulled painfully. A boot thudded into his lower ribs. Graham heaved and squirmed but lacked the strength. He saw Burford holding Margaret by one wrist while trying to trip her into the water again. Graham convulsed desperately and tried to call out to Margaret to run but his tongue was coated with sand and grass. The boot whacked in again. Pain lanced through his chest. He groaned and struggled.

  Suddenly the person on his back tumbled off. In front of Graham’s nose appeared a pair of highly polished, black ankle boots with dark blue, long socks above them. He got a glimpse of white clad figures. Someone trod on his hand as he tried to get up. A sailor’s cap rolled on the grass.

  Graham hauled himself to his knees, spitting grit and blinking.

  Sailors!

  No, Navy Cadets!

  Five of them. Three boys and two girls. And he knew them. He recognised Andrew Collins from 9A at his school just as that lad landed a solid punch on Macnamara’s jaw. ‘And the tall, shapely girl kicking Burford’s bum; she is Andrew’s big sister Carmen,’ he thought. Carmen was a Year 10.

  The bullies were routed in the first rush. They fell back across the lawn in haste. Someone helped Graham to his feet. It was Luke Karaku from 9C, his jet-black Melanesian skin in startling contrast to the white sailor shirt. White teeth grinned in the Torres Strait Islander’s face. The third boy was Blake, also from 9C.

  Burford and his cohorts backed off, hurling obscenities and insults. Carmen Collins restrained her brother. She was the oldest and wore the single gold anchor of a Leading Rating on her sleeve.

  “You thugs clear out, and mind your tongues or you’ll be up on a charge of obscene language as well as assault,” she called.

  The threat of legal action had an instant effect on the trio although they continued to bluster and pretend it didn’t.

  “Ah big talk! Yah wouldn’t be game ya slut,” Burford yelled. Harvey started walking away. Macnamara tugged at Burford’s sleeve as he shouted. “Anyway, you do ya bitch, you go near the coppers and we’ll get ya.”

  Andrew turned to his sister. “Come on Sis, let’s teach them a real lesson.”

  “No. They’re going. Let them go,” Carmen replied, smoothing her white dress.

  The three bullies headed off across the park. Graham wiped his eyes clear. “Thanks. I thought I was going to be beaten to pulp,” he said.

  “So did we,” Andrew replied with a laugh, his blue eyes dancing with good humour.

  Carmen knelt to help another female navy cadet remove strands of weed and muck from Margaret. “Are you alright Margaret?” she asked.

  Margaret sat on the grass, soaked from head to toe. Her brown hair was a straggle of weeds and mud and her white shorts and T-shirt were filthy.

  Graham knelt in front of her and took her hand. “Thanks Marg. You were great. You’re a brave little thing. But you should have stayed out of it.”

  She looked at him and smiled. Then tears started which she hastily wiped away. She sniffed. “I was so angry,” she said.

  Graham gestured to the others. “Oh. Marg. This is Carmen Collins, and this is her brother Andrew,” he explained.

  Margaret grinned at the older girl and they both laughed. “I know. She’s my patrol leader in the Guides. Or she was. She’s in Rangers now.”

  Carmen smiled and said to Margaret. “When I saw that bully Burford pushing you into the pond I was so wild. You were lucky we came along.”

  “Where were you going?” Graham asked.

  “We were just on our way home from our weekly Cadet Parade. We took a short cut through the park,” Carmen replied.

  Andrew nodded and looked puzzled. “I didn’t see you at cadets Graham. Aren’t you in the Navy Cadets anymore?” he asked.

  Graham shook his head. “No. No, I’m not,” he replied. He looked down. The wound was a bit too raw yet to want to talk about it. As soon as he had turned thirteen the previous August Graham had enrolled in the Navy Cadets. His greatest ambition, fiercely held ever since he was a little boy, had been to be a naval officer, to be the captain of a Destroyer. He had been so proud of that uniform. He thought wistfully of the times he had visited warships which called at Cairns. Saving the American cruiser USS Ticonderoga from the terrorist attack; then the trip to America just before Christmas to visit places like the world’s largest naval base at Norfolk, Virginia; and to stand on the deck of the Battleship Wisconsin, had been among the high points of his life.

  But the dream had been shattered soon after when he had discovered that his left eye was defective and he would never be able to join the navy; not as a General Service Officer anyway. It was the cruellest blow he had ever received and he was still reeling from it. One consequence was that he had dropped out of Navy Cadets. He had only attended a few more Saturday afternoon parades before quitting.

  Graham was about to make an explanation when his eyes met those of the other girl crouching beside Margaret. Lovely blue eyes and long blonde hair in the most delightful heart-shaped face. He opened his mouth but nothing came. She smiled.

  Carmen made the introduction. “This is Jennifer Jervis,” she said.

  Jennifer smiled. “Hello,” she said. “I’m sorry we weren’t in time to save your model ship.” Her voice was a gentle melody, with a distinct English accent.

  “She’s a ‘pommy’ migrant,” Andrew commented.

  Graham nodded. “What school do you go to? I haven’t seen you at ours,” he asked her.

  “No. I go to the Trinity Anglican School.”

  “What a lovely voice. What a lovely face!” Graham thought. His heart did a leap. He realised he was staring at her and looked away, blushing. His eyes met Margaret’s and read the hurt in them. He felt a twinge of shame. Poor kid.

  At that moment Luke joined them and saved the situation. “Here’s your model ship Graham. She’s a bit of a wreck.” he said, holding out the dripping ruin.

  Graham gasped in dismay. It was worse than he’d thought. The ship had rolled over and all the sails were wet and covered with algae. There was moss and slimy weed enmeshed in the tangle of broken masts, rigging and sails and the hull had taken a battering. Carefully he took the model from Luke and for a moment was too upset to speak. He had to fight back tears.

  Andrew shook his head. “The rotten mongrels!” he cried, voicing Graham’s thoughts.

  Margaret got up and touched Graham’s arm. “Oh Graham, I’m so sorry. It was such a pretty ship too.” She stood close to him and glared at the golden-haired Jennifer. She’d had enough of blondes after that little bitch Deslie Desmond in their Kuranda adventure two months earlier.

  ‘If only I was prettier!’ she thought. ‘I’m so plain. And all those freckles.’ She looked at Jennifer’s slim, honey-gold tanned legs and wished hers were like that instead of just being ordinary. ‘And if only I would start to develop some hips to give a bit of a curve at the waist instead of looking like an egg!’ she thought. She glanced enviously at the nicely rounded front of Jennifer’s white uniform. ‘How can I compete with that when I am nearly as flat as a board!’ she thought unhappily. She sighed.

  Graham put the model on the grass and looked at it in near despair. “What a mess! I’ll never get it fixed in time.”

  “In time for what?” Andrew asked.

  “A race against Peter Bronsky’s model in the holidays,” Graham replied. He explained the challenge. Andrew and Luke gently teased out some weed and tried to untangle the mess.

  Andrew studied the model. “I don’t know. It’s probably not as bad as it looks,” he said hopefully. All three boys crouched to examine the model.

  Carmen turned to Margaret. “Do you feel alright Margaret? Are you hurt?”

  “No Car. He didn’t hit me. Just twisted my arms and pushed me into the pond,” Margaret replied. She felt herself shiver. Tears were close but she fought them back.

  “Do you want us to take you home?” Carmen asked.

  Graham looked up. “I’ll do that. In
fact it’s time we were going.”

  Carmen looked from one to the other. “You tell your parents what happened. Don’t let those thugs bully you.”

  Margaret bit her lip and made no reply.

  Carmen persisted. “Promise me you will. You can’t let them make threats and stand over you or your life will just be misery. If you give in once they’ll make things worse. You have to stand up to them,” she insisted.

  Graham agreed. “Carmen’s right Marg. You have to stand up to mongrels like them no matter what. Besides, they’re bullies and they’re mostly bluff. They’re cowards. If you tell the police and they know it they’ll think twice before they annoy you again. We’ll do it together, OK?”

  Margaret met his eyes and nodded. Graham took her hand to comfort her then wished he hadn’t in case she (and Jennifer) got the wrong idea. Andrew stood up and handed him the model. That gave Graham the excuse he needed to let go without any fuss. Holding the model was a two-handed task. “Thanks again,” he said.

  Andrew smiled. “Always the navy’s job to pull people out of the muck,” he said. The others smiled and said goodbye then set off homewards, still laughing good naturedly.

  For a moment Graham stood and watched them in wistful envy. The white square-necked shirts and white shorts of the boys and the white uniform dresses of the girls seemed to glow even whiter in the afternoon sun, in vivid contrast to the lush tropical greenery of the park. He sighed. If only!

  Sadly he turned to Margaret and the pair set off in the opposite direction. The sun was just sinking behind Mt Mooroobool and Graham felt a sudden chill in his wet clothes. As he walked Graham looked at the wreck of the Artemis. “Poor old ship. What a waste. Why are people like that?” he commented. He shook his head sadly, mystified that any person could derive pleasure from smashing things or causing pain.

  Margaret touched his arm. “Never mind. You can build it again. You’ve still got two more weeks yet,” she replied encouragingly.

  “Yes, but I’ve also got end-of-semester exams and three assignments to finish,” Graham said gloomily. The last few months at school had been pretty miserable and he wasn’t doing very well. He had been getting into trouble a lot and not working.

  In a vague way he knew what the underlying problem was. It was motivation. When he’d discovered that his left eye wasn’t good enough to allow him to become a naval officer, or even a merchant navy officer like his dad, his world had seemed to crumble into a black pit of despair.

  It was all very well for people to say he could still be a technical officer in Electronics or Engineering but he was hopeless at Maths and Science and his heart wasn’t in it. He found it unbearable to stay in the Navy Cadets he had joined so proudly the previous year. Now he had tended to reject the lot.

  The only aspect of the sea he hadn’t emotionally tossed out was his model ships. He had hundreds of them. Seventy-five of them were sailing ships. They were all scratch built waterline models with fixed rigging which he pushed around the concrete floor under his house. They were manned by tiny plasticine men about two-centimetre high and had provided many hours of pleasure in their construction and in games.

  Graham also had over a hundred modern ship models. He had made these himself over the last couple of years. They were also waterline models and were made using photos, and from plans in his father’s books. The hulls were mostly scrap pine which had been sawn, rasped and sanded to shape; with superstructures of cardboard and balsa.

  His friends Peter and Max had shared in this and both had their own fleets which were currently based in Graham’s ‘Ship Room’ under his house. The friends fought many battles around the Ship Room or out on the lawn; but of late the models had just gathered dust.

  For three months all Graham’s creative energy had been put into the model of the Artemis. “I was so proud of her!” he thought as he looked bitterly at the mud spattered wreck in his hands. He had to fight down the urge to just throw it in the drainage ditch they were passing.

  CHAPTER 3

  REPAIRS

  It was only a few blocks to Margaret’s house. When they arrived there Graham outlined to her mother and father what had happened. To Margaret’s indignation he emphasised what had been done to her while barely mentioning what had happened to himself. She expressed herself forcefully about this.

  Mr Lake, a tall, thin postman, listened to the tale then shook his head. “All we could really claim is that they held Marg by the wrists and pushed her into the pond. I can’t see the police thinking that is serious. They’d be annoyed I would think if we took up their time over something they would just consider harmless children’s pranks.”

  “But Dad!” Margaret flared. “They really bashed Graham!”

  Graham could certainly feel his bruises but he said nothing. Mr Lake shook his grey head.

  “That’s as maybe. If you want to make an issue of it Graham you will need to get your parents to file a complaint. I would say you’d need to see a doctor as well to have some medical evidence.”

  Graham nodded. He didn’t really want to bother his mother. Nothing was broken, apart from his model.

  “My Dad’s not home. He’s due back from Port Moresby next Wednesday or Thursday,” he replied. What he didn’t add was that his father, a Ship Captain for thirty years, would not be interested unless it was really serious. Captain Kirk was a hard man. He expected boys to stand up for themselves; to fight their own battles. He thought it quite normal for boys to be rough and to fight. ‘Dad will only say: ‘if there is a gang of bullies you should organise your own gang,’ Graham thought.

  Mr Lake continued: “Well, we know to watch out for these bullies. I think it might be best if you were careful where you went and who you went with for a while. It might be best if Margaret only went out if she was with a larger group.”

  “Oh Dad!” Margaret wailed. Today had been the first time she could ever remember when she had been out alone with Graham and she had enjoyed it so much. “We’ll be alright. Truly! Graham will look after me!”

  Her father gave a thin smile. “It’s not that I don’t have confidence in Graham. It’s just that on the face of today’s performance he can only deal with one or two bullies, not three. So there it is, you go with a group or not at all. I’m sorry.”

  Margaret nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Her mother wiped her hands on her apron and put a sympathetic arm around her shoulder.

  Graham didn’t mind. He was pleased that Mr Lake trusted him; and it would save him to some extent from Margaret’s attempts to win his affections. “That’s alright sir. I’d better be getting home,” he said. He picked up the broken model, gave a grin and started down the stairs. “See you later,” he called. Margaret stood at the door and waved goodbye.

  It was dusk by the time Graham pushed open his own front gate. He left the model on the work bench under the house and went up the back stairs to the bathroom. His mother called from the kitchen telling him that dinner was ready. But he didn’t want to see her until he had inspected the damage in a mirror.

  To his dismay his clothes were all muddy and two buttons were missing from his shirt. Worse still he had the beginnings of a big black eye and his head throbbed. He peeled off the shirt and gingerly felt his ribs. There were two ugly bruises there and another on his right thigh.

  For a moment he considered whether it was a police matter. It was not an idea that appealed. It didn’t seem serious enough. “I will just organise things better to avoid another bashing,” he told himself. And there would be an opportunity for revenge if he wanted it.

  ‘Every dog has his day,’ he muttered as he turned on the shower, but it wasn’t a strong emotion. Bearing a grudge wasn’t part of his make-up.

  Over dinner he did tell his mother an outline of the story. She had, after all, been curious about the black eye. She was somewhat resigned to her offspring coming home a bit the worse for wear from whatever their latest adventure was. In spite of that, she made little
attempt to check their exploits. She believed that it was better they grow up independent and confident than over-protected; and had a great faith in their basic common sense.

  By this time Graham felt a bit of a hero. The black eye was almost a badge of valour in the eyes of his big brother Alex who, heaven only knew, had given him more than a couple in the past. His little sister Kylie, who was Margaret’s friend, was more concerned but clapped with approval at his description of Carmen Collins kicking Burford into the pond.

  “Oh good thing! Carmen would have enjoyed that. She hates boys who bully girls,” she said.

  “She’s lucky he didn’t get up and smash her one,” Graham replied. “He was that wild he was like an angry bull.”

  “Lucky for him he didn’t try,” his sister retorted. “Carmen’s got a Black Belt in Judo.”

  “Aw so what? If he wanted to flatten her he would have. Girls can’t beat boys in a fight,” Graham sneered.

  “Oh we can so! Brain will beat brawn any time,” Kylie retorted. Her brown eyes flashed fire.

  Graham snorted. “Brains! Girls are dumb. If Burford had got hold of her...”

  Kylie cut in. “She would have kicked him in the...”

  “Kylie!” their mother interjected. “That will do young lady. We will have no talk like that in this house. Now stop bickering and eat your dinner the pair of you.”

  The two relapsed into silence but continued to make faces at each other. Kylie boiled at her brother’s sexism. She got so tired of him and Alex telling her that girls weren’t as good as boys. Stupid great oafs! She would show them!

  After dinner Graham cleared the study desk in his bedroom and spread newspaper on it. Then he carried the model upstairs and placed it there. Kylie joined him. Graham threw up his hands. “What a mess! Oh bugger it!” he groaned. He sat and shook his head.