Turn off the Lights

by Phillip Gwynne

  When he told us that the state titles were a great opportunity to, and I quote, ‘enhance the school’s brand’, Charles caught my eye and we exchanged smiles. After the principal had finished it was Coach Sheeds’s turn to talk.

  There was no Hakuna Matata. No ‘pain is inevitable, suffering is optional’.

  She seemed uncharacteristically nervous. Maybe the change-room gossip was true: if she didn’t get results this season, Coach Sheeds was going to get the old heave-ho.

  After she’d finished, there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Pizza!’ said Rashid.

  ‘Blood!’ said Dracula.

  He was right, the door opened and three pizza delivery guys entered, wearing the distinctive blue-and-yellow uniform of Big Pete’s Pizzas, carrying the distinctive blue-and-yellow boxes of Big Pete’s Pizzas.

  The cheesy, yeasty smell of pizza took over the room.

  ‘Come on,’ said Rashid, fangs bared.

  But I didn’t move.

  Because I realised I knew how to do it, how in the blazes I was going to get on the other side of that security fence.

  THURSDAY

  FIENDS OF THE EARTH

  The Fiends of the Earth worried me.

  I’d done some research and found out that Imogen was right, they’d claimed responsibility for the ‘liberation’ of twenty thousand battery hens from a farm near Ballina.

  LET CHOOKS RUN FREE, they’d spray-painted on the side of the shed in red letters two metres high.

  That most of the liberated chooks had subsequently been eaten by wild cats, or had drowned in creeks, or had been flattened by cars, didn’t seem to have worried the Fiends of the Earth. Chooks had run free. For a while anyway.

  Although they hadn’t claimed responsibility, they were also suspected of being involved in several other acts of eco-terrorism. There was the firebombing of the offices of a live sheep exporting business. There was the sinking of a Japanese longline boat while it was berthed in Cairns Harbour. And finally there was the sabotage of logging machinery in Far North Queensland, in which a logger, asleep in the back of a grader that was blown up, suffered severe injuries.

  We had this reggae band at school. They were a crap band – I reckon people should need a license to play reggae and that license should be a) very expensive and b) very hard to get – but they had a great name: The Reckless Zealots.

  Well, that’s exactly what Fiends of the Earth seemed to me: reckless zealots. And they worried me. Because if they did intend to bring the grid down, then I was pretty sure they weren’t going to be very subtle about it. Not given their chook-liberating, logger-maiming track record.

  I found their number on the net and rang.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ answered a woman with an English accent. ‘Fiends of the Earth.’

  ‘I was ringing about the upcoming Earth Hour,’ I said.

  ‘Well, that’s not our initiative,’ she said. ‘Though we support it, of course.’

  I changed the subject to battery hens, and it soon became obvious that this was something the woman was very passionate about.

  ‘So where is your office exactly, if I wanted to come and get some material?’ I eventually managed to ask.

  ‘Most of it is available online,’ she said.

  ‘I sort of prefer hard copy,’ I said. ‘All my friends think I’m really old-fashioned like that.’

  ‘We’re in Nimbin. The same little mall as the Hemp Embassy.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said and hung up.

  She’d sounded so calm, so reasonable, neither reckless nor a zealot, that I told myself I was worrying about nothing.

  But then I remembered what Imogen had said and a scene played out in my head: a transmission tower toppling in a flurry of sparks, the grid down for days on end.

  I rang the number again, hoping that the man Imogen had talked to would answer this time.

  But it was the woman with the English accent again.

  ‘Hi, it’s me again,’ I said, before I proceeded to regurgitate most of what she’d already told me about the immorality of keeping hens in cages.

  Eventually she interrupted, still in that same calm, reasonable voice, ‘Look, you’re not a cop or anything, are you?’

  ‘No, definitely not a cop,’ I said, but it did occur to me that maybe I should be behaving like one.

  On TV, when cops question a suspect, they’ll sometimes come straight out and ask them if they’re the murderer, or the rapist, or whatever.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Immediately followed by, ‘Did you kill Daphne McFadden?’

  So I thought I’d try that tactic.

  ‘Actually, I wanted to know if your organisation intended to bring down the grid during the upcoming Earth Hour,’ I said.

  A pause, and then the woman said, ‘Like I’ve already told you, though we support the initiative, it has nothing to do with us.’

  It was the same calm, reasonable voice but there was something different about it and immediately I knew she was lying. Don’t ask me how, but I did.

  I had no choice – the next day, I had to get myself to that same little mall as the Hemp Embassy in Nimbin.

  FRIDAY

  TO WAG THE UNWAGGABLE SCHOOL

  The next day, when Mom dropped Toby and me off at school, I gave her a peck on the cheek and joined the throng of students heading for the entrance with its high-tensile steel gates and cluster of CCTV cameras.

  Once through those gates, once inside those lofty stone walls, there was no easy way back out. Not unless you were on some type of excursion, or the final siren had sounded at three-twenty. Coast Boys Grammar had always prided itself on its security, for being unwaggable, for being The School That Can’t Be Wagged.

  And since Jason Walker had gone and got himself kidnapped, the security had been beefed up even more.

  There were now six security guards or, as the school preferred to call them, SPOs (Student Protection Officers), on duty: two at the entrance, two at the drop-off zone and another two who floated between these areas.

  Dawdling, I waited until Mom had driven off. I even let Toby shuffle past me.

  Now I could put my plan into action. Frantically patting my pockets, I exclaimed, ‘Oh no, I left my iPhone behind.’

  I was pretty sure this little performance wasn’t going to win me the lead in the school play – thank god – but it gave me the excuse I needed to turn around and head back towards the drop-off zone, to where a grey Mercedes had just pulled up.

  The door opened and Charles got out. Our eyes met, and he was about to say something but I held my finger to my lips. Shhh! He understood, and said nothing as he grabbed his bag from the back seat and started walking to the gate.

  I ducked behind the car, pretty sure that the SPOs hadn’t seen me. Now was the tricky part: I had to get across the Gold Coast Highway, across four lanes of traffic. And I had to do it without causing any beeping of horns, any screeching of brakes, any sickening thud as metal collided with flesh, anything to get the attention of the SPOs or necessitate the calling of an ambulance.

  Because it was peak hour the traffic was moving quickly and continuously; if I waited for a break I would be standing here for the next hour.

  On your mark! I told myself, imaginary starter gun in my hand.

  Get ready!

  Go!

  As a middle distance runner, I probably didn’t have the most explosive of starts, but I was across the first lane easily. The second lane was a bit more difficult, as there was an oncoming bus and I had to make a split-second decision as to whether I ran in front of it or waited for it to pass. I opted for the former and, fortunately for me, there was no irate beep of a horn. Now the traffic was coming from the other direction. I had to stop, as the third lane was almost bumper-to-bumper.

  Stay here and eventually I was going to get cleaned up.

  I had to go for it.

  Suddenly, between a huge 4WD and a concrete mixer truck, there was a gap.

/>   It’s mine, I thought.

  I raced into it, and through it, my momentum taking me into the fourth and last lane. Where a motorbike, the rider’s helmet yellow with red flames, was bearing down on me, was almost on me.

  Stay still, I ordered myself. Let him evade you.

  I stopped, closed my eyes and made myself as small, as unhittable, as possible.

  Whoosh!

  The motorbike brushed past.

  Opening my eyes, I sprinted to the footpath, down a side street and into a park. Kids were getting pushed on swings, kids were sliding down slippery slides, while their mums – and a few dads – drank takeaway coffees.

  The first glitch in my plan: the public toilet where I was going to get changed, the one I’d so cleverly located on Google Earth, was locked. I couldn’t very well get changed in the open, not with all those little kids around. I could imagine the chorus of disapproval. ‘Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger! Stranger Danger!’ the parents would yell, spluttering their lattes.

  So I crawled into a bush. It soon became apparent that I wasn’t the first one to have done this, because there were all sorts of objects there, ranging from the gross to the really gross. Ignoring them, I changed out of my Grammar uniform and into generic shorts and a generic T-shirt; I wanted to look as anonymous as possible. Removing myself from the bush and its crop of gross objects, I sat on a bench and took ClamTop out of my schoolbag.

  ‘Open,’ I said, and it responded straightaway, opening.

  Available Wi-Fi Networks, it said on the top of the screen.

  GRAMMARNET was the one that interested me, so I double-tapped on the screen.

  As I’d expected, it was a secure network. The password cracker immediately appeared, the little red devil doing its devilish dance, the words cracking password … flashing underneath.

  It took about fifteen seconds for it to start smiling, for the words password cracked to appear.

  As you’d expect with such a big school, there were hundreds of computers connected to the network. They were arranged alphabetically, however, and it didn’t take me long to scroll down and find Mr Travers’s computer. I could picture him sitting at his desk, reading out each student’s name in his oxygen-depleting voice.

  ‘Albrechtson?’

  ‘Here, sir.’

  ‘Betts?’

  ‘Here, sir.’

  When I brought up his desktop, I could see that Facebook was open. So that was why he was always bothering his computer. But I could also see that the Computerised Roll Call program was open and that he’d already put a digital tick against all the names except for mine. I touched the box next to my name and, hey presto, a tick appeared. I was just in time, too, because suddenly the ‘Send Data’ button highlighted. The data downloaded to the main office would now show that, despite my empty seat, I was at school. Which meant that an automated text message – Our records show that your son Dominic Silvagni is not attending school today. Could you please ring immediately with an explanation. – would not be sent to both my dad’s and my mum’s phones. I packed up ClamTop, hoisted my bag over my shoulder and walked quickly away.

  I reckon I’ve seen just about every James Bond film there is and I’ve never seen him pull out a Things To Do list.

  The only stuff you saw him do was the crazy spectacular stuff – and occasionally the sexy stuff – but never the mundane stuff like shopping at Coles or getting his car serviced or getting angry because the gadget he bought on eBay looked nothing like it did in the photo.

  But then again, he did have his support staff to do all that.

  But I had no Mrs Moneypenny. No Q. And I definitely wasn’t licensed to kill.

  I pulled a folded piece of A4 paper out of my pocket – my Things To Do list.

  Uniform was the first thing.

  I took out my phone and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello, Big Pete’s Pizzas. May I have your order please?’

  She sounded Asian, but Asian-with-an-American-accent Asian.

  ‘I didn’t actually want to order a pizza,’ I said.

  ‘We have a range of other non-pizza-based options on our menu, sir,’ she said. ‘And if gluten is a problem, then we have our new delicious non-gluten pizza crust.’

  ‘No, I didn’t actually want to order anything, I just wanted to ask about your uniforms.’

  ‘Our uniforms?’

  ‘That’s right, like, we’re having this thing at school,’ I said, thinking on my feet. ‘And I’m coming as a pizza delivery dude. So I wanted to see if I could buy one of your uniforms.’

  ‘Just hang on,’ the woman said, and then there were all sorts of noises.

  ‘Excuse me, are you still there?’ I said eventually.

  Her Asian-but-American voice came back on the phone. ‘I just had to take off my shirt, to see the label, sir.’

  Now I felt like some sort of perve, the sort that rings up pizza places and tricks the staff into removing their shirts.

  ‘It’s made by Acme Uniforms, sir,’ she said.

  ‘Seriously? Acme? As in the Roadrunner?’

  ‘That’s what it says here, sir.’

  I thanked her profusely, googled ‘Acme Uniforms’ on my iPhone, and hailed a taxi.

  Acme Uniforms was easy to find; it was a large warehouse-type building, just off the Gold Coast Highway. What was difficult was finding a way to actually get into this large warehouse-type building.

  Eventually I found it: an anonymous door at the back.

  I pushed it open and it led into a small glass-partitioned office.

  A woman, her piled-up hair held in place with what looked like chopsticks, was sitting at her desk, typing at an ancient computer, her back to me.

  ‘How can I help you, darl?’ she said, not looking up from the screen.

  ‘I wanted to buy a Big Pete’s Pizza uniform,’ I said.

  ‘Big Pete supplies his staff with their uniforms,’ she said, and then, with copious sarcasm: ‘Heart as big as a pumpkin, our Big Pete.’

  She still didn’t look up. But then I realised that I could see the reflection of her face in one of the glass partitions. Which mean that she could, likewise, see my reflection.

  The story about the thing at school, about coming as a pizza delivery dude, had worked with the woman on the phone – she’d taken off her shirt, hadn’t she? – but somehow I didn’t think it would do the trick here.

  I had to come up with something else, something that made use of the fact that obviously this woman thought pumpkin-hearted Big Pete was a tightwad.

  So I told her how my big brother worked for Big Pete’s and how he’d spilled ink all over his uniform when he’d tried to help me refill the cartridge on my printer and how his uniform was now ruined and how if Big Pete found out for sure my big brother would get the sack and that would mean we wouldn’t have the money to buy the medicine my sick mother so desperately needed.

  The woman studied my reflection for what seemed like ages before she said, ‘What size is this brother of yours?’

  ‘He’s about my size, I guess,’ I said.

  ‘Now why aren’t I surprised?’ The woman got up from her seat and she and her chopsticks disappeared through a door.

  Was she going to get the manager? Or security? Or maybe even the tightwad himself, Big Pete.

  But then there was a rustling sound and the woman returned holding a uniform wrapped in cellophane.

  She threw it onto the counter.

  ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘I figure anybody desperate enough to make up a story as ridiculous as that deserves to be rewarded.’

  ‘How much is it?’ I asked.

  The woman waved my question away. ‘Just don’t rob any banks wearing it,’ she said, returning to her desk. ‘Or they’ll have my guts for garters.’

  I grabbed the package, shoved it into my schoolbag and got out of there as quickly as I could before she changed her mind.

  I took out the Things To Do list, the one that James Bond ne
ver used. The second item read: more practice on mbike.

  Okay, I’d ridden a scooter up the range and back, but that had been at a pretty sedate pace.

  I wanted to practise some more, especially high-speed getaways.

  I hailed another taxi to take me to an arcade in Surfers.

  After handing a fifty-dollar note to the excessively hairy man behind the counter, I said, ‘Two-dollar coins, please.’

  He held the note up to the light, peering intently at it.

  He must’ve seen the puzzled look on my face because he said, ‘You look like an honest type, but we’ve been getting a few shonky ones lately.’

  ‘Counterfeits?’ I said.

  ‘If you could call them that – most of them are just photocopies. Pathetic, the class of criminal you get these days.’

  I took the roll of coins he gave me and went over to the motorbike simulator.

  I leant this way and that way. I accelerated and I accelerated and I accelerated. And I started to get the hang of riding at high speed. In fact, on the very last coin I managed to come second to the great Valentino Rossi in the Italian Grand Prix.

  As I walked out of the arcade, feeling quite pleased with myself, I heard the excessively hairy man say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’

  I looked around to see a scabby-looking kid standing at the counter while the man waved a note in front of his face.

  ‘Whatsamatta?’ said the kid. ‘It’s a fair-dinkum fifty.’

  ‘It’s blank on one side, you idiot!’ said the man as he leant over and smacked the kid really really hard across the ear.

  The kid’s head snapped to one side and he fell sprawling to the floor.

  I realised then that it was Brandon, the kid from the hospital, the kid my mum knew.

  For a second I thought about helping him but then decided against it – I had stuff to do.

  Outside, I pulled out my piece of paper again.

  Last thing on the list was F of the E.