Stuck in the Mud

by R. A. Spratt

  ‘Well then, mission accomplished,’ said Fin. ‘We’re certainly that.’

  April burst into the kitchen carrying a large cellophane-wrapped basket full of cake. Pumpkin barked excitedly. Loretta flinched, briefly concerned that this was some sort of counterattack for her uncovering April’s novel-reading secret. But April directed her attack at Joe.

  ‘Why are there freshly baked treats sitting on the front doorstep?’ demanded April.

  ‘I’ll t-t-take those,’ said Joe, rushing forward to grab the basket from his sister.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Fin suspiciously.

  ‘Um …’ said Joe. This was his favourite word. It was one of the few words he could reliably say without stammering. ‘Er … M-M-Mr Chelsea sent them.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Fin.

  Joe struggled to think up a lie. None of the lies he could think of made any sense. And he’d never be able to say them because his stammering got even worse when he was lying. Then he realised he didn’t believe in lying. It was wrong. If his mother hadn’t been so deceptive, their family might not be hiding in a country town. Of course, if his mother hadn’t been so deceptive they might also have been kidnapped by the Kolektiv, an evil international espionage agency. So it was all very complicated. He just knew that he personally did not have the skill to lie, so there was no point even bothering. ‘He wants me to win the r-r-race,’ said Joe.

  ‘And he thinks getting you fat will help?’ asked April, peering into the basket.

  ‘Athletes are meant to carb-load,’ said Joe.

  ‘They’re meant to slightly increase their carb intake when they increase their activity level,’ said Fin. ‘They’re not meant to drown themselves in masses of high-carb, high-fat, high-sugar food.’

  Joe frowned. He liked high-carb, high-fat, high-sugar food. They were his favourite kinds.

  ‘I’ve got plenty of vegetables in the garden,’ said Dad, who had just wondered into the kitchen. ‘Would you like me to pick you some kale?’

  Joe recoiled in horror. He knew some adults had convinced themselves that they liked kale, particularly if it had been deep fried and covered in salt. But Joe was not fooled.

  ‘Why does Mr Chelsea want you to win?’ asked April suspiciously, as she bit the head off a gingerbread man. ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘N-n-nothing,’ said Joe.

  ‘Come on,’ said Fin. ‘He must have a motive if he’s given you this much cake.’

  ‘I’ve signed a secrecy agreement,’ said Joe.

  ‘Ooh, I love mysteries,’ said Loretta. ‘It’s going to be fun getting it out of you. Does Joe talk in his sleep?’

  ‘I try not to listen to the noises he makes in his sleep,’ said April. ‘You’ve never lived with boys before. They are far more disgusting than you can imagine. I like to think of myself as a hardy person, but their bodily functions are just gross.’

  ‘It will be good to have some proper competition in the mud run this year,’ said Loretta. ‘No one put up much of a race for me last year.’

  ‘You cheated,’ April reminded her. ‘You rode a horse.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Loretta. ‘And frankly it was boring for Vladimir. No one could run anywhere near as fast as him.’

  ‘You do realise you can’t ride your horse again,’ Fin asked. ‘They’ve changed the rules.’

  ‘I know,’ said Loretta. ‘But I’m still confident. I’m a naturally talented athlete, you know.’

  Fin looked at Loretta’s lean figure. He had no trouble believing in her athletic prowess at all. She seemed to have prowess at everything. Then Fin’s mind started to wander to some of the disgusting topics that April had alluded to earlier so he stared at the floor and blushed.

  ‘If you win, you should split the prize money with the woman who comes first,’ said Loretta.

  ‘What?’ said Joe.

  ‘Why not?’ said Loretta. ‘You’re only doing it for the cake, aren’t you?’

  Joe liked cake. He liked it a lot, but he also liked the idea of $10,000. If for no other reason than you could buy a lot of cake with $10,000.

  ‘It’s not Joe’s fault if the competition is unfair,’ said Fin.

  ‘Joe can choose to be part of the oppressive patriarchy if he wants,’ said April. ‘But if he does, I’ll make his life miserable.’

  ‘You make his life miserable already,’ Fin pointed out.

  April realised this was true. ‘Then I’ll think up new and interesting ways to make him even more miserable.’

  ‘Why don’t you just try to win the competition yourself,’ Loretta suggested. ‘It’s really regressive of you to expect a man to win it for you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said April. ‘I shouldn’t be relying on that great lummox. He’ll probably stuff it up anyway.’ She bit hungrily into a blueberry muffin the great lummox had provided.

  ‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ said Loretta. ‘But good for you. In my experience, the competition isn’t anywhere near as hard to win as people make out, especially if you approach it creatively.’

  ‘And by “creatively” you mean “cheat”,’ said Fin.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Loretta. ‘I would never cheat. There’s no artistry in that. Matilda Voss-Nevers cheats. She does things like skip part of the course, or put a thumb tack in someone’s shoe. That’s just tricky. I like to take a creative interpretation of the rules. That way, technically I’m not doing anything wrong and I really irritate people much more that way.’ Loretta smiled, gleeful at the thought. She had evidently had a lot of fun not ‘cheating’ the previous year.

  ‘But I don’t want to enter!’ said April. ‘I don’t believe in organised sport.’

  ‘Just disorganised sport, like spontaneous wrestling,’ said Fin.

  ‘Exactly,’ said April. She turned on Joe. ‘When someone does beat you, I’m going to make sure you give all that cake back.’

  Joe was chewing a huge mouthful of cake at this moment, and he was unsure if he should swallow. He hated to imagine what Mr Chelsea might do to get his cake back. It could be very unpleasant and invasive.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to enter the race,’ said Fin.

  ‘No one cares what you’re going to do because you’re a pipsqueak,’ said April.

  Fin ignored his sister and kept talking. If he waited for April to stop insulting him every time he tried to speak, he would be permanently mute. ‘I’m entering the design competition. I’m going to design the toughest, muddiest mud run course ever seen.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Loretta. ‘The tougher the course, the more room for creative interpretation.’

  ‘We’d b-b-better get to school,’ said Joe.

  ‘Sucked in,’ said April.

  ‘I can’t believe you attacked a disabled boy and were rewarded with three days off school,’ said Fin.

  ‘He isn’t disabled,’ said April. ‘He’s differently-abled. And he’s really annoying, so he totally had it coming.’

  ‘So this is a boy you attacked the first time you met him?’ asked Loretta. ‘That’s quick off the mark even for you. Is there more to this than meets the eye? A budding romance, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh puh-lease,’ said April disgustedly. ‘I’d never be romantically interested in him.’

  ‘Because he’s differently-abled?’ asked Fin.

  ‘No, because he’s terrible at wrestling,’ said April. ‘It only took me two seconds to get him in a choke-hold. I could never respect him.’

  ‘What you need is a nice, quiet boy,’ said Fin. He was thinking of his friend Neil. Being monosyllabic and very plain, he didn’t stand much chance of catching April’s attention. Perhaps Neil should consider tripping her up with a stick.

  Loretta smiled. ‘I think April would prefer a swarthy Italian duke. Like the ones in romance novels.’

  If looks could kill, Loretta would have been struck dead by the glare April gave her. ‘I don’t need any boy,’ she seethed. ‘I don’t need anyone. Except Pumpkin.’
Pumpkin barked happily when he heard his name. April bent over to scratch him behind the ears. ‘You’re such a comfort to me, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ she gushed lovingly, before looking up to snap at her brothers. ‘Enjoy your day at school sitting on plastic chairs until your bum goes numb.’

  ‘Peski!’

  Joe was deep in thought as he walked from his maths class to his science classroom. He really didn’t want to compete in the mud run. He didn’t like the idea of people relying on him, and he didn’t particularly like the idea of getting covered in mud either. He wasn’t a neat freak, he never worried about wearing the same undies two or three or four days in a row, but even he did not like the idea of having mud jammed up his nose, down his ears and into every other little crack it could make its way into.

  ‘Peski!’

  Joe suddenly remembered that his name was Peski. (It had been Banfield up until a few months earlier, when they were forced into hiding.) So perhaps the person behind him who was calling out ‘Peski’ was trying to get his attention.

  ‘Joe Peski! Come here right now!’ bellowed Mr Lang.

  Yep, he definitely wanted Joe. Joe turned and started making his way across the playground towards the now red-faced guidance counsellor. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you the first t-t-two times,’ said Joe.

  ‘If you didn’t hear me the first two times, how do you know I called out to you two times?’ asked Mr Lang.

  This had Joe stumped. ‘My ears were listening but my brain w-w-wasn’t?’ Joe tried to explain.

  He expected Mr Lang to launch into more yelling. He was normally an unnaturally calm man, but he had a look about him now, like a wild animal that had been cornered, and not in the corner with the feed bucket. Basically he looked as angry as a regular teacher, perhaps a bit more than that. As angry as a regular maths teacher. Teachers hated being ignored and usually once they got on a yelling streak, they liked to keep on the roll. But Mr Lang grimly took a deep breath and struggled to relax his face. He even made a quarter-hearted attempt at a smile. ‘I need to have a word with you,’ he said, then he glanced about. ‘In my office.’

  Mr Lang held open his office door, waving Joe inside.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ asked Mr Lang.

  ‘Um …’ said Joe. He wasn’t sure what Mr Lang was asking about. Settling into the school? Settling into the new town? Settling into the horror of puberty?

  ‘We want you to be happy here,’ said Mr Lang. ‘This is a small town. We don’t often get new blood.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Joe. The comment about blood had thrown him. He wondered for a moment if the town was secretly a community of vampires. It would explain a lot.

  ‘It’s exciting to have someone of your athletic potential in our school community,’ explained Mr Lang.

  ‘Oh,’ said Joe. No one had ever been excited by his potential before. Until he’d moved to Currawong and discovered his freakish talent for lawn bowls, Joe had avoided all forms of competition. If you won things, people might want to speak to you about winning, and Joe did not like speaking.

  Joe had entered a pie eating competition once. But he hadn’t been trying to win. He just wanted to eat the pies. Joe was always hungry. Of course Joe had won, eating seventeen steak and pepper pies in five minutes, but he didn’t have to make a speech because when the prizes were awarded he was too busy being sick in the toilets. Which incidentally forfeited his claim to the title.

  ‘You’re our great hope,’ continued Mr Lang with thinly concealed desperation.

  ‘I am?’ said Joe. This conversation was getting worse and worse.

  ‘On behalf of all the teaching staff here at Currawong High School, well, all the literate ones, probably not the PE teachers or the maths teachers …’ said Mr Lang. ‘But on behalf of all the other teachers, I’m pleading with you. You must win the mud run.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Joe.

  ‘The school desperately needs that grant money,’ said Mr Lang.

  ‘Oh,’ said Joe, beginning to catch on. Currawong High was a state school. And the parents of the students weren’t rich people. There was not a lot of money about. It was clear on their first day that a lot of things at the school were overdue for repair or replacement. Some things desperately needed fixing. Joe nodded. ‘The septic t-tank?’

  ‘What?’ asked Mr Lang.

  ‘You want m-m-money to fix the tank,’ guessed Joe. ‘It keeps backing up and spilling s-s-sewage onto the football field.’

  ‘Not that,’ said Mr Lang. ‘The septic tank has been overflowing for thirty years. It’s traditional. That’s why the grass is so green on the oval. No, we need the money to buy books. The school hasn’t bought new library books in decades.’

  ‘Really?’ said Joe. He had been to the library, mainly when he was trying to hide from Daisy Odinsdottir. She was madly in love with Joe and didn’t believe in taking ‘no’ for an answer. To be strictly accurate, she didn’t believe in listening to any answers. She just hunted him mercilessly like a bloodhound hunts a deer. ‘The books look o-k-k-kay,’ stammered Joe.

  ‘That’s because the students never read them,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Our literacy results are through the floor.’

  Joe frowned. He had heard of things being through the roof before, but never through the floor. It didn’t sound good.

  ‘We need that money to buy new books,’ said Mr Lang. ‘With modern stories and shiny covers. Things kids will want to read.’

  ‘Pictures,’ said Joe.

  ‘What?’ asked Mr Lang.

  ‘Books with pictures,’ said Joe. ‘They’re easier to read. If your brain gets tired of figuring out the words, it can get the gist from the pictures.’

  ‘Good idea!’ Mr Lang said excitedly. He jotted the word ‘picture books’ down on a notepad. ‘It’s got to help. If the literacy results get any worse, the department will send specialists out here to give students one-on-one attention, and no one wants that. The last time we had a specialist here she had a breakdown within three weeks. Then the department had to pay for her to retrain as a dental hygienist.’

  Joe frowned. He was getting more and more confused by this conversation.

  ‘Which is why we need you to win,’ said Mr Lang. ‘This town is so sports mad, when we get extra funding they always spend it on PE equipment. You could buy a Rolls Royce with the money that’s been spent over the years reseeding the school’s bowling greens.’

  Joe nodded. The school’s greens were seriously impressive. They were as flat and green as a billiards table.

  ‘Mr Popov has just requested an extra $500 worth of fertiliser because Maya Dharawal landed her light plane on the bowling greens and damaged the roots of the turf,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Those greens are a money pit.’

  Joe hadn’t realised that Maya’s plane had landed at the school. But compared to the surrounding farming lands, which were mainly lumpy potato fields or fields full of cattle, the lawn bowls greens must have looked like a much easier place to land for the pilot.

  ‘If you don’t win, one of those St Anthony’s kids will,’ said Mr Lang. ‘Probably the Viswanathan girl again. And their school doesn’t need the money. They’ll just use it to gold-plate something that’s already gold-plated. Or charter a helicopter to the ski slopes. They’ve got everything.’

  Joe frowned. He suspected Mr Lang might be exaggerating.

  ‘So we’re relying on you,’ said Mr Lang, ‘to save our academic results.’

  Joe was taken aback by the enormity of this responsibility.

  ‘If you pull it off, I’ll make it worth your while,’ said Mr Lang. He leaned in and whispered, ‘Next year I can make sure you get any teacher you want.’

  ‘B-b-but …’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ said Mr Lang. ‘If there’s a maths teacher you don’t like, or perhaps a maths teacher you really like. You just let me know and I’ll sort it out for you.’

  ‘N-n-no,’ said Joe.

  ‘No?’ said Mr Lang. ‘You’re not going
to help?

  ‘No,’ said Joe. ‘I w-w-will help. But not to change teachers. I want to change classes, so I’m n-n-not in any of the s-same c-c-classes as D-D-D-D-D-D-Daisy.’

  ‘Odinsdottir?’ asked Mr Lang.

  Joe nodded. He was glad Mr Lang saved him from having to say that surname. The consonants were bad enough, but just the thought of Daisy scared him so much it made saying her name a thousand times harder.

  ‘She’s a pretty girl,’ said Mr Lang. ‘You don’t like pretty girls?’

  ‘No,’ said Joe, relieved that Mr Lang finally understood. ‘Not the scary ones.’ Although really, Joe found the nice ones terrifying as well.

  Mr Lang shrugged. ‘I can make that happen.’ He reached out and Joe shook his hand.

  Fin was sitting in maths class really enjoying himself. He didn’t care for maths. He was quite good at the subject, but there wasn’t really anything to enjoy about algebra. Getting the answers right was nice, but it didn’t make up for the boredom of painstakingly figuring them out in the first place. Fin was enjoying maths because April wasn’t there.

  It was the third day of her suspension. Fin only truly appreciated how stressful his sister was on the brief occasions when she was absent. He was finally able to unclench. His stomach muscles did not have to be permanently tense waiting for a blow. His legs didn’t need to be constantly ready to take evasive action to avoid her rage. It wasn’t just that April got in fights all the time, but that she always drew him into them as well. And it’s not like she expected him to back her up, she just seemed to have the attitude that if she was going to fight someone, she might as well fight him at the same time. The more the merrier.

  So for Fin, sitting in a double maths lesson with his sister absent felt the way most people feel lying on a beach on a beautiful summer’s day. It was like every single cell in his body could finally relax. He’d finished all his maths questions, so he closed his eyes to really soak up the calm while he could.

  ‘Sharkfin Peski?’ someone snapped.

  Fin’s eyes flew open. His foot lost its grip on the table leg and he toppled backwards, landing flat on his back. The class laughed.