School Rules Are Optional: The Grade Six Survival Guide 1

We’re all really happy because Term 2 has started without a boring assembly. We just hear Mr Wilson’s voice announcing over the PA system that it rained all holidays. As if we didn’t know.

‘Students found playing in the water or, uhhh … bringing muddy shoes into their classrooms will get a detention,’ he says. ‘And I don’t want to hear of any students going anywhere near the water tanks.’

At recess, we make sure we’re behind the water tanks because we don’t want Mr Wilson to hear about it either. The tanks have overflowed and there’s a whole bunch of insects, spiders, snails and slugs hanging out down there with us in the water.

Alex is busy making sure the teacher on duty is not looking in our direction when I see this snail climbing up the side of the water tank. It’s moving pretty fast. Snails usually just sit there or hang around in groups, but this one is really going.

‘It’s faster than any snail you can find,’ I say, watching the snail reach the top of the tank.

‘One dollar.’ I grab my snail gently by the shell. ‘No, no. Hang on. Two dollars.’ I pull the snail off the tank with a shlwaap.

Braden looks around the other side of the water tank to find a snail. There’s quite a collection there; biggies and littlies. None of them look as lively as my guy, though. He picks up a big one.

I grab a stick and scratch a start and finish line about thirty centimetres apart on the side of the tank. We attach our snails to the tank and watch. My snail takes off as soon as he latches on. Alex agrees to be the race official in case it’s close. While my snail passes the finish line, Braden’s snail is just poking his head out and looking like he’s going to drop off and hit the ground. I offer a rematch in case his snail wasn’t sure what the procedure was. The next time it does move a little. In the wrong direction.

‘That’s okay. If you get another snail we can have a re rematch at lunch.’

Alex wants to have a go, too, so at lunchtime Jun keeps a lookout for teachers and is the race official. Braden finds a new snail but it’s almost as hopeless as the old one. It goes around in circles while my snail wins three times in a row. This time there are several witnesses to the speed and agility of my snail. A little cluster of Preps are watching from a distance. I hope they don’t think this is a buddy activity and draw pictures of it for Miss Agostino. A few kids have found snails and want to race my snail. Instead I put him away in my lunchbox with some grass and a few leaves.

‘Anyone interested in being beaten by Alonso can meet me here tomorrow,’ I announce.

‘Actually, it’s the name of a world champion Formula One racer. Someone else who excels in their field.’

I don’t tell Alex I thought up the name then. I hope there is a driver called Alonso. Either that or no one knows if there is or there isn’t. Fortunately, the bell goes so I don’t have to say anything more about it.

Alonso seems happy enough in my lunchbox, waving his googly eyes around, so I decide to keep him there in my room overnight. Noah and I are supposed to take our lunchboxes into the kitchen after school but I hardly ever do it and Mum hardly ever cares until the next morning when it’s not there. Then she gets frustrated and says, ‘Jesse! Do you mind telling me where your lunchbox is?’ as if it’s somewhere different every day.

When I arrive at school the next morning, I see Peta at the gate. She’s not really doing anything or talking to anyone.

‘You can race Alonso at lunch if you want,’ I tell her. ‘With a snail, I mean.’

We both peer into the corner of my lunchbox. Alonso is going up the sandwich divider so fast I have to put the lid back on to stop him falling out.

Peta says, ‘Who says I want to race your snail? I have other stuff to do. Besides …’ she pauses for a second. ‘I could easily find a snail to beat your snail.’

That’s the kind of remark I would expect from someone who knows they can’t find a snail as fast as Alonso.

At lunchtime, there are about twenty more kids at the snail racetrack. At least half of them are Preps. Huong and Amy are sitting under a tree in the mud, examining snails and lining them up in pairs for some reason. It looks like Thomas Moore is putting something in his pocket, but I don’t go up and ask him what he’s doing because I don’t want him to tell me. I’m needed at the racetrack, anyway. Alonso has eight challengers lined up already.

By the end of lunch, Alonso is still champion. He’s undefeated. Well … almost undefeated. Braden’s snail wins one race, but I think Alonso let him win to be gentlemanly.

I should have asked Peta if she wanted to race one of the other snails. One a bit less intimidating.

Thomas Moore comes over and watches me put Alonso back in my lunchbox. He’s holding about four snails in his hand.

‘We found a hundred twin snails,’ he says. ‘See? Look … they’re twins. I found them with Huong and Amy.’

‘They’re not twin snails,’ I tell him, examining them. ‘They’re just snails.’

‘Not these ones … those ones,’ Thomas Moore says, pointing to Huong and Amy’s collection of snail pairs around the tree. ‘And I saved the other ones for you …’ He reaches into the pocket of his school jacket and brings out a massive bunch of snails. Like about fifty – a tennis ball of snails.

‘You can’t keep snails in your pocket,’ I say. ‘Go and put them back.’

‘You should be back in class,’ he says and wanders off to put his snail ball under the tree.

I watch him run across the courtyard and into the Prep room. I hope Miss Agostino doesn’t ask him why he’s late. It’s a good thing no one believes anything he says and stops listening to him after about two minutes.

At the end of the day, Jun says Peta didn’t have other stuff to do today because he saw her on the steps with Leini and Gina at lunchtime.

‘They weren’t letting kids into the corridor to get their lunchboxes,’ he says. ‘Then after lunch, they weren’t letting them put their lunchboxes away.’

‘Oh, not much,’ Jun says. ‘She was telling kids to get off the steps. Same as Leini.’

It’s not very interesting working for Leini. A lot of what she does is kind of pointless. I wonder if Peta knows you can access the corridor from the other end.

When I arrive home, I think about Amy and Huong lining up all those snails. They do look a bit similar when they’re all together. I take Alonso out and draw a little ‘A’ on his shell with non-toxic marker. I don’t want someone claiming Alonso is their snail or swapping him for an inferior one.

The next day I feel a bit panicky when I see about fifty kids down at the racetrack at lunchtime. Some of the newcomers don’t even know what’s going on. They think everyone’s lining up for something and stand at the back of a nonexistent queue that’s going nowhere.

In the middle of the races, Minha turns up and pushes her way to the front of the spectator area. She overheard some kids talking in the canteen line, saying that animals are being used behind the water tanks for entertainment and profit. She threatens to expose the whole operation unless we agree to her terms.

Alex and I agree to all her terms because snails are being used for entertainment and profit. And we think a Field Medical Centre is a good idea and wish we’d thought of it first.

We form a committee to sort out a few rules. The committee is made up of Alex, Braden, Jun, Minha and me. Jun is only a silent member, though, because he thinks it might conflict with his vice-captaincy contract. We only need a fifth person in case there’s any voting to do.

Rule 1: All snails must be registered and allocated with a number at the beginning of each event (lunchtime).

Rule 2: All snails must be declared fit to race by the Snail Welfare Officer (Minha).

Rule 3: Bets must not exceed two dollars.

Rule 4: No touching, blowing or spitting on your snail during a race.

Rule 5: No touching, blowing or spitting on anyone else’s snail during a race.

Rule 6: No decoration of snails is allowed.

We included the last rule because after I drew the ‘A’ on Alonso, some kids wanted to decorate their snails with coloured paint and glitter and stuff. Minha says that stuff could be toxic to snails and anyway, it’s not dignified. Instead, all the competitors have to wear a number sticker. One of those low-stick red dots that are designed not to wreck your furniture and stuff when you move house. Braden has a whole box of them.

Alex takes over the betting part because he does extension maths and doesn’t need a calculator to figure out the money. We don’t use actual money because no one really has any. He just writes down which snail wins and their earnings in an exercise book. Mrs Leeman would be pleased with his attention to detail; he’s drawn margins and columns and everything.

Alonso keeps winning so I agree to rest him for the last few races of the day to even the field a bit. I’m pretty busy, anyway. It’s a lot of work organising everything and making sure everyone’s following racetrack protocol.

After the bell goes and the crowd begins to leave, Alex says, ‘Hey, isn’t that Peta? Standing over there?’

When Peta sees us looking in her direction, she turns around and disappears behind the bike shed.

Braden says, ‘Maybe Leini’s got Peta to spy on us … and she’ll tell Ms Kendall, then Mrs Leeman will …’

‘If I thought Peta knew something, I mean … I don’t think she’d tell,’ I say, feeling my face turn red.

I do know she was hiding from us. No one goes near the bike shed at the end of lunch by choice. If you do, the teacher on duty makes you go around the whole playground and pick up all the sports equipment.

By Thursday, the atmosphere of the track has changed. There are way too many spectators. I don’t even have a chance to race Alonso because everyone keeps asking me to do stuff for them. And the problems don’t stay at the track. A lot of the low-stick dots are more like no-stick. They keep falling off. Even though the Preps like picking them up in their new role as groundskeepers, I keep seeing them around the school: in the hallway, in the bathroom. Mostly on the Preps themselves. It’s only a matter of time before Miss Agostino starts to notice her students are numbered. Without stickers, it’s becoming a bit hard to tell which snail is winning. Snails don’t always go in one direction. Sometimes they go around in circles or just sit in a little cluster not really doing anything. A lot of the competitors are not very competitive.

I can’t help thinking someone is going to get into trouble and that person could possibly be me.

I call an emergency committee meeting and suggest that we have one final race tomorrow, and then close the operation down. The vote is four to one in favour. Confidentiality prevents me from disclosing who voted no, but he’s a silent committee member anyway so it doesn’t matter.

Friday is overcast but not rainy – a good racing day. At lunchtime, we’re all so caught up in the carnival atmosphere of the track, nobody notices Mr S striding across the oval like an army general, heading straight for the betting circle. You can’t get away with anything when he’s around because he’s seen it all before. I guess he wondered why, in a school of two hundred and eighty kids, only about twenty are playing in the adventure playground. And no Preps anywhere.

It hadn’t even occurred to me to check whether Mr S was at school today. A serious oversight. He’s a bit like Mrs Leeman in that he always turns up at the worst possible moment. Another teacher might have told us to break it up and go back to the playground.

But not Mr S. He glances around and takes in the whole scene. Little racetracks drawn on the side of the water tank, piles of discarded betting slips, red dots all over the ground and about a hundred snails with number stickers on their shells. He figures it out in about three seconds. I start to wish I hadn’t worn Grandpa’s bowler hat and leather satchel to school.

As he approaches, Jun steps forwards. ‘Are you interested in a trifecta, sir?’

Mr S separates me, Alex, Jun, Braden and Minha from the rest of the group without even having to ask who is on the committee. I notice Ian standing in the background watching Mr S manage the situation. He must have been studying Mr S for a while because he’s wearing the same expression on his face. He can make his face go exactly like Mr S’s. It’s pretty impressive.

The five of us are sent to wait outside the principal’s office. Miss Creighton picks up the intercom and lets Mrs Overbeek know we’re ready, even though her door is about eleven steps away from where we’re sitting. I can’t see Roland anywhere. Maybe he went on his lunchbreak and caught a bus interstate.

Mrs Overbeek opens her office door and we all file in and stand in a little group. She doesn’t ask us to sit down and anyway, there are only two chairs. I’m relieved to see no parents here.

Mrs Overbeek sits on the edge of her desk and addresses me as if the others aren’t even in the room.

The others look over at me, obviously wondering what I’m going to say. Maybe they’re hoping I’ll say they had nothing to do with it, but Mr S saw everything and everyone. Mrs Overbeek already knows what’s been going on. She’s only asking me to tell her about it in case Mr S left out any good bits.

Mrs Overbeek makes me go over the whole thing without interrupting once. The room’s quiet except for my voice getting softer and softer. After I finish we all wait.

Mrs Overbeek sits at her desk and eventually folds her hands together. ‘Quite the entrepreneur, aren’t you?’ she says.

I don’t answer because I think it’s one of those questions you’re not expected to answer. Also, I have no idea what an entrepreneur is.

‘Apart from everything else,’ Mrs Overbeek continues, ‘there are endless violations of school rules here. Endless! And this goes for all the students involved, not only you five. What I can’t comprehend is the mindless cruelty of your actions. Snails are living creatures; they don’t exist for your selfish entertainment. And as for the example you’re setting for the Preps … I really don’t have the words …’

Mrs Overbeek does have the words, though – about twenty minutes of them, before we’re given our punishments. I get two weeks’ detention and a letter sent home to my parents to be signed and returned.

Jun gets two weeks as well. Predictably, Mrs Overbeek said as vice-captain, he should be setting a better example. I consider telling her that Jun was only a silent participant, but the look on her face persuades me to be silent myself.

The others are given one week’s detention, even Minha. When Mrs Overbeek announces the punishments, I look over at Minha, but her expression doesn’t change. She probably thinks this is the price for representing the snails’ welfare. I’m guessing it won’t be her last brush with the law.

When we leave the office, Minha and Braden hurry straight back to class. I take the view that I already have two weeks of detention, so I can more or less do what I want.

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Two weeks’ detention. It’s a good thing you weren’t there.’

‘Why are you always hanging around on the steps with Leini and Gina?’ Jun interrupts suddenly. Peta goes a bit quiet.

‘I … Leini said … I thought we were only going to meet on the steps, then go and do stuff, you know?’ Peta explains. ‘I didn’t know being on the steps was the thing.’

Ohhh. I think I get it, now. It’s a bit like the other night. I didn’t realise there was a good movie on TV until I’d watched nearly all of Take the Cake on another channel. It was down to two macaroons and a chocolate éclair. I couldn’t switch channels. I was too invested.

Peta says, ‘Anyway … Leini and Gina are okay. I usually sit on the middle step … and they’re not mean to everyone.’

We all look at her doubtfully. Peta probably got told to stand on the middle step because Leini and Gina don’t even like each other.

After school, we let our snails go at the bottom of the oval so they can eat the grass and stuff. Lots of them go through gaps in the paling fence to the neighbour’s garden. I take Alonso home with me, though. I saw some nice new shoots where Dad planted some boring flowers he got out of a catalogue. The plants in the catalogue are really expensive but I think he deserves it. Alonso, I mean, not Dad.