CHAPTER 4

Year 9 Is Gay

As soon as Mr Graham had finished explaining the English oral — which was to design your own radio program and present it to the class either live or on a tape — Billy Johnstone had his hand up.

“Are we allowed to use a dictaphone to record the radio program?” he asked.

“Yes Billy, you may.”

“So we can use a dictaphone?”

“Yes.”

Zane Beard yelled out a question. “Are we being marked on our diction, sir?”

“Of course,” said Mr Graham.

“This assignment scares the dickens out of me,” Zane continued. “Would you be able to dictate exactly what I have to do?”

Alex sighed. This prank was funny the first five times they pulled it, but it was starting to get old. Small giggles spread around the room.

“It’s 3–2 to Beard,” Peter Callaghan whispered to Alex and Jimmy.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said Mr Graham to Zane. “I’ll DICtate it to both you and Billy at lunchtime. You can meet me here at 12.45.”

It took the boys a few seconds to realise they’d been given a detention. “Awww, what for, sir? I didn’t do nuthin’!” Billy said.

“I know you didn’t, Billy, but being a DICtator, I insist that you and Zane come back at lunch, where I will perform a DIChotomy on you. Oh, by the way, DIChotomy means to split into two. And make sure you bring your DICtionaries with you, as I want you to look up the word DICtum, and write out its meaning one hundred times.”

The class giggled.

“What a dick,” Billy mumbled under his breath.

“What’s that, Billy? I didn’t hear you. Do you have a DICky tongue?” Mr Graham said. “And if I’m not mistaken, I’ve just won the first set against both of you, 7–6.”

Everyone, except Billy Johnstone and Zane Beard, laughed. Alex hadn’t been looking forward to English this year, as he was in an all-boys’ class. Something to do with helping boys do better at English and letting the girls "express" themselves in a safe (i.e. no boys) environment. But luckily it looked like Mr Graham, who was a new teacher at St Joseph’s, could hold his own. He’d need to be able to.

Things had changed since Year 8. Now, more than ever, it was about image. If you drank, smoked, were bad in class, good at footy, and "hooked in" with girls — you were cool. If you were fat, skinny, wore glasses, were real smart or real dumb, played a musical instrument (other than guitar or drums), danced (other than moshing), dressed or looked funny — you got caned. The kids still remembered Alex’s fights with Billy Johnstone last year, so no one messed with him. But they didn’t think he was cool, either. Mostly, they left him alone.

But other boys in Year 9 got it bad. And it wasn’t so much the dead legs, mug by tackles, bag/hat/lunch stealing that seemed to hurt them. It was being called gay. There was nothing worse for a boy in Year 9 than to be labelled a poofter, and no one copped more stick than John Carson-Zanger.

John had frizzy brown hair and wore his socks and pants a bit too high. His family emigrated from Romania less than a year ago, and his English wasn’t the best. He tended to get his words mixed up, especially when under stress.

“I will burn youse house down!” he said after Billy flicked him on the side of the head with a pen.

“I will burn youse dresses,” replied Billy. “The ones you wear to pick up men at night.”

Even with the mixed-up words and the uncool dress sense, it wouldn’t have been so bad if John had learnt to keep his mouth shut when he was stirred. But he bit every time. Alex didn’t speak much to John. He was glad it wasn’t him getting the hard time.

“After this radio program is completed,” said Mr Graham, “we can start on a new unit I think many of you will enjoy. It’s called ‘Skateboarding’.”

This class is getting better all the time.