I’m in maths when the PA announcement comes through. ‘Ian Whyte, please come to the principal’s office immediately. Ian Whyte to the principal’s office immediately.’
Oh crap! What’s going on? I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong lately. I think back over the last few days. Nothing: nothing worth a trip to the principal’s office anyway. So what is it? My guts are squirming. What if something’s happened to Mum or Dad?
The secretary at the front office looks up as I enter. She smiles, but it’s not a happy smile. I can’t quite work it out, but at least she’s not stern — more sympathetic. I nearly freak out. Something’s happened to Mum and Dad. I’m sure of it.
‘Have a seat, Ian. Mr Sutton will be with you shortly.’ She picks up the phone and speaks softly into it.
In less than a minute Mr Sutton comes out and walks across to me. I’m nearly choking with fear. He’s going to give me the bad news any second now. I grip the chair.
The first thing he says is, ‘You’re not in trouble, Ian.’
It is my parents! Maybe Dad had a car crash. Maybe Mum had some sort of accident. Hideous possibilities rush through my mind. ‘Has something happened to Mum and Dad?’ I blurt out.
Mr Sutton looks surprised. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Why ever would you think that?’
A hot relief is flushing through me when I see Ranga. He’s sitting on a bench outside Mr Sutton’s office, talking to some lady. I’ve never seen her before but she doesn’t look fierce. She’s leaning towards him talking softly, like she wants to help him with something. Ranga is leaning away from her like she’s a spider.
He glances up as I pass. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the look he gets when he’s been accused of something he didn’t do and he doesn’t know what to do about it. It’s an about-to-explode look. Then I’m in Mr Sutton’s office.
Mr Sutton asks me to sit down in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He sits down on a chair facing me — not his chair behind the desk, a chair near mine.
‘Now Ian, you’re not in trouble. What we’d like,’ he pauses for a second and looks towards the door, ‘is your help.’
My help? We? He’s the only one in here. He must be talking about that lady out there: the one who’s freaking Ranga out. Who is she? What does she want?
‘We want to ask you some questions relating to your friend Warren. You are the person most likely to have noticed something.’
I’m about to ask him what he’s talking about when the lady walks in. Mr Sutton introduces her as Ms Broadacre. She’s from some government department, some kind of social worker. She has this concerned look on her face but she looks sharp too. Her eyes stare. I have to look away and then look back. She’s still staring. It creeps me out.
She sits in a chair next to me. ‘Ian, your friend Warren may need help but I have to determine what course of action to take. That’s where you come in,’ she says.
I glance across at Mr Sutton but there’s no help there. He’s part of this. What’s Ranga done? Do they want me to dob on him for something?
She’s talking again, pinning me to my seat with those eyes. ‘Several of the teachers have noticed that Warren has a lot of bruises and cuts lately. I’m wondering if you can tell me anything about them. Have you noticed that Warren has been getting injured a lot lately?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but he always hurts himself.’
She purses her lips like I’ve said something important and nods. ‘Hurts himself how?’
I don’t get it. So what if Ranga falls off his skateboard, or jumps off the roof? What’s it got to do with her? I stare back but she doesn’t even blink. ‘He does things, you know, like skateboard tricks, and he falls off.’
‘Is that how he got his black eye?’
It’s like she’s a lawyer and a judge all rolled into one but I still don’t get what she’s asking me about Ranga for. I nod. ‘Yes, we made a ramp on my driveway and he was doing a jump when it broke. His skateboard hit him in the eye.’
She keeps staring at me and I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. I shift on my chair. It feels like she doesn’t believe me. ‘When was this?’ she asks.
‘Last Saturday,’ I say.
She writes in a big black notebook for a moment and then she looks up, suddenly. ‘Has he ever hurt himself when you weren’t there?’
I stare at her. What is she trying to find out? Then I remember the bruises in the change rooms.
She knows I’ve thought of something. I don’t know how, but she knows. I look across to Mr Sutton. He’s definitely on her side. At least I think there are sides and they’re on one side and I’m on the other, with Ranga.
I can’t think of a way to tell her that explains about his bruised back in the change rooms so I just nod. I get the feeling somebody is going to get into trouble but I don’t know who or even why. How can you get into trouble for having accidents?
Ms Broadacre is still sitting in her chair a metre away but it feels like she’s in my face. I want to leave but I have to sit there and, bit by bit, they lever it out of me: how hurt he was, how he didn’t want to talk about it, how he said it was his fault and how he said he was sick of being himself.
Then the questions aren’t about Ranga. They’re about his mum. What’s she like? Do I see her often? Is she nice? Does she hit him? And then I get it. They think his mum is bashing him!
That’s stupid! Or is it? Images flash through my mind: his mum shouting at him, the look on her face when she opened the door that day, the way Ranga wouldn’t talk about it and how we never go to his house. Suddenly I don’t know anymore. A sick feeling rises up in me when I think about all the things I’ve said. I can almost feel Ranga out in the hall willing me not to say anything, but it’s too late. There’s nothing I can do about it.
Ms Broadacre scribbles away in her notebook for a while and then she looks up. She leans forward and takes my hand. I recoil. I can’t help it and I think about Ranga recoiling from her in the hall as I came in. What have I done? It feels like I’ve betrayed him somehow. She tells me that everything I’ve said is confidential and that Ranga will never know what was discussed in here. She says I’ve been a good friend to Ranga and they only want to help him.
That’s all very well for her to say. Ranga might not know what I said in here, but I will. I don’t feel like a good friend. I feel dirty. Even if his mum does hit him, I feel dirty.