‘We better test it before James gets back,’ I say.
‘This arvo?’
‘Yeah! Straight after school before our parents get home,’ I say.
Ranga looks like he’s just got a Christmas present. His hands go into racing driver mode, holding an invisible steering wheel. He turns it and leans into an imaginary corner.
‘You steer the couch with your feet,’ I point out. ‘We could put ropes down to the T-bar.’ It seems like a good idea to me.
Ranga shakes his head. ‘James couldn’t hang on to it properly. One of us will just have to do the steering. I volunteer me. You’ll crash it.’
‘No way,’ I say.
‘Well, I’ll go first.’
‘Deal.’
Ranga wins the toss and won’t listen when I try to make it best of three, even when I call him a chicken and make noises like a hen that’s laid an egg. I’m flapping my arms and scratching the ground when I hear Jess.
‘Pretty good,’ she says. ‘You should try out for the drama club.’
I’m so embarrassed I can’t think of a thing to say so I just give this stupid laugh.
Ranga glances at me, then he turns back to her. ‘Hi Jess,’ he says, and moves over on the bench so she can sit down. She does, but she leaves enough room for me to sit between her and Ranga.
‘Not sitting with your friends today?’ Ranga says.
‘Nah! It’s my turn to be picked on.’
I get up enough guts to sit down too. ‘Thanks for yesterday,’ I say. ‘I was miles away.’
‘Miles away?’ Ranga says.
Jess laughs. ‘You might as well say he was in outer space.’
‘Nearly,’ I say.
‘Where’s James?’ Jess asks and when I tell her she looks so upset for him that I start thinking that she’s a really nice person as well as being cool. Then I tell her about the couch and how we’re going to test it out this afternoon and, before I know it, she’s coming too, to be a substitute for James in the trials.
We’re just organising a time to meet at my place when a flock of girls, led by Lucy Jones, comes flouncing past so obviously not looking at us that even I figure out that that’s the whole point.
I look at Jess, trying to get an idea of how she feels about the way they’re acting. She gives me a smile and a shrug as if to say, ‘So what?’ She just gets better and better. For the rest of the day I catch myself thinking about her. I don’t get a lot of learning done.
We all meet out the front when school finishes and head home. Jess rings her mum on her mobile to tell her where she is. I kind of expected her to say that she’s going over to a girlfriend’s place but she says she’s coming over to my house to work on a hill trolley. It’s cool, even if she didn’t mention that the hill trolley is a couch. Her mum must be cool too. I wonder what my mum would say. She’d probably be okay about it, but I’d get interrogated when I got home. I probably will anyway if Mum sees Jess with us. She won’t today though — she’s at work.
We’re talking about all sorts of stuff as we walk along and Jess is walking next to me. Her hand is so close to mine that I start thinking about holding hands with her. Once or twice I nearly reach out and grab it but I chicken out. What if she doesn’t want me to? What if she pulls it away? I’m gutless. I know it, but I don’t want to wreck things. Then Jess looks across at me and smiles and I nearly get brave enough right then.
As we pass the deli I’ve got my eyes peeled for that guy Luke but I can’t see him. I look across at Ranga and he’s not worried at all. It’s like he got rid of any fear when he stood up to Luke. I figure I’m too chicken to fight so it looks like I’ll have to stay scared of him for a while. Then I look at Jess walking next to me and I know I want to toughen up.
All the way around the bend and up the hill I’m thinking about holding her hand and about facing up to Luke. It’s like she doesn’t think of me like I’m a little kid and that makes me feel grown up. It’s funny how we’ve always been the little kids on the street and now we’re older all of a sudden.
Jess has to sit on the couch because that’s what James would do and Ranga is sitting dead centre with his feet on either end of the T-bar. I’m doing the pushing.
A car comes up the hill, turns right at the roundabout and disappears around the corner. It’s the only car we’ve seen for the last ten minutes.
‘Go,’ yells Ranga. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
I shove the back of the couch as hard as I can until it starts rolling down the hill, faster and faster. I’ll have to judge it so it doesn’t get away from me. Then I feel it starting to speed up on its own so I run around the side and jump onto the seat. The couch lurches sideways and starts swaying.
‘Careful!’ Ranga yells, holding the T-bar steady.
It works, because the couch settles and we hurtle down the hill. Here comes the roundabout and I’m feeling uneasy. What if there’s a car coming up the side street?
‘Watch out for cars,’ I yell, but Ranga is too busy woo-hooing to hear a thing and Jess is hooting so loud it almost hurts my ears. We’re going so fast by the time we reach the roundabout that we get a bit of a lean up as we go around it, first one way and then the other. After that the road is a gentle curve and we sit there, enjoying the ride, until the couch stops way down by the next roundabout.
Trouble is, now we have to push it all the way back up again and it won’t steer straight. Ranga tries lifting the T-bar and dragging it from the front but that makes the back of the couch drag on the ground. The only way to do it is to get Jess to steer while Ranga and I push. It’s hard work. We’re both puffing when we reach the top of the hill but that’s because we hurried so we could have another go sooner.
On the next run Ranga is pushing off and I’m steering. It’s not as easy as I thought to keep the couch steady but, as we pass the first roundabout, I start doing swerves from side to side and we’re all leaning our heads in time with each other and laughing our faces off.
There’s just enough time left for Jess to have a go at steering before we have to pack it away, otherwise our parents might show up and ban us from using it before James has a go. We charge down the hill sitting bolt upright, with our arms folded, as cool as anything, and Jess holds my hand while she steers.
Woo-hoo!