FRIDAY, 8.35 A.M.
Mike trudged across the tatty bitumen. Already the air was rising in small liquid shimmers above it, thick with the peculiarly school-like smell of old wood, kids and concrete.
School smells hot, of books and rot, said Mike’s feet, as they tramped across the bitumen.
It was cooler on the veranda. The thick brick walls were gloomy in winter — all cold-damp and streaked with pigeon droppings where the birds perched and waited for the bell, knowing that it meant a fresh lot of scraps were about to be delivered to the schoolyard — but you were glad of the shade in summer.
It was an okay school, Mike supposed. At least there was plenty of space. The school had been getting steadily smaller for the past twenty years, as the shirt factory on the outskirts of town closed down and then the train line, and lots of families had moved away. There was even talk of closing the high school altogether, which would mean he’d have to bus it an hour each way to Gunyabah every day, or else go and board in Sydney, away from everyone he’d ever known.
What was the point of high school anyway, thought Mike, as his footsteps clattered on the splintery wood. It wasn’t like there was anything he really wanted to do after he left school, not that doctor-lawyer-engineer-type stuff Mum was always on about, anyway. Sheesh, imagine being shut up in an office all day without even any school holidays …
He turned the corner to the lockers and looked around cautiously. But there was no sign of Loser. He must have grabbed the note and read it, then run straight to the ag plot.
Mike could just imagine Loser’s face when he read it, his silly grin below the owl-like glasses and the shaved head that made him look more like a bald peanut than a tough-guy. No, he wasn’t going to feel sorry for Loser. He wasn’t.
‘Hi, Mike.’
‘What? Oh, hi Jazz.’ Mike turned and watched as Jasmine’s long brown hands shoved her bag into her locker. Jasmine was new in school that term. Her dad was an exchange teacher from England, and her mum had come too, taking a year off so the family could wander round the country in the school holidays. Which meant that Jazz was hardly round at all, thought Mike regretfully. They even seemed to be out at weekends.
Jazz smiled at him, and shoved her hair behind her ears. It was long and black. Like silk, Mike supposed, though he couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen anything made out of silk. He tried to think of something to say to her, but his mind seemed to have turned into dog food. Jazz’s skin was sort of silky too, he thought, and pale brown like milky coffee. Someone had said that her mum was Jamaican, but Mike’s mum didn’t think so …
‘See you,’ said Jazz, in her high-pitched English accent. Mike watched her hair sway as she walked down the veranda.
No wonder poor old Loser has a crush on her, Mike thought. He was probably still down at the ag plot, waiting for her. When she wasn’t there he’d probably … he’d probably …
Mike’s legs seemed to move before he knew what he’d decided. Along the corridor, down the steps, past the tuck shop and round the hall to the small plot of grapevines at the beginning of the ag plot.
He stopped.
It was like a scene in a video, when you’ve pressed the ‘Pause’ switch so you can go and grab a drink. There were the ag plot grapevines, limp and dusty in the hot morning air. There was Loser, his feet in shabby joggers frozen in the dirt, his fists clenched, his face red, his eyes behind his glasses even redder, as though he was going to cry. No, please, please, thought Mike, don’t let him cry.
Budgie and Jordie and Fizzer Lucas were there, but they were moving, even though everything else was still. They were laughing — Budgie almost bent over with the giggles, Jordie slapping his back, Fizzer gasping for air he’d laughed so much.
Suddenly Loser moved. His head twisted to look at Mike, then at the other three, and Mike realised he wasn’t about to cry at all. His face was red with rage.
‘It isn’t funny,’ he said. His voice squeaked with intensity, which made Jordie laugh even more.
‘It isn’t funny,’ Loser repeated. His voice was louder now.
‘Your face!’ choked Budgie. ‘Mike, you should’ve seen his face.’
Mike said nothing.
Loser reached into the pocket of his combat trousers. He held up the test tube with the dark brown dust inside. ‘You see this?’ he demanded. His voice still shook with rage. Or was it pain as well, wondered Mike.
‘You got some doggy doo for lunch?’ choked Budgie.
‘No,’ said Loser. His voice was flat now, as though all emotion had drained away. Or maybe there was so much, thought Mike, that he had to push it all away to be able to speak at all. ‘It’s a … a … biological weapon.’
‘A what?’ Budgie’s grin grew even wider.
‘A biological weapon! Like on TV last week! All that brown stuff is millions of viruses. All I have to do is drop this test tube and you’ll all be dead! All of you!’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Budgie was still gasping for breath. ‘I suppose you ordered it on the Internet?’
‘No,’ said Loser.
‘Well where did you get it then?’
‘Tenterfield,’ declared Loser. ‘They’ve got a lab out there. I went out there for dinner with my parents. I said I was going to the toilet and sneaked into the lab and stole it.’
‘Oh, you did, did you?’ Budgie made a lunge for it. ‘Let’s see it then.’
Loser backed away, the test tube clutched to his chest.
‘Hey, that’s enough,’ said Mike. ‘Break it up. You’ve had your joke.’
Loser shot him a glance. Mike had thought he would be grateful, but it was a look of the most concentrated hatred he’d ever seen. He doesn’t want to be grateful, thought Mike suddenly. It’s easier to hate me too. Just like I don’t want to feel sorry for him.
Loser’s back was against the hall wall now, with Mike between him and the others. Loser pushed him away. His hands were shaking too much for it to be a hard push, but Mike moved anyway.
Loser blinked furiously at each of them from behind his glasses. ‘I’ll give you all till recess,’ he choked. ‘You’ve got to apologise by then. If you don’t apologise you’re all dead. Dead!’ his voice shattered on the final word. He bit his lip, then ran.
Budgie was still giggling. ‘Oh, man, you should have seen him,’ he said.
‘I did,’ said Mike. He tried to work out what he was feeling. Anger, he decided. It was Loser’s fault, not Budgie’s. If Loser wasn’t such a try-hard, no one would pick on him. He brought it on himself.
‘He was standing there with this goofy look on his face,’ hooted Jordie. ‘And then Budgie said …’
The bell rang, drowning him out.
‘Come on,’ said Mike, as the echoes died away. ‘We’d better run.’