FRIDAY, 11.00 A.M.
Mum had packed him leftover pizza for morning tea. Mike chomped it wearily.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like pizza, especially the ones mum made with extra olives and chunks of meatball among the tomato. But sometimes, just sometimes, it would have been good to buy a donut at the tuck shop or something. It was as though Mum didn’t even trust him to feed himself without her there.
‘Hi,’ said Jazz, sitting down beside him and stretching out her long brown legs. ‘You coming on Sunday?’
Mike swallowed a bit of pizza the wrong way.
‘Glup … yeah, sure,’ he said.
‘Dad’s hired this great big marquee in case it rains,’ said Jazz. ‘He won’t be back from the Sydney excursion with Year Five till tomorrow, but Mr Pattinson said he and the boys will put it up for us down by the river. Dad’s even borrowed a generator so we can have some music. He wants it to be a sort of “thank you” party, because everyone’s been so welcoming.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mike. He wanted to say, ‘Of course everyone has welcomed you. You’re that sort of person.’ But his tongue wouldn’t fit round the words.
‘Mum’s going to …’ began Jazz. ‘Hey, there’s Lance. What’s he doing coming out of the classroom? He wasn’t in class this morning, was he?’
‘What? No. No, he wasn’t,’ said Mike. He wondered if he should tell Jazz about the incident at the ag plot, then decided it was just too difficult.
‘He looks sort of strange,’ said Jazz, her voice full of concern. ‘Like something’s wrong.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mike absently, his eyes on Loser.
He did look different, thought Mike, as he watched Loser trot along the veranda and down the steps, though it was hard to say what the difference was. His face was sort of blank but his back was really straight, like he thought he was acting in a movie or something.
Loser took three steps away from the stairs, and gazed around the school yard, his jaw high as if he was Arnold Schwarzenegger about to take on an entire army, then marched across the bitumen towards the line at the tuck shop.
‘What’s he …’ began Jazz.
‘Shh,’ said Mike. Then he added, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that Loser was, was sort of upset this morning. I want to see what he’s going to do.’
Budgie turned round just as Loser approached. He nudged Jordie, who was in the line ahead of him. Loser said something, but they were too far away to hear.
But I don’t need to hear, thought Mike dismally as Budgie began laughing. I can guess what they’re saying.
For a moment, Mike thought that Loser was going to strike Budgie, despite the fact that Budgie was bigger and had his mates around. But he just nodded, his fists clenched, then looked around again.
‘He’s coming over here,’ whispered Jazz. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Mike.
Loser stomped over to them, then stopped. He glanced at Jazz. His face went red, then white again. He stared at Mike instead. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘Well, what?’ asked Mike.
‘Are you going to apologise?’
‘Look,’ said Mike, annoyed. ‘It wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it! I stopped them grabbing you, remember?’
It was as though Loser could no longer hear anything but the words he wanted.
‘You’re not going to apologise then?’
‘No,’ said Mike, still annoyed.
Loser’s hot gaze turned to Jazz. ‘How about you?’ he demanded.
‘Me? What about?’ asked Jazz, puzzled.
‘You know,’ said Loser.
‘No, I don’t.’ Jazz looked genuinely confused.
‘So neither of you are going to apologise?’
‘No,’ said Mike.
Jazz shook her head, bewildered.
‘Alright then,’ said Loser. His voice sounded odd, as if it was trapped in an empty tin can. ‘You asked for it. Just you remember! You asked for it!’ He marched away, strangely clumsy in his too-wide trousers.
‘He’s off the planet!’ exclaimed Jazz, in her just-like-that-show-on-TV accent.
‘Well, sort of,’ said Mike. He wondered how much to tell her.
‘Why should he go off at me? I haven’t done anything to him at all!’ demanded Jazz.
‘Well,’ Mike hesitated. It was a bit like telling tales, but Jazz had a right to know. ‘He’s going crook because he didn’t get an invitation to your party.’
‘But I gave his invitation to Caitlin! She said she was seeing him after school. Didn’t she give it to him?’
‘No,’ said Mike.
‘Why not?’ demanded Jazz heatedly.
‘Well …’ Mike searched for words to explain. ‘She doesn’t like him … no one really likes him much and she’s best friends with Budgie’s sister and Budgie asked her … well, anyway, she didn’t give it to him.’
‘Blast her,’ said Jazz. She bit her lip in annoyance. ‘I didn’t want to leave anybody out. She had no right …’
‘Well, anyway, that’s mostly what he was upset at you about,’ said Mike. ‘And Budgie and the others pulled a … a joke on him this morning. He’s pee-ed off at that too.’
‘He looked more than that,’ said Jazz, still watching the distant figure of Loser as he disappeared up the stairs. ‘He looked … I don’t know … desperate or something. Why don’t people like him?’
‘Because he’s such a loser,’ said Mike. ‘No, that’s not it,’ he corrected himself. ‘I mean, if he just did dumb things people might laugh at him, but we’d still be friends. It’s because he won’t accept that he’s a loser.’
Jazz blinked. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘He’s a try-hard. He’s always making himself out to be this great hero, saying things like he’s gone hunting wild pigs with his dad over the weekend when everyone knows his dad spent the weekend being a nuisance at the Lions Club barbecue. I mean, his whole family are losers too.’
‘Poor kid,’ said Jazz.
‘It’s his fault,’ said Mike. ‘He does it to himself.’
‘Poor kid just the same,’ said Jazz.
‘Hey,’ said Mike, seizing his chance. ‘Mum’s driving Budgie and me over to Gunyabah tomorrow to the movies. They’ve got Thrill Kill showing …’
Jazz wrinkled her nose. ‘Thrill Kill?’
‘Yeah, it’s got whatshisname in it …’
‘It sounds like it’s all blood and car chases and stuff,’ said Jazz.
‘No, really, it’s supposed to be awesome. I don’t suppose you’d like to come too?’ Mike tried to calculate. If three of them sat in the back seat and one in the front there’d be enough room … ‘With a friend or something? Caitlin, maybe?’
‘I’m not going to be speaking to Caitlin,’ said Jazz grimly. ‘How dare she … Sarah might like to go. I’ll ask her and Mum and tell you after school.’
‘Great,’ said Mike. He tried to stop the grin spreading over his face. His mouth probably looked like a slice of watermelon, he thought.
Then Jazz grinned back and it didn’t matter.