I tried twice to ask Erica out before I actually did it. On the Monday, I nominated Ben for the student council and there was a bit of a snigger from the back of the room, but we both ignored it.
Speeches were to be on the Thursday, after which there would be a vote and our class representative would be elected.
I spent most of the week, whenever I had the chance, brainwashing the other members of our class into voting for Ben Holly.
I sat behind Matthew Clay in Geography and spent the entire lesson sending his brain messages that Ben Holly would be a good class representative.
I did the same in History to the Butler twins and followed Chelsie Burnett down the corridors of C Block thinking Vote for Ben Holly as hard as I could. I would have reached out to most of the class in one way or another during those couple of days but I knew for certain it would all be to no avail if Ben withdrew on the Thursday.
He was threatening to do it, too – every day that I didn’t get around to my end of the bargain. Asking out gorgeous Erica McDonald.
I managed to walk out of French with Erica on Tuesday morning (one of the few classes we shared) and we were side by side going down the stairs. It was the perfect opportunity, but I glanced across at her just as I was about to open my mouth and completely lost my nerve.
The problem was I didn’t want to hear her say no. Ben was right. I was all Gumbo-eyed about her and, as long as I didn’t ask her and she didn’t say ‘no’, then there was still the chance, however tiny, that she might want to go out with me. But, as soon as I asked the question, then the truth would come out and the humiliation would begin.
It’s funny how we would rather hear no answer at all than hear the answer we don’t want.
My second chance was at lunch the same day. Erica was sitting by herself on a bench in the concrete desert that was the D-Block quad. Alone. Aloof. Living in her own world, isolated from the frenzied lunchtime goings-on around her.
I stood for a while, gathering my courage, and finally started to march across the quad towards her.
Halfway there, my mobile beeped with a text message.
I stopped and checked my message.
I didn’t know the number, but it wasn’t hard to work out the sender.
GONNA GETCHA FREAK, it spelled out.
I took a deep breath and thrust the phone back in my pocket. Blocker’s latest game. Still, he didn’t dare touch me, so it was just empty threats.
Before I had taken another step, my phone beeped again. GONNA GETCHA GOOD, was the new message.
I tried to shrug it off again but I was quite rattled now. I looked over at Erica, still eating her lunch on the lonely bench.
Another day, I said to myself, and hurried off to find Ben.
Ben thought I should report the texts to the principal or show them to Tupai, but I didn’t want to do either. I felt both would just make matters worse. Ben ribbed me a bit for chickening out of talking to Erica and reminded me there were just two days to go. He wasn’t too tough on me though. He could tell I was a bit thrown, by the text messages I mean.
Wednesday was a big day at school. There was a home game of rugby league scheduled for just after lunch, and it was a big event. For a start, it was against Birkenhead College, our arch-rivals in the under-fifteens, and it was a semi-final to decide which team would meet Takapuna Grammar in the final. On top of this, the national schoolboy rugby league selectors would be there, judging performances and selecting trialists for the national under-fifteen squad which would be touring Australia later in the year. Both Phil and Blocker were playing.
The whole school turned out to watch, juniors and seniors alike. Even those who weren’t the slightest bit interested in rugby league. All classes were cancelled for the game, and attendance was compulsory.
I thought I would engineer things so that I just happened to be sitting next to Erica during the game, but the grassy banks around the top rugby field were packed with students from our school and supporters from Birkenhead, who arrived by the busload, and I couldn’t see Erica anywhere.
The game started with an explosion as Phil fed the ball to a wiry centre-half named McAlpine who passed it quickly to Blocker as two massive Birkenhead forwards were about to monster him. Blocker dodged around his marker, with surprising agility for someone of his bulk, and found himself in a bit of space. Enough to get up a full head of steam.
Opposition players quickly closed up in front of him, but Blocker’s speed was up now and he charged straight at them, aiming for the middle guy.
Bam! There was a thundering crash of bodies that we could hear from the banks, and Blocker exploded through the three of them, the outside two spinning off to either side, and the poor middle guy just going down backwards and getting trampled by the runaway bull that Blocker had become.
And there he was, Blocker the forward, Blocker the hero, charging at the line with only the fullback to beat. Their winger was giving chase from the other side but he wasn’t going to get there in time.
McAlpine streaked up on the inside and called for the ball.
Pass the ball Blocker I thought, although I wasn’t using my special power. I wasn’t concentrating on Blocker’s head.
Blocker hurtled towards the fullback, who didn’t have a chance and, from the expression on his face, clearly knew it. The try was Blocker’s. Then, just before the fullback leaped up for the tackle, Blocker unselfishly flipped the ball to McAlpine.
The fullback got brushed aside like an annoying insect, and Blocker shadowed McAlpine down to the try line.
It should have been the perfect start to the game. An exciting and spectacular try. A try that Blocker could easily have scored himself, but handed the glory off to his team-mate. But McAlpine, instead of diving over the line or placing the ball carefully on the grass, went for a fancy one-handed put-down, undoubtedly trying to show off in front of the selectors, and he dropped the ball. He bombed the try, then tripped trying to recover the ball and ended up in a heap on the grass.
‘Knock on,’ the referee called.
Blocker ran over to McAlpine, the kid who had just butchered Blocker’s certain try and cost us a good head start against Birkenhead. I expected him to be swearing and shouting. I almost expected him to thump him. But he didn’t.
Blocker extended a hand, helping McAlpine to his feet, then patted him on the back and muttered a few words of encouragement, before trotting back to get ready for the resulting scrum.
‘Good one, Blocker,’ I muttered, but my feelings were more than a little mixed.
Somehow the rest of Wednesday slipped by and I knew that the next morning Ben was going to excuse himself from the elections and all would be lost. I was starting to get a bit desperate when, after school, I saw Erica walking home. She went a different way to me, but it wasn’t too far from my route, so I traipsed along after her like a puppy dog following its master, feeling a bit pathetic.
It took about half a kilometre before I overcame my nerves, steeled myself for the inevitable outcome and quickened my pace so that I caught up with her.
She half turned her head as I walked up alongside her but said nothing.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ she said, without looking at me.
‘I was wondering,’ I started, and then couldn’t get the rest of the words out.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘If …’ Jeez this was hard. ‘If you … were planning on standing for the student council.’
What an idiot!
This time she did look at me, as if she thought I was quite strange. ‘No. I’m not standing.’
‘Oh.’
Ten steps, I thought. I’ll take ten more steps and then I’ll ask her.
Ten steps went by.
Just ten more steps. Ten, nine, eight … oh this is stupid.
‘And I was wondering if you’d maybe, want to, like, maybe, you know, go out with me?’
There! I said it.
Silence.
‘To a movie or something?’
Silence.
‘Or not.’
She half glanced at me, and I could have sworn there were tears in her eyes, and then she was hurrying off, leaving me standing there on the grass verge of someone’s driveway feeling very stupid and more confused than I’d ever been in my life.
‘Well, at least I did it,’ I said out loud to nobody and started to walk home.