OF course school’s not all that straightforward. Never is. One thing I’ve learned about life is that something always comes along when you are getting on top of things, just in time to knock you on your arse again.
For me, right then, this thing took the form of Noel Cudby.
This guy Cudby looked too big to be at school. He looked like he should be at college. Except that he’s too dumb. That’s a given. The other thing that’s a given is that he hated me the moment he saw me.
Here’s how it happened.
It was a couple of weeks after I first started. I had finished my work early and I was just sitting there looking at him and thinking how he looked like a small kid held under a magnifying glass. He’s like a huge little kid, if you can work out what I mean. He’s got this real round baby face and a ski slope nose. His buck teeth make him look like he’s got a smile on his face so I smile at him, just to show I’m not a stuck up city type. Wrong move.
He chose his moment and then wandered over to where I was sitting.
“You being smart?”
“Nope.”
“You wanna go, mate?”
“Nope.”
“You wanna step outside and see who’s smiling then eh?”
“Nope.”
In these situations it is best to keep your answers very simple and to the point. But it didn’t work. I thought he was just horsing around so I gave him a serve. I have to admit, thinking about it now, that I did mimic him a bit too, but only to show him I was a good sort. “No mate. I don’t wanna go. Too soon after breakfast, and besides I’ve been outside and it’s no good.”
He shut up and went back to practising his writing (baby words, eh). I was sure that would be the end of it. His face was low to the page and his mouth was hanging open with the concentration.
But I was wrong, as I often am.
At playtime there he was, waiting for me just outside the cloak bay. Just leaning against the wall looking sort of casual, in an un-casual way.
As I walked past he grabbed my shoulder and said, “Hold it right there, Cultie.”
I was just thinking, “My god, what a corny line,” when he swung on me. I didn’t expect it and just turned my face in time. His fist hit the side of my head and I saw all these little sparks snapping off and on when I closed my eyes. It was just like in the cartoons. When I came to, I was sitting on the concrete and he was a few feet away doubled up over his fist like he’d broken it or something.
My brain wasn’t working too well at that stage so I had to replay the incident to try to work out what had happened. A sort of reconstruction of the crime. From that point I knew exactly what to do. I got up and ran over and kicked him as hard as I could, right up the bum.
It was a kick that I’ll remember for a thousand years. No other kick will ever feel so good, I don’t care who does it. It could be an All Black slotting the winning penalty, right on full time, but it still won’t feel as good as that kick felt. The timing, the placement, the foot speed: I reckon I almost got both of his feet clear of the ground.
Cudby sort of grunted and flew forward, sprawling out on the concrete. I stood over him waiting for him to get up so I could give him another one, but he stayed down. He may have been a thicko but he knew when to stay down. I grabbed a handful of hair to get his head up. I needed to repay him the punch. I would have left it there, honest, just a punch for a punch. Tit for tat. That’s fair. But I never got that punch in.
There was a frantic banging on the window behind me. In the classroom were Mr Boyne and Mr Carson the headmaster.
They had seen my kick but not his punch.
Typical.
The day went downhill from then on. I was marched off to the school office and ushered into the sick bay by an older lady who wore glasses hanging from a string around her neck. When I say “ushered” I mean Boyne and Carson had an arm each and they sort of dragged me. Later they claimed that I was kicking at them during this march but I don’t recall that little detail. Surely I would have remembered kicking the headmaster? I mean it’s not every day that you do that, is it?
What they made immediately clear was that I was going to be kept away from everyone else for the rest of the day. I sat on the bed looking at a diagram of all the bones in the human body. I remember thinking that the body sure was an ugly beast without flesh and skin to cover it. There were other posters about the dangers of hydatids. You get that disease from dogs who get it from eating animal guts. Then there was one about what not to do with detonators should you come across them. One of the things you shouldn’t do is hit them with hammers. You would have to be pretty thick to do that … but then again this was the country. I measured my eyesight against the eye charts and then read these brochures they had on a little stand. There was an interesting one about STDs. Then I heard voices outside that I knew. It was Iain and Jamie, here to rescue me.
“…can we just talk to him through the door?”
“No off you go and play, this doesn’t concern you.”
“He’s our cousin, he lives at our house…”
“I said off you go or I’ll get Mr Carson to have a word with you.”
“Can we ring Mum and Dad?” That was Iain.
“They have been rung so don’t you worry about that, now off you go. Back to class. Now!”
I knew that they were the sort of boys who did what adults told them, even if it was wrong, so I went out to see them but found there was something holding the door closed. It wasn’t locked, it was just that there was something heavy placed against it.
I yelled out. “Iain, Jamie, get me out of here!”
Then I heard men’s voices, loud ones getting Iain and Jamie out of the foyer, so I started to kick. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I had this “here we go again” feeling. I mean, no one likes being locked up so I thought it best to thump and kick hell out of the door. They needed to be reminded that I was still there.
The door was a heavy one, probably designed in a special workshop where they design kid-proof doors for schools. I knew I couldn’t break it, but I could sure make a lot of noise so I went hard out. I kicked for all I was worth, and then, slowly I could hear something being moved on the other side.
The door opened and Boyne and Carson were standing there, their hands out, all ready for me like I was some sort of escaped gorilla. I could see that they hadn’t had to deal with someone like me before, that they were a bit nervous, a bit out of their depth.
“You stop kicking that door or by golly I will give you a jolly good hiding!”
It’s Boyne who says that. “By golly” and “jolly good”. The last time I came across that sort of stuff was when I read Noddy in Toyland. I looked at them. I think Noddy. I think PC Plod. I couldn’t help it, I began to snigger.
“You think it’s funny do you? Kicking doors, kicking people, that’s okay where you come from is it?” It’s Carson. “We don’t put up with that sort of nonsense around here, Sonny Jim.”
“Sonny Jim?” I thought, where do they get this from?
For a while these two big dudes just stood there, wondering what to do. Guard me or get on the blower to Uncle Frank? Tough call. In the end Boyne stays and Carson goes off to call home.
Boyne was really angry. I could tell this because he began to stutter. The words just wouldn’t come for him.
“I..I..I..I..I..I’m jolly well n..n..n..n..n..not going to take this s..s..s..s..sort of behaviour. That stuff m..m..m..m..maybe okay in Auckland but here in T..T..T..Taranaki w..w..w..we have s..s..standards.”
This took a fair bit of eye bulging and spit spraying but he got there in the end.
Then he calmed down and got onto the real stuff. I could tell it was the stuff he’d been longing to say since I first arrived. He could see why they had kicked me out of my last school. His school would not become a dumping ground for city trash. One bad apple can spoil the barrel. I should have been given a good kick up the bum when I first started to get out of line – that would have sorted me out.
What did I have to say to that one?
Well, I had to agree with that last statement. So I said, “Yeah. A kick up the bum does sort things out. You could ask Noel Cudby about that one. He’ll be riding home side saddle for a few days.”
Boyne wasn’t impressed. “You’re not worth talking to,” he blurted, and stormed out, banging the door.