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THE SCHOOL GROUNDS were deserted except for two huge silver-sided trucks and a certain white van. Everyone, it seemed, was in assembly. Still he biked on, straight across the playground, straight up the wheelchair ramp, straight in the open school office door, and almost straight into the school principal, three senior teachers and about six others.
"Randy Cathro!" Mrs Young roared as he locked his brakes and made a broad black rubber skid-mark on the linoleum almost to her feet. "What on Earth are you doing?!"
"Ahh, special delivery?" he said hopefully as he quickly looked around for Mr Tully. Tully was not there.
The principal puffed with rage. "Nothing, I repeat, nothing, can justify you riding your bike indoors!" she roared. "Now get it out and see me in my office straight after assembly. You will be losing privileges for this!"
"Not the only thing I'll be losing," he said, half aloud, hoping that Mrs Ngarata would hear from her office and come rushing out to take his money even though the bell had rung. Hah! No such luck.
Then, as he eased his bike backwards out the door he finally realised who the visitors were (or at least most of them) - the television crew. There were ‘the big guy’, the ‘city lady’ and several others. Randy looked through the faces again, looking for Lewis P. Fourward, but he did not seem to be there. Randy felt his spirits sink.
Mr Tully was hovering outside the assembly hall, looking a little agitated. When he spied Rancly, he rushed across to meet him. "I hope you've got it, boy, or else a jolly good excuse!"
"Right here!" said Randy proudly, whipping out the promissory note from Barry Boyd which by then looked not unlike a piece of paper that had been in the top pocket of someone who had recently crawled through a narrow toilet window.
"Just this?" asked Mr Tully, sounding very disappointed as he smoothed out the creases in order to read it.
"Er, yeah. He, ahh, he had it ready weeks ago but it kinda got mixed up with some other stuff. He says he's sorry."
Mr Tully silently refolded the crumpled note and tucked it into a clean envelope he had been carrying. Randy noticed that Mr Tully had had two envelopes ready. Oops!
"Now get into assembly," Mr Tully ordered as if he were sending a naughty dog back to its kennel. Randy went, feeling very heavy and sad. After all he had gone through to get that piece of paper, all the wheeling and dealing and greasing up to people, and Mr Tully hadn't said a single word of thanks. Sheee!
He slunk into the assembly hall, hoping to arrive unnoticed. No such luck. His arrival caused a substantial stir.
"Qui-et!" growled the teacher in charge.
"Psssst!" It was Piho, making a space for him. Randy gratefully got down from sight and slid onto the seat.
"You do it?" whispered Piho.
"Nuh," replied Randy round the big lump in his throat.
"Aw damn!" huffed Piho. "I put in my lunch money for you!"
Randy felt terrible. "Sorry, I didn't know. Gee, if you'd only told me earlier. . ."
"Qui-et!" roared the supervising teacher. "All stand!"
The teachers filed onto the stage, ushering the guests towards their seats. Their arrival caused a huge stir. The excitement in the air was like an electrical charge.
"Please be seated."
Mrs Young got straight on with the introductions, then briefly explained how the rest of the day was going to go. Every kid in the hall was just about jumping out of their seats at the prospect of the whole day out of class.
Then came the prize-giving. After a lot of blah-blah about everyone pulling their weight and how much talent was in the school, yadda-yadda, she finally got around to inviting one of the guests to announce the winner of the fundraising Prize.
It was the big guy. Apparently he was the director and his name was Dexter. Much to everyone's relief he wasn't into making lengthy speeches. He went to the microphone, glanced at the card he had been given and said, "The winners are Toi Latuselu and Lloyd Ngatai!"
There was lots of cheering and booing and general hubbub as the two boys went up to get their handshake and prize, then much to everyone's delight they did a high-five on stage before scurrying down the steps and back to their seats.
Then another of the guests was invited up to the microphone, some famous local artist that Randy had never heard of, to announce the design prize. She rabbitted on about a lot of arty stuff while Randy and Piho twitched and huffed and slowly sank deeper into their seats.
"... and so it gives me great pleasure in awarding the first prize to someone with a magnificent sense of colour and form, someone who managed to break away from the usual expectations of what a rugby league team would wear – Beau Cathro!"
There was a fresh outbreak of hubbub as Beau jumped up from her seat like she'd been stung on the bum.
"Ye-es!" she shouted above the ruckus. "Ye-ess!"
Piho sank almost to the floor whispering, "Mauve, bloody mauve!" Randy patted him firmly on the shoulder. "Never mind, mate, never mind. The real battle has yet to begin."
After assembly there was a period of chaos as whole classes milled about or surged aimlessly backwards and forwards while their teachers consulted each other about what exactly they were supposed to be doing, and individual pupils hurried past to their special appointments with fame.
The director had called for cheerleaders, and even though the school had never had any such thing, the Creative Dance Club was immediately dispatched to the gymnasium to start rehearsing a routine with one of the production crew. Everyone else, except the rugby players, was eventually organised into hauling masses of classroom furniture out to the playing field in order to create the effect of a grandstand.
Once it was arranged to the director's satisfaction he then arranged everybody on the grandstand as if they were a massed crowd at a rugby game. One of the gofers handed out a lot of coloured streamers and a couple of banners saying Go Pops Go! and Power Pops!
At one end of the field the caretaker had just finished putting up a set of goal posts and the other gofer was busy putting fake grass over the disturbed dirt.
Meanwhile, Randy, Piho and the rest of the league team had been trooped off to one of the huge trucks where 'Wardrobe' waited to issue them with the new jerseys.
This is it, thought Randy, here comes the big moment!
They went up the steps and into the truck. The costume lady was ready with a big mauve heap. Johnny got his first.
"Hey, these are cool!" said Johnny, lifting it high for everyone to see. They all pressed forward to get one too.
"Yeah! Like it!" said Robbo.
"Excellento! " said Tweety.
"Way cool!" said Bridget.
"Choice!" said Suzy.
"Mondo!" said PJ.
"Bad!" said Chas.
"I don't like it," said Randy quickly, trying to stop the rot before it was too late.
"Oh what are ya?" jeered Nathan.
"Yeah, loser!" added PJ.
Randy looked helplessly towards Piho. Piho just shrugged.
"Hey!" cried Randy desperately, holding his one up and turning it around. "Look at the back though!" It read: APPLE-POPS - THE ENERGY FOOD!
"What's wrong with that?" said Johnny.
"Yeah," added Nathan, "it's just a bit of sponsorship. Everybody's got sponsorship these days." Most of the others were nodding, and everyone was looking at Randy like he'd just farted in church. Once again he glanced desperately at Piho. Once again Piho shrugged and said nothing.
"Ahhh, nothing wrong with that," said Randy, "that’s not what I’m saying. But, like, just look at the colours. I mean: mauve?"
"So, what's wrong with that?" asked Robbo.
"Well, isn't it, like, a bit woosy?" said Randy. This seemed to work for a moment. Chas and P J looked a little bit hesitant about putting theirs on, and several of the others began holding them out and turning them about in the light. Randy seized the moment.
"I think we should protest!" he shouted' "I'm not gonna look like a woose!"
Chas and P J looked likely, and Randy knew that Tweety would protest anything as long as he didn't have to explain why. But then Johnny spoke out with his usual great wisdom and authority and Randy's three supporters seemed to melt back into the crowd.
"Nah," was what Johnny said.
"Right!" boomed Suzy suddenly, clapping her hands so loud it sounded like a bomb going off. "Team meeting. Let's sort it out right now!"
"Yeah!" said several of the others and they all sat down right there in the costume truck wherever they could park their bums. Meanwhile Randy was thinking rapidly, trying to recall that word thing Mr Tully had taught him: Identify - something-something-something.
Identify, Discuss, ...? ...? Well, at least that was the start of it.
"Okay," he said quickly, before everyone had quite settled, "let's identify the problem ..."
"It's you," said Nathan straight away.
"Yeah," said Chas and several of the others.
"You're the only one who doesn't like them," said Robbo, "therefore you're outvoted. End of discussion."
"Hang on," said Suzy firmly."If we're gonna vote then let's do it properly! Hands up for the new colours. "
All the hands went up, except for Randy's and Piho's.
'Against?"
Randy put up his hand slowly, feeling rather stupid. He was the only one voting.
"Piho?" said Suzy. "You haven't voted. Why?"
'Awww," said Piho, "yeah, well, I guess to be totally honest I don't like them - well, I don't like mauve, actually. It's a personal thing, but since you all do..." and he shrugged and said nothing more.
They got got changed, girls at one end, boys at the other. Then the wardrobe lady sent them across to 'Make-up' in the other big silver truck.
"Make-up!" groaned the boys. 'Awww-uh!"
"We're league players!" sneered Nathan.
"Yeah, I think we should all protest!" cried P J.
"Aw, come on, guys!" roared Johnny. "Don't be a bunch of blouses! It's all part of being on TV." And he sprang down the steps and led his team towards the make-up truck.
They all followed, grumbling, except Randy who hung back and held onto Piho for a quick private word.
"Thanks a lot, man!" he snarled, once they were out of the wardrobe truck.
"What d'ya mean?" said Piho guiltily.
"For backing me up in there! Geez, I was only doing it for you!"
Piho shrugged and looked away. "Cool it, man."
"No, I won't cool it!" snapped Randy. "I just made a complete dick of myself in there!"
"Aw," mumbled Piho, gazing after the team, "it wasn't going to work anyway."
"Oh, great!" snapped Randy. "So thanks for telling me!"
"Yeah, well," mumbled Piho. "Sorry."
It wasn't much of an apology, and it didn't leave Randy feeling much better, but he sighed and let it be. He let Piho go on after the others, then when no-one was watching he turned and kicked the truck's tyre, uttering a certain popular expletive beginning with ‘S’.
Very loudly.