Part 8 - Oooh, Mandy

Since Year Seven, there’d been a core of us who’d caught the train to school from Woy Woy, and for the first year or so, the guys sat with the guys, and the girls with the girls. Then the girls sorta thinned out – some moved, one changed schools, and another attempted suicide (the attention seeking kind, not the real kind), and Amanda started riding with us. By that time too, we’d slowed down on the wild stunts, like fruit fights, paper aeroplanes, and unscrewing seats and throwing them out the doors. And with her being the only girl who we had close contact with on a daily basis, pretty much every guy developed a crush on her, to varying degrees. Yes, me too, but it was a passing thing. I had more pressing concerns at Venturers (scouts aged 15-18), where I knew Anna outside of school, to pursue Amanda more than half-heartedly. Plus her going out with Nick for going on six months kinda settled the question.

For me at least. Jase, I wasn’t so sure about. He’d mentioned something at the Camp back before she hooked up with Nick at the Party the week after. He’d probably been afflicted worst of all of us, and then this chance had come along, and then disappeared. It was all cool now though. I think. But this free period had developed into a good time to hang out with a chick, and get her perspective on things.

‘So, how’re we gonna spend the next,’ Jase looked at his watch, a shiny silver surf-brand timepiece, ‘ 84 Minutes?’
‘Dude, I’m hungry. Let’s go for a drive.’ I whined.
‘Not Maccas Jase, I’m sick of it. Let’s go get something else,’ she said.
‘Uh, how’s Subway then?’
‘Dude, I don’t want to go all the way to Erina, I just want some food.’ Did I mention I was hungry? Cos I was hungry.
‘We don’t have to go all the way in, there’s a Subway in Gosford now.’ Amanda said.
‘Say what? Since when? Where is it?’
‘Sub-way in Gos-ford. Op-ened last week. Near the leagues club, on the main strip.’ She said, slow for the Hard-Of-Thin-king.
‘C’mon then, let’s go for a ride.’ Said Jase.

So we got up and headed across our minor quad, and as we went through the main quad, we ran into Mr. Snowdon. The Deputy. Head of Discipline. Who looked like Santa Claus, and acted like he’d lost the Naughty List. At least with Amanda heading the charge.

‘Where are you students off to now?’ he said gruffly.
‘Oh sir,’ Amanda gushed, ‘we’ve got a free period and we thought we’d head down to Gosford library for a bit of study.’ No full-blooded man could stand up to a teenage girl in full charm mode, though Mr. Snowdon made a half-hearted attempt.
‘What about the school library?’ he ventured.
‘well sir, we just came from there, it doesn’t really have what we need. In fact we’re looking for something a bit specific. Extension history, you know.’ She slid that word in like she was laying a reversal in Shithead. Bam. And we were out of there.

Part 7 - Working up the Crowd.

So with that, I knew what I was drinking – a Half of Stolichnaya, mixers Blue Curacao and Lemonade. I still had half Generic Blue from a while back, when we were doing shots of it with lime juice. Pretty intense, but we were running about like pre-schoolers on straight red cordial. Hah, good times. Stoli was the brand of preference, seeing as I earned enough working at Maccas to justify something more expensive than Karloff, but hardly enough to warrant the extravagance of Absolut. Besides, it matched the Lemon Stolis some of the girls drank.

But anyways, we were sitting on the spoils of war while a few of our group were playing Hackey, those who had a bit more coordination than those who were sitting down. ‘So Pete, you comin’ to Nikki’s?’ I said.
‘Huh?’ apparently I’d just snapped him out of the Twilight Zone.
‘Nikki’s. on Friday. Everyone’s invited. Even you. Are you comin’?’ Jase said.
‘Uh, I dunno. Maybe.’
Pete’s ‘situation’ was a strange one, and a warning to the rest of us not to invest too deeply into women. He was ‘good friends’ with Lauren, whatever that meant. I mean, like a lot of us were friends with Amanda, Nikki, even Bec, although all the guys seemed to go red when she was around. But we had no idea what was going on in Pete’s world with Lauren, and we weren’t likely to get much out of him. Unless we got him drunk.
‘Sure you are dude. I’ll drive ya.’ Jase said, as he caught an errant hackey ball, and threw it back to the crew.
‘Yeah man.' I said, then whispered, ‘dude, go anyway, it won’t matter if she’s not there or not.’
I could understand the difficulty he would be going through. We’d all had unfulfilled crushes. To us though, it looked like he was being led on. But hey, what would we know, it’s not like we knew what was going on. Sure me and Jase would have liked to pick up, but Pete, well, he needed to pick up. Break free from the oppressive shackles of friendship.

That’s how we saw it, anyway.

‘She wouldn’t show anyway, not to Nikki’s.’ He said.
‘See, it’s cool dude, nothing to stress about. All exams are over, and there’s three weeks of holidays, plenty of time to do, well, whatever it you do with her. Come on, Friday’ll rock.’ I said.
‘Fine, I’ll go, only cos I know you two’ll keep bitching at me all week if I don’t.’
‘Damn straight, bitch.’ said Jase. By some fluke, a Hackey flew in at this moment, which I slapped away rather than catching it, and it went straight for Pete’s head.
‘God dude, don’t have to get violent on me.’

Then the Bell rang. People started moving, except for me and Jase. ‘later bitches.’ Gotta love free periods. Especially when there were so many of them. The crowds withdrew, and how few remain… Me, Jase, and walking on over from Nikki’s group was Amanda, the only girl from Woy Woy like the rest of us. Only one worth counting, anyway.

Part 6 - A Betting Man.

The Bell rang, and I dashed out of maths as fast as possible, and given that I was at the back of the class (i.e. closest to the door), I was back down to the quad in time to ;lay the smack down’ on these bloody year nines who thought they could nick our bloody chairs. I can’t emphasise this enough, that we’d earned these rough wooden seats through years of patient waiting. There was no way in hell we were giving them up to a bunch of whipper snappers who thought that getting out of class early would earn them the right to sit in a real chair.

Of course, when HSC exams were being sat, these chairs were still owned by Year Twelves, but for this week, there were none around. Normally we would be playing handball, but these kids kept us at our posts, ever vigilant.

‘So dude, you going to nikki’s or what?’, I asked Jase, already knowing the answer. One has to promote a party in a certain way.
‘dude, hell yeah. You gonna be able to score us some booze?’, Jase replied. He hadn’t been able to work his parents the way I had mine. This beautiful speech six months ago had ensured my dad would buy me the alcohol I needed, and I could never remember the details. Something about sampling flavours, and if they didn’t buy me it, they’d never know what I was drinking.
‘fo sho. Whatcha reckon you’ll be wantin?’ I might emphasise at this point that this was an elite school. We got here on academic merit. Both me and Jase were in 3 unit English, and Jase was in 4u. I’d only dropped out of 4 unit because I was doing 3 unit Modern History. We were both capable of a higher level of communication.

This was just more fun.

‘like, whatever dude. Vodka cool?’ Jase said.
‘pfft. As if you can afford it.’ There were only a few of us with part time jobs, and those jobs were at Maccas. Jase was one of those without.
‘I’m good for it. Anyways, what about the bet?’

Oh yeah, the bet. Neither would ever win it, if anyone else found out about it. One of those appalling ideas one would get from one of those crappy ‘coming of age’ movies spewing out of Hollywood, except none of those movies had come out in recent years. We really had come up with it on our own, though that was nothing to be proud of.

Article 1: neither party shall submit the details of the bet to any third party (I’m out $5 for writing this right now).
Article 2: on an upsliding scale, payments will be made in $5 increments for success with the opposite sex according to the standard Bases, as laid out in the Gosford Conventions of 1997.
Article 3: Each claim shall be verifiable, and desirable.

Ahh, I owe him a party’s worth of drinking, anyways.

Part 5 - Meanwhile, At The Front Of The Class...

‘Well, is he?’ I asked Hill.
‘God Anna, chill… yeah, he so is.’ She replied.
What does it mean? He wrote that letter, it says he doesn’t like me, but then he’s checking me out, has been for the past month, every time I see him. God, nothing’s going to happen anyway, I really should just concentrate on, uh, quadratic equations.
‘You can’t tell anyone, Hill.’
‘As if I would, it’s boring. Like, really, really boring. Everyone knows what happened, and no-one cares. Except for you two. You shoulda hooked up, broked up and got over it like last term.’ She sounds as tired as she looks, I don’t think she’s been getting enough sleep.
‘But he doesn’t like me… he wrote it.’ I’m not sure, even as I say it.
‘like that matters, you’ve seen the way he looks at you.’ But, just because he’s looking at me, doesn’t mean… what does it mean anyway? Then Mr. Elliot rocks up and interrupts the conversation-

‘How’s it going here girls?’
‘Uh, fine sir, I think we’ve got this now, it’s not that hard. It looks like Katie wants your help though.’ That’s not all she wants by the look of it. One too few buttons done up by any measure of respectability.
‘Okay then, but keep it down girls, and keep working.’
‘sure thing, sir,’ Hill says cheerily. Not a hint of sarcasm showing, I don’t know how she does it.

Really, this is the last thing I need right now. Just one more week of relatively easy class to pull through, and then I’m off to Fraser Island while everyone’s stuck going to all the third rate Olympic events. Like they’re really interested in Handball or Lacrosse. All this stress, if it’s been like this for year 11, the HSC might be too much. Really need to chill out, like Hill said. It’s not like I’m the only one in the world to have a crush though.

‘well, what about Jase then?’ I ask her.
‘what about him?’ she says, all innocent like, as thought she doesn’t check him out every chance she gets. I just stare her down, until she breaks down.
‘god, fine… I don’t even know him, not really anyway. He’s not in any of my classes, I just think he’s cute. Well, hot.’ shocking me again, always blatant.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ she went on, ‘boys are so stupid.’
She’s right, they are though. They still sit together like even being next to a girl would transmit a near-fatal dose of cooties. They still play ball games, handball and cricket mostly. And Hill drags the whole group of us down to the oval so we can check ‘em out when they play. Or so they can check her out, I’ve never been sure about that. And always, he’d be there, eyes on me more than the ball.

I just want this class to be over, so I don’t have to think about it.

Part 4 - Notice Her Notice.

The game ends as awkwardly as only a gangle of teenage boys knows how, and we’re soon schlepping out and off to various maths rooms, some at far more speed than is deserved. It took me a term to realise I wasn’t cut out for standard two unit, and have since enjoyed the un-challenge of General Maths, the only maths that still has multiple choice questions in the HSC. What Joy. However, in exchange for these hours of mental ease, they must be shared with Brendan.

He’s already in his seat. The good seat. I’ve got the wobbly one. Again. The kind that means I can’t lean back properly even though we’re at the back of the class. I sit down, and the proffered earphone already has the familiar thump of Devil’s Dance by Metallica, a song (and album) already played to the point of saturation. Although, it does drown out the sound of maths. The offer of music does come with a disclaimer – thou shalt not rock out. My ineptitude in the area has been pointed out on countless occasions. From the lack of Rhythm (thump, thump-mp, thump, fuck, um, thump), to the finger twitching by my side which I seem to think indicates the playing of a guitar, I am well aware of the general annoyance that I cause Brendan.

Tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap ta-

Thunk. His desk shifts and collides with mine, indicating displeasure. The astute reader may have noted that thus far not a word was spake betwixt the two of us, and with good reason. There’s nothing to say. Monday mornings are more accurately viewed as mournings, a moment in time where the passing of the weekend is noted by a respectful few hours silence. Well, that and class isn’t often a time for talking. It might not be a test, but we’re going through past paper questions, and it’s better if we just sit up the back and stay quiet while Mr. Elliot helps those who need it – though I swear Katie Pittman’s got a thing for him. That’s the third time she’s asked him about quadratics. I think. I can’t hear too well with Metallica blasting through one ear.

Besides, if I sit back here and say nothing, maybe Anna won’t notice me. Won’t notice how every time I look up, it happens to be towards her seat in the front. If I listen to this music, I can drown out the thoughts about that night at the school camp, and the stupid, stupid letter I wrote afterwards. I can concentrate on annoying Brendan so he doesn’t notice how much I’m actually checking her out. It’s really quite the lost cause, but everyone’s got their own futile battles being fought.

I just want it to end so I can escape, and escape notice. Not that I could have noticed that she had Hillary watching me watching her the whole time. Something which might have saved me a bit of a shock come lunchtime.

Part 3 - Dealt an Odd Hand

The Bell woke me up at 8.50, time for roll call. Well, Jase shoved me awake, and we stumbled on over to roll call, where the sane are gathering, people with normal subjects in normal class times. The kind that start after roll call. I’m already reaching around to the small pocket in my backpack to pull out a pack of cards, well worn and marked. There’s 10 minutes in which Shithead can occur, and we’d like to get at least three rounds in.
“C’mon, C’mon, deal. Right, who’s playin’?”, Fat’s well keen, it’s not like there’s anything at stake though.
“in.” “where are my cards?” “deal me.” Tilbury, Jase, and BJ make it in time, however-
‘dude, deal me in.’ Coote tries, no success though.
‘It’s three card this hand. Next one.’ I say, dealing around without him in. what can I do? Three card only works with 5, unless you get two packs and that’s a crappy game anyway. And, when you’ve got someone on the outside, they make the game go faster – loser gets left out, outsider gets put in, just like in handball. We’re old hands at this game now, it’s been a staple of Cold-Wet Days, Too-Hot Days, Lazy Days and The Teacher Didn’t Show Up Days.
Slip, slip, slip. Cards slide out of hands, laid on top of the pile, in silence. A hand picks up a pile, and another lays down an easy card right after. A pile gets burnt, and slid to the side. Smooth game so far – no-one’s slipped up, reversing direction when required, and reversing counting when the card demands it. I’m not Shithead before I know it – then Tilbury, then Jase. The battle of the Shitheads Begins – Fat and BJ. Neither are particularly good players, insofar as the game requires any skill at all. But no-one wants to be Shithead. It’s at this point where skill does become apparent though, selective use of good cards, forcing the other player to pick up your bad ones.
BJ flukes it, and Fat’s left holding half the deck. First Shithead of the day. The game can continue anew – at least, until Erin walks up. Oooh, a girl. Every single boy shifts slightly in his seat.
‘Hey guys, can I play?’, she awkwardly asks the group in general. Hell, someone has to give up a spot, but there’s no way a girl’ll get turned down like Coote was. I don’t think anyone else could’ve caught it, but Jase gives a massive, instant filthy to BJ in the seat next to him, a silent communiqué with the bold headline ‘get out of the fucking seat. Now.’ As BJ’s the only one who would get the hint, he gets up and says to Erin,
‘Sit here, I’m gonna go over and talk to, uh, Ruby’,
now it’s six players, I’m not going to ask anyone to sit out, it’s two card. Still, an interesting development nevertheless. Something to talk about in the break, anyway.

Part 2 - That Gasoline Smell...

The newly acquired position was situated underneath a classroom, in a dark spot that remained shaded for most of the year, a good thing from our perspective as summer was heading up. Far too many lunchtimes had been sweated out on the handball court, and water fights in the final minutes to cool down as we went to class. Nothing at all to do with the lightness of the girls shirts, or their clingy nature when wet.
The key feature of the locale was the wooden benches, of which a limited amount existed in the quad. They had been well bent by the previous users, slouched to perfection as it were. This early in the morning, being laid back was a natural state. As close to sleep as possible, in the final minutes before class started, and then we could get some proper sleep.
‘Waddap, Bitches.’ Yes, people really did talk like that, a disaffected quote thrown like the schoolbag hitting the bench.
‘Nikki says she’s gonna have a party this Friday night,’ Jase says, dropping onto the bench with a thud. Tilbury’s lying down, and Nick’s bag’s there, though he himself is probably off with Amanda getting in a few more minutes of couple time. BJ’s the closest thing to a morning person in the group, though you couldn’t tell by the bleary look in his eye. The news of the party gathers barely a reaction.
‘Duffman says a lot of things,’ Tilbury mumbles under the book covering his face, ‘She cancelled three weeks ago, remember?’
‘Yeah, but her parents cancelled their trip, and now they’re going this weekend. And we can party Friday.’ You know, I’ll probably be putting more effort into gearing folks up for it later in the day, later in the week, but I’ve been hanging out for something for a while now, and someone’s gotta pay attention.
‘Whatever. Do you know what we’re watching today?’ ah well, Tilbury dismissed it without a spare thought.
‘Apocalypse Now. Again. He couldn’t think of anything relevant that won’t be missed.’ At least Jase is paying attention. It’s only going to be the first 45 minutes, so we won’t even get to the bunnies today. Redux hasn’t come out yet either, so it’s only the tame bunnies. Something to sleep to, I guess.
Well, the Bell rings, somewhat louder than strictly necessary this early in the a.m., (après midi, at least something stuck from French last year), and we trudge towards class, after staying in place for a minute. It’s about making a point – we don’t have to go to class, we choose to. So we get there, right above our spot, really, and Attwood’s about as excited as us to be there. Mumbles something about a meeting, how more kids should be here, puts in the video and skives off. Something to do before roll call anyway. And an opportunity to figure out the exact wording of that phrase – ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning.’