Staying Alive in Year Five

by John Marsden

  ‘It’s good,’ Candice said.

  ‘OK.’ said Mr Murlin, ‘but what did you like about it?’ There was a bit of a pause. He said, ‘It’s easy to say something’s “good” or “bad”. But they can be shallow responses that mean you don’t have to think much. What exactly is good about Scott’s composition? How come it works so well?’

  ‘It’s funny,’ someone said.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘The foods, ’cos they’re so disgusting,’ said Kate Baker. ‘And the glass skins.’

  ‘Why were they funny?’

  ‘Well, you don’t expect them. And seeing a baby like that, that’d be weird.’

  ‘Better than TV,’ Johnny said.

  ‘So surprises can play a big part in humour?’ Mr Murlin asked. ‘Unexpected combinations?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tom. ‘Like a safety belt on a skateboard.’

  Everyone laughed. ‘OK,’ said Mr Murlin, ‘what else is good about the story?’

  There was another pause.

  ‘Well,’ said Candice, ‘it’s so different. It takes you away from your usual boring old life. That’s why I like The Hobbit and books like that.’

  ‘What doesn’t work in Scott’s story?’ Mr Murlin asked. ‘Any weaknesses?’

  ‘Read it again,’ someone said. So I did.

  ‘It ends too suddenly,’ Kate commented.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I had to go to bed.’

  ‘Scott’s got the best imagination,’ Rachel Rosetti said. She’s my girlfriend, so I was pleased she said that. Johnny nudged me though, so I hit him. Mr Murlin saw me, but he ignored it.

  ‘Well,’ said Mr Murlin, ‘the story could well be a feat of the imagination. But there’s another possibility, too. It could be true.’

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘How’s Miss Holland?’ Grandpa asked.

  ‘Good,’ I answered. Miss Holland was our principal. I couldn’t tell him what she was really like, because they were friends. They’d taught together in 1882, or some time around then.

  ‘Fine lady,’ Grandpa said. He picked up my homework. It was a Maths sheet. He started reading it out aloud. It began: ‘“If it took a man and a half a day and a half to walk a kilometre and a half, how long would it take a giraffe on a bicycle?”’

  ‘Good Heavens,’ Grandpa said, staring. Then he read on:

  ‘“No, just kidding folks. Here’s the real Question One. Kate Baker has earned $10 by handcarving Twisties. She wants to buy three pens at $1.25 each, a large packet of M & Ms for her teacher at $2.75 (thanks Kate), and a diamond bracelet at $2.95. How much change will she get? Don’t use calculators, and show all working, or else I’ll never teach you Maths again.”’

  ‘Good Heavens,’ Grandpa said a second time. His voice had sounded a bit strained while he was reading. He went out into the kitchen and I could hear him start to tell Mum about it as he shut the door. A few minutes later she came in and borrowed the sheet and sat on my bed to read it. She laughed all the way through. ‘Wish I’d had a teacher like that,’ she said, and went back to the kitchen.

  I was doing my homework early because Johnny and I were allowed to go to the five o’clock movies, seeing it was Friday. We were going to The Blood and Brain Hotel, which Johnny had seen three times already and he said it was really good. He said it was so scary that he had to sleep in his bedroom cupboard after he saw it the first time.

  Anyway, he came over to my place and we went into town. We were walking down the Wiber St Mall, past all the shoppers and the buskers and the kiosks, when suddenly Johnny grabbed my arm so hard it hurt.

  ‘What?’ I said, pulling away.

  ‘Look!’ he kind of shouted, but in a whisper. He pointed to a busker in the middle of a big crowd outside Butterworths. I looked, and I could see what he meant. The busker was Mr Murlin! Without saying another word to each other we edged closer. He was dressed in a long, long black coat that nearly touched the ground, and a big grey hat with a wide brim. He looked like a tramp. He was doing magic tricks. He must have been just finishing one, because he held up a feather and everyone clapped. Some little kids, sent by their parents, ran out and dropped money in a box he had on the ground, and he thanked them. Then he announced:

  ‘Finally, before I take a break, I’d like to share one last piece of magic with you. This is not conjuring now, not illusion, but magic. But I’ll need a couple of people to help me.’

  A few hands went up, mainly kids. Of course Johnny and I put ours up. We didn’t think he’d noticed us in the crowd but suddenly he pointed straight at us.

  ‘Thank you boys. Come out here, will you please.’

  We went out, going all red and nudging each other. Mr Murlin turned to the crowd and said, ‘We’ll need all our concentration here. Magic is about changing things. It’s about suspending time and place and natural laws. Please watch carefully.’

  He asked us to stand either side of him, then to close our eyes. With my eyes closed I felt him using his thumb to trace some sort of design on my forehead. I started to feel strange. I heard the crowd gasp. Then my eyes were open, I think, and I could see a whole big green valley. But I was above it, looking down. I was near some cliffs, but I think I was actually in the air. A bird, like a hawk, except it was pure white, flew past me. A river was rushing through the valley, fed by a big noisy waterfall nearby. The noise of the waterfall got louder and louder, until it seemed to mix in with something else. Then I realised that it was the sound of the crowd clapping, and I was standing there looking at them, with Mr Murlin beside me and Johnny on the other side of him.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked Mr Murlin, but he was thanking the crowd.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked a couple of people who’d been watching, but they were walking away, talking eagerly to each other.

  ‘What happened?’ a voice asked into my ear. It was Johnny. He sounded scared.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. We turned around to where Mr Murlin was, but he had gone.

  ‘Man, he’s strange,’ Johnny said. We started walking along towards the movies.

  ‘What did you see?’ I asked. But Johnny took a long time to answer—I don’t know why. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t believe him.

  ‘I was standing on a beach,’ he said at last. ‘There were lots of seagulls, doing fantastic flying all around me. And the waves were crashing—it was the biggest surf I’ve ever seen. I could feel the spray wetting my face. I was the only one on the beach, except away in the distance I thought I could see my father, standing on the sand waiting for me.’

  Johnny’s father had been killed on a building site when Johnny was six. A trench had fallen in on him.

  ‘What did you see?’ Johnny asked. So I told him. We sat through the screening of The Blood and Brain Hotel but when Mum picked us up at the end of it, I couldn’t remember anything much about the film to tell her.

  CHAPTER 5

  There we were in Room 7, making beautiful music. We had to use each other as instruments. Candice was playing Tom as though he was a cello, while she hummed. Johnny was tapping out tunes on my teeth. We had a group of five ‘instruments’ and we had to make up a piece of music and then perform it for the class.

  At recess I went back to my desk to get my playlunch. It was funny, I knew something was different. Maybe I heard the bubbles and gurgles. I lifted the lid of the desk and my lunchbox was floating in water. A small red and blue fish, with really pretty silver tips, swam casually past it. Below the little fish I could see a bigger black fish lurking. There was no sign of glass or plastic or any of the stuff you normally get with an aquarium. But there were rocks and sand down the bottom and I thought I could see a long whippy-looking tail sticking out of a crevice in one of the rocks.

  I shut the lid quickly but gently and leaned against the desk. After a few minutes I sneaked another look, to see if anything had changed. The tail-thing sticking out of the rock had come out a bit further; it might have been an octopus tentacle. I grabbed
my lunchbox, closed the lid again, and went racing off to find Johnny.

  We couldn’t get back in until the end of recess, when everyone was allowed in. And things had become a bit stranger still. There were cries of surprise all over the room, as kids lifted their desk-tops. Every desk was full of water and rocks and fish and coral reefs. And what was really strange was that a fish would swim off into the shadows of Rachel Rosetti’s desk, for example, and then come swimming out into the clear water of mine. It was impossible. But it was happening.

  When Mr Murlin came in we all fired questions at him, but he wouldn’t answer. Instead he got us to think ourselves into the water, imagine that we were fish, and write about that. It was good. I imagined I could feel the cool water slipping past my body, and I could swim in and out of the holes in the rocks, nuzzling at them with my lips for food.

  Johnny’s never done very well at school, although personally I reckon he’s pretty smart. But he always gets in so much trouble with the teachers. Anyway, this is what he wrote for the fish things:

  Twisting, turning, moving fast

  I see a piece of food at last

  But I don’t rush in, I have to wait

  In case it is a fisherman’s bait.

  In the shadows I watch and lurk,

  Peering out through the murk.

  Then like a shadow I quickly dart

  And hit it hard as any shark.

  Everyone clapped when he read it out.

  At lunchtime, when we told kids in other classes what had happened, they all said we were making it up. Except for this little kid in Year Two called Wesley Brown. He’d sort of adopted me and Johnny last year when we were in Year Four. He used to follow us around everywhere and we played with him sometimes. I don’t think he has any brothers or sisters or something, and his mum has shot through. So when he came over, Johnny gave him a sandwich and while he was eating it Johnny said:

  ‘Hey, Wes, you want to hear something? We got fish swimming around in our desks.’

  Wes kept eating but he was looking at Johnny over the top of his sandwich, and he said, ‘Fish?’

  ‘Yeah, fish, Wes. Sharks ‘n’ stuff. Nah, no sharks. But all different kinds of fish, swimming around in all the desks.’

  All the other kids would say, ‘Oh yeah’ in a really sarcastic voice, but Wes said, ‘Can I’ve a look? I like fish.’

  Well, that was a bit tricky, ’cos Miss Holland was on duty and she was pretty sharp. But we casually walked across towards the handball courts and when Miss Holland was talking to some Year Six girls about fashions or hairstyles or something, we sleazed in the door. The fish were still there. We opened all the desks and Wes walked around from one to another, gazing into them. He didn’t look surprised, just fascinated.

  Anyway, first bell went and we had to sneak outside fast to line up. When we came in after second bell there wasn’t a fish to be seen. The desks were dry and empty again. No rocks, no sand, no coral. But the room smelt a bit different. Sort of . . . fishy.

  CHAPTER 6

  On Saturday Johnny and I went up to Michael Marsh’s farm in the country. He’s really rich. His parents have this place about 200 ks away, with horses and tractors and stuff. We had a good time. When we got there I hopped out to open the gate, but it was a bit complicated and it took a while to figure out. I finally got it open, and Mr Marsh drove through and stopped to wait for me. But the gate was even more complicated to close. Anyway, I finally did it, and I got the chain over the hook-thing, and then looked up and realised I’d shut it leaving me on the wrong side. I had to climb over the gate to get back to the car, while everyone laughed at me. I was pretty embarrassed.

  They had a dog there that was kept on a chain all week and only let off when the Marshes came up. He went totally and completely psycho when we let him off. In fact it was hard to get the chain off him because he went so berserk as soon as we started walking towards him. When we finally freed him he was racing round and round in circles so tight that he sent up clouds of dust as he did his turns. He kept overbalancing, and his hindquarters slid out from under him, but it didn’t slow him down. His name was Scam.

  I thought it was pretty cruel the way he was on a chain all the time. I gave him a good backrub and a scratch behind the ears and that really got him going—I couldn’t get rid of him after that. He kept butting my hand with his head, to make me keep doing it, but I had to stop eventually. Mrs Marsh said Scam had fleas and he probably did. He was my mate all weekend.

  We three were all staying in one room out the back, so we put our stuff there, then went to get the mini-bikes. There were two bikes, so one of us took it in turns to watch. Michael had laid out a track with some jumps on it. Johnny was timing us and I got round in just under a minute, which was pretty good. Michael did it in fifty seconds but of course he knew the track better than I did.

  That night the Marshes took us shooting. Mrs Marsh drove an old Land Rover and we stood in the back with Mr Marsh, holding on tight as we lurched over ditches and bumps. It was cold, and the cold air made my eyes fill with water, especially as Mrs M. drove pretty fast. We had a spotlight that Michael operated, and we had a .22 and a .222 and a 410 shotgun.

  Mr Marsh shot a rabbit first. I didn’t think I’d like it, but it was exciting to see it go springing over, as though something was shaking it and throwing it around. Johnny and I ran to get it when we were told to. The rabbit was dead but its fur was wet and warm and its head hung down limply like there was nothing holding it up any more. I didn’t like this part of hunting so much.

  Mr Marsh shot another rabbit but it was still kicking and dragging itself around in the dirt, so he came with us to get it, and showed us how to break its neck. I didn’t really like this part of it either.

  Then Johnny had a shot at a rabbit and missed, then I had one and missed. It was no wonder—I was too nervous to aim properly and I waited too long to fire. I wasn’t too sorry I missed, to be honest. But it was good firing the rifle. It kicked back a bit but not as much as Mr Marsh had said it would, and not as much as I was expecting. Then Johnny had another shot and got one, but only just—it went off hopping and dragging itself along and Michael chased after it and caught it and broke its neck.

  By then it was quite late and we went for another half-hour without seeing any more, so we gave up and headed back. When we got there, even though it was ten o’clock and we were all tired, Mr Marsh showed us how to skin and clean the first rabbit, then made Johnny and I do the other two. I didn’t mind that—it was interesting. You just had to force yourself to stick your hands into its guts and not worry about getting blood and gore all over you. My hands still smelt funny the next day, even though I washed them hard before I went to bed.

  Next morning we played tennis for a while on their court, then we went skinny-dipping in the big dam. It was really murky. Michael said there were yabbies the size of cats in there. I didn’t believe him but it was so muddy that I was a bit nervous.

  After lunch we had to help move some sheep. Michael acted like it was a bit of a drag but I thought it was exciting. Johnny and I got the bikes—Michael went with his father in the Land Rover, which was pretty decent of him. Scam came along too. But somehow, whatever Johnny and I did, it worked out wrong. Mr Marsh and Michael and Scam would get the sheep moving towards a gate and Johnny and I would come in from the side to push some stragglers in and the whole mob would suddenly start going off in the other direction. Then Mr Marsh would yell at us, and Michael would shake his head and look up at the sky and Scam would bark and race after us.

  So after a while we kept a lot further back. Scam was doing most of the work anyway. We were useful a couple of times: when a sheep broke away and went for a run, we’d go tearing after him like cowboys. That was cool fun.

  We got them out onto the road, then we had to move them along the road about two ks to their new paddock. A few cars went past while we were doing it and they had to drive really slowly through the sheep. They looked like
those ice-breakers you see on TV, those ships that push their way slowly around the Antarctic. The drivers stared at us like we were out of The Man from Snowy River. I decided I wouldn’t mind being a farmer for a living.

  That night we went shooting again and I got a rabbit. Mr Marsh made me break its neck, which was a bit off, but easier than I thought it would be. Mr Marsh had a shot at a hare with the .222 but it was too far away so he missed. Then he got a fox, right through the neck. When he fired, a whole lot of kangaroos that I hadn’t seen suddenly went hopping off in the darkness. Michael said they don’t have very many roos left.

  We loaded the fox into the back of the Landie. It was pretty heavy. We turned back for home then, which was a bit disappointing. I’d been hoping that I could get a fox for myself, so I could have its skin.

  CHAPTER 7

  At school, we just never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next. One morning Mr Murlin decided we needed to do some more descriptive writing. So we started off writing about our classroom, including its smells, sounds and the way different parts of it felt. That was OK, but pretty ordinary. But then we all had to move to the assembly hall and do the same thing there. It smelt of furniture polish and heavy woollen curtains.

  After that, things started getting a little bit amazing. Mr Murlin marched us straight into the staffroom, where we made ourselves comfortable in the vinyl chairs and wrote a description of the room. The coffee percolator gurgled away in the corner. Personally I think it’s lucky no-one came in. Then we went into the boys’ toilets. The girls freaked out. They couldn’t believe how rank those little yellow disinfectant things smelt. I suppose they do really. After five minutes or so of writing in there we set off for our final stop—the cleaners’ room. Twenty-eight kids and a teacher all jammed into this little space, trying to keep our footing among the mops and brooms and bottles and stuff! I’ll never forget it. I had my book on Michael’s back, Johnny was sitting on an upturned bucket, Candice was on top of a cupboard. ‘I expect some vivid descriptions,’ was all Mr Murlin said. I think he got them.