There was another thing. Up close like this, and seeing Mr. Mann all shook up and stuff, there was no way we’d been right about the whole Niki Blister thing. If Mr. Mann was a missing Aussie rock god, I was President of the United States.
We helped Mr. Mann to his feet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and winced. A vivid red mark showed exactly where the corner of the album sleeve had connected.
“What the hell was that about?” he barked. “I know I’m new around here, but is that how you treat every new teacher in this flaming town?”
I began babbling about how my hipster wave had gone wrong and how I’d forgotten the album was there, but Kasey pushed me aside.
“What Rafe’s trying to say is that he didn’t mean it,” she said. “He’s an idiot.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, then closed it again. Then I opened it to say something else but forgot what I was going to say.
“See?” Kasey said, gesturing toward me.
Mr. Mann looked at her. “You’re Australian,” he said.
Kasey nodded. “Last time I checked.”
“And what was it you threw at me?” Mr. Mann picked up the record and examined it. While he did, it was Kasey’s turn to nudge me with her elbow. I looked at her and she raised her eyebrows. Mr. Mann was staring at the album sleeve like it was the golden key to the lost city of Atlantis, or maybe like he’d seen a zombie or something. It was hard to tell. He looked like this:
“Mr. Mann? Are you okay?” I asked.
His face had drained of blood and his hands trembled, while the S-shaped scar on his left cheek throbbed like a neon sign. A single drop of sweat ran down his forehead, reached the end of his nose, and fell with a splat directly onto the face of Niki Blister on the album sleeve. The impact seemed to wake Mr. Mann from his trance.
“GOTTOGOBYE!” he blurted and, dropping the album sleeve like it was radioactive, bolted out of Gudonya as fast as his gray tracksuit legs could carry him.
OKAY, THIS IS probably—no, definitely—the point in the story where we would normally go over all the evidence stacking up in favor of Mr. Mann, our boooooring substitute teacher, being none other than the long-lost Niki Blister, Aussie Rock God and all-round Bad Boy. And there’s plenty, believe me. However, before we get into ALL THAT, the door to Gudonya opened once more and in walked Sid.
With my mom.
“Oh,” Mom said. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Kasey said.
“Hi, Kasey,” Mom said.
“Hey,” Sid said.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Kasey said.
“Hey,” Sid said.
Written down like that, it doesn’t look like much was happening, but what you can’t see is all the stuff that was going on under the surface. That’s the thing about writing down what people say—it doesn’t show what was really going on … sort of like an iceberg-of-hidden-meanings deal.
And what was going on here was something fishy. By “fishy,” I mean full-on shoal-of-sardines fishy. Tuna fishy. Blue whale fishy. (Yes, I know whales aren’t fish, but you get the idea.) What it all came down to was (and I’m kinda spitballing here) that Mom wasn’t expecting to see me at the cafe.
“So, uh, you guys can run along,” Sid said. “I’ll lock up.”
Mom looked everywhere but at me. She picked up a flyer, whistled tunelessly, checked her phone, and coughed into her hand.
I recognized the signs immediately.
Mom was doing an impression of someone who had nothing to hide—someone who definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent was not guilty about something. Hmmm. Double hmmmm. I knew the signs well, mainly because I did exactly what Mom was doing right now every time I was SUPER-GUILTY. My mind raced.
I knew Sid was way too young for Mom to be interested in him (eewww!), but they were acting like they’d been caught out. The big question was, why? And then—BOOM!—it hit me. All the pieces of the fishy jigsaw clicked neatly into place. Or, since it was a fishy jigsaw, flopped fishily into place with a dull plop.
1. Sid and Mom hadn’t expected me to be there. I was supposed to have locked up, but we’d been delayed by the discovery that Mr. Mann was Niki Blister (possibly, probably, maybe, the jury was still out, etc.).
2. The yurt heaters had been going full blast for the past hour and there’d been a note from Sid not to switch them off because he had a private Bikram session booked.
3. By the usual standards of Hills Village, both Sid and Mom were dressed in not all that much.
I didn’t have to be Sherlock Khatchadorian to know this all meant one thing: Mom had become a secret Bikram yoga addict.
“C’MON, MATE. Get a grip,” Kasey said, rolling her eyes at me. “There’s nothing wrong with trying something new. It’s only yoga.”
I was becoming something of an expert on Kasey’s eye-rolling. This one rated around about a six (on a scale of one to ten, one being me doing something only mildly annoying—like saying something dumb about Australia—right up to a ten, which probably meant I’d done something bad enough to go to jail for).
“Yeah, but it’s my mom!” I protested, making sure my shins were out of kicking range. “And it’s sweaty yoga, not regular yoga. Ewww.”
As the words were coming out, I had to admit it didn’t sound like much of an argument. You ever get that? Hearing yourself say something and you know it makes you sound dumb as a fencepost, but there’s still nothing you can do to stop yourself from saying whatever it is you’re saying? No? Just me then? Okay, where were we?
It turns out it didn’t matter, because Kasey seemed to have lost interest in debating the finer points of sweaty yoga and moms. Plus, I remembered—just in time to make me feel even more of a total ding-dong in Kasey’s eyes—that she didn’t have a mom. I bet Kasey’d like nothing better than to worry about her mom doing sweaty yoga. I made a note to engage the Khatchadorian brain before I said anything else. Which would be a change.
Right then, the 400-pound mountain gorilla sitting behind a set of drums threw back its gigantic head and rapped out a single loud crash against a cymbal. “KHATCHADORIAN!” it roared. “Are we gonna do this thing or not?” The gorilla banged the bass drum a couple of times and did a 600-decibel rat-a-tat on the snares to emphasize its point.
“Easy, Millo,” Kasey said. “There’s no need to get your knickers in a knot. Just concentrate on being ready to do your bit like a good boy when I tell you, okay?”
Now, if I’d said something like that to Miller the Killer, I would have carried on breathing for about, oh, three nanoseconds before he ripped my head off my shoulders. But all Miller did was turn bright red, grunt, and put on his headphones to listen to the song we were learning. Either Kasey was a gorilla-tamer or old mate “Millo” had a super-massive KRUSHOLA on Kasey. Either way, it was making rehearsals a lot easier.
Kasey was taking her role as unofficial band manager and all-round organizer very seriously. In the short time she’d been doing the job, we’d already made progress. For one thing, Kasey could play guitar—she’d taught me some basic chords on the guitar Sid had lent me—and she was pretty good at writing songs. Even though I’d been pressured into doing it by a 400-pound mountain gorilla, this was turning out to be fun.
It had been raining hard the past couple of days and we hunkered down in the studio (aka my bedroom) coming up with ideas. I was concentrating on lyrics while Kasey worked out tunes we might be able to follow. Miller, much to my surprise, seemed to actually be learning how to play the drums. I guess all that people-pounding practice over the years was beginning to pay off. All he did was substitute drums for people and—bingo!—Dryden Miller was a drummer in the making.
But the biggest surprise of all was The Astonishing Transformation of Jason Chang …
WHO?
Don’t worry if you don’t remember Jason Chang because his name’s only been mentioned a couple of times in this story and so far he’s sa
id exactly zip.
In fact, I’ve never heard Jason say anything. To anyone.
I don’t mean he’s got a problem with talking—or, at least, I don’t think he has—but the fact is, no one at HVMS has ever heard him say anything out loud. Period. Miller the Killer had basically dragged him into our band and even a motormouth like Flip Savage wouldn’t have argued with Miller in one of those moods. It’d be like trying to reason with, well, a mountain gorilla. (Hey, I only just realized “Miller” rhymes with “gorilla”!) A nerd like Jason Chang didn’t stand a chance.
A word about nerds: I don’t want you to think I’m being cruel by saying Jason was a nerd. For one thing, being a nerd isn’t as bad a thing as it used to be. Years ago, being a nerd was uncool, but nerds are everywhere now. Plenty of people at HVMS probably think I’m a nerd. I mean, I’m not a brainiac like nerds are supposed to be, but I admit I do have nerd-like qualities … However, we’re not supposed to be talking about me; we’re supposed to be talking about Jason.
Now, while it’s true that nerds have become kind of cool and plenty of nerds do sneak over into hipster territory, it’s fair to say Jason wasn’t one of those cool nerds. But—cue spooky music—something real weird happened to Jason in the short time since Miller the Killer had made him the offer he couldn’t refuse. I could explain what happened, but it’s probably easier to show you.
This is the old Jason Chang as he was two weeks ago:
Like I said earlier, I’m not judging. My cool levels are usually so low they don’t register.
Anyway, fast forward less than three weeks, and here’s Jason as he is today:
It’s safe to say The Changmeister has taken to this rock-and-roll thing like a yak to donuts.2 And he still hadn’t said a word.
Oh, and one last thing. It turned out that The Changmeister could actually play the keyboard. Which, since I only knew three chords and Miller the Gorilla was still learning the drums, was maybe the only thing that gave us even a teeny-tiny chance of winning the competition.
Wait. Who am I kidding? The chances of us even getting into the competition were about as high as me being MVP in the Super Bowl.
“TOUCHDOWN!”
The umpire raised his black-and-white-striped arms3 to signal my stunning, one-handed, last minute, 62-yard, Hail Mary pass was good.
Eighty thousand spectators minus those losers supporting the other team—so say about 45,000—crammed into the Pudding Bowl, plus the two billion people watching around the planet, went totally loopy bananas bonkers. I couldn’t blame them. I had, after all, just scored the winning Super Bowl touchdown for the Hills Village Hawks in my first season as a professional football player. I had also scored the other eight touchdowns as well as six interceptions, three punt returns and rushing six hundred yards. All in all, I had definitely been busy.
I backflipped onto the balls of my feet and spun the football on the end of a finger as silver and gold fireworks exploded in the night sky.
“WHAT A CATCH BY THE KHATCHA!” yelled the commentator. “THAT’S GOT TO MAKE HIM THIS YEAR’S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER!”
Cameras flashed, people screamed, phones rang. Wait, what do you mean phones rang? I—
A ringtone snapped me—pow!—straight out of my daydream and—oof!—back into reality. For a brief second I’d known exactly what it would feel like to be the MVP in the Super Bowl (spoiler alert: it felt pretty good) before it was cruelly whipped away from me—whoosh! (Okay, enough with the sound effects.)
I rubbed my eyes and answered the phone. It was Sid. “Wassup?” My hipster phone manner was coming along nicely.
“Remember how you asked me about that radio thing?” Sid said. “Like, y’know, the competition?”
Of course I remembered! Was he kidding? But I shrugged in a real cool way, then realized Sid couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Well, I called in a few favors, kid, and the long and short of it is that you blokes are in, ya dig?”
“We am? I are?” I couldn’t believe it. Sid had pulled off the impossible. “Wow! Wow! Woo-hoo! Hubba hubba!” You’re showing way too much enthusiasm, yelled my inner hipster. Tone it down, Khatchadorian! “I mean … uh, sure, bro. That’s hefty potatoes.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head in disgust. First “hubba hubba” and now “hefty potatoes”?
Where did “hefty potatoes” even come from? Who says that? I couldn’t remember ever hearing the word “hefty” before in my entire life and here I was hooking it up to a vegetable and flinging it around to a real hipster like it actually meant something. This was it—I was going to get caught out once and for all as a failed hipster wannabe. I’d be expelled from The Grand Order of Hipsters, banned from coffee shops the world over, my clip-on man bun removed and my retro sneakers replaced with regular, ordinary-person sneakers.
“Yeah,” Sid said. “It is kinda hefty, bro. Nice wordage.”
Sid closed the call before I could say anything else dumb.
We were in! And I’d invented a hipster word! Hefty.
SEEING HOW WE’RE almost halfway into this story, it’s probably worth a recap on the highlights so far … mainly to help me sort out my thoughts on what’s becoming a complicated Khatchadorian tale. The short version is that we’ve been overrun by a bunch of stray Australians. Here’s the longer version:
1. Australian hipster Sidney Harberbridge has come to town, bringing his rare vinyl grooves, cold-drip coffee, topknots, attitude and Bikram yoga in the yurt along with him.
2. Non-Australian (but with Australian hat) Rafe Khatchadorian has begun work at Gudonya, Sid’s pop-up hipster cafe and music shop, where, in addition to learning how to make coffee and listening to old vinyl, is also doing insulting sketches of the customers (see Point 9).
3. Another Australian, my buddy, the shin-kicking Sydneysider, Kasey Moran, is in town in between joining her roller derby team on tour.
4. Miller the Killer has (sort of) kidnapped me and Jason Chang and forced us into forming a rock band called The People. Oh, and Miller expects me to somehow enter us AND WIN the local radio station Best Band Comp.
5. My substitute music teacher, Mr. Mann, might be the long-lost Australian rock god Niki Blister of cheesy eighties glam-punk combo The Spiderzz. Me and Kase are basing this suspicion almost entirely on a scar Mr. Mann has on his face. That makes three Aussies in Hills Village … or two and a half until we discover the truth about Mr. Mann.
6. I’m getting worried about Mom’s newfound love of doing Bikram yoga in the nude.
7. Sid has got us on the bill at the KRMY Best Band Competition!
8. Miller the Killer has a “thing” for Kasey, and I’m pretty sure Kasey doesn’t have a thing for him.
9. THE NOODLY DOODLE MISSION: I am about halfway through filling one wall of Gudonya with drawings of the customers in an effort to impress Jeanne Galletta. I have no idea if that’s working but it’s too late to stop now. Plus, I enjoy doing it.
10. There is no Point 10, but leaving it as a nine-point list seemed wrong somehow.
Have I missed anything?
IT WAS A Sunday night and we were sitting around the kitchen table, eating Thai egg noodles with tofu for dinner. Since Mom had started doing the whole Bikram yoga thing, she’d begun experimenting more with our food. She’d been out at the yurt last night on something called “Mmmmeditation”, which Sid had come up with and was about eating the right food to free up your mind. Or something like that. Anyway, food and yoga.
Don’t get me wrong, I was all for changing up the Khatchadorian chow (especially on those nights Grandma Dotty was doing her “special” meat loaf) and had absolutely no problem with noodles, but tofu was a step too far.
Have you ever eaten tofu? You’d know if you had, believe me. The stuff is basically chewy wood and tastes of NOTHING.
I had carefully picked every brick of the stuff out of my dinner and was steadily constructing a Great Wall of Tofu on the side of my plate.
&n
bsp; Naturally, Mom, who’d spent time actually cooking the tofu, didn’t see things the same way. I noticed her eyeing the Great Wall suspiciously and kept my fingers crossed she wasn’t going to make me eat it. The only thing I could think of that would be worse than tofu was cold tofu. Still, Mom had put a lot of effort into this meal. I owed her for a ton of stuff she’d done for me and now it was payback time.
I braced myself and sucked down a noodle. I’m so brave. I just wish Mom knew the sacrifices I was making.
“So you’re defo in?” Kasey said. After I’d told her about Sid getting The People onto the KRMY Best Band bill, she kept coming back to the subject. “Just like that, no audition, no nothing?”
“Yep, Sid says we’re in,” I replied casually. “He says they think we’re great.”
“So they haven’t heard you, then?” Georgia sniggered.
Mom shot her a warning look, then turned back to me, smiling. “Honestly, I think you guys are starting to sound pretty good. I heard you rehearsing in the garage the other night and I think I recognized one of the songs.”
I didn’t say anything. Although Mom generally knew the right thing to say, my hipster cool wouldn’t let me let her know I was happy she thought the band was sounding good. Mom wasn’t off the hook yet, but she didn’t seem to have noticed my extra-cool lack of response. She was just smiling at me.
I turned back to Kasey, who was still banging on about Sid. “So he just called up someone at the radio station and got you in?”
What was her problem? Hadn’t I explained all this already? “Yeah,” I said in a tone that also said “end of discussion”.
G'day, America Page 5
