Belly Flop

by Morris Gleitzman

  I’m trying to tell them about my diving career and how I was never in serious danger and neither were the lounge room cushions because you were protecting me, Doug.

  I know they don’t believe in you, but I don’t know what else to say.

  I’ve got to calm them down somehow.

  Oh, no.

  Dad’s climbing up the ladder.

  Help him, Doug, please.

  No, it’s OK, I can handle it.

  Once I’ve unhooked his trouser leg from the TV satellite dish and unjammed his shoe from the bathroom window, he’ll be fine.

  Doug, are you feeling hurt?

  You know, by the things Mum and Dad have just been saying about you?

  They weren’t really about you.

  When Dad said ‘Oh God, not again’, it was mostly because when I got him off the ladder he was so tense he sat on the four-wheel drive winch and ripped his daks for the second time this week.

  When Mum said ‘Mitch, I thought we agreed three years ago you were too old for all this invisible friend nonsense’, she only used the word nonsense because she was tired and stressed and wondering how she could get two windows fixed before work.

  When Dad said to Mum ‘It’s all your mother’s fault for filling his head with loony hairbrained gibberish in the first place’, he was just letting off steam because of the unkind things Gran says to him, and possibly because the winch had irritated his upper thighs. I hope that makes you feel better, Doug.

  Now we’re all sitting at the breakfast table and there’s some silence at last, I’m gunna try and work it out.

  The thing that’s puzzling me.

  Doug, why didn’t you delay Mum and Dad a bit?

  To give me time to get at least one dive in?

  After they left Conkey’s you could have made them drop into the Gas ‘N’ Gobble for some touch-up paint to cover the rude words people have scratched on the side of Dad’s four-wheel drive.

  You could have inspired them to come home via the scenic route past the abattoir.

  Why didn’t you, Doug?

  Was it cause you’re angry with me for having parents who don’t believe in you?

  Hang on a sec, Mum’s just started to cry.

  ‘You could have been killed,’ she’s saying.

  Poor thing.

  I feel terrible.

  I wish I could make her feel better.

  All I can do is hug her.

  ‘For God’s sake speak to him,’ she’s saying to Dad.

  We’re all waiting.

  Dad looks pretty upset too.

  ‘You could have been killed,’ he’s saying.

  He’s just knocked the milk over.

  ‘Hopeless,’ Gran’s saying.

  Everyone’s silent again.

  I reckon I know the answer, Doug.

  I reckon you’re not angry.

  Mum and Dad can’t help what they believe, you know that.

  I reckon you stopped me diving this morning for their sake.

  In a town this small, they’d find out sooner or later about me diving onto gym mats and lounge cushions, and the stress would be too much.

  Look at poor old Dad.

  He’s so stressed he’s just shut his tie in the fridge.

  Now he’s glaring at the fridge door like he’s planning to write a report on it.

  OK, Doug, I get the message.

  From now on I’ll only dive into water.

  I just wish the excursion was tomorrow instead of next week.

  When the bus gets to the coast, I’m gunna spend half a minute having a squiz at the sea, just to check out what it looks like, then I’ll go straight to the pool and start practising.

  Doug, please make Dad’s heart valves stand the stress until the excursion.

  The excursion’s been cancelled.

  Ms Dorrit just told us in assembly.

  Kids are almost in tears.

  Me included.

  Leaving the hall we were all numb, just sort of staring at the ground.

  Well, I was staring at the ground.

  The others were staring at me and muttering how it was all my fault.

  Luckily I didn’t have to go into class with them. Ms Dorrit sent me to stand here outside her door after what she reckoned was my outburst in assembly.

  I reckon an outburst’s only human with news that bad.

  What got me was she didn’t even look sad.

  When a school principal stands up in assembly and comes out with news that crook, you’d think she’d at least look sad, eh Doug?

  I’ve got some very disappointing news,’ she said after we’d finished singing.

  I reckon she’s not disappointed at all.

  I reckon she’s glad.

  I reckon she never liked the idea of a school excursion in case Cathy Saxby chucked on the bus.

  ’Regretfully,’ she said, ‘we haven’t had enough bookings for the excursion and I have no alternative but to cancel it.’

  My insides did a dive.

  No somersaults.

  No twists.

  Just a straight plummet.

  I looked around.

  I’ve never seen a hallful of kids so sad.

  Most of the kids in this town can’t even swim and that trip to the coast was their only chance to learn.

  I could see what they were thinking.

  Andy Howard was thinking that if he ever visits a Mexican food factory and falls into a vat of taco dip and finds he can’t eat it fast enough, he’ll drown.

  Sheena Bullock was thinking that if she and her dog join the police force and chase smugglers and her dog gets hit on the head with a surfboard stuffed with jewels, she’ll never be able to swim over and rescue him.

  Danielle Wicks was thinking that when she becomes Prime Minister, if she falls into that lake in Canberra she’ll be history.

  Carla Fiami was looking sadder than any of them.

  I reckon she was thinking about her childhood growing up on the coast and how she’ll probably never get to have another swim ever again.

  I knew what they were all thinking because I was thinking about my future life too.

  Not a life of international sporting glory and having my picture taken with Dad for the bowls club newsletter.

  A life of being hounded from town to town and only being spoken to by the kids of dentists and parking inspectors.

  A life of brooding how close I’d come to saving my family.

  And how I’d failed.

  I looked up at Ms Dorrit on the stage.

  ‘You can’t,’ I said.

  She looked stunned, then glared down at me.

  My mouth was dryer than a lawn sprinkler.

  ‘You can’t cancel the excursion,’ I croaked. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to drown in taco dip?’

  It was a pretty dumb thing to say, but it didn’t matter because Ms Dorrit ignored it.

  ‘I didn’t choose this, Mitch Webber,’ she said. ‘It breaks my heart too.’

  I didn’t know I was gunna say the next thing till I’d said it.

  ‘Bull,’ I said to Ms Dorrit. ‘If you really cared you’d get our pool here in town filled so the kids and dogs of this district could learn to swim and we could have our own swimming carnival.’

  Ms Dorrit’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘And diving competition,’ I said.

  She opened her mouth.

  For a sec I thought she was gunna say, ‘Good idea Mitch, I’ll order the water today.’

  Instead she just pointed to her room.

  As I walked out, she turned back to the assembly.

  ‘It’s not my choice,’ she said. I’ve been contacted by many of your parents. They’ve told me they just don’t have the money for an excursion, not with the drought on, not with all their other financial problems.’

  As soon as she said that, every kid in the hall stopped looking at her and turned and looked at me.

  Not just looked at me, glared at me.


  Suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

  All around me, eyes were ripping into me like bullets.

  Not just Troy and Brent Malley’s, everyone’s.

  I’ve never seen a hallful of kids looking so mean.

  If they’d had cattle trucks they’d have driven them over me there and then.

  My guts did a slow belly flop as I realised what they were thinking.

  I opened my mouth to try and explain, then gave it away.

  I knew they’d still be thinking what they were thinking even if I explained for hours.

  Even if I yelled till I was blue in the face.

  The excursion’s off, they were thinking, because of Mitch Webber’s dad.

  Oh well, thanks for making Ms Dorrit not expel me, Doug.

  I know you couldn’t do anything about the excursion.

  An angel’s job is to protect people, not fix up their travel arrangements or fill up their swimming pools.

  Some problems can only be solved by us people ourselves.

  That’s why instead of going back to class I’m squeezing through this hole in the school fence.

  Mayors should be more polite and considerate, that’s what I reckon.

  If a person comes into their video store for a meeting, they should turn the volume down on their TV.

  How can anyone be expected to discuss serious council business with The Little Mermaid blaring in the background?

  Mr Bullock couldn’t even hear what I was saying at first.

  ‘The swimming pool,’ I shouted.

  He turned the video down.

  ‘I reckon,’ I went on, ‘if that pool was filled it could save this town. Truckies would stop off for a dip and spend money at the kiosk and tourists would come and pay fees at the campground and the local economy would boom and the bank wouldn’t have to chuck families off their properties and who knows, someone from round here could become an international diving champion and really put this town on the map.’

  Mayors ought to be more dignified, too.

  When someone suggests something really important to them they ought to look serious and say ‘I’ll make sure the council gives it their fullest consideration next time we’re having a drink at the bowls club’.

  Not laugh out loud and stick their hand down their shorts for a scratch.

  When I’m world diving champ and I come home to accept the keys of the town, no way am I accepting them from him.

  Anyway, he’s wrong.

  I’m absolutely positive that if the council bought half a million litres of water for the pool, people would not think it was the same as the councillors sticking the money in their bottoms, setting fire to it and doing cartwheels around town.

  Mr Bullock’s also wrong about the state of the pool.

  I’m checking it out now and it’s nowhere near as bad as he says.

  OK, the fence is very rusty, but that’s only a problem when you’re climbing over it in a white T-shirt like I just did.

  The turnstiles are pretty rusty too, but they’ll soon loosen up once kids start pushing them with blockout on their hands.

  And the steps up to the diving board have seen better days, but people aren’t idiots, they’re capable of looking out for a few loose bits of concrete and a wobbly handrail.

  Down here inside the pool itself things aren’t too bad at all.

  The paint on the bottom and sides is peeling a bit, but you’ve got to expect that when it’s been dry as a duck’s dunny for eight years.

  The important thing is there are no big cracks, so it won’t leak.

  When these soft drink cans and chip wrappers and old shotgun cartridges are cleaned out it’ll be good as new.

  Once I’ve got it filled up.

  Which won’t be easy.

  Gran always reckons when you’ve got a problem, make a list of all the things you could do to solve it, even the dopey ones.

  Here goes.

  I could ring the city and pretend to be the Gas ‘N’ Gobble and order two million cans of Coke and use them to fill the pool. Trouble is parents’d be dragging their kids out every five minutes to make them clean their teeth.

  I could stick lots of hoses together and syphon the beer out of the bowls club. But then only people over eighteen would be allowed in the pool.

  I could persuade everyone in town to come down here on a really hot day and sweat a lot. If I lived in a town with more people.

  No Doug, it’ll have to be water.

  It’ll be pretty hard getting hold of half a million litres of the stuff, but it’s the only way.

  It’ll be pretty risky, too.

  Not just for me, for the other kids as well.

  Some of them might need an eye kept out for them.

  I’ll do the best I can Doug, but I might need some help, OK?

  For a while it looked as if the meeting was going to be as big a disaster as my birthday party, even though I tried even harder this time.

  I made the invitation sound as important as I could.

  VERY IMPORTANT MEETING, I wrote. THIS MEETING COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. IF YOU EVER PLAN TO VISIT A NON-DROUGHT AREA (EG CANBERRA, THE COAST OR A TACO DIP FACTORY), BE AT THIS MEETING. AFTER SCHOOL AT THE DUMP. NO PARENTS OR DOBBERS.

  I stuck an invitation in every school locker like last time, but this time I included a map. Even though it wasn’t really needed cause everyone in town goes to the dump at least once a week with their garbage, twice if they’re looking for fridge parts.

  When I got to the dump it was deserted.

  Except, for a sec, I thought you were there, Doug.

  A breeze was making the plastic bags flap and was pinging the dust against the old tractor parts.

  Then I remembered how Mr Conkey once explained that air movement at the dump is caused by gas from rotting potato peel. (At the time he was trying to get everyone to buy frozen potato wedges.)

  I waited by the piles of plastic drink bottles we collected last year when the council went on a recycling craze. We saved bottles for months, right up until someone remembered the nearest recycling plant is two thousand kilometres away.

  By ten past three only two kids had arrived and they ignored me and started chucking Mrs Nile’s bedsprings at each other.

  By three-fifteen I was desperate.

  I started wondering if a diving competition could be held in real life with just wardrobes and beds.

  Then I saw a bunch of about twenty kids coming towards me.

  As they got closer, looking hot and annoyed, I saw Carla Fiami behind them, yapping at the stragglers’ heels like a cattle dog.

  ‘You’ll never know if he’s crapping on or not if you don’t give him a listen,’ I heard her saying to Troy and Brent Malley. ‘Give him five minutes and if you still reckon he’s a slimebucket, bash him up then.’

  Carla grinned at me and I gave her a grateful look, but not too grateful.

  The kids gathered round and I climbed up onto Mr Saxby’s old ute and tried to ignore Troy and Brent’s noisy breathing.

  I’ve worked out a way,’ I said as loudly as I could, which wasn’t very loud cause my throat was dryer than a lawn sprinkler, ‘of getting the pool filled.’

  The kids stared at me.

  The dump was silent except for the flapping plastic and the pinging dust and the sound of Emma Wilkinson getting her foot jammed in a paint tin.

  ‘Bull,’ said Troy Malley after a bit.

  ‘You’re gunna ask my uncle, right?’ said Hazel Gillies. ‘His tribe can get water out of rocks with wallaby guts. He’ll fill the pool for youse. Next year when he gets back from Perth.’

  I thanked Hazel for her offer and pointed across the dump at the reservoir tower in the distance.

  ‘There’s enough water in there to fill the pool,’ I said. ‘More than enough. Six hundred thousand litres.’

  The kids stared at me even harder.

  Carla was starting to look worried.

  Troy and Brent Malley were starting
to look impatient and angry.

  ‘You can’t use that,’ said Matthew Conn. ‘That’s the town’s water supply. That’s got to last till the next delivery.’

  ‘If you use that,’ said Danielle Wicks, ‘what are we meant to wash in?’

  ‘What are we meant to drink?’ said Sean Howe.

  ‘What are we meant to boil two-minute noodles in?’ said Andy Howard.

  ‘The people round here need that water,’ said Jacquie Chaplin.

  ‘That’s why,’ I said, ‘we’re gunna let them use it first.’

  During the silence that followed I jumped down from the ute and grabbed an armful of empty plastic drink bottles and started handing them round.

  Most of the kids looked puzzled, specially Troy and Brent Malley.

  Carla Fiami grinned.

  Three bottles.

  Not bad for one evening.

  It would have been more if Mum had boiled something for dinner instead of microwaving, and if I’d been a bit quicker with the sponge when Dad dropped the kettle.

  Tomorrow after school I’ll get a proper plug for the shower.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to save your shower water, Doug, but you’re fighting a losing battle when the plug’s made of toilet paper and keeps going soggy.

  Come to think of it, angels probably don’t need showers. You probably just fly so fast all the dirt gets blown off.

  Thanks for keeping Gran out of the bathroom while I was getting the shower water into the bottles.

  Best if the adults don’t know about the plan yet.

  If they knew there was a secret stash of water in town, they’d probably all want to wash their cars.

  I think the plan’s gunna work, Doug.

  I just saw Carla in the playground and she’s got six bottles already.

  Six bottles in less than a day.

  She explained that only two are from her place cause they’ve got a special shower spray that hardly lets any water through, plus she got shampoo in her eyes this morning and kicked the plug out and lost about another two bottles.

  The other four bottles are from the Gas ‘N’ Gobble.

  Carla had to meet her mum there yesterday after the meeting and Geoff the mechanic was flushing out a ute radiator and she asked if she could have the water.