by Justin Brown
When I got home Dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said I wanted a monitor lizard. I’ve seen them on Animal Planet. Imagine a big black lizard escaping from his cage and clawing his way up Mum’s armchair! Claire wouldn’t be able to run because she’s so fat from drinking all that fizzy, and because she’s been sitting for so long her bum is glued to the seat – the monitor lizard would eat her in one gulp. So yeah, that’s what I want for my birthday.
So yesterday was awesome, but today stunk, mostly because it was the first day back at school.
Today also stunk because of the new kid, Malcolm McGarvy.
At first I thought he must have been in the wrong class, because he was as big as a grown-up and had hairy caveman legs. I told Hughesy he was probably meant to be at high school and got lost on the way.
‘Toby, you idiot!’ whispered Hughesy. ‘Of course he’s not meant to be at high school. That’s Malcolm McGarvy! ’
Hughesy had heard from Jonesy, who heard it from Carla Fernandez, that Malcolm McGarvy could do amazing magic tricks, like bend spoons and make cards disappear. Jordi Flynn told us he saw Malcolm McGarvy being dropped off at school in a three-tonne digger with a bulldozer blade. Ravi Patel said he’d heard that Malcolm McGarvy lived with his uncle and was allowed to stay up all night.
Those are three things that make Malcolm McGarvy cool straightaway, even though it looks like he stole his legs off a gorilla.
And – get this – he was nearly eaten by a shark! He told Jonesy, ‘A shark nearly bit my head off!’ and pulled aside the collar of his shirt to show the huge squiggly scar down his neck. Then he lifted up a black leather string from around his throat. ‘And this is the tooth that belonged to the shark! Everyone on the boat thought I was going to die, but then my dad jumped in the water and killed the shark with his bare hands!’
Anyway, when Mrs Martin-Edge announced that it was time for morning news I got ready to tell everyone how the CGC smashed the go-kart record, but then I remembered my real news. I threw my hand in the air.
‘Um,’ I said. ‘My news is that I’m allowed to have a GameBox V3 as soon as I can get twenty wickets and ten tries.’
‘Whoah!’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Who’s going to pay for it?’
‘My dad,’ I said.
‘I hope he’s been saving up,’ yelled Ravi. ‘You’re the King of Sport. You could do that with your eyes closed!’
Everyone laughed.
Everyone except for McGarvy, that is, who sat there looking like someone who’d sucked on a whole bag of lemons.
All through school, I’ve been famous for doing the best underarm farts. They’re really loud and wet and sound exactly like the real thing. But everything changed at recess when McGarvy came and sat with the CGC at our HQ, which stands for headquarters. HQ is an old tree stump behind the sandpit where the CGC can talk without juniors annoying us, or anyone else who hasn’t spat on the leaf. Anyway, McGarvy came over.
‘Quick, guys!’ I said to Jonesy and Hughesy. ‘CGC huddle!’
We formed the CGC scrum, where no one can get in unless we let them.
McGarvy shrugged and pulled a drinking straw from his bag.
‘Watch this,’ he said.
He undid the top two buttons of his shirt and put the straw under his armpit, put the other end of the straw in his mouth, and blew.
It was the best fart sound ever.
Suddenly there were heaps of people around us. Everyone was laughing like kookaburras, even Hughesy and Jonesy.
The next thing he did was pull off Hughesy’s beanie and throw it up our favourite climbing tree behind HQ.
Hughesy never takes his beanie off, mostly because it’s a collector’s edition signed by the whole Kangaroos team. It’s so dirty you can hardly see the signatures anymore, but Hughesy would rather do homework for a thousand years than wash it.
He got pretty upset, and shouted at McGarvy, ‘You won’t be on my Christmas card list.’ I don’t know what that means, but I do know if McGarvy keeps doing things like that he won’t be joining the CGC, not even if he buys banana lollies to share with us for the rest of the year.
Something about Malcolm McGarvy made me think Grade Five was going to suck.
Another bad thing about today was homework. Mrs Martin-Edge said we had to write an essay about a famous family. Straightaway I thought of Steve Waugh and Mark Waugh, the twin brothers who played cricket for Australia. But then I remembered Venus and Serena Williams, sisters who play tennis. They’re way famous. I could name lots of families – Mrs Martin-Edge would be super-impressed!
Suddenly I had a thought. How horrible would it be to play your sister in front of thousands of people? Everyone would find out you were related. If I played Claire at Wimbledon she’d probably tell TV reporters that I used to wet my bed and didn’t know what a palindrome was.
I needed help with finding more famous families, so I went to Claire’s room to use her phone. I didn’t ask her because she always says no. Anyway, Jonesy says it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Claire’s phone has a bright pink cover and lip gloss all over the numbers and smells like strawberry bubblegum. I called Hughesy and told him about my famous family list.
‘Toby, you idiot!’ he said. ‘You haven’t even got Zinzan Brooke and his brother Robin – the famous All Blacks.’
I tried to write the names down but my pen was running out, so I used Claire’s glitter lip gloss to write with instead.
‘What about Matt Giteau and his sister Kristy? They both played rugby for Australia.’
A few minutes later, Jonesy called. Hughesy must have told him about my homework.
‘Greg and Ian Chappell!’ he said. ‘And have you got Michael and Ralf Schumacher?’
I finally found a pen that worked, but Max must have put it in his mouth because it had fresh teeth marks on it. All I can say is, lucky he didn’t find the glitter lip gloss. I wiped the pen on my pants and wrote everything down.
When Jonesy hung up, Hughesy called back. He always breathes heavily on the phone because he’s got blocked sinuses and his head is full of snot. ‘Jack and Bobby Charlton?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Brothers who won the Football World Cup for England in 1966.’
Before I’d really started writing about all these sports stars Jonesy knocked on my bedroom window. He was holding a basketball. It was still light outside.
Mum saw me put my shoes on by the front door. She asked if I had finished my homework and I tried to say no but it came out yes. I know it was bad, but I told myself I would have it done by the time I went to bed.
Whenever we play one-on-one, Jonesy is the Celtics and I’m the Chicago Bulls. We don’t have a scoreboard like in the NBA, so we remember points in our heads. But Jonesy didn’t need to remember much because I starting dropping three-pointers like Larry Bird. Then I got four jump shots in a row and pulled off rebounds like Kobe Bryant. I even sank a circus shot, which is the riskiest thing ever, but I learnt from the king, Michael Jordan. I was leading 18–2!
Jonesy was getting angrier by the second. Then he double-dribbled and I got a free throw, which never looked like missing.
The hoop was the size of a swimming pool.
‘Nothing but net!’ I yelled.
‘Say that one more time and I’ll smash you!’
Jonesy’s next shot missed the backboard completely.
‘Air ball!’ I yelled.
It started getting dark, but I still didn’t miss a shot. Jonesy was losing so badly he started trying crazy things. He threw one shot from halfway that hit the garage roof and flew into Grumpy Old Tompkins’s backyard.
No one likes going to Mr Tompkins’s house to get their ball back. He never opens the curtains. His yard is full of burrs and rusty nails and ghosts. He has lots of dogs and cats, but never seems to feed any of them so they prowl around starving and grumpy. He’s also got funny eyes – you never know wh
ich one is looking at you. Jonesy reckons Tompkins has a glass eye and that he pulls it out every night to polish it. Dad says sports fans are one-eyed, but I don’t think Mr T is a fan of anything.
‘It’s too dark,’ Jonesy said. ‘Let’s knock on Old Tompkins’s door tomorrow.’
‘No way!’ I said. ‘I’m shooting like Michael Jordan.’
‘Come on, Toby.’ Jonesy headed towards the house. ‘You can have first tip-off tomorrow.’
‘The crowd is here to see me get the record,’ I yelled.
‘You’re dreaming,’ Jonesy said. ‘What crowd?’ Then he tried telling me the reason he couldn’t get the ball was because he had to go home and feed his turtles, which is a ponging pile of rubbish because his dad always does that for him.
I decided to do something I’d only ever done once before: climb the fence.
‘I’ll watch out for Old Tompkins!’ Jonesy said.
Normally when we lose a ball we look up to the sky and draw an imaginary line with our finger. We look at where the ball went over and work out where it landed. This is definitely more accurate than if someone doesn’t draw a line in the sky. But you can’t do it in the dark.
I felt my way through the bush, trying not to think about burrs, rusty nails and ghosts. Or what would happen if Mr T came out.
Meow! It sounded as if someone had trodden on a cat. Slam! Other noises from inside his house made me jump like Claire when she sees a daddy-long-legs in the shower.
It was Old Tompkins opening the back door!
I sprang to my feet and started to run. A spotlight flashed on in my face and I tripped over something round. The ball!
I grabbed it and threw it up to Jonesy. I made a run for it and found two tennis balls and the perfect stick for sword fights by the fence as I scrambled over.
‘WHO IS THAT? GET OUTTA THERE!’
Too late, Mr T! I was home and hosed. Jonesy gave me a high-five.
Commentators would call this a day of two halves! Okay, so there was school, and McGarvy coming to our school, and I didn’t finish my homework, but we had half a bag of banana lollies left and I played one-on-one like Michael Jordan. I bet even Kobe Bryant hasn’t scored five three-pointers in the dark.
Shot!
2nd FEBRUARY
Last night might have felt like scoring a goal in the FA Cup Final, but today felt like getting bowled out by a girl for a golden duck.
Everything started out cool. Mum made porridge with lots of brown sugar and cream. Dad was singing loudly and Max ate everything without spilling anything on the floor, which is good because I’m normally the one who has to clean it up. Claire even left some hot water in the shower for once. I think it’s because she can’t get her arm wet.
Then I walked to school with the CGC and told Hughesy about my five three-pointers and how I found two tennis balls, a new sword and got away from Grumpy Old Tompkins before he kidnapped me.
‘You’re just lucky I kept playing when it got dark,’ said Jonesy.
‘You’re lucky I went to Tompkins’s backyard to get the ball.’
‘Did he take his eye out?’ asked Hughesy.
‘Jonesy wouldn’t know, because he was too scared to go over.’
‘I was not too scared!’ protested Jonesy.
So I punched Jonesy in the arm. And then he kicked me in the back of the knee and ran ahead. He couldn’t even beat Max in an arm wrestle.
Anyway, my bad luck started when McGarvy stole my seat and I had to sit on the wonky chair that everyone hates. Then Mrs Martin-Edge told everyone to get their homework out and I was the only one who hadn’t finished. Normally the CGC are all in trouble together, but not this time. Jonesy wrote about The Simpsons and Hughesy wrote about Modern Family. Maybe my homework wasn’t finished, but at least I chose real families who played sport for their country!
‘Firstly, Toby Gilligan-Flannigan,’ said Mrs Martin-Edge, looking at my homework book, ‘you didn’t complete the assignment, and secondly, you didn’t listen to what was asked of you.’
‘I did so! There are fourteen famous families in that list!’
‘Exactly my point,’ said Mrs Martin-Edge. ‘I said write about a famous family, not make a shopping list of families no one has ever heard of.’
‘But the Waugh brothers played cricket for Australia! And who hasn’t heard of Serena and Venus Williams?’
‘You’re not listening,’ said Mrs Martin-Edge. ‘That is a list, not a report.’
‘Well, I wasn’t finished,’ I said, trying to think of a good excuse.
‘Correct,’ said Mrs Martin-Edge. ‘That’s the most accurate thing you’ve said yet.You’ll stay in at lunchtime and finish it.’
I don’t get it. I mean, I’ll bet David Beckham never had to do spelling and look how famous he is. No one ever asks Jonah Lomu in an interview if he knows what twelve times twelve is.
While everyone was outside playing basketball I started to write about how the Waugh brothers both got ducks in their very first match. Normally I’d change seats, because the wonky chair digs into your butt and squeaks like a dolphin every time you move, but Mrs Martin-Edge said I wasn’t allowed to. She sat at her desk and watched me as if she was a referee on the tryline.
‘Stop staring out the window and complete your homework,’ she snarled.
I wish we could have our PE teacher, Mr Doon, as a class teacher instead of Mrs Martin-Edge. Everyone likes him, mostly because he just plays sport all day and never wears grown-up clothes. Mr Doon is as big as Michael Jordan and even plays basketball like him. Once in a teacher’s game he slam-dunked with two seconds to go and won the game.
I looked out the window again. Hughesy and Jonesy were getting thrashed at basketball.
But then Jonesy downed a circus shot! And a three-pointer! It must have been his new shoes, the ones that light up blue when he runs.
Those shoes got Jonesy up to the keyhole. He passed to Hughesy, who also shot a three-pointer! The CGC were only two points behind. But just as Hughesy was about to score a winning field goal, McGarvy pulled off his beanie and threw it into the juniors’ playground.
Get this! Hughesy’s such a pro he dribbled the ball back to his beanie, picked it up, kept control of the ball and got the two points they needed. The best part was seeing McGarvy try to make an intercept, and then fall over on the concrete.
All the time I was watching the game I heard someone calling my name. It was like a dream. ‘Toby! Toby! TOBY!’ It seemed to get louder. ‘Toby, Toby, TOBY GILLIGAN-FLANNIGAN!’ But it wasn’t a dream. Mrs Martin-Edge was so close she was almost kissing me. Her breath smelt like cat food. ‘I am calling your mother!’ she said. ‘Again!’
When the end-of-lunch bell rang and everyone stampeded in, I felt jealous because they’d all had so much fun. Hughesy’s face was red and puffy, but he still wouldn’t take his beanie off. Jonesy did what he always does after a game: took green sanitising gel out of his bag and rubbed it on his hands, mostly because his mum says he’ll get diseases if he doesn’t.
Unfortunately, McGarvy was sitting behind me, and when he took his shoes off it was as if someone had forgotten to flush the world’s biggest toilet.
‘Right,’ Mrs Martin-Edge said to the class. ‘Time to concentrate!’
Then Hughesy had the worst idea. He wanted to play Louder, which is a game where you have to say the same word louder than the last person. Yesterday when we played, the word we had to say was ‘boob’. I started, which was good because Mrs Martin-Edge was facing the whiteboard and she couldn’t hear me. Jonesy said ‘boob’ a bit louder, and Hughesy said it even louder.
Then it was back to me.
‘Boob!’ I yelled.
Hughesy and Jonesy thought it was hilarious. Mrs Martin-Edge also started playing Louder but with different words.
‘Gilligan-Flannigan!’ she screamed. ‘Leave the room at once and think about your actions!’
Mrs Martin-Edge didn’t believe me when I said I was just pract
ising palindromes. I was held in that lunchtime too.
Anyway, today Hughesy remembered I was already in that big pile of horse poo for not doing my homework, so he said Louder could wait till tomorrow. Then everything went super well for the afternoon, until the bell rang.
As we were leaving, McGarvy pushed me from behind. I could tell he was near me because it smelled like two hundred toilets.
He whispered in my ear, ‘So, about your silly little GameBox V3 challenge, Gilligan-Flannigan.’ He said my last name like a swearword.
‘What about it?’ I asked.
‘All those tries and all those wickets! You’ve got more chance of flying to the moon.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘I bet my dead grandmother is better at sport than you.’
‘Leave me alone,’ I said.
‘Make me.’
‘Nah.’
‘Nah yourself,’ McGarvy said.
That’s when my fist flew forward and punched … nothing, because McGarvy moved out of the way faster than an opening bowler on the first morning of a test.
I turned and saw Mrs Martin-Edge looking at me with her hands on her hips.
I’ve been in some trouble in my life, but this was the first time I’d ever been held in at lunchtime and after school!
Hughesy and Jonesy waited for me at the school gates. It’s a CGC rule to wait for whoever has detention. We walked along kicking a drink can. Jonesy and Hughesy were going to flipper–ball, so I left them with the can and went home. When I opened the front door Mum was sitting at the dining-room table with her crossword.
The house was all smoky. ‘Has Dad been cooking?’ I asked, dropping my bag by the door.
‘Tandoori chicken,’ said Mum. ‘Now sit down, Toby. We need to talk.’
She put down her crossword puzzle and took off her glasses. I knew Mrs Martin-Edge must have called when the next thing Mum said was, ‘Toby, I’m very disappointed in you.’
This was going to be bad. Real bad. Even worse than the time Mum found a dead bird in my lunchbox. I meant to put it under Claire’s bed when I got home one Friday, but I forgot, and Mum found it the next Monday morning when she was making my lunch.
