by Justin Brown
After school today Jonesy and Hughesy went straight to Stefan Mildew’s birthday, but I wasn’t invited because it’s flipperball people only. Jonesy said it was going to be really boring, but I know he was just trying to make me feel better, because I saw the invitation. Everyone was going to drink buckets of fizzy and go ten-pin bowling, then paintballing, then watch a movie with the lights off at Stefan’s house.
I felt so sad that I kicked a soda can halfway home. The only good thing was that Jonesy had lent me his MP3 player. Jonesy’s parents don’t know how to use a computer, so he can download stuff like X-Rate and Slagg Dogg and Filthgrinder that even Claire isn’t allowed to listen to!
You know when people say life couldn’t get any worse, but then sometimes it does? That’s exactly what happened to me, because just when I was thinking how I’d really like Malcolm McGarvy to vanish back to his old school, or to have never come to ours at all, I felt a huge whack on the back of my head. I fell over and hit the concrete.
Jonesy’s MP3 player broke into three pieces. Blood was coming out of my hand. My head felt as though someone had dropped a piano on it. But before I could get up to see what happened I was whacked again.
I saw blurry stars like in those cartoons on TV.
Then I wiped my face and felt tears.
I know how to fight, but right now I couldn’t even see who was hitting me. Whoever it was punched me in the stomach. I swung a fist really hard and hit something.Whoever it was didn’t hit me back for a few seconds so it must have hurt. Then the stars went away and I saw who it was.
McGarvy!
Before I had a chance to defend myself, he kneed me in the stomach. Let me tell you, if Supermarket had a big brother who had eaten a pig for lunch and then tackled me, that’s exactly how it would feel.
I couldn’t breathe.
McGarvy punched me again, then kneed me in the face. He grabbed me around the neck and threw me on the ground. We got up and held hands, but we weren’t dancing – we were trying to pull each other down!
He tried to punch me again, but I ducked. His knuckles zoomed past my ear.
Then he did hit me and I had thunder and lightning and everything frightening in my head.
I fell back and McGarvy jumped on top of me. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked.
‘Don’t play dumb,’ he said. ‘You did it and I got suspended.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking ab—’
‘It didn’t take Sherlock to work it out, loser-boy.’ Something happened in my head. It was as if someone swept away all the times tables and all the compound words, and all I heard was: beat him.
McGarvy tried to hold me down but I rolled away and managed to stand up. It was hard because he’s heaps bigger than me. His arms are like my dad’s. But McGarvy isn’t as fast as me, so I jumped on top of him. He flipped me over, then when I tried to stand up he grabbed me from behind and put his foot in front of mine. I tripped over.
Luckily I remembered a hockey fight I saw between a Chicago Black Hawk and a Detroit Red Wing. I pulled McGarvy’s shirt over his head so he couldn’t see. Then I hit him hard.
All of a sudden there was a crowd. People were recording the fight on their phones.
‘Smash him, Toby!’
‘Let him have it!’
‘Bring it!’
I sat on top of McGarvy. We were both puffing and no one had the half-time oranges or Motion Lotion. I had him trapped. He couldn’t move.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry!’
‘Are you going to stop?’
‘Yes!’
‘You promise?’ I asked.
‘I promise,’ he said.
I stood up slowly and walked back to get my bag. That’s when he rugby-tackled me from behind and spreadeagled me. I rolled over, jumped up and whacked him. My fist was sore, but I wasn’t going to let him know that.
The next time I walloped McGarvy, the leather cord on his shark tooth snapped and it fell into the gutter. As he bent down to pick it up, Mr Doon’s blue sports car stopped right next to us.
‘Break it up!’ He pulled McGarvy and me apart, then stood between us. ‘Boys! What’s going on?’
‘He started it!’ I said.
‘Whatever!’ said McGarvy. ‘I was just walking home and Toby attacked me.’
‘Walking home from where?’ I asked. ‘You’re suspended!’
Everyone laughed.
‘Is that true, Malcolm?’ Mr Doon asked.
No one lies to Mr Doon, mostly because he can shoot threes from anywhere. McGarvy didn’t say anything. He had a cut lip and a ripped shirt. He looked like one of those football players who trips a player without the ball but doesn’t know the ref is watching.
Everyone put their phones away. My hand was still bleeding. Jordi Flynn was putting Jonesy’s MP3 player back together.
‘Lift your game, guys,’ Mr Doon said. ‘Go straight home and I won’t mention a word of this to anyone. But if you start it up again you’ll enter a world of pain. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Mr Doon,’ McGarvy and I said.
He punched both of us lightly on the shoulder. ‘Save your energy for the basketball court, okay?’ When he got back into his car I could hear Slagg Dogg playing on his radio. Mr Doon is as cool as a fridge on top of an iceberg.
Everyone had left. It was just McGarvy and me. We hadn’t moved any closer. I stared at him and he stared at me.
McGarvy sighed, just like Dad does when there are no fish on his rod. I started walking and he followed me.
‘Just going the same way,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m not walking with you because we’re friends or anything.’
I watched McGarvy hobble. One of his eyes was red and puffy from where I punched him.
I’d given McGarvy a black eye!
My hand felt broken. I wiped my bleeding nose. ‘Are you sore?’ I asked.
‘Nah!’ he said.
‘Me neither.’
We passed the fire station and the hospital and the transport museum and Oakley Park. What was I going to tell Mum if she asked about my nose? ‘Why did you drop all those catches when we played the Daredevils?’ I asked. ‘Why did you do all those horrible things?’
McGarvy stopped and stared at me.
‘Because it’s so easy with you,’ he replied. ‘Anyway, you can handle it, you’ve got that cool dad.’
‘Cool? My dad? You sure you’ve got the right person? Your dad was awesome, saving your life and everything.’
‘Huh?’
‘The shark attack,’ I pointed to the broken necklace in his hand. ‘I don’t know anyone else whose dad saved them from a shark! That’s like, whoah.’
McGarvy started walking again. He looked at the ground and mumbled something.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I said, there’s something you don’t know.’
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘About the shark attack.’
‘What about it?’
‘It’s not true.’
‘What’s not true? That’s a shark tooth! I know, because I watch Animal Planet.’
‘What I mean is,’ said McGarvy, ‘that story isn’t true.’
I stopped walking, but McGarvy didn’t.
‘Your dad didn’t save you?’ I yelled.
He turned around. ‘No.’
I ran to catch up with him. ‘So who did? Your uncle?’
‘No one saved me, because there never was a shark attack.’
‘So . . . how did you get the huge scar on your neck?’
‘I fell out of my cot when I was a baby. I was trying to climb out and fell right through a glass table.’
‘For real?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘So where did you get the shark tooth?’
‘My uncle gave it to me for Christmas when I was seven.’
I thought about all the times McGarvy had almost made me cry. All those times I was scared of him because his dad ha
d killed a shark. I cracked up, laughing like a kookaburra.
At first McGarvy looked at me suspiciously and I thought he was going to punch me. But then he couldn’t help himself. He snorted like a pig. Then he farted, which made him laugh even more, and I couldn’t help laughing too. We laughed until we had tears in our eyes, all the way to Grandma’s shop.
‘Why are we stopping here?’ McGarvy asked.
‘It’s my grandma’s shop,’ I said. ‘Do you want to come in? She’s got some wicked stuff. It’s all really old!’
McGarvy shrugged. ‘Mm, okay.’
I knew Grandma would be in her shop because they let her out of hospital last night. That’s the good news. The bad news is she has to use a wheelchair. When I opened the front door the bell rang. I heard Grandma humming.
‘Toby, what is going on?’ she asked when she saw us. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay, Grandma,’ I said. ‘I just came here to get cleaned up.’
‘And who’s this?’ she said, pointing at McGarvy. McGarvy’s lip was bleeding and his eye was cut. His shirt was ripped from when I pulled it over his head. He looked like a WWE wrestler.
‘It’s Malcolm – you know, the boy I told you about?’
Grandma scowled. ‘So you’re the one who’s been giving my favourite boy a hard time!’
‘Please, Grandma,’ I said. ‘It’s okay now.’
‘Well, I’ll have none of that nonsense in my shop. Tidy yourselves up and I’ll get some hot chocolate with marshmallows.’
Mum always keeps spare clothes at Grandma’s shop in case I have sports practice after school and smell like a football changing room. I lent McGarvy my Chicago Bulls shirt and I wore my All Blacks one. Grandma brought out the hot chocolates. Four marshmallows in each one.
‘Yum!’ I said, scoffing them. ‘My favourite.’
‘There are plenty more,’ said Grandma. ‘I’m sick of them. Won four boxes last week.’ She wheeled herself to the front door. ‘Look after the shop, will you, boys? It’s been one of those days. I need red jubes.’
‘What if I tell Dad?’ I asked.
‘I’ll tell him that you gave that poor boy a black eye!’ she said.
McGarvy was busy eating marshmallows and finding new old things in Grandma’s shop. Like the monkey on wheels and the red telephone box. And the rocking horse all the way from Russia and the cuckoo clock with a bluebird that comes out.
‘Are you sore?’ I asked again.
McGarvy sighed. ‘Yep, my head hurts.’
‘Same,’ I said. ‘Hey, check this out!’ I showed him the naked-girl pinball machine. It seemed to stop his head from hurting. He even smiled a bit.
‘Hey,’ he said after playing pinball for a minute. ‘Remember that day when everyone dropped those catches off your bowling?’
‘Yes!’ I said.
‘I paid the team in chocolate.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s called a bribe,’ he said. ‘I gave everyone chocolates and they dropped catches.’
‘You did that?’ I asked.
‘Yep, and it worked.’ McGarvy laughed. ‘Well, you were tricked.’
‘I just thought everyone was having a really bad day! What about Jonesy and Hughesy? And Scott Honeyford?’
‘I didn’t tell them. They would have just told you.’
The silver ball rolled down the chute and the pinball machine started. McGarvy was good, but he was never going to beat my high score of 356.
‘And remember when you almost didn’t turn up to cricket because you thought the game was cancelled?’ McGarvy asked.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Because Dad said so on the radio.’
‘Yours truly.’
‘What do you mean, yours truly?’
‘That was me. I called your mum and pretended I was Coach’s son. She called your dad and he said it on the radio!’
‘No way!’
‘Yes way.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because .. . I don’t know.’
‘I’m sorry you got suspended,’ I said.
‘I don’t care!’ he said. ‘Get no homework if you’re suspended.’
Then McGarvy got a triple cherry score on the naked-girl pinball machine. The lights went crazy and the silver ball bounced around like a cat being chased by a dog.There were buzzes and bangs and crazy noises I’d never heard before.
My highest score was 356.
McGarvy got over 500 on his first go!
‘Shot!’ he said, taking a gulp of hot chocolate.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I say that all the time!’
‘I know. But now I say it too.’
I tried not to smile, but I did.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Can you teach me some of your tricks?’
‘As long as you promise not to tell anyone how to do them.’
‘I promise.’
‘All right then,’ said McGarvy. ‘Bring a banana to school tomorrow. I’ll show you how to turn it into a penguin.’
‘Awesome!’
Grandma came back with a ginormous bag of red jubes. McGarvy and I were sitting by the locked cabinet no one is allowed to touch, not even me. He couldn’t stop staring at the gold five-pointed star with the red-and-blue ribbon.
‘It’s worth lots of money,’ I said. ‘It’s from the war.’
Then I thought Grandma must have lost her brains completely because she opened the cabinet for the first time ever and took out the medal! ‘Here,’ she said, passing the medal to McGarvy. ‘It’s a gift to make up for my grandson giving you a black eye.’
‘Grandma!’ I said. ‘It’s . . . that’s . . . you can’t do that!’
‘Of course I can,’ she said. ‘What’s the point of keeping these things in a shop? People should get to enjoy them.’
McGarvy went the colour of a Manchester United uniform and Grandma looked like she’d just scored a three-pointer in extra time.‘What do you think of that, McGroovy?’ she asked.
‘It’s McGarvy, Grandma!’ I said.
‘Oh, poppycock,’ said Grandma. ‘McGroovy sounds much better.’
He held the medal in both hands, close to his shirt pocket. ‘It’s the best present I’ve ever got,’ he said.
‘Look after it, or else,’ said Grandma.
‘I will,’ said McGroovy.
13th JULY
Dad always says, ‘Be a man, Toby.’ So at lunchtime, when the class was outside, I stayed in. I cracked my knuckles until they hurt and then I told Mrs Martin-Edge that I was the one who scratched her car.
‘You!’ she said. ‘I should have known!’
Suddenly I thought of all the fun McGroovy said he’d had while he was on suspension. No homework. No spelling. No compound words!
‘So . .. am I suspended?’ I asked.
‘Yes – but not from school.You’d enjoy that too much, wouldn’t you, Gilligan-Flannigan?’
‘What am I suspended from?’
‘The rugby team.’
‘Please, Miss, anything but that!’ I was just sorted with McGroovy, and now Miss was going to ruin the GameBox V3 Challenge all on her own!
‘You should have thought about that before you damaged my car – and much worse, let someone else take the blame for it. Speaking of which, do your parents know about this little incident?’
‘No, Miss,’ I said.
‘Well, they will. Now get out of my sight,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do, not least of is which finding someone to fix Gertrude.’
Gertrude’s what she calls her dumb go-cart that couldn’t even beat Max in a race.
I picked up my bag and walked to the door. I wanted to tell Mrs Martin Edge what I really thought. That’s what a man would do. But I didn’t feel like a man, I felt like a dog that had just pooed on the lounge-room floor.
But there was one more thing I needed to know, even if Mrs Martin-Edge screamed at me again. ‘Um .. . Miss?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘How many games am I suspended for?’
‘I’ve a good mind to ban you for the rest of the season. But I will keep it to four – and you are to clean my car after school every day for a week.’
‘Four!’ I screamed. ‘That’s so unfair!’ I slammed the classroom door behind me and said to myself, ‘I’ll clean Gherkin, all right – with a toilet brush.’ McGroovy was sitting under a tree playing a game on his phone.
‘Why did you tell Fartin-Edge?’ he said. ‘She would never have found out.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But Grandma said I should tell the truth. And anyway, if I lie I always have nightmares, like this one time when I dreamt I was wearing Claire’s red miniskirt at the FA Cup Final.’
McGroovy laughed. ‘Who’s Claire?’
‘My sister.’
‘Yuck,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘She’s annoying. Like you used to be.’
He laughed again.
Whoah! That’s something I could never have said to McGarvy before he was McGroovy. Then I remembered the banana in my bag.
‘You said you’d turn this into a penguin, remember?’
McGroovy took the banana and told me to turn around. After a moment he said, ‘Okay, you can look now.’
He had peeled the skin to make it look like two wings and a head.
‘Magic!’ I said. ‘It is a penguin!’
‘Told ya,’ said McGroovy.
We looked out to the field. Jonesy and Hughesy were walking towards us.
‘What do you want?’ Hughesy asked McGroovy.
‘Yeah, McGarvy,’ said Jonesy, hiding behind Hughesy. ‘Why don’t you leave Toby alone and sit with someone else?’
I stood up. ‘It’s okay,’ I told the CGC. ‘Everything’s .. . cool.We’re friends now. He got the high score on Grandma’s pinball.’
‘Huh?’ said Jonesy. ‘For real? Even better than you?’
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Five hundred points.’
‘Probably beginner’s level,’ snorted Hughesy.
‘Oh yeah,’ agreed Jonesy. ‘Anyone can get five hundred on beginner’s!’
‘Pro level,’ I said.
Hughesy and Jonesy were quiet like mice.
‘Probably did it with multi-ball, which doesn’t count,’ Hughesy said after a minute. ‘And I bet he tilted the table. That’s not allowed either.’
