How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare...

by Paul Jennings

  The Queen is young and beautiful. She is going to come to Australia this year and everyone loves her. No one can say anything against the Queen. I once asked my mother if the Queen went to the toilet.

  She laughed and said, ‘Of course she does.’

  But I just can’t see it. I can imagine her sitting on her white horse and reviewing the troops. But not sitting on the toilet.

  ‘You’re not the Queen, Hopkins,’ says Henderson. ‘We don’t want ya.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty,’ says Ian Douglas. ‘Let him prove himself.’

  ‘He’s a scaredy-cat,’ says Henderson.

  Mouse has wandered inside and is listening. ‘Give him a chance,’ he says. ‘Hopkins isn’t a bad kid.’

  I give Mouse a weak smile. He is all right. But Henderson is really mean. I remember the day I saw him and some other boys playing jacks on the pavement after school. Jacks are small bones that come out of lamb shanks. You throw them up and catch them on the back of your hand. When you first get them out of a leg of lamb the knuckle bones have gristle on them. The only way to get it off is to put the bones on a bull ants’ nest and let them chew it off. The bull ants go crazy when they get anywhere near a bone. You can also buy plastic jacks but they are not as good.

  ‘Can I join in?’ I said to Henderson and the others.

  ‘Well, Pommie Hopkins, where’re ya jacks?’ said Henderson.

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Well, ya can’t play without ’em, can ya?’ he said in a scornful voice.

  I walked all the way home. It was a long way but I fetched my jacks and walked back again.

  ‘Henderson, I’ve got my jacks,’ I said. I held them out to show him.

  ‘They’re plastic,’ he said. ‘We only use the real thing.’

  In my heart I knew that even if I had gold-plated jacks, Henderson would never have let me join in. Now he doesn’t want me around as usual but Ian Douglas is showing interest.

  ‘Will you do a dare?’ he says.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  He looks at me as if I’m stupid.

  ‘You really are a spastic,’ says Henderson.

  Frank Kelly is shaking his head as if I am an idiot.

  I am an idiot. What am I doing here?

  Ian Douglas looks straight into my eyes with a mocking grin. ‘Ya don’t get to know what ya have to do until you’ve agreed to do it. That’s what it’s all about.’

  This is one of those moments where a wave of fate changes your life forever. If I say ‘yes’, I will have to go through with it. If I say ‘no’, I will go back to being a Pommie autumn leaf blowing around on the bare ground.

  I think about it for about thirty seconds. It seems more like thirty minutes. Finally I take a deep breath.

  ‘All right,’ I say in my toughest voice. ‘I will do the bloody dare.’

  ‘Impressive,’ says Ian Douglas. He drops his cigarette butt into the toilet and flushes it away. Then he pulls up his trousers. This is the signal for Henderson to do the same.

  We all walk outside into the sunshine and he begins to tell me what I knew he would. This dark thought that has been trying to get out of my mind now comes to life.

  ‘Okay, Hopkins,’ says Ian Douglas. ‘Here’s what ya have to do. Behind the Loony Bin in the sand dunes there’s a grave. Someone’s pulled the top off …’

  ‘And busted into the coffin,’ yells Frank Kelly.

  Ian Douglas gives him a dirty look. ‘I’m telling this,’ he says.

  Frank Kelly shuts up.

  ‘Someone’s taken the skull outta the coffin and left it in the grave,’ says Ian Douglas. ‘You have to go there. Tonight. After dark. You have to climb down into the hole and get the skull. Then you have to bring it back to me.’

  My brain is numb. It’s sort of like when a teacher asks you a question and your mind goes blank. I hear Ian Douglas talking but the words don’t mean anything. I blink and shake my head.

  ‘That, Hedley Hopkins, is your dare,’ Ian Douglas finishes.

  The world spins around me. I feel faint. They want me to touch the skull. It is not a plastic thing like you see in toy shops. It is not a joke like on cartoons at the pictures. It is not even a dancing made-up skeleton. It is the head of a real person. A dead person. And they want me to pick it up.

  Frank Kelly starts to laugh. ‘It’s still got some hair on it,’ he hoots. ‘And skin.’

  Ian Douglas throws him another dirty look. The gang seems to know a lot about this skull. I think I know who has broken open the grave but I don’t mention it.

  ‘I have to go to the Father and Son Night with my dad,’ I say in a soft voice.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Mouse. ‘I’m going too.’

  ‘Sneak out afterwards,’ says Frank Kelly. ‘After ya get home. When your old man’s asleep.’

  ‘How do I get into the grave?’ I say. ‘It’s deep.’

  ‘You’ll need a ladder, idiot,’ says Ian Douglas. ‘There’s one hidden under the old pier. You can use that.’

  My mouth starts to move. I can’t believe what I am about to say. What is wrong with me? Why am I speaking these words?

  ‘No bloody worries,’ I say, trying to put on an Australian accent.

  ‘Hey, I just thought of something,’ says Henderson.

  ‘What?’ says Ian Douglas.

  ‘When Hedley Hopkins takes the skull, the skeleton will be headless.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So. Headless Hopkins. Get it?’

  They all start to laugh. I try to look as if I don’t care. But I do. Headless is a bit like brainless. I don’t like it.

  ‘Good one,’ says Ian Douglas.

  The school bell goes and we all begin to walk inside.

  ‘I won’t be able to see in the dark,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a torch.’

  ‘I don’t have a torch,’ mimics Ian Douglas. ‘So what? There’s a full moon tonight.’ He gives a long, long laugh. ‘You know that Loonies bury people alive when the moon is out. But you won’t have to worry about that. I’m sure they like Pommies.’

  ‘For breakfast, Headless,’ says Henderson.

  I suddenly go cold all over and start to shiver.

  6

  the facts of life

  THE FATHER and Son Night is about the facts of life. It is a topic I am interested in and I want to know more. But I don’t really want to go to this meeting with my father.

  Dad and I walk towards the old Church Hall under the full moon. As I go I think about the skull. I am not going to do it. I just can’t touch a dead person’s head. And the grave is right next to the Loony Bin. I feel sick at the thought of it. I will just have to go on being lonely. That is all.

  Sometimes I think my father is lonely too. When we first arrived in Australia, my father couldn’t find work. He was finally offered a job on an ice truck. The iceman brings a huge hunk of ice to every house in the street and puts it inside people’s ice chests. An ice chest keeps the food cool and stops the blowflies getting to it.

  Dad would not take the job.

  ‘I am an engineer,’ he said. ‘Not a labourer. And anyway, everyone will have fridges one day. All the ice chests will be down the dump and I will be out of work.’

  We all laughed at this.

  ‘Only rich people have fridges,’ said Mum.

  She was wrong about this. My father finally got a job as foreman in a factory that makes fridges. They let him buy a fridge cheap because he works there. We were the first ones in our street to get one.

  Our fridge has a freezing compartment inside at the top which you can use to make ice-cream. Homemade ice-cream is not as good as a brick of the real thing which you buy wrapped in a cardboard box from the milk bar. Homemade ice-cream has flakes of ice in it but bought ice-cream is smooth.

  When we came out from England on the boat, I thought Australia was going to be full of kangaroos, frill-necked lizards, snakes, stockmen on horses and Aborigines dancing around camp fires. I hav
en’t seen any of these things yet. Everything is the same as in England except for the roads which are not sealed and are filled with puddles in the winter. And the way people talk. And football. Cricket is the same, but everyone follows Australia so I have to as well or the others will tease me if England loses.

  Tonight as we walk the dark streets my father is quiet, which is unusual. Mostly he is a talker. Whenever we are at the table having dinner he says much more than anyone else. He likes to tell stories about funny things that have happened. Some of the stories teach you lessons like: ‘Save your money and work hard and you will get ahead like me.’ I have heard every story hundreds of times but still he keeps on telling them.

  ‘Er, you already told us that one, Dad,’ I will say.

  He doesn’t even hear. He just tells the whole thing over again. This is why Kate and I never ask him anything. He just can’t stop giving advice and telling stories. I hate these stories but for some reason I can’t show my feelings and stop him doing it. If I did, it would be like hitting him. If I stand up to him, he will shatter into a million pieces like a glass ornament.

  No one can stop him talking once he gets going.

  On the subject of the Facts of Life my father has nothing to say. We walk in silence.

  Earlier Mum had said, ‘Your dad is taking you to a Father and Son Night.’

  When I asked what it was about she said, ‘You’ll find out.’

  Dad just nodded. I could tell he didn’t want to go.

  I know that it is about the Facts of Life because Ian Douglas and his gang were going on about it all day. They were making rude jokes about it.

  Finally Dad and I reach the Church Hall. We walk inside and sit down on a long wooden pew. A lot of the boys from my school are there. Others I have never seen before. They are all sitting next to their fathers. No one is talking. Everyone looks embarrassed.

  Mr Hooper is there too. He is a teacher from the school inside the Loony Bin. Sometimes he comes and fills in at our school when a teacher is away. He has a wide face, dark hair and a flat nose. He smiles a lot and he seems to like me for some reason. I wish he was my teacher because he is kind and doesn’t give the strap to boys who misbehave. He is sitting next to a weird-looking kid. This boy is bigger than all the rest of us. He has a bald head and no eyebrows. His eyes are narrow and he keeps making laughing noises. Mr Hooper touches him gently on the arm.

  ‘Not now, Victor,’ he says in a kind voice.

  Once, when I mentioned Mr Hooper at home, my father said, ‘I think he has a touch of the tar brush.’

  Tar is black sticky stuff they put on the asphalt roads. When I asked what Dad meant my mother said, ‘Don’t talk like that, Albert.’ I never did find out.

  The bald boy stares at me. I stare back.

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ whispers Dad. ‘He’s a Mongol.’

  I am just about to ask what that is when Rev Carpenter comes out the front and tells us that he is glad we have come. He pins up a lot of charts and pictures on a board at the front. He tells us that The Lord wants us to know how to love each other properly.

  I look up at the ceiling which is made out of floorboards. There are five hundred and twenty-two boards in the ceiling. I know this because I count them during Sunday School when it is boring, which it nearly always is. Tonight I do not count the boards because Rev Carpenter begins talking about babies and where they come from. This is what the meeting is really about. He points to different bits of the charts which are mainly of men and women sliced down the middle so you can see inside them. There are tubes and things running everywhere. I can’t quite figure out what all this has to do with The Lord.

  He works through all the bits about where babies grow and how they come out. I already know this part. But there is one bit I do not know. I can’t work out how the babies get started. I have heard stories in the playground but which ones are true?

  No adult has ever spoken about them.

  My suspicions are shown to be right about how babies get started. You have to put your stiffy into the lady and pee into her. That’s how it seems to me from all the diagrams anyway. Rev Carpenter doesn’t seem to want to actually say it out loud. Dad is looking at the ceiling. Don’t tell me he is counting the boards up there. No, I think he’s looking at a fly.

  Just as it seems as if the talk is coming to an end, Rev Carpenter says, ‘Boys, we must always have clean minds. When I say this some of you will be thinking: “Last night I had bad thoughts”.’

  ‘Last night I had bad thoughts,’ yells Victor.

  Everyone is embarrassed. ‘Thank you, Victor,’ says Rev Carpenter. To the rest of us he says, ‘Victor is from Billabong.’

  ‘Victor is from Billabong,’ says Victor.

  Billabong. My blood freezes. That’s the name of the Loony Bin. Victor is crazy. He is a loony. He could be a murderer if the moon was out. Which it is.

  Mr Hooper gently pulls Victor down into his seat.

  Much more is said about bad thoughts. According to Rev Carpenter, these come from the Devil who puts them into our heads. Even thinking something bad is as wicked as actually doing it. He says that as the Devil’s voice is loud we can drown out the bad thoughts about women by running around the block and taking a cold shower before going to bed.

  He goes on for a bit more on this subject and then at last it is all over. Or nearly all over. Rev Carpenter passes out small pieces of paper and pencils. ‘If you have any questions write them down,’ he says. ‘I will read them out. No one will know who has asked the questions. That way no one need be embarrassed.’

  I take my piece of paper and write out a question. This is my chance to find out the bit I don’t understand about the whole thing. I fold the paper twenty times so that no one can read it.

  ‘Pass your questions along to the end of the row,’ says Rev Carpenter. I give mine to Dad and he passes it on. He looks worried.

  Suddenly my heart goes cold.

  I can’t believe what I am seeing.

  No, no, no. It can’t be true. Give it back. Give it back.

  Too late.

  Mine is the only piece of paper that is moving. No one else has asked a question. Everyone will know that the question is mine. Rev Carpenter takes the paper and beams at me with his toothy smile.

  ‘You don’t mind if I read it out, do you, Hedley?’ he says.

  Before I can open my mouth which has already frozen with fear, he reads the question. He has betrayed me. Everyone knows it was me who asked this. The words I have written seem frozen in the air for all time.

  ‘How much pee do you put in?’

  Well. The whole hall bursts into laughter. Oh, shame. Oh, horror. The fathers laugh. The boys laugh. Even Rev Carpenter laughs. My own father goes red. I can see he is ashamed of me. The loudest laughs of all come from Ian Douglas and his mates. They go on and on and on.

  What have I said?

  What? What? What?

  Oh, I can’t stand it. The boards in the roof and the knot holes in the floor and the Cubs’ banner on the wall seem to laugh. I jump to my feet and run for the door. I have to get away from that laughter. I am dumb. I am the dumbest person in the world. I don’t know anything. I should be in the Loony Bin.

  My legs, like they always do, want to carry me away to a safe place. The laughing faces line my route. I am an alien. I have landed in a world where everyone knows the rules except me.

  I am a freak.

  An outsider.

  7

  a silent scream

  I FLEE INTO the black night outside. I can hear Rev Carpenter’s voice calling out my name. He wants me to go back. He is sorry that they all laughed.

  He might be sorry – but not as sorry as I am going to be. Tomorrow at school it will go around. Whatever it was that I said that was stupid.

  I run and run and run until my breath cuts into my lungs like a saw. You can’t get away from things like shame and guilt because they are inside you. But for some reason the
running makes you feel that you are escaping. In the end I have to stop and the embarrassment of the Father and Son Night catches up with me. My face is burning in the light of the full moon.

  I am at the beach. There is no one around. I shiver. I left my coat behind in the hall. I bend over and suck in the cold night air with shuddering gasps. The empty sea shimmers. The only sound is the roar of the crashing waves.

  I still don’t know what was so funny. Victor the mad kid was laughing like crazy. He was looking from face to face not knowing what was going on but laughing even though he didn’t get it. Oh, I will never live this down. I will be a joke. I am a joke. What can I do? How can I stop the whole school laughing at me?

  There is only one thing for it. The skull. If I turn up at school with a real live skull no one will mock me. Everyone will be amazed. This is the biggest dare ever.

  I will do it.

  I will go to the grave and get the skull.

  Even if it means jail. Or worse.

  The sand is soft under my feet. The full moon shimmers on the ocean making a silvery ladder.

  Ladder.

  Somewhere under the pier is a ladder that I can use to get down into the grave. The pier is high above the sand where it touches the water but as it runs back into the sloping beach the space beneath gets smaller and smaller. I can’t see a ladder anywhere so I lie down on my stomach and wiggle forward beneath the planks at the low end. Yes, there is something there. I grasp the end of a long pole and push myself backwards, pulling it out with me.

  It’s not much of a ladder. Just one long length of timber with bits of driftwood nailed across for rungs. I can tell already that it won’t be easy climbing up and down it because it’s going to wobble from side to side.

  I start the long walk along the beach to the grave. The ladder is heavy so I drag it behind me. The end makes a long trail in the sand. It looks like the track of a giant snake.

  The sounds of the waves roar loudly. No one would hear me if I called out. The beach is as empty as the full moon so far above.