by Debra Oswald
When dinner was close to ready, I scooped my school junk out of the way and helped Amy set the table. Amy yabbered on to me about some funny thing that had happened at school.
My sister is basically a cool kid. She’s not a girly girl. She plays soccer and she got into skateboarding during the summer holidays. I showed her some basic moves and since then, she’d been practising with a few other Year 7 kids. At school she stayed right out of the bitchy girl stuff but still managed to be generally popular.
There were bowls of pasta steaming on the table when Corey showed up at our back door – the way he always did.
‘Oh sorry,’ he said. ‘You’re having dinner. Maybe I should go away and –’
‘Stay. There’s plenty,’ said Mum firmly and scooted over to the stove.
Corey whispered to me, ‘Does your mum mind me crashing here so much?’
‘No way,’ I assured him. ‘She likes you more than me. You big suck.’
Mum brought over a bowl of pasta for Corey.
‘That’s right, isn’t it, Mum?’ I said. ‘You like Corey bludging round here, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she confirmed. ‘When you’re here, Corey, It actually smiles.’
‘It’ was me.
‘That makes a nice change from the turbo-charged sulking we usually get,’ explained Mum.
We hoed into the food and yacked about various things. I made up a whole spiel about how we should create an Aztec civilisation in Narragindi and the first person we’d use for the human sacrifice would be Ray Stone. Mum bagsed being the priestess who got to dangle Stone over the volcano by his ankles.
Whenever Corey laughed or asked for another helping of pasta, I could see my mum smiling. She really liked having Corey around. He was part of our family, in a way. She was glad to see him having a good time, with no worries pressing on his mind. Even if it was just for a little while.
When we finished eating a couple of truckloads of pasta, Mum asked in a matter-of-fact way, ‘You going to stay the night here, Corey?’
‘Oh … uh … if that’s okay with you,’ he said. Things must’ve been bad for him at home.
‘No worries,’ she said. Mum never made a big deal about Corey’s family and why he was bedsurfing at our place. She respected his privacy but asked the occasional question.
‘Is your mum okay?’
‘Oh … y’know … yeah,’ he said.
‘You let me know if there’s anything I can do for you or your mum, won’t you?’
Corey nodded and fussed with his last scrap of pasta, so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact with Mum.
Mum changed the subject by announcing, ‘Get this: I’ve found stuff on the internet about getting a skatepark. OzYouth and all that gumph.’ That’s what she’d been doing on the computer the last few days. ‘I think we should have a crack at it.’
‘Who’s “we”?’ I demanded.
‘You don’t have to help if you don’t want to.’
Mum did her best to ignore me being a big lump of negative sitting at the table. She got fired up, explaining how we’d have to do research and put together a presentation – photos, plans and whatever – to get support from people in town. Amy threw herself into it, totally excited. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was when Corey spoke up.
‘Well … um … Lauren Saxelby’s making that video about skating,’ he said. ‘What do you reckon, Zac?’
‘What do I reckon about what?’
Corey turned to Mum then. ‘Maybe someone could ask Lauren if we can use her video to show people … I mean, I guess that’s not the right kind of –’
‘No, no, it’s a great idea,’ replied Mum.
‘That’s a bad, bad idea,’ I argued. ‘Lauren? Shocking idea.’
‘And is anyone asking you?’ snapped Mum.
‘I don’t get … look, why do you wanna do this? We’ll never get a skatepark in Narragindi!’ My voice was getting louder and harder. ‘You’re bashing your head against a brick wall! Stop kidding yourself!’
‘Well, I remember a couple of years ago you were dead keen to try and –’ Mum began.
‘Yeah, back when I was a stupid little kid who didn’t realise how screwed up everything is! Give it a rest, Mum! Let it die!’ By now I was really shouting at her.
‘Don’t be a scumbag to Mum,’ Amy barked at me, like a fierce little terrier protecting its owner.
‘Thank you, Amy,’ said Mum, ‘and watch your mouth.’ Then she fixed me with a stern look. ‘If you don’t want to be part of the new campaign, Zac, that’s your choice, but don’t badmouth anyone else’s –’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ I interrupted. ‘It’s none of my business.’
Chapter Seven
Narragindi High would have to be the ugliest building in Australia. Or at least one of the top ten ugliest buildings. The main block has massive concrete walls with mean slitty little windows. For years, water has run down the walls and left rusty streaks staining the concrete so the place looks like a urinal. If you ask me, that’s typical: high-school kids are expected to spend their whole day in a gigantic toilet.
Thanks to JT’s big mouth, rumours were flying around school about Corey and me giving Ray Stone the slip the week before. The story got bigger and more amazing until, by the end of the first week of term, it was like a Hollywood chase sequence. Apparently Corey and I jumped over a two-metre wall, skated through a massive waterfall, reached speeds of a hundred-plus kilometres an hour, all the time being chased by a fleet of twenty police pursuit vehicles. It made me exhausted just thinking about what we’d supposedly done.
Friday afternoon, Corey was in the row in front of me in English, staring out the window, not processing a word the teacher was saying. He called that being ‘unplugged’. He reckoned it was further proof he was stupid but I never thought so. Corey was a smart guy with his own interesting opinions about things but he didn’t have much confidence. Plus he’d missed big chunks of school, because of the mess in his family.
Corey came to Narra High halfway through Year 7. He’d been living with that decent foster family in Wiley Creek but then he moved back to Narragindi to be with his mum. We sat next to each other in home room because of our surnames: ‘Marlowe’, then ‘Matthews’. We liked each other right from the start. Corey was always a shy person but once he decided you were his friend, then he was your friend forever, no question.
Some of the teachers – the really old ones – used to teach Corey’s mother and his uncles (the ones who ended up in jail). Those teachers picked on Corey. From the first day they laid eyes on him, you could tell they were thinking ‘Oh, he’s a Matthews so he must be a dirtbag.’
Most of the teachers were dead surprised I hung round with Corey Matthews. I used to be a student who got good marks, remember. They were worried I was hanging with a bad kid who’d get me in strife. But they didn’t know what Corey was really like, apart from who his family was. If they couldn’t see who he was – a dead honest guy, never fake or full of himself, who had a top sense of humour but never put anyone down – well, that was their loss.
Oh, I should mention there was one teacher who was friendly to Corey: the art teacher, Mr Stepanovic. Corey was incredibly talented at drawing and art. I’d watch him doodling on the back of an exercise book and it would be this sensational drawing of skaters or little kids at the beach or animals or whatever. Art was the one class when Corey was really plugged in and you could tell that Mr Stepanovic genuinely liked him.
That Friday in English, I was daydreaming too. Then I noticed Lauren Saxelby lean across the aisle and make a hissing noise to get Corey’s attention.
‘Are you guys going to be skating after school?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I can show you the place,’ answered Corey.
That afternoon, a few of us had a skating session around the old petrol station, which was due to be demolished a couple of days later. It was the usual suspects: JT, Travis, Stella, Riley, Corey, some y
ounger kids. We built skating ramps from milk crates and bits of wood. It was better than nothing.
Mum had taken on Corey’s suggestion, phoned up Lauren Saxelby and recruited her to make a video. Rumours had spread around town about my mum cranking up a new skatepark campaign. Most people were apathetic or downright cynical about it.
‘It’ll never happen.’
‘As if.’
‘It won’t work.’
For some reason I couldn’t figure out, Lauren was gung-ho about helping the campaign. I was suspicious about her motives. Did she think of us skaters as a little ‘project’ she could take on to earn herself more Good Girl points?
Whenever we were skating somewhere in town, there was a good chance Lauren would turn up with her video camera. Here was Lauren hanging around with skaters for hours – people she would never hang round with at school. And now all of a sudden she was acting friendly to the skaters. Except me. Lauren made it pretty clear she didn’t like me.
‘That Zac Marlowe is so rude,’ I heard her say to Jycinta, deliberately loud enough for me to overhear. ‘And he’s so full of himself. Have you seen him stalking around school seething – like something’s biting his bum? The Angry Young Man act is so tedious. Don’t you think?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Jycinta, pulling a face like she’d eaten something rank. ‘I don’t understand half the things you say.’
Corey was skating – making the most of the temporary ramps we’d built around the old petrol pumps. He didn’t go out of his way to talk to Lauren but I could see him sneaking looks at her. Lauren aimed her camera at Corey a fair percentage of the time.
Mitchell, another guy from Year 10, was sitting on his arse as usual. And also as usual, he was wearing a mega-expensive shirt from a skate shop and top-of-the-line skate shoes, and was reading the latest issue of Skate-boarder magazine.
‘Give us a look,’ said JT, grabbing the magazine out of Mitchell’s hands.
Mitchell yanked the magazine back and turned to a photo spread in the middle. ‘He’s that pro-skater from Brisbane.’
‘Oh, yeah. He got a massive sponsorship deal,’ JT pointed out. ‘That dude is living in luxury.’
‘That dude is riding exactly the gear I want,’ gushed Mitchell. Mitchell could get overexcited when he talked about skating. ‘I want that deck, those trucks plus those wheels.’
Lauren had seen Mitchell hanging around all the time but now she turned her camera towards him. ‘Why haven’t I ever seen you skate?’
JT and Travis cracked up laughing.
‘What?’ asked Lauren, wanting to know what was so funny.
‘Mitchell has a big mouth about skating,’ explained JT.
‘He reads the mags, watches the videos, wears the clothes, talks his big ugly head off about skating,’ said Travis.
‘But he doesn’t do it,’ snorted Jycinta.
Mitchell rolled his eyes, used to the teasing. ‘I happen to be waiting until I get the board I want,’ he said in a tight, superior voice. ‘I’m not going to waste my time skating with crap equipment like you guys.’
That made everyone crack up laughing even more. I think Lauren felt sorry for Mitchell. Instead of joining in teasing him, she looked at Jycinta and Marissa, who were hanging around not doing much except laugh at Mitchell.
‘Do you two ever skate?’ asked Lauren.
‘It’s a tragedy. I don’t think their legs work,’ JT explained.
‘They just hang around hoping Matt Daly’ll turn up,’ said Travis. Matt Daly was an older guy who skated with us sometimes when he finished work for the day. Matt was considered seriously hot by girls like Jycinta.
JT did a take-off of Jycinta panting and moaning, ‘Oh, oh, oh, Matt. Oh, Matt, you’re so hot … oh!’
Everyone laughed (except Jycinta and Marissa).
Jycinta shot a dirty look at JT and Travis. ‘Well, I wouldn’t waste my time on pimply retard losers like you guys.’ She stood up and flicked her head for Marissa to follow. ‘This is boring. Let’s go.’
‘Oh … but I wanna stay and watch the skating,’ Marissa bleated.
Jycinta used a tough voice, like a farmer giving a disobedient kelpie an order. ‘I said let’s go, Marissa.’
Marissa jumped up and scurried behind Jycinta down the street.
‘Oh thank you, Lord! It’s a miracle!’ roared JT. ‘They can walk!’
As she flounced off, Jycinta gave JT the finger.
Meanwhile Stella was working on a 360 casper flip but it wasn’t happening. Every time she stuffed up, she growled at herself with frustration.
‘Hey Stella, I know why you can’t get that to work,’ Mitchell announced.
Stella made a big show of peering around and clearing her ears. ‘What’s that farting noise? It sounds like a wannabe skater telling me what to do.’
‘You got your feet too far forward for a 360 casper flip,’ Mitchell went on.
‘So you’re The Expert,’ Stella said.
‘I saw Harley Preston do one on a video.’ Mitchell watched videos of pro-skaters for hours every day. ‘Harley Preston had his feet further back.’
Stella ignored Mitchell and tried again. But this time she put her feet further back. She landed the flip perfectly.
‘See?’ said Mitchell.
Stella growled at him and chucked an empty drink can at his head. But you could see that she was smiling. Mitchell held up his skating magazine as a shield so Stella wouldn’t hit him with any more missiles.
Travis and JT were huddled around Lauren’s video camera, looking at the footage. I stayed a couple of metres back but I could see fairly well too.
‘Corey,’ said JT, ‘there’s you doing a sick indie grab. Come and look.’
‘I’ll rewind it to that bit for you,’ offered Lauren.
Corey stood right next to Lauren so they could both see the small screen on the camera.
‘That’s you,’ she said. ‘Looks good, eh?’
Corey grinned, embarrassed but pleased as anything. ‘Oh … yeah.’
‘I’ve got some ideas for the campaign video,’ said Lauren. ‘I might need your help.’
‘Oh, uh … sure … great. Any time.’ Corey squirmed, even more embarrassed. But he stayed there, side by side with her, watching the screen.
‘Eaten any rank hotdogs lately?’ Lauren asked.
‘Oh … no … luckily,’ Corey said. ‘How’s your hand? I mean, is it better now?’
‘The burn was never that bad,’ she whispered to him, like it was their big secret. ‘I just wanted an excuse to go to sick bay and get out of Mr Cleveland’s science class. Don’t dob me in.’
‘Oh no. Secret’s safe with me.’
There was a sudden squeal like a pig being killed. The pig squeal came out of JT’s big mouth as he flew off a ramp, out of control, and crashed straight into Corey. Corey’s skateboard went flying across the concrete and into the roadway.
‘Watch out, you feral idiot!’ Corey wailed. He clambered over the wreckage of the ramp to chase after his board.
That left me and Lauren stranded there on our own for a second.
‘You wanna watch out,’ I said to her. ‘That’s a Matthews you’ve been talking to.’
‘What?’ she snapped at me. ‘What rubbish is coming out of your mouth now?’
‘I’m just pointing out –’ I began.
‘No. You’re just being a prize creep. You accuse me of thinking this or that without even knowing me.’
‘Whatever,’ I grunted and walked off. I thought Lauren Saxelby was a snob. I thought a girl like her could never respect someone like Corey Matthews. I thought I knew everything.
Over the next couple of weeks, Corey started helping Lauren with her video, working out sequences to film, discussing ideas.
Corey was not the kind of guy who blabbed a lot about himself, even to people he knew well. So I was surprised to hear him talking so much to Lauren.
‘When did you get your skateboard?’
she asked him one afternoon.
I crouched down and pretended to fix the wheels on my board, so I could eavesdrop.
‘Well, I was living with this foster family for a while,’ Corey explained. ‘And DOCS bought a bike or a board for all the foster kids in Narra and Wiley Creek that Christmas. So I was pretty lucky with the timing.’
‘Skaters get ripped off with all that expensive gear. Fashion victims, I reckon,’ said Lauren. (That girl had an opinion about everything. In this case, her opinion may have been right but it still annoyed the hell out of me.)
‘Yeah, most of that expensive stuff is a rip-off,’ Corey agreed. ‘One time Zac’s mum, Gail, she came back from Glenthorpe with a Skate-Beast shirt for me. Reckoned she got it on some amazing special.’
‘But you reckon she paid full price.’
‘Hope not. It’s not like she’s rolling in money. I wore that shirt every day for the holidays and every night Gail washed it for me because I didn’t have any other good gear.’
Lauren pointed at the shirt Corey was wearing. ‘Is that it?’
‘Oh no,’ said Corey. ‘Maybe washing it so much made it get thinned out quicker. Because one time my stepdad grabbed a fistful of the front and I kind of yanked away and the shirt got ripped. You probably think I’m a head case, going on about a T-shirt –’
‘No, I don’t think that. I get what you mean,’ said Lauren, smiling.
Corey smiled back at her, then looked down to fiddle with his shoelaces.
‘What do you want to do when you finish school?’ she asked him.
‘Me? Oh … judging by the family form-guide, jail and the dole,’ he joked.
‘Hey, come on, Corey, don’t put yourself down.’
‘What about you? When you finish school?’
‘Well, I’ve got a five-year plan,’ Lauren declared.
Yeah, yeah, I thought to myself, a girl like Lauren Saxelby would have a perky five-year plan.
