Getting Air

by Debra Oswald

  Lauren had to run the competition registration on her own because I hadn’t turned up to help. She figured I wasn’t going to show at all that day. In fact, I was there – half there really, sort of hiding, hunched up against the side of the first-aid tent, hat pulled low over my face, just soaking everything in.

  The mood was definitely happy, except for a few people disappointed about the sign. Guys like JT and Travis turned up expecting to see the skatepark named after Corey. It riled them up to see what those council maggots had done with the sign.

  I could see Jycinta go into a mating-ritual frenzy when she clapped eyes on some of the hot guys from out of town. ‘Fresh talent’, she called them. She told Marissa to get lost and not cramp her style with the hot guys. So Marissa wandered around the stalls and kept out of Jycinta’s way.

  You may or may not be surprised to learn that Jycinta didn’t get very far with the ‘fresh talent’. Those guys were in Narra to skate in the competition – they weren’t there to crack onto Jycinta. Eventually Jycinta got bored and went looking for her faithful labrador, Marissa.

  ‘Oh. My. God!’ Jycinta squawked when she saw Marissa roll along the path on Riley’s skateboard.

  Marissa giggled, nervous but having a great time. Riley trotted alongside her, steadying her on the board when she got too wobbly.

  ‘That’s it. That’s heaps good,’ Riley said. ‘You’ll be ready to try an ollie soon.’

  Jycinta hissed at Marissa, ‘Are you trying to look like a sad, sad retard? Is that your big plan?’

  Marissa rolled straight past Jycinta, ignoring her.

  ‘Did you hear me, Marissa? I hope you realise how tragic you look,’ Jycinta went on. ‘I hope you know that I can’t be seen with you in public if you’re going to embarrass me to death in front of people. Marissa? Are you deaf? Marissa!’

  By this point, Jycinta was screeching so loudly, many people were staring at her, including a couple of bona fide hot guys.

  ‘Can you hear something?’ Marissa asked Riley, cupping her ear as if she was listening carefully.

  ‘Nuh. Can’t hear anything,’ answered Riley.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Marissa with a big smile.

  Jycinta growled with frustration and flounced off towards the piles of big gooey cakes at the CWA stall.

  Marissa wasn’t the only person who was inspired to give skating a go that day.

  ‘Lordy, Lordy! Well, bite me on the bum and call me Roger! Am I seeing things?’ roared JT when he got an eyeful of Mitchell being dragged down the street by Stella.

  Mitchell was dressed in his usual expensive skate clothes but this time he looked ready to actually skate. He was wearing more protective gear than I even knew existed: kneepads, elbow pads, helmet, mouthguard, padded gloves, padded everything. In his arms was the board he’d won in the raffle – unwrapped and set up ready to go. Mitchell didn’t want to be there and Stella had to keep coaxing him forward. When JT and Travis started hooting and whistling, Mitchell was ready to bolt.

  ‘Ladies and gents,’ announced JT, ‘Narragindi’s chances in the skate competition are suddenly looking up!’

  ‘So is this just a fashion show or is he actually gonna skate?’ asked Travis.

  ‘He’s going to skate,’ stated Stella.

  Mitchell flinched, not as sure about that as Stella.

  ‘Oh Mitchie, you gotta skate!’ pleaded JT, going down on his knees to beg at Mitchell’s feet. ‘We’ve gotta see this!’

  Stella kicked JT’s bony arse. ‘Hey. Watch it, JT. You too, Travis. Don’t bag Mitchell out.’

  ‘Since when did he skate?’ Travis still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  ‘He’s been practising out the back of my place,’ Stella explained.

  JT hooted a laugh. ‘Secret lessons! You sly dog!’

  ‘He’s worked hard and he deserves a fair go from you meat-heads. Fair enough?’ demanded Stella, fixing JT and Travis with a killer look.

  Mitchell bravely marched to the vert ramp, where a few kids were skating before the competition got underway. He swung the board part-way up the small ramp a few times and ollied once before he mucked up. Okay, I’m not saying Mitchell was a good skater but the fact is, he was good enough to shut up those two clowns. Stella looked totally proud.

  That’s when I saw my mum arrive at the park with Amy. People were shouting out to her.

  ‘Congratulations, Gail!’

  ‘Good on ya, Gail!’

  ‘You’re a legend, Gail!’

  Everyone knew she was the main reason the skatepark ever had a chance. Mum smiled and said hello so I guess most people didn’t notice how strained she looked. She was worried about me and why I hadn’t come home the night before.

  Mum took Amy over to register for her skating event. Lauren got up from the registration table and gave Mum a long hug.

  Mr Stepanovic turned up for the opening celebrations and Constable Alexakis rocked up in her civilian clothes. She looked as happy as anyone about winning the skatepark battle.

  Believe it or not, Ray Stone had the incredible cheek to show his face that day. He marched around, shaking people’s hands, sucking up to the voters.

  ‘Constable!’ said Stone, sliming over to Alexakis. ‘Isn’t this skatepark a wonderful boost for the town youth? Bit of a bumpy road getting here but now we’ve got all the factors in place.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Constable Alexakis, confused. ‘I thought you were against the skatepark.’

  ‘There were legitimate concerns in some quarters but my basic support for the youth was always rock solid. A few words in the right ears and now we have this wonderful facility!’

  To hear Ray Stone rave on, you’d think he was the guy who ran the whole campaign, instead of trying to kill it Stone dead every chance he got.

  Well, Ray Stone’s smarmy grin vanished and the lies dried up in his mouth when he saw me coming towards him from around the side of the first-aid tent. He looked worried, as if I might thump him or something. But I wasn’t going to waste my time on a maggot like Ray Stone. I had more important things to do.

  I went straight to my mum and hugged her. I said I was sorry. I said I’d try to make it up to her for all the hassles and worry I’d caused. I said there were a hundred things I wanted to tell her – later, when we were home.

  Next I went to the registration table where Lauren was sitting.

  ‘Sorry for being an idiot last night,’ I said.

  Lauren shrugged. She understood.

  ‘I didn’t know if you’d show up,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah well, it’s Corey’s skatepark, whatever the sign says,’ I said.

  Then I took off my jacket and draped it over the COUNCIL SKATEPARK sign, completely covering it. There were whoops of ‘Yes!’ and a surge of applause about that.

  I was ready to have my first run on the Narragindi skatepark.

  At the end of the day, by the time we finished cleaning up, we were all totally whacked. JT, Travis and I flaked out on our backs along the quarter-pipe. It had been a top day in every possible way.

  Amy made the top five in the junior girls’ so she was really stoked. Stella came second in the open women’s event. She was a long way behind the skater from Melbourne but she was fine with that. The Melbourne girl gave Stella lots of tips and invited her down for some competitions later in the summer.

  I ended up coming third in my event. A guy from Sydney came first. Second was this little kid from Wiley Creek.

  ‘Did you see that tiny dude from Wiley? He was a runt,’ said Travis.

  ‘Mate, he’s a runt who can do a 360 nollie flip,’ I pointed out.

  ‘How did he learn to skate like that in Wiley Creek?’ JT asked.

  ‘Natural talent plus he practises a hell of a lot on the ramps he built in his backyard,’ I said.

  ‘Aww, Wiley Creek – they’re all inbreds over there,’ Travis laughed.

  ‘A pack of country bumpkins,’ JT added, sounding as dumb as a box
of rocks.

  ‘The judges were mental. The runt kid wasn’t even that good,’ said Travis.

  ‘Travis, don’t talk crap,’ I said. ‘That kid was awesome. He’ll be a pro-skater by the time he’s fifteen.’

  The three of us lay there on our backs for a while, too tired to move.

  When Travis spoke again, he was much quieter. ‘Y’know, it’s really good.’

  ‘Getting the skatepark? For sure,’ said JT.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But I was going to say it’s good us guys hanging out. Like nothing’s changed.’

  JT and I glanced at each other. We’d never heard Travis talk like this before – like he wanted to talk about feelings and whatever.

  ‘You scared about court and juvenile detention?’ I asked.

  Travis nodded. He was really scared. ‘But when I’m with you guys, I feel like I used to. Before. I can kid myself for a minute, anyway.’

  JT and I nodded. We knew exactly what he meant. We let the silence go by, in case Travis wanted to talk some more. But he didn’t.

  Eventually JT hauled his long bony body upright. ‘Hey Travis, wanna go find Mitchell and give him a hard time about his skating?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Travis. ‘Don’t reckon we’ve bagged him out nearly enough yet.’

  The two of them loped off, cackling like a pair of chimps.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It’s more than six months since the opening day. Narragindi is still a hole but at least it’s a hole with a skatepark now. Which is better than nothing.

  JT left school at the end of Year 10 and he started an apprenticeship with his uncle who’s a carpenter. He reckons it’s pretty good and he’ll stick with it. Travis is always cracking jokes about how dangerous it is for JT to do carpentry. No one should let a guy as clumsy as JT near sharp tools. JT likes to point out that he has to use sharp tools since his boss won’t let him chew through timber with his teeth.

  Travis went to court and copped a good behaviour bond. That means he has to stay out of trouble or he goes to juvenile detention. He dropped out of school and eventually got a job cleaning up at the silos. He moans that the money is lousy and reckons his boss is a maggot, so I’m not sure how long Travis is going to hack it.

  Stella is going brilliantly with her skateboarding, with extra help from the skating girl who came to the opening day. Stella travels down to Melbourne or Sydney every few weeks for comps and there’s even talk she might get sponsorship soon. She’s cool about it – not full of herself at all – which is one of the things I really like about Stella.

  The rest of us went on to Year 11 – Mitchell, Marissa, Jycinta, me. Lauren was supposed to leave town and go to some posh boarding school in Sydney to do Years 11 and 12 but she refused. She announced to her parents that she was going to finish school at Narra High.

  Trouble is, now Lauren has to work her guts out and get killer results to prove to her parents that she made the right decision. She hassles me to work too – she reckons we both have to get excellent results to show the world that Narra High isn’t a pathetic-loser trash-heap school. As you can imagine, Mum agrees with Lauren so I’ve got both of them on my back.

  At the beginning of this year, Mum started doing a university course by distance education and she’s loving it. I reckon it’s the happiest I’ve ever seen her look.

  Ray Stone and the rest of the old mongrels on the Narragindi Council got voted back in at the election in March. It just shows you that a lot of people are dopes with bad memories. I see Stone parading around the main street of Narragindi flapping his big mouth. I try to keep out of his way.

  I guess you’d say that Lauren is my girlfriend but we don’t make a big deal out of it. (That’s partly because Mr and Mrs Saxelby think I’m one or maybe two levels above pond scum.)

  Sometimes, if Lauren and I are having a laugh about something, I can suddenly feel this twist of guilt in my guts. How can we laugh and have a good time when Corey is dead? But at least I can talk about it with Lauren and she understands better than anyone. I know – logically – that it’s okay for us to be happy. It’s not as if that means we’re ever going to forget Corey.

  On the anniversary of his death, we had a special memorial assembly at school. Mr Stepanovic put together a slide show of Corey’s fantastic art work. Lauren edited a great video of Corey skating and laughing and hanging out with his friends. A few of us made speeches about him. The assembly was good – getting it right, not like that hopeless joke funeral – but there was one more important thing I wanted to do to honour my friend.

  That night, Lauren, JT and I went down to the skatepark late, when it was too dark for anyone to notice us skulking around. We were like a pack of burglars, with torches, a tool kit and a sports bag.

  We picked a spot along the concrete side of the half-pipe, a spot facing the street. We drilled holes and screwed in a metal plaque we’d had made. We didn’t ask for council permission. We didn’t ask anyone’s permission. We just did it.

  That plaque is still there today. No one has dared to rip it out.

  IN MEMORY OF OUR FRIEND COREY MATTHEWS 1991–2006.

  About the Author

  Debra Oswald is the author of three ‘Aussie Bites’ including Nathan and the Ice Rockets and four novels for young readers: Me and Barry Terrific, The Return of the Baked Bean, The Fifth Quest and The Redback Leftovers.

  Debra’s stage plays have been produced around Australia. Gary’s House, The Peach Season and Sweet Road were all shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award. Her play Dags has had many Australian productions and has been published and performed in Britain and the United States. Gary’s House has been on the senior high school syllabus and has been performed in Denmark in translation. Mr Bailey’s Minder broke the Griffin Theatre’s box office record in 2004, toured nationally and will be produced in Philadelphia in 2008.

  Debra has written two plays for the Australian Theatre for Young People. Skate was performed in Sydney, on a country tour and at the Belfast Theatre Festival. Stories in the Dark premiered at Riverside Theatre Parramatta in 2007.

  Among Debra’s television credits are Bananas in Pyjamas, Sweet and Sour, The Secret Life of Us and award-winning episodes of Police Rescue.

  Debra has two sons and lives in Sydney.

  Acknowledgements

  Debra Oswald would like to thank Timothy Jones, Richard Glover, the Australian Theatre for Young People, the cast and crew of Skate, David Berthold, Alicen Waugh, the people of Deniliquin, Annabelle Sheehan, Zoe Walton, Vanessa Mickan-Gramazio and everyone at Random House.

  Getting Air is based on Debra Oswald’s play Skate, which is published by Currency Press. Visit www.currency.com.au.

  READING GUIDE

  Getting Air is an adaptation of Debra Oswald’s play Skate, which was written in collaboration with the Australian Theatre for Young People. The play and book are inspired by a true story of a NSW country town’s struggle to get a skatepark built.

  Below is an extract from the Reading Guide for Getting Air, which is available on the Random House Australia website.

  Random House Australia Reading Guides are designed to facilitate reading group or classroom discussion and further exploration of the themes and issues, writing style, characterisation and plot of the book, as well as providing further information on the author’s inspiration and the writing process.

  Inspiration

  Debra says:

  ‘Why did this story grab me right from the start? Well, for one thing, the perseverance of the kids fighting for what’s fair is inspiring.

  ‘As a mother of boys and an observer of the world, I’m frustrated by the way boys are so often put down and the culture of teenage boys is marginalised instead of celebrated for its strengths.

  ‘Skateboarding is a very clear example of that. So many people are prejudiced against skaters. I’m not saying that skaters are all angels. But the reality you would see at most skateparks is pretty positive: groups of guys – some girl
s but mostly guys – hanging around together, doing a thing they love, with amazing harmony. In skating and BMXing there are unspoken rules and goodwill operating, so skateparks usually have a kind of happy anarchy. Big guys teaching little kids to do tricks, the discipline to work at a trick to get it right, genuine appreciation for the talent of another skater, plus that fantastic teasing and self-mocking humour of Australian teenage boys.

  ‘And in the end – like all good stories – it’s about bigger stuff than just skating. It’s about prejudice, friendship, the power of perseverance and the moment when it hits you in the guts that life isn’t always fair.’

  On Friendship

  Debra says:

  ‘I believe that friendship is one of life’s greatest treasures. Kids are generally pretty powerless – they can’t choose their family, where they live, how they live, who teaches them, etcetera. They can’t usually choose to have better adults in their lives, however much they deserve and need them. But friendship is something we all have some control over. I believe if you choose your friends well and treat your friends well, life will usually be better.’

  On Grief and Loss

  Debra says:

  ‘Between writing the play and the novel, my own sons experienced the sudden deaths of two kids in their community. So when I sat down to work on the novel, I was especially keen to focus honestly on what happens. The different reactions, the well-meaning schemes by the official world, the gossip, the shift in perspective for the other kids, the beautiful things that can emerge from a tragedy and, in the end, the huge gap between all our best efforts to help and the massive reality of the loss. How to deal with the unfairness of such a loss is the big challenge that Zac has to face in Getting Air.’

  More commentary from Debra Oswald is available in the Getting Air Reading Guide.