Harry: Harry

by Alex McDiarmid

  Then I went around the classroom collecting different paint tins so I could colour it all in. I gave Cosmic Samurai his lightning sword and a laser pistol. Then I turned the dog into a sweet moon-surfing hover-bike! A lot of paint went on my hands and under my fingernails, but I didn’t notice. All that mattered was the picture in front of me.

  I picked up a can of purple paint and started to colour in the slimy tongues of the aliens.

  ‘Harry . . . ?’

  There was someone behind me. They gave me such a fright that I knocked the can off the bench. Purple paint went all over my legs and shoes. Mum wouldn’t be happy.

  I looked up to see Mr Slater. He didn’t look too happy either. ‘That doesn’t look like cleaning your pencil case.’

  I turned to Darcy’s painting, and then guiltily back to Mr Slater. No words came to me.

  After I finished cleaning the paint off my shoes, Mr Slater took me to Principal Davies’ office. He sat me down in one of the hard plastic chairs outside the door.

  ‘I’ve told Principal Davies about what you did, Harry,’ Mr Slater said. ‘I don’t like doing this, but what you did was very wrong indeed. Wait here. She’ll be out shortly.’

  After that, he left. I watched him leave with what felt like a swarm of angry butterflies fluttering furiously in my stomach.

  I felt bad because I turned Darcy’s family into aliens. I felt worse because I was in trouble. I felt worse still because my pencil case still had a huge pink stain on it.

  Principal Davies’ door opened and my heart skipped a beat. As I stood up, Huck walked out of her office. Huck was always getting in trouble.

  ‘What’d you do this time?’ I asked.

  Huck laughed goofily, as if whatever telling off Principal Davies gave him went through one ear and out the other.

  ‘I scratched a drawing into one of the library desks,’ he said, beaming. ‘I was practising for Mr Slater’s art project!’

  He definitely had a way with excuses. I wish I could think on my feet like that.

  ‘Class has started, Huck!’ Principal Davies called out. Her voice was like cold steel. ‘Don’t be late or you’ll be seeing me two times in one day!’

  Well, at least I was missing out on maths.

  Huck scooted off down the corridor. I watched him go. How could he still walk out with his head held high?

  Ugh. I wished I were Cosmic Samurai. He’d know what to do in a situation like this, with his slick hover-bike and lightning-powered sword. If he faced the ultimate baddie, like a really slobbery mutant that was also a space wizard, would he stand and fight or just run away?

  I could see Cosmic Samurai readying his sword, sparks of lightning shooting off the blade. He was ready to do battle. The space wizard stood opposite with his glowing staff of dark magic that he found in an ancient Martian tomb . . . whoa, that would be the coolest showdown ever!

  ‘Ah, young Harry.’

  Principal Davies was standing in the doorway, her sleek black hair tucked into a neat bun, her black business clothes without a single crease. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was a robot dressed as a human.

  Goodbye, Cosmic Samurai. Goodbye, mutant space wizard. I had a real-life showdown of my own to face now.

  ‘You’re one of the last people I expected to see today,’ Principal Davies said, tightening her lips. Stepping aside, she ushered me in. At least she wasn’t yelling. Maybe her robo-computer chip had been switched to ‘not angry’ mode.

  I hesitantly sat down in a rigid plastic chair. Principal Davies sat in a really comfy-looking leather one. She laced her hands together, resting them on the desk in front of me.

  ‘Did you speak to Huck on your way out?’ she asked.

  I swallowed nervously.

  ‘Uh . . . yeah. He scratched a desk?’

  ‘Hmm,’ she mused to herself, slicking her already slicked hair back. ‘It seems like a few of you are going a little bit art crazy.’

  The next words raced from my mouth. ‘But I didn’t do anything like Huck did, Principal Davies!’

  ‘I know you didn’t, Harry,’ she replied calmly. ‘But what you did do was change another student’s picture. I’m sure Darcy worked very hard on it.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to be mean to him or anything,’ I mumbled. ‘I just saw it, and I saw the paintbrush, and . . .’

  ‘We all do things without thinking, Harry. We live. We learn. We change. It’s all part of growing up. This is the first time you’ve been called in here – you’re clearly a polite and sensible young man, so there won’t be a detention for you.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought Principal Davies was finished. Then she kept talking.

  ‘But . . .’

  Oh no. Not the but. Anything but the but. The but always means something really bad.

  ‘The fact remains that Darcy’s picture wasn’t yours to play around with.’ Where was Principal Davies going with this?

  ‘You’ll need to say sorry to him. It’s the right thing to do.’

  What? Say sorry to him? No way.

  Darcy’s dumb picture was boring before I came along and fixed it up. Now it looks better than any of the pictures. If anything he should be saying thank you to me, and giving me a box of chocolates with that strawberry cream on the inside.

  ‘Can it be a letter?’ I asked, almost pleading. ‘I’m good at writing letters.’

  ‘No, Harry. It has to be in person. Tomorrow at lunch, you will meet with Mr Slater, find Darcy and say sorry to him. Do you understand?’

  Her eyes were staring straight into mine. She could have been reading my mind with all that secret robot technology of hers.

  I did understand, and even though I didn’t want to say sorry, I wanted to leave Principal Davies’ office even more.

  ‘Okay.’

  I left the office feeling even worse than when I walked in.

  Leaving school that day, I had a lot to think about. One time when Dad came to visit he gave me a little music player loaded with a bunch of cool hip-hop music from the 90s, so I plugged myself in and started walking.

  By the time I got home, it was almost five in the afternoon. I’d left school at three-thirty.

  My first detour was to the local grocery store, where I got a can of lemonade and a chocolate bar. I took those to a park and sat underneath this big oak tree with my music, eating and drinking in the shade. I watched clouds slowly pass overhead against the afternoon sky. After a few minutes, I drifted off to sleep and a battle began under my eyelids.

  In my dream, I was on an alien moon with Cosmic Samurai, doing battle with the mutant space wizard. The sky was purple and gold with infinitely stretching nebulas and speckled with the brightest stars I’d ever seen. The rocks below me were marbled with green and red crystals.

  Then, Cosmic Samurai and mutant space wizard stopped fighting. They turned to face me.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at home?’ Cosmic Samurai said with a deep voice. He put his hands on his hips.

  The mutant space wizard waved one of his floppy, mucusy fingers. ‘Your mother is probably worried sick!’ he croaked like an old frog.

  Then I woke up. I was still under the tree and the sun had begun to set. I pulled my phone out. Two missed calls from Mum.

  ‘Harry, where were you? I’ve been worried sick!’

  I’d only just stepped through the front door and Mum was already onto me.

  ‘Sorry, Mum . . . I got lost staring at the clouds.’

  ‘You didn’t hear me call twice?’ She held up two fingers in case I’d forgotten how to count.

  I dropped my bag by the door. ‘Sorry, Mum.’

  ‘All right,’ she huffed, tucking some stray hair behind her ear. ‘Dinner’s ready, so go set the table. I want to talk to you about something.’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘Something’ never means good news.

  Mum had made a roast for dinner. I didn’t really like eating a big hunk of meat because it tasted kind of bo
ring. I liked it when she cooked curries packed with all kinds of colourful vegetables and rice because every mouthful tasted different.

  I picked away at the broccoli and meat first, leaving the best part – the roast potatoes – for last. That’s how Dad ate. I missed him being at home. He moved away a while ago for work, and before I knew it he was married to someone who wasn’t Mum. He came to visit a few times a year and always brought gifts. I would trade them all for him to be back in our house.

  ‘I got a call from Principal Davies this afternoon,’ Mum told me, resting her knife and fork on the plate. I chewed my cheek, staring at the bits of golden potato. I’d successfully eliminated the broccoli and roast from the plate, but for some reason I wasn’t hungry for the best part of the meal.

  ‘So, how was it drawing on a poor little boy’s painting?’ Mum asked.

  I coughed. ‘It was pretty good. At the time, I mean.’

  Mum sighed, putting her elbows on the table. ‘When I talked to you about getting out of your comfort zone, I didn’t mean doing something like this,’ she said.

  ‘I know, Mum. I’m sorry,’ I said softly.

  ‘I’m not the one you should be saying sorry to, Schnook.’

  ‘I know, I know . . .’ I muttered.

  Schnook was Mum’s pet name for me, which sounded about right. It’s the sort of thing you’d call a pet rabbit or hamster. I didn’t mind it at home, but I hated it when she used it in public or around my friends.

  She leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. ‘Just between you and me . . .’ she started. I still hung my head. ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘look at me.’

  When my eyes flicked up, I noticed that Mum was smiling.

  ‘Principal Davies sent me a copy of that drawing. Although I don’t encourage you doodling on someone else’s artwork ever again, you did a good job. It looked great!’

  A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. It felt good when people said nice things about me, even if it was just Mum.

  ‘Really?’ I asked awkwardly. ‘You think so?’

  She touched my hand. ‘I totally think so, Schnook. Very sci-fi! I loved the touch with the alien family and that space ninja.’

  Cosmic Samurai, Mum.

  ‘Now eat the rest of your dinner and get some homework done.’

  Suddenly, I found my appetite again. I devoured all my potatoes in record-breaking time before whizzing off to my room. I was so excited I didn’t even have time to make my pillow fortress. I pulled out an old sketch pad and some pencils and got to work on a drawing for Mr Slater’s art class.

  What did I draw? Just Cosmic Samurai, the coolest character in the world, of course. I gave him a super-sleek hover-bike to zoom across the surface of the moon, and a katana sword powered by lightning to slice through the hordes of big bad aliens that wanted to eat him alive!

  I was sketching for hours. At my usual bedtime, I had to turn my light off and draw with a torch so Mum thought I was asleep. Then, I finally got into bed at the latest I ever had – half past eleven. I knew I would be tired the next day, but I didn’t care. My mind was buzzing as I stared at the roof in the complete, utter darkness.

  I thought about standing in front of the class with my drawing in hand. I was so confident, and so happy – but then someone said . . .

  I thought about what my class would think. I imagined myself showing the picture in class. Everyone laughed.

  Even Lou, Eddie and Gregor were all in stitches. Mr Slater had fallen over, crying and howling. Someone called Principal Davies over so she could laugh at me as well, only she couldn’t actually laugh because she was a robot and laughing wasn’t in her programming. But she did get the idea that I really sucked.

  Even Cosmic Samurai and the mutant space wizard were watching from the stars, making fun of my drawing . . .

  My stupid, stupid drawing.

  What if that really happened? What if everyone hated my drawing? What if everyone laughed? What if Mr Slater didn’t want to display it at the Monvale Art Fair? What if Lou thought it was so bad he didn’t want to be my friend? What if Eddie and Gregor kicked me out of our secret downball gang?

  I rolled around in my bed. I couldn’t keep still. The butterflies were back in my stomach. I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest.

  Then, in that moment, I knew what I had to do.

  I switched on my lamp. My best drawing of the night, which I was going to show in Mr Slater’s art class tomorrow, sat at the top of the pile on my bedside table.

  So I picked it up. Folded it in half. Folded it in half again. Then I ripped it to itty-bitty pieces. All those hours of work, now scattered across my blue-and-green polka-dot doona.

  My heart slowed down. I breathed in, counted to four and breathed out. I told myself that everything was okay. I tried not to think about the fact I had just ripped my drawing to shreds.

  I didn’t have to present tomorrow, but at least nobody could laugh at a picture that I never handed in. Everything was okay.

  There he was. Sitting in the sandpit. Playing with Lego. All by himself.

  Darcy.

  He had dirty blond hair that sat above his shoulders. I never should have passed the sandpit on my way to the secret downball court. All it did was remind me that I had to apologise to Darcy at lunchtime.

  Across the playground, I saw all the year fives doing their thing. Fadi was busting moves to deep house music on the concrete square near the Quiet Time Quad. The thumping bass carried all the way across the schoolyard, pushing through the crowd of grooving classmates that surrounded him. Jack was playing football with all his sporty friends on the oval, a bunch of people clapping and cheering on the sidelines. Josie Yang and her friends were playing the most intense game of double-dutch on the skipping ropes that I’d ever seen.

  Sometimes I wished I could be really good at something like Fadi, so people could stand around and cheer me on. I wished I could play football like Jack. I wished I could play double-dutch with all the girls. But doing those things would make me noticeable. I didn’t want that. I was a submarine. Nobody could judge me if I wasn’t on their radar. Nobody could talk about me behind my back. I was comfortable underneath the waves, surrounded by other friendly submarines.

  I rubbed my eyes and yawned. Submarine or not, I still hadn’t had enough sleep.

  ‘Hey, Harry! Wanna play some downball? We’re going to the secret spot.’

  It was Lou, bouncing and catching a red bouncy ball in his hand. Eddie and Gregor stood behind him.

  Thank you, Lou. My best buddy. Just what I needed. I didn’t want to think about anything else apart from that bouncy red ball.

  Lou tossed the ball to me. I snatched it out of the air.

  ‘Let’s do it!’ I said happily, getting up to join them. Standing at the square, I started out at Dunce, with Lou at Jack, Gregor at Queen, Eddie at King.

  Eddie served, right into my square. I backhanded the ball to Gregor, which hit his school shoe and stopped in his square.

  ‘You just got lucky,’ Gregor huffed, picking up the ball.

  We all moved up a square.

  Lou decided to make conversation during the next set. ‘You guys ready for Slater’s class?’

  ‘Yeah, dude!’ Eddie piped up, smacking the ball to Gregor. ‘So keen for it. Drew a picture of a rock. It’s pretty cool stuff, my Grammie thinks I’ve got an artistic edge,’ he said smugly.

  Wait . . . what? I thought everyone thought that art class was a joke! My friends took the homework seriously?

  ‘Yeah nice . . . what did you other guys do?’ I stuttered nervously.

  The ball came to me. I smacked to Eddie. He must have been too busy thinking about his rock picture because he completely missed it.

  ‘You just got lucky again, Harry,’ Eddie muttered, moving to Dunce. I was in Queen for the first time in a long while, but I had no reason to celebrate.

  ‘I snapped a little somethin’ as well,’ Gregor told me, brushing his knuckles on h
is school shirt. ‘Took some photos of the park across from my house and made them black and white. I’m not sure if I’ll keep them that way ’cause I really like green.’

  ‘Whoa . . . That’s sweet, Gregor,’ Lou remarked. He served the ball to Eddie. The game continued.

  ‘Did you do something, Lou?’ I asked with a gulp. I felt like I had marbles in my throat.

  ‘Of course I did, it was homework!’ he said. ‘I borrowed Mum’s clay-making kit and sculpted one of Jupiter’s moons. It’s called Io. Do you know Io? Eye-oh. It’s the coolest. Basically covered in volcanoes. KA-BOOM!’

  All three of my friends had done the homework properly and they were excited about it? What was wrong with them? It’s like they didn’t care about what anyone in the class thought. What if people made fun of them?

  ‘Uh . . . Harry?’ Lou waved at me, grabbing my attention. I’d zoned out. He jerked a finger to the red ball, rolling across the concrete.

  ‘It was in your square,’ Gregor said.

  I must’ve missed it. Hanging my head, I went to pick up the ball. Eddie and Gregor said I got lucky before. I sure didn’t think so.

  I’d torn my drawing to bits – and now I had to go back to Dunce.

  Sitting in art class, I took the furthest seat from the front. I hoped that would mean Mr Slater would pick me last.

  When everyone was showing their stuff, I thought about all the things I would prefer to be doing instead of being in that room . . .

  I would rather scrub clean an entire petting zoo of goats, lambs and ducks with really bad diarrhoea.

  I would rather steal presents from Santa’s elves.

  I would rather get my brains eaten by breakdancing zombies.

  None of those would be anywhere near as bad as sitting in that class.

  One by one, everyone stood up the front and presented what they’d done. No matter how good or bad, everyone clapped. I couldn’t believe everyone else brought something along!