by John Larkin
‘I didn’t think it was possible for anything to like Newcastle that much,’ said Brendan.
‘I still reckon my Rockdale story’s more impressive.’
‘You need help, Zervoid,’ said Brains. ‘You need professional psychiatric help.’
‘Do you mean there are amateur psychiatrists?’ asked Zervoid. ‘Anyway, Brendan, what’s the deal with the ghost?’
‘What’s this about a ghost?’ asked Calculus.
‘Brendan reckons his wardrobe has been taken over by a ghost.’
‘No!’ said Brendan. ‘Brains was right, there’s no such thing as ghosts. I guess it was all part of my imagination, right Brains?’
‘Err, yeah,’ said Brains, giving Brendan a look that was so sheepish you could have shorn it.
‘Whose turn is it to invent the game tonight?’ said Calculus, changing the subject.
‘Mine,’ said Zervoid.
‘Okay,’ said Brains, ‘let’s not muck around! We’ve got four videos to get through yet.’
‘All right. We’re playing best and worst, and we’re playing it in alphabetical order. So I’m last. Calculus, you’re first.’
‘What’ve you got to do?’
‘You’ve got to tell everyone the best and worst things that’ve ever happened to you,’ said Zervoid.
‘Does it have to be about girls?’ asked Calculus.
‘If it’s about your school it’ll probably be about boys.’ Brains’ jealousy was creeping through.
‘It can be about anything,’ said Zervoid.
‘Okay, I’ll start with the best: I got into Newton Grammar.’
‘That’s pretty good,’ said Brendan. ‘But is that the best thing that’s ever happened to you?’
‘As usual you all interrupted me. It’s what I got away with that’s the best.’
‘What’d you get away with?’ asked Brains.
‘I cheated.’
‘Bull.’
‘Crap.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘I did.’
‘Where?’
‘When?’
‘How?’
‘I had this friend who already went there. He said he’d give me the entrance exam answers for fifty bucks.’
‘Nice friend,’ said Zervoid.
‘My olds have always wanted me to go there and I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I bought the exam.’
‘But you’re the smartest guy I know,’ said Brendan.
‘Apart from me, of course,’ said Brains.
‘Of course. But you could have got in easy. Why’d you buy the exam?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t want to take the risk of failing. It meant so much to the olds.’
‘Okay, Calculus,’ said Zervoid. ‘If that’s the best thing you’ve done, what’s the worst?’
‘I bought the wrong exam.’
Brendan, Brains and Zervoid fell about the room laughing.
‘Can you believe it?’ said Calculus. ‘Fifty bucks for a Year 7 geography test.’
‘Okay,’ said Zervoid when they’d finished laughing at Calculus. ‘Who’s next? Let’s see, Simpson or Stevens, who comes before?’
‘Don’t try to figure it out, Zervoid,’ said Brains. ‘You might strain your sphincter.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Something to do with your Rockdale experience,’ said Brains. ‘Simpson comes before Stevens. I’m next. My best and worst involves Michelle Pender.’
‘Bull.’
‘Crap.’
‘Pig’s …’
‘It does! I was walking along the beach and there she was lying in her bikini. I was just going to walk past when she said, “Hi, Brains. Could you do me a favour?” Well, after I’d dug my tongue out of the sand I said, “No problem, Michelle.” She got up and I walked behind her up to her house. Anyway, we walked into the lounge room and luckily her olds weren’t home. The house was empty. The funny thing was there was a roaring fire going in the fire place. But I didn’t think too much about it. After all, I was in Michelle Pender’s house and she was wearing nothing but a bikini. I couldn’t have cared if the house was on fire. To cut a short story long, she said that she’d been sunbaking all afternoon and that her skin was dry. I was going to give her a lecture about the ozone layer not having the protection it once had and all that, but I thought it might kill the moment.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Calculus.
‘What happened next?’ asked Brendan.
‘She gave me a bottle of moisturising lotion. I don’t know where she got it from, but basically, who cares? Then she lay down on this rug in front of the fire and asked me to rub it on her back. She untied her bikini top so there was nothing but bare back to rub. It was the most unbelievable sight I’d ever seen. I had to think about organised sport for a couple of minutes to calm myself down a bit.’
‘Go on!’ demanded Zervoid.
‘After I’d been rubbing the cream on to her back for a while she asked me if I’d like her to remove the rest of her bikini so I could continue with the massage. I nearly exploded into a billion pieces. My heart was pounding so much I felt sure she must have heard it. Anyway, she obviously hadn’t and she’d just put her hands on her bikini pants to pull them down when the worst thing happened.’
‘Her parents came home?’
‘No.’
‘You remembered you had to go to your maths tutor?’
‘Get real!’
‘She turned out to be a guy?’
‘Good one!’
‘What is it then, Brains?’ said Brendan. ‘What happened?’
‘I woke up.’
‘What a deflating story,’ said Zervoid after everyone had caught his breath.
‘Tell me about it. I smashed my clock radio into a million pieces.’ Brains pointed to his obliterated clock radio, lying on the floor.
Everyone cracked up again.
‘Okay, Brendan, your turn!’ said Zervoid.
‘The best thing that ever happened to me was when I was going out with Helen. I decided I wanted to take her somewhere special one night, you know? Give us a real good night out. I had everything planned to perfection.’ Brendan looked at Brains. ‘Our relationship went beyond the superficiality of looks and taut bodies.’ He hoped that the rest of them hadn’t been reading their mothers’ magazines, or they might have read the same quote.
‘So what did you do?’ asked Calculus.
‘I saved up my pocket money and took her to this Italian restaurant in Manly. Put on my best jeans, Docs and my black overcoat. If you’d looked up “cool” in the dictionary at that moment, you would’ve found a photo of me. Anyway, after our pizza we held hands and went for a walk along the beach.’
‘Quick! Somebody get me a bucket, I’m gunna puke.’
‘Puke all you like, Zervoid. It was ecstasy to the max. I’d planned for it to go even better but I stuffed it up.’
‘What’d you do?’
‘We got to a fairly deserted part of the beach and I took out my …’
‘Gross!’
‘Pervert!’
‘… walkman. When my dad lived on earth, he went to Singapore on business and he brought me back this walkman that you can put two sets of headphones in. Anyway, we were going to dance cheek to cheek on the beach to Janet Jackson.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I’d brought the wrong tape. We put the headphones on, I turned the volume up full bore and hit the play button. The noise nearly blew Helen’s head off.’
‘What tape did you bring?’
‘Guns ’N Roses. I don’t think her ears were damaged permanently, at least that’s what the doctor said.’
‘Smooth work, Brendan,’ said Brains about five minutes later when the rest of them had finished cracking up. ‘So what’s the worst thing that’s happened to you?’
‘Losing Helen.’
Silence.
‘How’s that bucket looking, Brains?’
‘Okay, Zerv
oid. What’s your best thing? No, don’t tell me! I bet you trained one of your poos to bring the paper in on Sunday mornings and to fetch your old man’s slippers?’
‘Brendan! You spoiled it.’
‘Good one, Zervoid.’
‘My worst thing is really serious compared to your bunch of wussy stories.’
‘Go on, then!’ said Calculus.
‘Okay. You know how I’m heaps bigger than all of you and just about everybody at school too? Well, there is a reason for it: I was supposed to be a twin.’
‘What do you mean, supposed to be?’ said Brains.
‘Like I said, I was supposed to be a twin. When my mother was pregnant she went to have an ultrasound and all that stuff, and the doctor told her she was going to have twins. So she and my old man bought two of everything, you know? Two cots, a double stroller, two baby seats for the car, all that type of stuff. But when she gave birth there was only me.’ Zervoid put his head in his hands.
‘What happened to the other one?’ asked Calculus.
Zervoid looked up and took a deep breath. ‘I ate him.’
‘What? Oh come on, Zervoid, good one.’ Brains looked at Zervoid, but he’d put his head in his hands again. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
Brendan and Calculus sat there with stunned looks etched on their faces.
‘That’s it,’ said Brendan. ‘End of game. Brains wins. He got us the most excited.’
‘No!’ said Zervoid, trying to compose himself. ‘I picked the game, and I’m going to finish it. Apparently what happens with twins sometimes is that the womb becomes too crowded and the embryos end up fighting for space. Usually it just means one ends up a bit bigger than the other, but according to the quacks it wasn’t enough for me. I had to kill him as well—strangled him with my umbilical cord they reckon.’
‘Shit!’
‘F … ar out!’
‘Yeah. Then I ate him. They said I must have damaged my umbilical cord when I strangled him and because of that I couldn’t get any food from Mum, so I ate my brother.’ Zervoid put his head in his hands again and burst into tears.
An icy silence hung in the air for about five minutes until it was finally broken by Zervoid. ‘And that’s why I’m so big. When my mum gave birth to me they reckon you could hear her screaming in Athens, and I was born in Paddington.’
‘Man, that must be so hard to live with,’ said Brains.
‘Not really. It upsets me sometimes, but when I talk about it I feel a lot better, like now.’
‘Okay, Zervoid. If that’s the worst, what’s the best?’ Brains was trying to cheer him up.
Zervoid looked up from his tears. ‘Getting you guys to believe that load of crap.’
How bones weren’t broken in the rumble that followed remains the eighth wonder of the world. Zervoid was hit with pillows and fists from angles that even Pythagoras couldn’t have predicted.
With the game over for another video night, the guys settled down to lick their wounds and watch the videos.
They watched all four and only had a brief intermission to have a burping competition, which was slightly spoiled by Calculus vomiting Brendan’s Frogs over his sleeping bag.
They finally got to sleep about two in the morning. By this time Brains’ room was completely trashed.
Chapter 19
With video night over for another two weeks, Brendan spent the rest of the time before the swimming carnival training under the watchful eye of his mother and Nick.
> COME ON, BRENDAN! ONE MORE LAP. REALLY FAST.
Brendan had set up one of his father’s old laptop computers just next to the pool. If Nick was going to coach him he could earn his keep, not loaf around inside the wardrobe conserving his energy.
Brendan had hung a whistle around the screen and stuck an old baseball cap on top of it. If Nick insisted on acting like a coach, he could damn well look like one as well; or at least a 40 megabyte equivalent of one.
> COME ON! TWO MORE LAPS.
Brendan dragged his aching body out of the pool. ‘But it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning.’
> WHEN IS YOUR RACE?
‘Tomorrow, I mean today. Can I go to bed now?’
> THAT MEANS IN TWO WEEKS WE’RE OFF.
‘I’ve still got to win the race, get Helen back or Dad’s gotta come home.’
> DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT. YOU JUST CONCENTRATE ON YOUR RACE AND LEAVE YOUR LITTLE BABE TO ME.
‘Her name’s Helen, Nick, and I’ve decided that I don’t want you to put a spell on her to make her love me back. If she doesn’t like me as I am, then I don’t want her either.’
> THERE YOU GO WITH THIS SPELLS BUSINESS AGAIN. I KEEP TELLING YOU I’M NOT A GENIE. LET’S JUST SEE WHAT HAPPENS TOMORROW. NOW GET YOURSELF TO BED.
Brendan dragged himself to bed totally exhausted. What with the training his mother was giving him and some of the obscure techniques Nick was using, he usually slept completely wasted.
The following morning, after eating about half a banana tree that his mother put on his cornflakes, Brendan lugged his body to school. He jumped on one of the buses that would take them all to the pool and just about fell asleep next to Brains. Zervoid was up the back of the bus taking bets and hassling out all the geeks who showed up with their own lunch and drink bottle wrapped in a teatowel.
‘Are you nervous, Brendan?’
‘Not really.’
‘You look really tired, man. How’d you sleep?’
‘Like a baby.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Not really,’ said Brendan between yawns. ‘I wet the bed and cried half the night.’
‘Good one! Will Nick be at the pool today?’
‘I think so. He said he’d drift on down for a bit. You haven’t told anybody about him, have you? I mean, you haven’t rung up North Sydney Ghost Busters or something?’
‘Relax, man. It’s our secret. Nobody’d believe me for a start. In fact, I’m not sure I believe me. What’s he doing hanging round your bedroom anyway? I mean if I was a ghost I could think of a thousand better places to hang. Michelle Pender’s bedroom for starters, or Madonna’s better still. What’s so great about your wardrobe?’
‘That’s my secret, Brains.’
At the pool, Brendan sat on the hill trying to psych himself up a bit. His race wasn’t until after lunch. There was the Year 7 dog paddle and other novelty events to get through first. The serious stuff would come later.
The loud speaker crackled and shrieked until finally a slightly distorted voice came on. ‘I’m now calling the first event. The under sixteens who can do the biggest piss in the pool underwater relay.’ The hill cracked up.
There were a couple more crackles and shrieks followed by an ‘ouch’ until a deeper voice came on. ‘Please disregard the last announcement. And if I see anybody else near this microphone there will be big trouble.’
Time passed with Brendan, Zervoid and Brains sitting on the grass bank cheering on their respective houses. Every time Brendan saw Helen walk past in her bikini, he had to think about taking out the garbage and then sleeping in it to try and cool himself down a bit. He didn’t want to crowd her space; he wanted to be a nineties guy. But despite his best intentions, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was a serious babe.
After lunch, when his tracksuit pants were not so tight, Brendan walked over to the change rooms.
He took out his towel, goggles and sunscreen before yelling out a loud ‘AAAAAARRRRRRRGG-GGGGGHHHHHHH.’
Brains and Zervoid heard his yell and came running. Blow-wave was obviously beating Brendan up, so Brains let Zervoid run a bit ahead of him. Unfortunately, just as they got to the change room door they both slipped on the wet floor and slid into the change room as one mess of tangled arms and legs.
‘Great,’ said Brendan. ‘I’m in serious trouble here and who comes to help me? The Two Stooges.’
‘What’s up?’ said Zervoid.
‘I haven’t got my Spe
edos.’
‘What?’ said Brains. ‘You forgot them?’
‘I didn’t forget them. I remember packing them in my bag. Somebody’s taken them.’
‘But how could they? We’ve been with you all the time and nobody’s been near your bag.’
‘Well, they’re not here, are they?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll go and borrow somebody’s,’ said Zervoid. ‘Relax, man. When the going gets tough, call in a professional.’
‘A professional what?’
‘Shut up, Brains, and give me a hand.’
Zervoid and Brains slipped and slid out of the change room. Five minutes later, just after Brendan’s race was called, Brains returned.
‘Bad news.’
‘What happened? Where’s Zervoid?’
‘He got detention for hassling out everybody for their Speedos. He’s not allowed to leave Mr Williams’ sight.’
‘Great! Well, that’s stuffed that up. I can’t swim.’
‘Wait a minute, why don’t you swim in your undies?’
‘Get real, Brains! They’re white. Everybody would crack up. That’d be death.’
‘Not if you won.’
‘No way. I’d still get hassled out. It’s not worth it.’
‘Just a sec.’ Brains pulled at his tracksuit pants to check out his underwear. ‘My undies are sort of black. And if you ignore the worm on the front with the caption that says “Girl Bait”, they look just like Speedos.’
‘Thanks for the offer, Brains. But bad as things are, I’m not about to climb into your used undies, with or without the worm.’ Brendan picked up his bag and walked outside. He could see Blow-wave and the rest of the under sixteens assembling near the blocks. He bet Blow-wave had somehow managed to nick his Speedos.
‘Brendan? What are you doing here? Your race has been called.’
‘Oh hi, Helen.’ Helen? What was she doing here? Brendan gazed at Helen standing in front of him in her bikini. His eyes took on an unusual hourglass shape as they surveyed her silhouette.
‘Aren’t you going to swim?’
‘I can’t. Somebody’s nicked my Speedos. Zervoid tried to borrow some for me, but he got into trouble.’ He pointed over to where Zervoid was sitting near Mr Williams.
