One Step

by Andrew Daddo

  ‘Yeah,’ said Gracie. ‘What’s wrong with yers?’

  ‘Oooooooooh,’ went those nearby.

  ‘I think that’ll do,’ said the nearest teacher.

  ‘Losers!’ The girls sat quickly and circled the wagons. Gracie looked like she’d been crying as well, or maybe hadn’t had much sleep. She was a little red around the eyes, puffy, but it worked for her. With her arm around Isabella, she started cooing into her ear. I was two rows back with a clean view and couldn’t stop staring. I wondered what she was saying to her, whether it was the ‘they’re all dickheads’ natter or ‘you’ll get through this, we all will’. Her mouth was pressed close to Isabella’s ear, her breath would have been warm and relaxing, her words were constant.

  I was so mesmerised by the scene I didn’t turn away when Gracie looked in my direction. I don’t even know how long she’d been watching me watching them, but she never stopped talking. She nodded at me. Then, without pausing, she stopped rubbing Isabella’s back and put her arm around her, letting her hand kind of hang there off Isabella’s shoulder. She grinned at me, smiling with her eyes as much as anything, and began to turn her hand in the air. She was going to give me the finger, for sure.

  I looked away, giving my attention to Deputy Principal Lucas who was up on the stage scowling and waiting for silence. He loved it up there, treading the boards, making use of the whole stage. Gracie still had her arm around Isabella, and to my surprise she was still looking at me. She smiled again, her top teeth gently biting her bottom lip. Instead of giving me the finger as I expected, she waved. It was the smallest, simplest movement of her fingers: the whiff of a wave, it would barely have disturbed the air around her hand. I did that stupid thing where I looked around for someone behind me or beside me, but all the attention was on the stage now. Mr Lucas had the school under his spell for his introduction to the principal.

  Me? I mouthed, letting my hand rise and fall on my thigh in an embarrassing half wave back. Gracie raised her eyebrows.

  Yeah, you. She was gently nodding again, before looking forward and resurrecting the affectionate rubbing of Isabella Crentin’s shoulders and back. She turned around again, and mouthed, I have to talk to you, okay?

  I felt my eyebrows jump north a couple of times and I raised my hand off my leg again to give a thumbs up. What a tool. Who gives a thumbs up?

  Principal Jones was warming up to his regular Thursday rant. ‘So, let me be clear about this. Make no mistake about what I’m saying or how I’m saying it. I am very disappointed. Very disappointed in the actions of the past few days. Disappointed, underwhelmed, verging on disillusioned by some of the young people before me.’

  Principal Jones seemed more upset than usual. The worst sign was that he’d abandoned his pulpit at the lectern in favour of a wireless microphone he had clipped to the side of his head. He swept across the stage like a TV preacher and bellowed about the rights and wrongs people like us commit against people who aren’t like us.

  ‘You would all be aware of the events of the past twenty-four hours. You would all be cognisant of the acts that have taken place and the inevitable shame we must all accept as a result. No one here is without guilt, not on this day.’

  He stopped, looking for sets of eyes to bore into. I was pretty sure he was referring to the pigeon. I could tell that Isabella thought he was talking about her because she was looking at Gracie and saying, ‘I told you everyone knew about it. I told you.’ She was crying again, her glasses hid what her wobbly chin could not.

  He could be talking about me being bullied by Hamish. He could be talking about Sampson and his stolen lunches or a dozen kids being knocked over or run down in regular lunchtime skirmishes. The Year Sevens had been playing British Bulldog, that could be it. Whatever it was, he was more excited than usual.

  ‘As a community we must look out, protect and champion each other. We acknowledge as a school and as a peoples that bullying is not the courageous and rightful path, do we not?’ More glaring, more posing. ‘The correct path is to admonish the bully, not to feed him or his ambitions. The bully is the terrorist of our social system, the terrorist within. To give in to the bully is to gratify him, is to endorse him, to make him more powerful. We must fight the beast, be he man or woman, and we must stand up to him. Or her. The right thing is to help others. Always. And especially when they don’t know they are in need of help. That is the rightful path. That is the way forward.’

  His eyes were bugging out, he was close to full blown.

  Gracie turned to look at me and smile. She let her hand slide from her friend’s shoulder, turned it into a fist and started moving it up and down. The universal wanking sign.

  I nearly came.

  Here was one of the hottest girls in our year making the wanking sign to me, but in an inclusive way; I’m sure she wasn’t calling me a wanker. At my most optimistic, I thought she was saying that’s what she wanted to do to me, and she was saying it in front of all these people.

  And if that’s what she was saying, she was definitely saying it to me. Just me. She didn’t look at anyone else while she did it, her eyes looked right into mine and they were laughing. The girl sitting directly behind her slapped her hand down and said, ‘Eeeeeeeew!’ It was loud enough to stop the principal and have him look in our direction.

  It must get exhausting being so pissed off all the time.

  ‘Thank you, Year Nine. That will do. I’m talking about courage, standing up for the weak. No one stood up for the helpless pigeon, did they? Animal cruelty is disgusting, there will be consequences. No one stood up to the bully. No one tried to stop this despicable act. No one stood up.’

  He stopped again and stood with his hands on his hips, lips pursed, glaring. The length of his silence was long enough to become uncomfortable, maybe even for him.

  There was a shuffling of feet to my left. Sully and McAcca were sitting together heads down, as if they were praying – or laughing.

  Then, with a flourish, Sully got to his feet. ‘I’ll stand up, Sir.’ He was rigid, like a soldier, his hands flat by his sides, his voice clear. The principal turned his face towards him, his head tilted at a slight angle.

  ‘I’ll stand up, too, Sir!’ mimicked McAcca, assuming the same infantry-like position. Everyone turned to look at them. A stifled giggle went through the assembly hall.

  ‘You will sit down and you will be quiet.’

  ‘But we are standing up, Sir. Like you said we should.’

  ‘Sit. Down.’

  ‘I will stand up, too,’ said Westy, a Year Ten boy across the assembly hall.

  ‘Me, too,’ said Asef, a renowned shit-stirrer.

  The principal swivelled his head. More and more kids stood up, boys at first, mainly smart-arses, but then girls began standing as well. The principal was glowing, he looked as if he was about to spontaneously combust. In less than a minute it was like half the school was on their feet. I stood up. Our whole row stood up. Gracie and Hannah stood up. Isabella didn’t, but probably because she thought they were standing up for her as much as the pigeon. That was funny.

  ‘He’s gonna go nuclear,’ said Sampson. ‘He is gonna absolutely blow!’

  Within moments the whole assembly was on their feet, standing up for kids who couldn’t stand up for themselves, and for the rights of pigeons.

  Ryan watched the principal closely. ‘He wasn’t expecting that. We can’t get in trouble because this looks like a group action, like we’ve united in what he was saying. What’s the bald Nazi going to do now?’

  Principal Jones didn’t do anything for the longest time, but then he put his arms out wide with his head high and appeared to sacrifice himself to the moment.

  He nodded to the teachers on stage behind him, who stood up as well.

  And he started clapping. Slowly at first, but then firmly, with purpose. And he motioned to the other teachers on the stage and in the hall and they followed with the same gusto. There was this momentous eruption of appla
use that started slowly and ended up becoming quite euphoric. It led to cheering and yahooing and eventually petered out as the principal waved his hands in a ‘quiet down’ kind of way. Something cool had happened, but I’m not sure anyone knew what.

  ‘Take your seats, please,’ he said, and we sat as one. He returned to the lecturn and said in a quiet voice, ‘Thank you. Thank you all.’ He patted his chest, his heart, before opening his palms to all of us. ‘Teachers like us yearn for moments like this, where we come together and we are heard and we pledge to make a difference. Thank you, my beautiful students. Thank you for making me proud to be in your service.’

  He left the stage, and we sat quietly.

  What the hell?

  And where did Gracie, Hannah and Isabella go?

  Mum was skipping about like a kindy kid when I got home. ‘Hello, daaahling,’ she said before planting a big wet one on me. ‘Put your bag away, don’t leave anything out here at all. I’ve tidied the entire house and you will not mess it up. Not that you would.’

  ‘Hi Mum,’ I said, dropping my bag and heading for the pantry.

  Mum picked it up and took it to my room, with a huge, overacted sigh. ‘Just this once.’ She smiled. Then she came up behind me and gave me a big hug and whispered, ‘Sorry about this morning. I feel so stupid. You definitely didn’t say anything to anyone, did you?’

  ‘Why would I? What would I say, anyway?’

  ‘Well, nothing. That’s the point, right? Because there’s nothing to say. Come and help me outside for a minute.’ She dipped her head towards Ronnie who was camped on the couch watching some kid-stuff on ABC3.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said, as she pulled me into the garage.

  ‘Yeah, fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Well, you know. When you left this morning your mum and dad were splitting up, so, I dunno? You were facing a pretty different world, right? At least there would have been some new jokes. Like, what do you do if your mum misses your cheating arsehole dad? Tell her to take better aim. Funny? Or, when he gets home and I say to him, “Oh, honey, I want you to whisper dirty things in my ear,” there’s no way he’s going to say, “Kitchen, bathroom, laundry, living room.” Get it? Anyway, it’s all good. It wasn’t his phone.’

  ‘The jokes are bad, news is good.’

  ‘Tough crowd. So, what happened, because you deserve to know, was this. I called Dad and told him I knew about the phone and he nearly wet himself laughing and said he understood but it was ridiculous. He said it wasn’t his phone, but his friend’s phone. He took it off him when they were playing golf because he wouldn’t get off it, and we all know phones on the golf course drives your beautiful dad nuts. You know what he’s like with his golf. Then Dad had to leave in a hurry and he forgot to give the phone back. So his friend has this new girlfriend and it’s all very exciting and they text all the time and she’d put the “oh baby” ring tone on for when she texted him. That’s what that was all about. It’s stupid, but it’s pretty funny, too. I might do it for Dad – bit sexy, right?’

  Mum was talking fast, as if she was making it all clear in her own head as much as anything else.

  ‘Like, deep down, I didn’t think it was his phone. It couldn’t be. I mean, it could be, but it wouldn’t be. Right? Why would it be when he’s got this to come home to?’ She had her mouth open and her hands out and was pointing at herself. ‘He’s all right, your dad. He works hard, and I know he’s away a lot, but he does it for us, so we can have nice things. It’s the price we have to pay, right? But he is a good man. He’s got a good heart and he’s good to me. He’s good to all of us, even though he’s a bit of a grouch sometimes. Sorry to drag you into it, Dylan, but at least we know there was nothing to it, right? And for the first time in years, I know what to get him for his birthday – new clubs.’

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘That’s good, Mum. Can we get out of the garage now?’ I said. ‘Secret squirrel over for today?’

  She laughed and gave me a gentle clip across the ear. ‘Anything interesting happen to you today?’

  ‘Well, yes, actually. It did. No one took Sampson’s lunch, so we reckon it’s either Lurch or Hamish Banning who are knocking it off. They got suspended, by the way. And . . . I’ve been invited to a party this Saturday night.’

  ‘You’ve been invited to a party?’ But it came out like, Yooooooooooooooou’ve been invited to a party? As if exactly the last person on the planet who would ever be invited to a party was me. As if I was a contestant in Beauty and the Geek, as if I had a mono-brow and high pants and cold sores all over my mouth.

  ‘Yeah, Mum. Me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, I just –’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum. I know how you meant it, it’s pretty obvious.’ My mum has the ability to slaughter me without knowing it. ‘Yooooooou’ve been invited to a party?’ Why not me? I thought as I went back into the house. What’s wrong with me?

  ‘Dylan? Dylan! Don’t be silly,’ she called after me. ‘I didn’t mean anything. It’s so exciting. Whose party? Dylan? Why did Lurch and Hamish get suspended? Dylan?’

  ‘Fuck you very much,’ I muttered to myself as I passed through the kitchen.

  ‘Swear jar,’ said Ronnie from the couch. She heard everything.

  I went to my room and shut the door. ‘Two days to the par-tay!’ I’d wanted to tell Mum about how Gracie asked me. I’d wanted to set the scene for her, how I was at my locker and had my head in there looking for something. When I pulled it out, there she was, she practically scared the crap out of me. Mum would have laughed. She would have asked what kind of expression Gracie was wearing and told me what it meant. Like, if she was beaming it’d mean she was definitely rapt to be asking me, and if she was giggling she was nervous about it, but kind of happy, too. Definitely happy, but in a cautious way. And if she was mumbling into her collar or looking about at everything but me, she wasn’t really sure about it, but was asking anyway. Mum was great at understanding other people’s body language.

  I didn’t need Mum to tell me what Gracie was thinking, because I already knew. She’d used the same smile when we were in assembly, the cheeky one, the one she made when the principal was talking and she called him a wanker, if that’s what she was doing.

  Isabella and Hannah had been further up the corridor, watching. I don’t think they could believe she was asking me. But she did. It must have been what she’d been going to ask me the other day. ‘Do you wanna come to a party on Saturday?’ she’d said at my locker. Then she looked behind at the other two who were nodding and smiling. Isabella was definitely back from the Facebook brink. ‘It’s at my place,’ said Gracie from behind her fringe. ‘Do you wanna?’

  I hadn’t heard anything about a party from anyone else, so I was pretty surprised. There was always talk about a gathering or something on one of the beaches, but house parties were different.

  ‘Sure, who’s going?’ I’d said, like it mattered.

  ‘Well. You, I hope. And Hannah and Isabella and a few others. Not many, and don’t tell anyone, you know? It’s intimate. We don’t want any dickheads.’

  Obviously it was my turn to say something, because Gracie had stopped talking and was looking at me expectantly, but I was fresh out of logical thought. So, like a goon, I blurted out the first thing that came into my mind. ‘Yeah, right. Okay. Got it. Just normal clothes and stuff? It’s not like a dress-up thing?’

  It was probably because we’d just had Halloween, so it kind of made sense, but as the words came out I started wishing I’d gently placed my head in the locker and smashed the door on it, over and over and over.

  I had no idea what we’d do at Gracie’s party. It’d have to be different from the gatherings at the beach where everyone hung out in their normal groups and half the kids got wasted. Mum’d know, she’d be all over it. And it’d be kind of fun to watch her work it out in her head because she’d be, like, ‘Who’s going?’ But it’d be more like, Oooooooooh, who’s goooing? And I’
d say, ‘Not sure, but not many because it’s just a small party’ and Mum’d go, ‘Ooooooooooooo, a small party? You know what that means, don’t you?’

  It would’ve been good to tell her about it because I could only imagine what a ‘small, no-dickhead’ party would be like. Mum’d probably want to talk to the parents and make sure they were going to be there, and if that ‘arse’ Hamish Banning was going and all the boring stuff.

  Gracie had cocked her head to one side and frowned. ‘Dress ups? Like costumes? That’s a cool idea.’ She turned towards Hannah and Isabella and mouthed, Dress-ups?

  ‘What?’

  They did a bit of sign language before she wrote them off. ‘Nah, there’s no theme,’ she’d said. ‘Buuuut if you want you could come as Superman, that’d be kind of cool. You could be my superhero.’

  I was dying.

  She turned back to the girls, gave another nod and turned back to me with a big flick of her hair. ‘Just come as you are. And if you can bring something, that would be cool.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Bring something to drink, I suppose, but that’s about it. All good.’

  Then she went back to the others, and they walked down that end of the corridor and I stayed at my locker and whispered into it, ‘You fucking beauty!’

  Maybe that was why I was so pissed at Mum for giving me the ‘Yooooooooooou’ve been invited to a party?’ because it was so awesome and I wanted so much to talk to her about it and share it and she just murdered the vibe, making me feel like it was a miracle to be part of something cool.

  Maybe it’d be easier if it was a superhero party. What the hell was I supposed to wear, anyway? What’s normal depended on who was going, and as far as I knew, it was just a few of us and no dickheads.

  Who wasn’t a dickhead?

  Who was a dickhead?

  Before I left home this morning I thought I was the biggest dickhead going around, so what did I know? Ronnie came into my room and jumped on the bed. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she said. ‘Mum says it’s your favourite. Avacodo and tuna sushi.’