by Katz, Danny
Also by Danny Katz
SCUM
First published in 2013
Copyright © Text, Danny Katz 2013
Copyright © Illustrations, Suren Perera 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74237 925 8
eISBN 978 1 74269 793 2
Cover design by Lisa White
Cover photography (boy) by Lucien Alperstein, model: Justin Wolfers; (balloon) by Ryan McVay / Getty Images; (others) by iStockphoto
Cover and internal illustrations by Suren Perera
Text design by Simon Rattray / Squirt Creative
Set in 11.5/16.5 pt Warnock Pro Light by Simon Rattray / Squirt Creative
To Talia, who mucked up big-time
Contents
My School
9:22 a.m. First period: Yard Duty
9:44 a.m. Second period: I.T.
10:32 a.m. Recess
10:55 a.m. Third period: Science
11:50 a.m.Fourth period: Library
12:25 p.m. Lunch
1:35 p.m. Fifth period: Double Food Tech
2:22 p.m. E Block Corridor
About the Author
… and in through the gates I go. But these are not the normal gates I come through every day: normally I come in through the main quad gates with everyone else but these are the teachers’ carpark gates that you’re not supposed to use, they’re off-limits, could get me into trouble, like big trouble, but I don’t care, look at this, I’m doing it right now, look at me, just walking right in.
…
I’m in.
No one round. Okay, going in further, walking …
By the way, this is not the normal way I walk into school every day either. Like normally I just walk with my feet in a normal walking-person way, you know, just one foot taking a step then the other foot taking a step, then the first foot taking another step, then the other foot, moving along like that. But today I am doing little fast walks, like scared walks, my head a bit bent down, looking round all scared-like. Doing a snawk, which is a sneak and a walk put together.
Snawking into school.
snawk snawk
snawk
And this is not the normal time I come to school every day. Normally I’m here at 8:40, plenty of time to get over to the bench beside the bin behind the canteen and meet up with the rest of the SCUMmers before bell – Ravo and Jack S and Bris and Jarrell (stupid suckhead Jarrell, hate her). But this is really late for me, it’s yeah look—
—just a couple of mins before bell, left it as late as possible because I’m not going to the bench beside the bin behind the canteen to see anyone from SCUM, I just want to get to the tanbark path, run round to Science Block and run into Admin Block without getting seen by—
??????
Whassat?
Thought I heard something.
Nah, nothing.
And this is not the normal feeling of fear I have every day when I come to school. Normally I’ve just got the usual scaredness that Cody Carruthers is going to call me a homo or come up behind me and give me a sack-tap where he slaps me in the sack with his hand. For someone who calls me a homo so much, he sure likes to spend a lot of time around my sack.
But anyway, today I’ve got maxi-fear, this is Maxi-Burger-’N’-Fries Super-Meal-Deal fear. With a jumbo Coke.
Snawk faster …
Teachers’ Carpark has got lots of cars parked in rows so I duck down behind a car to catch my breath because my lungs are going huff huffffff and my guts are flipping round like mad.
This is Mrs Contogeorge’s blue Barina. She’s the drama teacher and her car is like her: small and remodelled, with a bad smoking problem.
No one round.
Snawk to the next row of cars and hide down behind Bitchface Fruehling’s four-wheel drive. She’s the assistant principal of the school and she’s a real bitchface. Nobody likes her, but she’s in charge of the school because the principal is overseas on some study tour thing (the principal is always away on a study tour thing. I’ve been at this school for three years and I don’t think anyone’s ever seen the principal). Anyway, Frueling is the boss of the school for the moment and this four-wheel drive is just like her: big and scary with poppy-outty headlights like Fruehling’s eyes that are always popping out of her sockets when she gets mad.
Peek round the back of the Bitchface-mobile. All clear.
I’m snawk-rawking now. It’s a kind of sneak-run-walking combo and I’m going past Mr Whooten’s ute (just like Whooten the P.E. teacher, old, dented and white) and past Mrs Duckworth’s VW Beetle (just like Duckworth, my history teacher, kind of a fake-orange with a funny sticky-out arse). Past Mr Bartle the Pedo’s old rusty car that is still parked on the side after he got taken away by the cops for the toilet-web-perving biz last year (just like Bartle the Pedo, dangerous and off-limits to kids).
Past Mr Pooks’ lie-down bike chained to the fence. It’s a douchey-looking bicycle that you have to lie on your back to ride and it’s a bit like Pooksy the I.T. teacher – massively lame and massively losery.
Even has a red flag that sticks up at the back cos he’s so proud of his lame losery lie-down bike and he wants everyone to—
Sabrina!!!!!!
Someone said that. Who said that?
Kelsie, over here!
Flarping hell, duck down somewhere. Where? There’re no cars here to duck down behind. I DON’T KNOW, JUST HIDE SOMEWHERE.
I am on the ground hiding behind Pooksy’s lie-down bike. It is stupid to hide behind a bike because bikes are see-through, you can see right—
Wait on, Sabrina!
Four or five of them coming over to the taps on the other side of the carpark. They are blue with white hats.
Hurry, Kelsie!
Don’t move, Zurb, try to look like a piece of the bike and they won’t see you. Do not move, do not breathe. Ahhhhh my guts are flipping like mad.
Put some blue in it /
Hurry up!
They are Smurfs with Guns. They have supa-soakers and one of them is filling her supa-soaker with water from a tap and another one is helping her put blue stuff in it.
Gotta get to the quad! / Yeah coming
Now they are running off with their supa-soakers toward the cricket nets behind the rosebushes and I can’t see them anymore.
It’s not safe here in Teachers’ Carpark, c’mon Zurb, get your bag on your back and run, run, run.
The tanbark path goes all the way down to the Japanese garden so I am running down it, and while I run, it might be a good time to tell you what’s going on this morning because you’re probably starting to wonder.
* * *
REASON ONE
* * *
Okay, here’s the reason why Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt has snawked into school this morning through the teachers’ carpark and is no
w running down the tanbark path like a scaredy little dickweed . . .
* * *
Because of something that happens at this time every year, and that thing is called MUCK UP DAY.
It is called this cos the Year 12s have finished all their lessons forever, they just have exams to go, so they celebrate how much love and respect they have for their school by dressing up in funny costumes and coming in and trashing the place.
The school tries to ban it every year but it just makes the Year 12s go harder: when I was in Year 7, Assistant Principal Bitchface Fruehling said Muck Up Day would be banned but the Year 12s ignored her and came to school dressed in pyjamas and chucked little balloons that were filled with white jizzy stuff. Mandy Karaniki said it was actual jizz but I think it was just flour and water mixed together. No one could get those kind of quantities of jizz just to chuck around, not even after a whole year of jizz-collecting.
The next year Bitchface Fruehling said Muck Up Day was definitely banned and anyone caught doing it would be suspended but the Year 12s came to school dressed as Twilight vampires and captured this Year 7 kid named Vegie who everyone called Vegie cos he’s a bit of a vegie. They gladwrapped him to the school flagpole and left him there all day, poor bloody Vegie.
His parents got so pissed about it they took Vegie out of school and now he goes to a special school where they make boats out of egg cartons with little eggshell sailors.
And this year it’s supposed to be banned for sure; Bitchface Fruehling said anyone caught doing it today would be suspended AND not sit exams – yeah yeah Bitchface, YOU KEEP SAYING THESE FLARPING THINGS BUT YOU’RE NEVER GONNA DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, ARE YA?????
ARE YA????????
Today the Year 12s are planning to do the most epic Muck Up Day of all time: I know this because I read it on Facebook last night. They made a page called ‘Tomorrow We Take The School Down In A Quad Raid’ and they said they were gonna come to school in the morning and get everyone bigtime with supa-soakers and eggs and waterbombs and jizz-bombs. Which is why I’m not going anywhere near the quad today, which is why I came in through the carpark gate. I don’t want to wind up like Vegie at a special school where you have breakdancing classes on Fridays.
Here I am at the end of the tanbark path …
The Japanese garden is a special garden that was like some gift to the school from another school in Japan. There’s a metal sign that says ‘This garden was created to celebrate our friendship with our sister school in Fukuoka’ and under it someone has spraypainted ‘WHO GIVES A FUKUOKA?’ which is quite funny actu—
Jayce, in here!!!!!
A guy comes in through the back gate and another guy’s behind him. They are dressed as gangstas, wearing trakkies with big hoodies over their heads. The only place to hide is Japanese Garden but Japanese Garden is even more off-limits than Teachers’ Carpark. Got into trouble going in here last month when me and Ravo and Bris and Jarrell had a pretend ninja-fight. Bitchface Fruehling yelled at me. I probably shouldn’t go in, I probably shouldn’t—
Slow down, Brandon!
I’m crunch-crunching across the rolly Japanese pebbles and I’ve jumped the Japanese stone lantern and now I’m sitting down low behind the bamboo with my big bag on my back. Sit still, Zurb, look like bamboo so they don’t see you.
The Gangstas in Hoodies stop right in front of the Japanese garden, so close to where I am hiding. They’ve got scarves over their faces so you can’t see who they are and one of them is waving round some kind of massive weapon.
Don’t point it at me, Brandon / Haw haw haw
It’s one of those big garden-sprayers with a spray-pack that goes on your back and a long spraying bit that you hold, like King Bozz the School Yard Guy uses to spray the rosebushes with. It’s a Weapon of Mass Spray-Destruction, like beyond the superest of supa-soakers.
The first Gangsta in a Hoodie is pointing the long spraying bit at his mate like he’s gonna squirt him and the second Gangsta in a Hoodie is freaking out.
Seriously, Brandon, don’t muck round with it / Awww harden up, Jayce / C’mon, let’s get to the quad
The two of them run up the tanbark path that I just ran down. If I had run down there two minutes later I would now be wasted. Now I’ve gotta get to the Chem labs so I stand up and a voice beside me says ‘You’re not gonna hurt me are ya?’
It’s a little flat-faced freckle-freak, Year 7 probs, sitting beside me behind the bamboo. Flarp, he was hiding here the whole time and I didn’t notice. He’s looking up at me all scared-like with his little freckle-lips wobbling around.
‘No I’m not gonna hurt you, why would I hurt you?’
‘You’re in Year 12, right?’
‘No, I’m Year 9!’
For some reason this is hard for his little freckle-brain to understand. He points at my clothes: ‘Then why’d you come to school dressed in a funny costume?’
* * *
REASON TWO
* * *
Okay, here’s another reason why Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt has snawked into school this morning like a scaredy little dickweed and is now hiding in the Japanese Garden with a flat-faced freckle-freak . . .
* * *
Because there’s something at our school that every kid has to do once a year and that thing is called Yard Duty, where you help clean up the schoolyard in first period. I know it sounds like a good thing because you get to miss first period but it’s actually a bad thing because 1. Today is Muck Up Day and the schoolyard is going to be trashed. And 2. On Yard Duty day you don’t wear school uniform – you wear whatever cazh clothes you like. Problem: I do not have any good cazh clothes to wear. Mum and Dad are kind of poor at the moment cos Dad’s got no work and Mum works part-time in a lightbulb shop, so all I have is secondhand clothes that Mum buys from the op-shop. That’s why I am in a pair of brown cargoes with a broken belt loop so my belt hangs out the front like a belt-wiener. And a T-shirt that says ‘BOY’ on the front. Mum bought it because she thought it was for boys but I don’t think it is.
So this little flat-faced freckle-freak thinks I’ve come in Muck Up Day costume and I go ‘It’s not a bloody costume, I’m on Yard Duty’ and he starts to go ‘Nice threads hahaha!’ and I say ‘Piss orrrf’ because it is very disrespectful for a Year 7 to talk to a Year 9 like this. But he goes ‘YOU piss orrrf, get out of here, I was hiding here first!’ He looks pretty fierce with his freckle-forehead squished up so I go ‘Fair ’nuff’ and get out of the Japanese garden.
Here I am running alongside the Science Block with my bag on my back. As I get closer to Admin Block I can hear the Quad Raid going on in the quad – yahhhhing and girl-screaming and crazy-laughs. There are kids here and there who survived the Quad Raid and are running around, not really knowing what to do or where to go: a girl is freaking out, green slippery stuff in her hair like massive snot. She has two friends with her who are laughing. One of them has a bit of snot on her that must have bounced off the first one.
Not funny, Alisha / It is funny / It’s not!
Also a bunch of little Year 7s are running past, maybe ten of them with bags on their backs, puffing their guts out.
You see ’em? They were dressed as zombies / Were they zombies? / Yeah they were zombies!
A couple of Year 9 soccerdicks who I kind of know, Anton Vasillis and his mate Brodie Something, are leaning on the wall near the corner of Science Block, doing that heh-ha fear-laughing that people do when they are pretending to not be scared but you know they are.
How about those smokebombs, heh-ha? / Insane, heh-ha
War is a mad thing and this is what it looks like. There will be lots of horror and pain and fear today but you just gotta keep going. C’mon, Zurb, get your legs going faster and keep running—
‘Oiiii, Zurb!’
Someone behind me yelled that but I don’t stop running just in case it’s a Year 12 tricking me with a sneaky name-calling trick.
‘TOM ZURBO-GOLDBLATTiii’
But th
en I think, what Year 12 would know my name? So I stop and turn. Cesar Hildago has his bag on his back and a skateboard under his arm. He is a profesh skater from my year who everyone respects massively. He is famous because he once did a nosegrind on the handrail that goes down the wheelchair ramp outside the handicapped toilet. No idea what a nosegrind is but I think you do it with a skateboard.
‘Lookin’ da bizness, Zurb,’ he says and I go ‘Yard Duty’ and he says ‘Sick.’
Never can tell if he’s being sarcastic or not because he’s got a bad case of stoner-face so it’s always the same stupid smiling head. He comes up close and I see his ears have big floppy holes in them cos he wears plug-earrings on weekends but he has to take them out at school. ‘Seen … the quad, man?’ he asks and I say ‘Nah, came through Teachers’ Carpark’ and he says ‘The place is wasted.’
He’s never been friendly to me before because he rides skateboards and wears plug-earrings on weekends and I don’t do either of those things. But it’s pretty cool that he wants to talk to me: he says ‘They put … bins on top of the … footy posts …’
‘How’d they do that?’
‘Nobody knows … it’s crazy stuff. Hey, I’m gonna ditch school, man … wanna come back to mine? Smoke choof?’
‘Oh yeah well, sounds good but I got I.T. and need to work on my video project so soz, man, mebbe another day we can smoke some … chuff.’
‘Choof.’
‘Yeah.’
He stands there with that stoner-face so I stand there and smile back and then he pushes me into a bush.
* * *
REASON THREE
* * *
Reason Number 3 why Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt has snuck into school this morning like a scaredy little dickweed and is now on the ground in a bush . . .
