by Katz, Danny
‘Nahhh, she thinks she’s too good for us anyway.’
‘You think she’ll ever come back?’
‘Once you get into HAGZ, you don’t come back to SCUM. She was just hanging with us until something better came along. I mean, look at her and look at US.’
‘Yeah, just a couple of nob-buckets.’
‘Is that a bucket made of nobs?’
‘No, a nob made of buckets, OB-viously. Hey, what’d you think of Bris’s new look?’
‘Hardly didn’t recognise her.’
‘I actually prefer how she used to look. Her old look was really indie. I always liked her look …’
He looks sad and I’m starting to think Ravo is actually kind of into Bris, like REALLY into her. Maybe he always was and never told me and was too shy and unconfident to do anything about it. He bends down at the sink and turns on one of the taps, but water sprays all over his face and shirt and pants and just keeps spraying. Somebody stuck a tampon up there.
1:35 p.m.
Fifth period:
Double Food Tech
It’s a No-Talking All-Hating Triangle of Ovens and the three of us are in it. Eyes go back ’n’ forth between me and Jarrell.
Eyes go back ’n’ forth between me and Jack S.
Eyes go back ’n’ forth between Jack S and Jarrell.
Don’t know why they’re hate-staring at each other, they don’t look happy at all. Something must’ve happened in Philosothon and I want to find out: ‘So … Jack … how did your first Philoso-fon go?’
Jarrell answers before he can say anything: ‘You have no right to make that joke, Tom, that’s OUR joke.’
Jack S looks at Jarrell, ‘Actually Jarrell, it was never a funny joke in the first place so I’d rather you didn’t do it anymore either.’
‘Yeah Jarrell,’ I go, ‘we should ALL stop making that joke.’
This hate-staring is hurting my eyeballs. I try and keep my eyes still and talk to Jack S: ‘Sorry for making that joke, Jack. It’s not funny’ (even though it is). ‘So how did you go in Philoso-THON?’
‘Why do you care anyway, Tom? You’ve been horrible to me all day so why should I tell you anything?’
Jarrell gives me a smug look that she excels in: ‘If you really want to know, Tom, I was very impressed with Jack in Philosothon today. He totally got all these very difficult philosophical concepts about the Socratic meaning of happiness and I was very—’
Jack S says ‘Then why did you have to put me down in front of everyone, Jarrell?’
‘Oh PUH-leeez, Jack, stop being so sensitive. Everyone thought it was cute and funny.’
‘I don’t want to be cute and funny, I just want to be treated normal.’
Jarrell looks at me: ‘What happened was, Tom, we were discussing Socrates and his theories of happiness and Jack cracked everyone up when he pronounced it Sock-RATES instead of Soc-RA-TEEEEZ.’
‘How am I supposed to know how to say someone’s stupid name that I’ve never even heard of?’
‘Anyway, Tom, like I was saying, Jack is a naturally astute thinker. Way sharper than you. If you came to Philosothon, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. The philosophical concepts would go right over your head.’ She picks up a wooden honey-dipper on her benchtop.
Jack S picks up a roll of filo. I put on my apron. Something big is about to go down in Food Tech and it’s called …
Baklava.
Mrs Goonaratna is standing next to the whiteboard out the front of class. She has a weird long name because she is from Sri Lanka, which I think is somewhere near India and is smaller.
She is kind of small too, but her face is friendly enough. On the whiteboard she has written:
TODAY’S TASK:
TO MAKE MIDDLE EASTERN BAKLAVA
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 package filo pastry
3/4 cup chopped pistachio nuts
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons juice from lemon
Baklava is a funny name for food and Angus Smits the Gap-Toothed Joker has already done an arsey joke when he walked in and saw ‘Baklava’ written on the whiteboard. He asked Mrs Goonaratna whether we could wear it on our heads if we robbed a bank. ‘Like a balaclava, miss? Get it, miss? Like bank-robbers wear?’ But she kept shaking her head like she meant no.
It gets confusing with Mrs Goonaratna because in Sri Lanka all the people shake their head like they’re saying ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’. So we don’t know if she understood Smits’ joke or not. It makes it hard to ask Mrs Goonaratna any kind of question, so everybody tries not to.
‘Please have all of your ingredients ready BEFORE you unwrap your filo! Also remember to wear gloves and preheat your ovens. Also, what must we always do before starting to cook any dish in Food Tech?’
…
‘The first rule of cooking! Anyone?’
‘Read and re-read the recipe, miss.’
You’re not going to believe who said that.
‘Thank you, Cody! Good job.’
I know, right? Cody Carruthers, the evil cunjevoidal mass who ruins my life every day at school and who’s probably going to end up in juvie one day like his brothers already are. Well, something freaky happens when he goes into Food Tech. He turns into the best student you’ve ever seen and Mrs Goonaratna even calls him her special helper. Look at him, wearing his apron and standing at Oven 1 beside the teacher’s desk, reading and re-reading the recipe off the whiteboard and getting his ingredients all ready to go. He is actually the best cook in the class. He’ll make a san choi bao in ten minutes, then finish up with a mini-pavlova that wasn’t even part of the lesson, just because he finished before everyone else and wanted to fill in time. He’s like profesh. He makes the best food you’ve ever seen and is polite to the teacher and keeps his benchtop clean. Then next period in Maths, he’ll sit behind you and stick a plastic ruler right up your clackerhole.
Jarrell switches on her oven, I switch on my oven. Jack S does not switch on his oven: he’s unwrapping his filo and laying it on the table. Jarrell looks over at him: ‘No Jack, you’re supposed to preheat your oven and get all your ingredients ready BEFORE you get your filo unrolled. Didn’t you hear the teacher?’
‘I know what I’m doing, Jarrell, you do your own thing.’
‘But your filo will dry out now because you unwrapped it. Get a damp tea-towel and put it over the sheets to keep—’
I butt in: ‘No Jack, it’s actually easier to just spread melted butter on each sheet and that should keep it moist.’
‘Both of you leave me alone, I’m not an idiot!’
Bloody cooking shows on TV. Look what they’ve turned us all into. We all watch those shows every night on TV and so we think we’re profesh cooks, we all have a bad case of Mastercheffiness. We all think we know how to keep filo moist and roast a lamb leg and make a ganache and cook a ‘Croquembouche’ which is a cake-dessert thing that sounds like French porn. I get attacks of Mastercheffiness at home: Mum will be cooking her usual spag-bol and I’ll stick my finger in the sauce and go ‘Too bland. Season it to bring out the more robust explosive flavours.’ Dad’ll be making toast for brekkie, I’ll look at his toast and go ‘Hmmmm, tad pale. But a nice caramelised crust. Plate up and garnish it with jam, yah?’ Seriously. I’ve become like one of those cooking-show wanker-judge chubbers.
Someone should start a new TV cooking show called Masterbaker, just about baking cakes. Masterbaker haha. Say it out loud if you don’t get it yet. It’s a Ravo joke, I cannot take credit for it.
Mrs Goonaratna is coming over to Jack’s oven: ‘Why is your oven not on? You cannot have filo sitting there, drying out.’
‘That’s what I told him, Mrs Goonaratna,’ goes Jarrell and I give her a look like, awwwww, shut your mouth-hole.
‘The first rule of cooking is read and re-read the recipe!’ says Mrs Goonaratna to Jack S. ‘You did not do that.’
&n
bsp; ‘Sorry, miss. What do I do with my filo now? Do I just leave it on the bench?’ Mrs Goonaratna shakes her head like no, which could mean yes or no. Then she goes to help Taleeesha Monk at Oven 11 who is having problems separating her filo sheets.
Jack S looks confused so I go over to his oven and switch it on to preheat it. ‘Don’t worry, Jack, let me help you.’
‘Leave my oven alone, Tom.’
‘Start by laying your filo out flat, get some melted butter—’
Jarrell comes over and picks up his pastry brush: ‘Yeah, melt some butter in a saucepan and … get your pastry brush …’
I grab the brush off her. ‘No, you need to hold the pastry brush like this, and using quick, little strokes—’
Jack S grabs the pastry brush off me. ‘GO AWAY TOM, GO AWAY JARRELL, GO BACK TO YOUR OWN STATIONS AND DO YOUR OWN COOKING!’
‘Fiiiiiine,’ goes Jarrell, ‘let your filo crack,’ and she goes back to her oven while I go back to my oven: ‘Your baklava, Jack. Your life.’
Jack S looks at the recipe on the whiteboard and starts reading the recipe out loud, saying the ingredients like they’re swears: ‘PIS-tachios … le-MON … SUG-ar.’ He’s mad.
Jarrell’s melted her butter and spreads it on her filo sheets with her pastry brush. She’s almost finished her first sheet, so I quickly put melted butter on my first filo sheet with my pastry brush. She works in from the edges. I work in from the edges. Jack S reads from the whiteboard: ‘… hon-EY … CINN-o-nin …’
I snortlaugh: ‘It’s cinnamon.’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘You said cinn-o-nim. You’re getting cinnamon mixed up with synonym which is a word that means the same as another word.’
‘He knows what a synonym is, Tom,’ goes Jarrell. ‘Don’t talk down to him all the time.’
‘That’s the way YOU always talk to him.’
‘How Jack and I TALK to each other is NONE of your BUSINESS, Tom. Though sounds like you WANT to make it your business, DON’T you?’
Try not to stab her with your pastry brush, Zurb. Do not poke it into her neck using the pointier non-brushy end. ‘So anyway, Jack,’ I go, ‘as I was saying before, cinnamon and synonym are two completely different things, but it’s an easy mistake to make. Although you could have a synonym for cinnamon, see what I mean?’
He stares at me; not sure he sees what I mean. ‘Cinno-nim? Cimm-o-nin? Ohh sorry, Tom, sorry I don’t know how to say all your big uh-mayyy-zing words. And you too, Jarrell. I’m sick of you making me feel stupid all the time. Sorry that I’m not smart enough to know how to say Sock-rates or whatever the dude’s called, but y’know sometimes you can be a big show-off and you didn’t have to make me feel embarrassed in Philosofon today, however you say it. Philo-so-flon. Whatevs. And Tom, you think you’re soooo smart with words, don’tya? You always go on about how good you are with English and stories and writing songs but you’re not smart at all – your songs are all crap, seriously, your songs are the crappest. You’ll never be a songwriter or a story-writer or anything, Zurb, no offence, but that’s a fact and we all think so.’
Something happens when I get Xtremely upset about stuff. I kind of lose it, go all psycho-crazy in the head like I got with Boniqa this morning. But this is even bigger because he’s saying I’m crap at the only thing I’m good at in the whole world. Makes me feel sick because it’s not true, I’m a freak at making up stories. And I’m a great songwriter with the potential to be one of the greatest. And my rock opera HumanKind is going to win 860 awards and be famous round the whole world – when the main guy Peter O’Devlin sings that song about being lonely the whole audience is going to start crying and go, ‘Ooooo, this is my fave rock opera ever’ AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST SONG. Jack S shouldn’t say that about me, it’s a flarping lie. So I can’t control what I am doing right now: I grab a whole bunch of chopped pistachios from my bowl and just chuck them at his face. Most of them miss and go behind him, all over Taleeesha Monk’s benchtop, but some of them go on his face and his clothes. He’s got this whaaaaa?-look, but he doesn’t say anything back. Jarrell says it for him: ‘THAT COULD’VE GONE IN HIS EYES, YOU DUMMY!!!’ Then she gets her wooden honey-dipper from out of her jar of honey and comes over to my oven … and …
The hell. Y’serious?????
She hits me on the hand with her honey-dipper. Honey’s all over my hand and up my arm.
I go ‘Ouchhhhh’ in a fake baby-voice, ‘That weally hurt, booo hooo!’ Then I go over to her oven. ‘Hey Jarrell, I think you forgot to read and re-read the recipe! It says you have to fold your filo pastry into thirds! Here, let me help you with that!’ I pick up one of her buttered filo sheets from the benchtop, hold it up so she can see what I’m doing, then I fold it once, fold it again, then just smoosh it up up up up with my hands until it’s a big wet filo blob.
She doesn’t look like she cares: ‘Thanks for your help, Tom,’ then she looks down at my buttered filo sheets on my benchtop: ‘Oh look! Think you forgot to read and re-read the recipe too! It says you have to cut the baklava into little diamond shapes, let me help YOU!!!’ She picks up one of my buttered filo sheets and gets a knife from my knife-block then stabs holes in the sheet like a crazy-stabber until it’s all destroyed and falls apart in bits.
Jack S looks at Jarrell and me: he wants to join in. ‘Well BOTH of you forgot to read and re-read the recipe, because it says to add your filling to your filo sheet BEFORE you fold it! Here let me do THAT,’ and he pours chopped pistachios on top of his own stack of filo sheets, then pours out all his own sugar on the top of that, then puts his own lemon in the middle, and just rolls it all together until he’s got this huge cracked-filo and filling ball. Me and Jarrell stand there watching him destroy his own baklava. Not sure he’s got the idea.
Now back to our filo-deathmatch. I grrrrrr like a crazy dog and grab one of her filo sheets and throw it to the ground and step on it. She grabs one of my filo sheets and pretends to blow her nose in it then scrunches it up. I grab one of her filo sheets and pretend to wipe my bum with it like it’s toilet paper.
Cody Carruthers is yelling from Oven 1: ‘Mrs Goonaratna! Look over there, miss! Could you stop them fighting? They’re distracting me!’
Mrs Goonaratna’s on the other side of the room and she comes rawk-rawkrawking over (triple run-walk mega-speed combo). ‘Excuse me! Stop this at ONCE! GET BACK TO YOUR OWN OVENS!’
She takes the filo sheet that I was using as toilet paper off me, grabs the side of my apron and pulls me back to Oven 3. ‘I am disgusted with the both of you,’ she says. ‘You are given freedom in this school but you are disrespecting it by being arrogant and disruptive! I do not care who started this, I want you both out of my class right now! Turn off your ovens, take off your aprons and wait outside!’
Me and Jarrell turn off our ovens and take off our aprons. The whole class watches us, including Jack S who is just standing in front of his big cracked-filo ball. The two of us follow Mrs Goonaratna down the middle of the room to the door.
‘Backs to the walls, lads! Zurb coming through!’ (Dougy Mansour, who else?)
‘Poor widdle Jarrell got in twubble.’ (Angus Smits.)
‘Hee hee.’ (Steph and Jackleen-Dellulah, who laugh at anything Angus says cos they both want to get with him.)
Carruthers’ oven is closest to the door and when I walk past he says ‘Serves you right for spoiling class! Learn to respect food!’ and he’s serious when he says it. Then he goes back to working on his baklava, cutting little diamond shapes into it. It’s the most perfect baklava anyone has ever made.
Mrs Goonaratna holds the door open for us and we walk out into the corridor: ‘I will have a word with both of you at the end of the lesson!’ then she goes back in and shuts the door.
Jarrell goes to the other side of the corridor and I lean on the wall near the Food Tech door. I have never been sent out of class before in all my school life, NEVER. Maybe I got told off once or twice in primary schoo
l for chatterboxing in assembly, but that was as bad as it got.
Why is she looking at me? Hate her face. Want to crush it like curry spices being crushed in a little bowl to release the flavours. Ahhhhhhh, bloody TV cooking shows, what are they doing to me?
‘Cassia.’
She’s saying something but I’m not listening …
‘Cassia is the name of the bark that cinnamon comes from, so if you think about it, cassia is the same as cinnamon, which makes it a synonym of cinnamon.’
How’d she know that? Actually pretty cool but don’t look impressed. Don’t look at her. Don’t give her any kind of face.
‘Tom, maybe it’s time to talk about this, just get it out there. What’s going on here? Like, what’s REALLY going on?’
…
‘It’s about the bush dance, isn’t it. It’s about what happened with me and Jack.’
…
… ‘Why did you even say yes when I asked you to come with me?’
Dah-yam, wasn’t going to talk to her but words start coming out and I can’t stop them. ‘Don’t know why I said yes. Wish I never did, okay?’
‘You said yes cos you like me.’
‘NO!!!! I said yes cos nobody else asked me so I happened to be free. And also because I felt sorry for you.’
‘YOU felt sorry for ME? Oh right, of course, sorry, that’s it.’
‘Yeah, because you’re so unpopular and nobody would ever go anywhere with you.’
‘It’s obvious you like me, Tom. It’s basic human psychology. You’re using a defensive mechanism where you hide your true feelings by doing the opposite of your true feelings. That’s why you’re always so mean to me. That’s why you’re so weirded out about me and Jack being together.’
‘How am I weirded out??? YOU’RE the one who’s weirded out with me, cos you want to be with ME, that’s the actual truth! You’ve always wanted to be with me but you know I can’t stand the sight of your ugly-arse face, just the thought of you makes me sick in the guts. So you’re the weirded-out one, not me, IT’S YOU!’
