Natural Born Loser

by Oliver Phommavanh

  About the Book

  I’m Raymond, and my school is a joke. It’s full of bullies and troublemakers.

  My solution? Be a nobody and fade into the background.

  But our new principal has blown my cover because he’s chosen me as a prefect!

  It was looking pretty bad, until I made a crazy promise to get new air con for the classrooms.

  Now I’m REALLY in trouble!

  From the mad-cap best-selling author of Thai-riffic!, Con-nerd and The Other Christy comes this completely inside out, crazy tale of a very reluctant hero who might just find out he’s a natural born born loser – ahem – leader.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Oliver Phommavanh

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  To all my Hoco friends – Ross, Josh, Galway, Brown, Angelo and Jeff – who all survived school with me.

  ‘Gina! Can we please go now? I need to get to school,’ I moan, trying to drag my little sister away from a breakfast tea party with her dolls.

  She takes forever to get out of the house in the morning. Mum’s even tried putting her to bed in her school uniform to get a head start, but it doesn’t seem to help.

  It’s because Gina’s just started kindy, so Mum says she needs to get used to the routine. That won’t be ’til Year Four, at this rate.

  When we finally get to Barryjong Primary School, I quickly drop Gina with her kindy buddies and race to the oval. I’m relieved to see there aren’t too many playing soccer yet. If I’m on the field before most kids turn up, I’m less likely to get kicked off. Though the other kids at school usually let me play because my best friend is our team’s star striker, Zain Afrani.

  You see, I’m a natural born follower, from a family of followers. My dad followed his father from the Philippines to Australia – okay, so he didn’t have a choice because he was five back then, but he did follow in Grandpa’s footsteps and become a mechanic. Maybe someday I’ll walk in Dad’s footsteps, leaving a trail of motor oil behind me like he does.

  Thing is, I don’t actually like cars but maybe that won’t matter. I’d love to be a professional soccer player, like Zain does, but there’s one big problem – I’m hopeless at soccer. I just stand on the field and get in the way of other players – from both sides. They could replace me with a traffic cone.

  ‘Yo, RayBee!’ Zain yells. It’s short for Raymond B and the B is short for Bulanhagui, but nobody bothers to say that, including the teachers.

  Zain’s doing some soccer tricks in front of the little kids. They worship his skills and love his wild, braided hair. It looks like he’d be more at home among the coral of the Great Barrier Reef.

  Zain passes the ball to me. ‘You wanna start a game?’

  I kick the ball back to him. It’s probably the last time I’ll ever touch the ball this morning. I count seven kids. ‘Nah, let’s wait for more players.’

  ‘We have enough.’ Zain’s face is already glazed with sweat. It’s going to be another scorcher. You don’t need to check the weather forecast in the first week back at school. It’s either hot, extremely hot, or cloudy with a chance of fireballs.

  ‘Come on, you can be a team captain,’ Zain says.

  Zain whistles and brings everyone together.

  ‘Right, it’s RayBee’s team versus Zain, the giant from Ghana!’ he says. A few kids crack up. He could actually beat us on our own. ‘Go on, Raymond, you choose first.’

  ‘Okay.’ I point at Bilal.

  Bilal squirms in his shoes. ‘Don’t pick me, Raymond.’

  ‘But I already did.’

  ‘Then un-pick me.’ He kicks up a mini dust storm. ‘I want to be on Team Zain.’

  I pull down my hat a little tighter. ‘Um …’

  Zain brings Bilal over to his side. ‘All right, you can join me. Raymond, you can choose the next two.’

  I point my finger at all the other kids and they get out of the way, like I’m holding a water pistol filled with sweet chilli sauce. I put my hand down.

  ‘I’ll just take Jazmine and Henry.’

  Jazmine and Henry drop their shoulders. ‘We wanna join Zain’s team too.’

  ‘Come on, we still have a chance to win,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ Jazmine says.

  ‘Well, no, but …’

  Jazmine skips over to Zain’s side, and Henry follows her.

  Zain waves his arms. ‘That’s it. Raymond chooses the next three kids.’

  I bend down and aim at Felix. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Okay, RayBee!’ Felix runs towards me.

  ‘Finally, someone on my side,’ I say.

  ‘Pfft, he’s only in Year One,’ Bilal says. ‘He doesn’t care if he loses.’

  I’m melting underneath my hat as I turn to Zain. ‘Told ya it was a bad idea.’

  Zain holds up his hand. ‘Okay, let me choose the teams then.’

  He divides us into half and we start playing. We should have done that in the first place. There’s no goalies in a game this small, so I just hang towards the back of the goal, waiting for the ball. There’s no way I’ll be scoring goals like Zain – or Michael Kola, the captain of our favourite team, the Western Wizards.

  Zain breaks free from Isaac and Jazmine and rushes towards me.

  Bilal, who’s ended up on my team after all, barks at me, ‘Get him!’

  I charge towards Zain’s legs but he becomes a blur, passing through me like a ghost. He shoots the ball and scores. Bilal shakes his head. ‘Some captain you are.’

  I lower my head. That’s just it – I’m no captain or leader. Just a follower. A team player. That usually works out for me. Except when nobody wants to be on my team.

  Zain’s team beats us, 5–1 before the bell rings. We got on the board because Felix did his best monster pose and spooked Jazmine out. Bilal managed to steal the ball and score. So at least I’m not a total loser. We all head off to morning assembly under the big shelter and I stand with Zain and Bilal in 6S. There was a time when the whole school couldn’t fit, but each year there seems to be less kids. There’s only about three hundred of us now.

  Russell Carney walks past us, elbowing anybody who looks at him, which is everyone because he sticks out like bindies on the field. He’s another reason why I don’t play touch footy, because the game always turns into tackle footy whenever he plays. He’s been suspended more times than anybody else here combined – and that’s a lot these days. He’s on his final, this-is-it warning, but that was with our last principal. No wonder he gets away with so much, our school keeps changing principals. It’s kids like him that make people scared of Barryjong Primary.

  We’re waiting for Mrs Huynh to come on stage. She’s our stand-in principal. I know how that feels, since I’m usually a stand-in soccer player. I’m still gutted about this morning’s game. Why did Zain have to make me captain? He knows that I’m a nobody on the field. I just like being out there, with Zain and the
other soccer nuts. A good game for me is when I don’t stuff up.

  A man who looks like a wrestler, walks onto the stage like he’s stepping into a ring. Okay, so maybe he’s a retired wrestler because he’s chubby, but he’s also tall so it hides all his fat. He brushes some breadcrumbs from his beard as he walks up to the microphone.

  ‘Good morning, Barryjong, I’m your new principal, Mr Humble.’

  Mr Humble steps back, like he’s waiting for some applause. A few kindy kids cry but that’s it. He should have brought a giant bag of mixed lollies to throw, like our last principal, Mrs Benson. She accidently hit a kid with a gobstopper. Those lollies lasted longer than she did.

  Mr Humble smiles. ‘I don’t want to speak too long because of the heat, so I’ll be popping into all the classes to say hello.’ Then he dismisses us.

  Randa, one of the few surviving nerds here at Barryjong, walks alongside us to class, writing something in her notebook.

  ‘I bet he lasts a week, maybe two,’ she says.

  Zain flexes his arms. ‘He looks buff. Maybe he can tame the bullymons at this school.’

  ‘That is such a dumb word for bullies,’ Randa says with disgust.

  ‘Bullies or bullymon, we’ve still gotta avoid them all,’ I say.

  At that moment, our teacher, Miss Saxena comes up behind and taps me on the shoulder, making me jump in the air.

  ‘Hi, Raymond,’ she says, ‘How’s your mum?’

  ‘She’s good, Miss,’ I say, cringing a little at what she’s about to say next.

  ‘Ah … I can still remember her bubbly face.’ She looks at me. ‘You both have that great big gummy smile.’

  ‘Um, thanks Miss.’ I hope she doesn’t put that on my report card, I think, as Zain cracks up beside me, as usual. It’s bad enough that Mum also went to Barryjong, but now I have her teacher. Miss Saxena’s been at Barryjong for thirty-five years. I’ve seen her in Mum’s photos and she looked old back then.

  We step into our demountable classroom that’s already been nicely pre-heated to four hundred degrees. It does have air con but it’s so old, I’m sure it pumps out hot air, not cold, and rattles so much we can barely hear Miss Saxena. There’s only enough room for one old relic, so the air con stays off and we use ‘manual’ air conditioning – opening the windows. Hilarious.

  We sit at our tables and Miss Saxena starts us off with Maths. I take out my book and my arm’s already sticking to the page with sweat. I stare out the open window, wishing for a breeze that would whisk me away to somewhere cool, like Antarctica, where we could ride polar bears and kick a soccer ball around with the penguins.

  Randa clicks her fingers in front of me and shatters my icy dream. ‘Get to work, Raymond, I want our table to get some points.’ She’s onto her third question. ‘Sometimes I wonder why Miss put me on this table with you guys.’

  Zain points to himself. ‘So you’ll be cool like us, Randa Panda.’

  Randa grinds her teeth. That nickname cuts her deep. I actually think she’s looks pretty with her puffy cheeks sticking out of her olive-green hijab, but she’s also pretty scary.

  ‘Get real, In-Zain Brain,’ Randa sends back.

  Zain takes out his hacky sack and uses his elbows to keep it in the air.

  ‘What did I say yesterday? No soccer in the classroom,’ Miss Saxena says from behind her desk.

  ‘Don’t worry, Miss, this isn’t a ball.’ Zain squeezes his hacky sack. ‘And it won’t break any windows either.’

  I lift my arm and my maths book comes with it.

  Zain leans over. ‘I dare you to stick the book on your forehead.’

  ‘I dare you to stick a pen between your armpits,’ I say.

  ‘Dared you first,’ Zain says.

  I snort out a laugh. Zain and I egg each other on to do silly stuff. Somehow I always end up doing his dares. I stick the book onto my glazed forehead. It holds there for a few seconds then falls onto my nose. I try again and this time it stays on.

  ‘Dare you to walk around,’ Zain says.

  There’s a knock on the door.

  ‘Good morning, 6S.’

  It’s Mr Humble. Maybe he won’t notice me if I sit still.

  He steps over and peels the book from my forehead. ‘That’s a new way of memorising maths formulas.’

  I close my book. ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  Zain becomes a shaken soft drink can, ready to burst out laughing.

  Wow, Mr Humble wasn’t kidding when he said he’d be dropping by. A principal usually only comes to class when someone’s in deep trouble.

  ‘Now, I know this school has got a terrible reputation,’ he says.

  ‘Are you here to fix up this place, Sir?’ I ask.

  Mr Humble nods. ‘And I need all of your help to do it. Who can tell me when Barryjong last had prefects?’

  Randa sticks her hand up, like it’s a reflex, which I guess it is when you always know the answers. ‘Three years ago, Sir. Brad and Lisa were our captains, Edward and Maggie were prefects.’

  ‘Until they got spooked out,’ Zain mutters.

  ‘A prefect badge is a perfect magnet for bullymons,’ I whisper back.

  Brad and Lisa were teacher’s pets and soon became roadkill on the playground. A bunch of Level 100 bullymons kept chucking Brad’s shoes on the roof and started calling him Barefoot Brad. Whenever they hosted assemblies, everyone would talk so that Lisa’s soft squeaky voice wouldn’t have a chance of being heard. They both left school after a few weeks. The other prefects, Edward and Maggie were scared off too and handed back their prefect badges like they were radioactive.

  ‘I want a fresh start, so we need leaders at Barryjong,’ Mr Humble says. ‘I’m looking for Year Six students to try out for prefects.’

  The class erupts with chatter. Mr Humble holds his hand up and we all fall silent. He’s already got more power over us than the last three principals combined. ‘I’ll be having tryouts in my office at lunchtime from tomorrow. Good luck!’

  Mr Humble leaves the room and everyone goes back to yakking about prefects. Zain laughs. ‘Tryouts? Aren’t we supposed to vote for prefects?’

  I shrug. ‘Maybe he’s scared we’ll pick the wrong kids or some bullymons.’

  In between doing the Maths questions, Randa takes out her trusty notebook and scribbles in it. ‘I’m writing out my audition speech for Mr Humble,’ she says.

  ‘No way.’ Zain thumps his chest. ‘Well, I have dibs on school captain.’

  Randa cracks up. ‘In your dreams.’

  ‘You mean, in your nightmares,’ I say. ‘Remember what happened to Barefoot Brad?’

  Zain lifts his neon-orange soccer boots onto the table. ‘If bullymons like Russell Carney touched these, I’d leave a few stud-shaped holes in their chest.’

  ‘Boys like Carn-age play rugby, he’d snap your legs like paddle-pop sticks,’ Randa says, pushing Zain’s shoes off the table. ‘Mr Humble wants somebody with brains. I’ll give him a ten-point plan to improve Barryjong.’

  Randa is a crazy planner. I worked with her on a project last year and she did the work of five people. She was her own personal assistant, so I didn’t do much. I reckon she’s got dibs on being both school captains and all the prefects in one.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Zain leaps out of his chair. ‘I’m going there with a hundred-goal plan.’

  ‘You can both be school captains anyway,’ I say.

  Zain grins. ‘Yeah, I’ll make this place cool again.’

  Mum’s told me that Barryjong was cool back in her day. That would be something to see again. Randa’s looking up at us and writing at the same time. She loves showing off like that. ‘I’ll be knocking down Mr Humble’s door at lunch tomorrow.’

  Zain chews on his pencil. ‘I’ll fly-kick his door down.’ He nudges me. ‘Come be a prefect with me.’

  ‘Really?’ I say.

  ‘Stick with me and we’ll be running this school.’

  ‘I dunno man.’

  Zain leans
closer. ‘I dare you …’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ I say.

  ‘I dare you to think harder,’ Zain says.

  ‘Maybe when it’s cooler.’

  I stare back out the window. Could I really be a prefect? In my head, I run through all the kids in both Year Six classes. There are so many popular or smarter kids who are better than me. I think about this morning’s soccer game. If nobody wants me to lead a soccer team, how could I help to lead the whole school?

  Whoever invented the air conditioner must be the coolest person in the world. No seriously, they deserve a million gold medals. Nothing beats the summer heat better than being in a house with air con, even if I have to share it with my annoying cousin, Kayla.

  Okay, I’m actually over at her house with Mum and Gina, so she’s sharing it with us. Mum says she wants to catch up with Auntie Angelica, but I think she wants the air con as well. I don’t blame her. We’re always visiting our neighbour, Mr Lee, to use his swimming pool. The kids in the neighbourhood call him Mr Wee, because he lets us use the pool, and the little kids sometimes use it as a toilet too, like Gina.

  I squeeze around the moving boxes in Kayla’s room to pick up her tablet. ‘Do you have wi-fi yet?’

  Kayla shakes her head. ‘Dad says we’ll get it soon. We only moved in last week.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ I say.

  ‘New Zealand or Singapore.’ Kayla shrugs. ‘I’ll find out when I skype him tonight.’

  Uncle Irwin’s a project manager who travels for work. He’s on a plane so often that Gina thinks he’s a pilot.

  I lie down on her floor and stare up at the ceiling. There’s nothing to do. But at least I’m not in a puddle of sweat back at home.