Bugs Read online

  I reach out to a wall and trace the black ink from name to picture.

  One day when all the walls are really full, he’ll move on to the ceiling. Who knows if it will be a masterpiece? All we know for certain is that it will be wiped away and painted over as soon as Jez is gone. And that sucks, and thinking about it makes me, I don’t know, angry. But what can I do about it?

  So I’m on my knees pulling at his duvet, looking under his pillow.

  ‘B, what are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the pen.’

  ‘It’s on the floor.’

  I lean down from the bed head first and grab the Vivid. I stand up on the bed a little dizzy from the head rush, so I steady myself with an arm against the wall and my legs astride Jez and write Jez Was Here in very big letters above his head.

  Permanent impermanence.

  It cracks me up and I lose my footing and fall over on the bed. I forgot to put the lid back on the pen so I’ve drawn a big, black line down my face. I’m still laughing as Jez puts my head in his lap. He traces the line with his thumb, and the rest of his fingers cup my chin.

  ‘You’re a mess.’

  He wipes my cheek again and again, but it is too soft and too slow to budge the ink. It is something else and I’m not sure …

  We’re startled by the sudden change in volume, the snap back into reality, as the door opens.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’ The Cock is at the door. ‘You’ve been in here long enough. I thought something would have happened between you and your girlfriend by now.’

  ‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

  Jez has a look on his face like I’ve dropped him in it. The Cock laughs.

  ‘Having trouble, eh, Jez? You want some tips? I know what chicks like: ask your mother.’

  ‘Get out of my room ha-VOCK.’

  ‘Hey. Remember who pays the rent around here.’

  ‘Mum does.’

  I kind of hold my breath. Jez doesn’t usually push this far, not when the Cock has been drinking since the afternoon. The Cock balls up his hand and for a second I think he’s going to hit Jez, but he smashes the wall above his head. Fucking nutter walks off laughing.

  Jez grabs my wrist. ‘C’mon, we’re out of here.’

  We climb out his window, and in the cold, fresh air I realise that I’m not drunk any more.

  We walk down the hill towards the river, leaving the throb, throb, throb of Jez’s place behind. We cross over the control gate bridge and onto the domain. We sit down on the bank and look back across the river. It’s too quiet now; my ears are ringing.

  It sucks. If the world was fair, Jez would have been born somewhere, I don’t know, chill. He would have been born to someone who recognised his talent, sent him to classes, bought him supplies. But I guess if the world were different Jez would be too. If he had been that guy, would he even be my friend? If he were that guy we wouldn’t be sitting here now.

  ‘Would’ve been funny if he hit a stud, eh?’

  Jez sort of smiles and shakes his head. ‘Nothing about that was funny.’

  ‘Nah. I’m sorry.’

  I reach out and grab his hand. It’s sort of shaking. ‘Jez, are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, just … I’ll walk you home.’

  He lets go of my hand to push himself up and then he offers it to me again. ‘C’mon.’

  We walk together hand in hand and I’m sort of wigging out because we’ve held hands before, you know, helping each other up and stuff, but this is different. It’s like holding hands now means something, so I kind of don’t want to but I can’t let go because Jez has enough problems and I don’t want to be one of them.

  We’re walking the long way round – past the domain and the Great Lake Centre, past our playground and on to the lakefront. In the dark you can’t really see the mountains, but you know they’re there. In this place you can’t escape them. I reckon tourists who sit here and look at the mountains, who wonder when they might erupt, forget about the crater in front of them. Yes, the big fuck-off volcano that we’re standing on. Just because it has been asleep for so long they think it will never wake. But we know different, us locals. We know that it still smoulders. We know that it is alive. If you look you can see proof of life everywhere. The steam hole down by Tauhara Primary, an open sore weeping sulphur fumes. The ancient trees, burnt black and toppled over away from the blast, exposed under the soil when the banks are cut away for new roads. The weird contrast of the cold water of the lakefront and the warmth beneath your toes when you dig them into the lake bed. If your swim has frozen you, stick your cold feet on the belly of the sleeping giant – I’m sure he won’t mind.

  I shiver and sniff, which wrinkles my nose. ‘We should get a hot chocolate.’

  So we go to Maccas and get some hot chocolate with those little marshmallows. I insist that we sit on the plane, even though we haven’t been up there for like five years or something. We used to love the plane as kids; it was cool – a whole, real aeroplane that you could sit and eat your dinner in. After you’d finished your burger or nuggets or whatever you could pretend to be the pilot and fly the sucker across the sky, if only the damn thing wasn’t bolted to the ground. Oh, and an engine would probably have helped too.

  Jez and I sit at one of the tables. We can see the car park out of one of the tiny plane windows. I take the lid off my hot chocolate so it cools down a little. Jez looks at me.

  ‘It’s hot.’

  ‘That’s why they call it “hot chocolate”, B.’

  ‘No shit.’

  I blow on my hot chocolate. Jez is still looking at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve still got pen on your face.’

  I put my hand up to my cheek and rub until it burns. ‘You let me go up to the counter.’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’

  ‘No wonder that guy was staring.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jez laughs and although I want to hit him, it’s good to see him smiling again so I just let him laugh at me.

  The security light almost blinds us as we walk up my driveway. Mum’s not home, not that I expected her to be until morning. Since I turned fourteen and have been able to be at home by myself she’s been taking on more hours. Sometimes, when I’m feeling paranoid, I think it’s because she’s avoiding me, but I try not to think about that too much because really it’s awesome for me. Like tonight, I got to hang with Jez; just hang. If Mum were around we probably would have done something G or PGR – a DVD and fish and chips and tucked up in bed by ten.

  Sarge greets us with a gruff-wuff and wags his little stub tail. Sarge loves Jez too. I turn to lock the gate and Jez stops me.

  ‘I’m off home.’

  ‘You should stay here.’

  ‘Nah, I’ll just go.’

  ‘You can sleep on the couch.’

  ‘And freak your mum when she gets in?’

  I want to say that he can sleep in my room. We’ve done it heaps before. When we were little we used to top and tail – Far! Your feet stink! When we got older Jez would sleep on the floor next to the bed – Door open! Mum would say. But tonight it feels different somehow, so the couch is the best I’ve got.

  Jez nods his head towards the road. ‘I better go, eh?’

  I climb the steps to the back door. Jez waits until I’m inside, like I could get raped right there on the doorstep. I shut the door behind me and turn on the lights as I pass like I’m leaving a trail of breadcrumbs. I should have made him stay; who knows what kind of mess his place is in. Then I remember the rabbit’s paw. He should have it, for luck.

  ‘Wait!’

  It’s in my room still wrapped up like a present. I grab it, knocking the wooden box on my bookcase to the floor, and run to the back door. He’s gone, so I run to the ranch slider in the lounge – but I can’t see him on the street. He has been wiped clean, painted over; gone.

  5

  Even if you’ve never been to a life skills class you can tell it’s dumb because of the name
s we’ve given it on our folders. It’s impossible to write those two words without taking the piss. English is always just ‘English’, maths is maths, chem is chem … pretty much the same for every class except life skills. Life Skills, how do I mock thee? Let me count the ways.

  So the vanilla kids go for ‘life skillz’ because they think that ‘z’ makes it street or whatever but they won’t get in trouble with the teacher because, I don’t know, they could say they’re dyslexic or some such bull.

  Those emo ones, you know the ones, the sad bunch sitting in the corner: the ones whose ice cream always falls off their cone. They go for ‘life sucks’, which makes the teachers worried enough to keep an eye on them because they’ve fallen for the theatrics. But that’s stupid, because if you’re gonna do it, you know, actually do it, you just would, wouldn’t you? Not pretend to in maths by scratching up your arm with an old compass.

  The teachers should really keep their eye on that other kid. You know the one, the quiet one. There’s one every year. The one with ‘life = nil’. That’s the serious suicidal mo-fo; that’s the one with the real ‘issues’, I reckon. That’s the one who’s rocky road.

  Me? I’ve gone for ‘mad skills’ because I do.

  ‘All right, all right, settle down, yes?’ says Mr Dumble – his

  actual name, I shit you not. He’s bald – he shaved the lot off when it was clear that it wasn’t growing back. He still has sideburns, though: two strips of hair at the side of his face going nowhere. And the thing that gets me is that it isn’t an accident because they are perfect little rectangles, so he’s got to be clipping or shaving those things into shape. What’s going on in his head when he looks in the mirror in the morning and trims them? He can’t possibly think he looks normal, right? To make it worse, he has a wart at the end of his nose, just like a cartoon witch. Sometimes he gets it burnt off, so he has a plaster there. But the wart always grows back. Maybe if you have to deal with that, sideburns to nowhere do look OK. Who knows, maybe there’s something worse he’s hiding under there.

  Mr Dumble is all right. He’s never really given me any shit. That makes him OK. He does annoy me sometimes, though. Who doesn’t bug Bugs? He’s one of those teachers who writes stuff on the board and makes us sing-song the words. You know, because we have to be there, we have to be listening, absorbing … what does he say? Yeah, that we must be engaged if we’re repeating after him. Like life can be learnt by rote: ‘Girl plus boy equals baby, girl plus baby equals responsibility, girl plus responsibility equals no fun, girl plus no fun equals …’ Mum. God, how did I get back to her? Anyway, the board thing pisses me off because there’s this little thing inside of me that knows it’s a trick, that he’s setting up a trap for us, because the answer cannot just be on the board, can it? There’s got to be more than that. I don’t know, I’m used to having to fight for an answer, to spending some time figuring it out because then it makes sense, don’t you think?

  If you’re an English or maths teacher at least you’re teaching something useful. Like we’re ever gonna do trust exercises or those silly ‘getting to know you’ games in the real world.

  Can you imagine suits trying to figure out how the ‘farmer’ can get the fox, goose and grain across the river without them eating each other? Do businessmen do trust falls at work? I think not.

  Sometimes I feel sorry that he ended up with this gig. I mean, life skills teacher? Seems to me that to be a life skills teacher all you need is a whole lot of Post-its and markers and boring little stories about yourself. When we first got Mr Dumble, he spent ages telling us this pointless story about how when he was a kid he wanted to be part of the Commonwealth Games. Not as an athlete or anything; he wanted to be part of the opening ceremony at the Games they had here. Not here, it was in Christchurch before it got wrecked. Way before it got wrecked. I asked Mum about it – if she had gone when she was a kid – and she just looked at me and said I wasn’t even born then, Bugs. So yeah, that’s how ancient Mr Dumble’s story is. Dusty, creaky ol’ story to tell the kids. Awesome. So he’s telling his story about how he really wanted to get in the Games and he entered a competition or whatever and he didn’t win – Loser – but because he worked so ‘hard’ putting stamps on envelopes or something, his dad bought him a ticket to the opening ceremony – which was just as good as being in the ceremony, yes? And what is that story supposed to teach us? If you want it enough and if your dad is rich, he’ll get it for you? While he was going blah, blah, blah, boo-hoo, blah, blah, yay, Jez drew this picture of him with a full-on beard and flowing robes. Underneath he wrote ‘Dumble-bore’. Classic. We were cracking up, and of course Sir went, Oh ho ho! If it is so funny, share it with the class, yes? and he took Jez’s picture and kind of went bright red and just ripped the paper up, really calmly. He ripped it down the middle and then put the pieces together and ripped again, and again, and again. So him and Jez didn’t get off to a good start. And now Sir’s always looking to rip on Jez, no matter what he does.

  ‘You’ve been given the course selection for next year, yes?’ It cracks me up that Mr Dumble always finishes his sentences like this, like he’s asking us for approval or something. ‘Today we’ll be looking at our five-year plans again, yes? So we can make the very important decisions for next year, yes?’ He looks at Jez. ‘Decisions that will affect the rest of your life, yes?’

  He says it like he’s a priest or something; like there’s fire and brimstone in the words affect the rest of your life, because we’re doomed by our decisions. The funny thing is that we already know that, because everyone has been telling us that since we got to school. It’s their carrot and their stick. Assuming you like carrots.

  ‘What’s a five-year plan?’ Stone Cold has her head lying on the table. She sits next to Jez, who sits next to me. Three to a table in life skills, which I guess has worked out for us. Who am I kidding? Even if it was two to a table Stone Cold would have found a way to weasel herself a space at our table. The tables circle the room. Mr Dumble likes it like this; he reckons the tables are much ‘friendlier’ this way.

  ‘It’s a plan. For the next five years.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha. You’re right Jez, Bugs is sooo funny.’

  ‘Divide your page up into five, write each year in the margin and then in the rest of it write what you’re going to do for that year.’

  ‘Who the fuck knows what they’re going to do in the future?’

  ‘B does, she’s got it all planned out.’

  ‘Do you? Let me have a look.’ I hide my page from Stone Cold with my arm. ‘What? I’m not going to copy you. Like I’d copy your life.’ What she really means is why would I want your life. ‘I just wanted to see how you had done it. Besides, my olds have already got my life planned out for me. School, then uni to study law …’

  ‘That’s what B is gonna be. A lawyer.’

  ‘Really.’ Stone Cold draws the word out like she can’t make sense of what he’s said. I’d be pissed at her if I hadn’t heard the same thing from everyone else I’ve told. ‘Why do you want to be a lawyer?’

  ‘So she can be rich as, eh, B?’

  ‘No.’ I pick the edge of the paper in front of me.

  ‘Then why?’ I know Stone Cold will just keep on and on at me if I don’t answer.

  ‘Justice. I believe in justice, OK?’

  ‘Calm down Atticus Finch, it was just a question.’

  ‘You’ll defend me, eh, if I get in trouble?’

  I know Jez’s joking but it is so easy to imagine him stuck in a cell, ringing me up in the middle of the night like they do on TV – B, I’ve been arrested. Maybe it’s superstitious, but even just mentioning it makes me think it is a little step closer to becoming true.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Big shot, eh, B? Forget all about your mates when you get to the top?’

  ‘If I had to defend you that would make you an idiot, and I’m not mates with idiots.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  I hate it
when Jez does that, making out that he’s dumb. He’s drawing away at something; I can’t see because he’s hunched over the desk facing Stone Cold and his shoulder’s in the way. Mr Dumble is doing the rounds – stopping at each table, ‘helping’. He’s is only two tables away, so I slide Jez’s plan in front of him. Jez looks at me and I raise my eyebrows in Mr Dumble’s direction. Jez puts the plan over his drawing and at least pretends to be ‘planning’. Stone Cold doesn’t even do that.

  ‘God this is boring.’ She pulls out a magazine, one of those big glossy ones, a Cosmo or Marie Claire or something – a ‘grown-up’ one anyway, the kind that tells you about blow jobs and what to wear to the office rather than whether or not you like a boy enough to kiss him with tongues and how to pop a pimple properly, because Stone Cold reckons she’s sophisticated. Like a secretary that gives good head is sophisticated.

  I should probably warn her that the teacher is on his way around, but I reckon anything that takes the heat off Jez has got to be a good thing.

  ‘How are we getting along here, yes?’ Mr Dumble says ‘we’ like he’s one of us, like he’s ‘part of the gang’. And yes, he has said that without any hint of irony. ‘Now, uh, Charmaine, yes? I don’t think it’s appropriate to be reading those now, yes?’

  ‘But it is Sir.’ How is she going to wriggle out of this? ‘Because I’m a very visual person, so this plan thing would be better for me if I could, like, picture what I want to be.’ Stone Cold flicks through the pages, past those secretaries in pencil skirts and see-through blouses, past a chick in a ballgown on a horse, past the lame photos of models pretending to be photographers. ‘Her, Sir. I want to be her.’ She points to a pouty, blond starlet, more famous for who she’s doing than what she’s doing.

  ‘You want to be like her, yes? An actress, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A thespian, yes?’

  ‘No, I like boys.’

  Jez and me crack up: it’s impossible not to.