Bugs Read online

Mr Dumble goes bright red. ‘All right then, carry on, yes?’ And he legs it to the next table.

  ‘Seriously.’ I’m laughing so much it doesn’t sound serious at all.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You want to be an actress?’

  ‘Yes. Why do you think I take drama?’

  ‘I dunno; because it’s easy credits?’

  ‘Oh, that’s typical. People have no idea how difficult it is for those of us in the arts.’

  I crack up again. I mean, seriously?

  She does that fucking chin tilt and says, ‘People like you just can’t appreciate …’

  People like me? It’s not all ha ha jokes any more. It’s serious, so I say each word slow and calm. ‘You’ll be a good actress – because you’re such a drama queen.’

  Stone Cold does her best to stare me out, but I’ve gone toe to toe with your mother, bitch, and she’s a master. And Jez’s pencil just goes shh shh shh as he shades in his picture, trying not to be piggy in the middle.

  So I do what Jez does – just go back to work and ignore her. Which is hard to do when she flicks the pages of her magazine so loudly – how can you amp up paper turning? They must teach you that when you become a Hollywood.

  ‘Jez?’ She stretches out the ‘e’ in his name like a whining two-stroke engine.

  ‘Yup?’

  ‘When’s your birthday?’

  ‘Why? Do you want to buy me a present? I’ll have a phone like B’s, thanks.’

  She taps her magazine. ‘No, I want to know your star sign. Do you know what you are?’

  Jez looks at her and I know what he’s going to say because he’s said it a million times before. And I want to stop him, tell him no one thinks it’s funny, but he smiles and says, ‘I’m a Jedi.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘May the fourth be with you.’

  She giggles and it is so annoying that I want to slap the both of them – her for making that sound and him for starting her off.

  ‘So that makes you … Taurus? From the shape of your hands I thought you’d be an air sign.’

  Jez kind of balls up his hands. He’s got this thing about them: thinks they’re too long and skinny, too girly – and now she’s calling them airy-fairy. He pulls the sleeves down on his jersey and pretends that it’s just cool like that, but I know he’s hiding them.

  ‘What’s wrong with my hands?’

  ‘Nothing. They’re just, like, artistic? And I’d expect earth signs to have, I don’t know, earthy hands, y’know? Like for digging or something.’

  Jez looks at his hands and kind of nods like he’s trying on the fit of her words like a pair of gloves. ‘You fully into this stuff? Star signs and shit?’

  ‘Oh yeah, astrology, Chinese astrology, tarot. Anything that’s about the truth, really.’

  I can’t stop the laugh from escaping, but I manage to disguise it as a cough. Not that either of them is paying attention to me anyway. Stone Cold is telling Jez what he’s supposed to be like as a Taurus. And yeah, he’s steady and stable and stubborn, but I bet if he said he was a Gemini, or a give-way sign, she could find things that he is in them too – like he’s patient and lets others go before him, especially if they are going straight ahead. See how easy that was?

  ‘So, Taurus – it says, “Be an expert at one thing. Focus on what you love and master it.”’ She kind of looks at him side on, her eyelids lowered and a flirty smile on her lips. It’s pathetic, really.

  Jez is sketching. He looks at Stone Cold and then back down at the paper, then back up and down. I still can’t see what he’s drawing but now I can guess and it makes me feel … I don’t know what I feel, but I don’t like it.

  Stone Cold is still yammering on about her oogie-boogie hocus-pocus. ‘So the calendar is different? It starts in March, which means Aries comes first – so I guess I’m a leader, y’know, naturally. And I’m a fire sign, which makes me … passionate.’ She bites her lip like the webcam porno queen that she’ll become. I ‘cough’ again and break her spell.

  ‘Do B,’ steady, stable, stubborn Jez says. ‘I want to know what she’s like.’

  ‘You know what I’m like.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Just let her do it.’

  ‘When is your birthday?’ She kind of acts like those wise women you see in the movies: all she needs is a turban and a tent made out of saris.

  ‘I’m a Leo.’

  ‘Oh.’ She likes to stretch her vowels, this one. ‘That explains a lot.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You and me: fire signs.’ She moves her hands like she’s thrown some eye of newt and toe of frog in her cauldron and BOOM they’ve exploded. I want to say No, the reason we don’t get along is because you’re a bitch, but Jez is nodding his head. ‘So true, so true.’

  And really, if you’re the only sane person in the asylum, doesn’t that make you the crazy one?

  Stone Cold leans on Jez. ‘Good thing we’ve got you to ground us.’ And they’re all chummy chummy and I’m left at the end of the table, cut off by Jez’s steady, stable, stubborn shoulder.

  ‘Tell B what it says.’ So he does remember I’m here.

  ‘OK, Leo … “You have a strong visual strength. Use it for remembering, imagining and seeing”.’

  So my forecast is that I have eyes and I can use them for seeing. Awesome; there’s no way I could have figured that shit out on my own.

  Stone Cold looks at me. ‘So it’s your birthday soon then?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jez answers before I do. ‘Nineteenth of August, eh?’

  ‘Are you having a party?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be planning your lives, not parties, yes?’ Mr Dumble: I’d forgotten about him. ‘The magazine, Charmaine, yes?’

  Mr Dumble stands with his hand out waiting for the magazine, which Stone Cold is holding onto tightly. Jez covers his drawing with his arm, trying not to make any sudden movements that would attract Mr Dumble’s attention away from Stone Cold.

  ‘Sir, it’s Bugs’ birthday soon.’

  ‘And many happy returns to you Bugs, yes? But today we must focus on the future, yes?’

  ‘That’s what we’re doing, Sir.’ Stone Cold is pushing it. ‘We were checking out our star signs, seeing what the future holds for us.’

  ‘The future for you will be detention if you don’t give me that magazine, yes?’

  I widen my eyes at her, trying to get her to see that if she just gave him the stupid magazine he’d leave us alone and go away. But she thinks it’s a sign of solidarity.

  ‘But Sir …’ She nods at us, and suddenly we’re her accessories. ‘I could read your forecast for this month …’ She still holds the magazine, but she knows she’s lost, so she folds it shut.

  Mr Dumble takes it from her. ‘Thank you, yes?’ But he’s not finished with us yet. He stands in front of Jez. ‘This is your five-year plan, yes?’

  ‘Once again you seem to have mistaken my class for art, yes?’ Mr Dumble takes Jez’s sketch from him and holds it up. ‘Look class. This is what Mr Muka plans to do for the next five years, yes?’

  The class laughs because it sounds dirty, even if Mr Dumble didn’t mean it that way. Stone Cold blushes like she actually feels shame.

  Jez is shamed; his head hangs down – but it shouldn’t. It should be held high because it’s good, it’s really art. And not just because it looks like her – who else could it be with that big-arse mouth and that big-arse hair? Because it has something else – a truth to it, that page. Yes, there’s Stone Cold but there’s also Jez. I reckon that’s what artists do. They don’t just reproduce the world, they let you see it through their eyes.

  And through Jez’s, I have to admit, Stone Cold looks beautiful.

  Mr Dumble is enjoying his moment performing for the class. He struts around the tables like a ringmaster – Roll up! Roll up! Pay a dollar to see the freak show!

  ‘I think, Mr Muka,’ Mr Dumble says, at the board now, hanging up Jez’s sketch,
‘That you ought to have an exhibition, yes? So the rest of the school can appreciate your work, yes?’

  And Mr Dumble stands there, leaning against the board with his arms folded, smiling at Jez as the rest of the cunts in here laugh and whoop and clap. And fuck, that bell can’t come fast enough.

  Shame is what this school runs on man, it’s like currency. And twenty-seven other mouths just won Lotto: it’s payday for life skills. So it’s no surprise that by the time we’ve walked from the classroom, across the courtyard and to the common room, people are laughing at us. Well, that’s what it seems like anyway. And Jez can’t handle it, having all this attention; it makes him jittery and weird. Stone Cold is lapping it up I reckon, but pretending to be hurt.

  ‘It’s so unfair that Mr Dumble did that to us, I mean, you, Jez.’

  There are other seniors in the common room: free period, wagging or whatever. A couple guys from Jez’s team are in the corner. They raise their eyebrows at him and Jez nods back, and then they start laughing.

  ‘I’m outta here.’

  So off Jez goes, and me and Stone Cold go after him. Me to try and talk to him. Her? Who knows.

  He walks out past the drama room and those trees planted for some kids who died ages ago and the sports courts and on to the field. He walks fast, man; it’s hard to keep up. I guess he does training, and what do me and Stone Cold do? Sarcasm and theatrics aren’t really good cardio, are they? At the end of the field Jez just stops. He leans against one of the trees that ring the field and just looks out towards town.

  A couple more steps and he’d be out of school grounds. A couple more steps and we’d be wagging properly. I bend over with the stitch. ‘Jez, man. It’s OK; who cares what Mr Dumble says. He doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘Yeah he does.’ Jez’s voice is steady, not out of breath at all. ‘He’s right. That is what I want to do.’ Jez realises what he’s said and looks at Stone Cold and they both blush. Pathetic.

  ‘I mean drawing and shit. That’s what I want to do.’

  ‘Why didn’t you take art, then?’

  ‘Far, B. You know why.’

  ‘Fuck your mum.’

  ‘Yeah, right. When was the last time you said that to Nikki?’

  ‘I say it to my mum …’ Stone Cold just has to be involved. ‘All the time.’

  We both look at her, and I can tell that Jez is thinking the same thing as me: Yeah, that’s because you’re a spoilt little shit.

  ‘You can take it next year.’

  ‘I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Waste of time for me, eh? I should just get a job.’ He starts laughing – not properly though; that weird laugh people do when they’re actually sad. ‘She wanted me to learn te reo, eh? But not to get to know where I came from or anything, not for me, eh? But because she reckoned tourists would like it.’

  ‘Good thing you’re too dumb to learn it then, eh?’ I say it not to be mean but to crack him up, but he’s not in the mood. He just looks at me like I’ve put the boot in. ‘Jokes, Jez, eh?’

  ‘Yeah, jokes.’

  But we’re not that happy. We’re just standing here all awkward and silent, and I want to lean against the tree with Jez but I think I’ve broken something between us. So Stone Cold pipes up, because apparently she’s one of those people who are afraid of quiet and need to yap yap yap to fill the gaps.

  ‘When I was about ten, my best friend Cara and me egged this guy’s house. Because he’d kissed her mum, and her olds were going to break up? So we threw some eggs, and Cara started crying so I had to finish it.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Because it helped, Bugs. Her parents stayed together.’

  ‘Because you egged some random guy’s house?’

  ‘Maybe. I dunno. It helped.’

  I smile at Jez – ‘Fuckin’ dumb idea’ – but he’s nodding.

  Oh shit.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he says. ‘Let’s egg my place.’

  ‘Jez, it’s dumb. How’s it going to help?’

  ‘Justice, B.’

  There’s a silence because I don’t know what to do when my words are thrown back at me.

  Stone Cold looks at me and then Jez and then at me again. ‘Anyway, me and Jez don’t need your help.’

  ‘Yes you do, because you’re both retarded. Jez, you’ll get in trouble …’

  ‘So?’ Stone Cold says it like she’s a big man now. ‘Oooh scary, trouble.’

  ‘You have no idea. He’s not gonna get his phone taken away, or be grounded …’

  ‘Fuck. And you call me a drama queen.’ Stone Cold steps over the boundary and waits on the footpath. ‘Are we going to do this or what?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jez pushes off the tree and jumps to the footpath, suddenly excited like a little kid. ‘Let’s do it.’

  They just walk off, and I can’t let them do it because it’s suicide, man, and someone’s got to talk them down. Someone’s got to be reasonable; someone’s got to be his conscience – his Jiminy Frickin’ Cricket – and I guess it’s got to be me.

  But they’re up, up. Sometimes people just need an idea, a plan to get them juiced. So we’re down the hill into town and into the supermarket before I can organise my arguments. They pretend to be ninjas stalking silently through the aisles – at least they would be silent if they’d stop giggling. Yes, giggling. Even Jez. It’s like they’re drunk – have you tried to talk sense to a drunk?

  I never noticed how many different eggs there are in a supermarket before. Jez is looking at each shelf as if he’s looking for a diamond or something.

  ‘We should get free-range.’ She’s got to be kidding, right?

  ‘But they cost heaps,’ Jez says, checking the shelf tickets. ‘We could get a whole tray …’

  ‘But the free-range ones are better.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I’m leaning against the shelves, arms folded, trying to be a downer. ‘Because it’s really important that the eggs you waste are ethical.’

  ‘Actually, it is. Think about something other than yourself, Bugs.’

  And what can I do but crack up? Like that bitch can call me selfish?

  Jez counts the coins he has on him. ‘If we get those I can only get six.’

  ‘That’s OK: two each.’ Stone Cold looks at me. ‘Eh, Bugs? Because if you’re not going to help, I don’t know why you came along.’

  Help? Help? Like this plan will help anything. But fuck me, if that isn’t a challenge I don’t know what is, and she already has one on me. So it’s a dare then. So fuck it. I take that Jiminy Cricket me and I squash him, man, squash him under my foot as we walk across the control gate bridge.

  Jez has forgotten that he didn’t want her to see his place. This shame is not as great as his need to do something. We stand in a row: Jez, Stone Cold and me. Jez is kind of shaking his body like he’s warming himself up for a game, psyching himself up. Stone Cold opens the carton of eggs. She hands two to Jez and me like she’s giving us live grenades. The eggs feel cold in my hands. One of them has a feather stuck to it, and it reminds me what they really are. They’re not just food, they’re life – at least the potential for it.

  ‘Ready?’

  I breathe in and out and pull my arm back, and it feels like it’s all slow-mo. Like, if this was a movie we’d all be frozen and the camera would circle round filming each face up close …

  We throw the first volley and they hit so quickly, thwack, thwack, thwack, leaving a slimy smear of snot and yolk on Jez’s windows.

  Thwack, thwack – I still have my last one in my hand when the Cock comes outside. He looks as if he’s just got out of bed, even though it’s almost lunchtime.

  ‘What the fuck?’ The Cock looks at the egg running down the weatherboards. ‘You little cunts.’ And I drop my egg as we make a run for it.

  I haven’t run like this for years, not since I got boobs and running fast began to hurt. Stone Cold keeps pace wi
th me, running so hard I’m afraid her legs will snap, and her face is bright red. Adrenaline – fight or flight – has souped us up. Me and Stone Cold …

  I realise that Jez is not here. He’s the athlete, he should be …

  I stop and turn around. Stone Cold is a couple of metres ahead before she does the same. I see Jez, at the top of the street. He is facing away from me. He’s waiting for the Cock to catch up and when he does, Jez opens his arms like he’s saying, Just do it, just fucking do it.

  The Cock does, nailing Jez right in the face. Jez crumples down, arms still outstretched as he falls to his knees, and the Cock king hits him and he’s down, down.

  I can tell that Stone Cold is going to do something stupid and Hollywood, like calling out Jez’s name or throwing herself on him, taking the Cock’s kicks, so I grab her wrist and yank her away, leaving Jez the martyr to his fate.

  She’s a blubbering mess as we cross the bridge. ‘We should do something,’ she says. ‘Something to help.’

  Like she hasn’t ‘helped’ enough already.

  She grabs my arm, ‘Bugs …’

  ‘Fuck off, OK? We can’t do anything. We’ll just make it worse.’

  I just leave her there on the bridge because I swear if I turn around and see her ugly crying face again I’m gonna push her off and into the river.

  I keep walking, keep walking until I’m almost home and the adrenaline is making me fast, making me shaky. I try not to think about Jez, try not to get upset, get angry, start to cry because Jez wouldn’t. He’d just take it and be staunch as, so I will too.

  I hope Stone Cold went back to school or home or something; I hope she didn’t go back … but without me or Jez to back her up I don’t think she’d have the guts. I want to text her and ask but all my stuff is back at school, and if I go back now I’ll get snapped. Shit, if Mum’s at home I’ll get snapped too. Think up a good excuse to be home in the middle of the day: I forgot something, my stomach hurts … But the driveway is empty, so I’m safe for now. At the back gate I remember that my keys are back at school too, so I sit down, my back leaning against the gate, because it is all too much. But I’m not going to cry, I’m not. I get up because it’s useless being here. I decide to go back to school. The few minutes that it takes to walk there seem to stretch out to hours, and I’m freaked out on the inside but sweet as on the outside, and I just stroll through the front gates like it’s no big deal. And it’s not. I’m just going to my locker and grabbing my stuff. I’m just walking past my English class like I do all the time. I’m just walking out of school and down the road. It’s fine, I’m fine.