Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (10 page)

‘Yeah, I do … Weren't you one of them?'

‘That's totally beside the point, Ishmael. The thing is, it shows that Sally could have easily met up with some guy on camp. And now she's dumping me.'

‘Well, it just doesn't sound like Sally to me. You're probably worrying about nothing.'

That's what I said to Razz anyway, but I wasn't sure if I really believed it myself.

‘Hey, man, do me a favour and sort of hang around after the debate when I have to talk to Sally? You know, just in case I need you.'

‘Need me? But what can I do?'

‘Don't know. Just … be there, I guess.'

I had no idea what kind of help I could be, but I said yes anyway. When your best mate was going head to head in a serious
talk
talk, the least you could do was be in his corner and try to patch him up when it was all over.

All the next day Razz wasn't quite himself. That meant he was sort of quiet and serious and merged into the background. A bit like a normal person. It was scary. But by the time our second-round debate was due to get under way that night, Razz had gone from ‘sort of quiet' to hyper-jumpy.

He was sitting in the audience on the lookout for Sally. From out the front I could see his head bobbing around like a prairie dog on a caffeine high. Sally didn't arrive till after the debate had started. Jess was with her. They slipped in quietly between speakers and grabbed a seat right by the door. Sally shot a tight smile at Razz and then a not-so-tight smile at Scobie, Ignatius and me out the front. My hopes for Razz were fading fast.

Just for the record, we ended up winning. That made it two from two. At the end there was the usual congratulating and commiserating and everyone milled around chatting for a while before heading off. When Scobie, Bill and Ignatius left to support our Year Eight team there was just me, Razz, Sally and Jess in the room.

Sally's eyes were a bit puffy, like she'd stayed up all night. Both girls looked tense. Razz struggled to get the conversation going, but he was fighting a losing battle.

‘Great debate, hey? Don't know how the boys did it without my help.'

The girls pushed out a couple of weak smiles.

‘Of course, it's a little known fact that I write most of Scobie's stuff for him. He'd be nothing without me.'

The girls' weak smiles weakened.

‘On his own this time though. I've been too busy editing the sun safe epic to make you two look even hotter.'

The girls' smiles died stone dead. Sally levelled her serious dark eyes at Razz.

‘Can we talk now?'

Razz tried to stay upbeat, but his upbeat looked like it had been beaten to a pulp.

‘Talk … Sure, right … Yeah … no problem. In there OK?'

Razz pointed to the next classroom. Sally nodded and went through the connecting door with Razz tagging along behind. If his shoulders had been slumped any lower he'd be sliding along the floor. They closed the door behind them and I was left alone in an empty room with Jess. I stood there feeling stupid until she sat down and patted the chair beside her.

‘Have a seat. Might be a bit of a wait.'

It crossed my mind that being seen sitting next to Jess Hambleton might do wonders for my shattered post-'extensions' reputation. I was hoping someone from my Homeroom might wander down the corridor.

‘Great debate,' she said. ‘I could never do that. I can talk all right. Mum says I can talk under wet cement. I just can't say anything smart enough, that's the problem. Scobie was awesome. I'm listening to him speak and I'm like “Wow!” You were great too.'

‘Thanks. It helps a lot when I don't pass out.'

Jess's mouth opened in a big ‘O'. ‘That's right! It was
you
that time, wasn't it? You ended up on top of Kelly. We heard all about it back at school and I'm like,
Oh my god, that is soooooo funny!
Not for you, of course. Or Kelly.' Jess's smile turned down. ‘Gosh, I miss her.'

‘Me too!' I wanted to say, but didn't. Then Jess bit her bottom lip and went quiet. She sat staring ahead at the whiteboard as if she had X-ray vision and could see through it into the next room.

I followed her gaze. ‘Wonder what's going on in there.'

Jess didn't answer, but when I looked across at her, she had her head down and was wiping dampness from under her eyes.

‘Jess? What's up? You OK?'

Her face just crumpled up.

‘I've wrecked everything for Sal. It's all my fault. I should have kept my big mouth shut.'

‘What do you mean? What did you do? What happened?'

Jess shook her head and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

‘I wasn't going to say anything. I totally wasn't. But we were on camp and Sal's like “What's wrong? You don't seem happy.” And I'm like, “No, it's nothing. I'm fine, really.” And she's like, “No, you're not. You have to tell me what's wrong. I'm your friend.” And she's right but I don't want to tell her because she
is
my friend and I know it will just stuff everything up for her. But she keeps saying, “You have to tell me. I'm your friend. I can help.” And I'm still totally like, “No, really, I'll be fine. It's no big deal.” But she can tell it totally is and she won't let up till I say what's bugging me. So I do. I didn't want to, I didn't mean to, but I do. And now I wish I could take it back, because it's going to ruin everything for Sal just like I knew it would. God, I'm such an
idiot
sometimes!'

Beside me Jess blinked up at the ceiling as big tears pooled in her eyes and overflowed down her cheeks. I know Razz would probably say that there was something wrong with me, but I couldn't help thinking that Jess Hambleton didn't really need a micro bikini to be beautiful.

‘But what was it? What did you tell her?'

Jess dug into her bag and wiped her nose with a big wad of tissues.

‘I told her …'

But just then Razz burst in on us and grabbed me by the arm.

‘Come on, dude! I need you!'

‘Why?'

‘'Cause you're the only one who can save me, man!'

Razz grabbed a hold of Jess as well and we were both dragged through the door and up to the front of the next classroom where Sally was looking confused.

‘Go on, tell him. Tell Ishmael what you just told me.'

The confusion on Sally's face deepened along with the colour in her cheeks.

‘But this isn't Ishmael's problem. It's got nothing to do with him.'

‘It has. Just tell him …
please.
'

Sally pushed her hair back behind her ears and took a deep breath.

‘OK. When Jess and I were on camp she told me … that on the day we did that filming at my place … someone had set up the video camera in my room … to film her while she got changed. And she said the person who was in the room just before she went in … was Razz.'

Razz's eyes were fixed on me like satellite dishes. ‘See! See! Tell 'em, Ishmael! Tell 'em!'

I told them.

‘Razz didn't put the camera there. It was Bill.'

Sally and Jess looked at one another. They each pulled a weird face and laughed a bit.

‘Bill?' they said in unison before Sally took over. ‘From what
I know of Bill, I'm
pretty
certain he wouldn't do something like that. Anyway, he wasn't the one who was going to see it. Only the person doing the editing would. And we all know who that was.'

‘Tell 'em, Ishmael! Tell 'em!'

That seemed to be the only thing Razz appeared capable of saying any more.

‘Bill didn't mean to put the camera there. It was an accident. He just left it on the bed and forgot to turn it off. I saw him do it when I was looking through the other shots with Razz.'

‘That's right. What Ishmael said. That's exactly what happened. And I still got that shot of Bill doing it.'

The girls exchanged a frown.

‘But if you saw Bill you must have seen me too.'

Razz and I nodded at Jess.

‘Then Razz … how come you didn't say anything to Sally or me straightaway after you watched the video? Why didn't you defend yourself then?'

Now it was our turn to frown.

‘Defend myself?' Razz said. ‘Against what?'

‘Against all the things I called you when I saw that little green light on top of the camera and worked out it was still on.'

‘You
saw
the green light?'

‘Yeah, you'd have to be an idiot to miss it. I saw it just in time but. Then I totally gave you a gob full before I switched it off.'

Sally was really frowning hard at Razz now.

‘How could you guys not know that? If you watched all the tape, you
must
have seen Jess do that.'

‘We only saw her come in. We didn't see the rest,' Razz said. ‘Not the very last bit.'

‘How come?' Sally asked.

‘Because we stopped it. As soon as we saw Jess was about to whip her top off, we stopped the video.'

Both Sally and Jess were studying Razz now like he'd just claimed that not only was Elvis still alive, he was actually working part-time at the local supermarket – along with his friends John Lennon, Kurt Cobain and Michael Jackson.

‘You're telling us you
stopped
watching the video just
before
Jess took off her top?'

Razz was nodding now like his life depended on it. Both girls kept their eyes speared on him waiting for him to crack. He didn't. So they plunged their eyeball spears into me. I felt like breaking down and confessing even though I was innocent.

‘It's true, Sal. I was there. We stopped the video when we saw what was going to happen, you know with Jess and the top and everything … and then we recorded over it.'

Lucky the ceiling was there, otherwise Jess and Sally's eyebrows would have been heading into deep space by now.

‘You guys
stopped
the video … and then you recorded
over
it?'

This time I gave Sal the good old ‘life-depending-on-it' nod. The girls seemed too stunned to speak. Razz, on the other hand, had no such trouble.

‘Yeah, of
course.
What do you think we are? Perverts or … peeping Toms or something?'

I shot Razz a quick warning glance. He completely ignored me and charged on.

‘I mean, if Jess wanted us to see her undress she would have got changed in the lounge room, right there in front of us, while we all just sat back and watched.'

This concept seemed to derail Razz's concentration and he wavered a bit before finally reboarding his train of thought.

‘Ummmmmm … So … like I was saying … of course we stopped the video and recorded over it. Watching it would have been so
wrong
, man. It would have been, like a, like a … a gross invasion of piracy.'

‘Ah, I think that would be “privacy”, Razz.'

‘What? Oh yeah, yeah, of course … privacy,' Razz said, sending me a warning look of his own. We were involved for a moment in a silent eye-to-eye battle before Jess let out a moan that startled us out of it.

‘Awwwwwwwwwwww,' she wailed like she was in pain. ‘That is so sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! You guys are amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing! You are both totally made of awesome!'

Jess rushed at Razz and wrapped him in a bear hug. Then she flung her arms around my neck and squeezed her body so tight against mine we could have been two Lego blocks clicking into place. When Jess finally levered herself off me, she stepped back and looked around at the rest of us with an uber sad clown face.

‘I'm really,
really
sorry. I've been such a dumbo blonde. What a klutz! I should've known you guys wouldn't do anything sicko like that. Ooo! That reminds me. I better ring Brad and tell him. He's like totally planning to punch your lights out, Razz. Isn't he sweeeeeeeeet!'

Jess pulled out her mobile and headed for the corridor. Sally took Razz by the hand.

‘I'm really sorry too.'

Razz shook his head sadly.

‘I just don't understand how you thought I'd
do
a thing like that. Me? I mean, even if Jess got filmed accidentally I can't
believe
you'd think I'd watch it. Man, that'd be like … like … finding a bank vault open and stealing the money and saying it was OK because
you
weren't the one who opened it. It just wouldn't be right. It'd be …
wrong.
'

I fought the urge to roll my eyes in case Sally saw me.

‘It's like I said before, Sal, we're talking about
privacy
here. And I reckon privacy is one of the most
basic
rights any …'

‘It was Ishmael's idea not to watch the video, wasn't it?' Sally said flatly.

‘Absolutely,' Razz answered immediately.

‘Probably had to twist your arm, right?'

‘Posssssibly.'

Razz grimaced and squinted at Sally as if he was bracing for a punch. But Sally didn't come out swinging. Instead she stepped forward and planted on Razz's lips the biggest, juiciest, most lingering-est kiss ever. When they finally separated Razz looked like he'd had most of his energy and a good portion of his brain sucked from him.

‘What was
that
for?' he said like he'd just woken up.

Sally smiled her best heart-melter smile at him.

‘Your reward … for letting your arm be twisted.'

‘Yeah, I did, didn't I? Which was an awesome effort on my part. Huge. So I was thinking maybe I deserve …'

‘Don't push it, Orazio,' Sally said with all the finality of a guillotine. Then she turned to me.

‘Thanks, Ishmael. I'm
so
glad you're Razz's friend. I don't know what he'd do without you.'