Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (15 page)

Then he laughed. But not very much.

‘Razz, I'm sorry. I really am. I don't know what happened. I didn't mean it to happen. It just did. I wouldn't blame you if you did smash me.'

‘Nah, it's all right, man. Sal told me about Wallace and the booze and everything. Man, that guy gives morons a bad name. She explained everything. I'm totally cool with it all now. Besides, I still owe you for saving my neck in that whole Jess thing.'

‘I still feel like crap about it. You're my friend. My best friend. I shouldn't have done it. Ever. Even if I had a dozen vodkas.'

‘A dozen vodkas? You? Dude, if you had a dozen vodkas even Danny Wallace would've got a pash. That's if they didn't have to give
you
the kiss of life first.'

We both smiled. Then we ran out of things to say for a while. It was Razz who came up with something first.

‘If you want to know the truth, man, when Sal told me about what happened, I was more scared than angry.'

‘Scared? Scared of what?'

‘Of heaps of stuff. Scared that Sal would choose you instead of me. Scared I'd lost her. Scared that it would muck everything up. Muck
us
up.'

Razz looked away into the distance.

‘There's no way you're going to lose her, Razz. Sally likes you a lot. It's a real failing on her part, but she does. You got nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.'

‘Yeah, maybe.' He didn't seem too convinced so I decided to convince him.

‘You know what she said to me that night?'

Razz turned a little my way.

‘She told me … that all the time she was with me, even when she was having fun … all she was thinking about … was you.'

Razz's eyes lit up.

‘Really, man? You're not just saying that?'

‘Her exact words.'

Some
of her exact words anyway. Things went quiet again after that until I noticed a smile creeping its way on to Razz's face.

‘What? What is it?'

‘I can't believe you told me. I can't believe you actually ‘fessed up, about you and Sally, even when you didn't have to. Anyone else would've kept their mouth shut. But not you, man.'

Razz was grinning and shaking his head.

‘Yeah, yeah, go on. Let's hear it. I know what you're going to say. There's something wrong with me, right?'

‘Oh, there
is
,' Razz said. ‘There
definitely
is. And I think I've just figured out what. You're like Hamlet, dude. You are. You both think too much about stuff and you've both got one of those “fatal flaw” thingies that Slattery keeps going on about.'

‘Fatal flaw thingies? Wow, Razz, I'm impressed. Don't tell me you've actually been listening in class.'

‘Sometimes I just can't help it.'

‘So what's my fatal flaw then?'

‘Isn't it obvious, man? You're too nice. That's your big problem. You always have to do the right thing all the time. That's why you need me around to sort of balance things out.'

‘I knew there had to be a reason for putting up with you,' I said.

‘Yeah, we make a good team,' Razz said. Then he clicked his fingers and pointed at me. ‘Hey, I just thought. If you're Hamlet then that makes me that Horatio dude.'

‘
My good friend, I'll exchange that name with you.
'

‘Huh?'

‘That's what Hamlet tells Horatio – that he's happy to call him a friend.'

‘Cool! How do you remember that stuff? I'm hopeless.'

‘Don't know. I guess it just gets stuck in my head. But anyway, I don't know about you being Horatio. I got a feeling he wasn't quite as “out there” as you.'

‘Really? Well maybe I'm the extreme version. Or maybe I'm like one of those cyborgs. You know, part Horatio, part Orazio.'

‘Horazio?' I suggested. I didn't think it was that funny but Razz slapped his knees and almost busted a gut laughing.

‘Horazio! Man, I'll pay that, Ishmael! That is gold!'

Just then a bus pulled around the corner at the end of the street. It was Razz's. He hopped off the fence and threw his bag over his shoulder.

‘See ya, man. Give us a call when you get back from the beach.'

‘Yeah, OK. And Razz … Thanks … You know …'

‘Forget it,' Razz said and jumped on the bus. He swiped his card, found a seat then stuck his head out the side window and shouted, ‘Farewell, sweet prince! May ummm … like, heaps of angels … ummm … do really good stuff to you!'

Razz's fellow passengers gawked at him. Since they were
gawking already I thought I might as well make it worth their while.

‘Farewell, Horazio!' I shouted back, ‘I will keep thee in my heart's core, in my heart of hearts.'

As I waited for my bus, I wondered how Razz was going to go with the assessment we had coming up after the break. I mean, if he really did have trouble remembering quotes, then our
Hamlet
orals were probably going to cause him a fair amount of grief.

For once I was right. I just had no idea how right.

We had
finally
made it into the last term of Year Eleven and the teachers weren't about to let us forget it. They kept going on about how important it was and how short it was and how much our final assignments and exams would affect our overall grades. All that was true, of course. But apart from the
Hamlet
orals, what I was most concerned about was the Year Eleven Semi-formal.

Unlike the Lourdes Semi-formal, ours was traditionally held in the last week of school when exams were over. As well as a dance and a celebration of the year, it also marked the moment when the Year Elevens officially took over as school leaders. It was still a couple of months away yet, but the pressure to find someone to take was already starting to build.

The thing is, if you were going to go to the Semi-formal you had to have a partner. No exceptions. If you were so embarrassingly hopeless that you couldn't get your own partner, you were paired up with one of the girls invited in bulk from one of the local colleges. This provided you with the unique opportunity of being seen as a total loser. Now that very real possibility was looming ever larger for me. All I could think of was how brilliant my life would have been if Kelly hadn't left and I was taking her to the Semi.

But what was the point in torturing myself? Kelly was gone.
And every day that passed, she was drifting further and further away. It was ages since I'd got an email from her and the last one she sent didn't really say much. Even Sally reckoned she wasn't getting any news. As much as I could, I tried to push the whole Semi-formal, no-partner, total-loser thing out of my mind. But one lunchtime, thanks to Razz, it became the main topic of discussion.

Scobie, Bill, Ignatius and I were eating at one of the tables in the Seniors' quadrangle when the man himself bounded in to join us.

‘Hey, guys, I was just thinking we better get in early and organise a table for the Semi-formal so we can all be together. It'll be massive.'

‘I'm not going.'

A table full of eyes rotated to Bill.

‘No point,' he said with the regular Kingsley shrug. ‘I've got no one to take. And even if I did …'

‘Why don't you get yourself matched up with some chick for the night, Billy Boy? You just have to talk and dance. You don't have to marry her. And we'll all be there.'

Bill shook his head. He wasn't about to change his mind.

‘Well, what about you, Prindabundle? You don't mind being matched up with some chick and making her miserable for a night, do you?'

Ignatius looked at Razz blankly.

‘I have my own partner.'

Razz reared back like he'd taken the full impact of a bazooka to the body.

‘What! Geez, Prindabudster,' Razz said, grabbing his chest, ‘I thought you were serious for minute there. You know, you shouldn't joke about stuff like that. You could've given me a heart attack. There are certain basic laws of the universe that we human beings have grown to trust. Stuff like gravity and the sun being the centre of our solar system and you being a total no-go area for chicks.'

‘Then prepare yourself for possible acute myocardial infarction, Orazio, because it's true. I do have a partner for the Semi-formal.'

Razz leant in close to Ignatius and gave him an understanding smile.

‘Prindabubbles. P-bud. You do realise that when we talk about “partner” it doesn't include your laptop, even if you
have
gone to all the trouble of downloading a screen saver with a chick's face on it. And I'm pretty sure that it's also against the school rules for your Semi “partner” to be anything you have either built in a laboratory, cloned, inflated or brought back to life using electrodes attached to the brain.'

Ignatius listened patiently then said, ‘Well, I think I'm fine then.'

Razz was about to say something else but Scobie beat him to it.

‘Who is she, Ignatius?'

‘Maude Everingham. She's from Morley Girls' College. You met her, James. She was at the Accelerated Science Course weekend we went to.'

We all turned to Scobie. He raised his eyebrows.

‘Outstanding.'

‘What?' Razz broke in. ‘Really? The P-man has actually landed a genuine real live chick-type person
without
the use of chloroform or a spring-loaded net?'

‘Absolutely,' Scobie said.

‘Prindabuddy, you legend! How'd you do it, man? Come on, tell us all about it.'

‘Well,' said Ignatius, becoming almost animated, ‘it was during the Accelerated Chemistry class. We were doing a quantitative chemical analysis involving a diprotic acid titrated with a strong base to establish equivalence points.'

‘Just keep talking, P-bud,' Razz said. ‘Eventually, just on the law of averages, you'll accidentally say something that I understand.'

‘We were doing a titration experiment, Orazio.'

Razz stared blankly ahead.

‘Well, anyway, at the end of the analysis,' Ignatius continued, ‘we had to compare our results with someone else. Maude was working at the bench beside me so I asked if I could see her titration curves and she said yes.'

‘What! You've only just met and already she's showing you her titration curves! You don't waste any time, do you? You da man, Prindabuster! You da man!'

Ignatius looked confused but kept going.

‘Anyway, I examined hers and then she had a look at mine …'

‘Oh my god, cover your ears, Ishmael!'

‘… Then we talked a bit while we washed out our pipettes and burettes …'

‘Stop it, man! There are children present!'

‘… And that's how we met. At the end of the course we exchanged emails. Last weekend we went to the Da Vinci exhibition at the museum. That's where I asked her about coming to the Semi-formal. She said yes again.'

Ignatius linked his spidery fingers together and smiled at us.

‘Excellent work,' Scobie said as Bill and Ignatius exchanged a dangerously off centre high-five and I managed to hide my ‘Oh-my-god-even-Ignatius-has-got-someone-to-take-to-the-Semi-so-what's-wrong-with-me?' face behind a cheesy grin.

‘Prindabundle, you rock! I was wrong about you, dude. You are smooth, man. Super-smooth! You are so smooth they could lay you down and use you for a golf tee.'

Ignatius thought about that for a second and then held aloft the infamous objection finger.

‘Or,' he said, ‘I'm so smooth … my coefficient of friction is zero.'

‘P-buddy,' Razz said with glazed eyes and a shake of his head, ‘you are the undisputed king of geek humour.'

Ignatius obviously thought so too. It took quite a while for
him to control his fit of hissing laughter. When he did, Razz turned his attention to James.

‘Well, that's me and Sally and P-buddy and the Titration Queen. What about you, Herr Scobmeister – got a fraulein lined up?'

Scobie shifted in his seat. His mouth did a bit of a twist-a-thon and his cheeks were dabbed with two pink blobs.

‘Wait a minute,' Razz said with an ever-widening smirk. ‘What am I thinking? Of course Scobes has someone lined up. Someone's hot little sister, perhaps?'

Scobie's cheeks laid down another coat of crimson.

‘Aha! I thought as much. Scobes and Prudles back together –
The Return of the Brainiacs!
'

Scobie glanced my way. ‘Well, actually, now that Orazio has brought it up, I
was
thinking … as long as you were all right with it, Ishmael … and your parents agreed … and of course if Prue wanted to in the first place … that maybe …'

‘I'm sure Mum and Dad will be OK with it. And it's fine with me,' I told him. (Except of course for that bit where now even my little sister who was only in Year
Ten
had a partner for
my
Year Eleven Semi-formal while
I
didn't. I could almost feel the big capital ‘L' sizzling into my forehead.)

‘And we
all
know that Prudles will be raring to go,' Razz said. ‘Cool! So we got Sal and Me, Mr and Mrs Chemical Analysis and the Mensa Twins all signed up. That just leaves you, Ishmael. You got any ideas yet?'

The spotlight swung round and fell on me. Great.

‘About what?'

‘Ah, about how to reverse the disintegration of the polar ice caps, of course,' Razz said brightly before adding with an impatient sigh, ‘About who you could invite to the Semi-formal.'

‘I haven't really thought much about it.'

Liar.

‘Anyway, there's plenty of time to work something out.'

Liar.

‘Besides, I'm a bit like Bill, I don't even know if I really want to go to the Semi or not yet.'