Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (23 page)

But it wasn't where he came from or his nickname that set Theodore Bungalari apart. As Razz rightly pointed out, Theodore had the intimidation factor. Even the other boys from PNG seemed in awe of him. He was only around sixteen like the rest of us, but with his hair shaved close to his skull and his face looking like it had been chiselled roughly out of dull black marble, he probably could have passed for thirty-six. And he was big. Not tall-big, just solid-muscle-and-heavy-chunky-bones-big.
If you were careless enough to bump into Theodore in a crowded corridor, it was pretty much the same as bumping into the wall. The only thing that rebounded was you. After you did, you would be confronted by Theodore's perfectly still eyes peering at you like two cannons from the shadows of a cave. Right from day one everyone automatically gave Theodore Bungalari a very wide berth.

Of course the cannibal thing only added to his mystique.

That came about one day when we were waiting for our maths teacher, Mr Xiang, to arrive to class. That's when Danny Wallace thought it would be a good idea to start firing questions at the new boy.

‘Hey, Mudman, what's it like up in the Highlands? Come across any good mud lately? You and the pigs must really hit it off, eh? Is it true that you rub all the mud on your skin to help fight the seven signs of ageing?'

The whole class sat there in stunned silence. Even Barry Bagsley had the sense to leave Theodore Bungalari alone. But not Danny Wallace. Apparently you had to have a certain minimum level of grey matter before the self-preservation response kicked in.

And Danny was only warming up.

‘Hey, you guys got
Mud
Donald's up there? I reckon you could put away a few quarter pounders. You'd like your
meat
, wouldn't you, Muddy? Didn't all you mudmen used to cook people up and eat them?'

While all these questions were flying his way Theodore sat quietly at the back of the room filling out his school diary. Then he put his pen down and calmly lifted his head. He folded his arms and hunched himself forward on the desk to get a better look at Danny Wallace. His blue school shirt strained under the pressure from his shoulders and biceps. Theodore ran his dark eyes slowly over Danny Wallace from the top of his head to the tip of his shoes and back again. Then he locked on to Danny's eyes and frowned.

‘What do you mean …
used
to?' he asked in his deep, rolling voice.

We all knew he wasn't being serious, of course. He was obviously just kidding. Except Theodore Bungalari didn't look like your typical ‘just kidding' sort of guy. Anyway, Mr Xiang came striding into the room at that point and the whole thing was pretty much forgotten. But not by Danny Wallace. He kept shooting glances at Theodore throughout the lesson, and whenever he did, Theodore's eyes would widen and the tip of his pink tongue would slip slowly across his lips.

After that day everyone, including Danny Wallace, just left Theodore Bungalari alone. He didn't seem to mind. As far as I could tell, Theodore was ‘an island, entire unto himself'. That comes from one of Mr Guthrie's Homeroom posters.

But the Island of Theodore Bungalari was about to be invaded. And leading the charge was none other than Orazio Zorzotto.

It was the Razzman v the Mudman.

The day after Razz's awesome brainwave and just two days before our first volleyball match we set out to recruit Theodore Bungalari. We'd been looking for him half of lunchtime. We finally tracked him down to an empty classroom on the top floor of the Senior Block.

He was sitting in a desk at the back corner near a window taking notes from his history textbook. Theodore always completed every assignment and every piece of school work to the minutest detail. And he did it in the neatest handwriting I'd ever seen. His exercise books were works of art. Teachers gushed over them. I kid you not. There was actual real-life gushing involved.

‘Hey, here's the guy we want. The Pride of Goroka! Mud … ah … Theodore, my main man! Looking good, dude! How're they hanging, Bunga?'

Razz slapped the the Mudman heartily on the shoulder. It was like he was whacking a block of concrete. Theodore stopped writing and looked around slowly at each of us. He wasn't smiling. Suddenly this seemed like a very bad idea. But Razz wouldn't be put off.

‘Muddy,' he said, ‘it's your lucky day, pal. Believe it or not, I am offering you the chance to join our very exclusive volleyball team! No, please, no need to thank me.'

Theodore stared back at Razz. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen him blink. Razz cleared his throat and ploughed on.

‘Please, contain your excitement for just a moment longer, TB, and let me explain. We want you, yes
you
, to be part of the mighty Fighting Fifths. As such, you will be joining an elite band of athletes – all these fine specimens you see here before you and … um …
that
guy.'

Razz was pointing out the window to where down in the yard Melvin Yip was facing up to an incoming fast bowler and waving his cricket bat around like a sword. We all waited to watch the delivery. It came. We all winced. Everyone except for Theodore Bungalari. Melvin Yip lay doubled over and clutching some now extremely tender parts of his body.

‘I guess that's why they call him the Nutcase Ninja,' Razz said. Everyone smiled. Everyone except for Theodore Bungalari.

‘Aaaaanyhoo,' Razz said, ‘as I was saying, this is the chance of a lifetime, Muddy Buddy. You could have it all, man – sporting glory, multi-million dollar merchandising deals and really hot groupie chicks throwing themselves at you. Too good to be true? I think not!'

All the while Razz was speaking, Theodore hadn't moved a muscle or changed his expression. I was tempted to poke him to see if he was real. I want you to know that I had no trouble at all resisting that particular temptation.

‘Aaah, Theodore,' Scobie said, stepping forward and joining Razz, ‘I would just like to
clarify
a few things that my …
learned
friend … has said to avoid any possible
misunderstanding
and
disappointment
later on. I'm afraid that in his undoubted enthusiasm to have you on board he might have been guilty of some
slight
exaggeration.'

Theodore shifted his eyes slowly from Razz to Scobie.

‘Firstly, apart from Orazio here, none of us can really play volleyball. And I feel justified in saying that, because I am undoubtedly the worst in the team. You, however, if you were
to join us, would most certainly be at
least
the second best. Secondly, there will be no sporting glory. None whatsoever. We will probably not win a game. Taking these two things into account, I think you can safely draw your own conclusions about both the “multi-million dollar merchandising deals” and the “really hot groupie chicks”. Theodore, the truth is, we need another player. We'd really like that player to be you.'

Razz leant down and whispered to Scobie behind his hand.

‘Nice going, Scobes. Way to totally ruin our chances. Oh, and here's a little tip. You know those forms we're filling out for career choices? You might like to put a big black line through sales assistant, public relations guy and motivational speaker.'

The next voice we heard was Theodore's. It always made me think of thick rich syrup pouring slowly out of a can.

‘I will play in your volleyball team.'

Or in Theodore-speak, ‘Arrr weeeell plaaaaaaay in yar vorlleybuull tim.'

‘Yeah, well,' Razz said, ‘can't say I blame you. After the build-up the Scobster gave us you'd be cra …
What
? What did you say?'

‘I said I will play in your volleyball team.'

There were smiles all round. Well, at least from us.

‘That's awesome, dude,' Razz said, scratching his head. ‘But I gotta ask you, man. Why? I mean, why would you want to play for our team?'

Theodore Bungalari gave us all the once-over.

‘You fellows make me laugh,' he said without a single atom of a smile anywhere within a light year of his face.

We played our first game that Saturday morning against Harrisville High. Theodore hadn't had a chance to train with us at all. It was probably just as well. It might have scared him off.

All matches were best of three sets. Two sets to fifteen points and if it was one-all, a final, first to seven, set. For a while there against Harrisville, we were holding our own. But then the warm-up finished and the actual game started.

We lost 15–3; 15–5.

Believe it or not, the score actually flattered us. Four of our massive eight points came from the other team serving into the net. Another three of them were won by Razz virtually on his own. Our final point came when Ignatius tried to spike a ball, missed it completely and it rebounded off his big forehead over the net for a winner. That was one of our match highlights. It was celebrated with high fives all round.

Additional highlights included Melvin Yip leaping into the air, performing a 360-degree ninja spin and whacking the ball with a wildly swinging arm – straight into the umpire's face, and Bill losing his balance while going for a low serve and landing on top of me. I thought the roof had caved in.

On the up side, we did have our Intimidation Factor. At least for a while. Razz was spot on about the Mudman. When we stuck him up at the net at the start of the game
the Harrisville net guys took a couple of steps back and their server sent his first wobbly ball straight into the back of a team mate's head. It was 1–nil. We were winning! If there had been a massive meteor strike right then that wiped out all life on Earth, victory would have been ours. But no such luck.

After our brilliant start, Harrisville won the following six points in a row. Then Theodore managed to work the Brown Undies Effect again on another one of their servers. That brought Ignatius into the server's position. We didn't know it then, but he was about to totally ace our Intimidation Factor.

Ignatius steadied himself behind the baseline and threw the ball up above his head. His long arm flapped through the air. To everyone's surprise Prindabel's hand actually made contact with the ball – but only just. Instead of sailing over the net, the ball rocketed to the left and down – right into James Scobie's little round backside.

This set off an unfortunate chain of events. Scobie, who had been crouched over and totally unprepared for what became known as the Prindabel Butt Ball, was propelled forward like a swimmer from the blocks of the Olympic 50 metres freestyle final. It all ended horrifically, when James, in a vain attempt to save himself, grabbed desperately at the only thing within his reach – the back of Bill Kingsley's shorts. As Razz said afterwards, it was the only time a full moon had ever appeared inside the St Daniel's gymnasium.

It was just after Bill's rump made its grand appearance that we heard the squeaking noise. It was like someone was strangling a hyperventilating guinea pig. Both teams looked in the direction of the sound. It was coming from Theodore. He was holding his stomach and pointing at us and shaking uncontrollably. His hard, dark marble face was shattered by the widest, whitest smile I had ever seen. Theodore wasn't lying. We fellows really did make him laugh.

The problem was that laughing to the Mudman was like kryptonite to Superman. Whenever Theodore laughed he lost
all his strength and coordination. This meant that if something slightly funny, weird or unexpected happened on court (which, thanks to our team, was just about every second rally) Theodore would fall apart and become as useless as a super-jumbo-sized rag doll.

And that caused another problem. Once the opposition saw the Mudman transformed from an awesome, threatening mountain of cold, black marble to a wobbly, giggling blob of chocolate sponge cake, it became almost impossible for him to work the Brown Undies Effect on them. To make matters worse, we discovered as the season wore on that our Intimidation Factor was, in fact, the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet.

After we'd lost the opening set to Harrisville in that first match and slumped to 12–nil down in the second, Mr Guthrie called a time-out and gave us a pep talk. It would set the tone for the rest of our season. We grouped in a tight circle around him.

‘Guys, I hate to break this to you,' he said, ‘but I think I can hear the fat lady clearing her throat. Things are getting desperate.'

‘Maybe if Bill moons the opposition again, we could score a few points while they're in shock,' Razz suggested.

Beside me Theodore squeaked like someone was trampolining on a mouse, and everyone, including Mr Guthrie, laughed.

‘Let's keep that as our secret weapon in case we make the finals, Orazio.'

‘Geez, keeping Billy's butt a secret – now
there's
a challenge, sir.'

More laughing – and squeaking.

‘So, sir, do you think we can actually come back from here and win this thing?'

We all looked to Mr Guthrie – St Daniel's' Patron Saint of Lost Causes. His eyes shone with optimism and hope.

‘Not a chance, Orazio,' he said with a smile. ‘But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep fighting, keep trying our best, keep encouraging each other and keep having fun. And
maybe we can have some mini victories along the way. Take some baby steps.'

‘Baby steps? Have you been watching us play, sir? Maybe we should start off with like embryo steps and work our way up,' Razz said.

‘OK, how about this, then? Harristown need three points to win the match. Let's make our first goal stopping them from beating us to nil. Let's see if we can get at least one point. That's our first … embryo step. If we do that, then we go for two. Who knows, maybe we can beat them to three points. What do you say?'

When there was a general rumble of agreement for this plan, Mr Guthrie reached behind him and pulled his sports bag into the centre of our circle. ‘And just for added incentive …' he said, unzipping his bag and holding it open.