Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (24 page)

Across from me Theodore Bungalari's eyes grew into a pair of white-walled tyres and his pink tongue poked out from between his lips. The bag was filled with mini chocolate bars.

‘OK, here's the deal. One bar each for every point we score, a bonus chocolate each if get to three before them, and two bonus chocolates each if we outscore them.'

‘What if we win the set, sir?'

‘If you win the set, Orazio, I will text Willy Wonka immediately and book an all-you-can-eat tour of the factory.'

Then Mr Guthrie stretched his arm into the middle of the circle and seven hands piled in a heap on top of his. We were getting pretty good that. We gave the St Daniel's shout and filed back out on to the court.

We ended up earning four mini chocolate bars each. And we played those last few points as we would every other point for the rest of the season – for each other, for Mr Guthrie, for St Daniel's, for the chocolates and for the fun of it. And the best thing was, because no one expected anything much from us, there was never any pressure.

Until the day there was. Then there was a truckload of it.

After our first volleyball defeat we managed to successfully maintain an unbroken losing streak. It matched my success with Kelly: I hadn't seen or heard from her since the Moorfield meeting.

Luckily, things were going much better in our quest for the Senior Debating Trophy. Two debates. Two victories. As for Operation Tarango, we were about to face the next big test – the Inter-house Cross-country. It was time to put Scobie's ‘Saturation Participation' strategy into overdrive. To do that we had gathered at our usual lunch table. All eyes were on the door to the sports office.

‘Geez, we're cutting it a bit fine, aren't we, Scobes? Hardcastle said nominations had to be on the noticeboard
before
the end of lunch, remember? And there's only ten minutes to go, man. Here, give them to me. I'll whack 'em up.'

‘No need,' Scobie said, pointing across the playground.

Mr Hardcastle was leaving the sports office and making a beeline for the main noticeboard. It was a beeline that would take him right past our table.

‘Excuse me, Mr Hardcastle.'

‘Yes, Mr Scobie. What can I do you for?'

‘Well, I have a
few
last-minute Charlton House nominations for the Cross-country. I was just about to take them over and
pin them up with the others, but if you're collecting them anyway, could I just hand them straight to you?'

Mr Hardcastle checked his watch. Then he took the sheet from Scobie and studied it closely. There were about fifty names on it. A single eyebrow arched upwards on his tanned forehead.

‘Call me suspicious, Mr Scobie, but my gut reaction is that the reason you've kept all these names until the very last minute and handed them to me directly, is so the other houses won't see how many runners you'll be fielding on the day and try to match you. Technically you're not breaking any rules, but some people might consider this a tad … devious.'

Scobie smiled innocently but didn't reply. We all waited. Mr Hardcastle folded up the list of names, tucked it into his top pocket and gave it a pat.

‘Love it. I'm going to miss you, Scobie, I really am,' he said before striding happily on his way.

Not surprisingly, when the day of the Cross-country arrived, Mr Hardcastle found himself surrounded by the unhappy faces of the other house leaders.

‘Too late to start whingeing now, gentlemen. You had exactly the same opportunity to register runners as Charlton. Them's the rules. Sorry, fellas,' he told them.

He didn't look very sorry.

Of course, just having more runners didn't really mean anything. They still had to finish within the set time limit to gain a participation point. Thankfully, three-quarters of our runners did just that. It was a great day for Charlton House as well as for our newly appointed Sports Captain.

I think Razz must have completed nearly three cross-countries by the time it was over. He spent all day charging back and forth along the course encouraging the Charlton competitors and making jokes to keep their spirits up. In the end he barely made the time limit himself. This was because he was practically dragging Ignatius along the ground behind him for the last 100 metres or so.

But Razz was well supported in his efforts. Melvin Yip and Theodore Bungalari made the time and did a great job inspiring the stragglers with a combination of ninja moves and friendly intimidation. And our ex-captain Jimmy ‘The Main Event' Mainwaring went a long way to redeeming himself by piggybacking about half a dozen struggling Year Eights across the finish line. Even Bill beat the bell. All the jogging and hooping he'd been doing was really starting to tell. He was still big, but more and more of him was muscle. And believe it or not, I made it too, although it took me quite a while to put out the fireball in my lungs and to regain the power of speech.

But the biggest cheer of the afternoon was reserved for the ‘runner' who came in last. Twenty minutes after the qualifying time had elapsed, the chubby form of James Scobie appeared at the end of the bush track and shuffled around the final half-circuit of the oval before collapsing across the finishing line. And when he did, it wasn't just Charlton who cheered – so did the other houses and all the teachers. I was standing beside Mr Hardcastle at the time and heard him say, ‘Now that's what I'm talking about,' to no one in particular.

In a miraculous turnaround from the previous year Charlton ended up winning the day. It was a win that pushed us ahead of Radley and Franklin in the overall house totals, into outright second place. In his first test as Charlton House Sports Captain, Razz had come through with flying colours and he proudly held the Cross-country trophy above his head to the roar of his teammates.

But Razz was soon going to come face to face with a different kind of challenge. One that would scare the life out of him.

And it all came about because of the Courses and Careers Expo.

‘She asked you yet?'

Razz and I were having lunch and waiting for the others to arrive. I shook my head at him. It was the same question he'd asked just about every day for the last few weeks. He was talking about Kelly inviting me to the Lourdes College Formal.

‘Don't worry, man. She'll get around to it. Sal reckons the Kelster's been real quiet since she came back. Got her head buried in the books all the time and keeping to herself. But there's still plenty of time. Probably just trying to keep you keen.'

If that was true it was working a treat!

‘I don't know, Razz. I'm not even sure she'll go to the Formal.'

‘Of course she will. Everybody goes to their Senior Formal.'

I hoped that was true. Really hoped.

‘Hey, boys. Recovered from our crushing Cross-country victory yet?'

It was Miss Tarango on playground duty. She was wearing a blue St Daniel's sports cap and big, white-rimmed sunglasses. She could make anything look good.

‘I think I'm just starting to get some feeling back in my legs,' Razz informed her.

‘Excellent. One point at a time,' Miss said with a wink.
Only she couldn't do it properly and both eyes sort of closed. Even that looked good.

‘Now, what I really want to know is, have you boys worked out what talks and presentations you're going to attend next week?'

Miss was talking about the big Courses and Careers Expo at the university. All of Year Twelve were going.

‘I know James is looking into law and politics options,' she said, ‘and Bill wants to find out about film courses and Ignatius is checking out the sciences.'

Razz reeled back. ‘Whoa! Prindabel and science? What a shock! I had him down for interpretive dance.'

‘Well, what about you, then?' Miss Tarango asked. ‘What does the future hold for Orazio Zorzotto?'

‘Not sure, miss. I've been tossing up between plastic surgeon to the stars and playboy millionaire, but I'll probably just end up working for one of my uncles. You know, do some labouring or work in a garage. Plus, I still got the gig playing drums at the Italian Club. Probably try to do more of that.'

‘Not interested in going to uni then, Orazio, or doing more study somewhere else?'

‘Me, miss? What would I do?'

‘Something with sport, I would have thought. Physiotherapy maybe, or you could become a personal trainer or even a health and physical education teacher.'

‘HPE teacher? That's what my girlfriend says I should do. She keeps going on about me “wasting my potential”.'

‘Sounds like one very smart young lady to me,' Miss said. Then she tilted her head to one side. ‘And you say she's
your
girlfriend, Orazio?'

‘Ignatius reckons it's one of the great unexplained mysteries of the universe, miss,' I informed her.

‘Hey, careful,' Razz said, trying to look offended, ‘you could be lowering my self-esteem.'

He didn't get much sympathy. Everyone knew you'd need
a truckload of strategically placed plastic explosives to lower Razz's self-esteem.

‘But seriously, Orazio, I want you to promise me you'll check out some of those courses.'

‘What's the point, miss, with my grades?'

‘You don't even know what grades you'd need. That's what you can find out at the careers day. And anyway, if you put your mind to it, you could improve your grades. Now promise me you won't waste your time on the day, Orazio. Promise me you'll think seriously about this and do some research. Promise me?'

Razz held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK, miss. I promise, I promise.'

Miss turned to me then. It was the moment I'd been dreading. I had no idea what I was going to do when I left school.

‘Ishmael, what exciting path are you going to explore after Year Twelve?'

‘Umm, I haven't really decided, miss. I thought I might take a year off, maybe get a job and think about it for a while. I don't really know what I'd be good at.'

‘I think you'd be good at plenty of things. But have you thought about following in the footsteps of your namesake?'

Of course I knew my namesake was the Ishmael character from
Moby Dick
but I couldn't see what Miss was getting at.

‘Join a whaling fleet and hunt whales, miss?'

‘Geez, miss,' Razz said, ‘I thought you would've been totally against all that whaling stuff. I know Mr Guthrie is. He's always going on about it …'

Razz hesitated and his eyes shifted. You could almost see an idea clawing its way to the surface of his manic brain.

‘Hey, you should talk to Mr Guthrie about it, miss. Whaling, I mean. He's really interesting and he knows heaps of stuff. He's a great guy too, I reckon. You know, like how he's always trying to save the rainforests and wombats and stuff. And
he's always helping people out, like us with our volleyball. He's the best. Oh, and what about him in the teachers' race at the swimming carnival? That was so awesome, don't you reckon, miss? Except for the bathers, of course. Maybe you two should …'

Miss Tarango's lips were squeezed together. Her eyes were narrowing and one eyebrow kept cranking higher and higher with each thing Razz said. She looked like a cobra poised, ready to strike if Razz took one more step into the no-go zone.

‘… Well … anyway … ummm … what were you saying before about that Ishmael's namesake thing, miss?'

Miss Tarango made sure Razz had plenty of opportunity to read and memorise the look on her face before turning to me.

‘I definitely do
not
want you to hunt whales, Ishmael. What I was referring to was your namesake's
other
important role in the book.'

I desperately tried to remember what Ishmael did before he joined Ahab and the crew of the
Pequod
. Miss Tarango finally took pity on me.

‘OK, time's up. He was the
narrator
, remember? He told the story. Perhaps you could follow in those footsteps. After all, English is your best subject, and you know how I loved those pieces you showed me from your journals.'

Miss squinted and pointed a finger at me.

‘Which reminds me, Mr Leseur, why haven't I seen anything from this year's effort yet? You promised me something ages ago.'

‘Sorry, miss, I keep forgetting. I'll bring some stuff next week.'

‘Well, see that you do. And make sure you check out all the creative writing courses at the expo. Your father's a songwriter, so you've got words in the blood. Think about it.'

Miss left then and headed for the staffroom. She arrived at the door just as Mr Guthrie was coming out. There was a bit of awkward shuffling about before they figured out who should go first.

Razz clicked his tongue.

‘Gotta get those two together.'

I stared at him in disbelief.

‘Razz, didn't you see Miss Tarango's face just now when you oh-so-subtly tried to match her up with Mr Guthrie?'

Razz dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand. ‘Bah! That's nothing. She'll end up thanking me. You'll see.'

I knew I couldn't change Razz's mind so I changed the subject instead.

‘So, are you going to do what Miss suggested? Are you going to seriously look at HPE teaching?'

‘Said I would, so guess I have to. But it's a bit stupid, don't you reckon?
Me
a teacher.'

‘I don't think it's stupid at all,' I said. ‘You're already coaching and training junior kids plus our volleyball team. You're doing a great job as Sports Captain and Mr Murphy says you practically run those afternoon activities with the boarders. I think you'd be a great teacher.'

‘Really?' Razz seemed more than a little stunned.

At that point Scobie, Bill and Ignatius joined us at the table.