Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (9 page)

Razz pushed back his chair and moved to the centre of room.

‘Madam Chair. Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to outline in
detail
the case for the Negative team.'

Then he paused thoughtfully to find just the right words.

‘Jess Hambleton,' he said finally, ‘
NAAAAAKEEED!
'

Razz flopped back down.

‘Admit it, Ishmael. I win in a landslide. Now push
Play.
'

I stood up and headed for the door.

‘Hey, wait up! What're you doing? Where're you going?'

‘You were right, Razz. I'm not your conscience. So if you think it's fine to watch it, then go ahead and watch it. It's totally your call. But
I
think it's wrong and that's my call. So I'm leaving. Just so long as we agree on one thing. After you finish watching it, you delete it for good. OK?'

I was reaching out for the door handle.

‘No, wait, man! I'm not watching it without you.'

‘Why not?'

‘Well … if you don't watch it … and I do … that makes me look like a bit of a sleaze bag.'

‘Well gee, Razz, if the raincoat fits …'

‘What!'

Razz bent forward and began slowly pounding his head on the desk in time to his words. ‘
DO-NOT-BELIEVE-THIS. CAN-NOT-BE-HAPPENING. JUST-BAD-DREAM
.'

‘That's it, I'm leaving.'

I turned to go but Razz reached out and grabbed hold of the back of my shirt.

‘Waaaaaaait,' he said, squeezing his forehead like he had a mega-migraine. Then he passed me the camera. ‘Here, take it. You'll have to do it, man. I haven't got the heart.'

I took the camera from Razz and pushed
Rewind.
On the screen, a towel flew off the bed and snaked itself around Jess's waist. Then she frantically messed up her hair with a brush, jiggled around a bit (accompanied by groaning from Razz) and scuttled backwards out of view. I pushed
Stop
, put the lens cap on the camera and pressed
Record.

Beside me Razz picked up a ruler from the desk and clasped it in two hands like a samurai sword. He turned one end towards himself, jabbed it in his side and drew it swiftly
across his stomach. As his eyes rolled back into his head he collapsed in a silent heap on the floor. The only sound left in the room was the low hum of the video camera and the words that floated up from the crumpled form on the carpet.

‘What is
wrong
with you, man?'

That was the second time Razz had asked what was wrong with me. First because of Cindy. And now because of Jess. That night I lay in bed with all sorts of questions squirming around inside my brain.

Was I really that different from other guys my age? Would every other sixteen-year-old male have jumped at the chance to go out with Cindy Sexton again? Would they all have happily pushed the
Play
button on Jess Hambleton? Those questions kept me awake for ages. Or maybe I'd just eaten a bit too much of the takeaway we'd had for dinner.

Anyway, it felt like I'd been awake for hours when I rolled over to check the time on the clock radio. That's when I found myself staring at a big heart monitor machine. A green line ran across a black screen. It was jumping up in sharp peaks in time with my heartbeat. On the top of every peak a little image of Kelly Faulkner's face appeared for a moment then popped liked a bubble.

OK, I thought to myself, maybe I did finally get to sleep, and this
could
be a dream.

I checked out the room more carefully. It looked like a hospital and my bed was now suspiciously like an operating table. On closer examination I found that I was wearing pink pyjamas. They were covered in lots of little white whales. A
doctor entered. Or to be
slightly
more accurate, it was Ronald McDonald in a white coat. There was an oversized badge on his chest. It had
Ronald McDoctor – Surgeon to the Clowns
printed on it in bubbly rainbow letters. He had a hamburger in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.

Yep, I was almost 100 per cent certain now that I was dreaming.

‘What's going on?' I asked.

‘I have some very McSad news to tell you,' Ronny said. ‘I'm afraid you have the worst case of Ishmael Leseur's Syndrome I've ever encountered and it's mutating out of control. I'll have to operate immediately – otherwise you're a goner.'

I jumped off the table and yelled, ‘I'm not going to let some clown who can't buy the right-sized shoes operate on me!' (I think I might also have suggested that he should go for a more natural hair colour and apply a lighter touch with the make-up.)

He began chasing me around the table. I shouted over my shoulder, ‘Ishmael Leseur's Syndrome's not real! It's just some stupid thing I made up when I was a little kid as an excuse for all the times I stuffed up! There's nothing wrong with me! I'm perfectly normal!'

Ronny stopped in his tracks and smiled (It's painted on. What else can he do?). ‘Oh, well, that's all right then,' he said, chucking away the chainsaw.

How easy was that? What a pushover. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but then RM held out his hamburger. It was huge. It also had a strange cord hanging from it that I hadn't noticed before. Ronny grabbed it and yanked down. Deadly blood-covered blades shot out and rotated in a blur. Only looking back, I think those deadly blood-covered blades might have actually been beetroot slices. That was the clincher for me – a killer, petrol-driven, motorised hamburger. No way! This was
definitely
a dream and I wanted out!

I tried to wake myself up but I might as well have been
sleeping inside a block of cement. Next thing I knew, the killer hamburger was gone and in its place Ronny Mac was holding up Prue's old Ringo peg person and cooing, ‘Remember what happened with this way back in Year Nine? Was
that
normal?' Then he pointed to a plastic bottle of cordial on the floor. He jumped on it and squished it flat. Yellow liquid sprayed all over me. ‘Last year?' he said, ‘Sally's pool party? You haven't forgotten that, have you? Are you telling me
that
was normal?' Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out … Wait, was that what I thought it was? He held out his hand. There was a tongue the size of a baby elephant's trunk thrashing about on his palm. ‘And
this
? Do you honestly believe this kind of thing happens to
normal
people?'

Now Ranga Ronny was standing right over me and I was cowering in a corner. From that angle, with his crazy hair and that maniac smile, he looked just like a more colourful version of Razz. It was quite a comforting thought. Except for the giant, glinting knife he had in his hand.

‘
Dude
,' he said McScarily, ‘there's nothing to worry about,
dude.
I'm just gonna slice you open,
dude
and see what's wrong with you,
dude.
We think you might be a dud
dude.
Hey, dud dude. That's McAwesome!'

Then the room was crammed with all these weird people with three eyes or their heads on backwards or bodies like fish or toads or something. It was like a mutants' convention. They pushed in beside Ronny and began poking me with sticks and spears and sesame seed buns and quarter pounders and chanting, ‘
WHAT'S
wrong
with you, man! what's
wrong
with you, man! what's
wrong
with you, man! ‘

I lurched awake. I was back in my normal room. Hey, what do you know? It was all just a dream! (Please don't tell Miss Tarango I wrote that. She'd kill me.) But right then I didn't care. I was just so happy. There was nothing wrong with me after all. I was the same as everyone else. I was completely
normal. I didn't have Ishmael Leseur's Syndrome. How could I? It never even existed in the first place!

Of course I was wrong.

Ishmael Leseur's Syndrome certainly does exist. And just to illustrate the point, soon I'd be hearing the ‘What's wrong with you?' question directed my way again in real life. Only next time, the person asking the question wouldn't be Razz.

It would be me.

Our second-round debate was now less than two weeks away and with Bill and Razz rushing to get their Film and Television assignment completed in time it was decided that Ignatius, Scobie and I would make up the team. It was also decided that Razz and Bill wouldn't need to be involved in the preparation.

With just the three of us attending meetings, they seemed to run more smoothly and we achieved a lot in a short space of time. Of course, without Razz they were nowhere near as much fun. I was on my way home from our final after-school meeting when I spotted Razz sitting under a tree down by the Fields. He'd been to soccer training but it was all over now and he was the only one left. As I got closer to him I could see that he didn't look happy. I figured it had something to do with the sun safe assignment.

‘Hey, Razz, here's a tip for you. When they take down the nets and everyone packs up and goes home, that's usually a subtle sign that soccer training is over for the day.'

He glanced up half-heartedly.

‘What? Oh yeah … Yeah, I guess so.'

Then he returned to picking at grass shoots and staring at his hands.

‘Razz, it was a joke. You remember jokes, don't you? One
person says something hilarious and the other laughs his guts up.'

This time he couldn't even manage a half-hearted glance.

‘Yeah … Yeah, right … Sorry.'

Now I was worried. I plonked myself down beside him.

‘Are you OK? Something up with the assignment?'

He flicked a bit of twig away with his finger and pushed his hand through his hair.

‘Nah, it's not that … It's Sally.'

‘What about her?'

‘Something she said.'

‘What?'

‘She told me we had to … talk.'

I waited for more. Razz stared back at me with desperate eyes.

‘
Talk
,' he repeated as if Sally had asked him to base jump into an active volcano.

‘So? You've never had any trouble with that before.'

‘No, you don't get it, man. She wasn't just talking about normal talk talk. She was talking about
talk
talk.'

‘Oh yeah, right, I get it now. It's obvious when you put it that way. Talk talk as opposed to
talk
talk. Good job of clearing that up, Razz. Ever thought of writing your own dictionary?'

But something had stolen all Razz's funny bones and left him a lifeless blob of seriousness.

‘It's bad, man. She wasn't kidding around. She didn't sound happy at all. Just kept saying we had to … talk … like it was super-important or something.'

As I listened to Razz an uneasy question was uncurling in my mind.

‘Razz, you don't think … I mean, Sally wouldn't be … you know … like, have you guys …'

Razz looked across at me blankly for a second before a light switched on in his eyes.

‘No … No way, man … No, she couldn't be. Sally's been pretty straight with me from the start. She doesn't want
anything too heavy before she finishes Year Twelve. School and study come first. She told me that. I don't mind, I guess, 'cause she's worth it. ‘Cept sometimes it gets pretty hard.'

‘Geez, Razz, too much information!'

When even that didn't register a smile, I gave up.

‘OK, so what do you think she wants to talk about?'

Razz drew in a breath.

‘Can only be one thing, man. She wants to dump me. I knew she was too smart for me. Too good for me.' Razz picked up a stone and hurled it out of sight. ‘Too
everything
for me.'

I hadn't seen him this miserable since last year when he made a stupid joke and accidentally hurt Sally's feelings. It was weird. He was so thick-skinned he could take every insult, every put-down that Barry Bagsley or anyone else hurled at him, and laugh it off. But with Sally just a look or a word could slice him to pieces.

‘I
really
like her, man …
more
than like.'

Razz turned his head away and blinked up at the sky.

‘But I don't get it. Why would she want to break up anyway? Have you said or done anything bad?'

‘I haven't had time to do anything.'

‘What about the last time you saw her?'

‘That was when Bill and me did that filming at her place. She was great all day – laughing and joking around. After that she was flat out with exams, then she was away on a camp for a week. We were going to do something together as soon as she got home. She was really keen. So I rang her straight after my soccer game on Saturday, to see what she wanted to do. But she sounded really down. Reckoned she was just tired. Then I said what about next weekend and that's when she said it. First we had to … talk. Said we couldn't discuss it over the phone – we had to do it face to face.'

Face to face? Razz was right. This was sounding bad.

‘So when's it going to happen? When are you two going to … talk?'

‘She's coming to the debate tomorrow night. I'm seeing her there. That's when I'll get the flick.'

‘But if you two were getting on great a couple of weeks ago and nothing's happened since, why would she suddenly want to dump you?'

‘Well, I think I figured that out too. Something must have happened on the camp.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like she met someone else.'

‘On a school camp with a bunch of other girls? Who could she meet?'

‘Sometimes there are other schools there as well – boys' schools. They're supposed to stay in separate areas but you can't trust some of those scumbags. Remember that camp we went on in Year Eight and some guys got busted for trying to sneak around to the girls' showers?'