Mucked Up (9 page)

It’s a super-smokin’ anime chick from one of those Japanese comics where the hot girls are always falling over and you see a bit of their underwear. Ravo goes into full shock mode: ‘Bris? – you – look – uhhhh – different.’

Since Brisley joined us in SCUM a few months back, we’ve only ever known her as the Milkbottle: she’s always had this white pale face with undead goth emo-Twilight-face skin and her clothes have always been scungy and her hair has always been black and greasy.

But now it’s clean and blonde with a red bow in it, and she looks like this:

‘Bris, you look da bizness,’ goes Jack S, his eyes having a good perv. But Jarrell gets jealous and spoils his perv by hitting him with her elbow. She says ‘Why’d you blonde your hair, Bris, it’s eewwwwww’ to make Bris feel bad about herself. She likes to make people feel bad about themselves, that’s her talent.

Ravo goes ‘I don’t think it’s ewwwww at all, Bris, I think your hair is nice.’ He sits back down on the bench, using his arm to push down his air-stiffy.

‘Thanks, Ravo, just thought it was time for a change so I got my hair done at an, actual … hairdresser!’ She flicks her blonde hair and it flops down nice, all shampoo-ad silky.

Jack S is impressed: ‘Ooooo a hairdresser …’

I slide over a bit to make a space on the bench between me and Ravo: ‘You brought cupcakes, Bris, share them round,’ and I kind of pat the bench to show her where to sit and Ravo pats the bench too, going ‘Yeah, sit down, Bris, I’ll tell you all about how I survived the Weapon of Mass Sprayduction this morning.’

But Brisley isn’t sitting down, something weird’s happening with her mouth where her lips are moving up on the ends and opening slightly. I’ve never seen anything like it before on the Milkbottle. Usually her mouth is just serious and closed and undead, but if I’m not completely wrong about this, and I don’t think I am wrong about this …
BRISLEY WENG IS SMILING
.

Didn’t even know she had teeth. ‘Listen guys …’ she starts to say and we stop bench-slapping so we can hear her.

‘… uhhh … the cupcakes are uhhhh … not for you.’

She’s looking all nervous: ‘Actually I’ve been thinking about how things are kinda weird at the moment with all of us … y’know … like what’s going on between Jarrell and Tom.’

I’m not understanding what she’s saying: ‘Whaddya mean? Nothing’s going on between me and Jarrell.’

Jarrell pffffs: ‘Yeah Bris, what ARE you on about?’

‘Come on, we all know that SCUM has been no fun at all since the bush dance when you guys started having your – I don’t know what it is – your little – thing.’

‘No thing,’ I say.

‘No thing at all,’ goes Jarrell.

‘Come on, we used to all get along alright but now it’s just horrible sitting together. Tom, you’re always so pissed off with Jarrell, and Jarrell, you’re always so rude to Tom. It’s all tense with you two not talking to each other and sending out horrible hate-vibes to each other.’

‘What hate-vibes?’ goes Jarrell.

‘There are no hate-vibes,’ I say.

‘Well I’m not having a good time here so I thought I’d have a little break until you two work out whatever you need to work out. I’m going to hang somewhere else for a bit.’

I can see Ravo’s not-happy face coming back: ‘Where you going, Bris?’

‘Krissy Klang’s been asking me for ages … if I wanted to hang out at the … Assembly Hall Wall.’

We all know the Assembly Hall Wall and we all know who hangs there. The Hot Asian Girls. Krissy Klang and Angie Maningas and Mae Nguy and a few others. Also one boy who looks like a girl: his name is Ji-Hyun but everyone call him Jack cos it’s easier to say. They are the HAGZ and they are all hot and blonde and Asian and we cannot possibly compete with them. Going from SCUM to the HAGZ is like going from the bottom of Mount Everest to the top in one single step. There is no point even trying to stop Bris from going, but seems like Ravo’s going to give it a go.

‘Okay Bris, go hang with the HAGZ and maybe in a few days we’ll see you back, right?’

Bris gives him a big I’m-sorry look with her nice make-upped eyes. ‘I’ll miss you guys. But I’ll still see you in class and you can keep me in the loop. So … okay … anyways.’

Then she turns and walks off. When you leave a conversation on an ‘anyways’, it means you can’t get away fast enough. We watch her walking toward the assembly hall wall with her high-socked legs and short skirt and cupcake plate.

‘Good one, Tom.’ Jarrell gives me a hate-face, ‘You drove her away by making SCUM such a horrible environment.’

‘Maybe it was YOU, Jarrell.’ I can’t even bring myself to look at her. ‘Maybe Brisley couldn’t stand hanging out with such a – such a – massive COCKER.’ Cocker is my fave word when I need a swear-alternative that sounds like a proper swear. Also I like flarp, dick-knuck and perpenDICKular.

Jack S looks at both of us, back and forth like it’s a tennis match and he’s in the audience: ‘Awwww why can’t you guys be friends like you used to be. I don’t know what’s happening to us all. Why can’t we just be like our old selves?’ The look on his face right now, you should see it, his forehead squished up, all worried. He is truly the densest thing that has ever existed, denser than a tea-towel.

Ravo’s just staring off to the assembly hall wall: ‘You reckon Bris’ll ever come back?’

‘Course she will,’ I go. ‘She’ll hang out with the HAGZ for a day or two and realise they’re hot and blonde and smart and nice and interesting and funny and popular but … like … we’re … more … we’ve got … well we’re …’
…

But I can’t think of anything that would be worth coming back to us for. The HAGZ are perfect and go to parties on Saturday nights and drink non-alcoholic jelly-shots. We just watch telly on Saturday nights or go bowling with our parents. Bris is lucky, she escaped from SCUM and I wish I could escape too right now. Look at the four of us left here. A dense twit, a sucky suckhead, a drunk hobo and a sad clown, sitting on a broken bench under a cut-off tree that had a disease in it.

Nobody talks for ages and then Jarrell and Jack S start talking about something. It’s hard not to listen because Jarrell talks just loud enough for me to hear, she wants me to hear everything that’s going on between them.

‘Jack, you excited about coming along to Philosothon today?’

Philosothon is a school thing that Jarrell does at lunchtimes where they sit in Portable C and talk about God and man and nature and crap. It’s a total wank but she’s trying to get Jack S to go with her so she can un-densify him, good luck with dat.

‘Oh yeah, reckon Philosofon will be really cool and I’ll learn lots of interesting stuff, hey?’

‘You are adorable when you say it.’

‘Wha?’

‘Philosothon.’

‘Phil-os-o-fon?’

She’s giggling all cutesy-like and holding his hand and he’s staring at her like he actually likes the look of her face, hard to believe.

‘Yeah, you’ll enjoy it, Jack. Today we’re discussing happiness in a Socratic sense, and whether self-knowledge is the only way to find true happiness.’

‘Yeah.’ He’s nodding like he’s actually understanding, hilarious.

‘Most people think happiness is born from external conditions, such as wealth and power or body pleasures—’ ‘Yeah, body pleasures.’ He understood that, he looks pleased with himself.

‘But others believe happiness is living a life that’s true to your own personal goodness.’

‘Uh-huhhhh …’ He doesn’t have a clue what she’s on about but he’ll do anything for her, even go to Philosothon. She has great power over him …

Booby-Touching Power.

Y’see, Jack S told me what happened at the bush dance that night between him and Jarrell, what happened after I left there. He told me about it last week and he was pretty happy telling me – it was all his superhorny dreams and wishes come true. Reckons him and Jarrell went outside the assembly hall for a walk, they went out in the dark to the corner near the fence and had a kiss and started hugging and stuff and he told me that his hand went down her shoulder then across her front then down to her booby region. True dat, he touched her boob over her dress. He said it was just a fast touch, not even a grab, and he—
BRNNNNNNNNNGGGG
.

Happy the bell went because I don’t want to go through this story. Don’t want to think about Jarrell’s boobs for even a sec. I don’t care that he touched her boob, him and Jarrell can do whatever they like together, their biz, but I just don’t want to think about it. It’s wrong.

‘So Jack, I’ll meet you at 12:30 p.m. outside Portable C?’ Jarrell’s already up, she doesn’t like to be late for class, suckhead. She’s still holding Jack’s hand though.

‘Yeshhhhh.’

‘Say it once more before I go.’

‘Wha?’

‘Philosothon.’

‘Philos-o-fon.’

‘ADORABLE!’ She lets go of his hand, bloody FINALLY, then she nods at Ravo and says ‘Laterz’ in that arsey way she says goodbye. But she doesn’t say anything to me, just squints her eyes as she walks past.

Ravo gets up: ‘How am I going to get through the day wearing these big pants with this stain on the back?’

‘You can hardly see it, Ravo,’ I tell him.

Jack S leans in again to see his bum: ‘You kind of can.’

‘Don’t listen to him, Ravo, just claim the stain.’

‘Yeah, claim the stain,’ he says, but he’s not really listening. He’s looking over to the assembly hall wall, trying to see if Brisley is there with the HAGZ but it’s too far away.

He shakes his head and says something to himself that I can’t hear. And off he goes toward B Block, everyone round him stopping to have a look at his pants, laughing and dissing him.

Oiiiii, forgot to wipe your arse, mate / Classic
haw haw

The usual bitchy stuff. It wouldn’t be so bad except those were Year 7 girls.

Hello there, Mr Ravenscroft, have you lost
your circus?

That was Mr Ooi the maths teacher on playground duty. Ravo keeps walking, claiming the stain.

‘C’mon Zurb, we got Science.’

Jack S is standing and waiting for me but I don’t get up.

‘C’mon.’

I’m not going to answer. Gonna keep him standing there. Look at that face, what does she like about him?

‘C’mon, ya coming?’

‘Yeah whatevs.’

10:55 a.m
.
Third period: Science

This is one of the most important physics formulas in the universe and I just made it up right now. I have written it on the top of my exercise book with black pen.