The Day Our Teacher Went Mad and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls (2 page)

‘So, what’s the go?’ asked Bazza. ‘What’s the action?’

‘Well,’ said my mum, ‘we want to welcome you into our family, so I thought —’

‘Yeah, yeah. I know all that rubbish,’ said Bazza. ‘What’s first? Are you lot off to the pub or the footy for a couple of cans?’

‘On a Saturday morning, I hardly think so,’ said my father. ‘Now, why don’t you have a kick of the football with young Nick here?’

‘Kick his butt, more likely,’ replied Bazza.

Mum had warned me that Bazza might be a bit aggro. Apparently his father used to hit poor Bazza. All the time.

‘So he’ll be like a puppy that was beaten,’ said Mum. ‘He won’t trust anyone and he’ll probably snap if you go near him. If he has a go at you, try not to take any notice.’

How could you not notice that you’re about to die?

Somehow, we managed to make it through the morning. But then to my horror, Mum suggested we go and play in my room. Play what? Rip my head off and see if it hurts?

‘This is all a load of bull,’ said Bazza, slumped back on my bed. ‘I’d do a runner from here, nick off, except they’d throw me back in the slammer.’

Bazza explained that the slammer was a place where kids who’d been in heaps of trouble were locked up and looked after at the same time. I can’t see how that would work too well.

‘All right, so what do you want to do?’ asked Bazza.

‘Not sure,’ I said, shaking.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m not going to hit you. Not unless you annoy me.’

‘Oh. Thanks,’ I replied. ‘Do you feel like playing PlayStation?’

‘Rather stick pins in my eyes,’ said Bazza. ‘Got any money?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Still got forty bucks from my birthday.’ Then I thought,
Why did I say that?

‘Give it to me,’ said Bazza.

‘What if I say no?’ I replied.

‘You don’t want to know. Anyway, I’ll give it back to you. One day,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m no rip-off artist.’

So I did.

The day dragged on, with Bazza bored stupid and me scared witless. At last, it was night. But that brought with it new fears.

‘I thought Barry could sleep on a mattress in your room, Nick,’ said Mum.

This is it,
I thought.
I was meant to die young.

But as I lay there, waiting to be bashed as soon as I fell asleep, I thought I heard a crying noise.

It was Bazza!
How could a tough guy like Bazza be crying?

‘You OK?’ I whispered.

‘Leave me alone!’ he sobbed.

There was no way I was going to ask again, but then it seemed Bazza wanted to talk.

‘It’s all right for you!’ he said. ‘You’ve got oldies who love you. And a house.’

‘But Mum and Dad said you’re welcome here any time,’ I replied.

‘Oh yeah, that’d be right,’ said Bazza. ‘I’m a stinking street kid remember? No-one ever means it. Just makes them feel good.’

‘What if I wanted you to come back?’ I said.

Bazza didn’t reply. He tried to muffle it into the sheets, but I could tell he was crying again. I felt so sorry for Bazza.

‘Why do some kids have such terrible luck?’ I asked my dad quietly the next morning.

‘Mainly because of our greed,’ he said. ‘There’s enough money and food and love and support to look after every one of us, if we wanted it that way, but we prefer to be selfish. And then we complain about violence and rising crime. It’s a joke!’

I didn’t get the joke but I thought I might leave it at that.

And so Bazza left that afternoon, with us all saying he must come back sometime. But I could tell in his eyes he didn’t believe we meant it.

As Bazza walked off slowly with his head down, carrying his little bag of clothes, I felt sick. Sick and angry and guilty. But what could I do? Nothing right now, I supposed.

Later, I decided, when I got older, I was going to help kids like Bazza.

Or is that what we all say? ‘Later.’

About two weeks had passed when I suddenly saw Bazza hanging around the train station with some really tough-looking guys.

He pretended not to see me. But strangely, although I was scared to the back teeth, I found myself walking over and saying, ‘Hi Bazza, how’s it going?’

‘How’s
what
going?’ sneered Bazza.

‘This guy bugging you?’ asked one of his mates. ‘I’ll punch his face in.’

‘Nah, nah, cool it,’ said Bazza. ‘Just a loser I ripped a few bucks off one time.’

‘You said it was a lend,’ I said. ‘Like friends.’

‘Friends?’ they all shouted, laughing. ‘A lend? Ha ha ha.’ And off they went.

It was another three years before I saw or heard of Bazza again.

I received a letter. With thirty-eight dollars inside. This is what it said:

Nick
,

Just got out of the slammer. Again. It’s taken a while for me to realise, but it took a lot of guts for you to come over that day at the train station. Sorry I had to act like such an idiot. You know how it is.

I’ve learnt to read and write in the last few years and I’ve learnt something else, too. There are some good people in this world. Like you. You’ll never see me again, Nick. We’re too different. But I’ll never forget.

Bazza
.

P.S. Spend it wisely (it’s all I had)
.

There was absolutely nothing Allison Lang and her sister Kerry liked better than playing in the dark. Late at night when they should have been asleep, early in the morning before Mum and Dad woke up — any time they could get away with it.

Playing in the dark could mean lots of things. Sometimes they would start by making secret cubby houses out of blankets and chairs. They always promised to clean up so the room was spotless — but they never did, of course.

Other times, they’d just sit in the dark and imagine stuff. Or maybe tell each other fantastic stories. If that got boring, they’d have pillow fights and belt the daylights out of each other. One night, a pillow exploded and ten million feathers went everywhere. If both girls hadn’t been so sure that feathers would give them a rash, they’d have helped clean up. It took their parents the whole weekend.

The dark excited Allison and Kerry. It took them to another world, where adventures were there for the taking. Trouble was, one adventure turned out to be real. And dangerous.

One night, their mum and dad said they were going next door for a drink. Since Alison and Kerry were growing up, their mum had said, they could be trusted to stay home by themselves for the first time ever.

If the girls were worried about anything, anything at all, they should immediately ring or run next door. Did they think they could do that?

‘Absolutely,’ said Allison and Kerry. ‘Cool.’

The moment their parents were gone, the girls ripped into the chocolate biscuits Mum always kept for guests, polished off the lemonade in the fridge, and had a good sticky-beak in their mum and dad’s drawers for grown-up things. Then they pinched some money from their dad’s loose change bowl — not too much — and turned out the lights.

But Allison and Kerry had only been playing for a short time when they heard a strange noise.

‘Not funny,’ said Kerry, thinking it was Allison trying to scare her.

‘I thought it was you!’ replied Allison.

Then another noise. Like footsteps. Then the sound of someone trying to open a window.

‘Oh no,’ whispered Allison. ‘Not a burglar!’

By now, Kerry was too frightened to speak. Coming from the lounge room, there was the unmistakeable shine of a torch.

Allison, who had always been the toughest, hissed, ‘Don’t move!’ There was no way Kerry was going anywhere.

The footsteps moved into their mum and dad’s bedroom. Then came the sound of the drawers opening.

Lucky we’ve already pinched the gold coins,
thought Allison.
As for Mum’s jewellery, I hope he takes it. Especially those earrings that look like a car accident.

‘We’ve got two choices,’ whispered Allison. ‘We can just hope he, or maybe she, doesn’t come in here — and I reckon he will when he sees Mum’s crappy jewellery — or we can do something about it.’

‘Do something? You’ve got to be joking!’ replied Kerry.

‘Listen to me,’ said Allison. ‘You know how we play in the dark all the time? Well, that’s where we’ve got him. It’s as if we can see and he can’t. If we can somehow break his torch…’

But Allison had to stop there because the footsteps were coming towards them. The torch shone in, and from behind their beds, the girls could make out the shape of a huge man!

Then
,
BANG!

Suddenly, the torch was lying on the floor in a thousand bits. In two quick seconds, Allison had used her softball bat to make the room as black as the ace of spades.

The burglar jumped back in surprise, but Allison followed him and went
WHACK
again, right on his big toe.

As he yelped in pain, Allison turned on her hot hair-straightener. Then, as the burglar hopped around on one foot, trying to find the light switch, guess what he found instead?

‘Argh!’
screamed the man.

‘Won’t try that again, will we?’ said Allison.

Hearing her voice, the man yelled in surprise. ‘A kid! Turn that light on, little girl, or you’ll wish you were dead.’