Will (17 page)

I reached over and threw a kiss on her left cheek. I was getting used to that smile, and I liked it.

As soon as I had picked up the guitar and turned toward the hall the Freak had sniffed me out.

Is that your mum?

I turned to find him doing the fox-terrier jump at my side. I hadn’t seen him since last week.

Hey, man, where did you spring from? Nice to see you back
.

He nearly did backflips in response.

I was waiting for you. So was that your mum?

Who else would it have been, unless I had this whole older-woman thing going on?

She seems nice
.

I looked at him. He was one of the strangest earthlings I had ever met.

So were you waiting outside for a reason? Are those geeks giving you a hard time again?

Nope, they’re scared of what you’ll do to them. I told them that you’re my best friend
.

Yet another strike to my almost nonexistent image. I attempted to reset the boundaries.

Ahh, well, I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I’m pretty much older than you are
.

But that doesn’t matter. I’m used to having older people as my friends. Dad thinks it’s good for my development. Anyway, Dad’s my other best friend and he’s much older than you. I told him all
about you and he said I was lucky to have someone as nice and caring as you as a friend
.

I gave up then.

All right, mate. Let’s go inside
.

The rest of the geeks were playing the latest geek craze on their laptops and Zach was very obviously not invited. They might have backed right off him but that didn’t mean they were going to let him infiltrate their geekdom. I could feel the confidence in him grow as he walked beside me. He had to get some mates. But for the moment it looked like I was it.

As the Freak and I set up our gear it took me a few seconds to sniff out that Waddlehead had entered the building. Usually before rehearsals Andrews would say,
I know it’s only happy noise but could you keep it down to a yell?
Today there was silence. All the kids knew that in Waddlehead’s world there was no such thing as
happy noise
, it was all
bad noise
except when there was no noise. But it wasn’t just Waddlehead-associated fear that shut us up. His appearance marked something unusual. On reality TV this would be the scene they’d put on the ads all week to suck people in to watching.

Brother Pat, Andrews and Waddlehead were positioned right at the front of the stage. Waddlehead had his head down, with his hands inside the pockets of a gray parka. Obviously part of his casual gear. He must shop where my grandfather did. Andrews was moving his hands around a lot. Brother Pat said something very loudly once and then said nothing else. He stood there in his usual position; hands resting on his stomach, slowly rocking back and forth on his heels, whistling quietly through his teeth.

At one point Andrews sprang over to the pit, grabbed his production folder and then sprang back. He held it with one hand, right up in Waddlehead’s face, and flicked the pages with the other. Waddlehead looked at the folder once and continued shaking his head. Andrews stopped. There was nothing for thirty seconds, then
Waddlehead turned and left by the stage door, hands still in his pockets.

Andrews and Brother Pat said nothing for another thirty seconds, then Andrews ran out after Waddlehead. The entire occupancy of the hall started to gravitate toward the doors just to see if there was going to be some action outside. Unfortunately Andrews came back in before we got there, but he was definitely looking more pissed off than when he left.

Then no noise turned to lots of noise, full of gossip and rumor. Everyone swore they knew exactly what was going on.
Andrews had been busted over the weekend by the cops and Waddlehead had told him he had to resign: Waddlehead had heard from one of the parents that there was full-frontal nudity and a love scene and demanded that the musical be stopped immediately: someone had a contagious disease and we were all quarantined until further notice
.

In my experience no dealings with Waddlehead are ever good. And wherever he went he left a long trail of misery behind him. So I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Andrews spent another five minutes talking with Brother Pat, who remained quietly rocking with his hands folded, except this time he was doing a lot of nodding.

Andrews moved forward.

Right, everyone. As you have no doubt just seen, Mr. Waverton was here
.

Why is it that teachers always state the obvious?

He said to wish you the very best success, he applauds all of your dedication and hard work and he is sure that
The Boy Friend
will be the most successful musical yet
.

Yeah right! That’s exactly what he was saying!

Unfortunately he also delivered some very difficult news—but nothing we cannot overcome
.

Pause.

It appears the hall has been double booked on the dates of our performances. Due to bookings every weekend of the holidays and the HSC commencing as soon as we return next term, we are going to have to bring the performances forward by a week. Which means that these two weekends will be the final two weekends before the actual performances
.

For a second time in twenty minutes the hall was filled with noise: high-pitched squealing and dramatic yelling.

You’ve got to be joking, sir!

No way, that’s not fair
.

A couple of the more theatrical types actually left the hall, only to come back in again really quickly so they wouldn’t miss anything. It was probably the best news I’d heard in a while, if I forgot about the Elizabeth thing. But I didn’t think it was that big a deal.

Now I have every confidence we will be ready, but it does mean that the time we have left is vital for all of us. We absolutely must, must, must all pull together as a team. That goes for every single band member, every backstage person, every chorus member, every lead, the prompt, Ms. Sefton, Brother Pat and myself
.

As he labeled each group he paused and stared at where they were sitting, even the teachers. When he got to himself he pointed, as if we didn’t know it was him he was talking about.

From now on, we do not have time to wait for people who forget their cue, to wait for the Year Eight chorus to repeat their dance to “It’s so much nicer in Nice,” to wait for people to move stage left instead of right. And chorus, absolutely no more faking with the words of songs!

Leads
—he turned and looked to the left of the stage—
there is absolutely no excuse for not having lines learned nor blocking
onstage. I will be expecting you all to work with me three times a week for the next two weeks
.

He looked in Brother Pat’s direction.

It is up to Brother Pat what he wants to do with the band
.

We’ll be ready, Mr. Andrews, don’t you worry!

Thank God for that!

OK, people, it is up to you now! Five minutes, then we are on
.

So Waddlehead didn’t just destroy the lives of students. I watched as everyone did their own thing to try and get their heads around the news. Andrews went outside again. Mark went in the opposite direction, no doubt to have a sly cigarette even though he told me he’d given up again. Elizabeth went straight to the dressing room. Yep, Waddlehead had done his job well.

Waddlehead’s news meant that the morning was high pressure, punctuated with mini explosions of steam that escaped from bubbling creative tempers. Mr. Andrews, who is normally Mr. Ice Man, lost it at Mark, who is normally Mr. Placid. Mark then lost it at Elizabeth, who is normally Ms. Nice, who lost it with the music teacher, Ms. Sefton, who is normally Ms. Understanding. Ms. Sefton then lost it at us, the band, who are normally kept out of all that hypertension crap. It was at this time Andrews called for a break and instructed all of us to leave the hall and go for a walk, run, whatever, just so long as everyone lightened up.

I was wondering whether now was the time to make the move. As I made my way to the stage, I caught sight of the back of Elizabeth’s shirt walking at top speed out of the hall. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t need some guy hanging around right at this moment.

I looked down to find the Freak waiting patiently with his lunch box in his hand. He and Brother Pat seemed to be the only two people in the hall who Waddlehead had not gotten to.

Come on, Will! Little lunch
.

We’d been going through the same routine every rehearsal.

Listen, Freak, by the time you get to high school you have got to start calling little lunch
recess
or, at the very least
,
play lunch
.
Actually, that’s just as bad. Just call it recess
.

Why? What’s the difference, it still means the same thing
.

In some way he had a point and maybe if he didn’t care then other people wouldn’t. But unfortunately that’s not how school playgrounds operated. There were so many codes you had to learn to survive your first year in high school. These codes then dictated the pecking order for the next six years or until there was a major growth spurt with a heavy shot of hormones. That was how vital it was to get it right. And persisting in calling recess
little lunch
showed a major lack of understanding of the code.

I peered into the plastic Ninja Turtles lunch box. As usual it was jam-packed with everything good: a pink icing doughnut, a small packet of chips, cheese and crackers, fruit strips. You had to give his dad credit. He sure knew how to pack a lunch box.

Man, you’ve got enough in here for the whole band
.

Zach nodded his head in agreement and with a mouthful of chips offered,
Yeah, lots of people sit with me at little lunch
.

I bet. Do they come back at lunch?

No, I normally have lunch by myself and go straight to the library. The other guys just want to play footy and I don’t want to. Here, you can have the doughnut
.

He put it in my hand, the pink icing clinging to the outer edges of my palm.

No, I can’t have that. It must be your favorite
.

It is, but I don’t care if you have it. You’re my friend
.

The thing was, this guy was so honest. He just said what was in his head without worrying what anyone else thought. It was a hard way to live but it seemed a bit more real than the usual teenager crap. Maybe a little too real at times.

We were sitting eating the Cohen feast when I saw Mark. He was talking and having a laugh with the other members of the cast.
It seemed as though everyone liked him, the bastard. Elizabeth was nowhere to be seen.

Hey, Will!

Mark beckoned me over to join the group. I waved back and pointed to the Freak.

Come over and meet these guys
, Mark called back.
Bring your mate
.

The Freak nearly wet himself with excitement.

Come on, Will! Let’s go. Oh boy! Wait until the other guys see that I know all of the leads. Come on. They’re waiting for us
.

Zach …

Too late. The Freak was already doing his doggy leaps over there. I could see Mark extending his hand and Zach shaking it hard. The others did the same. Zach had not shut up the whole time.

Yeah, Will, well, he’s like my best friend in the musical. He’s the best. He says—

Settle down, Freak
.

Everybody looked at me as if I’d said something really bad. I suppose if you call a guy who thinks that the sun shines out of your arse
Freak
, they might have a point. But the little guy loved it; well, at least it looked like he did, and I know he would have no problem telling me if he didn’t.

No, that’s his nickname. You like it, don’t you, Zach?

He nodded and continued talking to the girl who played the second lead. That kid could talk to anybody.

Mark looked at me.
Your new best mate, Will?

The little guy needs someone to keep an eye on him
. I looked over at the Freak, who was still talking.
He’s all right. He’s really innocent. He doesn’t seem to care that he hasn’t got any friends
.

Yeah, that type of thing’s hard
.

I thought that maybe it had been like that for Mark. He shook his head.

I wasn’t some type of reject, if that’s what you were thinking
.

I went to apologize but he was on a roll.

In Years Seven and Eight I rated myself as a pretty cool footy player. The shit hit the fan in Year Nine. That’s when everything went crazy…. I spent half the year dodging fruit, bags, fists. Even dorks rated higher on the scale than faggots
.

I flinched when he said
faggot;
at St. Andrew’s it was one of the lowest put-downs. I was about to ask him about it when I felt someone pulling on my arm, an annoying action that could only belong to the Freak.

Hey, listen, Freak, back off, would you …

I turned around to tell him to shove off and instead found myself face to face with Elizabeth Zefferelli.

Nooooooooooooooo!!!!

I couldn’t move.

Nothing. I had nothing.

The most I could do was stretch my mouth into a really stupid
I have the IQ of a baboon
expression. I searched frantically for anything to cover up this dithering drongo act, but there was nothing there. She obviously wasn’t having the same problem. Her huge smile was teasing me.