The Summer of Kicks Page 3

  Nanna reaches for the baking tray and holds it under Warren’s nose. ‘Hot date scones?’

  ‘Nanna makes scones every time she has a hot date,’ I say.

  Mum cracks up laughing. I look at Warren. There’s a chance that my joke has broken the ice. We’re sitting around the formal lounge room, all having a laugh together. This is good. A fresh start. After two years enduring his football-captain-alpha-male dominance, this is a chance for him to see me not just as Rue’s baby brother, but as the intelligent and witty mature sixteen-year-old that I am. With one amusing line I’ve crossed over: I’m no longer just the little brother, I’m his equal now. Warren the Tool doesn’t have the upper hand anymore. The playing field is level. In fact, he’s the new guy in the equation. Technically I have the homeground advantage, but I’m willing to split the difference with him. This could be the start of a new era for me and the Tool. An era of mutual respect and understanding.

  Then I see Warren’s face. It’s completely blank. My nanna joke has sailed right over his head. He has no idea what we’re laughing at. Our eyes meet and he smiles at me, but it’s not the smile of mutual respect and understanding. It’s a smile that indicates I should be paying attention to his left hand, the one that’s gently wrapping around his right fist, the one that’s letting me know exactly how the chain of command will be operating from now on.

  ‘It’s a shame Rue’s not home yet, Warren,’ says Mum, and Warren offers something between a nod and a grunt as his response. Rue’s just started an internship with Eco Globo, ethical journalism for the masses. She was headhunted; they practically begged her to apply after the success of her popular girl blog: Teen Woman, Today’s World. She beat something like nine hundred people for the position. As soon as her first year of uni was finished, she rocked on in, started working there and has been pulling twelve-hour days ever since.

  You never know when opportunity will knock, Mum often says. All you have to do is decide to open the door. I guess that acing brainiac English in year twelve goes a long way towards opportunity knocking on your door.

  ‘Still, she should be home in time for dinner.’ Tucking her saucer under her chin, Mum takes another bite of a lumpy scone and chews with her mouth firmly closed, creating good impressions. ‘In the meantime, Starrphyre can show you where you can put your bags and things.’

  ‘Hey, it’s OK, Mrs J, I know where Rue’s room is,’ says the Tool with a chisel-jawed smirk.

  ‘True,’ says Mum, ‘but you’ll be squatting in with Starrphyre just the same.’

  ‘Are you serious?’ Warren says. It sounds obnoxious to me, but somehow he’s made it come off sounding like a legitimate question.

  ‘Look,’ Mum says, and she rests her scone down on the crocheted tablecloth. ‘I know that you and my daughter have been together for … what is it – a couple of years now?’

  Another nod.

  ‘And I understand what it’s like to be young and in love, and although she’s old enough to vote, to go out to nightclubs and do all kinds of other things, you need to respect the fact that this is my home and the rules apply.’

  And that’s Sheila. Taking no crap.

  ‘Hey, pull-out couch,’ Warren says, bouncing on it like an idiot. It sits against the opposite wall to my bed, and once he pulls it out, sets it up like a bed, his feet are going to be inches from my face.

  ‘Just … don’t break it,’ I say. ‘It’s my mum’s couch.’ I’m trying to be all Doctor Phil authoritarian, but being protective of my mother’s sofa bed isn’t my best strategy to enforce my manliness.

  He looks at me with an ape’s face. Says nothing.

  ‘I’m just saying, you need to have some respect. Mum’s kind of going out on a limb letting you move in, you know.’

  ‘Your mum’s hot,’ he says. He follows it up with a childish giggle.

  ‘Just … don’t break stuff,’ I say again. ‘And play by the rules, too. This is my room, man.’ I say ‘man’ because I figure it’s how his stupid meathead mates would talk to him. I’m trying to reach him on his level. I think it’s working.

  ‘So what does your mum do again?’ he asks. ‘She’s like a sex teacher or something, right? What does she call herself? Sheila Hot?’

  ‘It’s Sheila Sweets,’ I say. ‘And she’s a radio relationship therapist.’

  ‘Same thing, right? Has she got any DVDs?’ he asks. ‘Of her like … doin’ it?’

  ‘What? Jesus, dude, have you got a brain injury?’

  ‘Serious, though, I reckon she might be up for giving me and Rue a couple of lessons.’ Warren chuckles and I duck the sofa cushion he throws at me. He continues unfolding his bed. ‘Maybe I’ll get a family discount.’

  Maybe he’ll get hit by a bus. The night’s still early.

  ‘You’re just jealous ’cos I’m shagging your sister and you’re not.’

  ‘That doesn’t even make sense.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, let me tell you something that will make sense, little brother,’ Warren says and his face comes right up close to mine, right where his feet will be all through the night. He’s uncomfortably close and I suddenly feel small. Primary school small and a feeling I haven’t experienced since the day Luke Hibbert pushed me hard up against the brick wall at the back of the library, spat in my face, laughed and called me a girl, then stole my Luke Skywalker action figure – the one Mum had bought especially for me because I had been such a good boy helping her around the house. That feeling is with me again. I’m trying to not cry, trying to not wet my pants.

  ‘Listen up,’ Warren says. ‘It’s only day one here, but you’ve already dropped down to the bottom of the shit-heap. See, I’m the man of the house now. Not you. You don’t even rate. Pretty soon, everything around here’s gonna be my way. Maybe not straightaway, you’ve gotta give the situation a bit of time first, but soon, I’ll be running this show. Runnin’ the whole freakin’ thing.’ He pokes me with his index finger like a pistol barrel in my chest. ‘You got that?’

  I got it.

  Day one and I’ve been bitten hard on the ear. Hard enough to draw blood.

  Chapter 6

  A new world order

  As I lie in bed, the ceiling fan travelling clockwise, the leaves from the frangipani tree scraping and scratching at the flyscreen outside my window (or is it Warren’s window now?), I tumble through Warren’s threats over and over in my mind.

  I knew it would be like this. I know my sister’s boyfriend and he’s always been a tool. Everyone knows it. I just don’t understand why Mum would allow him to move into our house, into my room. But that’s the way it is with Warren. Despite the fact that he perpetually acts like a total ass, he still gets whatever he wants, when he wants it. A roof over his head? Done. Three meals a day? Thank you very much, Sheila. It doesn’t make any sense, but the bottom line is that this is how things are now. There’s a new world order. What is just is, and there are only two things in life I have control over: the things I think and the things I do. Mum’s always told me that. And under the heading of ‘things that are out of my control’? That’s where we find everything Warren the Tool does. And from where I lie right now I just have to suck it up.

  So I force the door closed on that whole subject, pull the sheet up over my shoulders and try to get some sleep. But the conversation I had with Mikayla this afternoon – the one about starting a band – has decided that now is the right time for me to consider all options. If Candace McAllister is ever going to see me as anything more than just a blur in the school landscape, I’ll have to do something big – something that makes me so visible it’ll be impossible for her to ignore me. Could we actually do it? Could the four of us – me, Bailey, Reece and Hemmo – conceivably start a band? Maybe we could. Why not? Seriously, what could go wrong? If we’re crap, it doesn’t really matter. And if by some stroke of luck we actually turn out to be un-shithouse, then
a conversation with Candace in the foreseeable future could be on the cards. And Mikayla’s right. Guys in bands are cool – even if they’re in dorky bands. And usually they do have girlfriends. But before any final decisions are made, let’s check what’s on the line. What do we have to lose? Our integrity? Our popularity status at school? It’s a no-brainer. Prepare to be blown away, Candace McAllister – we’re starting a band.

  I think about names, band logos, strutting across the stage belting out the final song at the year twelve formal and ending the set with a spectacular stage-dive right into Candace’s arms. But could we do it? Supposing we did actually get together and create mind-blowing music, could me and my dorky mates get up on stage and command the attention of an audience? Be adored by legions of screaming fans? I don’t really see it. At least I don’t see it yet. In all seriousness I don’t think that I could get on stage and display any remote level of confidence at all. I cried in a debate once. But I think of Jim Morrison – legendary poet/frontman/sex god – he oozed stage presence. At times he was too big for the stage, but when The Doors first started playing gigs, he’d stand with his back to the crowd – too shy to face people when he sang. So I consider the possibilities. If I want a shot with Candace, there’s simply no other option. This has to happen. And tomorrow, I’ll tell the guys.

  Chapter 7

  Motivated by netball skirts

  I’m walking to maths. Room five is upstairs and the echo from dozens of clomping ill-treated shoes creates a beat inside my head.

  Kids are buzzing, swarming around doorways. Talking. Pushing. Funnelling in. Hemmo is waiting for me outside our room and we walk in and choose a desk by the window, three rows back. There’s no sign of the teacher yet. Mrs Price is often late. We have a theory that she’s taking part in extra-curricular activities with Louis the maintenance guy. He has a beard the size of my backpack and smells like sixty-plus years of compounded non-use of deodorant.

  ‘I’ve had a revelation,’ I say to Hemmo.

  ‘Dude, we just did Revelations in Christian studies. It’s not pretty at all. Seven-headed beasts coming to take over the earth. I heard Jerry Bruckheimer sleeps with his video camera on standby, you know, just in case.’

  ‘Different kind of revelation, dumb ass,’ I say. ‘Guess what we’re doing over summer?’

  ‘Couple of five-day World of Warcraft marathons, a few solid weeks of COD and Halo and that’ll pretty much carry me through till school goes back.’

  Bailey drops his bag at the desk behind us. It’s just the three of us in Mrs Price’s class. Reece is in something called the ‘numeracy program’, which is apparently the politically correct name for loser maths. Last I heard they were still working on their ten times tables.

  ‘How about you, Bale? What are your summer plans?’

  ‘I’m helping Mum with her bobbleheads at the markets,’ Bailey says, then sits and stares blankly out the window at a tree branch. He tunes out and blank stares a lot. He’s a total space cadet. A few years back there were claims that he was some kind of genius and that’s why he was moved up a grade in the first place. But seriously, if his head was a hamburger and his brains were the fillings, he’d be buns touching buns.

  ‘What if you’re not?’ I suggest.

  ‘What?’ says Hemmo.

  ‘What if you guys aren’t helping your mums or playing your stupid first-person shooter games.’

  ‘Hey – World of Warcraft isn’t an FPS, you tool. It’s an MMORPG!’

  ‘Now you’re just making up words,’ I say, and he looks at me like I’ve flipped and formed an alliance with the demons of the Burning Legion.

  ‘MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online—’ Hemmo begins, but I cut him short.

  ‘Whatever, I don’t care.’ I have to reclaim the moment. This is my big pitch because if this is going to happen, it has to be all of us. I lean in and I talk slowly. ‘What if …’ I pause for effect, ‘… instead …’ another pause, ‘… we start a band?’

  ‘Pfffft,’ Bailey laughs. ‘A band? Like a … rock band?’ He says it like it’s a disease he doesn’t want to catch.

  ‘Polar Fleece Reece is in,’ I say. He’s not. He knows nothing about it. But once we put it to him with three of us already onboard, he’ll be in.

  ‘Why a band?’ Hemmo asks.

  As if on cue, netball girls walk past our doorway and Hemmo gives my shoulder a nudge. They’re only in shot for a second or two, but it’s long enough for my point to have been made.

  ‘That’s why, Hemmo.’

  Hemmo knows his limitations with the fairer sex, and if starting a band in any way bridges the ravine that exists between him and them, he’ll be all over it.

  ‘Girls love guys in bands,’ I say.

  ‘Says who?’

  Says Mikayla Petschler, but that’s not going to be a convincing argument. Plus if I mention that I talked to Mikayla, I’ll be subjected to Hemmo’s stupid taunting for days.

  ‘I don’t know. Everyone. It’s well documented.’

  ‘So who’s in the band?’

  ‘We are. And Reece.’

  ‘What can he do?’ Bailey asks.

  ‘I don’t have a clue,’ I say. And if Reece can’t bring something more to the table than the rest of us, the plans for the band and any chance of clawing my way into Candace’s peripheral view will be deader than Elvis himself.

  Chapter 8

  Play that funky music

  It’s lunchtime and like every other day we’re on the silver seat. Some kid’s coming up the row, scabbing change. I reach into my pocket, feeling for the twenty and ten that have been jingling there all day, but before he makes it to our seat, a year-twelve guy, a footballer – it would have been Warren a couple of years ago – pushes the kid, sends him ass backwards onto the concrete, and his coin-scabbing run is over.

  ‘A band?’ Reece says. ‘With, like, instruments, right?’

  ‘Or something,’ I say. ‘We haven’t really thought that far ahead.’

  ‘And you guarantee we’ll totally be adored by loads of girls and stuff?’

  Definitely not at first. Not ever, most likely, but I nod, and I feel like I’m selling him a car, an ’83 Nissan Pulsar – a real crap-heap – but I’m talking it up like it’s the Arkham City Batmobile.

  ‘I’m so totally in,’ Reece says and the excitement on his face tells me that the wheels are already in motion. The formation of our band is complete.

  ‘Guys, can you believe it? We’ve just started a freaking band!’ Reece squeals. ‘How awesome is that?’

  Bailey looks characteristically unsure and Hemmo’s face is buried in some game on his phone, but they’re good to go, and it is awesome. I look at Polar Fleece Reece, who seems like my only ally at this point.

  ‘Hey, man,’ I say. ‘We’re in a band.’ The smile across my face matches his and it feels like the right thing to do, so we high-five like year threes, and the smack from our palms ringing out across the quadrangle.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘First up, we have to decide who’s doing what. Can any of you losers play anything?’

  ‘I can play the drums,’ says Bailey. ‘I played drums in church till I was nine.’

  ‘OK …’ I say. Probably time that Bailey updated his CV. I look to Hemmo.

  ‘I can play drums, too,’ Hemmo says.

  ‘No you can’t,’ says Reece.

  ‘I freakin’ well can,’ Hemmo argues and proceeds to bang out a beat on the lunch seat.

  ‘Tapping your fingers on a chair doesn’t make you a drummer, you moron,’ Reece says.

  ‘It’s a bench,’ corrects Bailey.

  ‘What?’ says Reece.

  ‘The word chair relates to seating for one. Being four metres long, this is technically a bench.’

  ‘Or a chair for someone with a four-metre-wide ass,’ Reece sa
ys.

  ‘Either way,’ I say, ‘everyone can tap on a chair.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ Hemmo insists.

  ‘Yes, Hemmo,’ I say. ‘Everyone. Besides, if we’re all drummers, that’s gonna make for a pretty crappy band. Can you do anything else?’

  Hemmo offers up nothing but a blank stare. Bailey’s blankness must be contagious.

  ‘We’ll get back to you, Benji,’ Reece says. ‘Pencil him in for roadie, Starrph.’ Reece reaches into his bag and pulls out a pie-sized blob wrapped in Glad Wrap. ‘Hey, I can sort of play piano, if that helps. I had lessons for about two years,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a keyboard at home. I can play it pretty well. Chords and stuff.’

  ‘Yeah? Can you play any songs?’ Hemmo asks.

  ‘Mostly just old crap. Nanna music,’ he says. ‘I learned a Coldplay song once.’

  ‘Coldplay are turds,’ says Hemmo. ‘Why would you want to learn that? Didn’t they have anything else to choose from?’

  ‘There was this one song,’ Reece says. ‘It was called The Theme From Bite Me You Total Loser, but I already knew how to play it. I can play the whole thing with one finger – check it out.’ He whips out a stiff finger in Hemmo’s direction and we all laugh hard.

  ‘I’m happy to give songwriting a go, too,’ says Reece.

  ‘And I could probably tackle the singing if I had to,’ I say. I’m pretty confident I can do it, but I don’t want to sound like I’m too into myself.

  ‘Why do you get to be the singer?’ Reece says.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s in my blood.’

  ‘In your blood? Your dad was a frickin’ bass guitar player.’

  ‘Your dad can’t spell pants.’

  ‘Nice, man, really nice.’

  ‘And I’m pretty sure Bailey hasn’t lucked out on any singing DNA,’ I say. ‘I’ve been in a car with his mum when she’s been singing along to Barbra Streisand or whatever.’

  ‘Holy crap, I know,’ says Hemmo, and he’s laughing now. ‘No offence, Bailey, but he’s right. Your mum needs to learn how to whistle or something, because she can’t sing for shit.’