Screw Loose (24 page)

Chelsea started singing into the megaphone: ‘Vistaview, let's all pull together, our bodies between our kneeeees!' She ended her song with a short peal of laughter.

He pedalled fast, and another boat slid into view as he rounded the corner, this one crewed entirely by girls. Then he saw the other girl on the megaphone, who was coming from the opposite direction and was, like him, on a bike.

‘Bunsy – watch out, you silly cow!' the girl bellowed into her megaphone.

He could see what was about to happen.

‘Magga girls, OARS UP!' shouted their coach from her bicycle. But it was too late.

There was an ear-shattering shriek from Chelsea, amplified through the megaphone, as the Vistaview boys and the boatload of girls collided in the middle of the brown river.

Khiem watched in shock as the girls' boat slid over the top of the boys' boat. The girls' boat gently inverted and, as one, they all tumbled out. Then the boys went over, too. Khiem got the last moment on the camcorder.

There was mayhem: violent splashing, screamed obscenities and wild accusations as each group blamed the other. Oars, like matchsticks, floated off down the river. Then the abuse turned to laughter. As he watched, smiling, and wondering if he needed to jump in, Chelsea's amplified shrieks transformed into a mournful ‘Help me!' followed by a deep, amplified gurgle.

The girls' coach, a tall girl with short hair, was off her bike already and easing herself into the water. He had to help, too.

The river was deep and dirty and probably dangerous, but too bad. He left the camcorder on the path and jumped down the bank, pulling off his shoes. In front of him in the muddy water, Craig was swimming after an oar. Some of the girls were attempting to right their boat; a number of boys and girls were clinging to one another.

The river's bottom was muddy and Khiem's feet slid deep into the chilly ooze as he plunged in. He gasped at the cold, then dived. Up close, the river was even dirtier than he'd realised. He dodged a lump of wood and, deciding to keep his head out of the water, struck out into the current.

The Vistaview boys had grouped around their boat and had now righted it, as had the girls. There was an atmosphere of sodden elation coming from both boats. The Magdalene girls were clambering back on board and warning everyone not to swallow the water. The Vistaview boys were spitting noisily and abusing Chelsea.

Khiem noticed Angelo Tarano helping Georgia Delahunty back into the girls' boat while Josh Yeatman steadied it. But where was Chelsea? Then he saw her. The girls' coach had an arm around her and was side-stroking to the bank; Chelsea's strained and upturned face was spluttering abuse as they chugged slowly past.

‘Shut your silly little mouth, Bunsy, or I'll hold you under,' he heard the coach say.

Khiem grinned. A girl trying to catch an oar bobbed past.

‘Are you all right?' he asked her.

‘Fine. Are you?' she enquired. She had a very sweet face: his kind of face.

‘I'm fine, too.' He liked her instantly. Her eyes were smiling at him.

‘Do you want me to help you?' he asked, hoping she would say yes.

‘No need. I'm absolutely fine
.
'

They were both treading water, but drifting downstream with the current. She reached out and grabbed the oar. He grabbed it, too. The Vistaview boys had pulled up alongside the girls and there was a hum of conversation and laughter. Khiem looked behind him for Chelsea. She was fine; she and the coach had reached the bank.

‘My name's Khiem,' he said to the girl. He drifted closer to her and found her hand under the water, then he shook it. She looked shocked, but she laughed.

‘I'm Penny. What crazy school are you?' she asked.

‘Vistaview.'

‘Hmm,' she said. ‘Are you guys on your Ls?'

He laughed. ‘Yeah.'

They were both puffing a little by now. ‘Chelsea Dean appears to be your cox,' Penny said.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘You know her?'

‘I know her,' said Penny and she laughed again. ‘She used to go to our school, but they asked her to leave.' She looked in the direction of the bank. ‘Tamsin's got her over there. She's all right.'

Their hands touched again underwater.

All the girls except Penny seemed to be back on board and adjusting their oars. ‘You okay, Penny?' one of them called out to her.

‘Yep. Coming,' Penny called. She turned back to Khiem. ‘I better go then. Nice to meet you.'

He watched her swim away. She was a good swimmer.

Confident. He definitely liked her. Her hair gleamed dark-red in the sunlight. A rare colour.

‘Is everyone accounted for, other school?' the girls' coach asked through her megaphone. ‘I've got your cox here.' Across on the bank he could just see Chelsea lying flat on the distant bank – he'd drifted a fair way. Their coach was standing over her.

He swam back to the bank to rescue the camcorder. Chelsea and the coach were taking off their tops to squeeze them out.

They turned away as he clambered up the bank, dripping like them.

‘Well I didn't think I needed saving,' Chelsea was saying.

‘Certainly not by you, Tamsin!'

‘Shut up, you little cane toad, or I'll throw you back in,' the other girl said.

‘Where's our cox?' Craig shouted from the river. ‘Girls, have you seen our cox?'

‘Shut up, Craig,' Chelsea shouted.

‘You okay?' Khiem asked Chelsea. She'd put her wet top back on and was sitting on the bank. He was still dripping, but he picked up the camcorder and started filming her again. This would make interesting footage. She was trying to squeeze water out of her hair.

‘My megaphone sank! Damn! Well, perhaps now my father will have to get me a runabout!'

‘What were you bloody doing with all those boys?' the other girl asked.

‘You have such a limited existence, Tamsin. I'm so glad I'm not at that sad school any more. Why don't you get out of your gilded cage and live in the real world!'

‘Sucks to the real world, Chelsea. Give me the gilded cage any day!' said the girl, her hand shielding her face as she surveyed the scene on the river. The girls were rowing back towards them now.

‘My new school has boys, Tamsin. But perhaps boys are not really your interest.'

‘Oh, Bunsy, so perceptive. Actually, I remember you once told me your dream was to be rowed to and from school by the Ethels' First Eight. Obviously you couldn't manage the Ethels, so you have the Vistaview rowing team instead!' She looked at Khiem. ‘Why is that boy filming us?'

She suddenly stalked up to him, grabbed Chelsea's camcorder before he realised what she was doing, and hurled it into the river.

CALL IN A
HANDWRITING
EXPERT

A
FTER SEVERAL MONTHS
at her new school, Georgia Delahunty was occasionally beginning to doubt the wisdom of choosing it. There was more punishment and more rebelliousness at Mary Magdalene than at Vistaview. In her short time there, she'd witnessed all Year 7 parents being contacted because socks with a fine silver thread became fashionable; she'd seen the whole of Year 9 get a half-hour detention when someone used a laser light in assembly; and at her own year level, a girl was wrestled to the floor by the Director of Religious Studies during a fingernail inspection. She was inclined to agree with Chelsea that the school was obsessed with personal appearance and run like a penitentiary.

But Tamsin made it absolutely worthwhile. Tamsin was sitting close to her now, and their knees touched as Ms Defarge climbed the steps to the stage. Since Georgia had returned from her short stay in India, she and Tamsin had been closer than ever, and Tamsin's confident management of the collision on the river the week before had left Georgia in even more awe. Chelsea Dean's rescue was now the talk of the school. Tamsin, as captain of the rowing team, had been grilled after the collision and told that if there were any more incidents like that they were to be with private schools only.

‘How's that barmy maharajah going?' Tamsin asked.

‘He's threatening to visit,' she whispered.

‘Ha!' said Tamsin. ‘Just give me a few details, and I'll tell Mum. Have him detained at the airport.'

Georgia smiled. ‘Thanks.'

Ms Defarge trotted across to the lectern.

‘I think this is going to be about the accident,' said Tamsin. This was a special seniors-only assembly. Ms Defarge tapped the microphone. In academic gown and looking very twitchy, she was gripping the lectern tightly. The auditorium fell still: there was nothing but the sound of creaking seats and the occasional cough.

‘Firstly, Mary Magdalene girls – the dreadful rowing collision. I have cross-examined all parties and have come to the conclusion that the incident was not a deliberate attempt to ram the Vistaview Secondary College vessel in order to meet boys, as I had previously assumed. It was sheer carelessness. However, if anything like this occurs again, the girls' rowing team will be restricted to the swimming pool. Mary Magdalene girls lose everything if they lose their decorum.'

She paused for a moment. ‘Girls!' Her voice was now sharp and high-pitched. ‘Yesterday I was
profoundly
disturbed to discover that one of our maintenance staff, Mr Gary Deare, has been harassed and hunted – yes, I say
hunted
– by a senior student. One of you!'

Silence. Ms Defarge glared down at the rows of upturned faces. ‘It can be quite normal for one of our younger girls to develop a crush on one of the older ones.'

Tamsin nudged Georgia.

‘But it is not normal to develop a crush on one of the maintenance staff! It is not normal to ambush and harass him. I do not know which girl is doing this, but I had a note handed to me yesterday, written by one of you, addressed to Mr Deare.' She waved a piece of pink paper in the air.

Merest whisperings, like mice in a wall, scampered through the hall as the girls absorbed this exciting news. Georgia wanted to glance at Phoebe Choudbury-Foote and see how she was reacting, but students had been suspended for turning around in assembly, and Phoebe should not be exposed.

Gary Deare had been assigned to support Georgia in her school-based apprenticeship, and she'd found him quite pleasant. Gary was funny and patient, and he wasn't interested in her at all. He played the acoustic guitar, drove a lowered Commodore and composed witty rap lyrics about the school, which he performed behind his shed at lunchtimes. Many girls had questioned her about their relationship, and quite a number had made enquiries about school-based apprenticeships from the careers adviser since she'd started hers.

Ms Defarge's eagle-eyes slowly scanned her charges.

‘To get to the bottom of this – to discover who this girl is – I have procured an example of each of your handwriting from your teachers, and I have called in a handwriting expert!'

You could hear dust fall.

‘I
shall
get to the bottom of this, and the girl who wrote this perversion will be asked to leave immediately: things that pollute shall not prevail at Mary Magdalene! Girls, I keep both ears to the ground wherever I go! I will begin interviews with each and every senior girl as soon as this assembly has concluded. Each girl will be expected to tell the absolute truth to me about what she knows of this atrocity.'

Georgia sat just as still as the others. This was such nonsense.

‘We have come together today to affirm that our school is a place of the spirit and of cleanliness,' Ms Defarge continued. ‘That great man, Savonarola of Florence, was the first to introduce bonfires of worldly possessions – bonfires onto which the citizens of Florence cast all those things which they knew polluted the spirit. Right now, we are all going to metaphorically cast upon our spiritual bonfires all those things that pollute us.' She paused expectantly. ‘Meditate now!' She clapped her hands and the sound rang out like a gunshot.

The girls bowed their heads in instant meditation. Georgia lowered her head, too. She wasn't really good at meditation, or sure of what impurity she should cast upon the bonfire, but she finally chose the
Big Brother
house, because she thought the competition was rigged. Then in boredom she switched to meditating on Tamsin, which made her much happier.

There was no noise in the hall. Not a giggle or a sniff. Finally Ms Defarge signalled an end to their contemplation with another sharp clap. Heads lifted.

‘Dismissed!'

As they stood up, the girls began to murmur to one another.

‘Good old Phoebe,' said Tamsin.

Georgia leant in closer. ‘I meditated on taking you to the formal.'

‘Oh, good one. I accept, of course,' whispered Tamsin.

GUINEA PIG
COUNTER STRIKE

J
OSHUA
Y
EATMAN HAD
been travelling through the city for nearly an hour now. He had discovered suburbs he'd only ever heard mentioned on the news. He'd read a paper he'd found on a seat and was following a meaningless tag repeated along the embankments and bridges of the railway line. Heath had asked him to stay overnight – a whole new and scary ball game. He'd asked his mother and she'd said no way, but Josh had started a campaign. When she finally gave in, he'd promised to ring her every two hours.