Read Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain Online
Authors: Steven Herrick
RACHEL
My town
is exactly
four hundred and twenty-two kilometres
from the ocean.
I check the distance
driving home from holidays
with Mum and Dad
the day before school begins
and while Bondi Beach
gets frothy waves
of cool, salty water on white sand
my town suffers
waves of dust storms
and locust plagues
and heat that melts the bitumen
and the first thing I do
when we get home
after driving all day
is run down to the dam
in the near paddock
and dive in.
The water is warm and brown.
My toes squelch in the mud
while the windmill clanks.
A pond-skater buzzes the surface
and starlings fantail
across the sky
the day before school begins.
Laura
My new teacher
wears a flowing summer dress
with red pianos printed
on white linen.
Her hair is crow-black and messy
and she pulls it back
from her face
and ties it with a red ribbon.
She wears black ballet shoes
and casually sits on her desk
before asking us
to tell her something, one thing,
that we like about ourselves.
Selina, Mick, Cameron, Pete and Rachel
immediately
raise their hands
while I slink as low as possible
behind my desk.
SELINA
Ms Arthur said we should
bring in a photo of ourselves,
our favourite,
to paste on the Class 6A wall
and we could draw a design
around the photo
with our name, in bright colours.
And underneath our photo
we could write,
once a week,
what we've done lately
or what made us happy, or sad.
âJust like Facebook,' I said.
On Tuesday we spent all morning
drawing our names in big letters
with swirling colours
of red, yellow, green and blue.
Except Cameron
who wrote his name in
tiny
letters
.
His writing was so small
you had to go really close
just to see if it was there at all.
And he'd chosen a thumbnail photo
of when he was a baby
lying in a cot asleep.
Cameron spent the whole morning
admiring his
little
photo and his
teeny
name
surrounded by glaring white cardboard.
Sometimes he stepped back
and looked at the photo from different angles,
like an artist.
Then he'd move close and adjust it,
just slightly.
Finally Ms Arthur couldn't stand it any longer.
She asked Cameron
if he planned to add anything
to his cardboard.
Cameron looked shocked
and said, in his usual loud voice,
âNo way, Ms.
I want to have lots of space
to write about everything I think!'
Mick
I'm staring out the window
minding no one's business but my own
because Ms Arthur is teaching maths
and that's not really my go.
What do we have calculators for?
Charlie Deakin from 5C comes in with a note
and Ms Arthur tells me the Principal
ârequires my presence in his office'.
So I follow Charlie along the verandah
and he's smirking the whole time
because no one gets called out of class
for good news,
it's always trouble,
but I don't say anything
and I don't act nervous
because I haven't done anything wrong,
not lately anyway.
Well, not that Mr Hume knows
and I trust my classmates not to tell anyway.
Charlie Deakin is still grinning
like he's won a prize,
yeah, first-prize boofhead.
He knocks on the Principal's door
and says to me,
âHume's madder than a nest of bull ants.'
Charlie Deakin opens the door
and walks away down the hallway
leaving me standing there
with Mr Hume looking at me
and he's not smiling.
First published 2014 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
©
Steven Herrick 2014
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research,
criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act,
no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior
written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Cover design and illustration by Jo Hunt
Typeset in 12/16.5 pt Stempel Garamond by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Herrick, Steven, 1958- author.
Bleakboy and Hunter stand out in the rain / Steven Herrick.
ISBN 978 0 7022 5016 3 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5266 2 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5267 9 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5268 6 (kindle)
For primary school age.
BulliesâFiction.
SchoolsâFiction.
A823.3
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