Mucked Up (13 page)
They were throwing eggs all over C Block / Crazy
stuff / Not just at the windows, inside, everywhere
The footydicks in Australia are saying
They have to get the bins off the footy posts / How’d
they get them up there? / Reckon they climbed up
on a ladder
Not much to do here by myself so I sit and do nothing.
What if they hired a crane to do it? / Haw haw, you
are soooo moronic, Lachy
Don’t mind being in the library. The only problem with the library is whenever I walk into it I immediately need to pee. I’ve got a library pee-urge now. Must be an actual scientific thing about pee and libraries.
I like books. One day I might write a book myself, I’m a bit of a freak at writing, true dat. In twenty years there might be a book that I wrote and it would be in this aisle … Fiction L to Z. Way down the Z end … near where Jack S and Jarrell are.
Can see them squeezed up together on New Zealand, they look so arsey together. Wonder what Jack S is telling her. Why’d I say all that in Science? Jack S is my mate. Why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut? Should’ve shut it.
Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt’s a good name for a writer. One day I want to write a horror book about a husband and wife who adopt a poor kid and bring the kid back to live with them in their mansion and the kid thinks his life is going to be really good with his rich mum and dad but he doesn’t know that the husband and wife are actually sickos – they already have a kid but their kid is sick, so they have adopted the new kid so they can use its body parts to transplant into their own sick kid. That’s a bloody good horror story. That would freak anyone out. It could also be turned into a MA 15+ movie too. I could direct it.
The sicko couple could be called … maybe like Jack and … Janice or something.
Library pee-urge is building, try not to think about it, Zurb. Try to think of something else: I will make up a story right now using my imagination and my super-talent. I am sitting in the Sea of China so I will make up a story about the pirates of the olde days. It could be about a sailor man from long-ago times and he’s on a ship in the sea and just sailing around. Here’s what a freak I am at writing, have a look at this …
C
HAPTER
O
NE
The sky is dark as dark can be. A storm’s a’coming
and it’s rainy over the ship.
That’s how you start a book. Everybody would keep reading a book with a killer first sentence like that.
The Sea of China is going crazy, the olde ship is
being tossed up ’n’ down like a dead puffer fish that
had been pecked by seagulls floating round.
Proud of that, amazing image.
I’m lying in my ship’s bed, trying to fall asleep, trying
not to think about the boat going up ’n’ down, back ’n’
forth because it can make a man spew up his ship food.
Everythin’ he ate for a month.
Beside me my crew are all asleep. Ravo the Raven
snoring over by the ship window. Angus the Jokerman
farting in his sleep. It stinks in here of sweat and
wine and farts, but this is the life of a pirate,
this is how we must live on the seas.
You can see all this happening in your mind, right? Like a movie in your head. My secret is to start every sentence with an interesting word, not just ‘The’ or ‘Then’, but with better words like ‘Suddenly’. That’s an exciting word to start a sentence on, I’ll show you …
Suddenly I hear a noise. It’s a’coming
from the ship’s deck above me.
It feels real sudden when you use ‘suddenly’. You want to keep reading to find out the next bit that happens. Also very happy with ‘a’coming’. It’s olde talk and sounds like a real story from the olde days. Will do it more.
I get out of bed, and take a peek through the ship
door out onto the deck. In the stormy night I can see …
One-Eyed Jack, the First Mate. He’s a’crossing
the deck to the back of the ship. Toward the stairs
that go down to the prisoners’ sleeping place.
Probably need to do some research. Does the ‘prisoner sleeping place’ have a proper name? ‘Prisoners’ bedrooms’? Anyways, you know what I mean.
Something peculiar’s going on and I need to know what
it is, for I am Captain Tom the Black Serpent, master of
the Sea of China and all the seas that lie beyond. Slowly
I follow One-Eyed Jack down the ship stairs, each step
creaking one by one. Darkness surrounds me and my heart
beats a’faster. A tingle of anxiety goes down my spine.
‘Tingle of anxiety’, lawwwd, I am a freak. What’s going to happen now, hey? You wanna know, right?
Inside the prisoner sleeping area it is murky and dusty
and I see a cockroach or something scuttle past. The cells
all have sleeping prisoners in them. They are all the
pirates I have captured in my pirate battles across all the
seas of the world, from the Sea of Canada across to the
Sea of Germany. Why would One-Eyed Jack be down
here? What is that damn bloody bastard up to?
That’s olde swearing, it was very, very bad to say those words back in those days. Now I can say them all I like and not get into trouble: damn damn damn damn bloody bastard. It’s fun to olde-swear.
Unexpectedly, One-Eyed Jack sneaks up to a cell.
See? You don’t just have to use ‘suddenly’, you can also use ‘unexpectedly’ which is just as suddenish.
It is the cell of my only female prisoner – Pirate
Jennie – who I captured during a battle off the Sea of
New Zealand. She is very dangerous and up-herself,
with a face that is – mysterious – and – interesting –
in an annoying way.
Actually you can use lots of other exciting words to start sentences. Look at this one …
Without notice, I notice something in One-Eyed Jack’s
hand, something that makes a jangly noise. Has he stolen
the prison cell keys? Do my eyes a’speaketh the truth?
Indeed! He has stolen the keys and is now using
them to unlock Pirate Jennie’s cell! Holy Mother
of Jesus! Without warning, he opens the cell door
with a squeak, then looks at her sleeping body and
chuckles in an a’horny way.
Just warning you: this is going to get a bit sexual.
The look on his sicko face tells me all I need to know.
He’s going to molest Pirate Jennie, I’m sure of it.
He’s going to touch her bosoms while she sleeps,
the damn bloody molester.
You can write about sexual stuff in books and no-body calls you a perv, they all go ‘oooo he’s a genius’.
Suddenly I shout ‘Leave her alone!’
I recommend ‘suddenly’ very much, it works the best.
He turns around and for a second I can see his
ugly one-eyed face, but suddenly lightning flashes
through the ship window. Ahhhh I am blinded
and when I can see again, One-Eyed Jack has
disappeared! I take a step forward to see where
he went and feel a horrible hand grab my arm.
Kind of really need to go pee, got the library pee-urge bad. Better hurry this along.
One-Eyed Jack is behind me! I turn round to stare him
in the face! His one eye stares at me, the other just an
empty socket with bits of goo and dirt in it. ‘Captain
Tom, you made a terrible mistake following me down
here,’ he suddenly says with his stinking breath.
One-Eyed Jack is a disgusting demento and I want the readers to hate him and be disgusted by him.
Suddenly and without warning, my hand is upon my
sword, ready to pull it out and stab him through his
good eye if he makes one wrong move.
Somehow Captain Tom seems to have his sword with him even though he was sleeping. I don’t think pirates sleep with a sword. Can’t be buggered with details, need to pee.
‘You will not molest Pirate Jennie the Kiwi,’ I say
suddenly. ‘She may be dangerous and ugly, but I will
not allow you to a’harm her.’ One-Eyed Jack winks
at me with his empty oozing socket, then smiles with
his teeth all yellow like lolly bananas.
That is called a simile, when you say something is like something. Not sure if there were lolly bananas in pirate days. Rushing now, need to pee. Maybe I should go ask Mrs Gaffnee if I can go to the toilet. But it’s 12:22 p.m., bell’s going to go really soon, if I can just wait …
Holy Moses and Mother Mary, his hand suddenly
grabs my neck, lifting me in the air and holding me.
I cannot breathe, cannot speak, but with astonishing
strength, I manage to pull out my sword!
C’mon bell, c’mon …
I am about to stab it into his guts when unexpectedly
a woman’s voice speaks. ‘Stop fighting, both of you!’
This is called a twist, nobody knew THAT was going to happen.
One-Eyed Jack lets go of my neck and we both turn
to see Pirate Jennie! A tingle of anxiety goes down
my spine as she flicks her greasy hair and looks into
my eyes and says—
‘Hello … students, this is … Assistant Principal Fruehling …’
A voice is coming out of the library PA.
‘Just a reminder that bell is about to go … for … for lunch … so …’
Actually it doesn’t sound like Fruehling’s voice, sounds kind of like someone pretending to do her voice.
‘… and don’t forget that Student Council … has a sausage sizzle fundraiser to raise money … for the Bangladeshi Orphanage Appeal …’
Things going on in the background, something thumps.
Lynn Lin says to Mandy Karaniki, ‘That’s not Fruehling’ and Mandy Karaniki says ‘You think?’
‘… it will be set up … outside A Block … one dollar fifty for a sausage in bread …’
Crackling noises, and a door-slam, then another thump, the PA goes off and the bell goes
BRRNNNNNNG
.
Everyone’s getting up to leave so I get up with them. People are talking about the PA announcement.
Sounded fake / I reckon they got into the office
Don’t go to the sausage sizzle / It’s a Muck Up
Day trick
Knew it wasn’t Fruehling / Pretty funny but
Jack S and Jarrell are passing. I yell out to Jack, ‘Hey Jack, don’t go to the sausage sizzle, it’s a trick.’
Jack S keeps walking but Jarrell says ‘Yeah I think we worked it out for ourselves’ all hate-faced, like she knows what happened in Science, she knows that I tried to break them up. Jack S pulls her arm to make her walk faster. ‘C’mon Jarrell, we’ll be late for phil-o-so-fon.’
Jarrell’s laughing as they walk off and Jack goes ‘Please stop making fun of how I say it all the time, you’re always making fun of me’ then they go round the corner and I am alone on the Map of the World Rug, the last person in the whole world.
Pirate Jennie says ‘Thank you, Captain Tom,
for saving me from being molested. But …
what made you think I wanted to be saved?’
Suddenly she grabs my sword out of my hand,
whips it in the air and slashes open my neck, all
my neck hanging open with huge veins hanging
out and blood spurting out of the open veins.
Damn bloody bastards, damn bastards,
damn damn damn! I fall to the ground trying
to hold in my neck flap.
One-Eyed Jack looks at me and chuckles dementedly.
‘Haven’t you worked it out yet, Captain Tom?
Pirate Jennie and me … are hooks.’
Last thing I see before I die is the two of them
dancing together. Pirate Jennie is moving her
hips and bum round.
It looks almost. Kind of. Sexxxy.
