Clearing the Pack Read online

  Luci, Rebecca and Mia were playing in the same team, and it was the gun team. Luci and Mia were playing in the goals. Mia was working hard up the court while Luci seemed to be doing the bulk of the scoring. If the ball got through, Becky was there in defence to mop up and clear it away. Then there was Corinne, the goalkeeper. She was so tall she could have slam-dunked a goal, except that she was in defence.

  They looked like a good team for sure, and the scoreboard confirmed it. When we left, they were leading by 11 goals, or points (I better ask Luci which), and it was still the third quarter.

  Bryce had given Mr T his goal umpire’s white coat and flags and was now trying to convince us to miss the pie night and traditional speech from Mr T about the Legend of Football month. Bryce was keen for us to go back into the library to investigate and study the plans. But we were having none of it. Jack and I wanted to hear the speech, and Bubba was hanging out for a pie – or three!

  ‘Hey, Bryce? Mr T’s been at Sandhurst for years. They reckon that he even went to school here,’ I said. ‘He might know the whereabouts of some older plans and stuff. You know, of the buildings.’

  ‘Actually, that’s probably as good a place to start as any,’ Bryce replied.

  ‘And he’s not the sort of guy who’ll think too much about why we’re asking, either,’ added Jack.

  Once again, Mr Fisk had supplied the goodies. Not his famous sausages this time, which Bubba lovingly called mystery bags (because he reckoned you never really did know what was in a sausage), but hot meat pies, and cans of drink, too.

  All the netballers and footballers in the Legends competition along with plenty of brothers and sisters, mums and dads, and teachers were tucking into pies and sauce.

  We weren’t allowed to have thirds, but Bubba reckoned that if Bryce, Jack and I all sacrificed our seconds, then he might yet break the Legend of Pies record – his own from last year, so he said.

  There was never really a pie competition. In fact, no one knew about it except for Bubba – and the kids that had to give up their pies.

  Miss Connelly, the teacher in charge of netball, spoke first. The netball points system was pretty much like ours. There were four teams. The thirds and fourths had played at Scornly and both teams had lost. You got more points by being in a higher graded team. Miss Connelly was in charge of naming the teams for each game.

  Like the footballers, the netballers had a few days of trials before the first teams were named.

  Then Mr T spoke to the group. He was a great speaker. You could tell he was really passionate about his football. I wondered if he took speckies and landed on his bed at home. Or belted a pair of socks around the house. No, maybe he wasn’t that passionate!

  He talked about how important it is to play for the team. To stick up for your mates. To develop your skills. To enjoy your successes. And to learn to be good losers. How gaining points for the Legend competition was a bonus. Fisk caught my eye at one point. I held his gaze. Eventually he turned away.

  Later, Bryce and I caught up with Mr T. Bryce had suggested that just a couple of us talk to him so he didn’t think there was some massive conspiracy happening that involved half the school. Jack hung back while Bubba contemplated having yet another pie.

  The only risk was Mr T asking too many questions – and, of course, he did.

  ‘Mr T, do you know if there are any school plans around that we could look at?’ asked Bryce.

  ‘Why are you after the school plans, Bryce?’

  ‘Well, I was just interested in the history of–’

  ‘Just be careful what you go digging up, young Flavel. You probably don’t know about the fire, do you?’

  ‘Er, what fire?’

  ‘We don’t talk about it much. But you’re the sort of boy who’s going to find out someday, anyhow. Many years ago, there was a pretty major fire, up there in the library. The school lost all of its archives and school records. They rebuilt that whole wing. It was a damn tragedy.’ Mr T was in another world. He was slowly shaking his head.

  ‘Damn near lost –’ He came back to his senses, looking at us angrily.

  ‘Mr T, there was this weird noise–’ I began.

  ‘No, not weird at all, Mitch.’ Bryce had interrupted me, big time. ‘The fire explains everything.’

  ‘Right, well then you probably don’t need to see those old school plans then, Bryce?’ said Mr T.

  ‘Um, well, no, perhaps not.’

  Mr T was smiling at us now.

  ‘So you’ll have no need to look in the second-bottom drawer of the large document file in the library, then. All the old school documents are in there. Anyway, that’s good. It’s a beast of a thing to get open, anyway.’

  Mr T wandered off, but after a few steps, he turned around. We hadn’t moved.

  ‘Hey, boys – let me know if you find anything interesting, all right?’

  I did my best to look confused.

  It turned out to be easy – the plans had been under our noses the whole time. The hard bit was getting to them without being caught. I still wasn’t sure why we had to be so secretive, but Bryce was convinced that we were onto something big. Really big. Like some sort of secret room. He was thinking that the old plans might show us how to get in.

  There was an after-school program at the library until six o’clock. We had another fifteen minutes before then. If we could distract Mrs Lee for long enough, we might be able to get to the plans and slip them out one of the wind-up windows. Well, that was the idea.

  The place was quiet. Everyone was down in the quadrangle or having a few last kicks before the daylight ran out. No one tended to do much study on a game afternoon. We found Luci and Rebecca and worked out a plan. Luci and Rebecca brought a distressed Bubba to Mrs Lee at the library counter.

  ‘We think he’s eaten too many pies, Mrs Lee.’

  ‘Well, don’t bring him in here! Find his parents, girls. Off you go.’

  The plan wasn’t working.

  Bubba groaned, puffed out his cheeks, and looked for all the world like he was going to fill up the whole area with undigested pies.

  Rebecca squealed. They both let go of Bubba and he lurched towards Mrs Lee. My moment had come. Bending down, I pried open the second-bottom drawer, ploughing through piles of posters. Finally, near the bottom was a poster headed ‘Sandhurst School Plans’. I reefed it out.

  The three of them were escorting Bubba towards the door. I walked over to Bryce, who was opening a window on the far side of the room. He took the large document from me and dropped it out of the window. He closed it quietly and we both moved over to the main door, which Bubba was being hustled through.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I asked Mrs Lee.

  ‘Oh, Mitchell, Bryce, help these girls with Liam will you? He’s frightfully unwell, you know. I think he’s–’

  Bubba gurgled again. He was doing brilliantly.

  She seemed relieved to see us go.

  ‘He’s fine with us, Mrs Lee,’ said Bryce. We met Jack a few moments later.

  ‘Well done, people. Good acting!’

  There was a loud cough, quickly followed by that telltale sound of vomit rising. We turned to see Bubba walking unsteadily away from us.

  ‘Well, most of us were acting,’ said Luci, looking concerned as she watched Bubba’s retreating figure.

  We headed off the other way, leaving Bubba to contemplate his record-breaking feat – now appearing on the grass below him.

  We agreed to meet at recess the following day. Bryce took the plans. He was looking especially excited.

  The next morning, I went straight to the Legends’ noticeboard. Here we could catch up on all the latest news and results.

  There were nine sections. The first three, (surfing, cricket and tennis) only showed the final placings for each sport. The next section, football, was full of colour. It stood out a mile. There were AFL borders and National Netball League team colours plus cool notices telling you everything you needed to k
now. The next four sections only had the headings of the Legends sports that were still to happen.

  There was one more section – ‘The Sandhurst Legend’. This spot had the top five leaders for girls and boys in the overall Legends competition for the year so far.

  As I got closer to the board a thought occurred to me. I had never seen a teacher putting up scores or sheets. Maybe there was this crazy school rule that you weren’t allowed to be seen by students sliding open the glass panels and putting up notices.

  Or maybe not.

  The points for the first footy and netball games were up. My score was pretty average. I thought I might have scored better than a ‘seven’. It looked like everyone automatically scored a ‘five’. Then the better players had points added on. Benny, a huge kid who played ruck, Fisk, and Mazis were the only players to score a ‘nine’. No one scored a ‘ten’.

  I wondered if Mr T would ever give a ‘ten’.

  A second later I saw one, not from Mr T but Miss Connelly. Corinne had scored a ‘ten’ in netball.

  Wow! I thought of poor Luci. There always seemed to be a girl who was an absolute gun at one particular sport. How was she going to get past Corinne?

  The lesson before lunch was Inquiry, in the library, which meant Internet surfing for some, email for others and assignment work for the rest. A message alert appeared on my screen. Checking that the teacher was well away, I clicked on the ‘open’ button.

  It was Bryce. Who else? I looked up to see him in deep conversation with the teacher, down in the non-fiction section. His screen was covered in a map of Antarctica. Maybe it was some sort of time delay. I checked Jack’s screen next door. He was already reading his. I smiled.

  ‘When the obvious is not obvious, do something crazy. Here, in the library 1:15 pm. Today.’

  ‘Little secret messages from your special friend, eh Grady?’ Fisk had appeared from nowhere and was talking in a ‘listen-to-me-everyone’ voice. ‘Hey, Flavel, why won’t you send me a message?’ he whined.

  ‘That’s enough, Travis. Sit down please.’

  The teacher told us to lower our laptop screens and started a lecture on trust and being responsible.

  She was still going as we drifted to lunch.

  Travis Fisk ‘accidentally’ bumped me as we headed for the stairs.

  ‘You up for a game of three-on-three, in the gym?’

  ‘Who else’ve you got?’ I knew the answer.

  ‘Four-thirty. This arvo. Bring two of your lap-dogs.’

  He bounded down the last three steps, knocking a few more kids sideways.

  I saw Luci near the canteen, talking to Fisk.

  I wanted to tell her about the meeting that Bryce had arranged. I also wanted to ask her about last year, and her fainting episode on the tennis court. And about Fisk. I knew there was something weird going on, and the only way I was going to find out was by asking. Maybe it was none of my business. Fisk moved off and she came over to me.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been wondering about me and Travis?’

  ‘No,’ I said, way too quickly. Idiot, I thought to myself.

  ‘Oh, right,’ she replied.

  ‘I mean, well, yeah, it did cross my mind, you know, that–’

  ‘That I would actually talk to Fisk?’

  ‘Uh, huh –’

  ‘Well, there’s a reason, Mitch. Remember that doubles tennis match? You know, when I sort of collapsed on the court?’

  ‘It was hot.’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, it was hot. Very hot. I’ve got a serious allergy. Have you heard of anaphylaxis?’

  I took a step back, half joking. I knew what she was talking about.

  ‘It’s not contagious, silly.’ She was smiling. ‘Last year, during the Legend of Cricket comp, I was stung by something, probably a bee. I must be a bee magnet. Same thing happened again at tennis this year. Anyway, I got this really bad reaction. My arm went red and swelled up like a sausage balloon. It came good slowly, but for a while Mum was pretty spooked and she didn’t let me do any of the summer Legend sports.’

  As we headed toward the library, I glanced at her arms. They looked normal.

  ‘Anyway, it was Travis’s mum who finally organised these tests and now I wear this bracelet and carry an injection around with me. Everywhere. Travis reckons I owe him. Like, I’m in debt to him or something.’

  ‘What, because his mum is a nurse?’

  ‘He was hanging out for that to happen last month. Me getting stung like that. Probably had a bee in a bottle and let it go, without anyone noticing.’

  I must have looked horrified.

  ‘Joking,’ she said, though in a tone that was only half convincing.

  I was starting to understand the background to it all.

  ‘So you love sport, you’re good at sport, and now that you’re in control of this anaphylaxis thing, you’re right back into it.’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. I don’t think it’s an illness, just that I react pretty badly if I get stung. It won’t ever go away.’

  ‘Well, your mum and dad must be pretty rapt that you can play sport again.’

  She shrugged then laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  By then, we had reached the library door.

  Bubba was outside, eating a sandwich. ‘They’re inside,’ he mumbled, his mouth full.

  ‘Does Becky know we’re meeting?’ Luci asked Bryce as we settled down at the far end.

  ‘Actually, no,’ Bryce replied. ‘Can you find her?’

  Luci raced off.

  Before long, she returned, Becky in tow. Bryce pulled the plans out of a round cylinder he had popped them into, like he was an architect or something.

  ‘Okay. See here?’

  It just looked like a mass of straight lines to me. Soon, though, Bryce had us organised and we could finally see what we’d already guessed – something weird was going on.

  The library plan matched exactly with the library’s outside appearance – five windows on the plan, five windows counted outside. However, inside the library only four windows could be counted. Bryce had calculated that the space between the last two windows was about four metres.

  ‘There is a secret room?’ whispered Jack. Bryce nodded.

  ‘So the next question is, how do we get in there?’ I asked.

  ‘No, that isn’t the next question. Why should we bother about a secret room?’ asked Luci.

  ‘There’s one other thing I haven’t told you,’ said Bryce. ‘The weird sound you heard behind the books there?’ Bryce glanced sideways. ‘I’ve heard it too.’

  That changed things a bit.

  After a bit of a kick-to-kick out near the goalposts after school, Jack, Bubba and I wandered over to the gym to see what Fisk had organised for us. We weren’t committed, just checking things out. Bubba was repeating this idea over and over.

  Training was Tuesdays. Wednesdays, as always, were reserved for Legend practice. Kids could organise whatever venue they wanted. They could do research in the library for the written part, or else go out onto the ovals where there were about four teachers ready to help with any skills we wanted to work on.

  The gym was empty.

  ‘Up here, nerdheads!’

  Well, we thought it was empty.

  We climbed the stairs. Fisk, Jimmy Paisley and Richard Mazis were standing there, arms folded. There were gym mats everywhere, even lined against the walls.

  ‘Where’s the four-eyed freak?’

  It was time to stand up to Fisk.

  He moved a step closer. So did Mazis and Paisley. I reckon they’d each grown ten centimetres just for the footy season.

  Maybe standing up to them could wait a bit longer.

  ‘Never mind,’ growled Fisk. ‘He won’t be bothering us again. Okay, your goal’s the red mat. That end. We’ll shoot the other end. You can handball a goal for a point, or kick a goal and get six points.’

  ‘And?’ Jack asked.

  ‘And nothing. No other rules. Here,
Fatboy, you start.’

  Fisk tossed the ball to Bubba. A split second later Paisley, Mazis and Fisk had slammed him to the ground. Mazis came up with the ball. Bubba bounced up, grinning.

  It was Bubba’s grin, more than anything, that got me going. Perhaps they were just kids after all, like us, on for a game.

  Then again, perhaps not.

  They smashed us and bashed us and rammed us into the mats against the walls. They didn’t use elbows or fists. Just big, brutal body strength. Soon Bubba was mixing it with them, and doing a bit of his own slamming. Jack and I were doing our best, but … well, basically, we couldn’t budge them. Especially not Mazis.

  The only thing we were doing more of than them was kicking goals. And each successful kick scored us six points, whereas they were just piling on the points with handballs.

  But we were being hammered. Time and time again we were pushed and shoved into the matting around the side. I don’t know why we continued. The scores were pretty close – maybe that was it. The chance of beating Fisk, at anything, was something you didn’t walk away from. Stupid us.

  We were all getting tired and bruised.

  Then Fisk said, ‘Okay, boys, let’s go into overdrive.’ Suddenly their physical force increased. Bubba tapped the ball out to me, and I snapped a handpass across to Jack. Just as I passed the ball, I realised what was about to happen.

  With a roar, Fisk pile drove Jack, sending him smashing into the wall, with all of Fisk’s weight steaming in behind. It was a full-on rugby tackle. For good measure, Fisk crashed down on top of Jack, and then leant on him hard as he heaved himself up.

  It was Jack’s turn to be lying in a crumpled heap, compliments of Travis Fisk, who was now walking slowly towards me.

  ‘I will make mincemeat of your poncy little friends until you decide to back off the Legends, you smart-arse. You hear me? Now back off!’ He was screaming. He moved away.

  ‘See you at training next Tuesday, Crossly?’ Fisk was grinning. ‘Let’s hope for your sake it’s just skills.’

  We helped Jack to his feet. ‘You okay?’