I loaded the game and we were off. I felt my neck start to thump like there was a little green gremlin inside with a hammer trying to escape out of my jugular vein. That's the main vein that goes from the brain to the heart. I learnt that in life education class by a giraffe called Harold driving a white van. I really wanted to win so bad it was making me nervous and we had to do it in the best of three games.
Our first game was ridiculously close. I chose the rebel troupers and Jacob chose the galactic empire. We chose cloud city during the galactic war era. After about fifteen minutes hard playing we had nearly the same point score and I thought I was going to lose until I got more life from the medical droid. It enabled me to take out the dark trouper, scout trooper and the imperial pilots making me the winner of the first game.
The second game came easily. I blitzed the troupers the whole way giving me a pretty cushy win for the first heat. Relief flooded every vein and artery in my body and gushed out into all my organs giving me a very happy feeling. We didn't even have to play the third match because I had already won two in a row.
I couldn't believe it. I had won the first heat. I knew I would but there was still that little bit of worry lurking around. So did Josh but Matty lost against Nigel who was looking pretty smug with himself. I felt like telling him that he had a piece of snot hanging on the end of his nose but I remembered my Mom's words telling me that just because some people are mean you shouldn't be mean back to them. Any way I was too excited about winning to be mean.
Poor Patrick never stood a chance playing Dark legends against James. James is king of Dark legends and won both games easily. I couldn't wait until round two.
Chapter 11 : The Pink Monster
The next week went really slow. Again everyone tried desperately to get into the club to watch the second round of heats. Even kids that weren't in the heats still wanted to get in the club to watch. It was the talk of the whole school. Any-one would have thought that the prize was a million dollars the way the excitement was buzzing. Our names even got into the school newsletter. "Typical," said my pain of a sister. "Trust you to get your name in the newsletter for computer games and not things that matter like athletics or school work."
"Well at least I got my name in. The only way you'd ever get your name in the newsletter is if they have a competition for the biggest loser."
"Mom!" she screamed. "Ryan's being mean!" My sister is such a dobber. She can never fight her own battles. She always has to bring Mom into it even though she's older and bigger than me, and fatter.
"So what's it all about this time?" Mom said with that impatient tone she gets when she's had enough of me and Lisa arguing. Mom knew about the Play station club but I hadn't told her about the competition and I wasn't about to give away too many details just in case.
"Just a competition, nothing much," I said casually as if I didn't care. As if!
"Nothing much?" Nothing much? It must be pretty important if the principal is putting it in the school newsletter and saying that grade 5H is breaking all records in the good behaviour department."
I didn't really agree with Mom though. It didn't take much to get in the newsletter. It was always full of boring bits of useless information like advertising a healthy fat free burger in the tuckshop, or announcing that the school had collected a thousand milk bottle tops or that there were ten thousand smelly jumpers in the lost property box.
"What's the prize?" she queried.
"Just a computer game."
"Just a computer game? I thought that would make you do a triple somersault in the air followed by a double back flip."
"Nah," I lied. "It's just another play station game. Nothing to get excited about." Mom looked at me in shock and put her hand on my forehead. "Are you feeling alright? You're not coming down with anything are you?"
"Yeah", my sister piped up. "It's called weirdo disease."
"Mom." I begged pleading with my eyes to make her send the monster away.
"Lisa that's enough. She was only joking Ryan. Give her a break, it's her birthday soon."
"I know. She keeps reminding me like ten times a day."
"So what am I getting Mom?" Lisa butted in. "I've left a list on the fridge door just in case you need any help."
"Yes I know, you've told me one hundred and fifty-seven times and I saw it when you put it up three months ago. And I can tell you now you won't be getting a new mobile phone or an IPAD! But! I will say that Daddy and I ?"
"Dad!" My sister angrily interrupted. "I do not call him Daddy. I'm not in kindy anymore."
"That's funny, 'cos you talk like you are, googa gagga," I teased.
"Dad and I have arranged a wonderful surprise that you both will really enjoy."
'Is it a dog?" Lisa's eyes lit up like a glow worm.
"No."
"A kitten?"
"No, sorry."
"A hamster?"
"Lisa?"
"A goldfish? Frog? Turtle? A lady bug? Anything alive?" Lisa sounded like she was playing a game of charades and starting to look desperate.
"Go on, tell her Mom. It's an ant." I couldn't help stirring Lisa up.
"Mom it's not an ant is it?" she said in her most whiney voice.
"Yeah," I said, "and it's not only one ant it's a whole nest of them and they're big juicy green ants and they're going to bite you all over."
"Don't be silly Ryan! Why do you do this to your sister? Of course it's not a green ant Lisa. It's a pink ant with purple spots." Mom laughed at her own joke as Volcano Lisa nearly erupted into a mass of slimy larva.
"Oh Lisa, I'm only joking. It's nothing alive. It's not a pet and that's all I'm going to say. Except you will both get a lot of enjoyment out of it."
"It's ok Mom, you don't have to do anything for me on Lisa's birthday. I'll be ok." I knew that the day of her birthday was going to be the biggest day in my life, better than any old birthday present. It was the day of the Play station playoffs grand final, but I didn't tell them that. While Lisa was pampering herself in new sparkly pink lip gloss and tizzying her hair with pink butterflies and wearing new pink skirts and pink shirts to match her new pink undies, I'd be happy playing my brand new game oblivious to the attention seeking pink alien inhabiting our house.
It wasn't just the fact that I could win the game, it was more than that. Whoever won the playoffs would be the hero of our grade. Possibly even the hero of the school even if just for a little while. I would become so popular if I was the winner.
Chapter 12 : Stalking Gremlins
I could already sense my popularity increasing when it came to the day of the second heats. Lots of people were coming up to me wishing me good luck.
"You're going to blitz 'em," said Craig Jenkins. He was one of the coolest boys in our class. Everyone liked him, even the girls. Craig liked the girls too which is pretty gruesome. He tried to get into the playoffs but he always gets into trouble for talking too much. He can't help it though. He's so popular everyone wants to talk to him all the time. I think he's even got a girlfriend in sixth grade. Yuk! It's bad enough having a girlfriend, but a sixth grader! Some of them even have those pointy bits and they have to wear bras. DoubleYuk!
"Thanks," I whispered as Mr Higginbottom was just about to announce who got the final raffle tickets for Friday and I didn't want to blow my chances by getting into trouble for talking at the last minute.
"Let's have a lookie at the criteria for today and we'll see if those boys desperate to play in their second heat make the cut," he announced.
"Ok number one is as always, you must not have been in any trouble this week in any shape or form, be it big or little, wide or fat, stumpy or grumpy. Number 2. All sums in your Maths book completed from pages 38 to 44.
Number 3. Ah let's see, Ten out of ten for the spelling test today,
Number 4. Homework must have been handed in this morning and two chapters of Delta Quest read last night. Oh yes and one tricky one, you must be up to at l
east page 5 in your Ocean Life work book. I don't think that is an unreasonable request considering you've had three afternoons to work on it." There were a lot of disgruntled moans and screwed-up faces coming from the class suggesting that a lot of people weren't up to page 5.
"Now, now, if you'd worked as hard as you were supposed to, you would easily be up to page seven so no mumbling and grumbling from the peanut gallery please. So ?. Is that enough or would you like one more criteria?"
Everyone shouted "no more" at the same time.
"Ok, so if I look at my little black book here, the people that did meet all the criteria and will get a raffle ticket or chocolate bar today are?.." He paused. It was like watching 'Who wants to be a millionaire' on T.V. when it goes to an ad break just before you find out if the contestant got it right or not. He was always pausing and keeping us waiting.
That little gremlin started thumping inside my jugular vein again. What if I didn't make it into the second heats because of some silly little thing? I thought I had completed everything but I couldn't remember if I was up to page four or five of the Oceans work book. The gremlin starting charging through my body like it was on a rampage, ripping at my veins and causing blood to pulsate in rapid torrents from my body. I wished Mr H would hurry up and say the names so I could stop the gory images infiltrating my head.
"They are, they are ?H'mm should I tell you now or should I keep you in suspense until after lunch?" He was teasing us, but he quickly called out the names before anyone had a chance to explode.
"Sophie, Kristy, Josh, Ryan, Sarah, Nigel, Jacob, Ella, James, Joel, Melanie and Tom. Come up and take your pick out of the green bucket.
If you wish to select a chocolate bar as your grand prize please come up and do so now." Of course the girls went up and grabbed chocolates.
"What about you Ryan? Wouldn't you like to select one of these yummy, mouth-watering Kit Kats for your prize? Nigel? What about you Josh, you don't want to go to the computer room do you?" Mr Higginbottom teased. He knew that there would be no tempting the four winners of heat one away from heat two. The other boys also wanted raffle tickets so they could try and get in to have a bit of a sticky beak at the finals.
"You know the drill kids. Chocolate - eat, ticket - red bin. Peter you can come up here and tell the rest of the class a joke while these kids are organising their prizes. You always seem to have a lot to say for yourself, now's your chance."
Peter bounded up to the front of the class. He definitely wasn't a shy kid. He stood up the front with a big cheesy grin on his face. "Ummm umm ah," he began, not knowing what to say.
"Well that's a very funny joke Peter," Mr Higginbotton said, "but have you got a joke with some words that we might recognise."
"Oh yeah I remember one now. Why did the poo?"
Mr H interrupted. "One that doesn't have any words that sound like poo, look like poo or smell like poo please Peter. Try again."
"Ok. Ahhhh??" He was again lost for words again. "Oh I know. Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill?" No-one in the class knew the answer, but someone yelled out, "that joke smells like poo, Mr Higginbottom."
The whole class roared with laughter. "Ok enough! What's the answer Peter?"
"Because it wanted to get to the bottom." The class erupted into peals of laughter again.
"Alrighty then, settle down. Thankyou Peter for your agh.?.intelligent and witty sharing of information. Off to PE everyone and when you return I will have this week's raffle tickets counted."
Mr Higginbottom's words became a blur as he rambled on again about having a big lunch and going to the toilet. Who could even think about doing a pee at a time like this? I was too excited about winning the next heat and worried about who I would have to battle against. If only, if only I could just get through the next heat, I knew the glory would be all mine and I would be one game away from claiming the championships. But somewhere deep inside me a terrible feeling was looming. The mighty gremlin was starting to stalk me again.
Chapter 13: Heat 2
I needn't have been so worried. If I thought heat one had been pretty easy, heat two was even easier. Of course I had enough raffle tickets to get into the playoffs and so did Nigel, Josh and James. There was no way we weren't getting in.
I had to verse Josh and I totally flogged him. He didn't stand a chance from the moment I took out ten of his soldiers and four of his tanks in the first five minutes. He never came anywhere near my score for both the matches. Again I won two in a row so the third game was only for fun though Josh was being a bit of a sook through it so it wasn't much fun. Mr H had to remind him about good sportsmanship.
The match between James and Nigel was intoxicatingly close. They had only just started their second match when Josh and I had finished, so we got to watch the rest. It was so exciting. Nigel refused to play Dark Legends because he knew James was so good at it and in the end Nigel beat him in the third game of Dragon Ball Z. In the last match James couldn't even land a hit on Nigel because he was using his best character. After dodging a lot of attacks from James, Nige ducked under a punch and knocked him to the floor.
I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. I was sad because James lost but happy that we didn't have to verse each other. But I was really, really sad because it meant that I had to verse 'nasty Nige' in the final. If there was one person who could probably beat me, it was him. What a week it was going to be.
Chapter 14: The Big Day Looms
The night before the big day, Mom and I had to go to the shops to buy Lisa's birthday present. She was at her stinky girlfriend's house supposedly doing homework but probably putting lipstick on their fingernails and nail polish on their eyelids or something dumb like that. They'd be making their hair look stupid with fluffy bits of junk hanging out all over the place while they talked about their boyfriends. How any boy in sixth grade would ever like them beats me. Girls are so weird sometimes.
Mom asked me if there was anything special I wanted to get Lisa. I felt like saying a tin of smelly dog food mixed with a spoon of bat poo sprinkled over cats vomit. Yuk! But instead I just said, "Maybe a doll?"
"Don't you think she's got enough dolls?" Mom said. "And anyway, I think she's getting a bit too old for dolls don't you?"
I didn't answer because we'd just entered Kmart and my attention was snatched by something out of the corner of my hungry eyes. It was like some royal king sitting on his throne reigning supremely over the kingdom. It was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen in my whole ten years of life; the Play station 4 console.
"Mom!" I said excitedly, losing control of myself. "It's only $55. Can we get it? Pleeeease. I promise I'll be really good. I'll do some jobs and promise not to be mean to Lisa any more. I'll do anything you want; I'll even pick up the neighbor's dog poo."
"Ryan, have a closer look at the price. It's not $55. It's $555, and I don't care whether you're the most perfect boy in the whole country, the whole world or the whole solar system for that matter, you will not be getting a PS 4 while it has a price tag like that on it. In fact even if it was half price you still wouldn't be getting it."
"Why not?"
"Because we can't afford it." I knew what was coming next. "Money doesn't grow on trees you know."
"I know, I know. You've told me like a million times." But I wasn't too disappointed. I had the 'playoffs' grand final to think about. While Mom went and found some boring pink things for Lisa I went and looked at the computer games, had a turn at a few display consoles, and thought about my strategies for the next day.
That night it took forever to get to sleep. I lay in my bed under my Star Wars doona and pretended I was asleep when I heard Mom coming to check on me. I couldn't stop thinking about the next day. I had my cheats that I got from the internet tucked nicely underneath the covers looking at them with the torch.
Lisa kept calling out to Mom for things, pretending she was thirsty, saying she was cold or needing to tell Mom something importa
nt. She obviously couldn't sleep either. Just because it was her birthday the next day, she was playing on it. Every time Mom came past to see what she wanted, I quickly snapped my torch off or she would have taken it away from me.
Finally at long last I drifted off into a restless sleep full of dreams of Play stations, Minecraft, light sabres and army men.
Chapter 15: Big, Bad Dreams
It felt like I'd been sleeping all night when I started to have the weirdest dream. It felt so real as though I was right there actually experiencing it. I suppose that's what dreams are like though.
I could feel myself sitting on a warm sandy beach with the sun shining on me making me feel as snugly as a piece of toast when all of a sudden two monstrous furry hands that looked like they belonged to a gigantic troll reached down and scooped me off the sand and threw me onto its hairy shoulders. The sun was immediately eclipsed by a blanket of darkness and I felt my dwarfed body tingle with the cold as the creature absconded with me into the night air. I could hear a strange wailing noise coming from somewhere. It was an eerie gurgling sound trying to utter some unintelligible words.
As I started to waken the words became clearer and I could hear myself shouting, "No, no, no!" The sound was coming from me. I was screaming out in my sleep objecting to the monster- like creature taking me away from the warmth of the beach, but it refused to stop. Instead it dropped me into some transportation enclosure, tied me up with a strap and offered me some morsels of food in consolation.
The next thing I knew, everything was moving fast, rushing past me like a space craft zooming into outer space, faster and faster. For a while I felt myself drift off into a coma like state again but was woken by the presence of a strange alien next to me, bumping into me, taunting me and calling my name in a high pitched whine. "Ryan, Ryan." It kept bumping and tapping my face and touching my ears. My arms started to flap as I tried to fight it off and my eyes squinted as a bright pink light started to infiltrate the darkness. I looked up and saw the alien looking down at me. It was big and scary, it was weird and it was the ugliest vision I had ever seen. It looked exactly like my sister.