‘ATTEN- HUT!’
Wednesday morning. PE period.
Mav and his friends stood on parade at attention, eyes straight ahead. Alas, Mr Harris was there, alive and well, obviously over his illness of the day before and as usual, he had his AK47 tucked under his arm. They had warned Rex about Mr Harris and what to expect from him. Nobody had thought Rex would believe the stories, but he stood in parade formation along with everybody else, not saying a word. He appeared relaxed and nonchalant, which was a bit of a pity because the guys had hoped to scare him a bit with their stories. Mav hoped he wouldn’t give Mr Harris any cheek like he had his other teachers. All hell would break loose if he did.
Mr Harris did his usual march up and down the line of students and did not seem to notice Rex until his third inspection. He stopped and swung around to face him. ‘You must be our new recruit, Rex Cassidy?’
‘That’s me, Sergeant Major, Sir,’ Rex replied in a cheerful manner.
Mav held his breath. Nobody ever called Mr Harris, Sergeant Major to his face. Rex was being very brave, very stupid, or very ignorant. They had told Rex that Mr Harris was a former army Sergeant Major, so maybe he had taken that a little too much to heart.
Much to Mav and his fellow recruit’s surprise, Mr Harris didn’t blow up. In fact, a smile creased his lips and he actually looked at Rex as if impressed. ‘What do you think of Boot Cam... I mean Te Arawa College so far?’
‘Not bad, Mr H. I think that I’m going to like it here just fine.’
That had torn it. There was no way in a million years that Mr Harris would accept being called Mr H, Mav was certain of that.
Mr Harris’s smile broadened, much to Mav’s surprise. ‘I’m glad to hear it. You have guts I’ll give you that. It seems that your record from your previous school is pretty spot on about you. I think that you and I are going to get on just fine. I will be expecting good things from a lad in your physical shape. I shall certainly be setting you some tough tasks to perform to really test your metal.’
‘I look forward to the challenge, Sir.’
‘That’s what I like to hear.’
Mav would have scratched his head in bewilderment if he dared even move an inch. How was it that Rex could get away with such a nonchalant attitude? Why was he not running around the field right now doing extra laps as a punishment? Mav could only wonder.
Mr Harris stepped back to get a wider view of his troops and spoke again. ‘Right! Under pressure from the school principal I have been asked to take it easy on you all today by allowing you to play a game of sport.’
Many of the boys expressed noises of delight while others sighed with relief. Mav felt like doing both.
‘But don’t go thinking it’s going to be a piece of cake. If you think that you’re going to be playing some namby-pamby game where you get to stand around the field all period, you’ve got another think coming.’
‘What are we playing, Mr H, Sir?’ Pete spoke up, no doubt confident that if Rex had been able to get away with calling him that, he could.
Mr Harris suddenly drew his AK47 and fired a bevy of dye pellets at Pete’s feet. Pete leaped into the air with a squeal.
Their PE teacher had that psychotic glare on his face… the one they were used to when a student got out of line. ‘I won’t have any disrespect in my class, do you hear me, soldier?’
‘Y…Y…Yes, Sir!’ yelped Pete.
Mr Harris’s voice calmed down. ‘ONLY once you’re in the shape young Rex is will I allow a few more informalities. Give me thirty, Cook! Now!’
Pete hit the ground and counted aloud as he attempted to do thirty press-ups. Mav doubted he could do more than ten, but somehow Pete would have to find the energy to do thirty if he didn’t want green dye all over his back.
‘The rest of you start running. Three laps around the paddock, stragglers will be shot! Move it, move it, move it!’
They charged off, except for Tucker who always took a little longer to get off the mark. He received a couple of dye pellets in the rear to get him moving. ‘Come on Pyles, get moving before I make you do ten, move it, move it, MOVE IT!’
Rex was first back in. He was a full minute ahead of the rest of the field and stood having a yack with Mr Harris while the rest of them filtered in. Mav came in around the middle of the field. Once everyone but Tucker arrived, it was time to move on to the day’s activity. Last week they had been swimming in the pool. They had been expecting an easy period, but it was swim, swim and swim some more and then some extra swimming thrown in for good measure. Mr Harris had knackered them out so much that they needed a swim afterwards to cool themselves down. Mav marvelled at how Mr Harris could turn even the most appealing of activities into a hellish experience. He shuddered to think what was coming up next.
‘Right,’ Mr Harris said as Tucker continued to struggle around the field on his own. ‘Today we’re going to play a game of American football.’
There were cheers from all the boys, including Mav.
‘We haven’t got a lot of time, so I’m not going to go over the rules, but basically it’s smash into as many players as possible and get the ball to the other side of the field in the process. Sound good?’
‘Yes Sir!’ they all chimed in.
‘Well, it won’t be, I can assure you of that. Rex, you can captain one team. Wal, you can captain the other. Any questions?’
One boy raised his hand timidly.
‘Yes, Healer?’
‘Are we going to be wearing pads, sir?’
Mr Harris stared at Rueben Healer as if he had said the unthinkable. ‘Pads? PADS? Are you some kind of a wimp, Healer? In my vocabulary, there is no such thing as pads! Nobody will wear pads in my PE class, is that clear, Healer?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Mr Harris shook his head in despair. ‘Gordon Bennett, I can’t believe I’ve got so many wimps in my class. I’m gonna have to get extra PE classes going for you lot.’
That was a thought too horrifying for Mav to contemplate. Two PE classes with Mr Harris every week was torture as it was, but three? That would finish them all off for good. Who knows, maybe that’s what Mr Harris wanted?
It was probably the most harrowing period of PE Mav had ever gone through. By the end, they were all battered, bruised, aching and some even bleeding. Mav himself felt as though he had broken almost every bone in his body. The only boy to have come out of the whole game unscathed was Rex and it wasn’t because of lack of effort on his part. On the contrary, Rex had been the star player of the whole game, not to mention the most violent. It was mainly because of him that most of them were in the state they were.
It was almost as if Rex and Mr Harris had been working as a team to make everyone’s life as miserable as possible. While Rex was bowling over everyone in his path, Mr Harris was shooting anybody who wasn’t putting in enough effort, or anyone he thought were using tactics to deliberately avoid contact with other students.
It was a popular tactic to deliberately accidentally fall over if someone like Rex or Wal came charging. Sometimes they would get away with it, but other times Mr Harris would give them stick, even when it really was an accident.
Tucker, as usual, left the field covered in green dye. He had opted for the sting of the dye pellet rather than suffering the collision of a Mac truck like Rex. Any time Tucker got the ball he would either drop it or pass it off to someone else as soon as possible. Mr Harris was not impressed, so he made Tucker do two extra laps around the field after the game. Everyone had made sure they had cleared out of the changing sheds well before Tucker came in, knowing what sort of a mood he would be in afterwards.
Pete groaned as he, Mav and some of the other boys left the changing sheds, ‘I am aching all over.’ He flinched and touched his lip, which had been split after a particularly nasty collision with Joe Ashby. Wal was the only one who seemed to be in high spirits, despite having tangled with Rex on numerous occasions and coming off worse each time. He had a black eye and a brui
sed jaw, both compliments of the guy. To give Wal credit though, he was the only guy next to Rex who had given it his all, the entire time. No matter what injuries he sustained.
‘It was a good game,’ Wal said for about the fifth time since it finished. ‘See that touchdown I made? Even Rex didn’t stop me doing that one.’
‘You’re mental,’ Ginge said. ‘The rest of the time, Rex was giving you a good thrashing. Man he is one tough dude.’ He rubbed a sore shoulder. ‘I tried a tackle on him. It was like hitting a running train. My shoulder won’t be the same for weeks. I hope it doesn’t affect my rugby next season.’
‘You think you’ve got problems, Ginge,’ Sheep grumbled. ‘I tried tripping the guy up. I almost broke my leg in the process.’
‘How about him and Mr Harris, eh?’ Ginge said. ‘Going to his office for a cold drink? That’s a first.’
‘I reckon,’ Pete said. ‘He never fired one dye pellet at him.’
‘What do you expect?’ growled Sheep. ‘He didn’t have to!’
‘It would be nice if I could have had a cold drink.’
‘Ha! All you can handle is water, Cook.’
‘Yeah I know.’ Pete grinned. ‘All though I can handle a glass of milk once in a while, but not too much though, the high calcium content gets to me after a while.’
‘Spaz.’
At lunchtime, the boys were still suffering from Mr Harris’s PE class. Mav and Pete ate their lunch outside of the school pavilion. The queue to the tuck shop window had dwindled away and the canteen operator was packing up, ready to close it.
‘Did you bring some food for Tucker?’ Pete asked as he munched on a cheese and lettuce sandwich.
'A little,' Mav said. 'But I couldn't get much.'
'Me neither.'
'I just hope he doesn't bother. I hope he'll get enough food from juniors.'
Pete scowled. 'Fat creep. He pushed me off my bike after school yesterday afternoon. I ended up with a stuffed knee. It still hurts like buggery. Lucky I managed to get through PE.’
‘Were Ash and Hew with him?’
‘No, but he said he’d get them on to me today if I got cheeky to him again.’
‘So you got smart to him, did you?’
‘That’s why he pushed me off the bike. He’s a nut, that’s what he is.’
‘Well, you are what you eat as they say. And Tucker has a particular craving for peanut slabs.’
‘He has a particular craving for everything!’
‘True, true. They say he eats a lot of garbage too.’
‘Just a pity he didn’t get in trouble for trashing the Reaper’s office.’
‘Didn’t think he would. The teachers would have figured that even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to write is own name on the wall and that someone was just trying to get him into trouble.’
Wal arrived on the scene and he peered up at the tuck shop. The front grill had been drawn down.
‘Too late, Wal,’ said Mav. ‘The canteen lady just left.’
‘Good.’ He tapped the side of this school bag. ‘I’m going in.’
‘What?’
‘Come on. I’ll show you.’
Curiosity got the better of Mav and he and Pete followed him up onto the pavilion deck. The main door to the pavilion was unlocked and he walked in. He peered around and then pulled his bunch of keys from his bag. ‘Keep an eye out. Tell me if anyone comes.’ He walked over and began to test his keys on the tuck shop door.
‘What are you doing?’ Mav said. ‘Are you mad?’
‘I’m down to the last 20 keys. One of them has to fit.’
‘What, so you come in here each day to try and break into the tuck shop?’
‘Yep.’
Mav turned to look around worried that any moment someone would come up to the pavilion and peer through the windows.
‘I don’t believe it!’ Wal exclaimed. There was a sound of a click and Wal opened the tuck shop door. ‘Yes!’
‘Ah, shit, come on Wal, you have to be kidding,’ Mav said.
Wal began to stuff his bag full of goodies from the tuck shop. Bottles of drinks and then some packets of chips. ‘Hey you guys give me your bags.’
‘No way,’ Pete said. ‘You’re not using our bags to smuggle your ill-gotten gains out of here.’
‘Just give me your damn bags or I’ll smack you both!’
Reluctantly the two of them handed their bags to Wal. He stuffed both bags as full as he could with chocolate bars and other goodies and then closed the tuck shop door behind him. ‘Let’s go.’
Mav couldn’t believe he was just going along with this, but there was no way he was going to get on the wrong side of Wal. They made their way out of the pavilion and back down to where they had been eating their lunch.
‘So what now?’ Mav asked. ‘Are we gonna be lugging around your stolen goods all day?’
‘For now, yes,’ Wal said. ‘I’ll arrange to get the stuff off you after school.’
‘Hey, I have to catch a bus.’
‘Don’t worry it will before you catch your bus.’
‘And do we get a share?’ Pete asked. ‘We should at least get a share.’
‘Yeah, you’ll get some, but I’m the one that masterminded this and risked getting caught picking that lock over the last few weeks, so it will only be a little.’
‘I don’t want any of it,’ Mav said. ‘In fact, I just wanna get rid of it now.’
‘Well you can’t. Just deal with it, Maverick. Anyway, I’ll catch you guys later.’ With that, Wal departed, carrying his bag with him.
Mav sighed and plonked himself back down. ‘This is all I need. Getting caught up in the Te Arawa College crime of the century. The Great Tuck Shop Robbery.’
‘Best not argue with Wal unless you want your head ripped off.’
‘Seems like everybody wants to rip our heads off around here.’
‘Yeah and here’s another one of them.’ Pete pointed to Ben Tamati who made his way towards them.
Mav could tell by the scowl on Ben’s face that he was in a foul mood. ‘Oye, Maverick! I’ve got an aching elbow thanks to you!’
‘Me? What the hell did I do?’
He reached them and came to a halt. ‘In that game of grid iron. You stuffed my elbow up completely!’
‘What, I stuffed your elbow up? The same elbow that you tried to swing into my face when I was trying to tackle you? The same elbow that missed my head and hit Rex Cassidy in the chest? That same elbow?’
‘Don’t try to be a smart ass, Maverick! If you hadn’t ducked, it would be your face, not my elbow that was hurting. I figure that I owe you a bit of pain, punk!’ He grabbed Mav by the shirt and hauled him to his feet. Ben shoved him back a few steps, which caused Mav to run his heel into something solid. He fell backwards and the object, a metal pole, went with him. It was a stringed fence, which cordoned off an area of dirt and dried up grass. It had been erected to keep people off so that the grass could grow back unhindered. He had now flattened one side of it completely and in the process had lost his grip on his bag. It wasn’t zipped up properly and some candy bars had fallen out.
Ben noticed them immediately. ‘What’s this?’ He bent down to check and opened up the side of his bag. ‘What’s this?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Where did you get all this?’ He turned his eyes in the direction of the tuck shop window. ‘Ohhhhh… You stole all this from in there didn’t you? That’s why you’re hanging around here.’
Mav did his best to hide his mortification as he climbed back to his feet. ‘Now how do you think I would have got in there? I paid for this stuff at the shop.’
Ben snickered. ‘Ha ha. Yeah, whatever, Maverick.’ He grabbed him by the shirt once more. Mav tried to shove him off, but the tough Maori held him firm. ‘You’re a real smart ass, Maverick, no doubts about that and I don’t like smart asses. Especially ones that rob stuff from the school tuck shop.’ He raised his fist to strike him
. Mav flinched, waiting for the impact…
‘Tamati!’
Much to Mav’s relief Ben let go of him immediately and stepped away from him. Mav opened his eyes to see a wide-eyed look on Bens’ face.
Rex strode up. ‘What the hell are you doing, eejit?’ He grabbed Ben by the shirt, but paused to glance down to Mav’s bag to see it open at the top and all the candy bars inside. He frowned, but then turned back to face Ben. ‘Well? You gonna answer me, ass wipe?’
‘I... We were just fooling around a bit, weren’t we Mav?’ Ben said quickly.
‘That’s not what it looked like to me, douchebag!’ 'Rex said, and grabbed his shirt tighter.
‘I... Hey, Mav, I was only kidding. You gotta realise, bro, I’m always kidding about.’
Mav spoke up, ‘Well, you were certainly acting the goat that’s for sure.’ He figured he’d probably regret his wise crack, but as long as Rex was around, he knew Ben wouldn’t try anything.
Ben stood stock still, wide eyed and staring at Rex, waiting for whatever it was Rex had in store for him.
Finally, Rex grunted, ‘Hop it, Tamati! I don’t want to see you causing any more trouble. If I do, you’ll be sorry, got it?’
Ben nodded and quickly hurried away.
Mav smiled at Rex gratefully. ‘Thanks, mate. That guy’s had it coming for a long time.’
‘I can’t stand guys like him.’
Mav bent down to retrieve his bag and zip it up as best he could. Rex said nothing as he did it.
Pete spoke up, ‘Pity you can’t sort Tucker Pyles out.’
Rex raised an eyebrow. ‘Tucker Pyles? Who’s that?’
‘You haven’t met Tucker Pyles yet? He’s that really fat jerk. The useless one who Mr Harris kept shooting at PE.’
‘Him? What’s so special about him? Seemed like a right royal eejit to me.’
‘Don’t let him hear you say that. You’ll be dead meat.’
‘You are kidding aren’t you? He couldn’t even run a lap of the field.’
Mav rose to his feet and lifted his bag onto his shoulder. It was heavy from the goodies inside but he was glad that Rex had not questioned him about it. ‘It’s not him that you have to worry about. It’s his two mates and one of them knows karate too.’
Rex shrugged, but his expression didn’t change. ‘So why is this Tucker guy such a problem?’
‘He’s only the biggest scumbag in the whole school,’ Pete said. ‘He’s a fascist who likes to bully everyone around and gets his mates to do all his dirty work.’
‘I see. Well, I might just have to look into that a little more, but it’s a low priority at the moment. I’ve got to suss out all the teachers first, not to mention all the girls.’
‘Seems you’re keen on Chelsea Brown,’ said Mav. ‘I guess she’s ok, but it’s not like she’s the hottest babe in school or something.’
‘Seriously? She’s gorgeous.’ Rex said. ‘Her eyes…' He let out a sigh and gazed away into the distance. 'The same sapphire blue eyes... Almost identical.’ He continued to peer off into the distance.
Mav was intrigued now and figured he could only be talking about one thing. ‘An ex-girlfriend?’
Rex didn’t reply. He didn’t even look at Mav. All Mav could see in his eyes was pain. He decided to break the silence, not wanting to push Rex for further elaboration. ‘I guess she does have nice eyes. The glasses sort of detract from them though.’
Pete spoke up. ‘You reckon? Yeah… I guess…’
‘Oye! What are you lot doing on that patch?’ a man’s voice called out.
It was then that Mav realised they were still standing on the dried up patch of grass, the area that had previously been cordoned off before it had been knocked down by him and Ben. The side of the fence lay at their feet and Mav knew they would get the blame for it.
‘Oh oh,’ Pete said. ‘It’s the Reaper. You don’t want to mess with him, Rex.’
Rex still seemed distracted, but slowly seemed to be coming to his senses.
‘You boys get off that grass now!’ Mr Reaper strode up with an evil glare on his face. ‘You know you’re not supposed to be on it. And who knocked down this fence? Did you guys do that?’
‘No, Mr Reaper,’ Pete said. ‘It was like this when we got here.’
‘Oh so you just decided you might as well have a good old stomp around on it, did you?’
Rex smiled at Mr Reaper. ‘We noticed the fence was down so thought we’d better check it out. Make sure nobody had been hurt. I’m confident it’s safe to stand on now.’
Mr Reaper studied Rex for a few seconds, a frown on his face. ‘Are you for real?’
‘Of course,’ Rex replied. ‘See? Nothings happened to us yet. We’ve been here for about ten minutes, so it stands to reason that it’s quite safe to walk on this patch again.’
Mr Reaper’s face darkened. ‘You know darn well the reason we keep off areas of grass like this. It needs to be given a chance to grow, otherwise it will just get scuffed up even worse, we’ll lose all the grass on it and in winter, it will end up a big muddy mess. Now I don’t know what your game is sunshine, but I’m not having any of it. I don’t know if I’ve seen you before, what’s your name?’
‘Rex Cassidy.’ Rex extended his hand. ‘The Grass Inspection Department. Nice to meet you.’
Mr Reaper’s eyes narrowed as he studied his hand, but he did not shake it. He delivered one of his iciest glares. ‘So you’re Rex Cassidy! I should have known. I’ve heard all about you and the problems you caused at your last school and I can see that you’re going to be a problem here too. Well, let me tell you one thing, Mr Cassidy. I will not stand for any of it, you hear?’
‘10-4, good buddy.’
‘And I expect a little more respect than that too. My name is Mr Reaper and that’s what I expect to be called, not as you put it, good buddy. One thing’s for sure, you will have to conduct yourself a lot better than you have so far if you ever want to consider me a buddy.’
‘I hear ya, squire.’
‘You’d better have... Eh? What did you just say? You called me squire! I am nobody’s squire. I am one of the teachers at this school. If anything, it should be me that calls you squire, seeing as you are student in this school.’
Rex spoke in an English accent, ‘If you say so, old chap.’
Mr Reaper’s voice went up an octave. ‘What? You obviously haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?’
‘Oh I heard you, boss, I just have this annoying habit of not taking certain things on board.’ He smiled wryly.
Mr Reaper’s face turned red, but he kept his composure. ‘You’re pushing your luck, sunshine. I will not tolerate this lack of respect and blatant disregard for school rules. You rest assured that I will be speaking to Mr Harris about this matter. Lucky for you, Mr Harris is responsible for sorting you out. Believe you me, if it were up to me I’d have you removed from this school right away!’
‘Well, it’s a good thing that we got off to a good start then, isn’t it?’ Rex smiled.
‘What? A good start? Do you seriously think that you and I are off to a good start? You, my son, are sorely mistaken.’
‘Well, at least the grass is all right now.’
CHAPTER 21:
Chelsea the Rebel