At the tired end of the week the hail came jauntily down on the roof of our canteen. The kids were queuing twenty deep in blue and maroon, scuffing their shoes in the steaming din. It was cold; their sleeves were stretched over their hands; shoulders hunched; hopping; chatting; reeking; swapping money; demanding the four-day due of a chupa-chup from a mate; pushing in (and being sent back!); wrangling; preening; but most of all standing like cars in hopeless traffic, wheels stalled, exhausts blowing wasted fuel straight out into the air in phantom, misting limbs of carbon dioxide, drivers stuck. The lunchers inched forward so slowly, leaning on the metal bars. Everyone was sweaty. Behind the counter the ladies were shelling pies and chicken burgers to the kids as if from a gun battery:
piepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiepiedimmypiepiepiepiepiepiepie….
When the ice fell, the crowd stopped. There was the minutest hush—as we all figured it out—then, seeing that bean-bag stuffing bouncing crazily down the kids belted out into the yard and put out their hands and shook their heads and danced about and—of course!—tried to catch it.
A few savvy souls stayed inside and bought up big.
I finished my allotted span on duty and, tag-teaming with Mr M—, a tall, thin vegetarian, mooched back to class. I passed T—, a new girl, whose eye-shadow has crept like a pestilential Egyptian shadow across her cheeks since the start of the year (looks cool but definitely a no-no); she was drenched and looked like a nighttime waterfall, jet streaks of mascara down her face and her dyed noir hair clinging to her skull and dagging down in a black sheet. She looked happy; she was jumping.
Passing around the corner near the oval I fell into step with A— and S—, who were having an argument. A— and S— are opposites: A— is a slight boy who I am yet to convince to do any work (he struggles and I haven’t cracked it yet), and who as a consequence has ended up on the lighting crew. He loves the Holden Racing Team so that qualifies him technically. A— spends a lot of his time wandering around the school on ‘official business’, which means asking teachers for their keys so he can get up into the bio-box. In class he likes to swing on his chair and I have resorted to taking it off him and making him stand or kneel. We get along well. S— is different. She is diligent, well read, and knows all of the answers. As I caught them up they started to bicker:
A: Hey! Move over!
S: You’re so immature.
A: You’re so immature.
S: No. You’re so immature.
A: No. You’re so immature.
S: Listen to you. You’re talking like a three-year-old.
A: Yeah, well you’re talking like a one-year-old.
S: Duh. They can’t even talk properly yet.
A: Yeah, well then you’re talking like a half year old.
A: I mean a two-year old.
A: You are.
S— realised I was witness and attempted to enlist me by laughing conspiratorially. I ignored it and moved ahead. I must have been smiling at the exchange though, as when I reached the classroom N—, who was waiting there, looked taken aback, and said: “Whaaaat?”
“I was just laughing at something I heard,” I told him.
He looked shocked. Then he said: “But I do have soggy nipples.”
And for the rest of that class I kept catching him looking mournfully down from side to side, and lifting his tee-shirt out from his chest.
