I Am Jack Page 7

  ‘At home you’re Jack, aren’t you?’

  I nod.

  ‘You’re a photographer. You tell great jokes. Your mum tells me you help her a lot. Rob says you’re clever with your hands. That’s Jack. It’s a great Jack. You’ve got to believe that.’

  I shrug.

  ‘And you have something George Hamel doesn’t have.’

  I look up at Mr Angelou.

  ‘Your family. That’s what you have.’

  Mr Angelou stands up. ‘We’re going to meet every morning before school to talk.’ He looks at me. ‘Jack, you’re a good kid. We’ll do this.’

  Together, we walk to class.

  12 Jack’s Back

  I like the morning talks with Mr Angelou, but it is still dangerous out there. Last week two boys blocked the stairwell and I had to push past. Christopher saw it and ran up behind me. Then Paul followed. We all pushed past.

  Mr Angelou talks to George Hamel too. ‘I want to find out why he’s like what he is,’ he tells me. ‘George Hamel needs some help, Jack.’ I shudder. George Hamel and his gang still walk around like thugs. I avoid them. There are kids I play with again. They’re all right.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ Christopher shouts at me. ‘Hand ball.’

  The competition is fierce. Paul gets out straightaway. Five other guys are banging the ball against the wall. ‘Out.’ ‘Out.’ ‘Out.’ In the end it is Christopher and me. He beats me. I warn him. ‘Next time, I’ll get you.’

  George Hamel and his gang aren’t in the school yard at lunchtime anymore. They eat their lunch outside the teachers’ room or with Mr Angelou.

  Christopher is explaining the new spin he’s developed on the ball, when a couple of kids call out Bum Head.

  I look at them right in the eye, but before I say anything, Christopher jeers. ‘It’s better than being a Bum Wiper, you losers.’ Paul is laughing at them and so am I. Christopher looks around and sees the supervising teacher. ‘Right, let’s report you jerks.’ They race off as Christopher heads towards the teacher with us behind him.

  ‘Don’t bother reporting them, Christopher.’

  Christopher turns around. ‘Jack, I feel bad about what happened.’ He kicks the grass. ‘I should have stood up for you. Sorry.’ Christopher walks towards the teacher.

  School posters are everywhere. Tacked onto classroom doors, in the hall, even on the toilet block wall.

  Rob has moved in. We hardly noticed at first. It’s just that the four days he would come over became five days and then all week, every week. Mum gets mad when he leaves his shoes and socks in the lounge room. She says he is encouraging me to do the same. I don’t, except when I have to leave my joggers at the entrance. I need to put them on fast when I play basketball with Christopher out the back, or meet Anna to go to the beach, or help Nanna with her specials. Rob is teaching me karate. Since Rob has moved in, he drops me early at school every day. ‘Is everything right?’ he always asks.

  ‘Fine, Rob.’

  Mr Angelou’s smiling when I come in this morning. He holds up my last maths test. ‘Big improvement, Jack.’

  ‘Must be your teaching.’

  Mr Angelou laughs. ‘You’re right.’ Then he’s serious. ‘George Hamel isn’t as lucky as you. He finds school work hard. He’s started remedial lessons at lunchtime.’

  Am I supposed to care? What does Mr Angelou want me to say? I’m just glad he isn’t in the playground at lunch. ‘That’s good for George Hamel,’ but more importantly, ‘Mum’s got the job at the library.’

  ‘Are you happy about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ except I’ll miss waving to her through the supermarket window on the way home. ‘She’ll love not wearing a uniform.’

  Mr Angelou rubs the top of his bald head. ‘Your mother looks like summer.’

  I like that. Mum does look like summer with her blonde hair and her floral dresses and bright colours. Everything she does is summer, even her cooking. She’s cooking the best dinners these days. Experimental cooking she calls it. Rob calls it experimental indigestion.

  In the mornings, Mr Angelou and I talk about all sorts of things. Sport, Rob, school, Samantha, articles in the newspapers, kids drinking alcohol, just anything. It makes George Hamel seem stupid. It makes the kids who followed him seem like that too. It makes me wonder why I let them bully me.

  I’m seriously working on my photographic collection for the Inter-School Competition. I show Mr Angelou. He’s very impressed with it. When I showed Samantha and Anna yesterday afternoon, they were impressed too. ‘I love that one with everyone in the yellow straw sun hats,’ Anna said pushing away her black curls from her face. Her hair is getting curlier and she hates it. I think she looks great.

  Samantha kept studying the one where Nanna is superimposed over the grave. ‘She looks like she’s flying. It’s amazing, Jack.’ She made me laugh when she said, ‘You’re so smart, Jack.’

  She usually doesn’t say that, especially when I bother her. Mainly she calls me an idiot, a pain, and irritating.

  Mr Angelou wants me to work in a special group this morning in the meeting room next to his office. It’s the assignment on Egypt. ‘Get your books, paper and pen and I’ll see you there.’

  Kids are racing into classrooms. Paul hits my arm as he runs past. I shove him back just before he’s out of reach. ‘Get you back later,’ Paul calls out, laughing, as he disappears into the classroom.

  ‘Right, as if,’ I call back. Paul’s getting better at handball. He nearly beat me the other day.

  Mum borrowed a terrific book on pyramids. Luckily I’ve got it here. Better get moving. Through the window, it looks like there are only about five kids in the room. Two girls. Three guys. I open the door. George Hamel looks up. This sinking feeling hits my stomach like a rock. I squint like Nanna does when she’s concentrating. Right, I’m not scared of George Hamel. Not after everything that has happened. What can George Hamel do to me? Nothing. Well, he could break my arm. I heard he did that to someone at rugby the other day. I grit my teeth. I nod at George Hamel, then look around. There is Bill. He plays handball at lunchtime.

  The girls are too busy talking to notice me. There are a few grunts from the boys. George Hamel smirks. I take a desk. Mr Angelou walks in. ‘Is everyone ready? I want two groups.’ Mr Angelou points to George Hamel. ‘You’re over there with Jack and Bill.’ What’s wrong with Mr Angelou? This is George Hamel, Mr Angelou. George Hamel stands up. It is amazing. He has got to be at least two metres and that is only the size of his head. I smile at my joke. I must be feeling better. Then I look at George Hamel again. No, I don’t feel better.

  ‘I want the first section of the assignment to be completed this morning.’ Mr Angelou is tough. Everyone knows he is tough. ‘There’ll be detentions if the work isn’t done.’

  The pyramids. I open my book, look at my watch. George Hamel is still sneering at me. I take a deep breath and look him in the eye. ‘Let’s get started.’ Bill starts to sketch the Great Pyramid of Cheops. He’s drawing a pyramid shape before he starts on the internal passages leading to the tomb. I underline the important sections in my book. The Great Pyramid is 147 metres high. Huge. George Hamel is looking at my book.

  ‘Imagine all those people carrying those gigantic blocks of sandstone to build them,’ I say. ‘A lot of people died building those pyramids. It was dead hard. DEAD hard.’

  Bill laughs. George Hamel grunts. ‘Dead hard? Yeah, it was only meant for dead people.’

  I roll my eyes. Bill does, too. George Hamel has no sense of humour. ‘When the Pharaoh died, he took living people with him. His servants, wives, advisers.’ I shudder. ‘His tomb was right at the bottom of the pyramid, under all those huge stones. Then the pyramid was sealed shut. No-one could get out. They’d have starved there. Suffocated. In the dark. Right at the bottom.’ I think of Grandad’s grave in the sunlight, overlooking the bay with Nanna visiting.

  The sketches are finished. ‘They are great,’ I say, but George H
amel doesn’t sketch anything. George Hamel doesn’t have much to say. George Hamel can’t write very well. He can’t write. I never knew that before. Imagine that? How can you do your assignments or answer questions or be at school if you can’t write? I look at his huge head and orange hair. He’s got this expression on his face that looks tough, but his big hands just lie on the desk like pieces of blubber. He can’t write.

  When Mr Angelou comes back to check the assignment, I give him our work. ‘How did everything go?’

  ‘It was okay.’

  ‘Was it?’ He glances at George Hamel.

  ‘Yes.’ I can’t believe it, but I feel sorry for George Hamel.

  Mr Angelou’s bald head gleams. ‘I’ll see you all this afternoon at gym.’ He looks at me. ‘Jack, that means you too.’

  13 I Can Fly to Jupiter

  Mum’s swirling around like poppies in a storm. Her face is red and her dress is red except for white petals along the edges and on the sleeves. There’s a silk poppy in her hair. Her hair is a fuzzball.

  Nanna’s shuffling through the door with a load of green specials: broccoli, cabbage, string beans, peas in pods. ‘Please, not now,’ Mum tells her. I can see Nanna’s feelings are hurt and I take her green specials to the kitchen. Nanna feels better.

  Rob’s got black grease on his shoes from work. ‘I left work early today and I didn’t notice,’ he explains, but Mum’s already rubbing the carpet clean. He starts taking his shoes off. The flower in Mum’s hair bobs up and down as she rubs. ‘Don’t you dare leave your shoes in the lounge room.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that, Poppy.’ He smiles, looking at me. Mum is suspicious that he’s laughing at her, but she doesn’t answer because Samantha arrives with her hair in the weirdest shape. ‘Mum, can you help?’

  Mum starts giggling. That puts Samantha in a bad mood. ‘I don’t want your help if you laugh at me, Mum.’

  Mum has to beg Samantha’s forgiveness, because no-one wants Samantha in a bad mood. She gets so grumpy. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Mum kisses Samantha so much that Samantha starts giggling.

  ‘You’re tickling me, Mum.’

  Mum runs for a brush. She brushes Samantha’s hair into a ponytail and puts a gold ribbon through it. Samantha smiles and even I have to admit she does look beautiful.

  Anna arrives. She looks beautiful too. She’s finally worked out what to do with her curly black hair. A silver headband pushes her hair back, like a waterfall.

  Mum’s in a panic because this is the afternoon of the photographic exhibition. Dinner is already made for tonight, the unit is tidy, Puss has been fed, the table set, everyone is dressed. Samantha and I have been helping all day. I say to Rob, ‘Mum doesn’t GET it. It’s my exhibition.’

  He winks. ‘It’s hers too.’

  Anna and I escape into my room. I close the door and see Anna shaking her head. ‘This room is a mess.’

  ‘It may be a mess to you, but it’s vacuumed, cleaned and dust free. Mum forced me to do it. Anyway, I know where everything is and my tools and books are perfect.’

  ‘Car manuals. How interesting. Yes, they are perfect.’ She looks out of the window at the Napolis’ Super Delicioso Fruitologist Market. Her mother is stacking oranges at the front and you can just see her father at the cash register. ‘Mum and Dad wanted to come to the exhibition, but there wasn’t anyone to run the shop. They’ll be over for dinner.’

  I lean against the sill next to Anna and look out. There is a breeze and the smell of hot bread wafts through the window. We talk about our favourite breads and the delicious cookies made in the bakery.

  ‘I’m so glad that your photos were chosen for the Inter-School Exhibition.’

  ‘The photography teacher helped me, and Mr Angelou did as well. I had to redo the developing heaps of times to get the effects I wanted.’

  ‘“Sunlight at the Grave” is a wonderful title. Your Nanna looks gentle and peaceful in those photos.’

  ‘Nanna’s a fantastic subject. So are you, Anna.’

  She smiles. ‘That day at your Grandad’s grave was special. You caught a feeling that was more than just taking pictures.’ Anna thinks for a while. ‘The photos were about family, and me of course. I’m nearly family. About being together, talking, sharing. It’s hard to explain.’

  I nod because it is hard to explain.

  ‘I’m glad the photographs are in the exhibition. Not everyone will be able to see what’s really in them, but we can see.’ She furrows her eyebrows. ‘Everything’s all right now, isn’t it?’

  The bullying seems ages ago now. I think about it for a while. ‘Some kids still call me names when there’s no teacher around, but not many any more. I tell them off or laugh when they do. George Hamel leaves me alone. I’ve got a few friends, and the teachers are better.’ I rub my hand over my hair. It’s getting longer. ‘It’s all right.’

  Anna nods.

  ‘Time to go,’ Mum calls out. Insanity hits as we pile out of the unit. Nanna nearly trips on the top step, but luckily Rob catches her. Mum’s poppy falls out and there is a desperate search for it. The poppy is behind the door. Samantha jumps four steps and she knows she can’t do that yet. She grazes her knee and Mum and Anna comfort her. I have to race back upstairs and get a bandaid.

  Rob gets mad. Rob doesn’t get mad often. His hair is standing up. He’s shouting, ‘STOP.’ We look at him and he shouts again. ‘Everyone, don’t move. Don’t move.’

  No-one does move, because we’re all amazed that he’s shouting.

  He takes Mum’s arm, opens the car door to the front seat. ‘Get in.’ Mum does. He holds Samantha’s hand and sits her next to Mum. Then he helps Nanna into the back seat. Anna and I follow. ‘Put your seat belts on.’ We all do. Rob switches on the radio. Samantha snuggles between Rob and Mum. ‘Can you put it on my channel, Dad?’ Rob rubs Samantha’s hand for a second, then presses the button onto Samantha’s radio station. I feel strange when Samantha calls Rob, Dad. But he is like a dad to us now.

  The exhibition isn’t at school. It is in the local library. I feel nervous as Rob drives into the car park. ‘Calm, everyone,’ Rob says as we get out of the car. He holds Mum’s hand. Nanna holds Samantha’s hand. Anna and I walk into the library together. There are a lot of people I don’t recognise from other schools. A few kids I know say hello. Kids who used to call me Bum Head, come up and say my photos are great. I get this weird feeling when they do that.

  Large stands covered in black linen are placed throughout the library foyer. Framed photographs with titles printed in black ink hang on both sides of the stands. The name of the photographer is right at the top. Mum takes a catalogue.

  ‘Let’s go and find Jack’s,’ Nanna says. She pulls at the elastic in her underpants. I bet she’s wearing her purple ones. I don’t wear my purple underpants because they itch. Samantha and Mum agree. Itchy purple underpants. What’s wrong with me? Why am I thinking about itchy purple underpants? I must be nervous.

  Samantha calls out really embarrassingly, ‘They’re here. Over here.’

  Luckily Rob holds Mum’s hand tightly so that she doesn’t run over and make a spectacle of herself. Except I don’t care if she does make a scene. Mum’s face is nearly all smile. I’ve made her proud of me. My head doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. I stand between Mum and Nanna. Nanna has tears in her eyes. ‘Grandad is in these pictures. He’s proud of you, like I am.’ I get this lump in my throat. Mum and Nanna and even Grandad, are proud of me.

  My school librarian especially finds me to say how impressed she is with my photos. Mr Angelou strides up to us. ‘Well done.’ He chats a while before going to speak to other parents and kids. Mr Angelou is coming for dinner tonight.

  The chief Librarian taps the microphone to get everyone’s attention. There are going to be speeches on the podium. The chief Librarian says how proud he is that the library could be involved in this exhibition. The School Inspector says how proud he is of all the schools and the entrants involved and how gratef
ul he is for the library’s support. Every Principal thanks the Inspector, the library, teachers, students. The judges talk about the entries…and Samantha yawns. Mum’s dropped her poppy somewhere on the floor, which is a lucky excuse for Samantha to go poppy hunting. Nanna stands right next to me smiling but I know she can’t hear most of what’s said. Maybe that’s good.

  My feet are getting sore standing here. I see orange juice on the refreshment table. I’m hot. I jump when Mum squeezes my arm. What? What? Names are being called out. The Inspector is shaking the hand of every photographer and handing him a certificate and a book. My name’s called. I can’t move. ‘Go on.’ Anna shoves me forward. The crowd part as I walk towards the podium. ‘Congratulations,’ the Inspector says. When the Inspector hands me my certificate there’s this awful clapping from the back. It’s Nanna, Mum, Samantha (who has found Mum’s poppy) and Rob. They are so loud. Then I look at the front. There’s another loud clapper. Mr Angelou.

  The local newspaper takes photographs of all entrants and asks questions about everyone’s photos. Then we have permission to eat. Mum says not to eat too much at the library because she has made a big dinner at home. There are sandwiches, cream cakes and cookies there. Nanna eats five cookies. I look at Mum. Nanna doesn’t care about dinner. I only have two cookies, one apple pie and two orange juices. I’m so thirsty. I might have another orange juice.

  When we get home, Mr and Mrs Napoli are waiting for us outside our unit. Mr Napoli is holding up a huge bunch of yellow carnations for Mum. He hugs Mum, Nanna, then Rob. Rob goes all stiff and uncomfortable, which makes Mum laugh. ‘Rob, don’t worry, he’s Italian.’ Mrs Napoli hugs everyone too.

  As we open the front door, there are delicious smells of roast chicken and baked potatoes. Everyone wants to look at my prize, even Puss who walks over the cover of the book, Magic Moments in Photography. It’s a great book. Nanna looks at the pictures and says my photos are better than the book’s. I’d expect Nanna to say that. I’m always the best to her.