Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel (4 page)

‘That's it!' Razz said, thumping the desk and causing Mr Guthrie look up from the roll book and frown.

‘Well, what is it, Razz? What is the answer to all my chick-drooling prayers?'

A crazy look took over Razza's eyes. It was the same crazy look that usually appeared just before even crazier words began exploding out of his crazy mouth. I prepared myself for the worst. He leant closer and spread his hands like he was making a rabbit appear from a hat.

‘Cindy Sexton!' he said with a grin that would have frightened off a pack of hungry sharks.

I stared a while at the maniacal face with the beaming eyes hovering in front of me.

‘Razz, I don't think my parents would approve of me hooking up with a porn star.'

Razz jerked back and pointed an accusing finger at me.

‘Hey, that's my
cousin
you're talking about!'

‘Your
cousin
?

‘Yeah, and you better not let Uncle Henry and Auntie Carla hear you say stuff like that about their daughter.'

‘So you want me to hook up with one of your
cousins
? Is
that
what you're saying?'

Razz nodded enthusiastically.

‘One of your relatives?'

He nodded again.

‘Someone related by birth … to you?'

He stopped nodding.

‘Dude, is your brain still in holiday hibernation mode or something?
Yes
, she's my cousin, OK? Her family's moving up here from down south in a few weeks. I didn't want to tell you until it was definite, but now they've got a house and everything is sweet. Don't you see the beauty of it, man? Kelly moves out, Cindy moves in. It's the Circle of Luuuuuuurve! It's fate, dude, fate!'

‘Razz, I don't really think me hooking up with your cousin is such a terrific idea.'

Now
that
was definitely going to be my official entry in the Understatement of the Year Competition. As far as I was concerned, me hooking up with a cousin of Razza's was the idea equivalent of a rotting corpse. Not only did it stink, it frightened the life out of me.

‘What are you talking about, man? It's perfecto. It's all the planets lining up. Look, don't you get it? Cindy's worried about moving and being new in town and not knowing anyone; my uncle and auntie are worried about her being unhappy; my mum's worried for them; I'm worried because I'll have to hang out with Cindy and show her around when I'd rather be hanging out with Sally; and you're Mr Misery
anyway because you've turned into a Kelly-Faulkner-free zone.
But
… if you and Cindy hook up, everybody's happy!'

This was all starting to sound disturbingly familiar.

‘Waaaaait a minute. This isn't another one of your famous “win, win, win, win situations”, is it? You know, like the one last year when you talked me into reading Kelly's private diary to find out if she liked me or not? Didn't you reckon that was going to make everyone happy too? Remember how
that
one turned out, Razz? Remember how Kelly ended up hating my guts because she walked in while I was reading her private stuff after someone – i.e.
you
– decided it was a good time to go for a leak even though someone – i.e.
you
–
promised
me they would be guarding the door? Remember
that
?'

Razz hunched up his shoulders. ‘Yeah, well, there might have been some
slight
technical hitches along the way,
but
it turned out all right in the end, didn't it? I mean, as I recall, someone – i.e.
you
– did end up engaging in some serious saliva-swapping action with someone – i.e. Kelly Faulkner. I bet
you
remember
that
, man. Anyway,' Razz said, ‘you can't compare the two things. This is
way
different.'

‘How?'

‘Well, if you go out with Cindy it'll make
six
people happy – Uncle Henry, Auntie Carla, Cindy, Mum, me and you. We'll all be stoked. So technically it's not a win, win, win, win situation. It's a win, win, win, win, win, win situation, which makes it even better.'

I squeezed my eyes closed. Maybe if I couldn't see him he'd just disappear.

‘And another thing, dude …'

Unfortunately not.

‘… just wait till you get a look at her, man. She might be a Sexton but she's got Zorzotto blood in her from her mum's side, so naturally she's
smokin
'
.
I'm not kidding. If I didn't have Sal I might try to win on to her myself.'

I opened one eye.

‘
You?
But she's your
cousin.
'

‘
Third
cousin. I'm not
that
sick.'

‘But … didn't you just say Cindy was your Uncle What's-his-face and Auntie Thingo's daughter?'

‘Uncle
Henry
and Auntie
Carla.
Yeah, that's right. But they've got two
other
daughters, haven't they –
older
ones – so that makes Cindy my
third
cousin – duh!'

I opened both eyes and locked them hard on Razz. I waited for him to crack so I'd know that he was just joking. He held my stare.

‘O-kaaaaaaaaaaay, then,' I said. ‘Moving right along. What makes you think she'd be interested in me anyway? If she's as hot as you reckon, she'll probably say no.'

Razz scrunched up his forehead and squinted off into the distance. ‘Cindy say
No
?' Then he squinted even harder like he was trying to see a speck of dust on the surface of the sun. ‘Well, I guess it's …
possible
'
.

Something about Razz's response worried me but I let it go. I was hoping if we stopped talking about it, the whole ‘Cindy and me' thing might just blow over. All I told Razz as the bell rang for first lesson was that I'd ‘think about it'.

That night an email arrived from [email protected]. It said, ‘Check out the piccie, dude!'

I groaned. Why couldn't Razz just leave me alone so I could be miserable and depressed and slowly waste away to nothing in peace? Was that too much to ask of your best friend? Why couldn't he get it through his thick skull that I didn't want Cindy or anyone else for that matter? I just wanted Kelly. I wanted Kelly, with her ice-blue eyes and her heart-attack smile. I wanted Kelly, with her killer laugh and her electric-shock lips. I wanted Kelly … who was hundreds of kilometres away … in another country … and who wasn't coming back … ever.

A big stale lump of emptiness invaded my body and started growing and mutating there. I groaned again but scrolled
down the page to the photo. I recognised the Zorzotto kitchen straightaway. Razz and his mum were sitting at the table. A large woman was sitting between them. I figured it was Auntie Carla. I guess Uncle Henry had taken the shot. Sitting at the end of the table, closest to the camera, was a girl with curly black hair. She was wearing a blue and white striped top and white shorts. Short white shorts. Everyone in the photo was smiling. The black-haired girl was smiling the most. Under the photo Razz had written,

‘Time to vote, dude:
HOT
or
NOT?'

I zoomed in on the black-haired girl until just her face and the top half of her body filled the screen and studied her closely. I clicked on
Reply
, typed a three-letter word and hit
Send.
There are some things that are so obvious you don't even need to be a near-genius like my little sister Prue to figure them out. One of those things was this:

Cindy Sexton was definitely
not
a ‘
NOT
'.

In Homeroom the next morning, Razz was a one-man Cindy Sexton publicity campaign in full swing. While Mr Guthrie was busy marking the roll and doing admin stuff, Razz was buzzing in my ear.

‘Didn't I tell you, man? Didn't I? Is she smokin' or what? I told you. Was I right or was I right? Just wait till she gets up here, man. You'll see. You and Cindy. It'll be awesome!'

Luckily I was saved from permanent hearing loss by Miss Tarango making an appearance at our Homeroom door.

‘Sorry for interrupting, Mr Guthrie, but may I just have a moment to speak to the boys?'

Mr Guthrie jumped from his seat and knocked some papers on to the floor. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. All right, listen up, everyone,' he added as he gathered up the sheets and then almost tripped backwards over his chair. There was no doubt in my mind that if Mr Guthrie really had a poster stuck up in our Homeroom for everything he cared about, then the biggest one would have Miss Tarango's face plastered all over it.

‘OK, boys, I have important information for you about the rapidly approaching Arts Fair,' Miss said as she passed around some handouts.

The rapidly approaching Arts Fair was a big celebration the
school had planned for the official opening of what everyone at St Daniel's very creatively referred to as ‘
the
extensions' or ‘
our
extensions'. These consisted of the brand new Creative Arts Centre plus some extra classrooms. Their official opening was going to be combined with the annual school fair in the last weekend of the first term. According to Miss Tarango, Year Elevens were being asked to act as guides on the day and a volunteers' roster was going up later on in the week.

After Miss finished talking to us she stayed to help Mr Guthrie sort out the boys who had timetable problems. With Miss Tarango standing so close, Mr G looked like a drowning man who was too afraid to ask for a life jacket. I knew exactly how he felt. I'd drowned plenty of times within reach of Kelly Faulkner.

‘You know, I reckon Woody could do with some of my expert help. Maybe it's time I started to weave some of my magic.'

I shuffled around in my seat to get a good look at Razz.

‘Your
magic
? And exactly what
magic
would that be?'

‘My matchmaking magic obviously, dude. You know, like the way I got you and the Kelmeister together.'

‘Razz, I don't want to appear critical or ungrateful here, but you didn't actu – ‘

‘And now how I'm fixing you up with Cindy. Man, I'm like … I'm like … the Lifesaver of Love. Yeah, that's it. That's exactly what I am, man,' Razz said, gazing dreamily into the distance. ‘The Lifesaver of Luuuuuuurve … always on duty … to rescue the broken-hearted … from the Undertow of Rejection.'

My stomach churned a little and it wasn't
just
because of that ‘rescuing the broken-hearted from the Undertow of Rejection' line. It was also because of the mention of Cindy. As ‘hot' as she was, I'd been kind of hoping that Razz had forgotten about trying to hook me up with his cousin.

‘So yeah, I'm thinking maybe I could work my awesome
magic and get Woody and Miss T together, 'cause I'm telling you, that dude needs all the help he can get.'

Even though I knew that Razz messing in Miss Tarango's and Mr Guthrie's personal lives was a bad idea, I didn't say anything. I figured that if Razz got distracted thinking about that project, then maybe he wouldn't have any time left to come up with some crazy scheme involving me and Cindy. That way I might avoid the near-certainty of becoming the star act in another humiliating disaster. But hey, guess what? I was totally and completely wrong.

And I was about to find out exactly how totally and completely wrong at the rapidly approaching Arts Fair.

A few weeks later Scobie called an early planning meeting for the upcoming debating season. All of us were sitting around a table in one of the library discussion rooms. Well, when I say ‘all of us', I mean all of us except Razz. When he finally did roll up, he ignored the others completely and bounded in beside me.

‘Hey, Ishmael! Wait'll I tell you the awesome news, dude. It's
awesome
!'

‘What is it?'

‘Cindy's arrived and she's coming to the Arts Fair!'

I didn't have time to reply before Prindabel jumped in.

‘Cindy? Cindy who?'

‘Cindy Sexton,' Razz shot back at him as if it was obvious. Scobie, Bill and Ignatius exchanged confused looks.

‘So … is this
Cindy
person something to do with the entertainment Miss Tarango said the school was organising for the fair?' Scobie asked.

‘Hope so,' Prindabel said. ‘She sounds like a stripper.'

Ignatius was so pleased with himself over this comment he did that thing of his that was supposed to be laughing but was more like bobbing his head up and down and making jerky hissing noises through his teeth. Bill snorted. Scobie stretched his mouth into a perfect horizontal line.

Razz looked at them all in disgust.

‘What is the matter with you people? Get your behinds out of the gutter. Cindy Sexton just happens to be my cousin. And I'm hooking her up with Ishmael here. Cindy is the new Kelly!' he announced proudly.

Three necks twisted my way like they were compass needles and I was the North Pole. Thanks to Razz they already knew all about me and Kelly and about her staying in New Zealand. But so far I'd managed to keep the whole Cindy thing off the radar. Up until now, that is.

Ignatius leant across the table at me and held up a long, bony index finger.

‘Ah, point of clarification, Ishmael,' he said. ‘Did I just hear our
learned
colleague Mr Zorzotto say that you are going to be … “hooking up” … with his …
cousin
?'

‘No, well, maybe. I'm not sure. Look, this is all …'

‘But you're
considering
it? You're actually contemplating the possibility of going out with Orazio's
cousin
?'

‘I'm not sure. I might be. I don't know. I haven't really …'