Louis Beside Himself (4 page)

Rosie had talked about spices all the time when she was into cooking curries, and I remembered her favourite. ‘Cumin – is that the spice you're thinking of, Hassan?' I called out. ‘It's great in curries, right?' Hassan suddenly smiled, making his face look so different.

We were both grinning away, and then Elena, a new girl in our class, called out, ‘
Spezia
, that's the Italian word for spice!' Mr Mainprize echoed ‘spezia' with a very bad accent, opening his mouth wide as if he was at the dentist. Elena laughed, and quick as a blink, Mr Mainprize came out with some rhyming words like
basil
/
dazzle
,
thyme
/
sublime
. We all started to have a go then, even Bobby Thornton, yelling ‘Elena Spezia, can I sit next-ta-ya?' And we invented a mad rap about food, with Mr Mainprize never letting us drop the beat, keeping our words running, like stitches sewing up a seam, sewing up the silence, connecting everyone from all around the class, all around the world.

After that day Hassan came and sat with me. I learned that his uncle, Mady, washed dishes at a restaurant but had actually been a chef back in Afghanistan. Mady didn't mind about doing the dishes here – he said he was grateful to be alive and well and able to look after his nephew in a safe place where people weren't fighting and dying.

Talking of fighting and dying brings me back to the night of the
P
ERIL
, when I could have been slain, torn to shreds, and beaten to a bloody pulp. But before I go into the details of this heart-stopping story, you need to know the one significant
P
HENOMENON
that caused it. Well, maybe
caused
is too strong a word. Let me explain.

4
THE PHENOMENON

It was a Friday night and we were sitting around the table having dinner: me, Dad, Rosie, Rosie's boyfriend Miles, Singo (whose mother sent him out because his father had a suspicious, possibly infectious cough) and Hassan. We'd just started on our chicken and rice when Hassan suddenly brought up the topic of arm-wrestling.

Hassan and I have a lot in common, like being mad about his uncle's dinners and video games and racing Elena to the bus stop and, well,
Elena
, but one thing we don't share is a passion for Indian arm-wrestling. Hassan can't get enough of it when he comes over to our place. And he wants to learn all kinds of moves and holds and slow lethal strangulations. Not that he wants to use them
on
anyone, he just wants to have the knowledge inside him. He is
I
NSATIABLE
, which is a truly wonderful word whose sound goes on and on as if it never wants to end, just like its meaning.

‘Mr Montgomery, when you've finished your rice, do you think we could have an arm-wrestle? I've been practising.'

‘Sure,' said Dad, and looked at me meaningfully. See, said his eyebrows,
someone
is interested.

‘Then I'll give you a go, Monty!' Miles told Dad, flexing his biceps. ‘Check out these guns!'

Miles grabbed any opportunity to wrestle with Dad. Maybe this was because he lived with his mum and his Grandma Agnes, who used to be an Ancient History teacher but now believed she was once a cook in ancient Roman times. Miles says Agnes has some kind of old-timer's trouble that makes her forget who she is in the present, leaving her free to make herself up from the past. Singo and I have discussed this, and I said I thought it might be fun to be Agnes, inventing yourself like a character in a video game – you'd never know what adventure you were going to leap into next. Singo doesn't agree – he thinks it would be very scary to wake up in your own bed and wonder whose house it was and who was that person snoring next to you. I guess he's right. ‘But at least,' said Singo, ‘the
dis
ease is not infectious.'

Over spring last year, Agnes started venturing off around lunchtime without telling anyone. Usually she walked, but once she took the car keys and drove across town for thirty k's. When Miles and his mum found her, she was standing in a stranger's kitchen, stuffing a chicken.

‘I did get quite a fright when she walked in,' said the lady who owned the kitchen, ‘but I could see she was just a bit lost and very keen on helping me with the roast. She told me she's had 2000 years of cooking experience so not to worry. I thought it best not to argue with her.' When Miles's mum, Doreen, tearfully apologised, the woman patted her hand and said that actually Agnes had been a godsend because the entire family was coming for dinner that night and her legs had been playing up, what with her
V
ARICOSE
veins and all, and she welcomed the help Agnes had very efficiently provided. ‘Still,' Doreen said to Miles on the way home, ‘it won't always turn out well like this. We were lucky this time, but we'll have to keep an eye on Agnes.'

But back to the arm-wrestle. When we'd cleared the plates, Hassan rolled up his sleeves. He leaned in, elbow on the table, his hand bunched in a fist.

‘Don't be too disappointed tonight, mate,' Dad said. ‘I'm feeling fit as a Mallee bull!'

‘What's a
M
ALLEE
B
ULL
? Does it come from Spain?' I had my notebook out, ready.

‘No,' said Dad. ‘So, you're left-handed Hassan, aren't you?'

‘Me too,' said Miles, pulling up the cuff of his left sleeve. ‘Check out
this
baby.' And we all watched the muscle in his forearm jump up and down like a mouse under his skin. Or, to be fair, like a big rat or maybe even a
M
ONGOOSE
(which is a carnivorous mammal with a slender body and long tail, notable for its ability to kill venomous snakes).

‘Impressive,' Dad told Miles. ‘You been working out?'

‘Just push-ups, mainly. I can do forty in a row without stopping. Wanna see?'

‘Okay, give me ten on the spot.'

While Miles pushed, Dad arm-wrestled Hassan. They struggled hard for at least sixty seconds, Hassan's knuckles straining white against my father's. Hassan was going red in the face as if Elena had just walked into the room and asked him to go out with her. Singo and I held our breath. Actually, I don't think Hassan was breathing either. But finally, Dad brought Hassan's fist down on the table. He reckons if you let someone win, they can never trust you to tell the truth. And if you've lived a life like Hassan's, you've got to know who you can trust.

‘Well done!' said Dad, grabbing Hassan's hand again and giving it a shake. ‘I had to work really hard! You
have
been practising. If you keep going like that, in a couple of years you'll get tired of winning, you'll see.'

‘Men never get tired of winning, do they?' said Rosie from the hall. She was carrying a tall mirror, and she leaned it up against the wall under the fierce hall light. She stood in front of it, wrestling with the buttons of a tiny skirt that only just covered her bottom. Maybe you'd call it a scarf, not a skirt. Or a hand towel – a nice fluffy yellow one.

‘Hey, Monty,' said Miles to Dad from the floor. ‘See I got a sixpack now?' He pointed to his stomach. ‘That's fifty sit-ups a day. Plus a run every night.'

‘How many
k's
, Miles?' said Singo with a smile to me.

‘Don't you get bored doing all those exercises?' Rosie called. ‘I get bored just hearing about it.'

But Miles just hunched down over his knees, ready to start some sit-ups. Soon he was panting and snorting like a Mallee bull. Whatever that is. When he'd done fifty he stopped for a breather.

‘That's impressive,' said Dad. ‘You see how fit your boyfriend is, Rosie? When are you going to play some sport instead of standing around in front of mirrors? Why don't we all do isometric exercises in the morning together as a family? Of course, Louis, you need to work on your biceps to be effective in arm-wrestling, but if you concentrate hard on your triceps, forearms and shoulders as well, you'd really have the winning edge.'

I couldn't help sighing. Loudly.

‘And then there are the tips I learned from my father,' he went on, ignoring me. As if we hadn't heard them all before. ‘See, it's all in your mental approach. If you think positive thoughts, you'll be more likely to win. And when you're arm-wrestling, look the other guy in the eye and compliment him suddenly on his hair. That'll distract him for sure.' Now Dad sighed, shifting his gaze to Rosie. ‘Are you going to wear that bath mat out into the world, my girl? It barely covers your nether regions!'

N
ETHER
R
EGIONS!
It sounded like a remote snowy spot on a map. Rosie just rolled her eyes.

‘Your dad's right, it's good to be fit,' Miles told her, leaping up and lifting the big
Macquarie Dictionary
up and down to strengthen his right biceps. ‘You should come running at night with me. And if anyone jumps out at us, I can protect you with my right hook.'

‘Oh yeah, and who's going to jump on me around here – Mrs Livid from Next Door?' said Rosie, shooting a look at me. I didn't know she knew about livid. Although, come to think of it, Rosie had taken Mrs Next Door to the hearing specialist, and they'd brought home a smart little hearing aid the size of a plum stone.

‘You never know who might be lurking around,' said Miles wisely, cracking his knuckles. ‘You just never know.'

‘My sentiments exactly,' said Dad.

‘So, Monty,' Miles said, bounding forward as if he was about to do a Five Star Frog Splash, ‘let's try that Walls of Jericho move again, it's hectic!'

‘Okay, let's do it!' Dad yelled, his voice shiny with excitement.

And this is when it happened – the phenomenon, that is.

DAD
whirled around the kitchen table and charged up the hall, just as Miles charged down towards him.

‘Jericho!' shouted Miles, wanting to surprise him.

They clashed right in front of the mirror, exactly where Rosie had been standing just one minute before, checking out her hand towel. Miles grabbed Dad's hands. Dad tripped and crashed headlong into Miles's chest, then tipped over just like a vase of flowers and smashed onto the hard wooden floor. On the way down, his elbow struck the mirror, hard as a hammer. We all watched the mirror teeter in slow motion, as if trying to decide whether to go to all the bother of suicide, then die sideways onto the floor, landing heavily on top of Dad's outstretched body.

Miles was the first to unfreeze. ‘God, I've killed Monty!' He crouched over Dad, shaking his shoulder. ‘Monty, speak to me, speak to me! I was just showing off. Oh, why didn't someone kill me first!'

‘Ohhislliskaysh,' said Dad. At least I think that's what he said – his face was still squashed on the floor. I thought he'd been
R
ENDERED
I
NSENSIBLE
.

After ten seconds Dad stirred and slid out from under the mirror. He looked as if he wasn't sure all these limbs belonged to him. Miles threw his arms around him in a fierce bear hug. We all rushed forward and helped Dad and Miles up and into the kitchen.

‘Sit down, sit down!' yelled Miles, who needed to say everything twice when he was upset, probably because he lived with Agnes who didn't ever listen the first time. Or the second, actually. Miles pulled out a chair and put an extra cushion on it. ‘Here! Sit here, Monty!'

‘I'm okay, don't worry, not a scratch!' Dad said merrily. But I noticed he sat down heavily, gratefully.

‘I'm so, so sorry!' said Miles. ‘I just got carried away. Don't know what was going on in my head.'

‘Nothing, as usual,' snapped Rosie.

‘Don't worry, it's just because everything was so
hectic
,' Dad said kindly. ‘But you forgot something essential, Miles. Never surprise your opponent in wrestling practice – that's where you can get hurt. Another thing, The Walls of Jericho is a move you make when someone is already on the floor. It's not a pounce attack, like the Shooting Star Press or the Backbreaker Submission. Look, see, I'll just demonstrate— '

‘Before you do that, Dad,' said Rosie wearily, ‘can we just check out this mirror?'

We all looked at the smooth wooden back of the mirror. It seemed fine. It looked completely
I
NTACT
.

‘Let me help!' said Miles, leaping forward. ‘
I'll
lift it!

‘No!' shouted Rosie.

Before she could stop him, Miles picked up the mirror by both ends, his
guns
rippling. As it rose into the air, long heart-breaking pieces of glass separated from the frame and shattered on the ground, shooting out across the floor in a spray of tiny, deadly daggers.

In the
A
PPALLED
silence, we all gazed at the one small triangle of glass clinging to the wooden frame. It was like a whisper of hope. Rosie picked at it, trying to slide it out from the frame.