The Colossal Camera Calamity (3 page)

“Name?” the photographer said.

“Henry Zippers – I mean, Henry Zipzer,” I said. “But everyone calls me Hank. You’ll mark down my real name as Hank, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey, Hank!” Frankie shouted. “Don’t forget to smile!” Frankie smiled big and wide, showing off a ridiculous set of goofy fake teeth. I started to laugh, but then I noticed that McKelty was standing next to him.

What was he doing there? Was he planning something?

He’d been much further down the queue before. He seemed deep in conversation with Stu Williams – they were probably talking about hair products – but you could never be too careful with McKelty. I kept an eye on him.

“You ready, son?” the photographer asked.

I turned to face the camera and tried to put McKelty out of my mind. I wasn’t going to mess up this year’s photo by looking at him.

And then everything started happening so fast. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of blond hair. McKelty wasn’t talking to Stu any more. He was pulling something from his lunchbox. A can of fizzy blackcurrant – a can of fizzy blackcurrant that I had turned into a military-grade explosive!

I held my breath as he popped the top. The juice foamed a little, then a little bit more, and then it fizzled out and settled. It was a dud.

I exhaled.

But as McKelty brought the can to his lips for his first sip, it got a second life and liquid started spraying out everywhere in waves so powerful that McKelty lost control of the can. He yelled as the can spun around wildly, and I saw a spray of purple liquid heading right for me.

Time slowed down again. I could see every drop of dark liquid in the air and hear every popping bubble.

I froze, mouth open in an O, eyes crossed, as the wave of blackcurrant crashed over me.

FLASH.

“Next,” the photographer said.

“No!” I said.

“Ha ha,” McKelty said.

“Ha ha ha,” the hall chanted.

“No!” I said. “Take it again. Take it again!”

“Move it along there, Mr Zipzer,” Mr Love said, reappearing in the school hall at that very moment. He was holding a skull from science class. “Now, young man. We’ve got to wrap this up by three.”

I slunk out of the chair, dragged myself over to my mates, and sank down on the floor, my wet head in my sticky hands.

“Forget it, dude,” Frankie said. “It’s only a photo.” He smiled at me with his fake teeth.

“Why’s the seat all wet?” Mr Love was saying. “Oh well, I think it’s better to stand anyway. More powerful – bolder.” He held the skull out in front of him and gazed at it, as though he was lost in deep thoughts. “No, no, no. It’s not right. It all feels too … Hamlet. I want to strike a more historical pose – get across the sense of a great leader. Hamlet was too … too…”

“Indecisive?” the photographer offered.

“Exactly,” Mr Love said. “I’ll be right back.” He jogged from the photographer’s booth, handing me the skull as he passed. I wondered if he knew it was a baboon skull. “Return this to the science lab.”

I was too miserable to move. I’d ruined my school photo again. I could almost hear my future self laughing at me. I could certainly hear McKelty laughing at me. He was so clean he was practically glowing.

I gazed at the baboon skull. Even
it
seemed to be laughing at me. And why not? I was wet and sticky and covered in blackcurrant juice. I stuck my tongue out and licked some from my face. It tasted bitter.

“I guess I’m just a loser again,” I said as we walked to maths. The blackcurrant juice had mostly dried, but, boy, was it sticky.

“You’re not a loser,” Ashley said. “Your photo will look…”

“Rugged? Ruggish?” I said.

“
Unique
,” she said.

I sighed.

“Who cares?” Frankie said. “All of our school photos are boring. Yours will stand out.”

“Because I’m purple.”

“There’s always next year,” Ashley said.

“Why will next year be any different?” I asked. “Don’t you guys get it? This happens every year. Every year I do something stupid, or something stupid happens to me. And it doesn’t matter if it only lasts a fraction of a second. It’s always the same fraction of a second that my photo is taken. It keeps happening. I guess I’ve got to just accept that I won’t be the first kid to walk on Mars and try to live my sad loser life with dignity.”

I looked at all the kids in the corridor. They were so happy and normal. I didn’t want to be like them all the time. I didn’t even want to be like them for a whole day – just for the fraction of a second. All I wanted was not to do something weird or stupid for the fraction of a second in which my photo was taken. With slumped shoulders, I took another step and fell flat on my face.

An untied shoelace.

“Hey, look, everyone!” McKelty yelled from the other end of the hall. “Hank fell! Ha ha ha.” Then he chucked orange peels at me. I didn’t even try to block them.

“Come on, dude,” Frankie said, crouching down in front of me. “Get up.”

“Yeah, let us help you,” Ashley said, putting out her hand.

“You need to think positively, Hank,” Frankie said.

“Think positively,” I exclaimed. “Think positively?!” And then I stopped speaking because I’d seen something that made me smile.

“Wow, you cheer up fast,” Ashley said as she helped me up.

“Look!” I pointed. “Look!”

Frankie glanced over at the lost property office. “You lose your keys … again?”

“No!” I gasped. “Lost property. It’s genius. The perfect solution. Don’t you see?”

“We see
it
, Hank,” Ashley said, shrugging at Frankie. “But why don’t you tell us what
you
see?”

“I can find another school uniform, get back in line and have my photo taken again. There’s still hope!”

The jumper was too tight and it was cutting off the blood flow to my brain. The bottom of it didn’t even reach my belly button, but I didn’t care. Properly sized jumpers were so last year.

“Work it, baby,” Ashley said as I strutted around the lost property office. “Now, sashay!”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“I think you make your lips pouty,” she said.

I put my hand on my hip and puffed out my lips. “Like this?”

“Ooh-ooh-aah-aah!” said Ashley. She was almost crying with laughter, but Frankie was not impressed.

“Focus, Hank,” he said. “You are trying to make your photo better. Is this the look you want to be remembered by?”

“Fashion is my life, Frankie,” I said, but he only folded his arms. “OK, I’ll focus.”

I tried to pull the sweater off, but the stupid thing wouldn’t go over my head because it was too tight. I grunted and yelled and hopped up and down and did about twenty other useless things until I ended up crashing into some shelves and falling on my bum.

Then something – a very large ball, I think, or at least something spherical and bouncy – fell off a shelf and knocked me on the head. Three more things then fell off the shelf and hit me too. I’m not sure what they were because I was seeing stars from that spherical object and also blinded by the sweater.

Ashley and Frankie tried to pull the sweater off, but it felt as though my head was about to go with it. I howled until finally the jumper snapped off.

When we’d all recovered, Frankie said, “Dude, this place is a washout. You’re not going to find anything in here.”

“You’re wrong about that,” I said, noticing a blue rucksack on the floor beside me. It must have fallen off the shelf. “My old bag!”

“And what about that red one?” Ashley pointed to one between my legs.

“Mine too! And look, there’s Old Yellow.” My favourite ever bag was sitting beside my other leg. When my grandfather, Papa Pete, had given it to me, he had put a chocolate bar in one of the pockets. I, of course, lost the rucksack the first day I took it to school. I unzipped the small pocket now and, wonder of wonder, the chocolate was still in there – a little smashed and flattened, but probably still edible. There was only one way to find out.

“It’s good,” I said after the first bite. “You guys want some?”

“Pass,” Ashley said.

“Nah,” Frankie said. “Let’s leave. There’s nothing in here that will fit you.”

“There is one uniform that would fit…” I said, eyeing Frankie and his jumper and his shirt and tie.

“Forget it, man. I don’t give up my threads for anyone.”

“Come on,” said Ashley. “He’s your best friend.”

“I’ve never seen him before in my entire life,” Frankie said.

I took another bite of delicious chocolate, peanuts, caramel and nougat. Which made me think, what exactly was nougat? Was it a type of nut that I didn’t know about? Or maybe it was one of those weird exotic fruits my mum went crazy for, like persimmons. I shook my head to get rid of the thought. Now was not the time to think about persimmons.
Focus, Hank.

“Can I interest you in a trade, then, Frankie?” I asked, waving the half-eaten chocolate bar at him.

“I don’t want an old-rucksack-mystery bar.”

“No, but guess what my mum made me for lunch?”

“My favourite pudding?” he asked.

“Your favourite pudding,” I said.

“You know, Hank, you’ve always been my best friend,” Frankie said, pulling his jumper over his head.

From the pages of Emily Zipzer’s field notebook…

12:51 p.m., 8th March

I am trying to stay positive, but I fear I am losing control.

Let me start at the beginning.

Dad arrived punctually at 10:55 a.m. and met me outside the science classroom, where all the shortlisted candidates were to be welcomed by Dr Mehat, who will be conducting the interviews.

I had half-expected Dad to arrive hand-in-hand with the mother, but he came alone. He was, however, visibly nervous and sweaty, and he was wearing his most unflattering jumper. The black one he’s had since his university days and is two sizes two small. The mother hates it. On this point, I have to agree with her. Dad loves it, though. He insists that it’s his lucky sweater. Lucky for what?

As we filed into the classroom, Dad attempted several times to change my mind about the mother. “Think how you’d feel if your daughter didn’t want you around?” he said.

“The question is meaningless,” I replied. “I don’t have a daughter.”

He tried again. “How would you feel if Katherine didn’t want you around?”

Again, the question was without merit. Lizards have limited emotional responses.

Dr Mehat and Mr Love greeted everyone on the shortlist warmly. Mr Love commented on the mother’s absence. The father said she was tied up at work. Mr Love seemed to approve. “Probably for the best,” he said.

Dr Mehat then spoke in generalities about the institute and the summer programme – information which I was already familiar with from the institute’s website. I observed her intently, though, to try and find in her speech, her choice of words, her body language any insight into her character that I could take advantage of in the formal interview. She gave nothing away, so I began to use this time to size up my competition.

There were ten candidates in all, including Molly Phillips. Molly shows no real vigour in her studies and has gravitated to the flaky subject of cold fusion simply to sound smart.

Amit Kahn was also in attendance.

I know little about him or his studies. He is in the year above me. I watched him a moment. He wore small horn-rimmed glasses, which he adjusted frequently, when not biting his nails. His eyes, however, showed a look of calm intelligence. I will have to make an effort to get to know him better.

After a brief observation of the other contestants, I concluded that none of them posed a threat. I watched Mr Love for a while. He was staring intently and at great length and with great interest at a full-size skeleton of a baboon.

After the welcome meeting, we went to wait our turn. I must admit that I became slightly nervous at this time.

Dad noticed and told me to relax. “You don’t want to choke when you get to the crease,” he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about and told him so.

“I’m talking cricket,” he said. “If you’re too uptight, you’ll be out for a duck. Stay loose and you can hit it for six.”

I asked him if this was supposed to be helping.

He said he was trying to “prep me for the big game” and went on to mention several more analogies having to do with cricket. I did not appreciate his comparing scientific excellence with a mindless sporting event. “If anyone needs prepping, it’s you,” I said.

He was outraged by this. “I interview people for a living!” he said. “There’s nothing the doc can throw at me that I can’t handle.”

I then asked him a few basic questions about the institute and the “Leg-Up Future Achievers” Summer Session. It turned out he knew nothing whatsoever about either.

“We might as well not bother going in,” I told him, “if you can’t even say what it is you like about the institute.”

“She’s not going to ask me that question. You’re the one applying for the course.”

I told him that he was here to show support for my interest in science. To which he replied, “We bought you a lizard, didn’t we?”

I dearly wished Katherine was with me. She would have been of more use.

I became even more tense then, and grew more so as the wait dragged on, especially when I heard each applicant exit the interview room to laughter and friendly words from Dr Mehat. Several times I considered asking my dad to leave before the interview.

At 12:29 p.m., one minute exactly before my interview with Dr Mehat was scheduled to begin, my plans started to unravel.

The mother, perhaps sensing an opportunity to ruin my life for ever, chose that moment to call Dad on his mobile. I begged him not to answer it. “Let it go to voicemail. She can tell when you’re lying.”

He hesitated for a second and then said, “No, I’d better answer it. She might get suspicious otherwise.”

My dad is a good man. An honest man. A simple man.

A fool.

He answered the call. “Hi, love, how’s it going? … Emily? No, why would I have heard from her? She’s probably at that interview… No, I mean … I really, really think she wanted to do this on her own… Lying?” he protested, his voice rising an octave. “Why would I lie about this?’