The Trouble with Sauce (2 page)

When the bell went for the end of the period, Croxall dismissed the class. Everyone charged for the door, desperate to get away from the stinking garbage.

‘Brockman, Townsend. I think you know what you need to do,’ Mr Croxall said and nodded at the floor. They stayed behind to clean it up.

Next period was English and Ms Brown had a new hairdo.

‘It looks like someone put a bowl on her head and cut round it,’ said Anastasia. That set the girls off in fits of giggles they couldn’t control. Ms Brown got more nervous as the class wore on and the giggles kept going. Her hairdresser had said the cut was ‘so hot right now', but right now she was feeling very cool about it. She knew the girls were laughing at her and could feel tears welling up. Putting on a brave
face, she wound her way through the class and back to her desk. ‘Now we’re going to look at some of the different places we can put an adverb in a sentence. Will it change the meaning of —’

She took a sharp breath and clenched her teeth. Without looking, she sat down on her chair — onto a row of drawing pins left by her previous Year 8 class. It was the oldest trick in the book, but she fell for it.

Everyone sniggered as they waited for Ms Brown to cry.

Nathaniel watched her bite her lip and look down at her watch. The class was due to finish any second. She was willing the bell to go, hoping it would ring before the tears sprang out of her eyes.

Nathaniel jumped down from his chair. ‘Excuse me, Ms Brown, may the class be excused? We have to set up an experiment for Science.’

Ms Brown didn’t look up, but nodded and waved a hand towards the door. Nathaniel headed out and everyone followed. When the room was finally empty, the bell went. Ms Brown let out a scream and removed the pins from her bottom.

Nathaniel had been looking forward to Science all weekend. He’d practised the experiment with his father on Sunday and it had gone perfectly. Everyone would be impressed. He really wanted to show them
that science could be interesting, even though Mr Needham, their teacher, wasn’t. He droned on and on so much even Nathaniel fell asleep sometimes. No wonder the class hated science.

In the lab, Nathaniel stood behind a bench, wearing thick rubber gloves and plastic eye protectors. They were huge on his small head and made him look like a fly. Laid out in front of him were two large tins turned upside down. He had a pair of tweezers and a thick painting roller.

The class stood around watching him.

‘Anastasia,’ said Nathaniel, ‘what are your tights made of?’

‘Are you looking up my skirt?’ she said.

‘No.’ Nathaniel laughed. ‘Are they nylon?’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘I’m going to show you what they’re made of.’

Nathaniel lifted the cans to reveal two jars of clear liquid.

‘Poo!’ A chemical smell wafted over the class. It was a day for strong smells.

‘Yeah, that’s definitely what Anastasia’s tights smell like!’ Boris said and everyone laughed.

Nathaniel didn’t mind. He could see they were all paying more attention to him than they had ever paid to Mr Needham.

‘This is a hexamethylenediamine solution,’ he said, holding one jar away from himself as he
poured. He’d put some food colouring into the liquid to turn it blue.

‘Ooh long word! Thanks, Brainiac,’ Mike said and nudged Boris.

‘Shhh,’ said someone behind him. Nathaniel grinned.

‘And this is sebacoyl chloride.’ He poured the liquid from the second jar into the first, where it sat on top of the blue. The class leant forward to see better.

Nathaniel breathed deeply. This was the hard part. He picked up the tweezers, dipped them into the jar and plucked at the layer in between the two liquids. With his other hand he held the paint roller by its handle. Lifting the tweezers slowly, he drew a thread out of the liquid and placed it on the fluffy cover. Putting down the tweezers, he took the edge of the paint roller and began to turn it round, winding up a thread out of the liquid.

The class was rapt as Nathaniel carefully wound up more thread. ‘And that’s how nylon is made,’ he said. The class pressed in closer as the thread of nylon kept appearing like magic out of the two liquids.

‘That’s so cool,’ someone said.

Boris couldn’t believe that they would get so caught up in stinking chemicals. ‘Yeah, right. You’re watching Brainiac make a pair of tights for himself. What next — lipstick? Nail polish?’

Nobody laughed; they ignored him.

Boris wasn’t going to stand for that. He pushed hard at the back of the group and they all jolted forward and knocked the bench, rocking the front legs and tipping it up. The jars toppled over. Nathaniel leapt back as the chemicals sprayed everywhere. He jumped as far as he could, but the liquids splashed over his pants.

‘Oh look,’ said Boris, ‘Brainiac’s wet himself!’

Everyone shrieked with laughter. Boris grinned. For a moment the class had been Nathaniel’s, but now he had taken them back. He liked the sound of laughing.

‘Remove your trousers immediately!’ Mr Needham was worried about his safety.

Nathaniel closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe that his experiment had gone so horribly wrong.

‘This instant!’ Mr Needham shouted.

Without opening his eyes, Nathaniel undid his pants and removed them. The class howled and whistled. Mr Needham grabbed the pants, threw them into a sink and turned the taps on.

Nathaniel stood in front of the class in his underwear, watching his pants get soaked. It was a complete disaster.

‘You can wear these.’ Mr Needham handed him a pair of footy shorts that had been left in the lab weeks ago. They were about four sizes too big and
almost reached his small knees. Nathaniel had to pull the string tight and tie a massive bow.

The rest of the period was taken up with Mr Needham shouting at people to get them to be quiet. Using a whiteboard, he tried to explain the experiment, but no one was interested. Nathaniel sat silently on his stool, looking down at his white legs. It was a relief when the bell finally went for lunch and he could hide somewhere to eat his sandwich in peace.

As everyone charged out, Nathaniel saw Jonty. He was wearing his shorts, too. After crawling through the garbage, he had chosen to put his soccer shorts on instead of his stinking pants.

‘Snap,’ said Jonty with a grin.

Nathaniel couldn’t see anything to grin about. They didn’t look the same at all. Jonty had big strong legs and looked like he was born to wear shorts. Somehow they even looked good with his shirt and tie, whereas Nathaniel just looked stupid.

Other than the noise of the kids, the main sounds you could hear at lunchtime were the rings and pings of all the mobile phones. The students weren’t allowed them in class, but the minute class was over, the whole school was desperate to see what messages they’d got.

Except for Prune. She didn’t have a mobile. Her parents believed they exposed the brain to harmful radio waves.

‘A mobile is a form of mind control, believe me,’ her mother had said the last time Prune asked for one.

Prune sat on the long steps outside the school library with her lunch on her knee: a small tub of sprouted mung beans with organic tomato and tofu cut up into it. She wasn’t allowed to eat the food in the canteen. Everyone else at the school thought the canteen food was horribly healthy, but not Prune’s parents. It wasn’t nearly organic enough.

Most of the canteen food ended up as weapons. She watched as blood bombs hurtled past — bread rolls squashed into balls with tomato sauce squeezed into the middle. Whenever a bomb hit anyone, the bread fell apart and splattered them with sauce. Prune had worked out that the library steps were the quietest part of the school grounds. Nobody liked sitting there, so she could relax and avoid being a target. She watched two of the other girls in her class, Anastasia and Miranda. They stood there, texting on their phones as they shared Anastasia’s earbuds and nodded in time to a Pink track.

In the blur of footballs, frisbees and canteen items flying around, Boris Brockman launched a blood bomb from the other side of the yard. Without thinking Prune leapt up and sent her own lunch scattering over the steps.

‘Look out!’ she shouted, but the girls were too busy singing to Pink to pay attention. She lunged at Anastasia, pushed her out of the way and the bomb missed — but splattered onto Miranda’s leg instead.

‘Yeuch!’ Miranda tried to shake off the red gooey mess on her knee. ‘What did you do that for, you stupid cow?’ she yelled at Prune.

‘And you hurt my shoulder!’ Anastasia added.

‘I shouted, but you didn’t hear me. Boris Brockman threw a blood bomb.’

‘Newsflash. I think we know that already!’ Miranda pointed to her leg.

‘Sorry,’ Prune mumbled, but she brightened up quickly. Perhaps the girls would be interested in the group after school. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in auras? ‘You coming to the Auras Interest Group after school?’ she said.

Anastasia sighed and tossed her hair as if she was trying to shake Prune off. ‘I have no interest in auras. I don’t even know what one is,’ she said.

‘It’s a colour that hangs round your body, like an energy field,’ Prune explained. ‘They can tell a lot about your personality, but only a few people can see them.’

‘Yeah, well the only things I can see hanging around your body are the horrible split ends on your hair. Go away!’ Miranda snapped.

Prune went back to the library steps and looked at what had been her lunch. She decided to get a salad roll from the school canteen. Her mother wouldn’t like it, but her mother probably wouldn’t even notice if she came home with a Big Mac stuck to her head. Thinking about her mother’s reaction, Prune let the taste of the salad roll cheer her up and then went off to History.

She didn’t care whether Anastasia and Miranda were coming to the Auras Interest Group. When she thought about it, she really didn’t want them to be
there. She didn’t even like them. As she sat in her place, she breathed slowly, centred herself and meditated for a minute on the reason she was trying to please people she didn’t like. The only answer that popped into her head was that she was lonely and wanted some friends. She shrugged that answer off. Who in their right mind would want to be friends with Anastasia Micklethwaite?

‘That’s it. I won’t bother next time,’ she said to herself.

‘I wasn’t aware you
ever
bothered, Ms de Luca!’ said Mr Woffinden, the History teacher. He had arrived and begun the class during her meditation. Prune resolved to make sure she didn’t say her thoughts out loud again.

When the bell for the end of the day finally went, Prune rushed off to the Auras Interest Group. The announcement said that anyone interested should be at the café in Misery Mall at 4.15.

Misery Mall was the school’s name for the local shopping centre because it was such a dump. Kids hung out there because there was nowhere else to go after school, but they all said they hated it. There was a Coles supermarket, a Bakers Delight, a stinky butcher’s, a boring old ladies’ clothes shop called
Sue Sue C Lady Fashion
and a two-dollar shop. There was a café, but no one from the school would be seen
dead in there. It was full of the old ladies who bought the clothes in
Sue Sue C Lady Fashion.
The organisers of the group had probably chosen the café because it would be empty and quiet.

When Prune arrived at Misery Mall, a couple of Year 11 boys were being marched out of the supermarket by the security guard. He had caught them scattering a pack of frozen prawns on the ground and kicking them under the shelves so they’d get completely rotten. The guard was being jeered by the boys’ mates. Prune put her head down and walked quickly past them and into the café. There was one old lady at the front slurping a cup of tea very loudly. Someone else was sitting right at the back, behind one of the dusty fake pot plants. Prune was sure neither of them was there for the Auras Interest Group. She slipped into a seat and suddenly felt embarrassed. If anyone from her class saw her in the café, there would be no end to the abuse. She grabbed the big plastic menu, set it up on the table and hid behind it.

After a few minutes she looked to up to see if anyone else had arrived. Just one other person had come in and was hiding behind a menu. It had to be the organiser. Prune peeked around the side of her menu to check that no one was looking. Then holding it in front of her face, she shot over to the table and sat down with her face still hidden. ‘Is this the Auras Interest Group?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m here for the new Advanced Physics Study Group,’ a boy replied. The voice sounded familiar.

She lowered her menu slightly, just as Nathaniel Bennett looked over the top of his.

‘What are
you
doing here?’ they said, both dropping their cover. The second the menus hit the table, they heard a chorus of cheers and applause in the mall outside.

They looked at each other, gulped and turned bright red. They had been set up. Someone had sent Nathaniel a MySpace notice about the Physics group. They both turned to look at the crowd of kids in the mall. It seemed like half their year was there. And right in the middle, pointing and laughing, were Boris Brockman, Jonty Townsend and Mike Higgins.

Boris was almost hysterical. ‘Ooh look, the Brainiac and the Wrinkle are on a date!’ he screamed. ‘Just think of the baby they’ll make. It’ll be able to count how many wrinkles it’s got before it’s a month old!’

‘This is feeble-minded cretinism,’ Nathaniel declared. His words caused even more laughter.

‘Sorry we’re not clever enough to understand!’ Boris shouted.

‘Come on,’ Nathaniel muttered to Prune. She seemed to shrink even further into her long hair.

‘Just follow me.’ They walked smartly out of the café and through the crowd of kids in the mall.

‘Is that your girlfriend?’ someone called out.

‘Got her pregnant, have you?’

‘Go on, hold his hand!’

Prune stared down at the ground as she walked out, looking up just enough to see Nathaniel’s feet. He was still wearing the large shorts from Science class and his small thin legs had gone red, as if his whole body was flushed with embarrassment. Once outside, they looked at each other. Nathaniel sighed. Prune knew exactly how he felt. They said nothing and headed off in opposite directions.