Ishmael and the Hoops of Steel Read online

  Ishmael

  and the Hoops

  of Steel

  MICHAEL GERARD BAUER

  An Omnibus Book from Scholastic Australia

  To my son Joe – for all your input into the Ishmael books,

  but mostly just for liking them

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Year Eleven: Semester One

  1. Calling Ishmael!

  2. The Awesome Light Bulb of Total Braininess

  3. The Short, the Tall, and the Cuddly

  4. The Fab Five

  5. Uncle What’s-his-Face and Auntie Thingo’s Daughter

  6. The Lifesaver of Love

  7. Let’S Get Ready to Ruuuuuummmble!

  8. Kiss Me, Stupid!

  9. A Turbo-Charged Cobra

  10. Deceased Piece of Solid Bodily Waste

  11. Show Me the Sunscreen!

  12. Bill and Razz’s Excellent Sun Safe Adventure

  13. Lock in (A) Hell, Yeah!

  14. A Killer-Driven, Motorised Hamburger

  15. Talking About Talk Talk

  16. A Prairie Dog on a Caffeine High

  17. A Gross Invasion of Piracy

  Year Eleven: Semester Two

  18. The Alcoholic Dane

  19. The Accelerated Jedi Course

  20. That Smokin’ Elf Chick

  21. Well and Truly Newtoned

  22. Watch Your Back, Billy Shakespeare

  23. Focusing Is For Wimps!

  24. Did i Mention i was an Idiot?

  25. Here, Pass Me One of Those Knives

  26. Fatal Flaw Thingies

  27. The Return of the Brainiacs

  28. Windy Perspiration of Horse Breath

  29. Don’t Disturb the Piranha, Dude

  30. The Grimmest of his Grim Days

  31. Hmmmmmm

  32. Advanced Self-Pity Wallowing 401

  Year Twelve: Semester One

  1. The Last of the Lasts

  2. You Hap Me at ‘Data’

  3. Standby Eyes

  4. Drowning in a Straight Line

  5. Sledgehammer Meets Soft-Boiled Egg

  6. The Pi Man Delivers!

  7. The Brown Undies Effect

  8. The Razzman V the Mudman

  9. The Pride of Goroka

  10. Prindabel’s Butt Ball

  11. That’S What I’m Talking About

  12. Words in the Blood

  13. Operation Get Razz Into Uni

  14. The Poor Suckers are us

  15. Airy-Fairy, Tree-Hugging, Cheesecloth-Wearing, Incense-Sniffing Hippy Twaddle

  16. The Razzinator

  17. A Heavily Drugged Giraffe

  18. Omg! Omg! Omg!

  Year Twelve: Semester Two

  19. Male Chauffeuring Pigs

  20. Grace Under Pressure

  21. A Razzman Masterclass

  22. Dying in Key

  23. A Tsunami Brainwave

  24. Spawn of Bjorn

  25. Hot Geek Chicks

  26. Kabooooooooooooooooooom!

  27. The Dugongs of SteeL

  28. Reverse Cool

  29. You Da Bomb! Da Bomb-Bomb!

  30. You are to Me

  31. Three Phone Calls and a Decision

  32. Play or Party?

  33. Lines 116 to 119

  34. A Show Tunes Superman

  35. Perfect, Just Perfect

  36. There’S no Easy Way to Put This

  37. Just in Case You’Re Interested

  Also by Michael Gerard Bauer

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Year Eleven

  Semester One

  How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

  Seem to me all the uses of this world.

  William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1 scene 2, lines 133–134

  1.

  CALLING ISHMAEL!

  I clicked on my Inbox. I had three emails. The first one said Calling Ishmael!. My heart shot up like it had launched itself off a springboard. I think it nailed a perfect reverse triple somersault in the full pike position.

  I had an email from Kelly Faulkner.

  Did you hear what I said? Kelly Faulkner, who could stop the world with her ice-blue eyes and kick-start it again with her smile had sent one of your actual emails – to me. Me! Ishmael Leseur – the world’s one and only sufferer of Ishmael Leseur’s Syndrome. And if you’ve never heard of Ishmael Leseur’s Syndrome (ILS for short), consider yourself lucky. It’s been known to destroy the ‘normal behaviour’ gene and expose a person’s innermost idiot to the world. And I should know, because I am that person. If you don’t believe me, maybe you should read my last two journals. Just a warning though, they’re not for the faint-hearted.

  But don’t worry, you’re safe. ILS is not contagious. In fact, in order to get it, you actually have to have the surname ‘Leseur’. Then, following some sort of bizarre birth ritual, your parents have to decide to call you ‘Ishmael’ after the narrator of Herman Melville’s old whaling novel, Moby Dick. So basically, what all that means is, you’re pretty much in the clear unless you happen to be me. Then you’re in big trouble.

  But maybe things were looking up. Surely a personal email from Kelly Faulkner was a clear sign that I was finally cured of ILS and from now on my life was going to pretty much totally rock. It certainly rocked the last time we were together.

  That was about six weeks ago at the end of Year Ten – the night of the big reunion concert for my dad’s old rock band, the Dugongs. That was the night my life catapulted from pretty pathetic to potentially perfect. It was the night Kelly Faulkner accidentally found a poem I’d written about her and kissed me – right on the lips. I still had those lips and they still tingled every time I thought about that kiss (which averaged around ten times a day, give or take a few – mostly give). After that Kelly and her family left for New Zealand to visit relatives and I hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

  But now her name sat before me on my computer in thick, bold font, like a big chunky Christmas present, the best I was ever going to receive, screaming out to be opened. But I didn’t open it. Not then. I wanted to save the best till last so I shifted the cursor to the email below, the one that said Urgent Message, and clicked on that instead.

  It was from a Mr Mbootu in Nigeria. Huh? Mr M-who-tu? I read on. Wow, it was my lucky day! Even though I didn’t know Mr Mbootu from a Thomson’s gazelle, apparently he was going to give me half of the 50 million dollars he’d found lying around in a bank vault somewhere. Talk about generous! And it just got better and better, because all I had to do was send him my name and address. Bargain! Oh, and some silly little bank detaily things. Hey, no probs! I could give him Mum and Dad’s. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. Just wait till Kelly Faulkner found out that I was going to be a multimillionaire. I bet she’d be impressed. Maybe I could use some of the money to help find a cure for ILS. Thanks heaps, Mr M! What an awesome guy!

  I hit Delete.

  My 25 million dollars vanished into the ether. What did I care about money when I had an email from Kelly Faulkner? I was dying more than ever to read it, but first I had to get rid of all other distractions. Kelly and I needed to be alone. I checked out the next email down. This one said, Think BIG! I clicked on it.

  Someone wanted to enlarge my ‘Pennis’.

  Hmmmmmmmm … tempting. But was I willing to put my ‘pennis’ in the hands of someone who was so careless with their spelling? I DON’T THINK SO! (Miss Tarango, my English teacher, would be so proud of me.)

  I gave the Delete button another jab.

  Only one email remained – Kelly’s. I moved the
cursor over it and watched the little I-shape on the screen morph into a chubby pointing hand. My heart had abandoned the springboard and had climbed right to the very top of the highest of high-dive towers. It was now peering down at a teensy-weensy square of water far, far below. As I clicked on Kelly’s email, my heart lurched forward and plunged into free fall.

  A bunch of purpley-coloured words leapt into view. The first two were Hey Ishmael. It was the best thing I’d ever read. I wanted to pump the air with my fist but I didn’t have time. My eyes were already ripping back and forth across the screen.

  I tried to make myself slow down. I wanted to take my time so that I could enjoy every letter, every syllable and every punctuation mark that Kelly had written for me. I failed miserably. With my heart still doing that ‘plummeting-off-the-top-of-the-highest-of-high-dive-towers’ thing, the words just whooshed past.

  … holiday going well … sorry didn’t email sooner … bad internet connection … lots of snow … skiing … fun … freezing … staying with relatives … heaps of places … Lord of the Rings … the not so good news … father … new job … change in plans … can’t believe it … parents have decided to …

  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

  I read that last bit again.

  And again.

  Then I forced myself to read it one last time.

  My heart wasn’t racing in free fall any more. It had come to a shuddering HALT.

  Someone had emptied all the water from the high-diving pool.

  2.

  THE AWESOME LIGHT BULB Of TOTAL BRAININESS

  ‘Bummer, man. Bum-mer. I mean, that’s, you know …’

  ‘A bummer?’

  ‘The mumma of all bummers, dude. The mumma bummer!’

  Just in case you may have missed it, my best friend Orazio Zorzotto, more commonly known as Razz, Razza, or the Razzman, was pointing out in his own delightfully subtle way that the news about Kelly Faulkner and her family deciding to stay in New Zealand permanently (yes, you heard it here first!) was, in fact, a ‘bummer’.

  Razz blew out a long breath before presenting his final, concise summary of the situation.

  ‘Epic bummer!’

  We were in my room the day after Kelly’s email had arrived and two days before we were due to start a new school year. Razz screwed up his face.

  ‘So the Kelster’s family is staying in New Zealand because her dad got offered some kind of a hot-shot new job or something?’

  I didn’t really feel like talking but I did anyway.

  ‘Yep. He gets to be head of some big weather station. Kelly’s not very happy about it.’

  ‘Yeah, Sal’s cut up too, man.’

  Razz was talking about Sally Nofke. She’s Kelly’s best friend, and ever since the night of the Dugongs’ reunion concert, I guess you could say she was also Razza’s girlfriend.

  ‘Man,’ Razz said as he gave his head one last, slow shake, ‘all aboard the Bummer Express. Next stop – Bummer Central.’

  I had to hand it to Razz. He was really hitting the bummer nail right on its bummer head. And to think I actually thought this year was going to be different. I thought I might have kissed goodbye to Ishmael Leseur’s Syndrome for good. After all, hadn’t Barry Bagsley (chief tormentor and expert make-my-life-miserable guy) kept his promise about leaving me and my friends alone? And hadn’t Kelly Faulkner (supreme goddess and expert make-my-life-awesome girl) walked straight out of my dreams and into my real world? Do those sound like the sorts of things that would happen to a victim of ILS? No way! I was over all that! This was going to be my year! I was going to totally own this year!

  WUH-WAAAAAAAAAA! Incorrect. The correct response is: ‘This year is going to suck big time!’ Thanks for playing. Next contestant, please!

  For a while it went quiet in my room. I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling and Razz sat at my desk twirling a pen in his hand.

  I guess we were both trying to comprehend just how seriously bummer-like the whole situation was. We stayed that way until Razza grabbed the pen in mid-twirl and snapped his head up.

  ‘Well, it’s gonna be a bit tricky, so we better get to work.’

  ‘Get to work? Get to work on what?’

  Razz looked at me as if it should have been blindingly obvious exactly where his thoughts had just that second transported to in hyperspace.

  ‘On finding you a new girlfriend, dude.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong – I really like the Kelster and everything – she’s way cool – but she’s left the building, man. So it’s game back on. No use putting all your eggs in one basket and crying over spilt milk.’

  ‘Whaaaaaat?’

  ‘Seriously, you gotta move on, dude.’

  I really wasn’t in the mood for another dip into the well of Razza’s bottomless enthusiasm.

  ‘Move on? Why? What’s the point? Wherever I go, whatever I do, I’ll still be me and that means everything’s always going to turn out like crap.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Leseur!’ Razz said, leaping off his chair and grabbing me by the arm. ‘Come on! It’s only 11.45. If we hurry we’ll make it to the train station just in time for you to throw yourself under the 12.06.’

  I shrugged my arm free and lay back down. ‘Hilarious, Razz. No, really, I’m actually cracking up big time – on the inside.’

  ‘Hey, I’m just trying to help, man. I know this whole Kelly thing’s a real …’

  ‘Bummer? Yeah, you know, I’m fairly sure we’ve established that much already.’

  Razz moved to the end of the bed. ‘Look, man, you can’t just give in. Just think of it like you’ve had this killer wipeout on your bike, see. And you know what you gotta do when that happens, right?’

  ‘Aaah, let me guess. Seek immediate medical attention, get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids and whatever I do, don’t, I repeat don’t, under any circumstances, let my psycho friend talk me into getting on anything that looks even remotely like a bike, ever again in my entire life?’

  ‘Hi-laaaar-ious, Ishmael. No, really, I’m cracking up big time – on the inside,’ Razz said in a pathetic imitation of me. Then he switched on his serious face.

  ‘Come on, man, this was gonna be the big year, remember? What about all the stuff we talked about doing together, you and Kelly, and me and Sal? You know, parties, movies, dances … the Semi-formal. We can still do that stuff, dude. We just have to hook you up with a new chick now that Kelly’s out of the picture.’

  ‘What, just like that? Razz, it took me two years to “hook up” with Kelly – that’s if you can even call a three-second kiss “hooking up”. You don’t think you’re being just a touch … ambitious?’

  ‘No way, man! Now you’ve got two years of valuable chick-chasing experience behind you. You’re love match-fit. We just need to step it up a bit, that’s all. You know, eliminate the middleman, go straight to the source and play our cards close to our chest.’

  ‘Riiiiiiiiiiiiight … And when exactly did you swallow the Cliché Dictionary?’

  Razz’s eyes went for a bit of a roll.

  ‘All I’m saying is that we should concentrate our efforts on chicks who are … soft targets.’

  ‘Soft targets? What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘You know, chicks you already have some connection with, like chick friends of Sally … or sisters of guys in our class … or maybe someone’s rela –’ Razz froze. His eyes widened. A final syllable dropped from his mouth. ‘… tive.’

  He turned to me shaking his head in disbelief.

  ‘I’m a genius. I am your actual genius. No, seriously, man, it’s true. I’ve just had a brainwave – a Razzman special. Stand well back, Ishmael. And cover your eyes too, dude, before they’re burned out by the awesome light bulb of total braininess that must be glowing above my head.’

  ‘Razz, what are you talking about now?’

  ‘What am I talking about? I’m talking about me maybe having the answer to all you
r chick-drooling prayers, Ishmael. That’s what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Really? And what exactly is the answer to all my chick-drooling prayers?’

  Razz opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it.

  ‘Nah, you’ll have to wait. Got to check a few things out first to make certain. Don’t want to get you all fired up for no reason. I’ll tell you when I’m sure.’

  That was all I could get out of him. Later on when Razz was leaving he said, ‘Just you wait, Ishmael. If I can pull this off it’ll be huge!’ He looked about as excited as a barber at a werewolf convention.

  Would you be at all surprised to hear that I had a very bad feeling about all of this?

  3.

  THE SHORT, THE TALL, AND THE CUDDLY

  There wasn’t much time to worry about what terrifying surprise Razz might have in store for me, because two days later the new school year started and my life lurched into overdrive.

  Back at St Daniel’s everything was pretty much the same except for a new Creative Arts Centre that was finished over the holidays … and us. We were different because for the first time we were wearing the Senior uniform – long grey pants and a light blue shirt with a navy and gold striped tie. In winter and on special occasions, we added a blazer.

  I didn’t like to admit it, but my new Senior uniform made me feel a bit special. Mum said I looked like a ‘real man’. Even my near-genius little sister Prue agreed. Kind of. What she actually said was that ‘from a distance, in suitably low light and through a soft-focus lens, I might make a very passable approximation of a real man’. High praise indeed! Dad reckoned I had been ‘straitjacketed in the uniform of the Establishment’, whatever that meant.

  Our first day back started with a meeting for all Year Elevens in the gym.

  I caught up with Razz on the way there. He was pretty hard to miss. His tie was dangling around his neck like a noose and his new blue shirt was hanging out and blotched all over with sweat. It also had a couple of buttons missing and a big grass stain on one side that kept on going right down to his trousers.