THE LOST BOYS: Creating Appealing and Engaging Fiction for Adolescent Male Reluctant Readers
& Duende A Young Adult Novella
Loch Pollard B.A, B.Bus, Grad Dip (Ed), Grad Cert (CW)
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Creative Writing)
School of Media, Entertainment, Creative Arts, Creative Writing and Literary Studies Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology
2013
Keywords
Adolescence; adolescents; books; boys; coming-of-age; ethnography; family conflict; grounded theory; identity; mixed-method; problem novel; reading; reluctant readers; sex; teenagers; young adult fiction
II The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Abstract
Reading plays an important role in establishing lifelong learning and providing the reader with an avenue to new experiences and a language with which to express their ideas and feelings (Owen 2003; Hamston & Love 2005). In particular adolescents need a language that allows them to ‘play with their identities in a safe and controlled manner to explore who they want to be in this ever changing world’ (Koss & Teale
2009, 569). Block (1995) advances that there is a distinct correlation between what we read and how we live in the world, and argues ‘if what we read influences our identity in the world, the ways we are able to imagine and live in the world, then there is some responsibility to address these various texts, their readers and possible reading experiences’ (Koss & Teale 2009, 569). Within my research I attempt to take on this responsibility by establishing a connection between reluctant adolescent male readers, and their reading experiences and by using their opinions to create a novella that seeks to more fully engage them.
Centred within the larger debate about boys and books are two central discussions: why don’t boys read and what should boys read? While a number of reasons why adolescent boys don’t read are mentioned in this paper and it might not be possible to fully account for why many are reluctant readers, it is possible to argue that specific forms of literature addressing certain themes and topics relevant to the age group might appeal to reluctant readers.
The conceptual framework for this research was structured using a mixed- method approach consisting of four phases. In positioning my research for determining literature that reluctant readers may want to read I draw on a variety of material which tends to support the longevity of S.E Hinton’s (1967) argument that
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers III
‘teenagers today, want to read about teenagers today’ (cited in Smith & Wilhelm
2002, 6). My practice-based research was conducted within a high school in
Brisbane, Australia. Six participants were selected and required to read three recently published Australian Young Adult novels, and opinion was collected via semi- structured interviews on these case studies. Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2003;
Charmaz 2006; Glaser & Strauss 2011) informed the design of the questions, and the process of concurrent interviews and analysis of opinion. This analysis led to construction of my theory: adolescent male reluctant readers want to read about female relationships and family conflict within a story that consists of an adventure that, although unlikely to happen, could happen.
From this study there are two main contributions, which have theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders with a vested interest in the discussion regarding boys and books. First, this study, through the research methodology, presents key findings that indicate that reluctant readers are interested in realistic texts addressing themes that will help with the construction of, and understanding of, their own lives. Secondly, the grounded theory derived from these findings is applied to my own praxis and my creative artefact (Duende) is included with this exegesis as a text intended to create a connection between engaging texts and adolescent male reluctant readers.
IV The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Table of Contents
Keywords ...... II Abstract ...... III List of Tables ...... VII List of Abbreviations ...... VII List of Definitions ...... VIII Statement of Original Authorship ...... IX Acknowledgements ...... X PART ONE – EXEGESIS ...... 1 1. Introduction to the Study ...... 2 1.1 Preamble ...... 2 1.2 Defining the Research and Developing the Research Question ...... 2 1.3 Conceptual Framework for the Research ...... 5 1.4 Significance of the Research ...... 7 2. Literature Review ...... 9 2.1 Reluctant Readers ...... 9 2.2. Young Adult Fiction – the ‘problem’ novel and adolescence ...... 10 2.3 What Young Adult Fiction Should Be and Do ...... 11 2.4 Books for Aussie Boys ...... 14 2.5 Informing the Case Studies ...... 17 2.6 The Case Studies ...... 17 2.6.1 Swerve (2009) by Phillip Gwynne, Penguin Publishing, 227p ...... 18 2.6.2 Jarvis 24 (2009) by David Metzenthen, Penguin 256p ...... 19 2.6.3 The nest (2009) by Paul Jennings, Penguin, 248p ...... 21 2.6.4 Concluding Comment ...... 22 3. Qualitative Research Inquiry ...... 23 3.1 Introduction and Research Design ...... 23 3.2 Ethical Approvals and Ethical Consent ...... 23 3.3 The Research Participants ...... 24 3.3.1 Participant A – Jason ...... 25 3.3.2 Participant B – Richard ...... 25 3.3.3 Participant C – David ...... 25 3.3.4 Participant D – Paul ...... 26 3.4 The Interview Process and Structure ...... 26 3.5 The Interview Questions ...... 27 3.6 Opinions of the Case Studies ...... 28 3.6.1 Swerve ...... 29 3.7.2 Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen ...... 32 3.7.3 The nest by Paul Jennings: ...... 34 4. Key Findings and Grounded Theory ...... 38 4.1 Introduction and Grounded Theory Method ...... 38 4.2 Synthesis of Opinions and Key Findings ...... 39 4.3 Grounded Theory ...... 40 4.4 Informing My Creative Practice and Structuring My Novella ...... 41
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers V
5. Concluding Remarks ...... 43 5.1 Reflection ...... 43 5.2 Limitations of the Study ...... 44 5.3 Addressing the Research Question ...... 46 5.4 Contributions and Future Directions ...... 46 6.4 Concluding Remarks ...... 47 PART TWO – CREATIVE ARTEFACT ...... 49 References ...... 172 APPENDICES ...... 179 Appendix A – Research Outline ...... 180 Appendix B – Screening Questions ...... 181 Appendix C – Interview Questions ...... 182 Appendix D ‐ Duende review by Jason ...... 186
VI The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Conceptual Framework…………… ………………………………...... 6
Table 4.2 Participant’s Perceptions…………...…………………...... 39
List of Abbreviations
AFL Australian Football League
AIS Australian Institute of Sport
BHS Book High School
CYA Children’s and Young Adult
DETA Department of Education, Training and Employment, (QLD
Government)
EQ Education Queensland
GBLQT Gay, bisexual, lesbian, queer, transgender
QUT Queensland University of Technology
YA Young Adult
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers VII
List of Definitions
The boys - refers to males within the category of young adults. The phrase ‘the boys’
refers to the adolescent male reluctant readers from BHS who formed the focus
group for the research and who were then 16 or 17.
Duende – (Spanish) a quality of passion and inspiration; a spirit.
Ethnography – a research approach for the study of social sciences conducted
through various methods, such as fieldwork and observation (Hammersley &
Atkinson 2007).
Grounded Theory – the theory discovered from data systematically obtained and
analysed in social research (Glasner & Strauss 2011, 1)
Mixed Method – a mixed method approach is suited for those in which one
data source may not be sufficient and a secondary method is needed to
enhance a primary method, a theoretical stance needs to be employed
and an overall research objective can be next addressed with multiple
phases and projects. (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011, 8)
VIIIThe Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.
Signature:
Date:
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers IX
Acknowledgements
It is said that the journey to ‘becoming a writer’ takes over ten years and to have spent two of them working on this exegesis and accompanying creative artefact has been a pleasure. I explored many new and exciting paths that challenged my processes and beliefs. Although the writer’s world is often a solitary one, I have been lucky to have the support and guidance of a number of people.
I’m indebted to my mentor and friend, Helen Yeates, who directed me towards seeking the supervision of one of the leading academics in the field of children’s and young adult literature, Professor Sharyn Pearce.
To Sharyn I owe thanks for guidance on defining my research and for bringing Dr Vivienne Muller onto this project. Viv is one of the few people who have conducted research through case studies with a group of reluctant readers and her advice has been invaluable.
This was a study involving adolescent boys and I’m grateful to the administration at BHS for allowing me to conduct the research in an environment familiar to the participants. To the reluctant readers who so eagerly participated in my study, some of who tripled the number of novels read during high school, I am thankful for your open and honest opinions.
Lastly, I must thank Dr Tim Milfull, Matt Phillips, Mum and Dad, for their continued support since beginning my journey, and who still ask to read my work.
X The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
PART ONE – EXEGESIS
THE LOST BOYS:
Creating Appealing and Engaging Fiction
for Adolescent Male Reluctant Readers
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 1
1. Introduction to the Study
1.1 Preamble
The objective of this research is two-fold: to write a young adult novella that engages adolescent male reluctant readers, and to provide an exegesis that presents the accompanying theories and methodology used in determining what male adolescents, who identify as reluctant readers, want to read. The accompanying 30,000-word novella, Duende, represents fifty percent of this submission.
This study involved four main phases. First an investigation of the literature of what books for boys should be and do was conducted and a hypothesis was formed to choose three novels as case studies. These three case study books were then given to six identified reluctant readers to read, and subsequently interviews were conducted with them. The opinions of the reluctant readers were analysed and interpreted, and in the last stage I wrote the novella informed by the grounded theory developed from the synthesis of their opinions. The study and subsequent writing of the novella was undertaken over two years and a Gantt chart (Appendix A) shows the timeline.
1.2 Defining the Research and Developing the Research Question
Since 1957 the terms young adult and adolescents have become synonymous (Cart
2010), and while there is a debate over the range of this collective, most leading theorists in the field of CYA define Young Adult for the purposes of literature as those individuals from twelve to eighteen years old (Aronson 2001; Cart 2010).
Aronson further breaks this collective into two groups: 12 to 15 years and 15 to 18
2 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
years (Owen 2003, 12), and defines the latter group as ‘those being eager to leave their teen years behind and who want to read about more mature and pragmatic experiences of life’ (Owen 2003, 12). For the purposes of this research and to ensure a concentrated effort on one set, the focus group used for the research consisted of boys in their last year of high school between the ages of 16 and 17. Although the study initially intended to use, as a sample, boys 16 and 17 years old who don’t read, through the process of constructing the focus group it also became clear that the majority of the participants (five) presented as non-academic students who were not intending to continue their education by continuing on to university. Taking this into account the focus group could be further delineated to include the calculus of boys on the cusp of adulthood, who would soon be entering the workforce, a place where they would be regarded as adults (Cart 2010).
In structuring my research question for this focus group it was necessary to understand the ongoing debate of why adolescent boys don’t read and to consider some of the reasons why they choose not to read. This provides a better understanding of the traits of reluctant readers and informs the selection of suitable participants - as opposed to those who unashamedly refused to be involved. A number of reasons for boys’ lack of reading are centred on their masculinity and desire to prove themselves. Many theorists argue that English, literacy, reading and books are feminised and do not provide a sufficient avenue for boys to explore their own masculine identity (Gilbert & Gilbert 1998; Martino & Kehler 2007). In seeking possible candidates for my sample I did encounter boys who had no desire to be involved or hear about my research, despite my having taught some of them for four years.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 3
Since the research methodology relied on boys reading the chosen case study books, an understanding of the research regarding boys’ interpretations of reading was vital to ensure the study was completed. Brozo (2005) argues that ‘many teenage boys are turning off reading because of actual and likely recrimination from classmates who associate traditional book literacy with ‘schoolboys’ and ‘nerds’ and who regard it as ‘uncool’’ (18). In selecting students for participation in the study I relied on my own ethnographic observations to approach boys who conveyed a strong sense of maturity; to the extent where I considered they would not allow possible recriminations about being involved in the study to concern them, and who would follow through to completion.
The case study approach with students who identified as reluctant readers then guided construction of the research question. In developing the question it was necessary to review the literature regarding what books for boys should be and do.
This debate is just as saturated as the discussion on why boys don’t read and I present a number of different arguments in the next section. Some of these are well worn and some more recent, but all can lay claim to some validity within the field of debate around reluctant adolescent readers. They include Hinton’s (1967) statement that teenagers today (that is, in the late sixties) want to read about teenagers today;
Nodelman’s (1992) opinion that much of what is written for this audience is constructed by adults writing what they think boys want to read; and, Parry’s (1996) argument that many novels, including his first, don’t explore themes sufficiently to suit the audience because of wanting to ‘play it safe’ (58) to satisfy the requirements of publishers, educators, librarians and scholars.
In this thesis I am entering this debate by attempting to negotiate a relationship between these theoretical discussions and the practical findings of my
4 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
research by acquainting reluctant readers with recently published Young Adult novels. It was therefore necessary to take a position where the participant informs my findings. Consequently, the research question in this practice-based approach was:
‘what do you want to read?’
1.3 Conceptual Framework for the Research
Since the research comprises four phases it was necessary to construct a framework that allowed each phase to employ one or more appropriate methods. This approach is best suited for this research where I rely on data from a number of different approaches to address the research objective (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011).
A mixed method approach is suited for those in which one data source
may not be sufficient and a secondary method is needed to enhance a
primary method, a theoretical stance needs to be employed and an
overall research objective can be next addressed with multiple phases
and projects. (Creswell & Plano Clark 2011, 8)
As a practice-based researcher the final stage of my project, in which I wrote my novella, was informed by over a year of prior research. The accompanying figure
(fig.1) represents the structure of the research methods applied, and how they link together.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 5
Mixed-Method Conceptual Framework Method Outcome
1 Literature Review informing Case Study Books
Qualitative interviews on reluctant 2 readers chosen through providing Opinions ethnographic observations
3 Interpreting Opinions informing Key Findings and Grounded Theory
4 My processes and Ethnography informing Creative Artefact
Table 1.1 –Conceptual Framework
Firstly I analysed literature regarding what books for boys should be and do, and in the next section I present arguments from a number of stakeholders. From this analysis, I developed a hypothesis on which to base my choice of three novels for my case studies. This process of reviewing ‘library materials’ (Glasner & Strauss
2011) for the purposes of developing a hypothesis ensures that a calculus may be developed where the sociologist may weigh the qualitative data of interviews and field notes against library sources (176). This ensures that the resultant theory is grounded in data (Glasner & Strauss 2011). Subsequently the three novels were presented to reluctant readers, selected through an ethnographic method at the high school where I teach, for a qualitative inquiry. This inquiry involved interviews conducted with questions informed by my literature review, my ethnographic studies and Grounded Theory studies. The application of a Grounded Theory approach
(Charmaz 2003, 2006; Glasner & Strauss 2011) facilitated the composition of
6 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
questions designed to elicit opinion and data from which to construct a theory regarding what ‘reluctant readers’ would want to read. Finally, using this theory, I wrote my creative artefact, the novella Duende.
1.4 Significance of the Research
Reading plays an important role in establishing life-long learning and providing the reader with an avenue to new experiences and a language with which to express their ideas and feelings (Owen 2003; Hamston & Love 2005). In particular adolescents need a language that allows them to ‘play with their identities in a safe and controlled manner to explore who they want to be in this ever changing world’ (Koss & Teale
2009, 569). Despite the fact that there are many books aimed at securing this space for adolescent readers, there is a widely reported reluctance to read among Australian boys 1(Moloney 2000, 10). Moreover this problem is not just endemic to Australia, as research across the United Kingdom, and the United States of America also indicates that teenage boys are less likely than their female peers to be engaged in reading which does not have a clearly pragmatic function (Hall & Cole 2001;
Hamston & Love 2003). This reluctance has been attributed to many reasons, such as poor reading skills, society’s expectation that men don’t read, lack of role models, the dominance of sport and video games as preferred methods of cultural engagement (Martino 2001; Moloney 2002; Jennings 2003; Opie 2005). While many of these reasons have some validity, I position my research using the argument that adolescent male reluctant readers might be engaged to read if they had ‘appropriate’ texts (Parry 1996; Owen 2003), by which I mean, stories that engage and appeal to them because they address certain themes and topics that adolescents want to read
1 Many people share this view and there are too many to name.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 7
about. From this position, my study addresses a significant gap in existing research by contributing the voices of adolescents through their responses to the research question.
8 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
2. Literature Review
2.1 Reluctant Readers
Hatfield (1998) states that ‘two distinct groups emerge when parents and educators discuss the term reluctant reader, those students with learning difficulties who perceive themselves to be non–readers in much the same way as non-swimmers feel inadequate as swimmers and students who are non-voluntary readers’ (cited in
Pritchard 2000, 11). Love and Hamston (2003) define this non-reader as a reluctant reader, ‘someone who can, but chooses not to read’ (161). Sullivan (2009) uses the term ‘aliterate’ to classify those that are able to read but find no real reason to do so’
(Tipton 2011, 2). Beers (1996) further breaks down the collective of ‘aliterates’ to be either one of three distinct types: ‘Dormant readers who like to read, but often do not make the time to do it; uncommitted readers who do not like to read but may read in the future; or, unmotivated readers who do not like to read and do not expect to change their minds’ (110). For the purpose of this exegesis I use the terms ‘reluctant reader’ and ‘boys’ to refer to adolescent males on the cusp of adulthood, at the age of
16 and 17 who identify as those who can, but choose not to read.
Krashen (1993) and Worthy (1998) similarly to Hatfield, use the term ‘non- voluntary reader’ to refer to reluctant readers and they have identified three key issues as central to why students choose not to read: choice, opportunity and access
(cited in Pritchard 2000, 11). Given that the boys’ opportunity to read competes against many other activities, possible recriminations and peer judgments, and their own masculinity issues, my research focuses more on their access to appropriate texts and whether they have adequate choice. By access I mean, are the stakeholders involved in CYA literature ensuring that the appropriate texts are being written and
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 9
published to ensure the boys have an adequate choice?
2.2. Young Adult Fiction – the ‘problem’ novel and adolescence
Young Adult fiction is not a new genre and prior to the emergence of the debate on what books for adolescents should be and do, books for this age group were being written in the nineteenth century (Aronson 2001). John Gillis, in Youth and History
(1981), states that ‘it was during the 1830s in Paris that young adulthood was born when it was recognised that people needed a phase of life between being children at home and adults with careers’ (Aronson 2001, 33). The defining of a specific type of fiction for adolescent readers, featuring adolescent protagonists with certain characteristics and behaviours, was ushered in with the publication, in 1951, of J.D
Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (Scutter 1999). Salinger’s use of the emotionally disturbed, seventeen year old, Holden Caulfield as the protagonist roaming around
New York, captured the image of the moody and problematic adolescent that had come into social existence in the post-war years (Smith & Wilhelm 2002). However,
The Catcher in the Rye, narrated by an adolescent, was not pitched at teenagers but an adult audience (Scutter 1999; Nodelman 2002) and since publication has been frequently cited within the debate regarding appropriate content for this age group.
According to Michael Cart (2010) the lion’s share of the credit for ushering in new age modern, realistic YA fiction goes to Paul Zindel and Susan Eloise Hinton (28).
They used the stereotype of the moody adolescent in their novels The Outsiders
(Hinton 1967) and The Pigman (Zindel 1968), and the novels were well received among young adult audiences. These ‘problem’ novels, and others such as Sparks’
Go Ask Alice (1971) discussed social issues that affected teens with a view to showing the reader that he or she was not alone in facing such issues (Aronson 2001;
10 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Koss & Teale 2009).
The ‘problem’ novel brought into YA literature what is now known as a ‘new realism’ (Aronson 2001, 185), about realistic protagonists in real world settings.
Aronson claims that these novels said directly to teenagers: ‘I am you, my story is yours’, with the result that ‘soon an entire and flourishing wing of young adult publishing was created’ (Aronson 2001, 55). However the argument concerning censorship - particularly regarding sex - and who should be able to read certain types of literature continued through the 1960s (Smith & Wilhelm 2002). In 1967 seventeen year old S.E. Hinton wrote a persuasive article for the New York Times
Book Review in support of her book The Outsiders, arguing, ‘teenagers today want to read about teenagers today’ (Smith & Wilhelm 2002, 6). In the article she said that
‘grownups write about teenagers from their own memories or else write about teenagers from a stand off I’m-a-little-scared-to-get-close-they’re-hairy view’
(Hinton 1967, 26). Authors such as Hinton and Zindel continued to write novels discussing issues that were at the forefront of teenage life, such as sex, pregnancy, suicide, homoerotic desires, incest and health issues (Aronson 2001; Nilsen &
Donelson 2009; Cart 2010). But the debate about what young adult fiction should be and do had begun.
2.3 What Young Adult Fiction Should Be and Do
According to Heather Scutter (1999) ‘adolescent fiction occupies an uncertain territory between the more secure realms of children’s books and adult books’ (2).
This territory is made even more ambiguous due to the nature of the stakeholders with an interest in promoting books to this audience. Teachers, authors, publishers, librarians, scholars, parents, government organisations and others, all have a vested
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 11
interest in what is being published for young adults; all have their own opinions regarding appropriate content.
Most contemporary advocates of adolescent fiction agree that ‘good literature should extend the reader’s mastery of language, should provide pleasure and relaxation, but above all, should enable the reader to learn from it decent and moral behaviour, correct attitudes and values and that good will be rewarded and evil punished’ (Nimon 2005, 11). An analysis in the United States (2005) indicated that the majority of YA books had shifted away from big event/coming of age scenarios and to a more general focus on young people finding themselves and dealing with typical teenage life (Koss & Teale 2009). Nilsen and Donelson argue that ‘if the task of adolescence is to achieve an identity then it is reasonable to suggest literature focusing on this theme might be useful in encouraging boys to read’ (Nilsen &
Donelson 2009, 36). Stakeholders differ about these themes and the placement of the values and attitudes within the narrative.
Young Adult literature scholar Marc Aronson argues that adolescents still want problem novels with a plot that matches their own lives and attitudes comprising angst, passion and fear to ensure the texts hit home (Aronson 2001). His view still supports Hinton’s 1967 argument that teenagers today want to read about teenagers today. Yet his comments could reflect an out-dated view of what teenagers today are like, considering the advances of technology and the role of social media in modern day teenagers’ lives; the increase in single parent families; and the focus of marketers on this demographic. Hinton also said in 1967 that authors are ‘15 years behind the times’ (26) and these attitudes of angst, passion and fear that Aronson argues readers want, could be out of date.
British YA author Melvin Burgess maintains that young adults want to read
12 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
the same books as adults (Burgess 2004). He says,
the best hope we have to create genuine literature for young adults is to
write books both they and we want to read – edgy, dangerous, forceful,
thought provoking funny- all sorts’ (Burgess 2004, 300).
Burgess’s novels deal specifically with those teen issues introduced into literature during the rise of the problem novel in the sixties. Two of his books contain sex
(Doing it 2003) and drug use (Junk 1996), and have not been without criticism.
Fellow author, Anne Fine, savagely criticized Doing it in a review described as the
‘most thorough demolition job in the history of children’s literature’ (Gibbons 2003).
Publishers defused this criticism by claiming the book was aimed at getting boys to read (Fine 2003). Sales of the book indicated that Burgess had successfully constructed a suitable novel and led him to state that ‘it was the material that was faulty not the readership’ (Burgess 2004, 292). In researching for the novel Burgess had used anecdotes provided to him from his mature age friends about their sexual experiences as teenagers in the early seventies (Burgess 2004). Burgess (2004) contends that writing for this age group is difficult because they have no voice, and in this instance he was successful in combining the voices of twenty years ago with the current period. But was it because of his chosen topic, sex? Furthermore what themes of a problem novel constitute realism? While the problem novel may get the credit for ushering in a new wave of stories for young adults, there appears to be a wide range of uses for the term ‘problem’. Does it refer to a novel whose narrative focuses solely on issues within society that are a problem, such as drug addiction, teen pregnancy, or does it refer to a problem within a narrative that a protagonist has to overcome? Cart (2010) believes that the problem novel and the realistic novel are the same thing (34), but this only brings us to the question, what is realistic within an
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 13
adolescent’s life? Do novels that centre entirely on a teenager’s heroin addiction, such as Burgess’ Junk, reflect the realistic nature of current adolescents’ lives?
Within this thesis I define the term ‘problem novel’ as a novel such as Burgess’ Junk where the narrative is defined by a focus on one, or more, specific issues (such as teenage drug addiction) that affect a small portion of adolescents. I choose the term
‘realistic fiction’ to represent novels that use a narrative that are more reflective of the adolescents lives that I witness on a daily basis as a teacher of high school students.
2.4 Books for Aussie Boys
In Australia there has also been a disparity between what advocates think adolescents should read and what adolescents want to read (Lawrinson 2004; Nimon 2005).
Brenda Niall argues that Australian YA fiction didn’t take off until 1980 and since then there has been much experimenting with literature, styles and stories for this market (Scutter 1999). Glyn Parry addressed the Children’s Book Council
Conference in 1996 with a provocative paper entitled Boys are Beautiful questioning this disparity between stakeholders regarding what boys should be reading. Parry, whose books feature fast narratives, strong language, and sex, drugs and rock n’ roll themes, writes specifically for adolescent boys. In his address he spoke of the need to meet boys at the teenage stage in their life with language and themes symbolic of, and relevant to, them (Parry 1996).
Reviews of Parry’s works have also been critical, although unlike Burgess, it was not his content that was trashed but rather the format used in the narrative. Parry aims in his writing to replicate the way teenagers speak, using urban slang and social references, often from the United States. The following passage from Sad Boys
14 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
demonstrates his attempts at capturing this socio-linguistic pattern:
He scrambled to switch on his Loony Tunes night lamp. There it was
again. Thunder! Axe blows echo-chambered all through Kelmscott valley.
Wind and rain gusted loud as subway trains. (Sad Boys, 1997, 1)
Critics believe that Parry’s works have superficial appeal and are limited to an audience based on reader familiarity (Steinberger 1996; Briggs 1998). This type of writing has not been without controversy as it ushers into view a particular (perhaps even stereotyped – certainly monolithic) construction of teenage boys, and it raises questions about the aesthetic value of the writing. Do theme-based novels sacrifice style to content?
While Parry has many critics his address can be credited with specifically highlighting adolescent boys on the cusp of adulthood who need books that help to explore topics such as sexual exploration and drug use. His address has now come to be considered as the beginning of the debate regarding ‘boys’ crisis’ (Gill 2010) and how to achieve greater literacy and reading within this collective. A report by the
Australian Government in 2001 highlighted boys within the 15-18 age-group as being mostly reading irrelevant, and the report concludes that it would be hard to entice boys into reading because they already have a behaviour aversion to reading and have lost interest in the process. However the study titled Young Australians
Reading: from keen to reluctant reader and overseen by the Manager of the
Australian Centre for Youth Literature, Agnes Nieuwenhuizen, uses the collective 10
– 18 for most of its data capture and development of the findings. Whilst their classification of readers as reading irrelevant and their comment that boys 15-18 have lost interest in reading aligns with my definition of reluctant reader, this report demonstrates that although Parry may have ushered in a crisis, there is still little
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 15
research on the boys in this collective. Nonetheless, there is some agreement between stakeholders regarding what books for young adult males should be and do; and, which can be considered relevant for the sample used in this research. Theorists in the field suggest that boys want books with male main characters with whom they can identify and books written by male authors (Moloney 2002; Smith & Wilhelm
2002; Sullivan 2010; Tipton 2011). They also like to read about things they might do or might be interested in doing to help develop knowledge of a subject to use practically (Opie 2000; Smith & Wilhelm 2002; Tipton 2011). Structurally they prefer shorter works or ones that are divided easily for a shorter period of reading
(Sullivan 2010; Tipton 2011) with a story that focuses more on plot development rather than characters and imagery (Moloney 2002; Tipton 2011).
Stakeholders are also in agreement that adolescent boys need their own fictional stories that speak of their experience, and considering the fickle nature of the readers these books need to be crafted skilfully to accommodate such a delicate and fragile audience (Owen 2003). Considering that reading as a pastime is marginalized behind sports, computer games and many other activities, understanding the audience is paramount to appropriately addressing these experiences. Should novels address themes as explicitly as Burgess’s novels do in the hope of appealing to adolescents, while alienating stakeholders, or should they support Hinton’s and Aronson’s argument and aim to reflect teenage lives today? If so, what values and attitudes reflect a teenager’s life today? This is something my research and my case studies addressed in order to determine what themes and topics might be suitable for my creative work aimed at adolescent male reluctant readers.
16 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
2.5 Informing the Case Studies
Despite what stakeholders have to say about what the boys might be tempted to read, the question is a difficult one for which to provide a definitive answer. I used these arguments to inform my selection of three case study books to give to (and ideally appeal to) the boys in my study. In considering the novels I read widely across the
YA genre. I read Burgess’s and Parry’s novels, I revisited the novels of the sixties, I read graphic novels, war novels, and fantasies. Guiding my selection was Hinton’s argument that teenage boys want to read about teenagers today and comments that authors themselves have said about what books for boys should be and do. I chose
Swerve by Philip Gwynne, Jarvis24 by David Metzenthen and the nest by Paul
Jennings.
2.6 The Case Studies
Three books were chosen to support a range of evidence from which to get the best possible material to answer the research question (Gillham 2010), and to take advantage of a three-interview approach to ensure the practice of reading became embedded in the research participant’s life (Seidman 2006). The books are all first person, modern day tales set in Australia, and attempt to delineate a relationship between children’s literature and society (Butts 2010). What follows is a brief analysis of the selected books highlighting what I hypothesised would be of interest to my reading cohort given the critical theory around boys’ reading habits and behaviours, and my own observations of the participants.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 17
2.6.1 Swerve (2009) by Phillip Gwynne, Penguin Publishing, 227p
Phillip Gwynne’s first novel Deadly Unna? (1998) is a fictionalised account of his own upbringing in a remote South Australian town and established him as a prize- winning author. The novel was highly praised when it was published and has regularly been placed on literature lists for schools and universities, as well as being adapted into a film entitled Australian Rules. His second novel Nukkin Ya (2000) was a sequel, but in his third Swerve, he explores a more creative narrative of a teenage boy’s life.
In the novel, private school chess player, cellist and car enthusiast Hugh
Twycross and his long lost, ex-car racing, hippy grandfather Poppy, go on a road journey to Uluru so Hugh can accumulate driving hours. The juxtaposition of the characters, along with the new experiences of the wider world, challenge Hugh’s normally sterile world. Most important is his lust for the hitchhiker Bella, whose background and moral values are completely different from his. This is defined as a coming of age novel in that Hugh has to deal with a big event: the road trip (Koss
2009) and on the way Hugh’s desire to have sex with Bella leads him to learn some hard lessons on love, trust and betrayal (Thompson 2009). The subjects of searching for answers and family are also entwined within the tale.
Gwynne (in a personal email, 2011) contends that novels for teenagers should not be heavy on subject matter but rather themes should develop with the story so that they are not the engine that drives the book. Like other Australian authors he uses place as a metaphor and mental landscape to produce particular plots and people
(Owen 2003). In the narrative Hugh falls down a mineshaft to represent the claustrophobic confusion of his thoughts regarding his infatuation with Bella, and the barrenness of the open plains is a metaphor reflecting Hugh’s naivety, and search for
18 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
knowledge and understanding. Like the boys in the focus group, the protagonist is in his last year of high school. While he’s a self-proclaimed nerd who would not encounter drugs, sex and alcohol in his normal life, the story places him in situations where he is exposed to them. Furthermore, it is the use of his grandfather, a reformed drug addict and alcoholic, representing someone who has made the wrong choices in life, that provides a connection with readers who are regularly exposed to these themes. While the problem novel of the sixties introduced these issues and protagonists having to make choices, Swerve presents the other side of the picture: the life of someone having made bad choices. The story uses this juxtaposition between the grandfather’s experimental living and the protagonist’s clean lifestyle to create a humorous and engaging narrative that I felt would interest the boys.
Although not as successful as Deadly Unna?, Swerve was shortlisted for the following 2010 young adult fiction awards: Prime Minister’s Literary Awards;
Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards; Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards; and the Inky Awards, Golden Inky.
2.6.2 Jarvis 24 (2009) by David Metzenthen, Penguin 256p
David Metzenthen has written several books (amongst them, Boys of blood and bone,
Breakwater) with male protagonists on the cusp of adulthood. He writes with the view that ‘boys want to take something away from a book that is substantial and useful, be it facts or knowledge or an emotional tool’ (Opie 2005, 8). Structurally he writes to provide boys with immediate gratification from the story and considers them not to be as forgiving as girls (Opie 2005); however many of his novels seem to get bogged down in backstory and too much description, or in the case of Jarvis24, which contains too much introspection by the protagonist.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 19
The narrative centres on Jarvis, a promising AFL player who habitually loses personal possessions and who is still recovering from the death of his first love. In the novel Jarvis has to find work experience and he chooses a car yard near the school as a way of meeting sprint sensation, Electra. Within the car yard Jarvis’s narrow views are expanded as he meets and interacts with new people: in particular his gay colleague Mickey. He successfully courts Electra but loses her when she takes up an AIS scholarship and moves away. While the main subject matter is loss, it is also an ‘appealing and thoughtful look at friendship and love which might just slip under the guard of boy readers’ (Harding 2009, 12). The novel also touches on
GLBTQ themes with Jarvis developing a friendship with Mickey and ending up in a brawl with a local homophobic gang.
Jarvis24 was shortlisted, within the YA genre, for an award at the South
Australian Festival Awards for Literature (2010); Western Australian Premier’s
Book Awards (2009); and, Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (2010). It was longlisted for the 2009 Inky Awards and in 2010 won the Australian Children’s Book
Council of Year Award for Older Readers.
This is another novel that presents a very clean image of a high school student, whom I assume is in last year of school. It is also a very ‘clean’ novel without any mention of drugs and only one minor scene with alcohol. I chose this novel because the protagonist has a very strong voice and explains his thoughts and actions in a lot of detail, which I thought would engage the readers, and because it addresses GBLQT themes. In using Jarvis24 as a case study I was able to address the relevance of GBLQT themes as a social issue within current society (Butts 2010) to determine to what extent their inclusion is valid.
20 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
2.6.3 The nest (2009) by Paul Jennings, Penguin, 248p
Paul Jennings has been a prolific author of children’s books; delighting in creating humour from the absurd and the gross (Gordon 2009). His views on what books for boys should be and do support Gwynne’s comments regarding story as a key ingredient; he contends ‘that all readers, not just reluctant readers, have the same needs and are entitled to a top tale’ (Jennings 2003, 47). Structurally his novels include small chapters, short sentences and accessible prose, which is recognisable and easily understood by the audience (Watts 2002; Jennings 2003). However his use of language does not mirror the urban slang used in Parry’s novels or provide a disparaging view of adolescent boys. The nest was his first YA fiction novel and similar to his other children’s stories he continued to use small chapters and to cultivate an authentic voice for the main character (Gordon 2009).
The novel focuses on sixteen year old Robin, an only child who lives with his abusive father in the snowfields of Victoria. Robin desires a girl in his class, Charlie, and seeks answers about his mother’s disappearance. Jennings uses fables as short stories between chapters to act as metaphors for the pressure, frustration and desires in Robin’s life. The novel is a dark thriller that uses teenage angst, sexual frustration and a father’s intimidation to explore the raw emotions of hate, fear, desperation and loneliness that often mark the adolescent experience (Gordon 2009). Within the main subject matter of searching for answers are the themes of finding identity, dealing with loss, mental issues, sexual desire, minor drug use and single-parent households.
Butts (2010) says that many children’s books reflect the problems of single-parent families, and show the difficulties children experience when their parents’ marriages collapse and they find new partners (144). In choosing suitable texts for the case studies I encountered very few that dealt with the concept of a single-parent and
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 21
Jennings approaches this subject matter as a mystery. In doing so he parallels the reader’s desire to know what happened with Robin’s growing mental anguish created by his lust for Charlie and yearning to know more about his mother’s disappearance.
2.6.4 Concluding Comment
The three novels offer the boys three different representations of teenage adolescent males; representations I felt that they would be able to recognise and possibly identify with. Each novel involves a boy desiring a girl with only the nest successfully ensuring the boy and girl end up together. What set these novels apart from the other books that were considered is the voice of the protagonist and the author’s ability to create a connection with the reader through an engaging story line; the realism of the concepts/themes explored and how the character negotiates this to provide a suggestion: that if these fictitious characters can survive the harsh realities of modern life then there is hope for a similarly distressed reader (Butts 2010, 145).
22 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
3. Qualitative Research Inquiry
3.1 Introduction and Research Design
In this section I address the qualitative inquiry approach of my research by providing reluctant readers with the case study books. The readers were chosen through ethnographic observation at BHS2 and asked to be involved in the study. Those who consented were informed that the research would require them to read three novels and provide opinion in an interview after reading each one.
This process of creating a group for comparison in which to test or reanalyse
Hinton’s hypothesis is, according to Glasner and Strauss (2010) useful in new enquiries, especially where a specific group is hard to ‘get inside, such as pirates, brigands, or secretive religious groups’ (177); or in this case, adolescent boys.
3.2 Ethical Approvals and Ethical Consent
Ethical approval was obtained from the BHS Principal via written consent, and
DETA’s requirements were satisfied with confirmation that the study had been approved by the QUT Ethics Committee: approval number 1100000597.
As the researcher I was aware that ethical concerns regarding human subjects revolve around the topics of informed consent, right to privacy and protection from harm (Fontana & Frey 2005). Once the research participants had been selected they were given consent forms to be signed by a parent or guardian. Within this paper their names, along with the school name, have been changed to ensure protection of
2 BHS is a state funded school where only 56% of final year students continue on to university (QSA, 2012).
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 23
their identity. Participants were also reminded during the interviews that if they didn’t feel comfortable discussing some topics then they could opt not to answer a question. Once they began the study there was no obligation, or pressure placed on them from my role as a teacher, to continue with the study.
3.3 The Research Participants
Through ethnographic observations at BHS over the course of the last four years I’ve been able to observe students’ daily lives, ask about their reading habits and develop an understanding of their practices as readers and the influence of reading on their lives (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007). With a set of screening questions (Appendix
B) I approached students who I knew had the ability to read without any problems, but suspected had little or no inclination to read except within their school life
(Chambers 1969; Love & Hamston 2003). In this process I did encounter several unmotivated readers (Beers 1996) who I knew could read very well but despite a strong teacher-student relationship and the incentive3 of a $20 iTunes voucher they were resistant to even attempt the first case study. Eventually, I found six willing participants who identified as boys who could, but for many reasons choose not to read.
The participants were all in their final year at BHS and by the conclusion of the interviews had all turned seventeen. Of the six initial participants only four completed all three interviews. One participant completed the first interview and then lost interest (and the book) while reading the second case study (Jarvis24); another participant read the nest but did not agree to an interview due to personal reasons.4 A brief character analysis is provided on the four who completed the research to help
3 This small incentive was to reflect the time spent reading the novel and sitting through an interview. This process was approved within the ethics application. 4 This student formed an attachment to this novel and was often seen in class reading it.
24 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
provide a context from which to understand their opinions and to appreciate the diversity of reluctant readers.
3.3.1 Participant A – Jason
Jason emigrated with his mother from Colombia when he was ten. He was an intelligent student who studied an academic course load but was not motivated to succeed and often failed to meet the expectations of an average student. He presented as an uncommitted reader (Beers 1996) and read very little during high school.
3.3.2 Participant B – Richard
Richard lived out of home for most of year 12 but moved back in with his mother and father towards the end of school. He worked a lot at McDonalds to the detriment of his school attendance. Although he did not study any academic subjects he believed himself to be intelligent and a leader. He was cunning and was involved with a large group of miscreants. He did not read very much during high school, although there were several bookcases at home and his parents read. He said he often flicked through books that were lying around but didn’t read them. He was identified as a dormant reader: someone who liked to read but didn’t make the time (Beers
1996).
3.3.3 Participant C – David
David lived with his father, a retired soldier (who reads a lot of military non-fiction), and his older brother. He was a quiet student who spent a lot of time in the library
(and read the newspaper) but hadn’t read fiction since grade 8 when he read
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 25
Crocodile Tears 5 (2009) by Anthony Horowitz in the Alex Rider series. He categorised reading as a spare time function but only if there was nothing on TV and no alternatives. He identified as a dormant reader of fiction (Beers 1996).
3.3.4 Participant D – Paul
Paul was a keen basketball player and identified himself as a ‘jock’. He and his mother emigrated from England when he was two, leaving behind his father and older brother. He was mature and honest, and was well respected by teachers and his colleagues. He read, and enjoyed, Matthew Reilly’s Area 7 (2001) earlier in the year.
He mostly read non-fiction books about basketball. During high school he estimated having read a total of 12 books (including school texts and non-fiction). He admitted he was an uncommitted reader (Beers 1996) of fiction and had little knowledge of the YA genre.
3.4 The Interview Process and Structure
Individual interviews provide a method to gather rich data and in-depth experiential accounts for qualitative research purposes (Fontana 2005). The interview is founded on the desire to elicit individuals’ stories and understandings because they are of value (Seidman 2006). In particular the interview is a useful tool in research conducted on adolescents because it provides more insight into topics such as teen- sex, drug use and underage drinking than researchers would come into contact with through observations (Eder 2003).
It is important to note that filling the role of interviewer/researcher could have
5 Crocodile Tears is the eighth novel in the Alex Rider series about a teenage spy.
26 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
been a limiting factor in providing in-depth results on some topics considering I was a classroom teacher at BHS (Eder & Fingerson 2003). However as a classroom teacher I had gained the trust of, and established a rapport with, the participants and felt that as the interviewer I could use this connection to elicit richer responses on most questions (Goulding 2003). This connection between interviewer and participant was also important in facilitating the semi-structured interview and ensuring that it flowed as a conversation rather than a stilted question and answer
(Fontana & Frey 2005). This also allowed some questions to be developed based on my own ethnographic studies and participant observation within the school.
The face-to-face interviews were conducted over a period of six months. Each participant was required to complete an interview after reading each novel. Of the twelve final interviews used in this research ten were conducted at BHS, another was conducted at a local library and another was replaced by an email since the participant had already travelled overseas. The interviews were audio-recorded for the purpose of transcriptions for data analysis and for building on in subsequent interviews. The full transcripts are available through discussion with the researcher and in accordance with QUT protocols.
3.5 The Interview Questions
It was determined that the study would use a three interview approach to ensure that the participants’ reading behaviour became meaningful and ensured that the process of reading was placed in the context of their lives (Seidman 2006). The three- interview model also allowed responses to be analysed between interviews to ensure a more in-depth subsequent interview and a narrowing of the range of questions relevant to the participant (Charmaz 2003). The first interview not only asked
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 27
questions about the case study but also asked questions to help the participant place himself as a reluctant reader within the parameters of the study. The second interview included questions about what might the reader want in a book; and the third interview included some of the above questions, but through the connection between researcher and participant asked the question ‘what would you want in a book?’ and allowed for reflection on the study.
Within the semi-structured interview it was necessary to be flexible so that the boys provided rich responses to ensure that within a Grounded Theory Model the data collated (their interpretations of the novel and opinions elicited) could be used to answer the research question (Charmaz 2003; Glasner & Strauss 2011). In grounded theory research a theory is developed after analysis of data (Charmaz 2006; Glasner
& Strauss 2011; Lassig 2012). Through this process Charmaz (2006) argues that a
‘researcher’s finished grounded theory is a construction of reality’ (5). Therefore it was necessary to ensure that questions presented to the participants were designed to elicit rich responses from which to construct a theoretical framework for use in my own creative work. These questions were stimulated from literature reviewed on what books for boys should be and do. They were framed around eliciting responses to determine: the realism and relevance of the plot; the realism of, and ability to identify with the character; the realism of the relationships, themes and scenes; the usefulness of the story as value for their own lives; and, the structural elements of the novel.
3.6 Opinions of the Case Studies
In this section I present the combined opinions of the four boys who completed all three readings. This offers an opportunity to see the richness and diversity of the findings and understand how each case study is differently interpreted. While in this
28 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
section I do make some conclusions regarding each case study, in the next section I synthesize all the opinions to form key findings to be used for guiding my own praxis.
3.6.1 Swerve
‘A teenage road trip with a hippy grandfather and lust for a skanky moll’
The boys all thought Swerve was enjoyable and realistic. While all had their own description of the central theme, each interpretation was about coming-of-age and finding identity. David identified the theme of maturing and recognized that Hugh’s grandfather introduces him to new things and helps him to mature. Jason saw trust as a major theme and risk: such as the risk of love, the fight for freedom. He commented, ‘Hugh really discovers his real self.’ Although several participants thought the context of the road trip was unlikely, it was something that could happen.
Richard said, ‘you never know it could happen, my granddad coming down from the
Sunshine Coast and saying, let’s go to Uluru, it could happen’. The premise of driving to Uluru to gather driving hours and the use of motoring metaphors was also appreciated by the participants who related to the importance of learning to drive, which as David said, ‘is one of Hugh’s main goals as he states in the book.’ This is evidence of the realism of the story and the ability of the readers to recognise that the story is about teenagers today.
The main character was regarded as a realistic portrayal of a teenage boy by three of the boys, despite his private school and upper-class upbringing contrasting with their own family situations. Peter stated, ‘it is the emotions the character feels and stuff he brings up that interests me; it makes him a good representation.’
However, Jason did not think he was completely realistic because of his five-star
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 29
lifestyle. He did agree, ‘that his attitude is sort of realistic,’ and the following excerpt demonstrates Hugh’s upbringing and his change in attitude as he overcomes the challenges in the narrative.
The Hugh Twycross of a week ago, maybe even a day ago, would’ve
walked away at that point. He didn’t have the eighty-eight dollars. He
couldn’t pay the fine. Why bother staying?
He also didn’t have experience with girls. That was due to a number of
reasons. For a start, he was a ner (or an erd) and therefore, by definition,
had an inability to chat up chicks. He went to a boys’ school and therefore
didn’t even have much to do with chicks. And even though he had a sister
she wasn’t a girly girl, she didn’t have a whole lot of her girly friends
over; in fact most of her friends were imaginary friends. But I thought
what the gay guy in Hurford’s Menswear had said. I thought of what
Poppy had said. I was Brockie not Hugh Twycross. ‘That the Nokia
3240?’ I asked. (Swerve, p. 77)
The boys were in agreement that the novel discussed the topics of drugs, alcohol and sex appropriately because exposure to them is a part of adolescence. Richard said, ‘considering the book wasn’t based around these issues they were nevertheless brought up and mentioned as relevant.’ David,
Paul and Jason concurred that the story would have been weaker if the main character and the object of his infatuation (Bella) had gotten together. Paul commented, ‘I think she would have been a real bad influence on him if they ended up together.’ They agreed that the development of this relationship was a bit unrealistic and that Bella’s character was weakly constructed. David didn’t think the relationship between them would happen in front of everyone because
30 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
they were too different. He said, ‘I don’t think they would have been together; this is the kind of relationship that happens outside of the eyes of your peers and peer pressure.’ The following passage shows the divide between Hugh and
Bella and reinforces the comments from the boys regarding the unrealistic nature of two such people uniting.
‘Look, if we had of, like done it, it would’ve been your first time, right?
For the rest of your life, it would’ve been, like, your first time. And when
you’re like, getting married, and your bride goes, “tell me about you first
time?” and you go, “it was with this slut I picked up hitchhiking.” And
she goes, “Whaaat? There’s nothing cool about that, Brockie. Save it for
somebody real nice. One of those private school girls with the cute
uniforms.’ (Bella, p. 219)
Structurally, the novel was well received and the boys enjoyed the use of a flash- forward at the start. Jason commented, ‘it makes you want to ask the author what happened, why is he in this situation?’ David said, ‘you see he has progressed further through his actions, and what’s happened in the story when it comes back around.’ The boys also enjoyed the use of simple, relatable language and all except
Richard, found it to be humorous. Generally, the realism of the narrative and its use of topics that it addresses were recognised by the boys as being beneficial to them.
Richard said, ‘I can see the value of reading to provide a better outlook on life and that good and bad things can happen to you.’ Paul drew an interpretation such as,
‘live life, do what you want, always have fun sort of thing.’
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 31
3.7.2 Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen
‘An eclectic mix of characters with the love interest running away’
Three boys completed the reading and consented to an interview. The fourth, Jason, did not complete the reading but responded via email to questions. One of the initial six participants (Ben), who completed an interview 6 on Swerve, failed to finish reading this novel and apparently ‘lost it, sir’.
The boys identified with the normal problems teenage males deal with: school, friends, girlfriend, sport and work. David particularly enjoyed the book and said, ‘it’s quite compelling to read because I just wanted to know more about what was going to happen with the themes of loss and relationships.’ However Richard thought it was a bit unrealistic how the main character lost so much and stated
‘there’s just too much in Jarvis, about death and losing.’ Jason, who didn’t finish the reading, was very critical in his description of the narrative and said that Jarvis24 seemed ‘too predictable and the story had no purpose, it felt as though the author simply wrote the book to simply “write a book”.’ Jason did however, along with the other boys, recognise Jarvis as a realistic representation of a teenage boy. Paul cited a connection through a mutual interest in sport and girls and appreciated how Jarvis
‘put himself out there’ to meet Electra. The relationships that Jarvis forms with his best mate, Electra and Mikey were well received by the participants; however, both
Paul and Jason felt that the fight scene where Mikey and his lesbian friends are attacked for being homosexuals was not realistic. Paul said, ‘I haven’t witnessed any of that stuff. I don’t think people are treated that badly, at least not around here at this school.’ Furthermore, Richard didn’t like the introspection and said, ‘he was too much in your own head. I know I don’t do that, think about everything to the minute
6 Since Ben failed to complete the research project his opinions were not considered in the analysis of Swerve as there was nothing to compare against in subsequent interviews.
32 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
detail.’ Only David appreciated the introspection citing, ‘I like it cause it adds to his character by analysing every point of his life that happens to him.’ An example of this is at the beginning of the novel.
I tend to worry, I know I do, but only because I think there is lots of
things to worry about. For a start, I think I should’ve said there are lots
of things to worry about, which would worry my English teacher, Ms.
Inglis, more than me – and I worry, for instance, that I lose crap all over
the place, and I have to find some kind of Work Experience for next
week, and that my mother’s new second-hand car’s number plates are
CISSY, which she refuses to change. (Jarvis24, p.1)
This paragraph highlights the voice of Jarvis as a very thoughtful narrator and straight away informs the reader of how the story is told. The boys’ opinions, particularly those of Jason, and considering Ben ‘lost it, sir’ indicate that their comments don’t reflect the Children’s Book Council’s Award of Best Young
Adult book for 2010.
The use of the GBLQT themes was not considered unusual or surprising and the story was realistic without the addition of any drug themes. David said, ‘he’s the sort of character that will stay away from it (drugs) and adding that might interfere with the story and what his character actually is.’ There is a scene where Jarvis and his girlfriend (Electra) are home alone, but it is unclear if they have sex. The author writes:
Time ceases to exist and other more important things take over. At one
point, this point never accurately recorded, when I go to say something,
Electra stops me. And when I try to say something else later, she stops
me then too; having her reasons, I guess, as I do too. (Jarvis24, p. 224)
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 33
Paul’s comment when asked whether he thought they had sex was, ‘I guess it would have been an ideal time for them I guess… it definitely leaves you asking questions.’
Richard did not interpret it as them having sex and said, ‘I thought they were initially going to go, but they didn’t and then she told him she was leaving.’
In answer to the question about the value of this text for teenagers to understand what is going on in their lives David said, ‘if a teenager read this it would help them understand the situations happening around them because it is a pretty realistic book and it can help teenagers understand if they are going through a situation.’ Paul thought it was good to know other people compared themselves to others around them and connected with Jarvis through sport. However, both Jason’s and Richard’s responses indicated that the narrative is not engaging enough for the novel to be considered appealing to a broad range of adolescent male reluctant readers.
3.7.3 The nest by Paul Jennings:
‘A psychological thriller with a teenage boy struggling to control his emotions’
Four completed this novel and it was well received, despite differing opinions on the narrative. Jason saw it as a search for identity and said, ‘his story is a lonely boy who falls in love with a girl, misses his mum, and wants to know more about himself.’
Paul identified the similarity between the protagonist’s plight and the things teenage boys go through, especially confusion with desire. Richard saw the protagonist as an angry boy who is lost and dealing with his mother’s disappearance. David thought it was too dark and highlighted the relationship between father and son as the major storyline; something he considered unrealistic. Richard concurred, commenting, ‘it’s not really like that anymore, Dad telling the son what to do and forcing him to do stuff, I couldn’t relate to that.’ However both Jason and Paul understood the conflict
34 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
between father and son as they could identify with it from their own single-parent upbringings.
All the boys could identify with the main character as a true representation of a teenage boy. Richard labelled him a ‘lost soul’ and Paul noticed his solitary nature and his search for answers about his mother’s disappearance. David felt that the character’s unsolicited actions towards a girl were accurate and said, ‘I think it’s realistic, you hear about that kind of behaviour a lot in the news. I think it is pretty realistic of his character for that to happen, but me personally, I’d get the hint and stop.’ The following scene indicates Robin’s emotionally charged actions.
All that week it’s the same and I come to the conclusion that I’ll be in
trouble for harassment if I persist; they’re big on that sort of thing at
Bright Dale School. She’s not even giving me a chance to explain so I
make one last attempt and send her a short email saying: Can I talk to
you? Her reply comes straight back: I’m not opening your emails.
Please leave me alone. I’d give your rotten money back if I could but it’s
already gone to the organisers. (the nest, p. 75)
Jason felt the protagonist could have had more friends, and said, ‘he sounds like an all right guy, but me knowing that he has murderous thoughts make me iffy.’ Paul assumed that since he (Robin) had interactions with two pretty girls, that he was popular and had friends. David understood how he acted given the background information, but didn’t connect with the character at all and said, ‘he’s just a little bit too out there.’
Three of the boys agreed that the two girls who become the objects of desire were realistic representations of teenage girls they knew. Paul specifically recognized manipulative traits in the seventeen year old Verushka as realistic, but felt her openly
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 35
sexual character was more indicative of someone younger. David disagreed, saying,
‘I don’t think people of her age would generally be hitting the drugs and that as much as she was. In real life though I don’t have much experience on this. I think she is a bit emphasised and less realistic than the character of Charlie.’ Richard didn’t like Charlie because she was too much of a ‘teacher’s pet’, although he did think the character stereotype was perfectly written. The use of these two contrasting, and multi-dimensional characters, successfully provides a model for the boys, regardless of their own personal circumstances, to see how Robin interacts with each girl. In this way a stronger engagement with the narrative is developed.
This contrast in interpretation between the boys also continues with regards to the exploration of the themes explored in the novel. Jason and Paul thought that the scenes and exploration of drugs and sexual desire were accurate. Paul said, ‘I think it was realistic as it was, because I think when I was 16 I was contemplating what I wanted from girls and in life and just everything in general. So I think he was at that age where he was confused about what he wanted.’ Jason commented, ‘the drugs and sex, very realistic, they’re 16 so even if they were younger they would still want to have that sexual interaction, the drugs. I’m pretty sure at all schools there are at least 20 kids who are taking drugs in any grade. So I think that is pretty realistic.’
The following excerpt occurs when Robin seeks friendship from the manipulating
Verushka as an avenue for hiding from his feelings for Charlie.
I can sense Verushka’s warm body next to mine, but neither of us has
anything to say. When is this dope going to kick in? It doesn’t work for
me… Nothing works for me…My life is one miserable thing after
another… I don’t have a mother…I’m stuck with a pathetic bastard of a
father who just wants to control me and who carried on about a stupid
36 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
nest that I forgot to knock off the wall… And Charlie wants nothing to do
with me even though I sold my mother’s ring to give her the money…
(the nest, p. 153)
Structurally the participants enjoyed how Jennings interspersed short stories as metaphors within the narrative and each chose a different fable as their favourite.
There were mixed opinions on the ending with Jason thinking it was too quick and
David feeling that the ending wasn’t what he expected in terms of providing a suitable resolution. Furthermore, David did not connect with or identify with Robin or his experience with the themes expressed in the novel, but he felt he understood
‘what the themes were trying to tell him in the story.’ David’s analysis of this case study and Jarvis24 contrasted with the opinions of the other boys and demonstrate not only the disparity between reluctant readers, but also the variety of fictional styles that can be used to engage reluctant readers. Three of the boys enjoyed the novel, were engaged by the themes, felt they clearly understood the character and the themes explored, and praised the novel for its relevance to teenagers today. Since publication in 2009, the nest has not been nominated for any awards in Australia.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 37
4. Key Findings and Grounded Theory
4.1 Introduction and Grounded Theory Method
The literature review informed the choice of case study books and in the previous section I presented the opinions of the reluctant readers. In this section I present the remaining two research methods: the synthesis of opinions to produce key findings and the grounded theory, and my own creative process and adaption of this theory for the construction of my novella.
Within the qualitative research method of the interviews the grounded theory method informed the structure of my interview questions as a view to understanding and developing the key findings. Amongst the questions on the case studies, the research participants were also asked questions allowing them to expand on their opinions about what should be in a book for teenage boys. Some of these responses will be used in conjunction with those presented in the previous section with a view to understanding the boys’ opinions so as to build a theoretical framework from which to inform my own creative work. This grounded theory method ensures that the framework is a construction of reality because it is based on the authentic opinions of reluctant readers (Charmaz 2006), and developed from a process of library materials and qualitative inquiry that results in data (Glasner & Strauss 2011).
38 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
4.2 Synthesis of Opinions and Key Findings
The following table provides a brief summary of the opinions presented in the previous section.
Research A B C D Participant Jason Richard David Paul
Most Engaging Swerve Swerve Swerve Swerve Book
Most Realistic Book the nest Jarvis24 Jarvis24 Jarvis24
Most Realistic Robin Jarvis Jarvis Robin Main Character
Table 4.1 – Participant’s Perceptions
The story in Swerve was the most engaging because it was a realistic adventure the boys perceived as something that although unlikely, could happen.
Jarvis24 was considered the most realistic text primarily due to a lack of a significant use of the themes of sex and drugs, and a mundane plot focused around work experience. One participant (Jason) was very critical of the novel because of a lack of engagement with the story and felt the nest was more realistic because he could identify with the father-son conflict. In contrast David was the only person not to enjoy the nest; this is because of his lack of engagement with the main character and lack of personal experience with the themes discussed. In answer to the question about what kind of story they preferred the participants all agreed that they wanted something funny, different and unusual (like Swerve), with a problem that provided them with a view to understanding how someone else tackled it. In this instance the
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 39
term problem refers to accumulating driving hours as in Swerve, doing work experience as in Jarvis24, and dealing with infatuation for a girl, in the nest.
As a main character all except Hugh (Swerve) were considered appropriate representations, however the participants were able to identify with the situations
Hugh was placed into and how he acted in them, despite some being slightly unrealistic. They also appreciated reading about a main character who was good at something, and who was prepared to do something irrational to achieve what they want, particularly with respect to the affections of a girl. Amongst the questions on the case studies, the boys were also asked questions allowing them to expand on their responses about what should be in a book for teenage males. Opinions indicated that to ensure a realistic nature of novels for this audience, themes such as drugs and alcohol need to be mentioned as they are now an everyday part of a teenager’s life.
However, unlike some of the conventional ‘problem novels’ they don’t need to be a big part of the story or written about as explicitly as Burgess’s Doing it. This is supported by David’s comments regarding his inability to connect with the strong exploration of the themes of sex and drugs in the nest, and the boys’ choice of
Jarvis24 as the most realistic. The theme of loss, and how someone deals with grief, was also considered to be something the boys enjoyed reading about as it provided them with insight into someone else’s distress. Conclusively though, the two themes that are necessary to ensure a book appeals to this audience are sex, although not explicit sex, and conflict between family members.
4.3 Grounded Theory
This study to determine what adolescent male reluctant readers want to read was justified with library materials (Glasner & Strauss 2011) and developed into a
40 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
research method of interviews with a view to providing current qualitative data for synthesis into key findings. From these findings the following grounded theory can be generated: Adolescent male reluctant readers want to read about female relationships and family conflict within a story that consists of an adventure that, although unlikely to happen, could happen.
This theory could then be used to complete the other half of the submission: the creation of an engaging and appealing fiction novella for adolescent male reluctant readers.
4.4 Informing My Creative Practice and Structuring My Novella
In writing my novella, Duende, I use my understanding and interpretation of the qualities presented in the theoretical framework: relationships with girls, relationships with family, and, an adventure that could happen. I also use my own ethnographic observations of teenage life within BHS to inform my own creativity regarding these qualities (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007).
In formulating my creative work I began with the scenario of a boy desiring a girl. Through my own ethnographic observations at BHS I’ve noticed how much interest the exchange students garner from the boys, so I chose a Chilean exchange student. From my interpretations of the findings in this study I made her a former
Miss Teen Chile to create the slightly unrealistic nature. A former Miss Teen Chile is highly unlikely to do an exchange year at Kingscliff7 High, but it could happen. I placed this plot within the structure of a dysfunctional household where the protagonist’s father, a nineties surfing star, suffers from a mental illness and lives on a boat in the local creek; only returning home on Sundays to mow the lawn. This
7 The novella is set in the Northern NSW Beachside town of Kingscliff and Kingscliff High exists.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 41
allowed me to create the family conflict and place added stress on the mother-son relationship that several of my research participants indicated was of interest. I also explored the theme of loss with the death of the protagonist’s grandfather; who in the father’s absence has a surrogate fatherly role.
In the expanded form of the novel8 I added a sub-plot of a film crew coming to town to make a feature film about the life of the protagonist’s father. This aligns with the finding that reluctant readers want to read about something that, although unlikely to happen, could happen.
I constructed my protagonist in the image of a typical teenage boy who is good at running and surfing. The main problem he has to overcome is dealing with the pressure that is placed on him by his Pop, Mother, school, and self. In doing this he learns to be more accepting and understanding of himself and his desires.
Themes explored include minor sexual scenes, drug use and alcohol. Crystal meth is presented within a scene due to teenage students being exposed to it at parties
(Personal communication with Constable Dittman, 12th July 2012). Although only one research participant indicated that bullying was a necessary theme, I have included it here because of my observations and as a way for the character to overcome a challenge. Structurally I used a first person narrator, small chapters and a language that is identifiable. I also ensured that humour was a key ingredient as expectations from the participants indicated this was appealing.
8 Due to the submission requirements of this Masters this subplot was removed.
42 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
5. Concluding Remarks
5.1 Reflection
Although a comprehensive grounded theory resulted from this research, the full extent of the research method on my own creative practice is most evident in the changes to the creative piece that have occurred since I began the study. Initially, my outline for the creative piece was structured from ethnographic observations of current high school students and my own high school experience, which concluded twenty years ago. My premise incorporated a boy who was being pressured by his best friend to use Rohypnol on a girl to have sex with her at a party. However on the morning of the party the boy is transported back to the shores of Gallipoli and into the shoes of his great-great grandfather. The boy then lives out the Gallipoli
Campaign before another time-slip ensures he returns to the present just before he has to go to the party. The ANZAC experience has matured him and given him the self-confidence to confront his friend and the feelings he has for the girl.
However as I began my research of library materials (Glasner & Strauss
2011) I came to the conclusion that although it is not unheard of for high school students to drug other people’s drinks, I felt that it was something that the adolescent male reluctant readers wouldn’t relate to. In my analysis of current YA texts I didn’t encounter any similar novels and at this stage I began to reshape the premise of my narrative, and allow it to be formed by the qualitative data elicited in the interviews.
Authors, and even popular authors, such as Melvin Burgess, may write using outdated experiences, but I wanted my work to be as theoretically informed as possible to ensure that when presented in the debate regarding what books and boys should be and do, my creative piece and my theory are informed, not by the
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 43
stakeholders with an interest in CYA, but by the readers. In saying this, I acknowledge that the platform stakeholders argue from is often in terms of appropriate content (I am a high school teacher), but my argument for appropriate content is based on what current adolescent male reluctant readers want.
Through the interview process I was further able to test the ideas I had for my creative work before I began writing. The boys informed me that they didn’t want a time-slip, or a fantasy novel and that the most engaging narrative would be structured from an adventure that although unlikely to happen, could happen. However, when asked what could constitute a good adventure for a narrative none were able to provide me with a plot. As such I had to draw from my key findings the idea of a romance, and a boy’s courtship, within a family relationship that is strained. The setting and the surfing/lifesaving themes arise from my own adolescence and experience as a lifesaver. The problem, overcoming the pressure from others, was something that I drew on from my own adolescence. In the extended version of the narrative I am able to add the plot of a film production coming to town to make a movie about his father’s life and this addresses the notion of an adventure that, although unlikely, could happen. What teenage boy wouldn’t want to be in a film?
5.2 Limitations of the Study
In shaping my study it was necessary to make several pragmatic decisions. The first was in the positioning of the study with the argument that boys don’t read because there are not appropriate texts for this audience (Parry 1996; Owen 2003), and they could be engaged with an appropriate text. There are many reasons why boys choose not to read and the evidence that two of my participants did not continue with the study, without any explanation as to why, demonstrates the fickle nature of this
44 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
sample group. Secondly, I used Hinton’s argument to support the selection of all three case studies rather than comprehensively addressing other arguments such as the various definitions of a ‘problem novel’. I did read Burgess’s Doing It and felt that although it could reflect the lives of some students, it lacked a sufficient narrative to engage the readers and to present a realistic view of adolescent society
(Butts 2010). My findings, regarding opinions that indicate a narrative must move the story and not allow themes to drive it, support Gwynne’s statement (2012) and in
Duende I ensure that themes arise as the protagonist pursues his main desire and deals with the pressures put upon him. However, without a qualitative inquiry with
Doing It as a case study book, the readers have not been able to present an opinion on such an explicitly sexual novel, and a wider study with similar texts and a more diverse mix of readers may have provided contrasting opinions. From the boys’ opinions on the nest it is possible to extrapolate their experience with the themes of drugs and sex, and at the same time acknowledge the range of boys within the category of adolescent male reluctant readers. David’s response was that he had little experience with the themes, whereas Paul thought that the seventeen year old’s overtly sexual behaviour was more indicative of girls he had known when he was sixteen.
Another limiting factor is the connection I had with the participants. While this relationship provided many beneficial contributions through the discourse with the participants, it did become obvious that they enjoyed the attention I gave them by hand selecting a ‘special book’. This process ensured they felt that I, through knowing them, had chosen a book specifically for them. While another study where there is no pre-existing connection between researcher and participants would produce different results and possibly not as rich responses, this process has
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 45
highlighted a productive strategy for encouraging boys to read.
5.3 Addressing the Research Question
The mixed-method approach used in this study proved to be a suitable framework in which to develop a solution to the research question (what do you want to read?) and structure a grounded theory that encompasses library materials and field studies
(Glasner & Strauss 2011). The epistemological choice of Hinton’s argument to select the case studies was a successful process and the opinions elicited were rich and insightful. The synthesis of these led to the formulation of a new theory, and an answer that is not that dissimilar to Hinton’s 1967 argument; especially when placed in the context of the changes adolescents have been subjected to in recent decades.
Its foundation is very much a reflection of today’s youth.
Adolescent male reluctant readers want to read about female
relationships and family conflict within a story that consists of an adventure
that, although unlikely to happen, could happen.
5.4 Contributions and Future Directions
My grounded theory on what reluctant readers want to read establishes a new framework for creating engaging and appealing fiction for young adults. The process of developing the theory through research with adolescent male reluctant readers contributes recent, and informed data, to the debate on what books for boys should be and do; and, in application of the theory, I support this study with my creative artefact.
The four research participants who completed the study enjoyed reading the
46 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
books and the process of providing their opinion. However, one main limitation, which subsequently led to acknowledging the range of reluctant readers, was the process of providing the right book for the right reader and the positive connection this created as evidenced by Jason’s lack of engagement with Jarvis24 and David’s lack of connection with the nest. This process concluded with my research and while
David was able to finish high school now having read four books, when asked whether he would continue to read in the future he answered, ‘I don’t usually peruse books, it’s usually in this manner: books that have been referenced to me, that people have suggested reading. But if I went looking for more books it would be these kind of books that I would be looking for.’ Richard also said in response to continuing to read, ‘I’m not going to go out and pick up a book and go “that looks good”, I need someone to recommend it to me.’ In the future, studies could be explored to determine if it isn’t the reader or the book, but rather the process in which the reader is informed about the book.
6.4 Concluding Remarks
Despite presenting findings that indicate what adolescents (especially young male readers) want to read, the argument about what stakeholders think they should read is likely to continue (Aronson 2001). Considering the three novels used in this study were all published in the same year but it was Jarvis24 that was awarded the book of the year for older readers by the Children’s Book Council (2010) validates the divide between stakeholders and readers, especially considering Jason said ‘it felt as though the author wrote Jarvis24 to simply “write a book”.’
Through this research I hope to give a voice to these ‘reluctant’ readers and to encourage the stakeholders to be guided in their decisions about what books for boys
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 47
should be and do, by the boys themselves.
In conclusion, no grounded theory can be accepted without being verified.
The following creative artefact, Duende, was given to Jason, perhaps the most opinionated of the boys to read and his review is included in the appendix; however when asked to sum it up in in one sentence, he said, ‘it feels like an adventure.’
48 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
PART TWO – CREATIVE ARTEFACT
Duende
A Young Adult Novella by
Loch Pollard
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 49
This creative price accompanies an exegetical work titled The Lost Boys:
Creating Engaging and Appealing Fiction for Young Adult Reluctant Readers
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Duende (30,310 words)
© Loch Pollard 2013
This work is entirely fiction and where any recognition is perceived between a reader and a character or event, it is purely circumstantial.
50 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Acknowledgements
To the boys who told me what they wanted in a book.
You know who you are.
Thank you.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 51
Duende
Noun: a quality of passion and inspiration; a spirit.
52 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Chapter One
‘Keep Penis Clean Or Friend Gets Sick,’ I said.
There was silence, the kind of silence that forebodes trouble and I wondered what the problem was. Behind me a couple of people laughed, then a few more, until the whole classroom was bursting with laughter.
Beside me, my best mate, Andy was in hysterics; he was laughing so hard that he was holding his stomach. We’ve been friends since the first day of high school and I’d only seen him laughing like this on a couple of occasions. I must have said something hilarious.
My ears, neck, and face were burning red. I racked my brain trying to remember what I’d said. I knew I’d been daydreaming.
I’d been entertaining a particularly lurid scene where I was on the beach with
Valentina, the new international student from Chile who was so much hotter than any of the other girls it wasn’t funny, and who didn’t have bags of ‘tude.
I turned around to see if she was laughing.
In the back row she was laughing and holding Charley, the girl who, until
Valentina turned up, considered herself to be the hottest girl in school.
They were giggling together, grasping each other and trying to laugh harder than the other. As Charley snorted with laughter, she resembled a creature from the depths of the ocean.
It was reassuring to know that Valentina laughed with dignity, her green eyes sparkling with life. I added that image for inclusion in the next instalment of my beach fantasy.
What had I said?
Mr Bunce had asked the class a question and nobody had answered. As usual
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 53
he had picked on me, knowing I would have done the homework. I was the top student in the class, the year and the school.
Last year I’d won every subject award. I got straight As, and my ambition to do medicine next year was known to everyone across the grade, school and administration.
The principal, who more than once had called me the school’s shining star, regularly pulled me out of class to do photos for the local rag or meet with some visiting person of importance.
I wouldn’t say I was at the principal’s beck and call, after all, this was Kingy, where the local rag was used to wrap fish guts and the visiting people of importance were usually Sydney wankers from the Department of Education. Plus, it was my last year of high school and I had to fully focus on my studies.
I usually answered all Mr Bunce’s questions, well not always; often someone would try and say something funny in an attempt to get the class to laugh. It seems for once I’d managed to do it, yet for the life of me I couldn’t remember what I’d said.
Whatever it was, the class was still in raptures and even Mr Bunce was leaning on the desk staring down at the floor and covering his eyes.
Behind him on the board were the letters: K, P, C, O, F, G, and S. I knew they stood for the Taxonomic Rankings: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family,
Genus, and Species. Perhaps I had answered that. But surely that wouldn’t cause the class to break into hysterics?
Then I swallowed as I remembered what I’d read on the Internet: a particularly funny way to remember the Order.
Slowly as if suspended in disbelief I turned around and surveyed my
54 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
classmates. A feeling of dread came over me as if I’d just made myself look like a complete fool.
They were all still in some state of disarray. Stayne, the self proclaimed
‘champion’ of our year and whose head resembled a bull with its crew cut, flat face and fat round nose had stood up and walked over to the bench to pull himself together. Valentina and Charley were still holding each other, refusing to stop laughing until the other one did.
‘Ahem,’ said Mr Bunce trying to get the class back together but only managing to break into chuckles again.
‘Right.’ He said as he took a deep breath. ‘That was very funny, Leo. It seems that finally someone has managed to crack a joke. Who taught you that mnemonic?’
‘I read it on the Internet, sir.’
‘Well I’m sure no one will forget it now.’ He rapped the duster on the desk and waited for silence.
‘Now class, I’m sure we appreciate Leo’s joke and I hope it actually instils in you some desire to learn this material. Well done for going beyond the homework. I was actually referring to the Taxonomy of Biology. Where K stands for?’
‘Keep,’ said Stayne and the class broke into laughter again.
Mr Bunce smiled wryly as he stared at Stayne and waited for him to look up.
‘I’m waiting. We’re all waiting.’
Mr Bunce was a good teacher, well liked by nearly all the students. He wasn’t one of those teachers who tried to be your friend or treated you like a twelve year old.
‘Still waiting,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, Mark, if you had done some homework you might have been able to crack a funny instead of stealing someone else’s joke.’
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 55
Mark Stayne snorted and glared back.
‘Perhaps if you had done your homework you would know what it means,’ continued Mr Bunce as he flicked on the PowerPoint. ‘Copy them down. Kingdom,
Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. King Phillip Cuts Open Five
Green Snakes. Or use Leo’s mnemonic. And I’m sure I don’t have to remind you boys to pay attention to the practical application of that particular memory device.’
‘Ugh, that’s gross,’ cried Charley.
That was one thing no one liked about Mr Bunce, he never missed an opportunity to get some sex education into a lesson. Well not everybody, I think that was the reason why Andy studied biology. He loved dissections and had an unhealthy fascination with the human body that went so far that he offered to pop other people’s zits.
Mr Bunce chuckled at Charley’s reaction. ‘Make sure you shower every day and clean everything. Girls and boys.’
‘Sir!’
56 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Chapter Two
I was glad it was my last year at Kingy High. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed school, it was just part of the process. I sat in the front row, I asked questions, I studied. I didn’t go to socialise or to play sport; I went there so I could get into a university in
Sydney or Brisbane to study medicine.
For that trouble I was marginalised by the majority of my grade who struggled to pass, and who didn’t have a game plan for when they finished school. I figured for most of them high school would be the highlight of their life and they would live the rest of their years talking about it.
Once, in year eleven I joined those ranks when I failed an assignment. It was during a particularly difficult time at home and Dad was causing more trouble than usual.
His mate Billy was back on the Gold Coast after completing a stretch at
Silverwater Correctional Centre for drug dealing and a number of other charges, including assaulting a police officer.
Billy was a drug addict who lived on the wrong side of the law and had spent most of his life in some sort of facility. When he’d been released after the seven-year stint, he had blown through town, picked up my father and headed to the Gold Coast.
As soon as Mum heard, twenty-four hours later, she went up to bring him back. She found him with a massive bruise on his face sleeping off a big night in a jail cell and facing an assault charge.
CCTV would later show that it was Billy who had done the assaulting, and
Dad had done the falling over and hitting his head on the concrete when the police had grabbed him.
Dad spent a couple of days in hospital recovering from the head injury, the
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 57
alcohol poisoning and whatever else Billy had persuaded him to take.
The visits to the hospital and the police station (Mum was intent on seeing the
CCTV footage and giving the police every piece of information she had on Billy) were far more interesting than writing an assignment on some boring book about a girl who is always worried about what she is wearing and how she looks, and who bitches about other girls but is then friends to their face.
Apparently the assignment was to analyse her character and her life, but in my slapdash effort the night before, I said she was fake, her friends were fake, her life was fake and she needed to man up, get a job and stop being so spoilt.
Every teacher, the heads of departments, the deputy principals, and the principal had all wanted to know why I’d failed. One of them said I was heading down the same path every teenage boy follows.
If they’d known that instead of doing my assignment I had seen the fruits of that path in the hospital and in the police station, I doubt they would have said that.
Mum was even asked by the principal to come in for a talk, and before I knew it we were all around a table discussing why the school’s top student had failed an assignment. Mum was still upset from the weekend and was reluctant to talk, which led to further snooping into our family issues.
Eventually I’d told them to mind their own business and stormed out. For a while I’d even considered moving down to Sydney to live with my uncle and finishing school at one of the posh private schools down there.
However Billy went back to prison, Dad recovered quickly, life resumed as normal and I decided to stay at Kingy High for my final year; much to the delight of the principal. Since that conversation and hearing through the grapevine that her star pupil might be jumping ship she’d done everything in her power to convince me to
58 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
stay.
One evening she even turned up at our house to apologise, bringing with her a bottle of nice wine. Her efforts had not just ended there because she had it fixed so that my result from that assignment did not count towards my final grade because of
‘family issues’.
This of course made me even more marginalized at school when they found out I got special treatment. My colleagues had long forgotten about the front-page newspaper article of my father’s night in jail.
Some kids are really into school and things, like the school captains, the sports captain and the people involved in the school play. School is their life. But I sometimes wonder what happens after school, when it’s all finished and there is no one to tell them what to do, where to be and to punish them if they don’t do their homework.
I see past students just wandering around town, not really doing anything.
Sometimes they even come back to school just to see the teachers in the hope of finding someone who cares. Really, what kind of loser does that?
Besides a requirement for getting into university, school hadn’t meant anything else until a week ago when Valentina had knocked on the classroom door and knocked the breath out of me.
She was unlike any girl I’d ever seen in real life. When I looked at her, when she spoke with her cute South American accent, even when I thought of her, my pulse increased and I felt movement in my pants. I’d never had a teddy bear but I just wanted to hold her like one and never let go.
After biology we had morning tea. Andy and I went to our usual spot near the
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 59
tuckshop. He always bought his lunch, even though his mum didn’t work. She never made him any and he couldn’t be bothered to make it himself.
Sometimes when he was halfway through his hot dog or meat pie he would look at my sandwich and offer to swap. I’d learnt pretty quickly that it wasn’t a token of generosity but rather the hotdog would be tasteless or the meat pie would be cold.
I was sitting at one of the benches in the courtyard that surround the tuckshop while Andy was getting food when Stayne, Valentina and Charley turned up. Charley and Valentina joined the tuckshop line and Stayne sat down beside me.
‘Ha ha, that was funny in class today Leo-nerdo. Must be good to finally be a geek and be funny. You’ll probably never have sex until you’re married, so I guess it doesn’t apply to you.’
‘Whatever, Stayne.’
‘Have you ever even seen a condom?’
He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m going to teach you something real,’ he said as he pulled out a condom.
I looked around to see if there were any teachers nearby, but as usual they were avoiding playground duty.
I went to close my lunch box, but Stayne grabbed my banana.
‘Give it back,’ I said.
‘Oh, give it back,’ squealed Stayne. ‘Hang on. I’m gonna give you a lesson more important than what you learn in books.’
He ripped open the corner of the condom packet with his mouth and spat the corner away. He took out the rubber and put it on the tip of the banana.
‘You always got to make sure it goes on the right way.’
60 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
He stuck it into my face.
‘Is it on the right way?’
I tried to grab it, but he was too quick for me.
‘Is it on the right way?’ he asked, staring at me.
As if I was going to tell him about my practices of putting a condom on in the privacy of my own bedroom and admitting to having once put it on the wrong way.
‘Piss off Stayne,’ said Andy who had gotten his food and was standing above him.
Andy was smaller than Stayne but he wasn’t afraid of him. They were both in the football team and Andy was the captain.
‘Wait up,’ said Stayne. ‘You need to turn it over.’
Andy kicked him in the leg. ‘That’s my seat.
‘Hang on! I’m just giving Leo-nerdo a practical lesson here.’
I turned away, hoping a teacher had finally materialised, and saw Valentina and Charley watching and giggling. I felt my face turn purple and I clenched my jaw.
Stayne turned the condom over and rolled it smoothly down the banana.
He spat on it.
‘Always got to lube it up before you stick it in.’
He made a semi-closed fist with his left hand.
‘Then you jam it,’ he laughed.
He pushed it into the cavity he had formed with his hand and then squeezed really tightly, so that inside the condom the skin cracked and banana oozed out of the bottom.
Then he dropped it in my lunch box and walked off.
I didn’t want to look up to see if Charley and Valentina were still watching.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 61
‘He can be such a cock,’ said Andy.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m telling you mate, if you stand up to him he’ll fold. He’s a big pussy. He can’t tackle and he can’t handle the pressure. He always throws a wild pass before he gets tackled. The only reason he’s in the team is because he’s big, but there are guys half his size who have heaps more ticker.’
‘Yeah,’ I mumbled. Stayne might have been a pussy, but he was a lot bigger than me.
62 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Chapter Three
Andy’s a couple of months younger than me but acts about thirty. The only reason he’s at school is to play football and perve at the girls. He doesn’t come to school much since he’s at TAFE one day a week and usually works one day for his old man. His dad owns a couple of tyre shops in the Tweed area and Andy’s already guaranteed a full time job next year that pays more than the Australian average. He’s worked there every Saturday since I’ve known him and is genuinely crazy about tyres.
If we walk down a street he’ll look at every parked car and tell me what tyres they have. He loves to find a car that has four different tyre brands. One time we came out of a café and a car was parked which he noticed had two different tyres so he walked around the other side and sure enough it was a bitsa, that’s what he calls cars with four different tyres.
While he was checking it out the owner came back and thought Andy was stealing his car and yelled at him. But Andy could sell a lie to a politician and he did the deal for four of the latest Bridgestones right there and then. The guy even drove to the garage to get the new tyres put on straight away and we went with him to make sure he got Andy’s special deal, which also included Andy’s dad slipping us thirty bucks to go to the movies.
After school I was giving Andy a lift home since I had a car and he didn’t.
Although it was actually my dad’s, but he lived on the boat and was drunk all the time anyway so he couldn’t drive it. In fact even when he was sober it wasn’t a very good idea for him to be in control of a vehicle. So I got exclusive use of it; and if I had gone to school in Sydney I wouldn’t have been able to take it.
And it just wasn’t any old car. It was a 1974 Holden Sandman Panel Van and
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it was the coolest car in the school parking lot, the city and probably all of NSW and
Australia. It was as much a legend as my old man and Captain Cook.
Andy walked around the car and inspected the tyres. He’d been away over summer and hadn’t been in my car for a couple of months.
‘Is the car pulling to the left a bit?’ he asked, running his fingers over the front left tyre.
‘Yeah, why?’
‘You need a wheel alignment.’
‘You can tell that by looking at the tyres?’
‘Yeah, you can see where the tread is uneven. You’re going to need a new set soon.’
I was cautious of Andy trying to sell me something I didn’t need. He might not have been too academically inclined but he had good business skills and the personality to go with it. He would even keep tabs on the teachers’ cars and remind them when they needed a new set of tyres.
‘So,’ he said as we were driving out of the school gates. ‘You going to give that chick the opportunity?’
‘Which chick?’
‘Pleassseeeee… that one you’re drooling over in biology, the new chick,
Valerie or something.’
‘Valentina.’
Andy gave me a sideways glance. ‘She needs the opportunity. You could give her the opportunity in the back of this. Be a good wholesome Australian experience for her. She’d be able to go back to Spain.’
‘Chile.’
64 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
‘Whatever. She’d be able to go back and tell her friends. Maybe take a photo draped over the bonnet.’
He spread his legs and lifted up his arms and thrust out his torso. ‘Oh Leo, you’re the man of my dreams. I want you so bad.’
‘You’ve been smoking too much hooch, man.’
‘You’re the one saying there are no chicks at school who are pretty and smart.
She’s both.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Maybe at my party you can get a few drinks into her, loosen her up.’
‘I’m not drinking.’
‘What?’ he sat up and turned to me. ‘Dude, serious?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got the state cross-country championships the week after.’
‘Oh man.’ He shook his head. ‘You need to get your priorities straight. This car is made for giving chicks the opportunity. If I was driving this I would have given plenty of chicks the opportunity.’
‘You’ve had sex once. And you were so drunk you don’t even remember what it was like.’
‘Once more than you amigo.’ He drummed the dashboard. ‘I’ll buy it from you.’
‘It’s not for sale.’
‘Ten grand.’
‘It’s worth more than that.’
‘What? Not with all the rust.’
‘I can’t sell it anyway. It’s Dad’s.’
Andy laughed and glanced over the seat in the back of the van. ‘Besides, do
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 65
you really want to be driving around in the car you were conceived in?’
‘We don’t know that for sure.’
‘Turn it up. Your mum and dad drove around Australia the year before you’re born with two boards on the roof and a mattress in the back. And you want to question that?’
‘Maybe it was on the beach.’
‘On the beach, in the car, on a park bench. Who knows? But one thing is for sure, your dad got laid plenty in this car. You have to uphold the legend.’
I gripped the steering wheel. Even if he was my best mate, hearing about my dad’s sexual conquests was not exactly the most pleasant conversation.
‘Imagine giving her the opportunity. Picture it mate.’
‘Maybe.’
He laughed. ‘Man, she is well beyond the reaches of us mortal men. Even old
Bunce can’t keep his tongue off the floor. And Stayne has hit a new level of showing off. I heard him telling her he is the best surfer in town and offering to teach her.’
‘Cocksucker.’
‘For sure, but hey. You got to make the opportunity to take the opportunity.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You should take her surfing.’
‘Nah.’
‘If you don’t, someone else will. Someone like Stayne.’
‘This is a big year for me. I’m not going to have any time. The teachers have already given us so much work.’
Andy shook his head. ‘When was the last time you were on a board?’
‘Couple of years.’
66 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
‘I’m just saying mate. You’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt with.’
I shrugged and concentrated on steering around a kangaroo that hadn’t quite made it across the road and was now roadkill.
Andy lives in Casuarina on the other side of Cudgen Creek in the new developments that have gone up since the nineties. That’s where all the rich people live. The houses are all nice and new, the roads well maintained and the people all have new cars. Those of us who don’t live there call them the snobs. And the people who live on this side of the creek, who’ve descend from the first residents of Kingy, are the real locals.
But even still, it wasn’t that far to Andy’s place, even if it was in the opposite direction to my joint.
‘I bought Medal of Honour Space Invasion while we were in Paris,’ he said as I pulled up in front of his house. ‘It doesn’t come out here for another month. You want to check it out?’
‘Nah, I’m going to go home for a run.’
‘Man, that’s way too much effort. What about Sunday, you want to come for a fish?’
‘Yeah, actually, I can’t, I’ve got to help Pop with the first aid for the surf club championships.’
‘You sure you can’t get out of it?’
‘I promised Pop. You know he loves the club.’
‘Just tell him you’re studying.’
‘Yeah, and when he finds out I ditched him to go fishing with you he’d probably have a heart attack. He’s getting on a bit.’
‘Dude, your life is way too much effort. You sound like you need a holiday.
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A day on the water would do you good. Don’t you just want to say no sometimes?’
It was what I was used to. My weeks were always meticulously planned around school, study, and running. However, there was also extra motivation for helping Pop and that was that I often got to do some first aid. Since I was applying for direct entry into medicine, rather than doing an undergraduate degree first, the experience I would get as a volunteer first aid officer would strengthen my application. But I didn’t want to tell Andy that. I didn’t need him thinking I was anymore of a geek than I already was.
‘It will be a good perve anyway,’ I said.
‘Yeah, true,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘I might even come and give you a hand if the weather is shit.’
He was reading the clouds as if they could tell him what would be happening in two days.
‘All the bloody rain makes the creeks shitty and the old man doesn’t let me take out the Bayliner. Righto.’ He tapped the roof. ‘Thanks mate.’
68 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Chapter Four
On Sunday morning when my alarm went off I first thought it was a school day, then I remembered I had been roped into helping Pop.
Pop is my mum’s dad. He’s been a member of the surf club ever since he holidayed here as a kid. As a teenager he competed for the club and was a champion belt swimmer in the fifties and sixties before he joined the army to fight in Vietnam.
Apparently his lifesaving skills were still put to use over there and he was awarded a
Victoria Cross for saving the lives of several of his men who were drowning in bullets.
I’ve never been told the full story; it’s just spoken about from time to time, mostly by people Pop pisses off. Generally they say something like ‘just because he won a VC he thinks he knows everything,’ or, ‘the old coot still thinks he’s commanding troops.’ Generally they’re right.
When Pop returned from Vietnam he married Nan and bought a service station in Chinderah. He ran it for thirty years before he retired and turned his attention back to the club. He’s been president for as long as anyone can remember and spends more time there than he does at home.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d been there before the sun’s rays had announced the opening of the new day. And he couldn’t have asked for a nicer day for the championships; the vista was like a painting.
The water was a glassy blue with the early morning sun bouncing into it and shattering small diamonds across its surface. A smooth breaking wave rolled into shore carrying some of the super keen clubbies who were getting some last minute practice in.
I found Nan sitting in a foldout chair drinking a cup of tea, keeping out of the
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way. I felt a bit sorry for her because for as long as I could remember she’d been following Pop around the club. She was different from him. He was loud and gregarious, always offering his opinion and giving advice, wanted or not. Nan was quiet and preferred to hide out of the limelight. She seemed to be content if Pop was happy and nothing made him happier than being the Big Dog at the surf club.
Pop was talking to the patrol team for the day and pointing down at the beach.
I assumed he was telling the patrol captain his vision for where the red and yellow flags should be and where the competition area should be.
He saw me coming and beckoned me over.
‘Here he is, the doctor. How are the exams looking?’
‘It’s the second week of school, Pop.’
‘So they’re looking good then?’
‘I don’t know, we’ve got a lot of work already.’
‘Well, we appreciate you giving up your time today. We could have used you in the First Aid competition the other week. We only just missed first place, we lost some points for using the wrong sling. Can you believe it, all these different slings depending on where you hurt yourself? Back in the army we just used a shirt.’
I could feel the eyes of the lifesavers on me, wondering who I was. Didn’t they realize that Pop had finished talking to them and that they were to go?
Perhaps the patrol captain wanted to say something, unaware that Pop’s word was law. Maybe he didn’t know about the VC.
I knew Pop had been disappointed I never followed him into the surf club. As a kid he took me to Nippers a few times and although I’d enjoyed it, once Dad turned up and started taking me surfing I was given a choice between the regimented nature of lifesaving and the freedom of surfing. Between Pop’s “do it my way or else”, and
70 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
my dad’s “who cares” attitude. Considering it was the only time I saw my dad it had been an easy choice. And when he stopped surfing to concentrate on fishing and drinking I started high school and joined the cross-country team.
On Pop’s insistence (and he’d bought me a new computer for my fifteenth birthday) I had completed my training to become a lifesaver. I’d gone to some patrols, and for a while they’d been fun: a new bunch of people, attractive girls running around in swimming togs, people on the beach looking at me respectfully.
But school and running had gotten in the way. My weekends were full enough as they were without donating my time to sitting on a beach. I did help him out a couple of times a year with first aid when he asked me; however he never phrased it as a question.
‘Right Leo, we might just help set up the barbeque,’ said Pop, which meant I was to get the barbeque and set it up. ‘There are some tables in the shed, all the meat is in the fridge, and the lettuce and tomato needs to be cut up.’
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’d been scammed.
‘Now, I’ve got a couple of helpers for you.’ He looked around. ‘Girls?’
Two girls I knew from school came over, Simone Jones and Natalie Harrison.
They were both wearing singlets and tiny shorts that hugged their bodies like swimming costumes. They were both very toned and with similar beach blonde hair from time spent on the water, they could have been twins.
‘You know my grandson, Leo?’
We all smiled nervously. They were in grade ten at my school. Nice girls, not skanky beach molls or country hippies. They both lived near Andy in nice new houses and I knew they were friends of his sister.
‘I was thinking that you cook bacon-and-egg burgers until ten o’clock for the
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breakfast crowd, and then steak burgers for the lunch crowd. Everything is free, so you’ll have to get cooking.’
‘Free?’ I asked as he walked off.
‘Because everyone helped out at the surf boat carnival, everything today is free,’ said Natalie.
‘Oh.’ I remembered something about the surf boat carnival a few weeks ago.
I’d made sure to be busy that weekend.
‘We’re even getting paid,’ said Simone with a smile.
I knew nothing about being paid. I knew nothing about running the barbeque.
I thought about leaving and going fishing with Andy. I’d be happy to give Pop a bloody heart attack. I’d anticipated sitting in the first aid room reading a book, doing some study, and perhaps tending to the occasional bluebottle sting or sore shoulder.
We set up everything and began to cook. Thankfully the girls made it fun.
They were popular with club members and would talk and laugh with everyone.
When the music played over the loudspeaker they would dance to it and use the tongs as a microphone. There were only two pairs of tongs though and one of them would try to steal mine when they wanted to sing along; it meant that I had to keep holding them. Although the girls would try and pull them from my grip, and as soon as they realised I was ticklish they would tickle me until I let go. I really wanted to give them both the opportunity and I spent the day wondering who my favourite was and comparing them.
Into the afternoon I slaved over the hot barbeque and perfected my steak cooking skills as the club members made good use of the free food. I kept hoping for a first aid case just so that I could get away and have a break.
As it was it couldn’t have worked out any better.
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‘Leo,’ said Simone. ‘You have a patient.’
I turned away from the barbeque with sweat dripping off my face. Beside
Simone stood Valentina and it took me a second to realise who she was. I had only ever seen her in a school uniform and I was trying hard not to look at her green and white bikini top.
‘Oh, hi,’ I blurted, my heart kicking into my rib cage and knocking my stomach into my mouth.
‘Hey, what are you doing? I didn’t know you were in the surf club,’ she said.
‘I’m not,’ I swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in my throat. I’d never actually spoken to Valentina.
‘My granddad is the president and he kind of roped me into helping.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Some sunbaking, but then I got stung when I went for a swim.’
She pulled away the towel from her waist to reveal several welts on her thigh.
My stomach went back to my throat, my heart started beating like a drum at a rock concert. Her thigh was the most beautiful thigh I’d ever seen.
‘Leo, will help you,’ said Simone.
‘Yeah. Sure. Let’s go over to the first aid room. Here, take these Simone.’
I gave her the tongs.
‘Come this way. Are you okay, you’re not dizzy or feeling nauseous?’
‘Nau… what does that mean?’
‘You’re not going to be sick?’
‘No, it just stings.’
Her voice was music to my ears, soft and smooth, not hard on the vowels like
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 73
most of the locals.
‘Is it just on your leg or can you feel the pain anywhere else?’ I asked.
‘No, just my leg.’
Her green eyes were the clearest I’d ever seen, looking up at me from underneath a neatly cut fringe. In my short lifesaving career I had treated many blue bottle stings, but my brain was taking forever to react.
‘Good. Okay then,’ I spluttered. ‘Well, come here and we’ll wash it.’
I turned on the hose and sprayed her leg. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at her breasts. They were an almond brown pushing out against her bikini top. I wished I were wearing sunglasses.
‘You’ve still got a tentacle on your leg. See that thin blue strand,’ I said.
‘Oh.’
‘Come in here.’
I opened up the first aid room and went in. The air-conditioned room was cool and as the door slammed closed behind Valentina I thought about how it was just us.
‘Sit up on the bed.’
I picked up some tweezers and inspected the tentacle. It was right beside her bikini on the front of her leg.
‘Is it all right if I hold your leg?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘We have to ask permission to touch someone. You know.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’
I put my hand on her leg to steady myself. My heart was pumping, her bikini top was right in front of me. Beside my face I could feel her breasts pushing out. I
74 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
wanted to turn and look at them. I steadied myself and got a grip on the tentacle. It came off slowly and I held it up. It was a ten centimetre blue thread.
‘What is it?’
‘A Portuguese Man-of-War, more commonly known as a bluebottle.’
‘It still stings.’
‘Yeah. Hang on, I’ve got something for that.’
I wrapped an icepack in some paper towel and held it against her thigh.
‘It will numb the area and you should be okay in five minutes. But you still shouldn’t run around for half an hour. Some people have a bad reaction to them, but you seem okay. Are you okay?’
She smiled. ‘Yes. Thank you. You’re very professional.’
‘You can hold this now.’
Her hand touched mine as she pressed down on the ice pack. I wanted to hold it tight and never let go.
‘Hey that was so funny what you said in class the other day. You’re funny.’
‘Yeah, I didn’t mean to say that. It kind of slipped out.’
She smiled and her eyes seemed to suddenly shine brighter like a car’s headlights flicking to high beam.
I laughed, although it was more like a relieved chuckle. I couldn’t believe it: she and I were just sitting together in the first aid room.
‘So how are you enjoying school?’ I asked.
‘It’s lots of fun. It’s so different to my school in Santiago. And everything is in English, so it’s hard to understand all the teachers. But I really like the subjects and the school and the town. It’s all exciting.’
I sat down and watched her just to make sure she wasn’t off colour or
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suffering any other affects. Some bluebottle stings can be quite serious, but she was okay, more talkative than she was in class and although I knew she was shy she didn’t seem uncomfortable or embarrassed. Her eyes were mesmerising, pulling me into a magical world.
‘Leo!’
‘Oh, sorry, what did you say?’
‘This is cold.’
‘Okay, just take it off for a second.’
I stood up and felt her thigh with the back of my hand; it was very cold.
‘The ice numbs the pain, but sometimes the ice can burn your skin if it is too cold. How is it feeling?’
‘Better.’
‘Okay, just hold it on for a bit longer. Usually it takes about ten minutes.’
I didn’t want her to ever leave.
‘Are you here with anyone?’ I asked.
‘I was supposed to be meeting some people but they didn’t turn up.’
‘Oh, who?’
‘Charley and her cousin, Mark.’
‘Oh.’ I couldn’t believe she was hanging out with Stayne and Charley outside of school. ‘So how did you get here?’
‘With Simone. She’s my homestay. They’re so nice. And she is so cute, she’s like my little sister.’
‘Are you going to join the surf club too?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I saw Simone bodysurfing the other day. She’s so good. I could never do that.’
76 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
She laughed gently, running her hand over her hair to make sure it was still pulled tight by the white bow. I noticed how soft and shiny it was. There was a little patch of sand on the side and I wanted to brush it off.
‘Do you play sport?’ I asked, risking a peek at her breasts.
‘Not really. I used to play football.’
‘Football, really?’
‘Soccer.’
‘Ah, okay.’
‘Everyone in Chile plays football. It’s very popular. Much more popular than here. If you go to a beach in Chile there are always people playing football.’
‘We play beach cricket.’
‘I have heard of cricket. But I haven’t seen it. Someone said it is like baseball.’
‘A little.’
‘Do you play cricket?’
‘No. I run cross-country.’
‘I used to run. But not for a while.’
‘You should come to training. Anyone can come,’ I said. ‘The school has a training session on Monday afternoons.’
‘And anyone come down?’
‘Yeah sure. Mr Stafford is the coach. It’s good fun. You should come.’
‘Mr Stafford?’
‘Our maths teacher. We’re in the same class.’
‘Yes, yes I know. I hate maths. It’s so much harder.’
‘I can give you a hand if you want.’
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 77
The door opened. Simone peeked her head in.
‘Leo, we need your help. The burgers are burning.’
‘Okay.’ I stood up. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Much better, thank you.’ Her smile shot through me like a laser into my heart with a drug that put me up with the gods. I would have done anything for that smile.
‘Do you want a burger?’ asked Simone.
‘Yes please.’
‘Okay. Leo, you need to cook some more burgers.’
It didn’t matter that I was spending all my Sunday slaving over a hot barbeque I was in LOVE and on cloud nine for the rest of the day. From where I stood over the barbeque I could see her sunbaking and reading a book and my mind kept formulating questions I wanted to ask her. The first one being where was Chile, was it beside heaven?
I planned to go down to say hello when I finished but soon after Pop came over, opened his wallet and took out two fifties for Natalie and Simone and let them go. I watched them run off with Valentina for a swim, leaving me to pack everything away.
I didn’t feel so bad that I wasn’t getting paid if Pop was paying them out of his own pocket, and besides I’d had a pretty good day. The image of Valentina in her green and white bikini sitting on the first aid bench was imprinted in my mind and her smile of thanks was sewn into my heart.
78 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Chapter Five
It was late afternoon by the time I’d finished packing up after the club championships and driven the short trip home.
I turned into our driveway and found Dad leaning over the lawn mower in the front yard. He stood up quickly, losing his balance and gripping the handle of the mower to steady himself. The lid of the petrol tank fell out of his hand onto the ground.
Dad mows the lawn every Sunday afternoon. He’s been doing it for the last five years, ever since he bought the Red Roo from Pop, moored it in Cudgen Creek, and became a very accomplished beer drinker and a pathetic professional fisherman.
The only thing he does worse than fish is mow the lawn. He’s quite possibly the worst lawn mower man in the world. There are always patches of unmown grass left strewn over the place and he has no method in his mowing other than to walk randomly across the grass.
I usually try and have a chat with him when he is here. Sometimes it’s pretty hard to maintain a conversation with him though as he doesn’t really follow one train of thought. He kind of jumps from one thought to another; and if he’s had a big night previously he’s often pretty spacey.
He always asks me if I’ve seen his mates, Billy and Horse (the butcher). He’s known them ever since he was a kid. The three of them used to dominate the surf break. Dad was the best. He and Billy went on the pro tour for a few years in the nineties. They did pretty well from it. Dad earned enough to buy this house and to taste some drugs. Then he met Mum and she was good for him for a while, but when
I was born things started to go askew. He even went back on the tour for a year, and followed that up by jumping on the tow-in surfing revolution and moving to Hawaii
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for a while.
When I was in primary school he lived on the Gold Coast and was surfing regularly and even taking me out occasionally but often we wouldn’t see him for weeks. Then about the time I started high school he stopped surfing, bought the boat, moored it in the creek, and took up drinking and fishing full time. It made Mum happier because he wasn’t doing any drugs but I quickly realised that other fathers didn’t go and live in Hawaii or do drugs on the Gold Coast and I kept telling her to leave him, but she wouldn’t and I came to realize she never would.
Mum and Dad are more separated than divorced, although I’ve never seen
Mum go on a date with anyone else.
Usually after Dad has finished mowing the lawn he and Mum have a drink together and I see my dad like I guess he was when Mum met him. Then he’s charming and fun and nice. Around town people regularly ask me if I’m his son, and they’re rather surprised when I say yes.
He’s the local legend and local looney all in one.
There’s a surfing photo of him hanging in one of the cafes along the front. It’s from 1998 when he won the Hawaiian Big Wave International and just looking at the wave makes me quiver with fear.
Dad is off with the fairies, but at least the lawn gets mown. Not that it needed to be mowed. It was mowed the week before. And the week before that. Mum gives him $200 for mowing the lawn. Theoretically it should take about twenty minutes but Dad seems to take anywhere between an hour and four.
I said a brief hello as I went inside to shower away the smell of barbeque smoke.
He finished mowing out front, at one stage disappearing up the street for half
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an hour leaving the mower idling on the lawn, and eventually came in and sat down.
I could smell petrol and grass on him.
‘Got to go and get some petrol so I can do the back yard,’ he said.
Mum snorted. ‘It’s dark. That can wait ‘till next week.’
Dad hung his head like a little boy caught out.
Mum plopped a glass of water on the table. ‘Drink it.’
He looked at her and then at the glass.
‘You got something stronger?’
‘Drink it!’
Dad picked up the glass as if it was kryptonite and took a sip. ‘Ugh,’ he groaned.
He put it down shakily. ‘Tasteless.’
‘Drink it all and I’ll give you a beer,’ said Mum.
That made him smile and he looked at me and winked. ‘Cold beer after a hard day’s work, you can’t beat that can you?’
‘You call that a hard day’s work? I had two people call in sick today and I had to wait on tables, and finalise the order for next month,’ groaned Mum.
‘Sounds like somebody needs a beer,’ said Dad, giving me a grin.
He picked up the glass and skolled it. ‘Christ,’ he exclaimed as he slammed it down. ‘What do you call that?’
‘Water.’ Mum filled it back up.
‘Ah, love.’ But Dad knocked it back, spilling half of it down the front of his shirt.
The water brought him around and Mum clipped him over the head. ‘And if you ever go sniffing petrol again I’ll find someone else to mow my lawn.’
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For some reason that got Dad giggling and he almost slipped off the chair onto the floor before managing to sit upright and finish the water. This time he kept hold of the empty glass.
‘Three beers.’
‘Three?’
‘You, me and Grom.’
Dad calls me Grom, or Grommit or Little Grom, or Little G, or LG or The
Grom. I don’t think he’s ever called me Leo or Leonard. I doubt he actually knows my real name.
I do know his name is on my birth certificate: Jonathon Ignatius Simeon
Hamilton, which is comforting to know I do have a father; but irritating when I want to disown him.
Mum named me and allowed Dad to choose a middle name but he never got around to it, so my name is Leonard Hamilton. It can be quite confusing filling out forms and I’ve gotten to the point where in the box for middle name I write: no middle name.
‘I’m sure Leo’s got homework to do,’ replied Mum. (She doesn’t like the name Grommit.)
‘Homework.’ He looked at me strangely. ‘You still in school?’
‘Yes Dad.’
‘Right. More beer for me then.’
Mum placed a packet of chips on the table and a beer for Dad. She sat down beside him with a beer for herself, held it to her forehead and closed her eyes. Dad rubbed her shoulder and murmured something I couldn’t hear.
I went up to my room and left them alone, allowing Mum to remember the
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times when it was just the two of them and they didn’t have to worry about raising me.
I tried to do some study, wondering if Mum was happy. From down the hall I heard her laughing and it sounded like someone completely different to the person who has brought me up. I thought about the girl inside her and wondered what she was like before I came along. What would she have been like in a normal house without a crazy husband?
Thinking about normal houses made me think of Andy and I rang him.
‘Yo,’ he answered.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Not much. Just got back.’
‘Yeah, it would have been a nice day. I was looking for you out there. How’d you go?’
‘We got a bagful of snapper. I got eight, the old man only got six. And he had two lines in. The cheating old codger.’
I knew he was saying this cause his dad was listening.
‘Yep. And we had a bet, the loser has to clean and gut them.’
‘Nice,’ I said.
It always felt like an imposition when I rang because I never liked asking for help. But it wasn’t unusual for me to ring on a Sunday evening.
‘How’s your old man?’ he asked.
‘The clown was sniffing petrol straight from the mower.’
He almost laughed, but he could tell I wasn’t in the mood.
‘How’s the old girl?’
‘Yeah, she slapped him around and gave him a beer. They’re downstairs now
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having a few.’
‘You want to come over for a feed of fish?’
‘Yeah, that’d be great.’
‘Cool, see you soon.’
‘Thanks mate.’
I hung up and imagined him telling his dad about our conversation. It’s not like I don’t feel safe or welcome in my own home. It just feels that when I came along Dad left, but it’s like he couldn’t really leave Mum. I guess some people aren’t cut out to be fathers and I know if I leave then Mum can relax and not have to worry about me, and she can be that same girl she was when she first met Dad. I know tomorrow evening she’ll be dead tired after work but there’ll be a smile on her face.
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Chapter Six
Andy’s house is like my second home. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve eaten dinner or slept there. But I do know this was the first time I felt the glances from his sister, Emily.
She was two years younger than Andy and I figured there must have been something in the water in Europe because she’d returned two inches taller and two inches bigger in the chest: an accomplishment she wasn’t afraid to show off in a tight singlet.
She sat across from me at the dinner table and was unusually chatty, giving me the full rundown of the trip. It was completely the opposite of Andy’s answer.
When I’d asked him on his first day back how his trip was, he’d replied simply with,
‘Bloody cold.’
Emily and Mrs MacDonald told me detail for detail exactly what they did and where they stayed, providing a rating for each restaurant and an assessment of every hotel. On occasion an argument would develop regarding the name of the hotel or quality and they would discuss it until Mr MacDonald, eyes drooping, was called upon to adjudicate.
Andy and his father could almost have been brothers. They both had small wiry bodies with thin mousey brown hair and beady brown eyes. Andy’s dad had been a star football player in his youth and played a few seasons for the Penrith
Panthers. Word on the street was that they had tried to sign Andy, but he wasn’t interested since it meant moving away from Kingy.
Andy’s mum and dad looked pretty funny together. She was a much larger lady and was also taller than her husband. She walked with a limp that was the result of a car accident many years ago and Andy said this was the reason why she couldn’t
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exercise.
When I’d finished I put my knife in my fork in the middle of my plate. I always tried to remember my manners when I was at their place even though they were bogans like me and Mum, just cashed up bogans living in a nice place. (Andy was on his phone the whole time during dinner.)
‘That was lovely Mrs MacDonald, thank you,’ I said.
‘I caught the fish.’ Andy spoke up from his phone. ‘Dad gutted them.’
‘Yes dear. Well done.’ Mrs MacDonald patted him on the shoulder. ‘Thank you, Leo. It’s always a pleasure. We haven’t seen you for so long. Do you want some more?’
‘I don’t think I could fit anything else in. But it was really lovely, we don’t eat much fish.’
‘Right,’ said Andy pushing his plate away and standing up. ‘Let’s go watch some television Leo.’
I wasn’t really that interested in watching television and opened up my laptop to finish off some homework.
‘Dude, can you stop that?’ asked Andy after a while.
‘Stop what?’
‘Whatever you’re doing. I can’t hear the TV with you tapping away.’
‘I’m doing my English homework.’
Andy stared back at me. I don’t think he’d ever done homework. He said that if you had to do work at home why go to school. You were supposed to work at school. He quite often got an after school detention for not doing his homework, but that was fine by him. As long as it was at school and not at home.
‘I might go into the kitchen,’ I replied.
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He turned back to the television. ‘There’s some ice cream there if you want it.
Macadamia nut. You’re the only one who eats it. Mum only buys it for you.’
I went into the kitchen, helped myself to five scoops of macadamia nut ice cream and sat down at the table with my laptop.
A few moments later Emily came in to get a drink of milk. She was humming to herself and unaware that I was there. As she turned to put the milk back she jumped.
‘Oh, Jesus, I didn’t see you there.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘English homework.’
‘Oh, that reminds me. Do you think you could help me with a maths problem?’
‘Sure.’
‘Cool, come upstairs.’
I followed her up to her bedroom, which from what I could figure was a very teenage girlish type of room, not that I had much experience in these matters. She usually kept her door shut and it was the first time in three years I’d seen inside.
Since then it had changed dramatically, unlike Andy’s, whose wall was still adorned with posters of retired and over the hill football players, a tribute to past greatness. Her wall was covered with pictures of Justin Beiber, One Direction and actors from a vampire series I didn’t recognise, and never would.
A large pink lion sat on her bed watching over the spread out homework through big plastic green eyes. Unlike Andy’s room it was impeccably tidy. Even though there was a neat desk set up underneath a window that overlooked the back
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yard she had chosen to do her homework on her bed with the king of the jungle.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘I can’t seem to do any of these questions.’
I sat on the bed beside the lion. The way she was leaning over, her breasts two inches bigger, stretching against her singlet, gave me the full view of the new assets.
It was hard to focus on the question when a part of me wanted to give her the opportunity.
Her finger was tracing over the page, the nail painted hot pink. I turned the textbook around so I could read it: she was studying trigonometry.
‘The answer says it’s 30 degrees but I can’t get any of them. I’m sure I’m doing it correctly. But the answer I get is always wrong,’ she said.
‘Where’s your calculator?’
‘It was right here.’ She looked over the end of the bed. ‘There.’ As she leaned for it she slid off. I watched her move, feeling something in my pants rising.
‘Got it,’ she laughed gaily as she rolled over and then stood up. ‘Here.’
I took it, our hands touching and the pink nail sending a signal right through me. I knew I needed to get out of there fast.
I plugged in 45 and hit the tan button; it gave me an answer of 1.619.
I held it up. ‘Your calculator isn’t set on the right function.’
She scrunched her brow and put her pink fingernail in her mouth.
‘The way to check,’ I continued. ‘Is to put in 45 and press the tan button. It should always be 1. If it doesn’t come up with 1 it means the calculator is on the wrong setting. Watch.’
I found the mode button and changed the settings from Rad to Deg, plugged in 45, hit the tan button and got an answer of 1. ‘Now if you do them all again it
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should be okay.’
‘Thanks.’ She took it from me as if it was the most precious item in the world. I felt the touch of her fingers and turned to go, pointing my erection away from her, thinking I was going to have walk out fast.
‘Wait, Leo. Let me check.’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me back down.
She bent over and her singlet stretched again. I wanted to pull myself away but I couldn’t.
‘Everything okay?’ asked her mum from the door.
I turned my head so quickly I nearly wrenched it off. My face flushed beetroot red.
Had she seen me staring down her daughter’s top?
Did she see the crane in my pants that could hold up a 747?
‘Ah ha,’ exclaimed Emily. ‘Got it.’ She looked up at her mum. ‘Yes. Leo fixed them for me.’
‘Oh, good,’ she smiled.
‘It’s a problem with the calculator,’ I blurted. ‘She had it on the wrong setting. She had it on the setting for radian mode and not degrees.’
‘Oh. Right. Very good. Thanks Leo, I’m glad you’re here to help.’
I was only there to help.
‘It must be bed time soon, Little Miss.’
‘I have to redo all these now I know how to do them.’
‘Well hurry up.’
She walked off.
‘You know another trick,’ I said, pointing at the page of her notebook where she had written the trigonometry rules.
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‘What?’ Her eyes were as round as the lion’s and I could have told her anything and she would have believed me.
‘Another way of remembering the trig rules is by the saying Sex On Holidays
Can Always Help The Old Age.’
She snorted with laughter. ‘What? Sex On Holidays Can Always Help The
Old Age.’
‘Instead of Some Old Hags Can Always Hide Their Old Age.’
‘Oh, yeah, that’s so much easier to remember. You’re so smart.’
She leant forward and gave me a hug, her arms clamping around my neck, her breasts hanging forward, inches above my boner. You didn’t need to know any trigonometry to know that it was at ninety degrees.
The sweet smell of strawberries wafted up from her hair, fuelling my rock hard perpendicular penis.
From the stairs her mother yelled out for her to hurry up and I untangled myself, stood up and turned for the door. ‘I’ve got to go to the toilet. I’m busting.’
I read a Reader’s Digest article in the toilet about a lost hiker who eats bugs to survive for a week until I could present myself in public and then went downstairs.
Andy was flicking through the TV channels trying to find something. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Helping your sister with her homework.’
‘Homework.’ He shuddered as if the word was poison. ‘The old man will give you fifty bucks an hour to tutor her.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. She wants to be, like, a dentist. But it wouldn’t be worth fifty bucks, man.’
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‘I should do it for free. She’s like a sister to me. You’re family.’
He laughed. ‘Free? Man, you’re crazy. You’ll see.’
I wondered if he’d noticed the interest she’d shown in me at the table, maybe he just figured she wanted to talk about their trip; after all, she was like a sister to me.
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Chapter Seven
The next morning the sound of gentle knocking on the door woke me and it took me a moment to remember where I was. The comfort of the bed and the darkness compared to my room told me I was at Andy’s place. I stretched and felt the stickiness in my boxers.
There was a knock again.
‘Hang on,’ I called.
‘Do you want bacon and eggs, Leo?’ came Emily’s voice.
‘Please,’ I replied.
I heard her bounce down the stairs and call out to her mum. Sitting up I inspected my boxers; it was a big one.
I had a vague recollection of lying on the beach and rubbing sunscreen on
Valentina’s back before a giant Portuguese Man-of-War, with massive breasts, had come out of the ocean and pulled me into the depths to give me the opportunity.
I showered quickly and cleaned myself thoroughly, after all, when the time came for me to give a girl the opportunity I wanted to make sure my gear was all performing at its optimal best.
In the kitchen, the calm of the previous night had been replaced by chaos.
Mrs MacDonald was moving around like a whirlwind, cooking up eggs, mushrooms and bacon, and pouring coffee. Emily was buttering toast and trying to make her lunch at the same time.
‘Morning Leo, how did you sleep?’ asked Mrs MacDonald, seemingly aware of my presence even though she had her back to me.
‘Good, thanks.’ I didn’t think I needed to tell her that she would need to wash the sheets.
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‘You want mushrooms don’t you?’
‘Please.’
‘Coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
‘It’s good shit man, we got it in Paris,’ said Andy accepting a cup from his mum and taking a seat beside me. ‘Better than that Nescafe crap. You should try it.’
‘Nah. Juice is fine.’
Emily smiled as she sat down across from me and placed a pile of toast on the table. Thankfully her swollen puppies were hidden behind the school uniform. ‘Can I ride with you to school?’ she asked gently.
‘What, no way,’ said Andy. ‘Get Mum to take you.’
Mrs MacDonald placed three plates down on the table. ‘Do you mind, Leo?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘Why can’t you do it, Mum? There’s not enough room for all three of us,’ whined Andy.
‘I’ve got an appointment. And besides, why waste petrol?’ She looked at me.
‘You do have three seat belts, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, thank you.’
‘Why can’t she walk? She could do with some exercise,’ continued Andy.
‘Andrew, that’s enough! Don’t talk about your sister like that.’
‘Like what? I’m just saying she needs to do some exercise or she’s going to balloon up.’ He made a balloon with his mouth.
Mrs MacDonald cuffed him over the head. ‘Enough.’
‘It’s just because we were travelling all summer,’ sniffed Emily. ‘And I
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couldn’t do any exercise.’
Piling into my car Emily ended up in the middle, snuggling closer to me than to her brother. I could smell the strawberry in her hair and I tried not to think about her breasts.
I could feel the vibes radiating off her like a force field, and they had an instantaneous affect on my gearstick.
Leaving their house we drove down the street and turned onto Casuarina Way to head into Kingy.
‘Dude, there’s that chick,’ said Andy.
‘Who?’
‘That chick you’re gaga about.’
‘No I’m not,’ I said instinctively, feeling the body beside mine tense.
I glanced at the bus stop. Valentina was leaning against the bus shelter; her leg was bent and the school bag hung from her shoulder. If the school ever needed someone to model the school uniform she was the girl to do it.
‘Stop and we’ll give her a lift,’ said Andy.
‘Where’s she going to sit?’ I asked. Thinking of her jammed up beside me instead of my mate’s sister.
‘Emily can get in the back,’ said Andy.
‘I’m not getting in the back!’
‘You can take the bus or walk then. I don’t care,’ continued Andy.
In the rear view mirror I saw the bus turn the corner. ‘Bus is coming.’
‘She can get in the back then, bro. You know you want her to.’
I put my foot down on the accelerator to end the conversation and the car raced past the bus stop. I caught a glimpse of Valentina’s head jerking up at the
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sound of the engine.
Andy tapped the dashboard. ‘She’s sss-smoking!’
‘Apparently she was Miss Teen Chile,’ said Emily.
‘For sure. I would love to see her in a magazine. Mate, I reckon she’ll be so up for a spread on the bonnet.’ He spread his legs and arms out and thrust out his hips.
‘You’re a sicko,’ said Emily as she was pushed into me, her hand brushing my groin.
I was still trying to put the image of Valentina out of my mind.
‘Oh, sorry.’
My piston flushed with blood and I hunched over the steering wheel to hide it.
‘Move over, dummy, you could have caused an accident,’ cried Emily.
Andy sat up and I hoped he hadn’t noticed Emily’s hand knocking my driveshaft, which was now hard enough to turn a motor.
Emily turned back to me. ‘Sorry, Leo. You’re such a good driver. You’re so much better than my brother.’
‘Turn it up,’ said Andy.
‘What about that time in the shopping centre in Mum’s car when you reversed into the old lady?’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I gave him the once over; we shared everything.
‘And what about when you backed the boat down the side of the boat ramp and had to get Mum and me to come and help youse pull it out.’ She laughed and then giggled, bending over and her hand coming down on my thigh. If she kept doing
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this I was likely to put a blemish on my perfect driving record and drive us off the bridge.
‘Well what about that time in the hotel in Rome when you had your period and put blood all over the sheets, hey?’ growled Andy. ‘You think that’s funny?’
I felt Emily go stiff and the car went quiet. ‘I can’t believe you said that,’ she sniffed.
Finally I had something to subdue the goblin in my pants.
At school there was only one thing on my mind: Valentina. I wanted to ask her about the blue bottle sting; I wanted to ask her if she was an international model;
I wanted to ask her if she needed help with her maths; I wanted to ask her if she wanted a lift home; I wanted to ask her if there was anything she wanted me to do for her.
Even though we had three classes together every time a situation came up where I could talk to her Stayne was hanging around and being an idiot, mostly by picking on younger kids. It wasn’t until after school when we were getting ready for cross-country training that I got to speak to her.
I had gotten changed and was waiting for the coach, Mr Stafford, who besides being the coach and a maths teacher was also the school’s pseudo-chaplain. This was on account of him having apparently been a Buddhist Monk who lived in a monastery in the mountains of Tibet. Considering he didn’t talk much and his beady eyes seemed to jump all over the place it was pretty easy to believe.
As the chaplain he didn’t get many visitors, but he was pretty zealous about his coaching. He always kept a record of what times we ran at training and took delight in comparing them and analysing them, harassing us with questions if we
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didn’t perform well.
When Valentina came out of the change rooms, I nearly had a heart attack. Or rather, I nearly creamed my pants again.
She was wearing a lime green singlet and black bike pants that hugged her body and showed off curves of pure biological perfection. It was like she had walked off the page of a Lorna Jane catalogue.
When she waved and came over to me I felt the eyes of everyone turn. For once I knew what it felt like to be cool.
‘Hey,’ she said.
I could see some of the bluebottle mark running down from under her bike pants and I remembered touching it. My mouth was dry; my head was spinning. She was even more gorgeous than I remembered.
‘Hey. You’ve still got a bit of a mark there,’ I replied.
‘Oh.’ She inspected her leg. ‘Is it okay to run?
‘Yeah. It’s fine. And the mark will go away. It must have been a lot more painful than you said though.’
From under her fringe her eyes examined me and then opened. She brought up her arm and flexed her bicep. ‘I’m tough,’ she giggled.
I thought I was going to die. I wanted to run away with her to a part of the world where there was nobody else.
She pulled her leg up behind her to stretch her hamstring. ‘So what do we do?’
‘Well, there’s a short run of 4000 metres or a long run of 8000 metres.’
‘That’s so far. Maybe I’ll do the small one.’ She swapped legs and I saw the welt stretch.
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‘Yeah, I might do that too. My legs are a bit sore.’ I swung my arms around and jumped up on the spot.
‘Leo,’ called Mr Stafford, bustling down the stairs. ‘Are you ready to start us off?’
‘I’m just going to take it easy today, sir.’
‘What’s that?’ His moustache twitched as he stopped on the edge of the group.
‘I’ve got heavy legs sir, I was just going to do a light jog.’
He raised his eyebrows, which caused his eyes to go crazy and spin around like two out of control lasers. ‘When was your last run?’
‘I ran five k on Friday afternoon.’
He shook his head, his eyes seeming to actually stop and focus on me while the rest of his head moved. ‘Five K! That’s a walk. You need to be doing more than that.’
‘It’s hard, sir, with everything going on.’
‘I know I know. Why don’t you run it out with Jimmy; run into it and try and loosen those legs. Give him someone to pace against and if you don’t loosen up, turn around.’
Jimmy, a year nine boy, perked his ears up at hearing his name and went over to stand beside Mr Stafford. I sauntered over to them, trying to think how I could see
Valentina again.
‘Ready boys? Go!’
I took off in front of Jimmy. I didn’t want to run it through easy. I wanted to run as fast as I could and get back to see Valentina before she left. I ran hard, focusing on my stride and my breathing. I was thinking about Valentina’s body
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contained in the bike pants and singlet. Her hair in the ponytail bouncing around - among other things.
As far as cross-country courses go, ours is pretty good; it has several types of scenery and terrain. The first and last parts are in the rainforest through thick foliage that is tranquil and cool, especially for the end of the run.
I ran like I’d died and gone to heaven and I was a god. I darted through the rainforest and accelerated along the creek and when I came out onto the beach and got the feel of the light breeze on my face I stretched out.
My legs were sore from standing up all Sunday, but with the love drug coursing through my veins I didn’t feel any tightness in my legs.
Jimmy stayed on my heels until we got across the bridge, but then I burned him. I didn’t want to be running with anyone.
When I got back the other group were still recovering and splashing water at each other from the drink fountain. I hit my watch as I came out of the rainforest, and the silence from the younger kids made Mr Stafford look around and then at his watch.
‘Twenty-seven minutes and forty seconds. Great work Leo.’ His eyes focused together on me as he nodded his head like a small toy. ‘They must have been pretty heavy legs.’
‘Yeah,’ I puffed.
‘You took off like a jackrabbit.’
‘Like you said, sir. I ran into it.’
Mr Stafford snorted.
I pulled my water bottle out of my bag and with the endorphins coursing through my body, confidently walked over to where Valentina was recovering on the
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grass.
She looked up. ‘Oh my god, did you really run twice as far as me?’
‘Yeah,’ I said as I slumped down beside her.
‘We only got back like two seconds ago.’
I could feel her checking me out.
‘You really are fast,’ she added.
I sucked on my water bottle. It felt like my chest was going to burst.
‘Can I try some of that?’ she asked. Her accent sending diesel flowing through my body.
I passed my water bottle over and caught a glimpse of her abdominal muscles still pumping where her singlet had ridden up. I wanted to give her the opportunity right there and then.
‘Oh, what is it?’ she said as she sipped and scrunched up her nose.
‘A rehydration solution.’
‘What flavour is it?’
‘Watermelon.’
‘Oh,’ she took another sip. ‘It’s nice. Thank you.’ She handed it back and I took a long suck. I could feel her inspecting me from under her fringe.
‘Did I see you driving to school this morning?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I would have stopped but there was no room. I had Andy and his sister with me.’
‘That’s such a cool car. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
My heart beat as I knew what I had to ask. I could feel the words forming around my tongue but I felt a fear rise up in me. Despite having just run eight kilometres my heart started beating even faster.
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‘I can give you a lift home if you want,’ I blurted.
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you live near there?’
‘No, but it isn’t a problem.’
‘Are you sure it’s not out of your way?’
‘It’s not exactly a big city.’
She laughed. ‘True.’
And despite being exhausted I wanted to get up and punch the air. To dance and jump with joy. Cruising with her in my car would be the ultimate.
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Chapter Eight
As we walked up to my car Valentina was humming to herself. Which was good because I didn’t know what to say, but bad because it was giving me a boner.
‘What’s this?’ she asked as she ran her fingers over the faded decal on the back hatch.
‘It’s supposed to be a mermaid. When I get some money together I’m going to get it repainted.’
She laughed. ‘What kind of car is it?’
‘A Holden Sandman.’
‘A Sandman,’ she whispered. ‘That’s cool.’
‘It was my dad’s. He’s had it for ages. It’s kind of a surfing car from the eighties.’
‘What do you keep in the back?’
‘Not much. Just a mattress and a pillow.’
‘Do you live in here?’ she giggled.
‘Sometimes.’
‘Really?’
‘No, but when Dad and I went surfing we used to sleep in the back.’
‘Like on a surfing safari?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh that sounds awesome. I’d love to do something like that. Do you surf?’
‘Not any more. I used to heaps with my dad. He’s really good. But now I’m more focused on cross-country.’
‘Yeah, for sure. You’re really fast.’
She walked around to the bonnet and I pictured her as Andy described,
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leaning back over it, arms and legs flayed open. Immediately I tried to get the picture out of my head as I felt an instantaneous reaction in my pants. She was wearing very little to start with; her singlet and shorts barely covered anything. I leaned against the side of the car and pressed my goblin against the hot metal.
‘This is an awesome car. You’re so cool.’
Her accent was driving me crazy, she said every word so softly. My head was swimming with the thought of giving her the opportunity.
I felt so nervous as we were driving. I’d never thought of myself as cool. I didn’t wear the latest surfing fashions; I couldn’t fill out a t-shirt like boys such as
Stayne could; I didn’t get drunk every Saturday night; I didn’t show off in front of girls. I didn’t do anything rebellious. Maybe they had a different definition for cool where she came from.
As I started driving towards her place, I cursed under my breath thinking I should have taken her for a cruise along the waterfront, but now it would just look lame if I turned around. Perhaps I would have another chance if I asked her out. But then when I thought of her as Miss Teen Chile, and after what Andy had said about us being normal guys, there was no chance she would go out with someone like me.
He was right; she would go out with professional sportsmen, or models or singers or actors or millionaires. Not underdeveloped high school nerds.
She was humming to the music and I turned it up when a good song came on.
I was grateful for the noise. I didn’t know what to talk about: even though I had so many questions to ask her.
I drove to the bus stop on Casuarina Way and she directed me to Simone’s house. I was nervous the entire way thinking about asking her out. But when we stopped I couldn’t bring myself to say anything and as much as I hoped the words
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would blurt out again, they didn’t.
‘Thanks so much Leo,’ she said.
She turned quickly and before I knew it she had planted a kiss on my cheek and was out the door leaving behind a sweat stain on the seat, an odour of sweat and perfume, and one lovesick teenage boy.
I floated back home on cloud nine with the love drug coursing through my veins. I’d never been so happy in my life. I felt the touch of her lips on my cheek. It had all happened so fast, but it seemed like the more I replayed it in my mind, the more satisfaction I got from it.
When I got home, I talked with Mum for almost an hour. I told her everything
I knew about Valentina and how I’d given her a lift home. Even though Mum was pretty tired from the night before, and evidence of a box of empty beers in the corner indicated that she and Dad had had a good time, she was really interested. We ate a quick dinner of steak (courtesy of the work at the barbeque) and veges before I went to my room to do some homework.
I started on biology but it wasn’t long before I was typing Valentina’s name into the Google search bar. My fingers were shaking as I typed her name; it felt like I was doing something wrong. As if I was invading her privacy without her permission, and if she found out she would be angry and never talk to me again.
There were a lot of hits for her and I read about her winning the Miss Teen
Chile Beauty Contest and coming runner-up in the Miss Teen South America. The winner was a girl from Argentina, and several of the articles related to the fact that she was the niece of one of the sponsors of the event.
Comparing the photos I could tell that Valentina was heaps prettier and her
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body more natural than the winner’s. My heart beat faster as I inspected them; I really felt like a stalker now. In one of them she was wearing the same singlet and bike pants that she’d been wearing in my car only hours ago. If in real life she was gorgeous, in the photos she was sensational. There were photos of her dressed like a cowgirl, wearing formal dresses, there were lingerie shots, even her in a football uniform, and of course, lots of bikini shots.
In one of the photos she was wearing the green and white bikini I’d seen on
Sunday, and she was leaning back against a palm tree, her legs crossed at the ankles and her arms over her head holding onto the trunk. I imagined her sitting on my bonnet, leaning back like that. I couldn’t believe that she was here, in Kingscliff, and she’d been in my car, and she’d called me cool.
I transferred some of the images across to my desktop. It seemed surreal that the same girl who went to our school was leaning up against a coconut palm in a tiny bikini. Some of the shots from behind had her wearing a very skimpy bikini bottom that didn’t cover much. I guess in South America they had different dress standards. I could recognize that she had a stunning body, but it seemed almost like pornography.
I was short of breath just inspecting the photos. It felt like it wasn’t her but it was, and I shouldn’t be looking at the photos. Kind of like Facebook stalking.
I decided my favourite photo was a photo of her jogging along the beach in the green and white bikini. Her hair flowed loosely over her shoulders and she appeared to be more alive in it than in the others; it wasn’t like she was posing. She was staring into the water and possibly thinking of something that made her happy, almost grinning but not quite. It was the same facial expression I’d seen on her when she’d snuck in and given me a kiss. Serious and sexy. I printed the photo so that it would be more conveniently accessible and remind me of the moment we had in the
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car.
‘Leo,’ called Mum from the hall.
I quickly tucked the photo into my textbook and slid further under the desk to hide my joystick.
Mum pushed open the door. ‘Leo?’
‘Yeah.’
Her eyes were red and she sniffed.
‘What’s up?’ I asked, conscious of my heart pounding, my heavy tongue, and the pink snake trying to escape from my shorts.
‘I was just on the phone with Pop,’ she said as she sat down on my bed.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘No. He’s got prostate cancer.’
‘Oh.’
‘He’s scheduled for surgery this Wednesday.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ Mum sniffed.
‘I learnt that if prostate cancer is found early and they cut it out then you’re okay.’
‘Maybe. But surgery is never a certainty.’
‘Did you speak to Uncle Mike?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why don’t you call him? He might be able to tell you more.’
Uncle Mike, my mum’s older brother, is a plastic surgeon in Sydney. He’s married to a pretty, high maintenance woman who loves the Sydney high life and they have three little girls. They rarely came up to Kingscliff, but whenever we go to
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Sydney, usually for the state cross-country championships, we stay with them.
Finding out that your Pop has prostate cancer is a bit of a mood killer, so I went and listened to the conversation between Mum and Uncle Mike. I hadn’t seen
Mum this distressed for a long time and I was glad that Uncle Mike was able to alleviate some of her fears. However, it did sound like the operation was a bit tricky.
I certainly wouldn’t want someone cutting around down near my old fella, especially since I’d never used it to give anyone the opportunity.
But hopefully that would all change very soon.
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Chapter Nine
The next day I had to hurry to make biology in first period. I was still in a daze from the news about Pop and had overslept because I’d watched a late night movie with Mum. I wasn’t used to her being so emotional. Even when Dad was going nutso and she would get angry she would always be in control.
I sat down at the desk and pulled out my textbook. A piece of paper slipped out and I watched it float to the floor wondering what it was.
Stayne was walking past and he leant down to pick it up.
‘Leave it. It’s mine!’ I lunged for it.
With his free hand Stayne pushed me back and snatched up the paper. ‘Fair go bro. I’m just being helpful.’
He turned it over as time stopped.
‘It’s mine. Give it back!’
‘What’s this Leo-nerdo, a bit of something for the spank bank hey?’ he said as he held up the photo grinning widely. ‘She’s all right.’
I could feel the eyes of everyone in the class watching us.
‘Is that…?’ he said, holding the picture closer. He turned to Valentina, who was now watching.
‘Who is it?’ asked Charley.
I saw Valentina’s eyes go wide and her face redden as Stayne held it up.
‘Um,’ I stuttered. ‘It’s not what you think?’
She glared at me.
‘Are you trying to get an autograph?’ announced Stayne as he thrust the photo at Valentina. ‘Sign this for him.’
She grabbed it and pulled it from Stayne’s hand.
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‘No, no. Nerdo needs that. He’s never going to get a girl as hot as you.’
She folded it and put it in her book as Mr Bunce walked into the classroom.
His eyes took in the disturbance. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Leo’s trying to get an autograph from Valentina, sir,’ announced Stayne.
‘He’s her Number One fan.’
The room went silent. I waited for Mr Bunce to ask for an explanation and to then send me to the principal’s office.
‘Today is not the day to test me, Jason. Sit down and open your book.’
Stayne sat and I thanked my lucky stars. Normally I feared Mr Bunce when he was in a bad mood because he would only ask me questions, and if I didn’t know the answer he would roll his eyes and wonder how he could teach biology when no one in the class could understand.
For the entire lesson I could feel Valentina’s eyes boring into the back of my head as I tried to formulate an apology. I kept thinking just how cool I’d shown her I was.
When the lesson finished I took my time packing up my books and tried to catch her in the hallway. As I approached Charley turned around.
‘What do you want, stalker? Leave her alone. As if she’s gonna hang out with a loser like you.’
The hallway went quiet as everyone searched for the recipient of her comments and I hurried out of the building.
I wanted to cry. I’d just killed any possibility I’d ever had with Valentina and now, thanks to Charley, the whole school would know I was a stalker. I started to think about the school in Sydney again.
I went and sat at our normal seat, but Andy was at TAFE and I was by
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myself.
Valentina, Stayne and Charley were on the other side of the quadrangle. But she might well have been back in Chile, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, on another continent that spoke another language and played the wrong sort of football.
I had three more classes with her that day, and each one felt like I was sitting in the waiting room for the dentist. I could hardly focus in any of them. All I wanted to do was talk to her and explain, but I didn’t know what I wanted to say.
The clock had almost reached three o’clock and I was planning to go home and hide from the world when a junior student, holding a slip of paper, knocked on the door.
I knew immediately that I was being summoned to the office. Some premonition told me I’d not seen the end of the debacle with the photo. Valentina had spoken to the principal and now I was being called to the office to be reprimanded.
The teacher took the piece of paper from the student. ‘Leo and Valentina, you need to see Mrs Walker.’
As we went up to the administration building, Valentina walked behind me, refusing to even acknowledge me. I wanted to run and jump in my car and head off, perhaps to a country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. For a moment I wondered if that was why she had left Chile, because some crazy high school boy had been stalking her.
The principal was on the phone and motioned for us to wait in the hall.
Valentina stayed away from me and played on her phone. I tried to think of something to say but I felt like throwing up.
Usually when I went to the principal’s office it was because she wanted me to
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do something for the school - a photo or a meeting with visiting dignitaries - not because I’d stalked someone on the Internet and walked around with a photo of them.
I wondered if I’d get suspended. The school had a big policy on cyber bullying.
Mrs Walker finally finished her conversation about some student who had knocked his teeth out at lunchtime playing football on the oval.
‘Leo, Valentina, come in. Sorry,’ she smiled at Valentina and then at me.
‘Leo, it’s been brought to my attention by Miss Gibson, that you gave Valentina a lift home yesterday afternoon.’
I nodded. ‘It was after cross-country training.’
Mrs Walker smiled. ‘Yes. Very good. Well, Miss Gibson has asked me to tell you that you’re not allowed to give international students a ride in your car unless you have permission from their homestay.’
‘Oh, okay.’
She pulled out a form from her desk and lent over to give it to Valentina.
‘You can put the names of the people who you want to drive with on it. I’m sure Mrs
Jones won’t have a problem with Leo. He’s a good boy and I’m glad you’ve made some friends.’
She smiled back at me. Obviously she hadn’t seen that Valentina had been hanging out with Charley and Stayne.
‘And I wouldn’t have thought that I needed to remind you that when you leave the school grounds, regardless of the time, you still need to be in school uniform.’
She was just warming up to it.
I glanced down at my feet. ‘Yes, Mrs Walker.’
‘Valentina,’ she said with a softer voice. ‘Whenever we leave the school
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grounds we need to be in school uniform. Even if it is after sport.’
‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘That’s okay. I’m sure it must have slipped Leo’s mind.’
Everything had slipped my mind. I’d lost it somewhere in the first aid room.
‘Just make sure for next time.’
‘No problems,’ replied Valentina.
‘Is that everything?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Now I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting. It was a very urgent phone call from a distressed parent. I realise you’ve probably missed the bus,’ she smiled at
Valentina. ‘But as long as Leo takes you straight home I’m happy to let this time slide.’
‘Um,’ Valentina glanced at her watch.
I waited for her to say something about the photo.
‘Are you okay to do that, Leo?’ asked Mrs Walker.
‘Yeah, sure, of course.’
‘Good. Thank you.’
As we walked to the car park, Valentina stayed behind me and focused her attention on sending a message on her phone.
I kicked an empty milk carton as I tried to formulate what to say. I wanted to choose my words carefully so it didn’t sound like I was a stalker, but what could I say?
In the corner behind my car I could see Charley and a few other people hanging around a car owned by one of the guys from Chinderah.
‘Charley,’ yelled out Valentina, and ran off.
I cursed. I’d blown my chance to apologise, and now she was going to get a
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lift with someone else.
I started the Sandman and revved the engine; even though it was going to cost me a couple of dollars in wasted fuel it felt good. I reversed out fast and then slammed on the brakes. Valentina was running towards me.
Thankfully I stopped just in front of her.
She walked down to the passenger side and got in.
‘Are you trying to kill me?’
‘No, I thought you were going with them.’
‘They can’t take me!’
‘Oh, sorry.’
The car was hot from sitting in the sun all day and it didn’t help that
Valentina was as angry as a cornered snake.
‘Don’t you have air conditioning?’
‘No. There’s a fan.’
I turned the fan to max.
‘The air is hot.’ She smacked the dashboard. The glove box fell open and a pile of old service receipts fell onto her feet.
‘This car is a piece of junk.’
So much for it being the coolest car she’d ever seen.
She didn’t say anything more for the rest of the drive and sat rigid as if not wanting to lean back on the sweat-stained seat she’d left behind the day before.
My brain felt like it was being squeezed as I tried to work out what to say. I could feel my heart thumping, but the extra blood flow wasn’t helping me think.
It was as if I was an alien and she was in a spaceship. As we turned into her street I cleared my throat; I had to say something.
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‘I’m really sorry about the photo. It’s not like Stayne said at all. I’m not a stalker. I was just, I don’t know. I’ve never met a model before, especially one from
Chile.’
I stopped the car in front of her house. I was trying to be cool, my thumping heart was echoing in my ears. Was it a good enough apology?
Her face was set in stone, her lips tight together. There was no chance of a quick kiss.
‘I’ve got a revision sheet for the maths test,’ I added. ‘Do you want a copy?’
‘Whatever,’ she muttered opening the door.
‘Here,’ I said, reaching into my bag and pulling out the sheet. She took it and stood there for a moment. I was waiting for her to tell me that I was a weirdo and to stay away from her.
‘I don’t like those photos, I hate the Internet.’ She slammed my door shut.
I sat startled for a moment and then drove home more confused than I’d ever been, and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t need to move to Sydney.
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Chapter Ten
It was hard to sleep that night. Valentina’s statement that she didn’t like the photos was the most perplexing thing I’d ever heard. I lay in bed trying to think why.
Was it because she felt like she was being used? Was it because she thought she looked ugly?
Eventually, after lying restless for three hours, I got up and logged on to the
Internet. I inspected all the photos of her; in none of them did she resemble the girl from my school nor the girl who’d sat moodily in my car and smacked my dashboard.
I kept looking back at the picture I’d selected as my favourite; it was the best one by far, but it still didn’t tell me who she was.
The next day was the day of Pop’s prostate surgery. Even though I didn’t get to sleep until late I still woke up at my normal time. The house was silent and I took the opportunity to make sure there were no problems with any of my equipment.
Then since I’d already gotten my heart rate up, I decided to go for a run along the foreshore.
It was a beautiful spring morning with a light sea breeze, but as soon as I got onto the bike path I regretted it. There were too many people clogging up the path with strollers and bad running styles and I couldn’t get into a rhythm. I’ve never been much of a morning runner anyway; it’s different to running in the afternoons or at night. If I run at night, I think about what I’m doing in the future and plan long term goals; if I run in the afternoons, I always think about what’s coming up, like exams or competitions; but when I run in the mornings, I always think about what’s happening that day and I always turn back prematurely, eager to get started on my day.
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When I got home I could hear the argument from the road. It wasn’t so much an argument, just my mum talking loudly at someone.
My bike was leaning against the garage, and I wondered why Dad had decided to visit so early. He was most definitely not a morning person.
I walked into the kitchen where some bacon and eggs were being neglected in a frying pan. Mum seemed more intent on other things, mainly telling Dad he was an idiot.
Dad was sitting at the table. His eyes had their normal glaze, but he’d shaved and attempted to make something of his hair, combing it back and tucking it behind his ears. I counted five cuts on his face from where he’d nicked himself shaving and covered them with patches of toilet paper.
‘Your father wants to come,’ said Mum matter-of-factly.
I shrugged; it wasn’t any of my business.
‘Well if the old codger is going to bite it, I would like to say goodbye.’
‘John!’
‘What?’ asked Dad. ‘We can go in the Sandman. Be just like old times. The three of us going to see your folks. They loved that car.’
He raised a finger and pointed it at me. ‘Even let you drive this time if you’re a good boy.’
He chuckled and scratched a patch of toilet paper that had soaked red.
Surprisingly he seemed a lot more alert than normal and didn’t smell of booze and fish.
‘They did not love that car,’ snorted mum.
‘You loved it. Did I tell you Grom about that time in Broome?’
‘John!’
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Dad had a wicked grin on his face.
I don’t think I wanted to know. Perhaps Andy was right.
‘Look,’ said Mum. ‘I spoke to Michael, this type of surgery is very common.
They will cut out the cancer and then he’ll be fine.’
‘Michael?’ questioned Dad.
‘My brother.’
‘Oh, that Michael. What does he know?’
‘He’s a doctor.’
‘Oh, yeah. That’s right. Anyway, I wouldn’t want someone cutting around my pecker or my balls. And your old man’s got a big set of brass ones.’
He cupped his hand as if holding a pair of tennis balls. ‘I know we’ve had our differences, but you’ve got to respect a man like your father.’
I had to agree with Dad on that statement.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ Mum tried to change the subject.
‘Yep,’ Dad grinned.
‘What?’
‘Caught a few flathead yesterday. Cooked ‘em up this morning.’
Mum scoffed and put the overcooked bacon and eggs down in front of him.
‘Eat.’
She cracked another egg into the pan. ‘Look, it’s not that I don’t want you to come, it’s just you know it’s going to make him annoyed.’
‘Old codger hates my guts. Yeah, I know. We’ll be in and out in a flash,’ replied Dad.
‘We’re going to stay at the hospital with Nan while he’s having the operation.’
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‘What, you and Grom?’
‘Yes. Look, I’ll tell him you pass on your blessings.’
‘That’d probably give the old bugger a heart attack just thinking about me. I guess you’d better drop me at the pub then.’
‘Oh, and why’s that?’
Dad stared blankly at his plate and then lifted his head. ‘I got all dressed up.’
Mum snorted and concentrated on making my breakfast. I went and had a shower and when I came back Dad was sipping a coffee. I ate my breakfast while
Mum got dressed.
‘Have you been surfing?’ asked Dad.
‘Nah, I’m concentrating on cross-country. I want to make the district team to go to Sydney for the state titles again. They’re at the start of the holidays and this year I was thinking of driving down and then taking my time coming back up the coast. Maybe you’ll come and we could find some clean breaks.’
‘I don’t know, Grom,’ he stood up and walked to the glass door. ‘Sophie would have to mow the lawn.’
‘I think it’ll be all right for a week or two. What do you reckon Dad? It’ll be just like old times.’
‘What time of year? There might not be any waves.’
‘June. It’s still good then.’
‘Yeah, I don’t know, maybe.’
‘Well I’ve got to make the team first. The districts are in April.’
Dad took a slurp of his coffee, dribbling some onto his shirt. ‘Maybe Grom, maybe.’
Mum came back down and we went out to her car. I got in the front and Dad
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sat in the back, but instead of driving down towards the pub Mum turned up the hill.
She was leaning over the steering wheel, gripping it like an old lady.
Nan and Pop don’t live more than a couple of kilometres from us. They live in the house that Pop bought after he returned from the Vietnam War. Besides Mum and Uncle Mike there’s also Aunty Ann. She’s single and married to her law firm.
She comes down quite often and still keeps a room in the house. I often overhear Nan and Mum talking about when she’ll marry someone and have a family. I’ve also heard Dad say he thinks she plays on the same team.
When we arrived Pop was sitting on the front veranda like he’d been waiting for a week. I watched his reaction when he saw three car doors open but he didn’t bat an eyelid. Maybe he couldn’t see that far.
As Mum and I walked up she whispered to me. ‘I rang and checked to find out if it was okay.’
As Dad started to walk up the stairs, Pop chuckled. ‘John, I left the side window open if you would rather use that.’
Dad stopped and held the railing. ‘What.. oh… ‘
I wondered what they were talking about and when I saw Mum blushing I figured Pop was referring to something from back in the day.
‘How did you know?’ asked Dad.
‘I could always hear your car.’
‘I used to park up the top of the hill.’
‘And you’d wait five minutes before you got out and shut the door.’
‘You could hear?’ asked Mum, her face now white.
‘That bloody car makes a racket. I had good hearing in those days. Now, I’m just falling to bits. Come in. We’ve got time for a cuppa.’
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The room was poorly lit by sunlight trickling through curtains pulled aside, and it smelt like pumpkin and cabbage.
There was a tray of pikelets on the table and Dad took one, spread jam on it and then dropped it on the tablecloth.
‘Shit, sorry,’ he said as he tried to scoop the jam off the tablecloth. I noticed his hands shaking.
He grabbed another pikelet and sat down on the couch.
‘How are you, John?’ asked Nan coming in from the back.
‘Good, thanks. Geez, this is a good pikelet.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I saw your photo in the paper the other week.’
‘Yes. That was for ladies’ day. Joan and I won the doubles.’
‘And you’re off to the championships next week.’
I looked at Dad. He knew nothing about my running and he was asking Nan about her bowls.
‘Maybe. We’ll see how the man is.’ She patted Pop on the hand as she passed him a cup of tea. ‘Would you like some tea, John?’
It was strange to hear my dad called John. Most people around town called him Hammo or Johnny. And Mum usually called him goose or words no one wants to hear their father called.
‘Please.’
Nan poured him a cup and Mum picked it up. She carried it into the kitchen and I heard her searching through some cupboards. ‘Mum,’ she said after a moment.
Nan followed her in and I heard some whispering.
The silence was quite unbearable. Dad was sunk in the couch, flipping
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through the local rag. Pop was sipping noisily on his tea, sitting on the chair ready to go. It was hard to believe he was going into hospital for an operation; he seemed more like a man going to war.
I ate another pikelet.
‘Do you want some juice, Leo?’ asked Nan.
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’ve heard you’re courting a nice young lady.’
‘I just gave her a lift home.’
‘She’s from Chile, I hear.’
I wondered if Mum could feel the daggers I was giving her through the kitchen wall.
‘It’s nothing really. She’s just new and doesn’t really know anyone.’
‘Plenty of time for girls later,’ interrupted Pop. ‘You’ve got to focus on your studies this year.’
I might not have agreed with Pop, but I was thankful for him killing the conversation.
Nan brought out the juice as Mum brought out the cup and gave it to Dad.
He took a sip. ‘Ah, that’s good.’ He smiled and gave me a wink.
Pop snorted.
‘Thanks for helping on Sunday, Leo,’ he said. ‘It was a very successful day.’
I wondered how he thought spending all day over a barbeque was helping me to focus on my studies.
‘Yeah, no worries, Pop. I only had one blue bottle sting. It was actually a good day.’
It wasn’t just a good day; it had been the best day of my life. But since then
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I’d completely stuffed everything up. Maybe Pop was right; it was better to focus on my studies.
‘Good, glad you enjoyed it. Did you take home the left-over steak?’
‘Yep, thanks.’
Mum and Nan went into the bedroom, discussing what clothes Pop needed to take. Pop and Nan are what Mum calls an example of an antiquated relationship.
They have very clear masculine and feminine roles. Pop doesn’t do any cooking, cleaning, washing or ironing. He doesn’t even choose his own clothes; every morning while he showers Nan lays out his clothes on the bed. Pop works around the house and in the yard; he’s very mechanically-minded, as he likes to say.
Dad finished his tea and stood up. ‘I might just go to the bathroom?’
‘You know where it is,’ growled Pop.
As soon as he had gone down the hallway Pop turned and picked up a small, furry medal box off the bookcase. I knew it contained the Victoria Cross.
‘Leo, I want you to have this now. Just in case.’
‘Nothing will go wrong, Pop. It’s routine.’
‘Well in the army we were prepared for every eventuality. If I don’t come back from this tour at least I’ll have passed this on. And I’d like you to keep it in the family. Pass it on to your son.’
I thought about having a son with Valentina and passing the medal down to him, telling him about the legend of his great-grandfather.
The red ribbon had faded and the medal was dull silver; it didn’t feel like it was Australia’s most distinguished war medal. I turned it over and read the inscription. ‘Brett Davies 13th May 1969.’
I was suddenly interested and wanted to know more about the legend. But
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Dad walked in.
‘Any more of that, um, tea?’ he asked, hesitantly.
It was an awkward moment as far as awkward moments go. My Pop passing down his army medal before going into surgery for prostate cancer from which he might not return, and my father, having already consumed an early-morning alcoholic beverage to calm himself, enquiring whether he could have another one.
Fortunately, Nan and Mum returned from the bedroom with a suitcase.
Mum saw the medal. ‘Is that…?’
‘Pop gave it to me,’ I replied.
‘I thought your were going to give that to Michael.’
‘Oh, well, he should have it then,’ I said.
‘Nah,’ Pop croaked. ‘He hasn’t got any boys. Who would he pass it down to?
Someone I’ll probably never meet. At least this way it stays in the family. What do you reckon Leo, you like it?’
‘Yeah, thanks Pop.’
‘Maybe you’ll join the army too then,’ added Dad.
‘I didn’t raise a son to send him off to die,’ said Mum.
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Chapter Eleven
I think I’ve spent most of my teenage years living in hindsight. People say it’s a wonderful thing because it leads to experience, but when you think about some of things you’ve done in the past you can only shudder and wonder what the hell you were thinking. Perhaps foresight would be a better thing, but then, how do we see into the future?
After Pop’s operation, which went without any complications, I was able to devote my thoughts entirely to one topic: Valentina. How was I going to rebuild the connection I’d had with her? There was no way I could talk to her at school since
Charley was protecting her like a storm trooper.
In the end I decided to be bold. I decided to run around to her place and apologise. I would also take with me the answer sheet for the maths revision sheet I had given her. Why I chose to run, instead of drive is one of those things that leads to developing experience and makes me cringe when I look back.
It was hot day - well over thirty degrees - and why I waited until midday was another one of those things. My mind was only on one topic. Maybe I was trying to recreate the moment after we’d run the cross-country circuit and I’d given her a lift home. I don’t know. I even wore the same running clothes I’d worn on that day.
I knocked on her door and despite my heart already beating from the run it increased ten-fold.
Simone answered, wearing only a pink bikini.
‘Oh, hi,’ she blushed and hid behind the door. ‘I thought you were Natalie.’
‘Is Simone here?’ I blurted.
‘Yeah, I’m here.’ She pushed the door towards me as if I was a weird creature.
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‘I mean. Valentina.’
‘Oh, yeah. We’re in the pool. Come on.’
I followed her through, my tongue as heavy as my feet. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. My mind was thumping. Behind me the door clicked shut, and in that second I knew I was trapped. It was as if hindsight and foresight were combining in the one spot and it was creating a vortex where everything was wrong.
I tried to believe she would want the answers to the revision sheet. She would ask me to help her just like Emily had. We’d go to her room and she’d show me a problem and I’d look down her top. I’d take her hand and kiss her.
I took the revision sheet out of my pocket and my sweaty palms covered it.
As we stepped outside the glare of the sun after having been inside blinded me for a moment and Charley’s voice cut right into me. ‘What the fuck is he doing here?’
The vortex had opened and I was an alien.
I held up the revision sheet.
‘I brought you the answers for the revision sheet.’
‘Oh.’ Valentina sat up on one of the deck chairs holding a towel to her chest.
Beside her Charley rolled back over and continued reading her magazine. She was only wearing her bikini bottoms. I looked longingly at the pool. I’d entertained thoughts that she’d offer me a swim and then we’d talk about maths or maybe she’d come for a run with me. Now I just wanted to run and hide.
‘I haven’t done the sheet yet,’ she said.
‘Oh, okay, I just wasn’t sure. I don’t have your number, so I just thought I would drop it over anyway.’ It felt like I wasn’t talking, that I’d been possessed by an alien that had made me run over and drop it off. I held it out and she took it, like I
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was feeding an animal in the zoo. But in this case I was the animal. She held it between her finger and thumb as if it was radioactive.
‘Sorry, it got a bit sweaty.’
She glanced swiftly at Charley.
‘So,’ I began. I didn’t know what to say with Charley there.
‘We’re kind of in the middle of a girl thing,’ said Charley without turning her head.
‘Oh, yeah, sure, I was just on a run and thought I’d stop by, no problems. You can have a look at that sheet too.’
‘As if,’ Charley snorted.
I started to walk backwards. ‘See you later.’ Valentina was looking at me. It was the Valentina from school, not the international model in the pictures.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I was going to do it tonight.’
‘Yeah, no worries. Well, yeah, if you want some help let me know.’
I turned and stepped back inside the house. I heard Charley snort. ‘Stalker.’
And by the time I got to the front door I had already found my stride.
I ran along the boardwalk for miles feeling the hurt inside. I’m not normally a crier. I think my dad coming and going when I was younger took all my tears, and
I’d built a resilient wall so that when people like Stayne bullied me, or my mum and
I had a fight, I was able to deal with it. But I hated Charley.
I’d never felt like this and as the hot and salty tears streamed down my face I didn’t want to wipe them away. Why had I bothered?
As if she would go out with me?
She was an international model. She could go out with superstars with millions of dollars. I had no money. I was skinny. I lived at home with my mum and
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my dad was a nutcase.
Valentina didn’t have to worry about school and studying; she spent her weekends lying around the beach or the pool. She was going to sign a contract with
Victoria Secrets or some big modelling agency, marry a football star and live on the red carpet.
I don’t know why I’d ever thought she would allow me to give her the opportunity.
I ran and ran along the road that leads back out to the highway, and I didn’t stop until my need for a drink became more important than trying to forget about what I’d done.
I walked home with a headache from lack of water, sunburn and a bad attitude. But at least my mind wasn’t thinking about Valentina or Charley. By the time I lay down on my bed to hide from the world, it was late afternoon. I’d been gone for six hours.
My phone buzzed with a message from Emily.
‘How r u? Are u coming over tonight?’
I thought of her breasts hanging down in the singlet. Then I thought of
Charley calling me stalker. I had sworn off trying to give girls the opportunity.
‘Hey, I’m good. Not coming over tonight. How r u?’
I pressed send and barely two seconds had passed when I got a reply
‘’
I didn’t know how to respond. That was the problem with girls. I never knew what to say or do. So it was best to do nothing. I figured Pop was right; there would be plenty of time in the future for girls. Maybe when I was a doctor with lots of money and I’d spent a few years in the gym.
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Chapter Twelve
The Bayliner sliced across the blue plane leaving three trails of white branching out from behind. The engine was revving at its max capacity and behind the wheel Andy was grinning like an escapee from a mental asylum. I understood why his dad had never let him take the boat out by himself. I wondered for a moment if we would actually make it back to harbour or would he drive all the way across to
America, or more specifically Chile.
But I wasn’t thinking about Chile, or Miss Teen Chile, or the girl in my class who was now ignoring me.
Andy had invited me to go fishing and I was welcoming the day away from life.
An hour later, and with no sign of land, we had anchored at Andy’s secret site and cast our lines over the side. Without the roar of the engine it was extremely peaceful.
‘You got the time, man?’ asked Andy.
‘Eight.’
‘Eight!’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘That’s the fastest we’ve ever gotten out here,’ he said proudly.
‘She goes all right.’
‘The old man never opens her up.’ He rubbed the gunwale affectionately.
‘Purrs like a tiger.’
‘Why didn’t he come?’
‘Him, Mum and Emily went to a wedding. He’ll get boozed and be hung over tomorrow so I’ll have to go in and run the show.’
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‘How come he let us take this then?’
‘When he heard we were going out, he said I could take it. He trusts you, says you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and you’re mature.’
I thought that if either of us was mature, or mah-ture as Andy pronounced it; it was definitely him. He already had a career lined up, and he’d even identified the plot of land where he wanted to build his house. He’d be married with four kids and two boats while I was still at university.
‘I don’t know about that,’ I said.
‘Me neither,’ laughed Andy. ‘I heard what you did last weekend.’
I cringed and concentrated on winding my line in.
‘Man oh man. I can’t believe you did that.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘A maths sheet. Man, that is just not cool.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I put some more bait on my hook, and felt very claustrophobic despite the sky being a million miles above me and no land in sight.
‘How’d you find out?’ I asked.
‘Charley.’
‘When was that?’
‘We went to the movies on Friday night.’
‘You and Charley?’
‘And Stayne and Valentina.’
‘Oh. In town?’
‘Yeah. And Stayne is giving Valentina surfing lessons. I told you that was your opportunity, but you had to go and…’
‘I said I don’t want to talk about it!’
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I went up to the bow. The good thing about the big boat was that there was plenty of room. I cast and lay back on the deck. I realised that Andy and I were destined for different things. One day I was going to leave. Everyone knew that.
Like my uncle, I was going to go and never come back. It wasn’t like I was going to move to Brisbane and come back every second weekend like half the university students. I was moving to Sydney. I’d go to university, and make new friends. People with whom I could debate the value of mining to the economy; the role of Australia in the world; and how bullshit reality TV shows really were. Andy never wanted to leave Kingy.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised I didn’t have anything to talk to Andy about other than what little of school we had together. I imagined that if I had a brother, it would be like this. I knew Andy had my back, if he hadn’t been my friend and stood up for me over the years, school would have been more painful than it was.
‘Leo,’ called Andy. ‘You want a Coke, bro?’
‘Yeah mate.’
He brought me up a can and leant back against the windscreen, cracking open his and taking a big sip.
‘When I get married, you’ll be my best man, won’t you?’ he asked.
‘What the hell? Where did that come from?’
‘I’m just saying. You’ll have to give a speech.’
‘Yeah, why? You getting married?’
‘Not yet. But this wedding my old man is going to go. He’s giving the best man speech for his mate, Tony. Him and Dad went to high school together. You’ve met him, always has the young, fake chicks.’
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‘I thought he was married.’
‘He was. This’ll be his fourth marriage. And the third time Dad’s given the best man speech.’
‘Third?’
‘Yeah. He spoke at the first and second wedding and then Tony got married in Vegas for his third. Dad’s been trying to write the speech for the last two weeks and he doesn’t know what to say. He reckons there’s something fishy about this wedding.’
‘How does Tony get these chicks?’
‘Money. He works in the mines. Gets paid a fortune and just spends it on the girls. This new one, she’s like twenty-five. Massive set. I heard him telling Dad that he paid for her boob job and it was worth every cent.’
I thought of his sister. She definitely didn’t need a boob job. I thought of
Valentina, maybe if I had money she would want me to give her the opportunity.
Then I felt something hit my bait and it was on.
We ended the day with a bagful of snapper. I caught four and Andy got five, which meant I had to scale and gut them. It equalled out anyway because Andy cooked then. Afterwards we played Medal of Honour Space Invasion and I had just gone to bed when I heard the rest of Andy’s family come home. His dad’s drunken footsteps on the stairs echoed through the house and I heard Mrs MacDonald whispering for him to be quiet.
Emily went into her room and I heard her go for a shower and then come back and get changed. She seemed to be opening and shutting every drawer and door.
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Finally I heard the click of her light switch and the house was silent.
A part of me didn’t want to see her, but a part of me, the part now trying to get out of my boxers, really wanted to.
I thought I heard my door open and close, and I sat up wondering if someone had come into the room. I inhaled a strong scent of strawberry and cream.
‘Hello,’ I whispered.
‘Oh, you’re awake,’ said Emily. She sat on the edge of the bed.
I shuffled across.
She lay down beside me.
I didn’t know what to say. What if she screamed?
She rolled on her side and I could smell a mixture of alcohol and toothpaste on her breath.
Her hand ran over my stomach and chest. Her mouth smacked into my chin.
‘Oops,’ she giggled.
‘What are you doing?’ I said, but her mouth found mine and we kissed, her tongue furiously poking into my mouth as if she was digging for gold. I could feel her breasts rolling against me and I stuck my hand up her nightie. I knew they were big but I wasn’t prepared for just how big they were. It was like holding a rockmelon that was made of jelly. Her nipples were as stiff as the goblin under the sheets.
She moaned.
‘Shush.’
‘Dad and Mum won’t hear anything.’
‘You’re drunk,’ I said.
‘Only a little bit,’ she giggled. ‘Rub my nipples again.’ Her mouth smothered mine, her tongue seeking to dig out my tonsils.
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Her hand went under the sheets and gripped the goblin.
It felt different to when I normally played five on one; she held it tighter and her hand was smaller, but it was angrier tonight. We tongued each other and I fondled the rockmelons while she wrestled with the one eyed monster.
Somewhere in there I stopped worrying that I was in bed with my best mate’s sister in her house with her parents sleeping down the end.
Afterwards I fell asleep and dreamt of fighting in Vietnam with Andy and winning the Victoria Cross for pulling him out of a collapsed tunnel.
I awoke to the sound of the doorknob turning and my brain was suddenly filled with a kaleidoscope of images: fish, the VC, Andy in an army uniform, Emily’s breasts.
It was morning; sunlight filtered in through the blind. I smelt strawberries.
Emily was in her nightie, opening the door slowly and creeping out into the hallway. I watched her step out of the room, glancing back at me before closing the door.
I breathed out.
‘And what do you think you’re doing, Little Miss?’ came Mrs MacDonald’s voice from the hall.
What the…?
I sat bolt upright. Could I hide in the cupboard? Could I jump out the window and make a run for it?
‘I was just asking Leo if he could give me a lift to school,’ came Emily’s indignant voice.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. So I know how much time I have to get ready.’
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‘I hope you didn’t wake him up?’
‘No, he was already awake.’
I heard the footsteps go back to Emily’s room.
‘Leo, would you like some pancakes?’ came Mrs MacDonald’s voice through the door. It didn’t sound like a question.
‘Yes, please, that would be really nice.’
‘If you want a clean towel you’ll have to get one from the linen cupboard.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
I lay back down on the bed. Had she heard anything last night?
I could still smell the mixture of strawberry and booze breath.
My heart slowly returned to its normal rhythm. At least Andy would have already left to go to work. It would have been worse if he’d busted her coming out.
I showered and went down to breakfast. Emily was eating her cereal and Mrs
MacDonald was cooking pancakes.
‘Good morning Leo, did you sleep well?’ asked Mrs MacDonald.
I was sure there was a tone in her voice that implied that she didn’t believe
Emily’s ruse about asking for a lift to school.
‘Not really. I usually do when I stay here, but I had a bad dream about fighting in Vietnam. I think it was because we played that game for hours.’
Mrs MacDonald held up the flipper and inspected me. ‘Yes, I’ve seen that one. It’s quite gruesome.’
‘He plays it all the time,’ added Emily.
Mrs MacDonald was still staring at me.
‘And you don’t mind giving Emily a lift to school?’
‘No, not at all.’
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This was worse than getting the third degree from my mum or a teacher. I knew Mrs MacDonald knew that Emily had slept in my bed. I wanted to say that I’d had nothing to do with it. I hadn’t molested her daughter, and in fact she had come in and jumped on me. I’d tried to say no. Hadn’t I? Well sort of. I couldn’t remember. I don’t think I could have said anything anyway with her sticking my tongue down my throat.
‘Well, thank you.’ She put the pancakes down on the table in front of Emily.
‘And I think you had way too much to drink last night, Little Miss.’
I couldn’t have agreed more.
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Chapter Thirteen
Mr Bunce surveyed the class and scowled.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘Andy’s at work, sir.’
He ignored me and I figured it had been a rhetorical question. At least a third of the class was absent, and I doubt he cared that Andy, destined to be the tyre chief of Kingy, was away.
‘Valentina, come and work with Leo.’
My heart stopped. Had I heard correctly?
I waited for her to protest. To say that there was no way she could work with me.
‘Today you are working in pairs and dissecting a rat,’ continued Mr Bunce.
‘Here are the worksheets, and the rats are in the back fridge. You may use your phones to take photos as you go, and the write up of the experiment is due on
Friday.’
Valentina sat down beside. ‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ I said, trying to be cool. My heart was pounding. ‘I’ll get the rat.’
She scrunched up her nose. ‘I’ll get the worksheet.’
I took plenty of deep breaths in as I went to get the rat. I reminded myself I had sworn off trying to give her opportunity and besides, she was hanging out with
Stayne. We were classmates working together. That was all.
The rat was pinned down on a tray. It was snowy white and smelt of antiseptic. I took it back and put it down in front of my classmate.
Valentina covered her nose. ‘I’ve never done anything like this.’
‘Do you want to read the instructions and take photos, and I’ll do the
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dissection?’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘I don’t mind.’
‘That’s so nice. Thanks Leo,’ said my classmate with her pink fingernails. I noticed they were painted lightly to avoid detection by teachers; or rather, the teachers chose not to make her clean them.
I tried to focus on the rat. ‘What’s the first step?’
‘Step one. Make an incision starting around the genitals and moving forward to just under the lip. Be careful not to cut too deeply.’
I picked up the scalpel and began to cut.
Valentina took photos, read out the instructions and told me how gross it was.
It was a lot of fun working with my classmate. And I think the smell of disinfectant blocked out her perfume.
Halfway through the lesson, Stayne arrived and announced loudly that a rolled-over truck had caused his delay.
We weren’t in physics, but I knew for every action there had to be a reaction.
And before the words came out of Mr Bunce’s mouth I knew he was going to be assigned to work with us.
‘Yeah righto,’ he said as he pulled up a stool. ‘I’m in the A-plus group.’
He leant in closer to Valentina. ‘There wasn’t really a roll over. I was surfing at Snapper. It was pumping. You should have come.’
I tried to ignore him and hunched over closer, concentrating on making an incision.
‘Yo, Leo,’ said Stayne, tapping me on the shoulder and sending the scalpel slicing across the liver.
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I turned and held up the sharp blade. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Sorry mate. Just saying hello.’ His eyes inspected the instrument. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Yeah. That’s cool. I’m changing out of this class anyway. Got an apprenticeship lined up with a builder.’
He leaned in. ‘Look at those balls on that sucker.’
He reached in and flicked them. ‘Hard as steel.’
‘Do you want me to cut them off for you?’ I asked.
‘Ha. I thought you might want them. I reckon they’re bigger than yours.’
I shook my head. ‘Wanker.’
Thankfully, Stayne was quiet after that and played on his phone, taking photos of the balls of steel and sending them to his friends.
When we had finished, Valentina opened up her diary.
‘Leo, what’s your email address?’
Stayne lifted his head.
I gave it to her.
‘What’s that for?’ asked Stayne.
Valentina looked at me. ‘I’ll email you the photos for the assignment. Thanks for doing that. We’re a great team.’
‘You going to send them to me too?’ asked Stayne.
‘I thought you said you were changing out of the class,’ replied Valentina.
‘Yeah, but I want the photos,’ replied Stayne.
‘Well, I’ll get your address later.’ She slid her diary back in her bag. ‘Leo, are you going training this afternoon?’
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‘For sure. I’ve got the districts next Saturday.’
‘I’ll see you there then.’
‘I’m going to go too,’ added Stayne. ‘I’ve got to get fit for footy training.’
For the rest of the day I tried not to think about my classmate in any other way. And when we were at training and she came over to me looking absolutely amazing, I remembered what Pop had said and I thought of her as just my classmate.
If she wanted to go out with Stayne then that was her business.
Even when he came over to us wearing a singlet that showed a pair of biceps three times the size of mine I didn’t get jealous.
Well, maybe a little bit, but then Emily came over to me. It was the first time
I’d ever seen her at cross-country training. Sirens went off in my head. For every action there had to be a reaction. Even if the initial action hadn’t been my doing.
‘Hey, Leo.’
She looked at Valentina and then Stayne.
I swallowed. ‘Hey.’
‘Can you give me a lift home after this?’
‘Sure.’
What else could I say?
‘Thanks. Andy was supposed to pick me up, but he’s working late.’
‘Oh, you’re Simone’s friend,’ said Valentina.
‘Yeah. And Andy’s sister.’
‘Nice to meet you.’
Stayne was leaning against the wall stretching his arms and ignoring everyone.
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I wasn’t jealous.
Since I was tapering, I got to do the short course and I let Jimmy run out first.
Stayne pushed past me and chased after him. Valentina even caught up to me and we jogged the whole way together talking about school and stuff. It was good to talk to her as a classmate. I didn’t even check her out.
Well, maybe once, or twice.
When we got back, Stayne was sitting on the grass with his shirt off.
‘I thought you were some cross-country champion,’ he snorted.
‘I’m tapering. I’m racing next weekend.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, I was waiting for you,’ he said to Valentina. ‘You want a lift home?’
‘It’s okay. I’ll go with Leo. He’s dropping off Emily and she just lives around the corner.’
Had I just heard right?
I saw Stayne’s face freeze like a wax model.
‘Do you mind, Leo?’
‘It’s not a problem.’
Stayne was floundering for breath like a fish out of water. He grabbed his shirt and jumped up.
‘I’m going then.’
I tried to understand what had just happened, but Emily and the rest of the others all got back.
It was a bit tense in the car. No one said anything, and Emily sat so close to me that there would have been room for a whole other person between her and
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Valentina. But it was a hell of lot better than the last time Valentina had been in my car. Plus the look on Stayne’s face had been priceless. Maybe they weren’t going out.
I would have liked to drop Emily off first, but since she was in the middle and we were going past Valentina’s first I didn’t have much choice.
‘Thanks. I’ll email you those photos tonight,’ said Valentina as she got out.
‘No worries. See you tomorrow.’
Even though Valentina had gotten out of the car, Emily still sat right beside me for the short trip around to her place.
When we pulled up. I didn’t know what to say.
‘Thanks, Leo,’ she said softly.
‘No worries.’ I kept both hands on the steering wheel.
‘Hey, some of us are going to the movies on Friday night. Do you want to come?’
‘I can’t, I’ve got dinner with Nan and Pop.’
I couldn’t believe how easily I lied.
‘Oh.’ She blinked several times.
‘Yeah. He had an operation the other week and he was in hospital for a few days. I haven’t really seen him for a while.’
‘Oh, right. Well you’ll be coming Saturday won’t you?’
‘Saturday night?’
‘Andy’s eighteenth.’
‘Yeah. For sure.’
‘Cool, see you then.’
I think she wanted to play tongue hockey again but I kept my hands firmly on the steering wheel.
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Chapter Fourteen
Andy’s party was the social event of the year for Kingscliff High. He had invited everyone in our grade, everyone from the football team and even some of the teachers who were friends with his parents.
It’s not like Andy is one of those guys in an American High School movie that have model good looks, rich parents and are awesome football players; he doesn’t have model good looks. Not that I check him out that way, but he doesn’t really care about his hair or what people think of him.
He does have rich parents and he is an awesome rugby player, but it’s his other attributes like his ability to get on with everyone that make him popular. He fishes in the summer and plays rugby in the winter. He’s not studious, but he’s not dumb enough to be marginalized as a footy head. He’s funny and non-threatening to the boys like Stayne, who feel they need to prove something to everyone.
The party was in full swing by the time I got there. The footy team had taken up position in front of the DJ booth, and were jumping around with their beer cans spilling as they gyrated into each other.
I saw Valentina and Charley on the fringe of the dance floor sipping on plastic cups and giggling. Charley had her hair in piggy tails, and Valentina wasn’t just another girl in my class. She was wearing skin-tight jeans and a green singlet with frills, and looked every bit an international model.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey, Leo.’
I made an effort to control myself as I met Valentina’s eyes. ‘You look good.
Did you do something to your hair?’
‘Oh, thanks. I got it cut.’ She blushed.
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‘It’s nice.’
Beneath her fringe, I felt her inspecting me again. I wished she wouldn’t do it. I glanced back at her and risked a peek at her cleavage. Her breasts weren’t anywhere as big as Emily’s, but I still wanted to fondle them.
‘Come on Val, let’s dance,’ said Charley.
Val. I couldn’t believe Charley had done that to such a beautiful name.
She grabbed Valentina and pulled her on to the dance floor. I watched them join Stayne and the rest of the football team.
I turned as Emily and Natalie came up to me.
‘Hey Leo, there you are,’ said Emily. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
‘I only just got here.’
She came right up and stood beside me. Even if I hadn’t wanted to look I don’t think I could have stopped myself. She had them out and on display, pushing against the strands of her singlet. I think I even caught Natalie having a peek as she thrust them out to me.
‘This party is awesome. I can’t wait ‘till I turn eighteen,’ said Emily.
‘There’s a lot of people here,’ I added, unsure what else to say.
The girls had a can of lemonade each, but I could tell by the way they sipped it there was more in it than lemonade.
‘What are you drinking?’ I asked.
Natalie giggled. ‘Vodka.’
‘Dad bought it for us, but I’m not allowed to tell Mum,’ replied Emily. ‘She’s still annoyed at me from last week. I was so drunk at the reception. You should have seen me.’
I could just imagine.
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They started dancing on the spot and a couple of boys in the rugby team came over and tried to pull them into the centre, but they pushed their hands away and stayed beside me.
‘Dance with us, Leo,’ said Emily.
She reached out and took my hand and we formed a rough circle. The girls were drunk enough to lose their inhibitions and were gyrating against each other and laughing.
Emily had put way too much make-up on and looked much older than she was. It wasn’t as subtle as Valentina’s and didn’t really accentuate her features, but rather made her look like a fake Goldie Girl, especially with the tight singlet.
They were both dancing very close to me, and I was trying to dance and to allow my body to move to the music, but I felt awkward. I wasn’t sure what to do with my arms. The boys in the centre were all jumping around like Jack-in-the- boxes.
Natalie whispered something to Emily before walking off.
‘Where’s she going?’ I asked.
‘Her boyfriend is here.’
‘Oh.’
She leant in to me. Her hand pressing against my stomach and she leant up so she could whisper in my ear. She was right inside my personal space and I wanted to step back and push her away.
‘That was so much fun last weekend,’ she whispered.
It felt as though I was a goldfish in a bowl with everyone watching and I tried to laugh to create an appearance that she’d said something funny. I didn’t want to talk about it. The way she said boyfriend made me think she had ideas about us, and
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now, the way she stood beside me, or rather with me, made me feel awkward. It was as if I wasn’t in control of myself or what I wanted. She wanted something from me and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give it.
Natalie returned with her boyfriend, one of the boys in the surf club who had finished school last year. I knew him quite well and soon he was dancing with us. He nodded at me and we exchanged pleasantries. Natalie put her arms around him and they were dancing very close, leaving me just to dance with Emily. She kept coming closer to me and I wanted to run away, but I didn’t know where I would go. She ran her finger up my shirt, and I grabbed her hand and held it down. I could feel the heat radiating from her as if she was on fire. And I wanted to stay away so I didn’t get burnt.
‘I’m going to find your brother,’ I said.
‘Are you staying here tonight?’ She giggled.
I could never stay there again.
‘We could even you know…’
I thought about giving my mate’s little sister the opportunity. A part of me was quite excited about the possibility. Another part of me was screaming like a siren telling me that it was all wrong. But that only made it even more exciting.
‘Maybe.’
I walked out of the front yard, across the bike path and into the strip of bush that separated the houses from the beach and stopped erosion. There was no official path through the bushes but over the years Andy and his family had created a thin fox trail.
I tracked Andy down from the aroma of marijuana and found them sitting in a hollow in the dune.
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‘Who’s that?’ called out Stayne.
‘It’s me.’
‘Yo, Leo,’ said Andy. ‘Join us, bro. Celebrate. I’m eighteen. Are you having a good time?’ he slurred.
‘Yeah, man. There are heaps of people here.’
It was always different talking to Andy around everyone else than compared to when he was just us. It felt like I could never say what I normally would, especially if Stayne was there.
‘This is where it’s at,’ he said. The joint flamed as he took a drag and I saw his face illuminated. His eyes were glassy and he had a stupid grin on his face. I thought about our day on the boat last Sunday and how our lives were headed in different directions, even if he wanted me to be his best man.
‘Charley,’ he croaked as he passed the joint.
I sat down beside Valentina, unsure what to say or do. The joint flamed. In the light I could see Stayne watching her as well and our eyes met.
‘Leo,’ said Valentina’s soft voice.
I looked back at her. She was holding the joint out, the smoke softly filtering from her lips.
‘Nah, I’m cool.’
‘It’s only some pot,’ said Stayne. ‘Try it.’
‘Just have a toke,’ said Charley. ‘Just like us.’ The end was burning. I could still see the smoke pouring sexily over Valentina’s lips.
‘Nah.’
‘He’s cool,’ said Andy.
‘Yeah, you don’t want to end up like your dad,’ laughed Stayne.
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‘No, it’s because I’ve got the districts on Friday and if I make the team I’ll get drug tested at the states. They drug test everyone now.’
I stood up and walked off, spraying my opinion of Stayne into the darkness so that only the gods could hear.
As I was negotiating the path back to the party I ran into Emily.
‘Oh, there you are. I was wondering what you were doing. Natalie and her boyfriend are being disgusting and I’ve got no one to hang out with.’ She grabbed my hand and started to pull me off the path.
I let her pull me into the shadows of the trees where the moon was barely visible through the canopy of leaves. Her arms clasped around my neck and her lips smacked into my chin.
We kissed eagerly and sloppily, her tongue once again dancing around my mouth like a boxer in a ring.
I wanted to feel good. I wanted to forget about Stayne and Valentina and
Charley. I slipped a hand up her shirt into the valley and the hills.
‘Hang on.’ She undid her bra and then pulled me to the ground.
We lay down on the dried leaves and pinecones. I stuck my hand back up her shirt and tweaked her stiff nipple.
In my boardies, my trouser snake was straining to get some attention and it wasn’t long before her hand released it.
‘Do you have a condom?’ she asked.
How could I give my best mate’s sister the opportunity?
‘No,’ I replied.
She slid down and put her mouth over it, her tongue now battling a much bigger opponent.
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This was definitely a first for me. I lay back and looked up at the stars through the leaves. I’m not sure if the wind was making them move or it was my mind that was shaking.
She was making a lot of noise that I wasn’t sure was normal. In the moonlight she looked up at me; her hair was dangling all over her face and drool was frothing out of her mouth.
‘Do you like it?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, it’s really good.’
‘I want to make you happy.’
‘Yeah,’ I grunted, I didn’t care that she was my mate’s sister and she was drunk.
‘I don’t know if….’ She started to say something but I put my hand on her head and pushed her back down.
‘That’s so good,’ I moaned.
It was almost finished: my snake was about to win the contest.
She coughed and I felt a pool of warmness spread over my lap. Quickly she turned her head away and I saw spew flow from her mouth.
‘What the…?’
I sat up and inspected the pool of corn-speckled vomit in my crotch. It covered my boardies and shirt and smelt of stewed cabbage. I gagged.
‘I’m so sorry,’ cried Emily, jumping up and running away.
I grabbed some leaves and tried to wipe the spew off, but I could feel the vomit running between my bum crack. My trouser snake, sensing danger, had morphed into a worm. My boardies and undies were saturated and they stunk. There was no way I could go back to the party.
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A torch flashed straight at me.
‘Leo-nerdo, what the fuck are you doing?’ came Stayne’s voice.
I could see two shapes behind the torch, and I turned my body, jumped to my feet and started to walk away. ‘Nothing.’
‘Were you working one out in the bushes, you pervert?’
‘No!’
‘Ha, yeah you were, you dirty pedo.’
I ran away, and only when I got halfway home did I think that I should have said that the marijuana had made me sick.
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Chapter Fifteen
The next morning I was woken by a loud scream. At first I thought I’d screamed and I’d been having a nightmare. But then the events of the previous night came back to me, and I remembered that while it might have been a nightmare it was no hallucination.
Mum screamed again from the kitchen, and I jumped out of bed thinking an intruder was attacking her. I ran down the hall and found her frantically packing stuff into her handbag and trying to put her shoes on at the same time.
‘What’s wrong, Mum?’
‘They’ve taken Pop to the emergency department. We’ve got to go.’
‘What? Where?’ I asked, dumbfounded.
‘Tweed Heads. Quick, get dressed. You can drive.’
The twenty-minute trip seemed to take forever, and was made worse by Mum sitting in the passenger seat clasping and unclasping her hands and repeating over and over, ‘I hope he’s okay.’
The hospital was a lot different to the small, regimented private hospital where Pop had had his prostate operation. People were yelling at each other and we were pushed aside at the entrance by two ambulance officers wheeling in a car crash casualty.
The hospital had the same chemical smell as when I’d done the rat dissection and I realised it was the smell of death.
Mum was in a daze, not saying anything.
I grabbed a nurse.
‘Excuse me, my grandfather came in here.’
‘Oh, he’s through here, dear.’ She led us down the passageway and drew
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back a curtain.
Inside the small room Pop was lying on a bed. Nan was crying with her head on his arm. Mum pushed past me and tried to dive on the bed. She held Pop by the shoulders.
‘No, no, no,’ she sobbed into the pillow. Nan stood up and lent over so she was holding mum. I went around the other side and put my arms over both of them.
My head was on Nan’s back. Mum’s muffled cries were echoing into the pillow.
‘Dad, Dad, please, no, no.’
But he would never hear them.
I don’t know how long we lay there. Long enough for death to have taken
Pop to heaven, probably so he could tell them how to run the place.
I sat back on the armrest of a chair. ‘What happened, Nan?’
‘His heart stopped,’ she sniffed.
‘A heart attack?’
‘It’s a sudden cardiac arrest,’ she sniffed. ‘He was mowing the lawn and he came in and sat down. I asked him if he wanted a cup of tea.’ She cried. ‘And he didn’t answer. I went to him and he was out. I called the ambulance and I pulled him onto the floor and tried to do chest compressions. I had to stand on him and use my feet. He’s still got such a big chest. I couldn’t even push it with my hands. Then the ambulance got there and they shocked him and give him adrenalin. But nothing was happening. He was pronounced dead as soon as we got here.’
She dabbed her eyes with a soaked handkerchief. ‘I didn’t even get to say goodbye.’
Mum sat up and held Nan.
What would Nan do now? Pop and the surf club had been her whole life.
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‘Come here, say goodbye to Pop,’ said Mum.
I took Pop’s hand; it was still warm. What would I say to him?
I thought back to when Pop had given me the medal. And he said to always be prepared. I told him that I was going to study hard for him and achieve my dreams.
And I told him I was going to look after Mum.
A doctor swept open the curtain allowing the sounds of the hospital to filter in. ‘We have a counsellor you can talk to when you’re ready.’
She let the curtain fall back down behind her and for death to preside again.
Nan leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. I saw several tears drop from her face and land on his. She held the kiss for a while.
My own tears started to fall and I grabbed Mum. She helped me out into the corridor and to a seat. We sat for a while and waited for Nan.
I tried to think what she would do. Pop, the surf club, it had just gone. Her whole life had been turned upside down.
She walked out as someone I’d never seen before, her face ashen, her eyes red, her hair a bird’s nest.
We took her back to a different house; it was like Pop was there but he wasn’t. His shoes were at the door, his cup of tea on the table, but he wouldn’t be coming back. Mum opened up the curtains and windows and the cold spring wind blew through.
The funeral was organised for the following Friday afternoon in the church just behind Marine Parade. Unfortunately I also had the districts in Byron Bay that morning.
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Needless to say I didn’t run very well. My heart just wasn’t in it. As soon as my chest started to tighten, instead of normally pushing through the pain barrier, I slowed down. I wanted to make the team for Pop and so I could take Dad down to
Sydney; but I found my thoughts drifting to Mum and Nan and how affected they were by Pop’s death. I hadn’t trained or slept properly that week, and when I finished
I didn’t even bother to cool down or wait for the official placings. I grabbed my bag and headed back for the funeral.
It was my first funeral, and even if I’d known what to expect I don’t think I could have been prepared. It seemed that everyone-who-was-anyone in Kingy, from the surf club to the council, turned up to pay their respects. I didn’t think there were this many people in Kingy and the church quickly filled up. Mum and Dad (sporting seven blotches of toilet paper) and I sat in the front row with Nan and Aunty Ann.
Uncle Mike sat in the row behind us with his wife and three girls.
The ceremony was quite lengthy due to everyone wanting to say something about how Pop had touched them. Some of the homages were quite boring, and I was thankful that the hard wooden bench under my bony backside was too uncomfortable for me to fall asleep on. Towards the end my legs began to cramp and I realised that I hadn’t drunk enough water after my run. Which seemed so long ago now.
Finally, after three hours the minister took the microphone, thanked everyone and welcomed them to continue honouring my Pop’s memory by sharing a drink at the surf club.
I was walking by myself, trying to stretch out my cramp, when Andy came up to me.
‘Yo, Leo,’ he said.
‘Hey, I didn’t know you were here.’
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‘Thought I’d come and support you, bro.’
I noticed Charley standing on the other side of the road, almost failing to recognise her in conservative clothes with her hair in a bun.
‘Thanks, mate. Nice suit.’
‘Yeah, it’s my dad’s. Retro-nineties man.’
I wanted to ask him what was going on with him and Charley. It had been a week since his party, but somehow everyone and everything seemed different.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘We’re going down the beach tonight to get furked up. You should come.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Valentina’s coming.’
‘What about Stayne?’
‘Yeah, but he’s not getting anywhere with her. She’s an ice-princess, man.’
I nodded over at Charley. ‘What about you? You giving her the opportunity?’
He cackled. ‘She lurves it man. Lurves it. Going back to my place while the old girl is getting her hair done.’
‘Really.’ I wondered if that was the whole reason for coming today.
‘Anyway, mate.’ He tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Come tonight.’
‘Yeah,’ I mused. ‘Maybe.’
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Chapter Sixteen.
The wake was fairly subdued. Nan sat with her friends from the bowls club and sipped on tea, and the surf club regulars and war veterans saddled up to the bar. I stayed for a while but eventually got bored and went home. Even though I was tired,
I didn’t want to be alone and I decided to go, and as Andy said, ‘get furked up’.
When I got there the flames of the fire were already licking away at several thick branches. Andy had some sausages on a pan and was trying to rake out some coals to create a hotplate. Charley was buttering some slices of bread and smiled at me when she saw me. ‘Sorry about your loss, Leo?’
What had happened in the last week?
‘Yo, bro. There’s a beer in the esky,’ said Andy.
I got a beer, opened it and sat down on the sand. The sun had almost disappeared and the ocean was a dark blue. The smell of sausages reminded me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
‘How was the rest of the wake?’ asked Andy.
‘Pretty quiet.’ I looked around. ‘Where’s everyone else?’
‘Stayne and Valentina went for a drive in his new car,’ replied Charley.
‘Well, it’s good you came,’ said Andy, sitting down beside me and lighting a joint. He took a couple of drags before passing it to Charley.
I watched her inhale. ‘Can I try?’
‘Sure,’ she passed it over.
I sucked in and then started coughing.
‘Oh, man,’ laughed Andy. ‘Don’t try and swallow it, just suck a little magic in.’
I took another hit and skolled half my beer to sooth my throat. I lay back on
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the sand. Above me the stars were starting to come through and I felt a sense of weightlessness.
‘I thought you had some running competition,’ said Charley.
‘That was this morning.’
‘Oh. How did you go?’
‘Shit. I came seventh.’ Then I giggled. Andy giggled, and for some reason
Charley did too.
‘You should have seen Old Stafford’s eyes,’ I continued. ‘When I finished his eyes were zooming around his head. He didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t care. It’s all over now, I’ve had enough of running.’ I reached out to Andy and he passed me the joint.
‘How come you don’t surf?’ asked Charley. ‘Considering your dad is so good.’
‘I don’t know. I used to. Then Dad stopped surfing and…’ I stared into the fire. ‘Then Pop got me into running. He reckoned it was good to help keep focused on my studies.’
‘Andy said you were awesome.’
I looked at him through the smoke of the fire. ‘When did you ever see me surf?’
‘Once, just after we started high school. Me and the old man were out on the boat, and we saw you and your old man doing tow-ins on the reef.’
‘That was forever ago.’
‘Yeah, but I couldn’t believe it was you. You were like this skinny little geek in our form class who wasn’t talking to anyone, and then I saw you charge down this monster wave that was three times bigger than you. It was freaky.’
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‘Yeah, I remember that. Dad’s mate, Billy was driving the jetski and trying to get me killed. He kept taking me so deep for the take-off.’
‘We watched you for half an hour. I’ve never seen waves on the reef that big since then.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ I said, searching the sky for the Southern Cross.
A car door slammed and Valentina came down the track. She went to Charley and said something angrily, but I couldn’t understand their whispers. Then Stayne came and sat down and moodily stabbed the fire.
After we had eaten Andy lit another joint and passed it around. As I took a toke I felt Valentina watching me.
The sense of weightlessness had combined with relaxation. My body was warm from the fire and I felt comforted. I watched the flames licking at the wood, each one different to the other like waves on the ocean.
Stayne seemed different, normally he was tight with Charley, but she was hanging with Andy and ignoring him. He was chain-smoking cigarettes and sipping a bottle of vodka.
I heard him whisper something to Valentina, but I was too engaged in the waves in the fire to care.
Then he got up and went.
After a moment Charley and Andy got up and snuck off. I didn’t need to think too hard about what they were doing. Half their luck.
I was left with Valentina, sitting around a fire.
It was the stuff of my dreams. But I didn’t know what to say. I thought about the time I had run over there with the revision sheet, or the photo I had of her dropping out of my biology textbook. The fact that I was sitting here with her was a
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miracle in itself. I couldn’t trust myself to say anything that wouldn’t sound stupid.
‘I didn’t think you smoked or drank,’ she said.
‘Life’s fucked up. Why not?’ I cracked open another beer. I couldn’t remember it tasting this good.
She was silent. I turned so I could see her. She was sitting hunched over with her legs to her chest, studying the fire.
‘Andy said you want to go to university next year.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, maybe. I was going to be a doctor.’
‘I think you would be a great doctor. That was awesome the other day when we did the dissection.’
I didn’t want to talk about me. ‘What about you? What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe marine science or conservation. When I was in Chile I was involved with a charity. As part of the contest we had to support one, and I chose a charity called Planet Whale. ’
‘That’s cool.’
It was the first time she’d really told me anything about Chile, especially anything to do with the contest. I remembered when I’d given her the lift home and she’d said she hated the photos. I wanted to ask her about it and to apologise again, but Stayne walked out of the bushes and sat back down.
He was on the other side of Valentina and I couldn’t see him but everything immediately felt different, like a change in weather pressure with an oncoming storm.
I heard him light up and suck on something.
‘Ahh,’ he sighed. ‘This is fucking amazing. Here.’
‘No,’ replied Valentina.
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‘Hey Leo, you want to try this?’ asked Stayne.
I sat up and looked around Valentina, Stayne was holding out a glass pipe.
‘What is it?’
‘Something special, the best mate. You should try it.’
‘Is that?’
‘Crystal meth,’ said Valentina.
‘What?’ I said, sitting up straight, the world suddenly stopping. ‘Crystal meth.’
Stayne smiled widely at me. ‘This is the real deal mate. It makes everything better.’
I stood up. Around me the world was open, the ocean stretching to the horizon, the ceiling of stars a million miles overhead. I thought of Pop above me.
I glanced at Valentina. She was huddling her legs to her body and rocking back and forth. I wondered where Andy and Charley where.
‘Watch.’ Stayne took another hit from the glass pipe. ‘It’s easy.’
I felt the blood rush to my head and staggered, nearly falling into the fire. I was in the wrong place, a place where I definitely didn’t belong.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.
‘Don’t be a pussy. It’s just a bit of meth. Here, have some vodka.’
I stumbled up the track to where I’d parked. Behind me Valentina called out.
‘Leo, where are you going?’
‘Don’t worry about me, you go hang out with Stayne.’
‘I’m not doing that stuff,’ she replied.
‘Good,’ I mumbled.
I pulled out my keys and tried to put them in the door. Then I felt the bile in
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my throat. I turned and threw up on the bonnet of Stayne’s new car.
‘Give me the keys,’ said Valentina.
‘No. I’ve got to go home.’
‘You can’t drive.’
‘I’m not staying here.’
I searched into Valentina’s eyes. I felt her looking back at me, and our thoughts connecting.
‘Valentina,’ yelled Stayne. ‘Let the pussy go. I’m sorry. I’ll stop drinking and drive you home later.’
‘I’ll drive,’ said Valentina. ‘Get in.’
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Chapter Seventeen
My memory is somewhat hazy about the drive home. As I try to recall it things seem to change. I can visualise the car driving down the road in a tunnel,
Valentina hunched over the wheel, intensely watching the road.
I woke the next day with a jolt. I was in my bed, in my boxers. A bucket was beside my bed, and a glass of water on my bedside table.
I got up and followed the smell of bacon into the kitchen. I was racking my brain trying to remember what had happened, but it didn’t want to work.
‘Valentina is a very nice young lady,’ said Mum. ‘We had a nice chat when I drove her home.’
‘Yeah,’ I mumbled.
I moved the bacon around my plate. Inside my head some workmen were using a jackhammer.
‘You could have gotten her in a lot of trouble for what she did last night.’
I vaguely recalled directing her home, remembered trying to put the key in the door. I’d probably be dead now if I’d driven.
‘Yeah.’ I mumbled. I was waiting for it to come. About letting her down, letting myself down. Ruining my opportunities.
‘I know you’ve had a tough few weeks sweetheart. But I don’t think writing yourself off is the best way to deal with your problems.’
‘Why not? That’s what Dad does.’
‘You’re not like him.’
‘Maybe I am. How would you know?’ I slammed my fork down.
‘He’s sick, he always has been.’
‘Well, why did you marry him?’ I glared at Mum.
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‘You were on your way,’ she said softly. ‘He had money. We needed a house.’
‘You didn’t have to marry him! You could have divorced him!’
She leant over the bench and her hair came over her face. ‘I’ve had my father tell me that all my life. I don’t need you telling me that too!’
She switched off the stove and slammed the door shut as she walked out.
I spent the rest of the day in my room, feeling guilty for yelling at Mum but not wanting to apologise. I was sick of people always wanting something from me, or wanting me to be something. I was eighteen; if I wanted to go and get fucked up it was my choice.
I tried to study, but ended up emailing Valentina and apologising. I spent an hour writing the email, wanting to make sure that I didn’t sound too much like a stalker or a weirdo. In the end I just wrote: ‘Thanks for the lift home. There was no way I wanted to stay there and do that stuff.’
She replied pretty quickly.
‘I can’t believe Stayne was doing that. He is such an idiot. Your Mum is really cool. X’
She had signed off with an X, what did that mean?
Mum stayed at Nan’s for the rest of the weekend and I had the house to myself.
Dad came over on Sunday afternoon to mow the lawn, and afterwards he came in and helped himself to a beer.
‘You want a steak, Dad?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, Grom. That’d be nice. Where’s Sophie?’
‘I think she’s at Nan’s.’
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‘Yeah, right. Good on her.’
I thought about what Mum had said about Dad being sick. It explained a lot of things.
‘You remember when we went tow in surfing on the reef when I was in grade eight.’
Dad sipped on his beer. ‘March the third.’
I turned away from the stove. ‘You remember the date?’
‘Always remember dates of epic surfs. Why?’
‘No reason. Andy was telling me about it. He was out fishing that day and they were watching us.’
‘It was a bloody big day. I thought Billy was going to kill you, but you showed some real ticker. He didn’t want to give me the jetski cause he knew I would have dropped him right inside something big. And he wasn’t surfing so good anymore by then.’
I put the steaks down on the table.
‘You going to have a beer, Grom?’
‘Nah, got to do some more study.’
After dinner, Dad stayed around and watched TV. I’m not sure if he was hoping Mum would come back or he was just drinking the free beer.
The next day I woke up with a massive zit on my forehead. I could feel it as I opened my eyes; it felt like something was trying to get out of my head. I got up and went to the mirror, but it was just a large red mound and as much as I squeezed, it wasn’t going to pop. It needed a couple more days to fester and come to the point where I could pop all the pus over the mirror.
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It was our last day of classes before exam block and then two weeks of holidays. There was a special school assembly, so the whole school was together.
The principal and deputies gave their usual spiel about the correct uniform, behaving appropriately in school uniform outside of school, and homework. When Mr Stafford got up and walked onto the stage I paid a little more attention. I had a feeling that my life was just about to get worse.
‘Good morning students. Can I ask Leo Hamilton to come up to the stage please?’
I knew this wasn’t going to be good. There was a murmur among the students; it wasn’t uncommon for me to get an award. And nobody really cared.
‘Leo competed at the district championships on Friday,’ continued Stafford.
‘Unfortunately he’s had some personal issues that affected his training and he finished seventh, meaning that for the first time in five years he failed to make the district team to go to the state titles.’
Stafford paused, he didn’t really have much of a presence on stage. He waited for silence. I was standing beside him wondering where this was going and feeling the eyes of all of Kingy’s 1500 students on me.
‘However, one of those selected has had to withdraw, and Leo has been called into the team.’
There was a smattering of applause as Stafford paused. I felt the stars from above land on my shoulders. I couldn’t go. I’d fail the drug test.
‘And the Parents and Friends Committee has donated $500 to help him get to
Sydney. I’ll ask the principal to present this cheque.’
I stood dumbfounded. How was I going to get out of this?
I felt Mrs Walker’s hand shaking mine, and then pressing the cheque into it.
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For the rest of the day it felt like I was walking in an alternate universe. A universe where the life I was living was a lie. I felt the gaze of students in the hallways, and when people congratulated me I smiled and nodded and walked away without replying. At lunch, Emily came and congratulated me, but whether it was me or her that caused the conversation to be stilted I’ll never know. I did know I could never stay at Andy’s place again. About the only thing that seemed normal was that I still couldn’t stop glancing at Valentina; yet that was different too as she sat beside me in the three classes we shared and asked for help with her maths problems.
That night I couldn’t get to sleep. Mum was staying at Nan’s, and the empty house made me feel even more like I was on a planet in an alternate universe. And my convoluted thoughts needed plenty of room to wriggle.
It was three am the last time I looked at the clock, and when I woke it felt like my brain hadn’t switched off.
I didn’t eat breakfast for fear of throwing up.
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Chapter Eighteen
My first exam was at nine, and as I drove there I felt the weight of the stars on my shoulders, the pressure of my brain trying to burst out of the zit on my forehead, and a litre of battery acid swirling around my stomach.
As I drove down the hill to school, I felt like my universe was shrinking and I was descending into the pit of hell. My thoughts aligned and gave me a clear signal to stop.
I followed the loop around and drove back up the hill, turned left and drove out of Kingy. I wound down the window and let the cold air blow through the car. I turned up the radio and sung along. I could have been anywhere.
I drove for half an hour until my phone rang.
It was an awesome half hour in which I sang loudly and badly.
The wind was cold, but I didn’t care.
I’d fail my maths exam, but I didn’t care.
I thought about driving down to Sydney, maybe I could repeat grade 12 there and live with Uncle Mike.
I knew it was Mum ringing. I would have been marked as absent in the exam, and the school would have sent a text to her.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘You okay, sweetheart?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where are you?’
I looked outside. ‘Nowhere.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Just driving.’
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‘Mrs Walker rang me. She said you can make it up later in the week without any penalty.’
‘It’s not just that, Mum.’ I paused. ‘I made the district team to go to Sydney.’
‘Oh, that’s great. Congratulations.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘Are you sure? This might be a good break. I was even talking to your father about it, and I think he will go with you. And I can help pay for some of it.’
‘It’s not that, Mum. The school’s actually giving me five hundred dollars.’
‘That’s nice.’
She was waiting.
‘I’d fail the drug test Mum,’ I blurted.
I heard her take a small breath. I waited for it to come. We hadn’t spoken since Saturday morning. I felt the tears running down my face. I decided I was never going home. I’d drive down and stay with Uncle Mike. Or maybe go and live on the boat with Dad.
‘We all make mistakes sweetheart. That’s what growing up is about. It seems like you’re letting yourself down by trying not to let everyone else down.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Why don’t you go home and have a sleep. Tomorrow is another day.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Mum.’
‘Love you, son.’
‘Love you too, Ma.’
I turned around and wound up the window and drove home.
Dad was sleeping against the door when I got there. I figured he was on a bender and couldn’t have been bothered going home. Or perhaps he often came
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around when I was at school and Mum was home.
‘Dad, what’s up?’
‘The Red Roo sunk.’
I laughed.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Not much.’
‘There’s a wave on.’
‘Let’s go.’
I still remember that day. It felt like I was reborn.
We surfed for three hours. (Dad only lasted an hour and then had a snooze in the back of the Sandman before coming back out for a second session.) Each wave was different and I paddled for each wave hungry for more. It had been years since
I’d been surfing and I couldn’t believe I had given it away. Why had I chosen running over this?
Eventually when my arms were too sore to turn over I paddled in, promising myself I wouldn’t leave it so long again.
I cooked dinner that night for Mum and gave her a big hug when she came home. Dad even stayed for dinner (not that he had anywhere to go) and because he was too shattered from the surf he didn’t drink. For once it actually felt like a normal dinner. For a moment I felt the tears welling up in my eyes. I couldn’t remember ever having a normal family dinner.
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Chapter Nineteen
The next day I found Mr Stafford and told him I wouldn’t be able to go to the districts. I explained that I wasn’t interested anymore, and as much as he was disappointed he didn’t try and push it.
There was only one thing left to do after that. I needed an answer, either way.
I pressed the doorbell and stood dancing on the balls of my feet. Unlike last time there was no vortex, there was no feeling of dread on my shoulders.
She opened the door tentatively at first, and then when she saw me she smiled and opened it wide.
‘Leo, I thought you were sick. You weren’t at the exam yesterday.’
‘I’m okay now, I just had to sort some stuff out and find some stuff.’
‘Oh. Sounds deep.’
I smiled. Yesterday had been amazing, and I’d found something that had gone missing.
She was staring at me, her green eyes shining.
‘I just wanted to apologise,’ I said.
‘It’s okay,’ she said.
‘No, I mean for everything.’
‘Oh.’
‘I just. I don’t know. I think you’re gorgeous. And I didn’t really know what to do when you came here.’ I shook my head and laughed. ‘I can’t believe I did some of that stuff.’
She wiped her fringe out of her eyes.
‘I’m just lucky to meet someone like you,’ I continued. ‘You’re a really
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special person. And I was thinking if you wanted, maybe I could give you some surfing lessons.’
Her face lit up. ‘That would be so cool. Andy reckons you’re the best surfer ever.’
I blushed. ‘I don’t know about that. What about this Saturday?’
‘That would be awesome.’
She leant up and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
And that’s how I spent my holidays: teaching Valentina to surf and surfing with the old man.
One afternoon, Stayne came up to us on the beach. He stood right in front of my face and I could see his bloodshot eyes.
‘Well if it isn’t Leo-nerdo the stalker,’ he snarled, sending spittle onto my face.
‘What do you want, Stayne?’ I wiped my face, but refused to step back.
‘I could snap you,’ he said.
I didn’t say anything.
‘I’m a better surfer than you.’ He stuttered.
Even Valentina chuckled at that.
He glared at her. ‘I thought you said he was a weirdo and you’d never go out with him in a million years.’
He pushed me on the shoulder and stormed off. ‘She’s fridget anyway, you can have her.’
Valentina was pretty quiet on the drive to her place, and when I pulled up she didn’t get out straight away.
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‘I didn’t mean any of that stuff about you,’ she said quietly.
‘That’s okay. I probably deserved it.’
‘That was so cool. I thought he was going to punch you, but you just stood there. It was duende.’
‘Duende what?’
‘In Chile when a matador stands up to a bull like the way you did, we say duende.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘It is hard to say in English. Kind of like having a strong spirit, but still being passionate.’
I felt myself blush. I had never considered myself strong. ‘Duende,’ I said. It sounded like something the gods would say.
‘I’m cooking dinner tomorrow night for my homestay family. It’s my birthday.’ She turned and ran her finger over the cracked vinyl of the dashboard. ‘I was thinking you might like to come.’
She put her hand down on the seat between us and I picked it up. It was small and warm, and smooth. She smiled.
‘That would be really nice,’ I said.
And then we kissed.
I don’t know how it happened, but we kissed and then she giggled and then we kissed some more. Her lips were soft and tender, and I could taste the sea salt on them.
I was in heaven with the gods.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 171
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178 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
APPENDICES
Appendix A – Research Outline
Appendix B – Screening Questions
Appendix C – Interview Questions
Appendix D – Duende Review
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 179
Appendix A – Research Outline Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
YEAR 1
Defining research Developing the framework for Choosing the objectives and questionthe study and determining which Participants research methodology to employ
Ethics approval Conducting the interviews with the research participants process.
Reading Young Adult novels for possible inclusion in the study
YEAR 2
Synthesizing the results and developing Key Findings.
Developing and Writing My own Creative Work.
180 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
Appendix B – Screening Questions
Screening questions to determine suitability for the study. The first two questions (do you read; and if so, what do you read) were used to exclude readers. If they presented as someone who does not read a lot of fiction then the following questions were asked: If not – why not? And, have you read any other books beside a set schoolbook? If so what?
Based on their responses the students were identified as a reluctant reader of fiction if they present as someone who can read, but who chooses not to read fiction.
Then they were asked the following question to determine if they will be in the study.
1. Would you like to participate in a four month long study in which you will be
reading three fiction books for young male readers? (You will be required to
do a thirty-minute interview after reading each book. For your time and
contribution you will be reimbursed with a $20.00 iTunes voucher.)
If they agreed they were given forms to seek parental consent.
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 181
Appendix C – Interview Questions
Sample questions used in the semi-structured interviews for a participant who read the books in the following order: the nest, Swerve, Jarvis24. Due to the lack of books, participants read them in different order.
Book One: the nest by Paul Jennings.
1) Did you read the book? Tell me about this book.
2) Is there are scene or something in the story that really sticks out to you?
3) Do you think Robin is a realistic portrayal of a teenage boy?
4) What about his interactions with Charlie: (running away from the kiss, the
letters and emails) is realistic?
5) Is the use of the snake an effective metaphor for his own anger?
6) The girls: Charlie and Verushka. Are they realistic representations of teenage
girls?
7) Did you like the use of short stories to intersperse the plot or did you think
they were confusing?
8) Do you think the story successfully handles the issues of drugs and lust for a
girl (Verushka)?
9) Robin doesn’t have any friends in the story. Do you think it would have
worked better if Charlie had been a boy?
182 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
10) Can you think of any other issues that the author could have addressed in the
story that are specific to teenagers and that you think should be in a book?
11) Does anyone at home read? (Is there a bookshelf at home?)
12) Can you remember a book that you read which you enjoyed?
Book Two: Swerve by Phillip Gwynne
1) Do you have any friends that read?
2) What do you think of people who read?
3) Did you like this book? Tell me what happens in this book? What are the
major themes/issues?
4) Describe Hugh/ Brockie for me. Is he a true realistic representation of a
teenage boy? (Why/ why not?)
5) What does Brockie want from Bella – the way this plays out, do you think it
is realistic?
6) Is her situation and her (as a character) realistic?
7) The scene with Rover and the concept of his grandfather aiming for assisted-
suicide: is this ethical?
8) When they are in the town and they police say ‘they are after the towel
heads’. What do you think of that ethnic slur?
9) There are a lot of Australian themes in the book: Do you think the role of
Indigenous Australians should have been addressed?
10) Do you like the use of all the Australian themes?
11) What are some of the messages that are in the novel? Do you like the use of
the messages or do they detract from the story?
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 183
12) Do you think some of the themes should have been explored more?
13) Does the story move too fast? Is this a good thing?
14) Do you like the way it starts with the flash-forward?
15) Do you think it is funny/ that there is a good use of humour?
Book Three: Jarvis 24 by David Metzenthen
1) Did you read the book? Tell me about this book.
2) Do you think Jarvis is a realistic portrayal of a teenage boy?
3) The girl he likes (Electra), is she a realistic representation of a teenage girl?
Do you know any girls like her?
4) Jarvis’s thoughts about him and her; do you like that and believe it?
5) The book deals with the concept of loss: losing property, AA Sorenson, the
death of Vinnie, and Electra leaving, is loss a big issue with teenagers?
6) The class issue, and money, would you like to see more contrast between rich
and poor?
7) When you read the scene about Mikey and the guys being attacked for being
gay? – Does the author address this issue appropriately? - In that situation, as
a reader can you see the situation from the perspective of Jarvis and from the
perspective of the gang?
8) The friendship between Jarvis and Travis ( i.e. the football, mateship, two
boys chasing girls) do you think that is a realistic portrayal of two teenage
mates?
184 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers
9) The introspection by Jarvis, do you like this or does it carry on a bit too
much? His self-analysis, do you like that or do you think it carries on a bit
too much?
10) Do you think the story would benefit with the addition of a scene with drugs
or any other issues?
11) Can you see the value of this story for teenagers to better understand what is
going on in their lives?
12) Is reading a fiction book worth the time and effort?
13) What did you enjoy about this study?
14) Have you seen any other books you might like to read after this?
15) Do you see the connection between how books provide support for your own
growth?
16) Can you see the value of reading books as a way of better understanding who
you are in the context of life?
17) Out of all the characters you have read: Robin in the Nest, Hugh in Swerve,
Jarvis in Jarvis 24, which do you think is the most believable?
The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers 185
Appendix D ‐ Duende review by Jason
Duende follows a humourous, typical boy meets girl scenario that alters the boy’s life in what can be seen as both a positive and negative way. The boy, Leo, is a top student and the ideal son until Valentina, the girl, captures his attention leading him to make nearly all the wrong choices.
Likes:
First person narration; having the story told by the character made it
easier to relate to the character – easier to form a connection.
Realism – Every character offered some realistic depiction of different
types of students found at high school. The outcast/unpopular nerd:
Leo, the jocks: Steve and Andy, the screw-up: Steve, the girl pack:
Charlie and friends, the unreachable pretty girl: Valentina.
Regular application of humour - humour makes the book more
enjoyable and harder to put down.
The ending is open – I found myself wondering what happened
afterwards, did the father go back to his boat? Did Valentina move to
Australia? Did Leo go to Sydney? Did he give up surfing once more?
Etc.
Simplicity – the book doesn’t delve into a complicated story line, it
feels like an adventure.
186 The Lost Boys: Creating appealing and engaging fiction for adolescent male reluctant readers