or as Peter said,
‘chased the anteater off his head’.
He played punk double-loud
and drummed the desks in time.
The J-man?
You guessed it.
Rap.
Baggy pants and breakdance,
high-fives and calling Mr Carey, ‘Bro!’
Emily wore her tutu
and butterflied across the room
to classical music.
Mr Carey strummed guitar
and sang in a nasal voice
about dead animals and war,
even though he said the song
was about love and peace.
The Principal sat up the back
and watched the rehearsal.
When the bell rang,
she walked to the foot of the stage,
and said,
‘Very dramatic, everyone.
It’s coming along nicely.
Well done.’
She turned to leave,
stopped,
and glanced at Billy.
‘Interesting haircut, young man.’
The Co-curricular guest
Sarah invited her Great Uncle Bob
to Co-curricular today.
He was very old,
with grey hair,
and a long droopy moustache.
He was dressed in his old army uniform.
He talked about all his friends
who were teenagers,
just like him,
when they went to war.
He talked about the jungle
and the rains that never stopped,
and the two years
in a prisoner-of-war camp,
and how he still can’t look in a mirror
without seeing himself as
a bag of bones.
And when it was all over
and the ship docked in Sydney Harbour,
he saw his family waiting
and waving
and he thought of his friends
left in the jungle…
Then Great Uncle Bob
played The Last Post
on the bugle
and we all cried,
except Billy.
He sniffled a little
and whispered,
‘Punks don’t cry.’
Billy and the bugle
I wasn’t crying,
anyway.
I had a cold
and forgot my hanky
and Dad said
I shouldn’t wipe my nose
on my sleeve.
So I was
sniffing,
not sniffling!
Okay?
Billy? No way!
Yeah,
Billy wasn’t crying,
no way!
He probably just
hurt his hands
drumming them on the desks,
before,
when he played his punk music.
Punks don’t cry.
Not even with two broken hands.
Punks rule!
Jason
I like Emily.
I really do.
She’s smart
and funny
and she’s cool to be around,
but
she wants me to perform
in the school concert with her,
as a dancer!
In tights!
She calls them stretch pants,
but they look like tights to me!
I’m supposed to catch her
as she sails across the stage,
and spin her in mid-air
as she raises her hands
like butterfly wings.
Me?
I think I’d rather be Romeo
in a play,
but what can I say?
Every afternoon
as we walk along our street
she pirouettes on the footpath
as she turns into her driveway.
Me,
a dancer?
In tights?
On stage?
And I voted for it!
Jason, the butterfly!
Emily
A concert is better than a play.
I don’t have to learn lines,
or act,
or rehearse with the rest of the class.
And I’m sure Jason loves
the chance to be onstage together.
My ballet teacher
says Jason will need lots of practice,
but I’m sure she’s exaggerating.
I mean,
he only has to catch me.
And now we can spend
every afternoon together,
just the two of us.
My mum always says
things work out for the best,
and,
for once,
maybe she’s right.
The hero of Macbeth
This morning
Class 5P and Class 6C
went to see a play
called Macbeth,
written by William Shakespeare.
It’s about a bloke with an evil wife
and how they both want to kill
this other poor guy.
It was great.
Lots of blood
and guts
and shouting,
with everyone talking
in a really weird language.
But the highlight
was just before Macbeth
was going to murder the king.
Roberto Baggio
from Year 5
stood up in the front row
and yelled,
‘Look out!
The ugly man’s going to kill you!’
The actors froze,
dagger raised,
as our whole school
stared at Roberto:
the hero of Macbeth.
Anna and the fool
of Macbeth
I want to kill him!
Not the king.
My brother!
I swear!
Roberto is sitting right beside me
in the dark theatre
and I’m so involved in the play –
as Macbeth creeps up on the king –
I can hardly stand the suspense.
Will he do it?
Will the king wake in time?
And crazy Roberto
stands up
and shouts
at the top of his voice
and everyone turns
and looks at him
and then
everyone looks at me
as though
I know about it,
as though
I’ve told him to stand up and shout,
as though
I’m the fool of Macbeth!
How could I know
what’s going on in my brother’s mind?
I need yoga!
I need a whole day of yoga
to calm me down!
Electricity in Anna’s house
Tonight, for homework,
we had to study electricity.
Mr Carey told us
to ask our parents to turn off
all the power to our house.
Darkness.
I can hear my heart
instead of the refrigerator.
I can hear the crickets in the garden
instead of my brother’s music.
I can see the stars outside
instead of the bedroom light.
I can see the moon rising.
I can hear a bird,
and a dog barking in the distance,
but most of all
when I close my eyes
I can see Mr Carey,
smiling to himself,
and I smile too.
‘Right,’ says Dad.
‘That’s enough homework.
Let’s watch television.’
Michael watching the weather
When Dad’s had a bad day at work,
he brings home a dark cloud
that hovers over dinner.
Stella and me
(thunder, lightning)
sorry, Dad – Stella and I
eat quietly,
politely,
not too much food
mouth closed
chew slowly
don’t gulp
sip our water
don’t guzzle
ask, ‘Can you pass the salt please, Dad?’
Not too much salt,
no thanks to pepper,
elbows off the table,
no wiping your mouth on your sleeve.
All through dinner
we bow under the storm cloud,
wishing for sunshine, not rain.
Then it happens.
I push the peas onto my fork,
slowly,
carefully
lift them to my mouth
and put them all in,
without dropping one.
But before I can chew,
I feel my nose
itching
from the inside.
I’m about to…
Sneeeeeeeeze!
It’s raining peas!
Peas on the table.
Peas on the floor.
Peas plopping in the glasses.
And one pea,
one super tomahawk-missile pea
hits Dad smack between the eyes.
Stella ducks for shelter.
Mum covers her face.
And Dad?
(storm? thunder? lightning?)
No.
He rubs his face,
takes a calm deep breath
and says,
‘Great shot, Michael.’
Sarah asks
Mr Jonesforthwalton
three questions
Sir, do you know where the Principal is?
Yes.
Can you tell me where the Principal is?
I certainly can.
Where is the Principal?
Right behind you!
Mr Carey jigged school!
I was eleven.
My friend Brian and I
were walking to school.
It was summer,
not a cloud in the sky.
Brian said,
‘Let’s go swimming.’
I said,
‘We can’t. It’s a school day.’
‘So?’ Brian replied.
I never did have an answer for ‘So?’
We sneaked home,
got our swimmers and towels,
and raced to the creek,
not far from school.
We swung off the rope
and swam.
It was great.
We lay in the cool shade
and ate our lunch,
and thought of everyone back at school.
Then we heard footsteps…
In the distance we saw our principal
marching down to the creek.
‘Quick,’ said Brian,
‘jump in and we’ll swim
to the other side.’
We did.
We scrambled up the opposite bank,
and hid under some bushes.
Perfect.
He’d never see us.
He didn’t.
The principal went straight
to our clothes and towels,
on the bank where we’d left them.
He picked them up
and said to the silent bush,
‘These will be in my office, gentlemen.
Have a pleasant swim.’
The principal, and our clothes,
returned to school.
Brian looked at me.
I looked at Brian.
That was the first
and last
time I jigged school.
Jason foresees the future
A crowded school hall.
Emily’s parents sitting
in the front row,
next to Mum and Dad.
The music starts,
Emily floats across stage
to ripples of applause.
She executes a perfect spin
and tiptoes elegantly
into the centre
with the lights
beaming down brightly
as she smiles at the audience
and prances in ever-widening circles,
gathering speed,
heading to where I’m standing
in black tights
with the words of Peter
echoing in my ear:
‘Nice legs, Jason.’
The music reaches a crescendo
as Emily leaps
and flies,
arms outstretched,
as I turn to tell Peter
what I think of him.
And the crowd gasps
as I turn to punch Peter,
whose face is filled with horror…
not because he’s afraid of my fists,
but he sees Emily
flying towards me…
Sophie forsees her future
I’ll be standing
alone
on stage,
deathly quiet,
everyone expecting
music
and dancing
and wild costumes,
and I’ll be up there
reciting
in my loudest voice,
which
is not that loud.
A poem.
A poem I still haven’t written.
And you’ll be able to hear a pin
d
r
o
p.
And when I finish
they probably won’t understand.
They’ll think
I’ve forgotten the next line,
or
I’m taking an extra-long breath,
and
I’ll be standing there
alone
alone, with my poem.
The poems Sophie
didn’t finish
One:
The class sat at their desks
like sheep,
although if a sheep sat on a chair
it would probably fall off
and run out the room
looking for grass
and its sheep friends
in a meadow somewhere.
Two:
The moon glows
like the lightbulb
before my brother
smashed it,
swinging his golf club.
Dad put in a new one
and turned it on
but it still didn’t work,
not like the moon,
which works every night,
even without Dad turning it on.
Three:
The day woke like sunshine
then went back to sleep
because it was Saturday
and I didn’t have school.
Four:
She was so happy
she purred like a cat
right before getting its tail
stepped on by a blind man.
Five:
He loved her so much
he gave up chewing gum
and eating peas with his knife.
But he kept cracking his knuckles
because he liked the sound.
Class 6C and their
favourite birds
‘I’ll start,’ says Mr Carey.
‘My favourite bird is a kookaburra.
A bird that laughs.
What more could you ask?’
‘And kills snakes too, sir.’
‘Mine’s a swallow.
Swooping a centimetre from the ground.’
Sarah says,
; ‘A white dove. For peace, sir.’
Billy says,
‘I love a cockatoo. A bird with a mohawk!’
‘Or a king parrot. A king!’
Emily says,
‘A swan, sir. A beautiful floating swan.’
Jason replies,
‘A dodo. An extinct bird, sir.’
‘A pelican.
So big, and they sit on the beach all day, fishing.’
‘A seagull.
He sits on the beach, too, and eats chips!’
‘And what’s your favourite, Peter?’ asks Mr Carey.
Peter smiles, licks his lips, and says,
‘A chicken, sir.
With roast potatoes, peas and lots of gravy!’
Windy
Six of us
in the playground
kicking a ball
when
Billy kicks it high,
too high,
and the wind gets it
and it flies
over our heads
and bounces
on the school roof,
not once,
not twice,
but three times,
then it rolls down
over the gutter
and lands
at the feet
of our Principal.
Billy whispers, ‘I’m dead!’
Alex:‘We’re all dead!’
Jason: ‘A week’s detention, for sure.’
Peter: ‘A letter home. Mum will kill me!’
Me:‘Extra homework. An essay,
or something stupid like that.’
Ahmet: ‘That’s my ball!’
What does the Principal do?
She puts her foot on the ball,
rolls it back
and in one swift move,
flicks it into the air
and kicks it to us.
She smiles and says,
‘It’s very windy today, isn’t it?’
Mr Holditz
Good morning, Class 6C.
I’m Mr Holditz,
your casual teacher for today.
Yes, Michael,
I know I’m wearing a suit and tie.
And I know that’s not exactly casual.
I don’t mean casual in clothes,
I mean casual as in…
as in…
I’m your relief teacher for today.
Yes, Sophie,
it is a relief you’ve got a teacher today
because Mr Carey is sick.
No, not dying, Emily.
He has a bug of some sort.
No. He couldn’t kill the bug with flyspray, Billy.