Number 17 (Part Four)

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

IV

The fourth most surprising thing happened on Friday, exactly one week after the day I wish I had fallen in love with Number 17. I was longing for the weekend, some moment of respite from the constant presence of the boy and his basketball. As the bell finally rang, heralding the end of the school day and the start of the glorious glorious weekend, I heard the tell-tale sound of a bouncing basketball.

“Hey indie chick,” Number 17’s voice came from behind me. Caroline grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the gate, muttering ‘don’t chick me’ under her breath.

“Oh, hi Win – I mean … hi,” I said as casually as possibly.

“Um so I’m pretty sorry I broke your mug, even if it did kind of burn me.”

“That’s okay.”

“Anyway, I wanted to make it up to you, so you could keep drinking your star anise stuff. So … I bought you a new mug.”

Number 17 held up the mug like a peace offering, as though for some inexplicable reason I had ever hated him in any way. I took it off him gratefully. It had basketballs on it. I imagined drawing question marks over each of the basketballs – is a basketball really just a basketball? But for the time being I just tucked it away in my backpack and grinned kind of lovesickly whilst Caroline tusk-tusked behind me.

“Also, are you doing anything this Saturday?” Number 17 asked a little shyly, scratching his head and looking at me sideways.

“Um,” I gasped. You don’t even know this boy’s name, my inner self, and probably Caroline too, cautioned. He’s probably a fucking capitalist. “No. No, I’m not busy.”

“Right, cause I have this basketball game on and you and Caroline should come watch. It should be a bit of a steal, the team we’re playing’s a load of crap, but that means I’ll probably be able to do a slam dunk.”

“You slam dunk?” I said, impressed.

“Oh yeah, I’m the shortest player on the team to be able to do so.” I frowned, trying to work out whether that was a good thing or not. “So …?” Number 17 pressed.

“Um, sure! Caroline and I will be there!” I grinned. Caroline groaned in the background. I ignored her.

“Alright, see you there then,” Number 17 called as he walked away. “Watch out for me, I’m Number 17.” I nodded, bemused, as he walked away. As he left, a friend of his shouted at him from across the grounds.

“Oi, Lyndon*! Chuck us the ball, will ya?”

*As in Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States when Australia entered into the Vietnam War with them. Just a little modern history reference that would be a little awkward if you didn’t get, as it’s pretty much the punch line of the story and not that I think you’re stupid or anything! Just I had to explain it to others which took the kick out of it a little. Just like this thing is. ANYWAY. If you got it, snaps for you. Here’s a song about him:

LBJ took the IRT down to 4^th Street USA

When he got there what did he see?

The youth of America on LSD.

Love you like existential basketballs.  

P.S. How impressive has my hyperlinking been, man?

Number 17 (Part Three)

Part One
Part Two
Part Four

III

The third most surprising thing that happened to me was that I couldn’t. Number 17 kept hanging around me like a bad smell. I began to think he was stalking me. He literally appeared like magic at the back of my English classroom, answering a question on existentialism. He referred to a basketball. A basketball, he had said poetically, is just a basketball. It’s what we do with it, that makes it a basketball.

Our English teacher nodded appreciatively because English teachers like bullshit like that. Especially italicised bullshit. I simply groaned and retreated under my desk. Caroline said I was having some existential problems of my own. My teacher suggested writing poetry, and if that failed, to pop by the school counsellors’.

What really, really annoyed me was that by Thursday I still hadn’t worked out what Number 17’s name was. He was in my English class, I had spoken to him at the zip heater, hell, I had even watched his basketball game and I had no idea what he was called. I began to come up with potential names in my head. Gabriel, I projected, or maybe Quillon, Rutherford, Kensington, Winthrop? The possibilities danced in my mind like sugar-plum fairies, quickly gathering speed until they formed a little whirlwind of debris. WIN-QUILL-RUTH-SING-EL-FORD-TON-THROP-LON-BRI-KEN, over and over again. And if Number 17’s name did end up being Winquillruthsingelfordtonthroplonbriken, it would probably explain his quick understanding of the concept of existentialism. 

***

Trials have started! One down, five to go. And then Extension Two due. And then French HSC orals. And then Drama HSC performance. AND THEN COMPLETION. (And then the actual HSC ... :D)

My excellent procrastination recently has been making my year 12 graduation video. It's a secret, so I can't say anything else. But so far (I hope) it's really cute, nostalgic, funny ... not to get your hopes up or blow my own trumpet but I'm pretty proud of it. SO FAR! Eesh I hope everyone likes it.

Life after trials is going to be amazing. I'll be able to work on the graduation video for seven hours on a weekend (like I did this weekend, yes, the weekend before my trials) without feeling guilty. I'll be able to go formal dress shopping YAY. I'll be able to make my costume for muck-up day and all the other days we have during our second last week of school. Plus, after trials, JETS ARE GO! That's pretty exciting.

One day, after my grade sees it of course and they let me upload it, you guys can have a look. Maybe.

Until then, wish me luck for the rest of my trials. I hope you're enjoying story time.

Love you like the (very) near future,

x

Number 17 (Part Two)

Part One
Part Three
Part Four

II

The second most surprising thing that happened to me was that I realised Number 17 actively attended my high school. This perhaps wasn’t that surprising because it was a school basketball game that I had been watching. So, we had attended the same high school for five years and I had not noticed that he had even existed. This could be for many reasons; his average height, the fact that Caroline wouldn’t let me talk to the ‘freaks’ of the corridors, or how for two months I had an eye infection and had to wear a pirate-like eye-patch over my right eye, thus effectively preventing me from noticing half of the school’s population. He had probably been in the right sphere of my vision for those two months, always just evading my sightlines, dammit. We could have had so much more time together.

Once I knew he existed, he popped up everywhere like a newly-learned word. There he was, cramming physics notes in the computer nook before classes, buying a sausage roll and barbecue sauce in the canteen, chucking a basketball across the year 12 common room, making two minute noodles at the zip heater when I was trying to make Chai tea.

“Chai tea,” Number 17 said, as though tasting the syllables on his tongue. “That’s pretty indie of you.”

“Um,” I replied. He picked up the packet and looked at it curiously.

“What the fuck is star anise?”

I was going to answer but it sounded a bit like a rhetorical question. So instead I silently held up my mug and gestured toward the zip heater. He set down his bowl of Mi Goreng and took my mug from me. Our fingers touched as he looped his index finger through the handle. There was an awkward but romantic moment as I withdrew my index finger from the handle, passing on the tea cup legacy. He held the mug under the tap and pulled down on the lever, elegantly releasing a stream of boiling hot water. I heard it splash and hiss at the bottom of the mug, and I saw a single drop splatter over Number 17’s hand.

“Shit!” He screeched, dropping the mug in the sink and leaping back from the zip heater. I heard a cracking noise as I realised the handle had broken off my beautiful, romantic mug. “Fucking alternative Chai piece of shit!”

“Oh God, are you okay?” I gulped, a tiny evil voice in my mind crying accusatorily, you inadvertently burnt your first love! He’ll hate you forever. You just bloody had to want a mug of tea, didn’t you?

“I – yeah.” Number 17 picked up his Mi Goreng and gritted his teeth masculinely. “Be careful with that zip heater though. Wouldn’t want you to burn your pretty hand.” He backed away, still gritting his teeth whilst he lifted his chin in a ‘check ya later’ movement. When he had turned around and left the common room, I sighed heavily and slid down the fridge, momentarily getting my collar stuck on the handle.

“What a patronising little prick.” Caroline interrupted my textbook romcom moment, fishing my mug out of the sink and filling it herself. “Pretty hand? That’s just fucking depressing. Good work on burning him, though. Pretty hand … what a dickhead.” She shoved the Chai tea toward me and I gratefully took it, wrapping my hands around its body. I savoured the taste of the star anise with fond memories of his comment and resolved I would share my next mug of Chai with Number 17 himself. The conversation formed itself in my head.

“Taste that?” I asked Number 17 breathily, taking back my mug and sipping it again seductively. “That’s star anise.”

“It’s sweet and spicy …” He murmured, staring deep into my eyes. “Just like you.”

“Oi!” Caroline shouted. “Snap out of it Cinderella. This prince of yours is a fucking capitalist, remember, he’s never going to get with a poor indie slave-girl.”

“Slave-girl?” I asked, peering up at Caroline’s defensive grimace over the rim of my mug.

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

But I didn’t. I wasn’t a slave-girl and I wasn’t about to let Number 17 think I was, either. I bobbled the teabag round in my mug and tried to think objectively.

xx

Number 17 (Part One)

Story that I wrote for a friend’s Christmas present. I sort of like it. It’s meant to be satirical, just in case you think that I’m being serious or something. It comes in four parts, so I’ll upload it in those parts. HAHA you’ll have cliff hangers. Anyway. Enjoy or don’t, I don’t mind. And sorry about the swearing. J (So much for not writing for the next few weeks because of trials. OH WELL. I wrote this ages ago, so it’s actually just copying and pasting.)

x

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

I

The first most surprising thing that happened to me was that I fell in love on a Saturday, which annoyed the hell out of me at the time because I couldn’t walk home singing Friday I’m in Love without feeling like a liar. I had sat in the stands at a basketball game that Saturday night, falling in love with Number 17 and thinking – stay at home on Saturday night, you idiot, and go to the basketball game on Friday, okay? Relationships, I had thought, are always healthier if begun at the end of the week. Saturday, wait, was not a good sign for anyone. The Cure knows best.

Number 17 was dazzlingly average in height for a basketball player – he later told me he was the shortest player on the team to have done a slam dunk – but I didn’t mind because it meant he had superior jumping skills. That Saturday night he did no slam dunking, but did score a couple of three-pointers and dribbled quite a lot. This beast from the other team had pushed him over, which made me stand up quickly in rage and also promptly sit back down in slight embarrassment. Number 17, luckily, hadn’t seen me. He stood up, dusted himself off, and jogged to the key to help defend. What a team player.

My best friend, Caroline, however, hadn’t been thrilled with my choice of First Love.

“Basketball?” She shrieked. “Pick a more un-Australian sport, will you. Australia only plays basketball because America does; it’s like the Vietnam War.”

“Basketball isn’t that much like the Vietnam War …” I defended, but Caroline cut me off furiously.

“It’s exactly like the Vietnam War. Your Number 17 is probably a fucking capitalist too. Trust you to fall in love with a fucking capitalist.”

“What would you prefer, then?”

“I’d go for an AFL player,” Caroline pondered. “Nothing more fundamentally Aussie than an AFL player.” 

But Caroline hates AFL. She thinks all AFL players are fucking misogynists. All rugby players are fucking rapists. All netball players are fucking sluts. All tennis players are fucking fashion disasters. So I covertly ignored her fucking opinion.

To be continued ...

A Love Story (written a particularly long time ago but not really, in the end.)

If you are my friend, especially one particular friend I may or may not call Gauri, you may have already heard this story. It’s a love story. I’m a little proud of it. It’s quite nice. I think it’s well-written if I say so myself which I do. If you want to read it you can, feel free. Otherwise, sorry, because I’m going to put it in here. Enjoy if you want to. Otherwise, don’t. I think I’ve made that clear. I AM VERY SELF-INDULGENT.

Does anyone even read this? HELLO OUT THERE-there-there-there! Apparently not, hence the echo. Said in a Winnie-the-Pooh voice because it’s a quote from Winnie-the-Pooh. Yay.

It’s called Barbecued Beef Sausages for reasons that will become apparent once you read it all and get to the love story part. J It’s based very loosely on a true story. Once I was on the bus and smelt like tomato sauce. That’s the true story bit. The rest I made up that day. What can I say? I am inspired by odd things, ie. a toilet, dodgy wedding dresses, a boy on the bus etc.

Barbecued Beef Sausages

I get almost all the way to Norton Street before realising that I smell like tomato sauce. Not, “I feel like tomato sauce” or “I look like tomato sauce”, but that sweet, tangy stench of the aforementioned condiment is all over me. My hands, face, hair, arms … what was I doing this morning? This is humiliation like I’ve never experienced. Who wants to sit next to a girl who smells of the local hamburger shop?

The empty seat next to me remains empty with glaring blatantness as the usual frustrated public transport patrons start queuing like sheep waiting to be shorn at the back of the bus.  I break out in a clammy sweat. I avert my now-dilated pupils to the street rushing past. My heart skips a beat as the bus stops at a traffic light and a line of fancy peak-hour office cars forms beside us. A well-tailored businessman grabs the steering wheel tight as his nose twitches in my direction. Bouncing energetically at the traffic lights, an early-morning jogger and her shaggy Golden Retriever lift their noses in the air. As the light turns blessedly green, the Retriever gives an inconsiderately loud bark and attempts to leap after the bus. The jogger lies spread-eagled, face-down in a puddle.

The sickening scent of my accidental perfume haunts me for the rest of the day. At recess I’m on canteen duty and I take the opportunity to grab a pie off a year seven, dig through the layers of pastry and smear the meat on my wrists and neck in hope of creating some delicate balance of flavours.

The year seven starts crying and runs away.

My classes are filled with opportunistic jokes directed at my sexy scent.

               

                ‘You going for a job at Pieface?’ Queries one comedic colleague.

                ‘What did you do to the perfume companies for them to take revenge like that?’ Asks one hilarious homeboy.

                ‘Don’t look now, but Billy’s coming at you with a fork and pepper grinder.’

The day, somehow, goes downhill from there. I am licked, poked, jeered at, laughed at and generally marginalised all day. The gardener thinks it necessary to turn a hose on me – the scent does not fade. It seems I will be forever cursed, forever shunned by the daisy-and-toothpaste scented society. At lunch I sit by myself and cry tears of gravy. I feel alone and ashamed and so very stench-self-conscious.

My hose down appears to help the meat-pie smell but the tomato one remains as I sit down on the bus on the way home. Once again, the adjacent seat is painfully barren, an expanse of sticky blue plastic stretching into infinity. The man sitting in front of me sneaks a peak at what the source of that peculiar smell could possibly be. Seeing me staring homicidally back, he shuffles uncomfortably in his seat before getting up quickly and moving to the front of the bus.

                ‘Fine!’ I want to shout. ‘I smell like tomato sauce! You are wondering where my twist-top and easy-squeeze grip are. You want to know my salt content, and how many calories I contain? Too many for you, you lot of prissy pompous bus …BITCHES!’

But I don’t say that. I sit on the blue plastic and wait for the next round of humiliation, which materialises in the form of a pokey-looking high school boy. Ew, high school boys, is my first thought as the weight balance shifts on the seat. My mind is still murderously boiling away when a mouth-watering smell captures my attention.

Barbecued beef sausages. It’s … enchanting! Salty, spicy, the gourmet variety. I turn my head slowly and my green eyes meet with a dazzling pair of brown ones.

                ‘Tomato sauce …’ he whispers.

                ‘Beef sausage …’ I reply.

This boy, this pokey high school boy, is my barbecued delicacy soul mate! I am overwhelmed with joy and the blinding aromas of love. We get off the bus, together, arms entwined.

                ‘You won’t believe the day I’ve had,’ the boy sighs. I sigh with him, and our breath mingles with complimenting flavours. And suddenly I don’t mind that I smell like a hamburger shop anymore.

Because condiments conquer all!

THE END

It’s true though. They do. Condiments are pretty spiffy.

Love you like a pork chop. J