Scobie then officially brought the meeting to an end, but only after Razza had taken just two words to explain exactly what he thought Ignatius should do.
27.
TINY PINK CROP CIRCLES
I wouldn’t call the debate against Strawberry Hill a complete disaster. After all, nothing was destroyed and nobody died – not literally, anyway.
I guess the warning signs were there in our final two debating meetings. Razza and Prindabel refused to talk to each other except via insults and sarcastic asides and then they both argued (through Scobie) that the other’s speech should be changed while stubbornly refusing to listen to any suggestion regarding their own.
The last meeting broke up when Ignatius accused Razza of being ‘living proof’ that too much sport was harmful, since repeated heading of a soccer ball had obviously pulverised his brain. Razza fired back that the only way Prindabel would make it on to a sporting field was as a corner post – and even then he’d have to do extensive weight training to build himself up. At that point Scobie suggested that it might be better if Bill or I stepped into the team at the last minute. Both Ignatius and Razza agreed wholeheartedly as long as they weren’t the one being replaced.
On the night of the debate, the room was packed. Strawberry Hill had a big crowd of supporters. They’d also dropped just the one debate, so it was do or die for them as well. I sat nervously in the audience with Mum and Prue, Bill and his parents, Mr Scobie, Mrs Zorzotto and a few St Daniel’s Year Nine boys from an earlier debate. Dad wasn’t there because he was tied up with rehearsals and Miss Tarango couldn’t make it either because she was with our Year Eight teams at another school. It was the first time in my life that I could remember being glad that Miss wasn’t around. I had a bad feeling about this.
The two teams sat facing each other waiting for the adjudicator to signal the start. The girl and two boys from Strawberry Hill were crammed together, nodding and whispering and occasionally flicking nervously through their palm cards. Across the room Razza, Scobie and Prindabel sat glumly like guests on the Jerry Springer Show who’d just been informed that they were all married to the same woman – and she was a man.
Finally, with a nod from the adjudicator, we were under way. The first speaker from Strawberry Hill was competent enough but I was still sure that Ignatius would at least be able to match him and that our case would hold up. When Prindabel rose to speak, however, it didn’t take long for the cracks to appear.
The first sign of trouble came when Prindabel outlined our team argument. While he stated boldly that he as first speaker would ‘prove beyond a shadow of a doubt’ and Scobie at third speaker would ‘convince with an overwhelming and watertight case’, the best Ignatius could manage for Razza was ‘our second speaker will attempt to present some plausible arguments why you should believe him’. I spotted a few frowns around the room. The biggest one was carved into Razza’s face.
Don’t worry, there was worse to come. The cracks widened alarmingly when Prindabel announced our theme. It seems that, without informing his team mates, he had decided to ever-so-subtly change the original theme from Too much of a good thing is bad for you to Sport is for losers. One of Scobie’s eyebrows reared up like an exclamation mark. The opposition team began writing furiously. Across the room from them, and writing even more furiously, was Orazio Zorzotto.
But wait, Ignatius wasn’t finished yet. Oh no. He had one last surprise for us all. It appeared that, in order to illustrate his arguments about the negative aspects of sport, he had decided it would be a good idea to base his evidence exclusively on soccer. It was as if no other sport existed. We heard about soccer drug cheats, soccer hooliganism and violence, serious injuries suffered by soccer players (including – Prindabel pointed out with a sympathetic glance at Razza-brain damage from excessive heading), outlandish incomes earned by soccer stars and finally, the pièce de résistance, the widespread bribery, corruption and match-fixing that Prindabel gleefully informed the audience was most rampant in Italian soccer clubs, particularly AC Milan.
When Ignatius returned to his chair, he briskly tapped his palm cards into alignment, placed them carefully on the desk and stared straight ahead. Beside him, James Scobie sat motionless like a small, pale, stone statue. On the other side of Scobie, Razza was leaning forward with his eyes boring into Prindabel as if he was trying to slice him in two with his X-ray vision. He stayed that way as the next speaker from Strawberry Hill delivered her speech.
Naturally their second speaker wasted no time in destroying Prindabel’s theme and in pointing out the extremely narrow range of examples used to ‘prove’ his arguments. Even before Razza had said a word, it was clear that the Negative team were ahead of us.
I knew we were in trouble, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that debating was more like a marathon than a sprint and therefore there was still plenty of time for us to catch up. Well, at least that’s what I did think until Razza gave his speech. By the time he’d finished it was pretty clear to me that the opposition were already starting their final lap of the stadium while we were still four suburbs away asking tourists for directions.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t that Razza’s arguments weren’t convincing and passionate. They were. In fact in a lot of ways it was probably his most inspired performance. It was just unfortunate that he seemed to be more interested in debating Ignatius than the other team. As Strawberry Hill salivated with delight, Razza mounted a spirited defence of sport in general and soccer and AC Milan in particular. Just occasionally he did manage to drift almost accidentally over to our side of the debate. Like the time he acknowledged that an obsession with sport might have some harmful side-effects, but then quickly pointed out (nodding towards Prindabel) that it was better than being ‘an uber nerd whose idea of exercise was blowing out the flame on a Bunsen burner’.
When Razza returned to his chair, he briskly tapped his palm cards into alignment, placed them carefully on the desk and stared straight ahead. Beside him James Scobie wrapped an elastic band around a big slab of his carefully prepared notes and dropped them into a bin beneath his desk. On the other side of Scobie, Prindabel leant forward with his eyes boring into Razza as if he was trying to slice him in two with his X-ray vision.
As you can imagine, the final speaker for Strawberry Hill had a field day. Not content with driving a truck through the yawning holes in our arguments, he effortlessly piloted jumbo jets through sideways. By the time he’d finished, the Affirmative case as presented by our first two speakers was exposed as a broken-down heap of generalisations, inconsistencies, errors and contradictions.
The only problem that their third speaker seemed to be having was trying to fit all his excellent rebuttal points in before the bell. Of course, he could have saved a lot of time by just saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to point out two major flaws in the opposition’s arguments – their first and second speakers. Thank you.’ That would have done juuuuust fine.
All eyes were now on Scobie. Since the end of Razza’s speech he had been meticulously filling up blank palm cards, point after point, with his loopy backhanded writing, and he didn’t stop or raise his eyes until the chairperson called his name. Then he laid down his pen, straightened his cards and walked calmly to the front of the audience. ‘Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen,’ he said, adjusting his glasses on his small nose, ‘let me make it perfectly clear to you what we have heard here tonight …’
For the next five minutes there was only one show in town – and its star was James Scobie. I don’t think anyone who was there will ever forget that speech. First Scobie began by salvaging any scraps of argument he could find from the pile of rubble left by the hand grenades that Ignatius and Razza had hurled at each other. Then he bound those bits together so cleverly that they appeared strong and solid. Piece by piece he painstakingly rebuilt our case until in the end even I was convinced I could see it standing up, although I knew there was absolutely no foundation to suppo
rt it.
After that, Scobie turned his attention to the opposition and began a process of deconstruction and demolition. Calmly and clinically he exposed every design fault, every dodgy short cut, every structural weakness, every gap, every crack and every piece of shoddy workmanship. When he’d finished, what had once appeared safe and welcoming now had you reaching for the Danger! Do Not Enter sign.
The second warning bell sounded just as Scobie uttered his final words. The applause started then and followed him to his seat, and it continued as he sat gazing into the space between the teams. Even the adjudicator was shaking his head and clumping his hands together loudly. Through it all James Scobie sat motionless like a little Buddha framed by two sheepish faces. He was too exhausted to even raise a twitch.
In his summing up, the adjudicator said that Scobie’s speech was by far the best he’d ever heard in a Year Ten debate, and he followed it up by awarding it the highest marks he had given in nine years of adjudicating. But it still wasn’t enough. We fell short by two points. There would be no finals glory for us this year.
After the chairperson officially closed the debate, Scobie was swamped. Even the Strawberry Hill supporters couldn’t wait to congratulate him.
Mum told Scobie that he would be running the country one day. Scobie just smiled and said, ‘Thanks, Mrs Leseur – I don’t know about that.’
Then Mum headed off to catch up with Mrs Zorzotto, but for some strange reason, Scobie remained focused on the empty space where she had been. It took a second or two before I realised that he was looking at Prue.
‘Oh … Scobie … This is Prue, my little sister. Prue, this is James Scobie … and that’s Razza … and Ignatius.’
Prue was clutching a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. She smiled briefly at the other two then turned quickly back to Scobie. ‘You were just brilliant,’ she said with her eyes stretched wide in amazement, ‘and trust me, I know brilliant. Just a shame the rest of your team didn’t show up,’ she said, firing some dagger eyes at Razza and Prindabel. ‘You could have won easily. But your speech … I still don’t know how you did it … You were … fantastic.’
Scobie cleared his throat then attempted to adjust his glasses, but only managed to accidentally knock them sideways so that they swung off one ear. As he fumbled them back into place his mouth twisted from side to side and neat patches of colour appeared on each of his cheeks like tiny pink crop circles.
‘Thanks … It was … I umm … It ah … I ah … I umm,’ he said.
Standing beside me was the most brilliant speaker that St Daniel’s Boys College was ever likely to produce – and something was turning his brain into mush.
Track 6:
All the time
All the time
I’ve been looking at you
Can you see me?
Can you see me?
All the time
I’ve been trying to break through
Won’t you free me?
Won’t you free me?
All the time
I’ve been wishing I knew
Will it be me?
Will it be me?
All the time
I’ve been thinking of you
All the time
All the time
From The Dugongs: Returned & Remastered
Music & lyrics: W. Mangan and R. Leseur
28.
A BRAIN PASH
‘Scobie and Prue?’
Razza nodded knowingly.
‘Scobie … and Prue?’
‘I’m telling you, man, he’s got it and he’s got it bad.’
Razza and I both looked across the room to where Scobie sat quietly waiting for Miss Tarango to arrive for Homeroom.
‘Scobie and Prue?’
‘You were there last night, weren’t you? You heard him trying to speak to her, didn’t you? And what about the look? You must have seen that. Just like I said – Game Over, man.’
‘But … Prue’s just … a little kid.’
‘Little kid? She’s only a year younger than you … and dude, have you studied her closely recently?’
‘No!’
‘Yeah well, maybe you should … I know I did last night,’ Razza said, then held up both hands when he saw the expression on my face. ‘Hey, it’s what I do. Anyway, what I’m saying is, that if you had been paying a bit more attention you might’ve noticed that your little Prudles has undergone some interesting redevelopments and expansions, if you get my drift.’
I did get his drift, but I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go where he was drifting.
‘Besides, they reckon chicks mature faster than us guys … If you can believe that,’ Razza said as he bent a staple so one spike stuck up then placed it carefully on Donny Garbolo’s chair. ‘And don’t forget, she’s a genius and everything, so that makes her technically even older. See, that’s what I reckon it’s all about-it’s a meeting of the minds, man. So I wouldn’t worry about the Scobster and the Pruester getting up to anything hot and heavy if I were you. They’d probably just want to do something like read encyclopaedias or watch Sale of the Century or do algebra problems together. Be sort of like … a brain pash.’
We were interrupted at that point by Donny Garbolo delivering an impressive spray of swear words as he extracted a staple from his backside.
Razza glared at him. ‘Do you mind keeping it down to a dull roar, pal? We’re trying to have a serious conversation here.’
Donny Garbolo’s eyebrows hooded tightly together and he held up the staple. Razza turned to the boys around him and told them sternly that it was about time some people grew up. Donny looked at everyone as if they were in a police line-up, then checked his seat thoroughly before gently sitting down.
‘So anyway … like I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted: Scobes is definitely gone, totally wasted. It’s an open-and-shut case. Yep, it looks to me like Scobie baby has found his one Prue-love.’
As Razza sniggered happily beside me, I saw the world I thought I knew crumbling away. What was going on? There was no one you could trust any more. First it was Barry Bagsley becoming almost human, and then it was my own father joining the legions of the living dead, and now logical, always-in-control, never-lost-for-words Scobie had warped into a babbling pile of hormones and was looking to brain-pash my little sister. It was getting scary.
A series of thumps from beside me broke my chain of thought. I looked across at Razza, who was drumming madly on his desk with his lips pushed forward, his eyes squeezed shut and his head flopping around as if his neck had turned to rubber. Occasionally he lashed out at an imaginary cymbal. I smiled to myself. It was good to know that at least some people would always be the same.
‘Hey, nearly forgot,’ Razza said without missing a beat, ‘Billy Boy was talking about going to the pictures tomorrow to see the new Star Warrior’s Quest flick. What’s it called again?’
‘Star Warrior’s Quest: The Final Hurdle.’
‘Yeah, sweet, The Vinyl Girdle.’
Yes, some people would never change.
‘Anyway, you in?’
‘Sure.’
‘Well, Bilbo’s gonna ring me tonight to sort out the details, then I’ll call you, OK?’
‘Yeah, great.’
‘Cool!’
That night while my family were all sitting around the TV having our usual Friday night video marathon and fish and chips pig-out, I remembered what Razza had said about Prue and decided to observe her closely for myself. One thing I noticed straightaway was that she seemed more interested in poring over last year’s St Daniel’s school magazine than watching the movie. Something else was pretty obvious as well-two things, really. I guess maybe Razza was right-maybe my little sister Prue wasn’t that little any more.
I shifted my attention from Prue to Dad. Normally he would be cracking jokes about whatever was happening on the television or making up his own dialogue for the characters on the screen. Not tonight. Tonight he was just
chewing slowly on a chip and staring into space like he was tuned in to an entirely different program. Mum wasn’t much better.
What was happening to everyone?
I can tell you, it was a relief when the phone finally rang. ‘That’ll be for me,’ I said, hurdling over the coffee table and heading for the hallway. I was glad to get out of there. I was looking forward to speaking with the one person I knew would never go all weird on me.
I yanked up the receiver, blurted out, ‘Ishmael here,’ and waited for Razza’s unmistakeable rapid-fire delivery to barrel down the line.
‘Ishmael?’ a soft voice replied. ‘Hi, it’s Kelly Faulkner.’
29.
SCOPE TO GROPE
‘Rigid, dude! Now do you believe me? She’s pining for you, man! Hey, was she naked again?’
I’d only just finished talking to Kelly Faulkner when Razza rang.
‘No, she wasn’t naked, OK?’
‘Then tell me exactly what she said.’
‘She said her debating team were through to the finals. She said that they’d heard about us being knocked out and she wanted to know if both of us could help them with their preparation for the Secret Topic round next term because we’d been through it all last year. She said maybe we could meet at Sally’s house on the second weekend of the break. Oh, and she also said that Sally’s father found a cordial bottle stuck somewhere up the back of the pool filter.’
‘Awesome! I never doubted you for a second, dude. You know what this means, don’t you? She wants you, man! She wants you!’