‘Have you made lots of friends at school?’ Digby’s dad asks me.
I’m not sure what to say because most of the boys at Queenscliff Public play rugby, which I hate because your head gets smacked in, and most of the girls just sit around swapping Collect-a-Petz Cards or chattering about girls’ stuff. So every lunchtime in my first week, I just walked around the school library building six times one way and six times the other, until the bell rang. And because there are hundreds of kids at Queenscliff Public, nobody noticed me doing that, except for Miss Marion the dance teacher. She noticed straight away, because she notices everything.
‘You like walking in circles, Jackson?’ Miss Marion popped out from behind a tree and gave me a big surprise. She didn’t really look like a teacher, with her colourful spiky hair and crazy socks.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Do you like dancing in circles too?’
‘Yes,’ I said, even though I wasn’t so sure.
‘Why don’t you try Senior Dance?’ Miss Marion said. ‘You’ll be amazed what your body can do. It’s a lot more than circles, honeybun!’
I liked how Miss Marion smiled and called me ‘honeybun’ and made Senior Dance sound like heaps of fun, so I just said yes, again.
From that week on, I went to dance every Wednesday and Thursday during lunchtime. After about three weeks, Miss Marion came and found me again one Monday recess when I was circling the library.
‘You’ve got real talent, Jackson,’ she said, walking next to me. ‘Your high leaps and jumps are sensational. You’re a fast learner.’ After another lap of the library, she asked if I’d like to dance in a special role at the eisteddfod, which is a weird Welsh word for sitting, even though this eisteddfod was about dancing.
At first I thought she was joking, but then Miss Marion started explaining about how I’d have to learn ‘aerial silks’ on Monday and Friday lunchtimes if I actually wanted the special role. I’d never even heard of aerial silks.
‘It’s like flying to music,’ she told me.
That sounded awesome, so I said yes to that too.
Then I did a pretty bad thing. We went to the staff room and Miss Marion gave me a Parental Permission Note about risks and waivers and liability and duty of care and Working with Children Checks and how many weekend practices I’d have to do for my special role. But instead of taking the note home, I just signed it myself and gave it back to Miss Marion the next day. I didn’t think Dad would let me do it if I asked, I’ve never seen him dance once.
So for three months now I’ve been dancing every lunchtime except Tuesdays. I’m the only boy there, all the other dancers are in Grade Six or Five and one of them is April Kennedy. She’s in 5T like me and she’s a bit shy, but really kind.
I start telling Digby’s dad that April Kennedy is a special friend, but suddenly there’s this loud chime like a gong and he looks down at his mobile phone and groans.
‘This is urgent, sorry boys,’ he says, then he heads into his swanky home office and before he shuts the door, I see a big desk and two gigantic screens inside.
‘It’s probably Chicago calling,’ says Digby. ‘My dad gets calls from all over the world, all the time.’
‘My dad’s in New York now,’ I say.
‘What’s your dad do?’
‘He runs an advertising agency.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Digby sniffs. ‘My dad probably owns your dad’s advertising agency.’
I’m not sure what he means by that, but I follow Digby to the kitchen bench. He’s much taller than me because our school principal Mrs Daisy Bennett made him repeat Grade Three for ‘extra learning support’, so next year he’ll be the only teenager in Grade Six. Digby’s the oldest boy in our soccer team, too. His dad had to get special permission for him to stay with his friends in the Queenscliff Under-Eleven Dragons, all because of Mrs Bennett. Everyone calls her Crazy Daisy at school, because she’s always screeching and blowing her whistle and doling out detentions.
Digby grabs a banana from the fruit bowl on the bench. ‘Want one?’
He starts waving the banana around in front of his soccer shorts, which looks pretty funny, but I say, ‘No, thanks.’
Digby peels the banana and bites the end off. ‘Ouch, you’re hurting me! You’re hurting me!’ His voice is high-pitched, like maybe it’s the banana talking.
That makes me laugh, which makes Digby laugh too. Soon we’re having a full-blown cack-attack, we both can’t stop laughing. Digby’s face goes all red like he might be choking, but then he spits the banana into the sink, so I know he’s okay.
‘Damn, that was funny,’ he says, clapping me on the back.
He pours himself a glass of water, then pours one for me too.
Even though Digby’s heaps bigger and older than me, he was the first person to talk to me at Queenscliff Public. He doesn’t say much, though, which I don’t really mind because when people talk a lot, my brain gets glued up. And sometimes when it gets really clogged, I start seeing things in black and white.
An optha-whatsit doctor checked my eyes once and told Mum that maybe I had something called ‘achromatopsia in an atypical form’. Turns out I didn’t, but lots of doctors and non-doctors have called me atypical. Nanna Pam likes to use other words, like one-of-a-kind, unique, special. Atypical sounds a lot like A-type, which is what Mum calls Dad when he works too much.
Digby points at the plate of blueberry muffins now, but I say, ‘No, thanks’ again. He shrugs and walks into another room and I try to follow him, but he slams the door in my face. The sound gives me such a shock I cry out, and just as I’m wondering if he did that on purpose, Digby calls through the door, ‘Hey dude, I’m taking a piss!’ That makes me feel like a total idiot because no one should ever follow anyone else into a bathroom. ‘Private parts are private parts,’ Mum says. I’d kind of like to see another boy’s thing though, because I only have sisters so I don’t know if all boys’ things look the same. I’ve seen Dad’s a few times in the shower a long time ago, but it’s way too hairy and saggy.
After a while Digby comes out of the bathroom and says, ‘Wanna play a game?’
‘Yes, please,’ I say, because I’ve just spotted this huge marble chess set on the coffee table in the lounge. The kings are wearing long robes and the queens have real jewels in their crowns and the bishops look like executioners and all the pawns are carrying scabbards like a proper medieval battle.
‘Do you want to be white?’ I ask Digby, because white always starts.
Chess is the only game Mum lets me play online because Dr Louisa says I shouldn’t have too much screen time. If I do, my brain beans start exploding like fireworks and everything speeds up inside until I start doing headstands. I really want to play chess with Digby, but he’s busy messing around with his laptop and headsets in the kitchen. I don’t think he has brain beans like me.
‘Nah, chess sucks itself sideways.’
I’m too embarrassed to ask what that even means.
Digby waves me over to the big black bench and points at something that looks like Nanna Pam’s birdwatching binoculars crossed with a swimming cap.