The segment begins with a beaming Deputy Davids. She is standing next to the SNARC spokesperson. The journalist asks them questions about the competition. The SNARC spokesperson talks a lot about SNARC. The two of them then move to the side of the shot to reveal Mr Buddy.
‘So, what can this little fella do?’ asks the journalist.
‘Oh, lots of things,’ says Deputy Davids, keeping her smile wide for the camera. ‘He can travel in all directions, throw boulders, go under tunnels, go over bridges.’
‘Fabulous. Let’s see some of his moves.’
Deputy Davids hands a remote-control device to the SNARC spokesperson. ‘Why don’t you do the honours?’
He smiles. ‘It would be a pleasure.’ He points the remote at Mr Buddy.
Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen for one-and-a-half minutes. Nothing at all. Unless you count the SNARC spokesperson’s fingers whitening from pressing hard on the buttons, and the colour on Deputy Davids’ face deepening, and the journalist laughing uncomfortably before announcing a commercial break. Just before the live scene ends, the camera catches the spokesperson flipping the remote in his sweaty palm. On the back, in white marker, are two large letters: AW.
A fast-food chain jingle starts. I hear the click of the storeroom door. Will comes in, panting.
‘You were right,’ she says. ‘The remote was just sitting there on a shelf. I went in through the other lab and slipped it out while they were schmoozing with the news team in the corridor. All it took was a five-cent piece to get the back open. Done in seconds.’
She opens her palm. On it sit two button cell batteries, shiny as jewels.
Volley Stage Four. Location: various.
One morning I am staring unseeing at one of the Rosemead banners erected at the top of the main stairs when my eye catches on our school motto: Qui cherche trouve. For those not au fait with French, it translates as: ‘Whoever seeks, finds.’ It occurs to me that a game of hide-and-seek is exactly what is called for.
Over the course of a week, when the coast is clear, Will and I remove every Rosemead banner on campus. There are eight in total: the one above the main stairs, the three hanging in the PAC, the two in the Assembly Hall, the one in the gym foyer, and the one in the staff foyer. Each banner has the motto embroidered, in cursive writing, along its bottom rim.
I deliver the banners to a company that can de-stitch – and re-stitch – embroidery. They complete the job within a week. It takes another week, and a couple of near disasters (who knew Ms Bracken smoked cigarettes in the staff foyer after hours?) to return the banners to their rightful homes.
The stitching has been matched so well that you can hardly tell the difference. But the difference is significant. Instead of the French motto sits another phrase in English, hiding in plain view.
And so the waiting game begins.
‘Okay,’ Will says, when Operation Volley has been going for five weeks. ‘These pranks have been great. We’re shedding some serious light on the elitist crap that goes on around here. But it’s time we ramped things up. I say we draw the op to a close and shift focus.’ She places a flyer on the storeroom table.
It is less of a table than a slab of wood on a milk crate. I have no idea where it came from. Why is it that every time we meet here something else has materialised? Along with the chairs we started with and the pile of art books, there is now a pair of moulting velveteen cushions, a blanket that reeks of campfire smoke, a plastic kettle plugged into the skirting board power point, a coffee plunger, a vacuum pack of coffee, a box of stinky tea bags and half-a-dozen mugs with bad slogans on them. Is Will living here part-time? Has she moved in? I don’t want to know, but I am fearful her paraphernalia is turning the storeroom into a firetrap. I make a mental note to buy a fire extinguisher.
I notice she has tacked copies of our Messenger cartoons to the wall. Then there is the flotsam from Operation Volley – leftover neon pink cardboard, and a pile of stationery bearing the Rosemead letterhead. We really need to clean things up around here.
I pick up the flyer.
‘You’ve seen it?’ Will sips coffee from a mug that reads Friday is my second-favourite ‘F’ word.
‘I’m Secretary of the Sports Committee. Of course I’ve seen it.’
The flyer is an advertisement for Rosemead’s Buy A Tile project. It is an invitation for parents to donate to the school’s latest major building work. This year, at Coach Hadley’s suggestion, we are raising money to build a twenty-five-metre outdoor swimming pool. We already have the Olympic-sized indoor one, of course, but other top-tier schools like Edie’s have a second pool where the B-Grade teams can train. I have lost count of the number of times Coach Hadley has bemoaned the absence of a second pool. Rosemead might have a top-tier coach, goes his argument, but we can never be a top-tier swimming school without a second pool.
Parents who donate enough money will be rewarded by having their child’s name inscribed on one of the wall tiles of the new pool complex.
‘So how much time and money goes into a fundraiser like this, do you think?’ Will asks, her expression suspiciously serene.
‘As a matter of fact, I’ve seen the budget,’ I say. ‘The promotional costs alone are quite a lot. Then there is the parents’ cabaret dinner they’re putting on, with silent auction prizes to raise further money, although parents donate most of those. A luxury weekend away at Parnell’s Heritage Resort is one of this year’s big-ticket items.’ Graham Parnell’s daughter, Lucy, is a year-nine student whom I tutored in maths for her first two years of
