MY MOTHER DIED BEFORE I COULD MURDER HER

CHAPTER 6

Wiggins and dagga in the garden.

My last year at primary school was the happiest year of all my schooling before university. I was in the senior class, my grades were above average, which pleased me no end, although my father was never satisfied or maybe just never showed that he was happy with my marks.

     I was on the A team under-12s in soccer and the A cricket team, and I was the fastest breast stroke swimmer for pretty much the entire season. It was only in the last race of the year, that I finished second, by a mere touch. Morris reassured me that losing one race, especially by so little, didn’t really mean anything. After all, I had been first in so many that on average, I was still the best.

     I looked across at Bernie Derringer. He was a good swimmer, the fastest at the school in crawl and butterfly. Now he was trying to wrest the breaststroke crown from me. Obviously he didn’t understand about averages. He was jumping up and down, running from his mom to his dad who was leaning over Mr. Cloete, the timekeeper, trying to verify that the time was the best that year. Well, tough luck, buddy. It only equaled the best time. I still held that record, set in a gala against Norwood School, earlier in the season.

     The following morning at school assembly, the roving reporter, Ralphie Spielman, who by the way was my best friend at school, read out the results of the school gala. He emphasized that Bernie and I, to the naked eye, had touched at exactly the same time. Only Mister Cloete felt that the touches could be separated, and as Ralphie pointed out, “Mr. Cloete is the soccer coach, and was the pro tem judge at the gala because Mr. Leigh, the regular swimming coach, was in court contesting a speeding fine.”

     Well done, Ralphie. I’m sure Morris had some influence on the report because, as usual, Ralphie always interviewed an unnamed spectator after every sport event, and whenever he could he’d chat with Morris.

     Ralphie covered every game in all the sports and I always got glowing reports the next day when he stood on the stage at assembly and announced the results. One time we played Marist Brothers in cricket. Their captain was a Chinese kid who was an amazing batsman. He was a lefty who thrashed our bowlers all over the field and scored more boundaries that any other visiting batsman. I was a spin bowler and bowled the kid out with one of my off breaks; he swung at it, missed and the ball nicked the leg stump causing the bails to drop. Ralphie decided that I had bowled a googly—a delivery that looks like a normal leg break but actually turns towards the batsmen, like an off break.

     Now the plot thickens. If a left-handed leg spinner bowls a googly, then it’s called a chinaman. I was a right-handed bowler, but Ralphie had what he called a journalistic opportunity that could not be missed. The batsman was left-handed and was Chinese. Mixing the ingredients a little, Ralphie reported the next day that “Pandrey bowled out the Chinaman with a chinaman.” He beamed as the kids at assembly cheered and applauded.

     He was a great reporter and told me afterwards as we strutted around the playground at break, his arm across my shoulders, “Great reporters always have a smidgen of license. Anyway, we may never play Marist Brothers again, and it sounded good, especially for my best friend.”

     I learnt an important lesson in my last year at primary school—the prestige a guy gets from having great wheels. I suppose most men know how prestigious it is to drive an amazing car, after all millions are spent by advertising agencies bolstering this idea, but in my world it centered around a bicycle.

     Morris made sure that my Rudge was always spotless. Every morning before I left for school, he’d clean the bike, grease the chain, and squeeze a drop of 3-in-1 oil into the gear mechanism. Not only did the bike look brand new, but the ride was always smooth and silent.