The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne (5 page)

Huh! I felt like smacking her in the face. Might have improved it.

Kiffo was waiting for me when I came out.

“What did fart-face want, then?” he said.

“Oh, nothing. Normal stuff—wasting talent, bad attitude, blah de blah.”

We walked together for a while, two jailbirds bonded by a common experience. I glanced occasionally at his face, which was even darker and more brooding than normal. I thought there was a danger in asking the question I had been dying to ask him, but I went ahead just the same.

“Kiffo?” I said. “How come you turned up to that dumb detention? I thought your dad would never sign one of those permission slips.”

He stopped dead and turned toward me.

“Don't talk to me about that bastard! He signed it. Said Miss Payne had had a chat with him about my education and all that crap. Told me he wanted me to try harder at school-work! Yeah, right! First time he's ever shown any interest in anything you can't drink or smoke or punch.”

“So what would have happened if you hadn't turned up? I mean, it's not the first time you would've disobeyed your dad.”

Kiffo's hands pulled his tangled mop of red hair into crazier spikes. Boy, was he angry.

“He'd have beaten the crap out of me, all right? There's still a few years to go before he can't do that no more.”

“So what are we going to do, Kiffo? I mean, we can't carry on like this.”

“I know what I'm going to do,” he said quietly. “I'm going to trash her house. I'm going to destroy everything that bitch owns.”

It was my turn to stop dead in my tracks. At this rate, we'd never make it home.

“Are you crazy, Kiffo? What good would it do? It wouldn't get rid of her. It would only make her more twisted and nasty. She'd probably figure out that it was a student—I don't think she's making too many friends here—and what do you reckon then? That she's going to be nicer to us? I don't think so. I think she'll be even worse.”

“I don't care. This isn't about getting rid of her. This is about revenge. This is personal, Calma.”

“You
are
out of your mind, Kiffo!” I said. “What the hell are you talking about, ‘personal’?” It was hardly the first time a teacher had tried to put the screws on Kiffo. Most times he welcomed it. Gave him a challenge—you know, like a sporting event, two bruisers slugging it out for glory. But not personal. Never personal. Even the humiliation of a detention wasn't enough to make sense of what he was planning to do. Then I had a sudden thought, a connection.

“Kiffo?” I said.

He grunted.

“Does the Pitbull know your family? I mean before she became our teacher? You know, in the past?”

There was just the slightest pause in Kiffo's step, but he kept walking, his head averted.

“You're kiddin',” he said finally. “Just ‘cos we mix with muggers and murderers doesn't mean we don't have standards.”

He looked at me and grinned. And I knew at that moment, knew it with a cold, hard certainty, that he was lying to me. I had no idea why and I didn't care. I was too busy tasting the lump of betrayal in my throat.

“Listen, kid,” he said brightly, “I'd better get going.”

He squeezed me briefly on the arm and then he was gone. I watched him for a while, my hand on the spot where he had touched me. I considered heading off to Vanessa's house, but in the end I couldn't be bothered. I was too depressed. I did know one thing, however. Whatever Kiffo was up to, I was going to be a part of it as well. We were
friends.
And I wasn't going to let him lie to me and get away with it. No one, and I mean no one, treats Calma Harrison like that.

The next week passed uneventfully. English classes were horrible, but we kept our heads down and put up with it. But even that didn't seem to satisfy the Pitbull. She'd find the weakest reasons for singling out some of the kids. The way they looked at her. Noises they made that only she could hear. She set impossible tasks and then punished students for failing to complete them. It got so that you were grateful if she was picking on someone else. I hated that, the way she made us selfish, thankful that someone else was going through hell because it meant that you weren't suffering. That her attention was elsewhere. I got off pretty lightly, probably because I was “gifted” and all that crap. And probably because I didn't stir her up.

Kiffo suffered the most. A lesson didn't go by without her tormenting him in one way or another. I really did feel sorry for him. Okay, I know that Kiffo could be a real bastard. Maybe this was payback for all the times he had made teachers suffer,
without ever thinking of their welfare. Who the hell knows? But there was no doubt that when the Pitbull was working herself up into a frenzy, it was costing him. On many occasions he was really close to hitting her. I could tell. A glazed look would come into his eyes and his hands would tighten into fists. Sometimes, I thought that was exactly what the Pitbull wanted. For him to have a go. But he didn't do anything. She told him that he was a loathsome sore on the backside of humanity, that he made pond slime appear intellectually advanced in comparison, that he was
nothing
, and he took it. Those kids who sat at the back of the class with Kiffo did nothing to help either. They kept their heads down and pretended they were invisible. That's what I mean. They were supposed to be his friends, but they were too busy looking out for themselves to give him any support. And all I did was stand by and watch the Pitbull turn us into uncaring, I'm-all-right-Jack types. She was destroying our sense of what was right and what was wrong. She was turning us into politicians. The future of Australia deserved better than that.

Now, I know that Kiffo's plan for the Pitbull wasn't exactly brilliant, that, in fact, it was wrong. That it wouldn't help in any way whatsoever. But I also knew that I was going to be a part of it. Listen, I'm just telling you the way things were, the way things had to be between me and Kiffo. I'm not asking for your approval.

I caught up with Kiffo on Friday at lunchtime. He was acting all nonchalant, which was exactly the wrong kind of approach with me. Honestly, men! They think they are so
smart. And the more they try to be smart, the more they seem as dumb as a hammock full of hammers.

“So when are you doing this, Kiffo?” I said.

“Doing what?”

“You know what I mean,” I said.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Calma.”

I grabbed the front of his T-shirt and pulled his face toward mine.

“Listen, matey,” I said. “There are two things you should never get confused about with me. First, I am not stupid. Second, I am not about to let a mate get himself in all sorts of strife without me there to help out. Okay? Now, you can do this one of two ways. You can continue with your impersonation of a complete moron—and, incidentally, it's one you do with uncanny accuracy—and find me following you everywhere you go. Or you can just answer a straightforward question, which will save us both a lot of time. When are you going to trash the Pitbull's place?”

Kiffo's face registered a look I recognized—the one that showed he knew he was going to be the loser if he argued with me. He gave it another go, mind you.

“Just drop it, Calma!”

“When?”

“I'm trying to protect you!”

“When?”

And then he sagged, like I knew he would.

“Tonight,” he said, eyes flicking about as if in search of support.

“So where do we meet?”

For a moment, I thought he was going to start arguing again, but instead he gave a sigh. I knew I had won.

“All right, all right! Meet me at five-thirty outside Kmart in the mall. Have you got camouflage gear?”

“Bloody hell, Kiffo,” I said. “This isn't World War Three!”

“It is to me. Never mind. Be on time, right?”

Throughout the entire afternoon, I was in a nervous frenzy. I'll admit it. I actually thought it was really exciting. But I knew there was a line I wouldn't cross. There was no way I was going into the Pitbull's house. I'd watch out for Kiffo, but any breaking and entering would be up to him. I told him that much when we met at five-thirty.

“God, Calma,” he said. “As if I'd let you break in! You'd probably get your tits stuck in the window. No. Listen, just watch out for me, right? Keep guard.”

He looked me up and down.

“Is that the best you could do?”

Under the circumstances, I thought I had done pretty well. Dark blue jeans and a maroon T-shirt. Kiffo looked like something out of a survival video for bush weirdos. He had head-to-toes camouflage gear, heavy black boots and a black balaclava perched like a beanie on the top of his head. I mean, really anonymous when you're hanging around outside Kmart on a Friday afternoon! All the mothers with kids in strollers were going past looking at Kiffo like he was Osama bin Laden.

“I thought the idea with camouflage gear was to blend in with the surroundings,” I said to him, “not stand out like a marine in a nunnery. You would have been better off hiring a stroller and a couple of kids.”

Kiffo looked a little indignant.

“Yeah, well. It stands out here, doesn't it? But it won't stand out in the Pitbull's yard, will it? Come on, we'd better get going.”

We left the mall and walked off toward the southern suburbs. It was already starting to get dark, which, to be perfectly honest, suited me down to the ground. Now that we had started on this, I was nervous and didn't like the idea of anyone spotting me with Kiffo, particularly dressed the way he was. I had visions of an episode of
Crimestoppers.

No, the gathering dark was just fine with me.

Kiffo was moving like a man possessed. I had to struggle to keep up with him.

“How did you find out where she lived, Kiffo?” I panted.

“Easy,” he replied. “Borrowed my mate's motorbike. Followed her home from school.”

“What are we going to do when we get there? I mean, for all we know, she could spend her evenings doing crosswords or pulling the wings off butterflies or sharpening her teeth. I can't imagine she has a loving circle of friends. And what if she has family?” I really couldn't imagine the Pitbull having family, mind you. She wasn't born, she was quarried. Nonetheless, I thought it was unlikely that she'd be out of an evening dancing at the local club or taking embroidery classes. I could see us sitting outside her house most of the night with nothing to show for it.

“It's sorted,” said Kiffo. “She's got a dog.”

“A dog?” I repeated. This was getting worse. “How does that help us?”

“She takes it for a walk. Every night, the same time. Seven to eight-thirty. You can set your watch by it. Plenty of time for me to be in there, out again and both of us to be home before she gets halfway through exercising the mutt. Trust me.”

I shivered, even though the evening was uncomfortably warm. This was Kiffo's thing, his expertise. In the classroom, I was the boss. I knew my way around a poem. He knew his way around other people's houses. I thought about the different worlds we inhabited and wondered how I had managed to get myself involved in his.

We eventually stopped outside a small, low-set house in a nondescript area of the city. Kiffo and I stood across the road under a large casuarina, where we were reasonably safe from prying neighbors. He hunkered down and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his camouflage jacket. He offered me one. I shook my head. I was developing enough bad habits for one evening. Aiding and abetting a break-in, an accomplice to a serious crime, a gangster's moll. Kiffo lit up and looked across the road with narrowed eyes. I wasn't sure if this was because of the smoke or because he thought it was tough. I crouched down beside him and practiced narrowing my eyes. He pointed at the house with his cigarette.