Maintain the Mischief Read online

  Joel had the most brilliant morning. He and his brothers took turns riding the four wheelers, revving across the paddocks and exploring the far corners of their cousins’ property. As the frost thawed on a perfect autumn day, they caught yabbies in the dam and played footy releaso out the back of the stables. Joel loved footy releaso, which was a simple variation on normal releaso or ‘kick-the-can’. One person was ‘it’ and if that person tagged you, you went into a prisoner’s circle. The only way to release prisoners was to hit a plastic bucket in the middle of the circle with a kick or handball, aimed from outside. The person who was ‘it’, had to defend the bucket.

  The Selwoods could turn any game into a footy game.

  But it was Sophie who thought of the trick to play on her older brother, Leigh.

  The Selwoods’ oldest cousin, Leigh, had gotten his driving licence six days earlier. And just like that he seemed to become ‘one of the grown-ups’.

  When the twins asked him to play Uno, Leigh said, ‘Nah, I’ll leave that to you kids.’

  When Sophie offered him an iced chocolate, Leigh said, ‘Nah, I reckon I’ll fix myself a cafe latte.’

  And when Joel invited Leigh to watch Toy Story on DVD, Leigh snorted and said, ‘Um, I’m actually seeing my girlfriend, Donna, this afternoon. I might leave the cartoons to you youngsters.’

  Joel wasn’t sure what to make of this new Leigh. What had happened to the knockabout kid with sun-streaked hair who loved horses and dogs?

  This new Leigh kept inventing excuses to drive into town. ‘Mum, I think you need some more washing powder. Don’t worry. I’ll run up to town for you.’

  ‘We’re a bit low on dog food … I’ll dash up to Munros.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll get the fertiliser. Back in fifteen.’

  Leigh didn’t have his own car yet, but Uncle Mick was letting him drive the old farm ute. ‘Listen to this, kids,’ Leigh said as he took off up the drive. ‘Even in this old rust bucket you can hardly hear the gear changes. I’m just that smooth.’

  ‘Let’s play a trick on him,’ Sophie said to Joel and the twins, as Leigh set off on yet another pretend errand. ‘Let’s see how smooth he is when he sees “fakey snakey”.’

  ‘Fakey snakey?’ Joel asked as they headed for the shed. ‘What’s fakey snakey?’

  Sophie grinned. ‘You know how Leigh likes to think he’s an animal whisperer?’

  Joel nodded.

  ‘He’s not so keen on black snakes,’ Sophie told him.

  ‘Who is?’ Joel replied.

  ‘Yeah, well that’s why fakey snakey is awesome,’ Sophie said.

  She found an old bike inner tube in the shed and cut off the ends. Then she picked up stones from the drive and stuffed them into the tube.

  The last step was to attach fishing line to each end. Sophie and Justin tried it out on the shed floor.

  ‘Looks like a rubber tube with rocks in it,’ Troy said, as Sophie moved the tube, trying to make it slither like a snake.

  ‘Wait till it’s out on the drive,’ Monique replied.

  Half the group set up behind some bushes at the side of the garage. Sophie clutched her fishing line and began flicking her wrist. ‘You have to shake your end, too,’ she said to Adam and Monique, who were on the other side of the drive, behind a planter crate near the patio. ‘Use your wrist, Adam!’

  ‘So it’s shaky snakey?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Shaky fakey snakey?’ chipped in Troy.

  ‘Yes.’ Monique laughed. ‘We’ve created a shaky, fakey snakey.’

  By the time the ute arrived at the top gate, they had a pretty realistic fakey snakey. ‘Okay,’ Sophie said. ‘When he gets out of the ute, we make this baby slither towards his feet.’

  The ute crunched down the drive towards the shed and garage. There was loud music and laughing coming from the truck, which ended when Leigh turned off the engine. Then there was silence. Then a female voice said, ‘Oh, Leigh, you’re a wonderful kisser.’ Then there was more silence. Then Leigh said, ‘It’s you who’s wonderful, Donna.’

  Sophie looked like she was going to barf, pretending to stick her finger down her throat. Joel put his hand on his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Finally, they heard the ute doors open and close. Leigh appeared in the bright sun, a stock-feed bag under one arm, the other draped around Donna’s neck. Donna, who had brown hair, wore high-heeled shoes and a short sundress. Joel didn’t think she looked very farm-ready.

  ‘Now!’ whispered Sophie, and signalled to Adam to start shaking. The fakey snakey did everything but hiss. It made a brilliant, snake-like crossing of the drive, straight towards Leigh and Donna.

  Donna saw it first. ‘Eeeeeeeeeeee!’ She dropped her shiny red handbag and threw her arms around Leigh.

  Leigh screamed and grabbed for Donna. ‘Arrrrgh, snake!’ In that moment, he dropped his bag, too. The bag burst open, releasing the feed all over Donna’s and Leigh’s shoes. Only, it wasn’t feed. It was too brown and lumpy and nuggety to be feed.

  It was poo. Joel’s cousin and his date were ankle deep in manure.

  Joel was downwind. The smell hit him hard. His stomach tightened. Leigh’s panicked eyes moved from the ‘snake’ to the front door area, where he could see Adam’s arm flapping behind the planter crate. Leigh’s expression changed from panic to anger.

  ‘Where is it!’ Donna wailed. ‘Will it come back and attack us?’

  ‘No, it’s not dangerous,’ Leigh said. ‘It’s gone.’

  There were a few seconds of silence. Then Sophie dropped the fishing line and started to run. Adam did the same. Joel, Scott and Justin were sprinting too. Joel didn’t even know where they were running to.

  ‘My shoooes!’ Donna cried in a voice that could be heard across the farm. ‘My beautiful shooooes!’

  ‘Justin!’ Leigh roared. ‘Sophie! Monique!’ Joel glanced over his shoulder and saw Leigh trying to scrape off the manure that was piled around Donna’s ankles. ‘All of you! You are all gonna be in so much trouble!’

  They returned to Bendigo in disgrace.

  The fallout from fakey snakey had been dramatic. The four Selwoods and three Crappers who performed the trick were made to sweep the manure off the drive and clean Leigh’s boots. They wrote a letter of apology to Leigh and Donna. They even had to pay for new shoes for Donna from their own pocket money.

  Mum was furious during the drive home. ‘He had a date! Why would you embarrass your cousin like that?’

  ‘We didn’t know he was buying manure,’ said Adam. ‘How would we know that?’

  ‘He could have had a heart attack!’ Mum scolded. She tapped the steering wheel lightly with her fist. ‘Snakes are a serious business! What were you thinking?’

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Troy.

  ‘Yeah, sorry, Mum,’ they all echoed.

  Joel tried to keep his hands as far away from his nose as possible. He’d scrubbed them for what seemed like hours, but the pong still lingered on them. No wonder Donna had been upset. The stuff had completely covered her feet.

  When they got home to Strathdale that night, dinner was tomato soup and porcupine balls — mince steak covered with white rice. There was the normal flurry of cups and plates and second and third helpings.

  When they’d finally finished, Mum called the table to order. ‘Okay, Selwood family meeting,’ she said, nodding towards Dad. Dad hadn’t been to Raywood farm with them. He’d had work and a cross-country race that weekend. ‘Your dad and I have had a chat, and we’ve decided that we’re not going to put up with naughty or reckless or disobedient behaviour.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dad said.

  ‘So,’ Mum continued, ‘we’re going to set up a thing called Maree Selwood’s Behaviour Bank. If you do good things, you get goals in your favour. If you do naughty things, you lose points. It’s just like footy.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Dad said, chewing and nodding.

  ‘But in footy you don’t lose points,’ Joel pointed out. ‘
Even if you kick it out on the full, you don’t lose points. The other team just gets the ball.’

  ‘Well, at Maree Selwood’s Behaviour Bank you do lose points,’ Mum said sternly. ‘And what’s more, if you get into the negatives, look out! Minus five points means no allowance. Minus ten points and you’re grounded for a week. Minus twenty points, well, you don’t even want to know what happens at minus twenty points.’

  Joel could tell that his mum didn’t know either. She hadn’t thought it through that far.

  ‘What if I clear the dishes from the table?’ Joel asked. ‘Will that get me five points?’

  ‘That will get you one point,’ Mum said, ‘which will put you in the lead.’

  If there was one thing Joel loved, it was being in the lead. He leapt up and started collecting the plastic cups. Troy immediately grabbed the cup he’d been using and hid it behind his back.

  ‘Give it to me,’ Joel said, impatient to get on the scoreboard.

  Troy raised an eyebrow. ‘He didn’t say please, Mum, that’s surely minus one point.’

  Joel leaned in and tried to rip the cup out of Troy’s hand. Troy giggled and tossed the cup over to Adam. Joel dived in that direction and Adam tossed it back to Troy. Troy raised his arm to throw it once more when Joel yanked a handful of his hair.

  ‘Owwwwwww! Did you see that, Mum! Did you see what Joel just did?’

  Mum had her head in her hands. She spoke through the gaps in her fingers. ‘Okay, minus two points Joel for pulling hair. That is never okay. And minus two points Adam and Troy for ruining Joel’s efforts to actually do something nice. That was really mean. And I want you to say sorry.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Troy mumbled.

  ‘Sorry,’ Adam echoed.

  ‘Sorry,’ Joel droned.

  ‘Sorry,’ Scott parroted.

  Troy snorted. ‘What are you saying sorry for, Scooter? You didn’t do anything. You haven’t lost points.’

  It was like a light bulb went off in Scott’s head. ‘That’s right! I’m still on zero points! I’m the leader! I’m winning Mum’s Being Good Olympics!’

  Scott threw his hands in the air and began a lap of the dining room. ‘Yes!’ he said, leaping over the couch and punching the air. ‘Eat my dust. I’m out in front! Nobody can beat the goodest Selwood to ever walk the earth, Scooter Selwood!’

  ‘You’re on zero,’ Adam said, arms folded. ‘Don’t get too excited.’

  Mum couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Scooter’s right, though. He’s in front.’

  The next morning, the brothers competed hard to deposit points in Maree Selwood’s Behaviour Bank. Troy got up early and made Mum and Dad a cup of tea. Adam swept the floor before heading off to school. Scott packed the dishwasher and moved the schoolbags away from the back door. And Joel went out into the backyard with a pooper scooper to pick up Sally the dog’s droppings.

  ‘Very good, boys!’ Mum said, as she handed out school lunches. ‘One point each.’

  ‘One point each?’ Joel whined. ‘Scooter moves a few schoolbags, and I go out there elbow deep in dog poo. How can they be the same? Are you kidding me?’

  ‘No arguing with the Behaviour Bank manager,’ Mum said. ‘You’ve all been good. You all get one point.’

  Mum made a Behaviour Bank ladder out of cardboard and hung it on the fridge. She made little slots so she could move the boys’ names up and down. It was like the cardboard AFL ladder that came with the newspaper. Having an actual ladder only made Joel try harder.

  ‘I’m on top of the ladder,’ he boasted during a game of table tennis in the shed that night.

  Adam smashed a backhand winner down the line. ‘Yeah, so what?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, are you sure you want to win this, Joely?’ Troy continued.

  The twins looked at each other. Joel thought he saw Troy wink.

  ‘Why?’ Joel asked. ‘What’s wrong with being top of the ladder? Mum says that the first to twenty points gets a prize. And that the first to fifty points gets a super prize.’

  ‘Mum says,’ Troy replied as he served up the next point. ‘Mum says. Don’t you get the feeling that this Behaviour Bank thing is all in her favour? We’re all being really good and doing extra jobs and stuff, and what are we actually going to get?’

  ‘A prize,’ Joel said as Troy put away another winner.

  ‘A super prize,’ Scott added as he waited for his turn at the table.

  ‘What Troy is saying,’ Adam explained, ‘is that Mum is really the winner of this bank thing. Maybe this prize won’t even be that good? Maybe she’s taking advantage of our competitive natures?’

  Joel put his hands in his pockets. The twins made an interesting case. It was possible he wouldn’t have washed the dog if Mum hadn’t bribed him with two points. On the other hand, he was in the lead. This could be a trick by the twins to get him to slacken off.

  ‘Boooooys!’ came Mum’s voice from the house. ‘Does anyone want to hang out the washing? There’s two points in it.’

  Troy looked out the door of the shed. ‘See?’ he whispered to Joel. ‘She’s sitting down with a cup of tea! Mum never sits to drink tea. She’s always too busy. This is about making us her slaves.’

  Joel peeked out from behind Troy. Mum was sitting on the porch with a cup of tea. He hated to admit it, but his brothers might be right.

  Joel loved living in Strathdale, on the outskirts of Bendigo. Because their house was at the dead-end part of their street, kids from all over the neighbourhood would hang out there. Sometimes Joel would get home from school and there’d already be ten kids playing footy on the tennis court. Mum gave the hordes cordial and crackers. Joel loved that his house was always at the centre of the action, that there were so many friends to play with.

  The most epic games of all were the Selwoods versus The Street — when the Selwoods challenged the other kids in the street to footy in the grassy clearing across the road. The park was too small to have a name, but all the local kids called it ‘The Parkland’. There were saplings in The Parkland that served as goal posts at each end, and also potholes for twisting ankles and a gravel path for grazing knees.

  Today, The Street was made up of the Fitzgeralds from number twenty-eight. Mark Fitzgerald — Fitzy — was Adam’s best friend. The Street had Daniel Elstone from number nine, the Hanns from number sixteen, and Brock and Frul from Joel’s school. There was also Elliott Bowen, who was visiting from Mildura, and Jarryn Geary, who was just a bit younger than Joel, but with a lovely right-foot kick, and was a real danger around goal.

  ‘Are we playing full tackling?’ Fitzy asked as he booted the footy across the road.

  ‘Yep,’ said Adam.

  Joel swallowed hard when he saw the numbers they were up against. But The Street needed to outnumber the Selwoods, otherwise it wouldn’t have a chance. The twins had already played twice for Vic Country and were on the radar of the Bendigo Pioneers. Joel was playing in his second year for the Strathdale Sharks, and had won the league’s ‘best and fairest’ in his first year. Scott was still too young for the Under 10s, but he threw himself into the contest like he’d played a hundred games.

  Joel loved the challenge and adored being on the same team as his brothers. So often they were up against each other. These matches were moments when they could stand together, when he could watch Adam and Troy crash their big bodies into other kids who weren’t him. It made for a nice change.

  ‘I’m glad it’s full tackling,’ continued Fitzy, ‘because we owe you, Selwoods.’

  Fitzy was smiling his toothy lopsided grin, but Joel could tell that he wasn’t happy.

  ‘Why?’ asked Troy.

  ‘Mum’s started a thing she’s calling Mrs Fitzgerald’s Behaviour Bank. She gives us points, and takes them away, and I’ve already lost ten dollars and the use of my bike for a week. She says she’s copying your mum.’

  ‘Same at our house!’ Martin Hanns cried. ‘Mum started this Behaviour Bank thing because your mum told her to, and it
’s really annoying.’ Martin glared at Joel. Joel glared back.

  Other kids told similar stories. Behaviour Banks were springing up all over Strathdale. Joel thought of his mum out on her morning walks, at her weekly netball games, and at school pick-ups. She never stopped talking.

  ‘Okay,’ said Troy, ‘this thing has got out of hand. We have to fight back, boys. We have to rediscover our cheekiness, our true selves. We can’t have adults, mums, bribing us to do good stuff with the promise of rewards that we haven’t even seen yet. It’s taking away our freedom! We’re so worried about getting into trouble and losing points that we’re forgetting who we are!’

  ‘Wow, good speech, Troy,’ said Adam. ‘You sounded like Mel Gibson in Braveheart.’

  Everyone laughed. Troy put his hand into the middle of the circle. ‘So can we make a pledge? We have to make a stand here. It doesn’t matter if we lose pocket money. It doesn’t matter if we get grounded. Have they really got a punishment that can worry us? We have to be united. To mischief!’

  Hands reached in and grabbed a wrist. ‘To mischief!’ the whole group pledged.

  They played Selwoods versus The Street for more than an hour. It was a brutal clash, and Joel lost all the buttons on his school shirt. It didn’t worry him too much. He just took the shirt off and played bare-chested. It made him harder to tackle.

  The Street led for most of the match, but when the Fitzgeralds were called in for dinner, Joel felt the numbers had evened up in the Selwoods’ favour.

  ‘We’ll run them ragged,’ Adam said in the team huddle under the biggest gum in The Parkland. ‘We don’t give up possession, no matter what. Quick hands.’

  Late afternoon passed into dusk, and the Selwoods delivered on the team plan. A goal to Joel levelled the scores, and then Adam used Simon Hanns as a stepladder to take a huge mark. Goal! They had the lead. Parents started calling for boys to come to dinner tables. Joel always hated finishing the game. Eventually the voice he heard was Mum’s. She’d crossed to the footpath beside The Parkland.