The Crimes and Punishments of Miss Payne (2 page)

Anyway, it turned out okay. In the short term, at least. Kiffo slowly swung his other foot off the desk. Of course, it wasn't really two orders after all. With both feet off the desk, he couldn't keep leaning back in his chair. And that's where it should have ended. I mean, Miss Leanyer had done better than anyone could have hoped. She had got him to obey an instruction. Flushed with success, however, she pushed it too far. Think of it this way. If you had just stuck both your feet into a crocodile-infested river and dangled them around for five minutes, you'd be happy to still have them attached to your legs, wouldn't you? You wouldn't think that it was a good idea to put your head in as an encore. But that's what Miss Leanyer did. I couldn't believe it.

“Now get your books out and put that football away, Jaryd Kiffing.”

She turned back to the blackboard without waiting for a response. Maybe that was her big mistake. I'm not sure. All I know is that Kiffo twirled the ball on his index finger and,
with a quick sidelong glance at the rest of the class, launched it into the air. I watched in fascination as the ball left Kiffo's hand. It arced slowly over the desks. I knew, I swear to God I knew, that his aim was perfect. Think of all those films where the real action happens in slow motion. Miss Leanyer, her head turned away from the class, moving slowly, oh so slowly toward the board. A piece of chalk resting leisurely in her hand. The ball reaching the highest point of its flight, turning gradually in the tension-ridden air. Students swiveling their heads to watch. It took ages. It was as if the ball were attached to the back of Miss Leanyer's head by a piece of strong, invisible elastic. I'm even prepared to swear that at one stage she moved her head upward
and the ball adjusted its flight path
, like one of those heat-seeking missiles.

It hit her smack on the back of the head.

That would have been bad enough, but her face was so close to the blackboard that the force shoved her head forward so that she head-butted the board. It was a hell of a whack. I nearly wet myself with excitement. I mean, I'm not a sadist or anything. I still think it was really sad, what Kiffo did to her. But you had to be there to appreciate it. It was… thrilling.

Miss Leanyer turned toward the class. I might have been the first to see it—that mad look in her eyes, like someone who has been really close to an edge and then suddenly gets a shove that puts them right over. I can't swear to it, obviously. Maybe even then she would have kept control. Difficult to say. But if you want my opinion, it was Kiffo's smirk and his comment—“Sorry, Miss, it slipped”—that really did the damage.

What happened next was all a bit confusing. Before we knew it, Miss Leanyer—that small, quiet, timid teacher—had turned into a raving lunatic. She jumped across the desks, clearing students’ heads by a good margin, and fell on Kiffo like an avenging harpy. Face twisted into a mad grimace, she had him by the throat and was banging his head against the wall.

It was the look on Kiffo's face that was the best of all. He was completely taken by surprise. I mean, who wouldn't be? And his look was saying, “This can't be happening to me,” as Miss Leanyer's fingers tightened around his throat. She was growling like an enraged animal. Spit flecked her face. I believe that she would have killed him if someone hadn't intervened. We didn't, of course. Stunned, I guess. But the door crashed open and Mr. Brewer, the teacher from next door, flew into the room. I imagine he was coming in to complain about some kid banging on the partition wall while he was trying to teach. But he took one look at the situation and leaped into action.

The last we ever saw of Miss Leanyer, she was being dragged by Mr. Brewer out of the classroom door, her eyes mad with rage, fingers clawing the air for Kiffo's throat. A pity, really. I reckon she would have had our attention and respect for the rest of the semester if she'd stayed. Even Kiffo might have got his books out for her. He wouldn't have written in them, of course. I'm not that much of a romantic.

So that was that. We never found out what happened to Miss Leanyer. There were rumors, naturally. Some said that
she had given up teaching and had taken to mud wrestling down south for a living. If her attack on Kiffo was anything to go by, she would have been good at it too. Others said that she was a stripper in Kings Cross. The story I liked best was the one that had her in a lunatic asylum stabbing scissors into footballs, drooling and screaming, “Are you Jaryd Kiffing?” at all the visitors. That was my favorite, but as I made it up myself, you could say I was biased.

Naturally, Kiffo took all the credit for getting rid of her. For a while he was the envy of the school. Even seniors looked on him with respect. As if he'd attacked a heavily fortified enemy encampment with only a rusty can opener and wiped out an entire battalion. He was a legend. He told me later that his dad tried to sue the Education Department for a million dollars. When he found out that this was going to be a little difficult, his dad offered to forget the whole matter for a case of beer and two hundred smokes. A bit difficult after that climb down to remain a credible plaintiff.

Yeah, he had a good few weeks did Kiffo. But then Miss Payne appeared. And Jaryd Kiffing was a marked man. You see, Miss Payne was a different type of teacher entirely. If Miss Leanyer was the Snow White of the educational world, Miss Payne was the slash-'em-up homicidal maniac. And Kiffo was home alone, and the phone lines had been cut.

“Creeping hell!” said Vanessa. “What in the name of God is that?”

I was bent over my exercise book, putting the final touches on a character star sign entry, when her hoarse whisper caught my attention. I looked up at her face. Her eyes were glazed with horror and her mouth turned down in an expression that seemed to indicate that something exceptionally smelly had just been thrust under her nose. Naturally, I twisted my head to follow her line of sight. And when I saw what she had seen, my jaw hit the desk….

Whoa! Hang on a moment. Let's take a break here. To be honest, I'm a complete beginner when it comes to storytelling and I need to take a time-out. Collect my thoughts. Sorry.

Tell me something. Have you ever read John Marsden's
Everything I Know About Writing?
Rhetorical question! Of
course, I could sit here until you answer, though I suspect that might take a long time. Sudden image of me sitting in the library for years waiting for the reply. I'm a skeleton in the corner, crumbling into dust, with a little sign on my rib cage saying
Still waiting for a reply.

New students come to the school: “What's with the skeleton?”

Librarian: “She was writing a book. Asked a rhetorical question. Still waiting for a reply.”

Anyway, the reason I mention old John's book is that there was a bit in there that went something along the lines of, “Just tell the story as if you were telling it to a friend.” I'm not sure if they were the exact words, but frankly I can't be bothered to look it up. You can, if you're interested. I thought at the time that this was good advice. It sounds easy enough. Now that I've started, though, it seems trickier than I thought. I mean, I don't know you at all. I wouldn't recognize you from a hole in the ground. If I was telling this story to some friends, then they would already know Jaryd Kiffing and they would know me and they would know the school and everything. I'd just be able to get straight into what happened with Miss Payne. But you don't know anything. No offense. And that means I'll have to tell you about things that I wouldn't have to tell a friend.

Maybe John Marsden is friends with everyone in the world. But I don't think so. I've never had a phone call from him, for example. Unless it was that wrong number a couple of weeks ago.

I suppose I should tell you something about Jaryd Kiffing.
Kiffo. He is the most important player in this story, the chief character, the main
protagonist.
It's a great word,
protagonist.
I love it. There are some words, I've decided, that have to be written in italics. Or in bold, underlined.
Protagonist
is one.

Anyway, Kiffo. I could say all that stuff about how he is fifteen years old, of medium height, of limited academic ability and concentration span, with behavioral problems and freckles. The trouble is, that doesn't give you a clue what he is really like. The thing is, Kiffo isn't a character in a book. He's a real person. A friend, God help me. When I think about describing him, I just know that “average height” and “freckles” won't do it.

You remember that assignment on similes? My teacher hated what I wrote, but I was pretty pleased with it. She thought I was being too smart. How can you be too smart, by the way? Most of the time your teachers are telling you that you're being really dumb. “Stop acting so stupid!” they say. And then when you do something intelligent, they say, “Are you trying to be smart? Don't get smart with me, young lady.” I wish they'd make up their minds.

I got an afternoon detention for that simile assignment. Now, I don't mind detentions. But I also got the whole “You are wasting a great talent. You should apply yourself, young lady” lecture, which was really boring. I'm good at English, you see. Everyone thinks so. That's one reason me and Kiffo agreed that I should write down the whole business about him and Miss Payne. But my teacher wanted me to be good in
her
way.
Do you know what I mean? Take the simile assignment. I liked it. I really did. I thought it was funny, but also accurate. I'd put effort into it. But she wanted something else entirely. She had often told us to be original, but when I did something that was original, she went red in the face and steam hissed from her ears. Did she want me to be original in the same way as everyone else? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Anyway, I'm starting to wander away from the point. Jaryd Kiffing, fifteen, uglier than a bucketful of butt-holes, flaming red hair, bandy legs, really bad in all lessons, a waster, a hoon, disruptive, childish, violent at times, often cruel, class idiot, proud of his cultivated image of stupidity, part-time criminal. My friend.

And me? Well, I hope you might be a little curious about me, since I'm the one talking to you. My name is Calma Harrison and you can forget all the jokes about my first name. I've heard every single one. “You need to be calmer, Calma,” or, “You'll suffer from bad karma, Calma,” and all of that. The biggest thing about me is my boobs. I'm fifteen years old and my boobs are really huge. It's not that I'm overweight or anything. It's just that I seem to be saddled with a chest you could balance a tray on. As you can imagine, I'm a little self-conscious about this. Particularly in a Year 10 class filled with lads who are not exactly backward about making personal comments. I always wear baggy tops (uncomfortable, to say the least, in the heat of the tropics) but it still looks like I've got a couple of wombats tucked down there. If I turn quickly, I'm liable to knock someone unconscious. You can probably
imagine the kind of comments I've been getting. Not very original, of course. Things like “How many of those do you get to the pound?” and “Can I park my bike in there?” and that sort of stuff. I hate phys ed, of course. I wasn't built for sudden movements. When I run, my chest stops half an hour after everything else.

Anyway, enough about my boobs. I just thought I should be honest about myself, and that's the thing about me that I'm most aware of. And everyone else, apparently. As for the rest of me, well, I'm reasonably normal to look at. Fairly attractive, I suppose. Long dark hair that comes halfway down my back. None on my head, just down my back. Joke! Shortsighted, so I wear glasses. I like glasses. I've got about five pairs. The ones I like best at the moment (I keep changing my mind) are bright blue, thick plastic things. They are so in-your-face. And on-your-face, I guess. They do stand out like a nun in a betting shop. Maybe I reckon that if everyone is staring at my glasses, then they won't be looking at my chest. Isn't psychology great?