Boy Sam: Prince and the Priest (episode two)

When I wake I put on my tiger suit and squeeze into a ball and grip my knees with my arms. I hold my breath until my mum comes in and then I yell RAHHHH WE’RE GOING TO THE ZOO TODAY and shoot past her downstairs. I do a tiger dance across the floor, which is basically just getting on all fours and shaking your legs. At the breakfast table, Mum’s a bit grumpy so I tell her to drink a coffee and then I tell her not to worry because the early bird gets the worm and then I pick up her car keys and dangle them in front of my mouth and pretend to eat them. 

My teacher’s name is Mrs. Kester and she tells us to form a line. I’m at the front of the line. It’s like the lines we make at the beginning of school except everyone’s tones more excited because we aren’t going to school we’re going to the zoo. My mum is standing next to Mrs. Kester because she volunteered to be a chaperone. Today is also free dress day, which is what I keep telling people when they ask me why I’m wearing a tiger suit. I turn around to see if Melanie has shown up yet because I really want to sit next to her but she hasn’t show up and then one of the kids at the back of the line tells me to turn around and when I don’t he calls me a loser. Some people laugh. I turn around. I don’t really care about them too much, most of them have repeated grade three, some of them twice. My mum gives me this look which means don’t worry about them they are just immature and this makes them laugh more but I think they’re just a bunch of idiots who don’t know how to do division or their times tables. 

Even though the guys at the back of the line are laughing at me I can’t stop smiling. I’ve never been to the zoo. I don’t really know what to expect other than lots of animals. I really want to see a giraffe. They have long necks. My neck is sort of long too, well at least my brother’s is, and he’s heaps older, so I reckon mine will be like that eventually. I look around for Melanie. She’s still not here. I want to give Melanie my apricot delights that Mum packed me and then I want to kiss her really quick on the lips outside the giraffe enclosure in a cool breeze with my eyes closed. I’ve seen people kiss in the movies. When I think about her I get dizzy. 

Mrs. Kester tells me to get on the bus because I’m at the front of the line and when I get on it smells like one big hot lunch box, like melted peanut butter sandwiches and plastic. I walk halfway down the aisle, holding my tail because the floor is really dirty, and then sit on one of the seats just past the first wheel hump. I sit there and close my eyes because sometimes I can just make things happen when I think about them a lot. I’m thinking, Melanie Melanie Melanie Melanie Melanie and then someone’s next to me and I open my eyes but it’s just Jane and she’s nothing like Melanie at all.

You look funny, she says. 

I close my eyes and think, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie, Melanie.  

I said, you look funny.

My eyes are still closed and I just shrug my shoulders.

You’re weird, she says, before getting up and walking to the back of the bus.

I open my eyes and grin. I don’t want anyone else to sit down so I put my tail across the seat. I look out the window across the pavement. There’s no one there. Mrs. Kester and my mum get on the bus and I’m thinking Melanie’s name so hard that my head begins to hurt. Everyone’s talking real loud and maybe this is why I can’t make Melanie appear, because they are all louder than I am. The bus lurches forward and we leave the parking lot. My tail rests on the seat. I close my eyes and let the vibrations from the window massage my head. Maybe she’s sick, I think. Maybe I’ll get her some flowers. That’s what they do in movies. Flowers make people better. Maybe I should get her some roses. My mum loves roses, she told me so when she was planting them in our front garden on Mr. Cooper’s side. Mr. Cooper cheated on his wife one time and I guess my mum planted them for Mr. Cooper’s wife, except one day he fell into the roses and the thorns pricked him pretty good and she laughed. I open my eyes and the bus is passing a lake. Everything is real sparkly. The sun feels good on my fur. For a moment it looks like there is glitter in my fur so I shake my head but when I open my eyes again everything begins to spin and I feel like I am on a carousel. I hold my head because it feels like cords are attaching to my temples. There is a conducting, charging, spinning, humming sound and all around me begins to blink purple and black and then my window opens and it’s like a whirlpool from the sky separates into two tornadoes and they go straight into my ears.