Second Childhood Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  ‘If you don’t wake up to yourself, Smalley,’ Mr Cruickshank said, ‘do you know what you’re going to end up as?’

  ‘Sheep’s poop, sir,’ whispered Mark.

  Mr Cruickshank looked startled. ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.’

  Mark’s father has always wanted him to be a Somebody. But unless Mark picks up at school, it looks like sheep’s poop is where he’s heading. Until . . . Mark and his friends discover they’ve lived before. Not only that – they were Famous and Important People!

  But then things start to get a little out of hand. They find out they’ve been responsible for several of the world’s big problems. So Henry Ford, Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein and even a famous racehorse get together to see if they can make up for their terrible mistakes . . .

  Also by Morris Gleitzman

  The Other Facts of Life

  Two Weeks with the Queen

  Misery Guts

  Worry Wa rts

  Puppy Fat

  Blabber Mouth

  Sticky Beak

  Belly Flop

  Water Wings

  Wicked! (with Paul Jennings)

  Bumface

  Gift of the Gab

  To ad Rage

  Deadly! (with Paul Jennings)

  Adults Only

  To ad Heaven

  Boy Overboard

  Te acher’s Pet

  To ad Away

  Girl Underground

  Wo rm Story

  Once

  Aristotle’s Nostril

  Doubting Thomas

  Give Peas a Chance

  morris

  gleitzman

  Puffin Books

  with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada)

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd

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  Penguin Ireland

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd

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  Penguin Group (NZ)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Books Australia,

  a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd, 1990

  This edition published, 2004

  Text copyright © Gleitzman McCaul Pty Ltd, 1990

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228311-1

  For Chris, Sophie and Ben

  1

  All around the hall, people were turning to look at him, smiling and clapping.

  Teachers.

  Parents.

  Kids.

  Mum and Dad were beaming at him and hugging him and saying things he couldn’t hear because the applause was so loud.

  Dad’s eyes were shining.

  Mum’s cheeks were wet.

  Then he was on his feet, squeezing past lots of knees, walking towards the stage where Mrs Bryant stood waiting. She was beaming at him too, looking more like an Aunty than the headmistress who had once yelled at him for washing a live frog in the bubbler.

  He climbed the wooden steps onto the stage and Mrs Bryant held up her hands. The clapping stopped. Mrs Bryant put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Mark Smalley,’ she said in a loud voice, ‘congratulations on being this year’s outstanding pupil, the Dux of the School.’

  She shook his hand and gave him a small box covered in velvet.

  ‘We hope,’ she went on, ‘that this prize will inspire you to even greater achievements next year in high school.’

  The applause started again, louder than ever.

  He stood on the stage and gazed out over the rows of faces. He saw Mum and Dad looking up at him, glowing with pride and pleasure.

  Mark let the applause pour into him and fill him up until his head overflowed with the things he was going to do.

  First, he thought, I’ll discover a cure for all the kids who have to wear metal things on their legs.

  Then I’ll design a Porsche that mums and dads can afford.

  Then I’ll invent a cake recipe that makes people live an extra hundred years. Two hundred if they have another slice . . .

  ‘Smalley . . .’

  Mark gave a start.

  A voice, almost drowned out by the applause.

  ‘Smalley . . .’

  But getting louder.

  ‘Smalley . . .’

  And angrier.

  ‘Smalley . . .’

  For a moment Mark didn’t know where he was.

  Then Mr Cruickshank’s agitated face appeared centimetres from his and Mr Cruickshank’s bony knuckles tapped him on the head.

  ‘Planet Earth calling Mark Smalley,’ said Mr Cruickshank. ‘Anyone in there?’

  Mark remembered exactly where he was.

  High school.

  Thursday arvo.

  History class.

  He heard giggles from around the classroom.

  ‘Welcome back,’ said Mr Cruickshank. ‘Now if you’ve finished daydreaming, perhaps you could answer my question.’

  Mark felt panic bubbling up inside him.

  What question?

  He looked desperately past Mr Cruickshank, searching for a clue.

  He saw Pino Abrozetti, who was standing out the front for talking, put his finger on his nose.

  Was that a clue?

  Mark wasted vital seconds wondering why a history teacher would ask a question about noses before he realised Pino wasn’t pointing to his nose, he was picking it.

  Then Mark saw the live sheep tethered to the leg of Mr Cruickshank’s desk. A living resource, Mr Cruickshankhad called itearlier. And chalked on the blackboard were the words ‘Australian Wool Exports 1850–1890’.

  Mark knew he’d have to have a bash.

  ‘Um . . .’ he said, ‘sheep?’

  The class broke into titters and a forest of hands flew up.

  Mr Cruickshank, whose nose was starting to go pink, waved the hands down with a pile of essays and gave a big sigh.

  ‘If you don’t wake up to yourself, Smalley,’ he said, ‘do you know what you’re going to end up as?’

  Is he repeating the first question, wondered Mark, or asking a new one?

  He looked down. And before he could stop himself, he was beckoning Mr Cruickshank closer.

  Mr Cruickshank bent down again, puzzled.

  ‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘do you know what you’re going to end up as?’

  ‘Sheep’s poop, sir,’ whispered Mark.

/>   Mr Cruickshank looked startled.

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve trodden in some, sir,’ said Mark as quietly as he could. A person who’s trodden in sheep’s poop doesn’t want the whole world to know.

  The class exploded into barely suppressed laughter.

  Mr Cruickshank glared at Mark, at the class, at his shoe, and at the trail of messy footprints between his feet and the sheep.

  ‘I don’t know why I bother,’ said Mr Cruickshank bitterly to the sheep.

  He turned back to Mark.

  ‘The past doesn’t mean a thing to you, does it, Smalley?’

  Mark thought about explaining that it did mean a thing to him, a lot of things, and that he’d rather be there now.

  He decided not to.

  Mr Cruickshank gave another sigh and dropped a project onto Mark’s desk.

  Mark closed his eyes. This was the moment he’d been dreading. Please, he thought, don’t let me get worse than a C.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the letter in red ink on the first page of the project.

  D.

  Mark felt a cold sinking feeling in his stomach.

  Mr Cruickshank was crouching down again, face close to his.

  ‘Not good enough, Smalley,’he said.’Everyone here did well in primary school. That’s history. This is high school. Wake up to yourself, Smalley.’

  Mark looked at the sheep.

  The sheep looked dolefully back at him.

  ‘Baaaa,’ said the sheep.

  That’s right, thought Mark. A bloke can’t come top all the time.

  2

  Mark cleared his throat and read from the piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘Mum, Dad, it’s like this. High school isn’t as easy as primary school. It’s much harder to get A’s all the time in high school. Take me for example. No matter how hard I try I can’t get better than B minus. I’ve even had a couple of C’s. I think there might have been a D at some stage as well.’

  ‘That’s great,’ said Rufus.

  The bus lurched to a halt. Pino clambered out of the seat behind them and looked over Mark’s shoulder.

  ‘Lousy handwriting,’ he yelled back at them as he jumped off the bus. ‘B minus.’

  ‘Can I copy that?’ asked Rufus, rummaging in his bag and pulling out a leaky pen and an exercise book with a sandwich stuck to it. ‘I’d like to say that to my mum.’

  ‘You can have it,’ said Mark, giving him the piece of paper. ‘I’ve learnt it off by heart.’

  ‘I’ll have to change the last bit,’ said Rufus. As the bus pulled away he threw the sandwich out the window at Pino, then started writing in the exercise book.

  After a bit he read what he’d written. ‘No matter how hard I try I can’t get better than D’s. Mark Smalley reckons that’s pretty good going for a kid whose dad’s left home.’

  ‘Good,’ said Mark. ‘Are you going to tell her today?’

  ‘I’ll wait till you’ve told yours,’ said Rufus. ‘See if they hit you.’

  Mark stopped at the front gate, took a deep breath, then stepped into the front yard.

  Joy Smalley was on her knees, watering a row of young trees that were barely higher than the fence.

  ‘Mum,’ said Mark, ‘it’s like this.’

  Joy carried on watering.

  Mark realised she couldn’t hear him because of the traffic roaring past.

  He shouted. ‘Mum, it’s like this.’

  She still didn’t look up.

  Mark went over and stood right behind her and yelled.

  ‘Mum, it’s like this.’

  She looked up, saw it was him, and grinned.

  ‘Hi love,’ she shouted. ‘I’ve got them.’ She pointed to the saplings. ‘I decided to go with the four rather than save up for the six.’

  ‘Mum,’ shouted Mark, ‘it’s . . .’

  But Joy had turned back to the trees. ‘Man at the nursery reckons they’re the toughest breed of tree on the market,’ she yelled.

  ‘Mum . . .’

  ‘Cross between an ironbark and a something else. Any rate, tougher than that wimpy grass seed.’ She pulled a few wispy strands of brown grass out of the dirt.

  ‘Mum . . .’

  ‘Man at the nursery reckons he’s seen this breed of tree grow through concrete.’ She flicked a tiny bug off one of the leaves. ‘Get off there, you little vandal.’

  Mark tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up. Mark pointed to his mouth. She stood up, concerned.

  ‘What is it, love? Do you need to go to the dentist?’

  She watched Mark shake his head and trudge wearily into the house. Poor love, she thought, must be tough at the top.

  Inside, Mark dumped his school bag, got a drink and a Milo sandwich, and started planning how he was going to break the news about his grades to Dad.

  *

  Bob Smalley pulled into the driveway, nearly demolishing a young tree.

  He turned off the engine and sat for a moment in the old Falcon, enjoying the peace and quiet.

  He knew it wasn’t really peace and quiet, but after eight hours of knocking buildings down with a bulldozer, it was close enough.

  He looked at the pile of demolition salvage stacked next to the house, the old doors and window frames and bathroom fittings and pieces of timber, and daydreamed for a bit.

  Country cottage in that lot, he thought, if I could afford the bit of country to build it on.

  Then he braced himself and got out of the car.

  The traffic roar hit him like a punch in the ears.

  He went over and checked the bolts in the FOR SALE sign on the front fence. They were holding out pretty well considering how much traffic vibration they’d had to withstand over the last three years.

  Bob looked at the six lanes of vehicles thundering past. He looked up at the new overpass, four more lanes of traffic howling past almost directly above his head.

  He had a swear at the planners who could turn a bloke’s quiet suburban corner into a raving madhouse with a flick of a pen. He thought of popping over to their quiet mansions in one of the boss’s bulldozers and letting them experience a bit of traffic vibration themselves.

  Then, as he always did, Bob thought of Mark and Daryl and calmed down.

  He had two young blokes inside and they were both top of their classes and they’d both be top of their universities and professions and they’d both end up living in great big houses in streets so quiet you could hear a hundred dollar note drop.

  Bob smiled the smile of a happy man.

  Mark chose his moment carefully. He waited till dinner was over and he and Daryl were doing their homework at the kitchen table and Bob was relaxing with the paper and a cup of tea.

  Then, heart pounding, he slid the project out from under his folder and across the table towards Bob.

  The D was so big and red Mark half expected a siren to go off.

  A siren did go off.

  Mark jumped, then realised it was an ambulance going past outside.

  Probably Rufus, he thought. Must have decided to tell his mum tonight after all.

  Mark held his breath and waited for Bob to look up and see the project.

  Bob jumped to his feet.

  ‘Almost forgot,’ he said. ‘Picked these up for you on the way home.’

  Bob rummaged inside his lunch box and pulled out several glossy brochures, which he tossed onto the table on top of the project.

  ‘There you go, champs,’ he said.

  The red D disappeared under an expensive red car.

  ‘Saab,’ said Daryl. ‘Beauty.’

  Mark watched Daryl grab the top brochure with the carefree enthusiasm of a kid still at primary school who’d never had a D in his life.

  At the sink, Joy turned and frowned.

  ‘Bob,’ she said, ‘they’re trying to do their homework.’

  ‘Just giving them a helping hand,’ said Bob. ‘Reminding them
what all the hard slog’s for. Even geniuses need to know what they’re busting the brainbox for.’

  Mark slid the project out from under the brochures and pushed it towards Bob.

  ‘Dad . . .’ he said.

  But Bob had turned to Joy and was putting his arms around her.

  ‘Do you want ‘em to be doctors and lawyers,’ he said, ‘or do you want ‘em to end up doing what I do?’

  ‘Farting in the bathroom,’ muttered Daryl behind his brochure.

  ‘Daryl,’ said Joy.

  Bob bounded over to Daryl, eyes wide with mock outrage.

  ‘How dare you? I’ll have you know, Daryl Top-Of-The-Class Smalley, that pong was the aftershave your mum gave me for Christmas.’

  ‘You liar,’ laughed Joy.

  Mark slid the project closer to Bob. It was almost touching his leg.

  ‘Dad . . .’

  But Bob was in full flight. He struck his Famous Lawyer pose and turned to Mark.

  ‘Mark Top-Of-The-Class Smalley, you’ll back me up. Was or was not that duff pong in the bathroom Santa’s aftershave?’

  Suddenly Mark didn’t have the energy to go through with it any more. His last bit of energy was used up in a flash of anger.

  He grabbed the project and stuffed it inside his folder and slammed the folder shut so hard the sugar bowl jumped off the table.

  The others stared at him.

  ‘Mark,’ said Joy, concerned, ‘I know you’re trying to work but that’s a bit uncalled for. I don’t know where you get that temper from, certainly not your father or me.’

  ‘The milkman,’ muttered Daryl.

  ‘Daryl,’ yelled Joy.

  Bob sat down and ruffled Mark’s hair and spoke softly.

  ‘He’s okay, just a bit tense. Tough at the top, eh mate? Take it from me, it’s going to be worth it. You blokes are going to be somebodies.’

  He picked up one of the Saab brochures and put it down in front of Mark.

  ‘Three of these each,’ said Bob. Then he grinned. ‘Not the brochures, the cars.’

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ said Mark sadly.

  But he knew it wasn’t true.

  There’d never be a Saab in his life now.

  3

  Next morning, walking into school, Mark saw a Saab parked out the front. Climbing out of it was a kid in his class, Annie Upton, a tall, skinny girl with glasses who’d hardly spoken a word to him all year.