Rhyming Boy

by Steven Herrick

Overview

Jayden Hayden, wordsmith, aka rhyming boy, doesn’t have a dad, just a mom obsessed with football player Jayden Finch and an embarrassing name that gets him teased. When his school’s father-son day is announced, Jayden’s quest for answers becomes a puzzle he needs to solve quickly. He wonders: Could Jayden Finch be more than just a football player? With the help of his an-answer-to-every-question friend Saskia, he aims to track down his namesake and his father all at once.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780702251535
Publisher:	University of Queensland Press
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	9 Years

About the Author

Steven Herrick is one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. Many of his 14 books for children and young adults have been on the CBCA Children’s Book of the Year Awards short list, including Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair; A Place Like This; The Simple Gift; and Tom Jones Saves the World. His books By the River and Do-wrong Ron were named Honour Books.

Read an Excerpt

Rhyming Boy

A Novel

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By Steven Herrick

University of Queensland Press

Copyright © 2008 Steven Herrick
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7022-5154-2

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CHAPTER 1

In the street of silly names

I turn the page, quickly.

Riley Willis, firefighter, smashes down the heavy wooden door with his axe and leaps through the flames, lifting Henry Tumbleton onto his broad shoulders and carrying the overweight octogenarian from the blazing fury of his scorching lounge room.

Never leave chips on the stove when you're watching The Price Is Right!

'Jayden, what's the score, darl?'

Mum's in the kitchen, doing some cooking of her own.

'I'm reading, Mum.'

She appears, wearing a blue and white butcher's apron and the lilac ugg boots I gave her for her thirty-fifth birthday. Hanging loosely around her shoulders is a striped football scarf. She's holding a spoon full of a mysterious dark-red liquid. She runs her finger along the spoon and tastes it, smacking her lips loudly.

'Keep an eye on the game, darl! Whistle if the hunk scores again. I'm not wearing this blessed scarf for fashion, you know.'

The hunk is Jayden Finch, in his farewell season for Souths. He's so famous people name their children after him.

Like Mum, who's searching for the television remote. She picks up my books scattered on the couch.

'It's like a plague of books in here.'

'I was reading and checking the score, Mum.'

She walks to the spare room, opens the door and throws the books inside.

'Jayden, a wise mouth gathers no foot. You can't do two things at once. Either watch footy or spend all day with your head stuck in those pages like a toucan.'

'Haven't you heard of multi-tasking, Mum.'

It's my word for the day.

Every morning at precisely seven-fifteen, I close my eyes, open my dictionary at a random page and point to a word. I study its meaning, then try to fit it into a conversation.

The only word to stump me this year was precipitant – to rush headlong, hastily.

Something Mum's pretty good at.

'Multi-task my eye! Watch the telly, darl. Some things are more important than books.'

Mum looks at the spoon in her hand, trying to remember what she's been doing.

'Blood, Mum. Mixing blood in the kitchen.'

She holds the wooden spoon close to her nose and sniffs.

'Don't be silly. You'd need a metal spoon for blood. It's raspberry coulis.'

Jayden Finch, megastar, scores a goal just before the whistle to complete a total rout for the Blues. I call out the news. Mum dances from the kitchen, waving her scarf victoriously over her head. She pirouettes (yesterday's word!) past the phone, lifting it off the hook and pushing speed-dial. She skips across the room and gracefully bows, before flopping onto the lounge.

'Gail? Wasn't he brilliant! And so handsome! He can park his shoes outside my door ...'

She points at the spare room, putting her hand over the phone and whispering to me.

'Get your books, darl ...

Yeah, Gail. A home game next week. Wild possums couldn't keep me away. It'll be more fun than a ...'

I carry the books to my bedroom and shut the door.

More fun than a rat with a ping-pong ball?

A pizza in a blender?

A horse with hiccups?

'Hurry up, Dad. It's getting dark.'

Next door, Tony Thompson stands in his backyard impatiently tossing the ball from hand to hand. His brother Timmy is crouching between the two frangipani trees along the back fence. Drawn on the timber palings behind him are hundreds of smiling moon faces with jug ears and bright red hair. An instant crowd.

I open the window and lean out to get a better view of Mr Thompson half-way up a ladder, placing a floodlight over a hook on the verandah.

He calls to his wife, 'Switch it on, Agnes.'

An intense beam fizzes and crackles, filling the backyard with a warm glow.

'There you go, boys. Better than Aussie Stadium.'

Mr Thompson climbs down and leans over the railing as Tony carefully places the ball on the penalty spot. He pulls up both socks before slowly pacing back, eyes never leaving the ball. Timmy, in goal, smacks his two gloves together and bends his knees ready to spring.

Mr Thompson's deep voice booms, 'It's one-all with twenty seconds remaining in the Cup Final. Will United's Tony Thompson score the winner and become the hero of all of Jackson Street?'

Timmy stops slapping his gloves and looks up at his dad.

Mr Thompson continues, 'Or will Timmy the Cat save the day for the Wanderers? The tension is so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw.'

Mrs Thompson interrupts, 'A bread knife, dear. Cut it with a bread knife.'

Mr Thompson scratches his head.

'That's not very exciting, Agnes?'

'It's too violent, dear.'

'The tension is so thick you could cut it with ...'

'Dad!'

'Sorry, boys.'

Tony runs in and slams the ball hard to Timmy's right. Timmy dives but can't quite get his fingers to the ball and it smacks into the fence. The faces in the crowd splinter. Tony runs around the yard, his shirt pulled over his face, arms spread wide. Mr Thompson skips down the stairs whistling and clapping. He jogs to Timmy and helps him to his feet.

'Great effort, son. You gave one hundred and fifty percent!'

He lifts Timmy onto his shoulders and the three of them run in crazy circles around the backyard cheering and laughing.

Tony Thompson. Timmy Thompson.

I live in a street of silly names.

Two doors down is Mrs Bent who walks with the help of a pusher. Every afternoon she trundles to the corner shop stopping every few minutes to rest. She has a sip of water from the sports bottle she keeps in the basket on the pusher. Then she slowly keeps walking. Her back is shaped like the letter C.

Next door to her lives Mr Hardy who wears shabby clothes and spends all day digging in the garden or walking his dog, Deefer. Whenever Deefer scampers ahead, Mr Hardy clicks his fingers loudly and Deefer sits, panting, waiting for him to catch up.

Every morning when I go past his house to school, Mr Hardy stretches his arms wide and chuckles, 'Beautiful day to be alive, young fellow.'

Even if it's blowing a gale or blistering hot, he looks up at the sky and says, 'God's mighty canvas. A work of art.'

Opposite Mr Hardy lives the Sweet family. Mr Sweet drives a cement truck which he washes every afternoon. Mrs Sweet stands beside him, talking. She points to a dirty spot he's missed. Mr Sweet nods and keeps scrubbing. When he's finished, Mrs Sweet gets him a cool drink and they sit on fold-away beach chairs on the front lawn, holding hands and admiring the shiny truck.

Mr Hardy says God gave them their name. Sweet.

But the silliest, stupidest, strangest, most surprising name for anyone in the street, in the suburb, in the state, in the world is reserved for the boy at number eighty-eight.

My name is Jayden. Jayden Hayden.

Stop laughing!

At the age of nineteen, Jayden Finch scored the winning goal in the 1996 Grand Final. The day before I was born.

Mum said it was destiny.

It's my father's fault.

If he'd been there, he would have called me Ben or Andrew or Simon. Anything but Jayden. Dad wasn't there.

I close the window to the laughter of the Thompsons and pull the note from my pocket.

Boys and Books and Breakfast

The school Principal, Mr Bartog, is holding a sausage sizzle before class in two weeks time inviting every dad, grandpa, uncle or big brother of a boy in Upper Primary to bring their favourite book to school where they would, Share Salubrious Stories and Succulent Sausages with Siblings.

I've got heaps of favourite books. One hundred and forty-nine, last count. It's the other part I'm having trouble with.

After school yesterday, I gave Mum the note. The long wrinkle across her forehead grew deeper as she read. She handed it back without saying a word. I could hear the grinding of teeth as she reached for her apron.

She went to the cupboard and took out the aluminium flour tin. She scooped two cups of flour onto the wax paper, slowly added cold water and kneaded it roughly into a firm consistency. With a scone cutter, she sliced the dough and placed it on a baking tray, all the time talking loudly to herself.

'Fifteen minutes at one hundred and eighty degrees should do just fine. Books! They don't put food on the table!'

She slammed the oven door so hard the hinges rattled.

'Strawberry jam ... check. Cream ... check. Whipping spoon ... Jayden have you seen my ... there it is. Boys and books and breakfast! I'd give that Principal a good whipping if I had the time!'

It was hard not to giggle.

'Mr Bartog likes alliteration, Mum.'

Mum beat the cream even harder.

The scones gently steamed under a Souths 1996 Premiership tea-towel.

Mum leaned in close. 'I'm sorry, darl.' The wrinkle became a furrow. She reached out and took my hand. 'Adults are different, son.'

Yes, they bake a whole tray of delicious scones and then let them go cold.

'Your father and me. We were like square socks on round feet.'

Square socks?

Mum fingered the white crocheted tablecloth. 'We were never close, darl.'

'But ...'

Mum went redder than the strawberry jam.

'Well, close enough to have you. But, fatherhood wasn't for him.'

I imagine a man returning his socks to CheapMart. He holds them, dangling between thumb and finger, shaking his head, 'I'm sorry. These won't do. Can I get a refund?' Mum brushes the hair from her eyes.

'We agreed to let it be. He ... moved on.'

Maybe my dad found socks that fitted him perfectly? How many pairs does he own? When they get holes in them, does he toss them out? Straight into the bin, brushing his hands as he drops them among the fish bones and soggy pieces of lettuce.

Mum pushed the plate of scones towards me.

'I've told you this before, darl. You were all I ever wanted.'

She lifted the cloth from the scones, steam rose like a sweet mist. She spooned extra cream on the biggest scone and offered it to me.

'Maybe you could go with Mr Thompson, darl?' I took a large bite and wiped the cream from my nose.

'Nah. He's got two socks of his own.'

'Two what?'

'Two sons, two sons of his own.'

The darkest hair in the world

Do you know that right now there are one million four hundred thousand bacteria hitching a free ride on your skin? Don't bother looking. They're infinitesimally tiny. That's why I'm scrubbing behind my ears with this brush lathered in spearmint-scented soap.

There goes half a million, straight down the plug-hole.

I lean in close to the mirror, checking my teeth. Pigs have forty-four teeth, dogs forty-two. Humans have thirty-two.

At least mine will be clean and white. I brush them again just to be sure. Can't be too careful with personal hygiene.

The new girl in class wouldn't like bad breath drifting across her desk.

She has the darkest hair in the world.

True.

We met in the canteen line today. I wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

'You should ring The Guinness Book of Records.'

She turned, her thick locks shining.

'Pardon?'

'The Guinness Book of Records. It's a book ...'

'Yes. I know. It's called the BOOK of records, isn't it?'

'Well, they keep incredible facts. The world's fattest man. The longest fingernail. The lady with the thickest moustache. I was just thinking you should contact them.'

The new girl touched her top lip, feeling for facial hair.

'No! Not moustaches. You haven't got one. I'm sure.'

Everyone in line giggled, waiting for the next morsel. Far more interesting than school food.

The new girl squinted at me.

'You're in my class, aren't you?'

I nodded, afraid to open my mouth.

She held out her hand. 'My name is Saskia Devine.'

I shook her hand and said my name quietly hoping she wouldn't laugh.

'Do you want to eat young lady or hold hands?'

The canteen co-ordinator wiped her hands on her apron. Saskia bought a vegetarian lasagne.

(Note: Don't mention meat!)

'See ya, Jayden.'

She walked across the parade ground and the sun made her hair shine even more. Like in the shampoo commercials where women fling their hair about for no reason and handsome men in black sweaters swoon.

I like the word 'swoon'. My teacher, Mrs Casey, told us all about onomatopoeic words – like buzz, boom, crash, bang. They sound like their meaning. Swoooooooooonnnnnn!

Maybe Saskia could ring an advertising agency instead of The Guinness Book of Records? There's more money in commercials than in being unique.

'Anytime in the next few hours is fine by me, young man.' The canteen coordinator flicked a crumb from the counter and waited.

'I'll have what she had.'

'Very original. One pre-heated, vegetarian lasagne with raw mince sauce coming up.'

'Pardon?'

The co-ordinator winked, 'It's called humour.'

Saskia. What a beautiful name.

'jayden! Are you still in the toilet?'

My teeth are almost bright enough for their own television commercial. Maybe Saskia and me have something in common?

'Jayden!'

I open the door.

Mum's wearing her CheapMart uniform, the manager badge pinned to her heart. She has rollers in her hair.

'Are you going to work, Mum?'

'No, son. I'm off to the opera.'

'It looks nice. You'll definitely stand out.'

'Jayden, you're as funny as a turtle in a fruit shop today.'

She closes the door, murmuring to herself.

I imagine a turtle, its neck peeking out above the tomatoes and carrots and eggplants. Is the shop open? What does the owner think of a turtle wandering in from the ocean? Does he feed it, or offer it to his cousin the chef for turtle soup?

I expect Mum will remove the rollers before she goes to CheapMart.

'See you, Mum. Have fun at work.'

Can anyone have fun at a place called CheapMart?

'And where pray tell are we off to this afternoon, laddie?'

Mr Hardy gets up slowly from the garden bed rubbing his back with hands the colour of dirt.

'The library, to do some investigating.'

'A cure for old age, perhaps? Or how to stop weeds growing?'

'Actually, I want to find out where someone lives ...'

If there's one person in Jackson Street I can trust, it's Mr Hardy.

'... a girl. To help me with homework.'

Mr Hardy raises a bushy eyebrow. 'Homework, is it? Well, good luck, laddie. If you need assistance with such things, a girl is a wise place to start. A pretty girl perhaps?'

I try very hard not to blush.

'Mr Hardy, how do I ask a girl to help ... with study? You know, so she doesn't think I'm ... meaning something else?'

Mr Hardy reaches down to scratch behind Deefer's ear. Deefer closes his eyes and dribbles.

'I see your problem, laddie. Mustn't appear too fresh, as it were.'

Mr Hardy scratches behind his own ear now. He doesn't dribble.

'The answer, laddie, is detail. Don't just ask her for help with English. Too vague. Say something like, "What's the difference between a simile and a metaphor?" '

'Thanks, Mr Hardy. Similes and metaphors. See ya.'

The librarian wears black-rimmed glasses and an inquistive expression.

'Could you be more specific, please?' I can hardly say, 'I want to find the address of a girl in my class.'

The librarian removes her glasses, polishes them on her pink knit cardigan and waits.

'I ... I want to be a spy! When I'm older. And I want to practise now. By researching ...' Researching what? Girls! Bacteria! Football! '... by researching names and addresses of people in our area.'

The librarian holds her glasses up to the light, checking for smudges. She hooks the wire frame over each ear and points with a bright red fingernail to the long stack of shelves across the aisle.

'Simple, James Bond. You need the electoral roll. In the reference section. Second shelf from the top, half-way along.'

She goes back to typing on the computer at her desk. She needs a stronger light. Librarians should protect their eyes.

I sit at the desk and open the huge book. The man in the over-sized jacket sitting opposite starts snoring. The sound floats across the room to the librarian who looks up, frowning.

Please don't disturb us.

The old man looks like he needs sleep. His hair is matted and grey. A scrunched handkerchief hangs out of his jacket pocket like a wilting flower. Half asleep, he reaches for it and noisily blows his nose. He tries to put it back but it misses the pocket and drifts to the floor.

It's Wednesday afternoon and everyone else is at work, or the beach, or kicking a ball in the park.

Except old men.

And spies.

I move my finger down the page.

Devie, Alan.

Devinullo, Luigi.

Devin, Archibald.

Devine, Peter.

Devine, Sarah.

Saskia's parents? I commit the address to memory. Like a spy should.

No paper.

No evidence.

I know the street where they live. It's on the way home from the library. If I take a slight two-kilometre detour.

I close the book quietly so as to not disturb Mr Slumber. I reach down for his handkerchief and gently place it on the table in front of him so he'll see it when he wakes. I wave at Miss Librarian on the way out. Next to the library is Chaser Mall where Mum is two hours into her shift at CheapMart.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Rhyming Boy by Steven Herrick. Copyright © 2008 Steven Herrick. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

In the street of silly names,
The darkest hair in the world,
Pardon to ponto,
Asleep in the sauce,
White shoes, with yellow laces,
Saturday morning at Thompson Stadium,
Sleuthing with Saskia,
Top Five special days,
The worst actress in the world,
You can't have too many sausage sizzles,
The big wind,
A jam of Jaydens,
A periwinkle left out in the sun,
On vegetarians and cyclones,
A world record in your own backyard,
Tiffany, Kirk and a herd of wildebeests,
Dinner with Charlie,
Rhyming Boy,
The obscure facts of Jayden Hayden,
Never trust a dictionary,
A hundred questions and only one answer,
The leper beside the river,
Balancing on a branch,
Words,
Mothballs and after-shave,
Lights, camera, action,
Dictionary Boy,
Dunsmore Swamp,
A sunny Sunday soy & sausage smoky barbeque,