The OK Team Read online

  THE OK TEAM

  First published in 2008

  Copyright © Text, Nick Place 2008

  Copyright © Illustrations, Heath McKenzie 2008

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander St

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Place, Nick, 1965- .

  The ok team.

  For children.

  ISBN 9781741751864 (pbk.).

  1. Heroes - Australia - Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  A823.4

  Cover and text design by Josh Durham, Design by Committee

  Cover and text illustrations by Heath McKenzie

  Cover and text hero photographs from bigstockphoto.com and istockphoto.com

  Chapter opening photographs by Nick Place

  Set in 11.5/14.8pt Baskerville by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  www.herohints.com

  Again, to Wonder Anna, the amazing flame-haired

  super-heroine.

  And to the Fitzroy Hero Development Squad:

  Lightning Rod and the Boy Who Moves the Stars.

  Whatever superpowers I do possess can never

  be enough.

  CONTENTS

  1 ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER HUMILIATION

  2 HOME IS WHERE THE HURT IS

  3 CARROT TACOS FOR TABLE 47

  4 THE VICTORIAN SOCIETY FOR THE BLURRED

  5 THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN

  6 LEON

  7 THE WORST WEDGIE IN HUMAN HISTORY

  8 GETTING STARTED

  9 CAR CRASH

  10 HEROES ANONYMOUS

  11 THE ALLEY OF DEATH

  12 WANTED: HEROES

  13 THE GHOST & THE LIAR

  14 THE OK TEAM

  15 MEET THE BAD GUYS

  16 THE BIG SWITCH

  17 GAME OVER

  18 THOSE WERE THE DAYS

  19 MR FABULOUS

  20 LESS THAN FABULOUS

  21 BACK TO REALITY

  22 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

  23 THE BATTLE OF THE TICK TOCKS

  24 EXILE

  25 A MYSTERIOUS PARCEL

  26 THE END OF THE WORLD?

  27 THE COMEBACK KID

  28 THE OK TEAM RIDES AGAIN

  29 MOMENT OF TRUTH

  30 TO THE RESCUE

  31 BETTER THAN OK

  32 IMPACT

  33 A HAPPY ENDING

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  ANOTHER DAY,

  ANOTHER HUMILIATION

  I knew it was going to be a bad day from the moment I leaned back in my chair while having breakfast, and fell clean through the kitchen wall. Most of me ended up in the dining room, except for my left leg which stayed in the kitchen. Mum wasn’t happy. She hates it when I go through walls – even though I keep telling her it’s a total accident and I can’t control it. I head off to school, and I’m zipping and zapping in and out of focus. Today is the first rehearsal day for the Year Seven School Ball and I’ve been dreading this moment for weeks. It’s OK for normal freaks like you. What’s your biggest fear at a dance rehearsal? Standing on a girl’s toes? Having to dance with a kid with bad breath? Going left instead of right during the Evening Three Step?

  My heart bleeds for you. Now welcome to my world . . .

  I’m standing on the polished wooden floorboards of the school assembly hall. All of us boys are on one side and all of the girls are on the other. Any other day of the year, we all just get on with the job of surviving our schooldays, regardless of whether we’re male or female. At dance rehearsal, the school manages to make us feel awkward about who we are and forces us to look at our classmates as somebody we might have to consider romance with. Thanks a lot, Northcote High.

  Actually, now I think of it, I’m the one thirteen year old who doesn’t have that particular problem – wondering if romance is an option with one of my female classmates. What are the odds, do you think?

  I can barely bring myself to do it, but I sneak a glance at the glory that is Ali Fraudulent, kind of looking from under the long fringe of my hair. If the girls in my year have an ultimate freak contender, then she’d be it, but I ache with the unfairness of it. Because Ali Fraudulent is a total babe. She’s beautiful, tall, athletic, has pure white hair – which is admittedly weird at thirteen years old – and never ever speaks. To anybody. Not even to the teacher. She simply turns up each day, sits near the back of the class, apparently takes in everything that is being said, and then leaves. She can write OK, when she has to deliver an essay or something, but no sound has passed her lips. Even when somebody cracks a joke and she smiles, I’ve never heard her laugh.

  But this is where life is so unfair. Whereas Ali is Queen Freak and gorgeous, I’m King Freak and a total dweeb. More or less average height but skinny to go with it, plus over-long hair and a slightly high-pitched voice. Oh yeah, and completely blurry. Long live the King.

  And now, to prove that the Gods of Humiliation just don’t know when to quit, Mrs Strangefloosie, the dance teacher, is bringing the boys and girls together to practise the tango and yes, to my horror and secret joy, Ali Fraudulent and I find ourselves herded together. I see her eyes briefly panic as she realises that Mrs Strangefloosie is blocking any avenue of escape, and I can’t slip sideways either, because already Boris Scumm, our year’s self-appointed bully and half a metre taller than me although only three months older, is right there, hissing, ‘How perfect. The Freaks get to dance.’

  ‘Leave us alone, Scumm,’ I squeak, managing to take my eyes off Ali’s mortified face to give him a glare.

  Scumm leans in close and I’m almost overpowered by his body odour. ‘I’m sure you two will have a terrific conversation,’ he says, leering nastily at Ali, ‘although babe, I don’t know what you see in him.’

  Scumm laughs like an idiot. A few of his henchmen join in. Ali and I are left, miserably looking at one another and not knowing where to begin. Then she puts out her right hand, slightly to the side, and raises her left elbow revealing her hip, and I momentarily forget all about Boris Scumm because you know what, she’s inviting me to take my dancing position, and that means I’m about to hold Ali Fraudulent in my arms, a secret dream for at least the last year, and I don’t have to let go for the duration of a tango.

  I smile and lean forward and lean a little too far . . . and then I’m confused because I’m lying on my face and all I can hear is laughter. Explosive laughter that threatens to take the roof clean off the school hall. I lift myself up on my elbows and look back over my shoulder. When I see Ali’s now horrified face looking back at me, I realise what has happened. I got so caught up in the moment that I fell clean through Ali Fraudulent.

  Of course, that realisation means I go in and out of visibility like you wouldn’t believe and end up so embarrassed and upset that if you were to look at me, I’d be little mo
re than a cloud.

  The only thing left is to get the hell out of there. As the cloud that is me stumbles past Ali, looking for the door, I manage to say above the laughter, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Ali opens her mouth, and I’m scared that she is going to laugh, that she will join the others with their cruel eyes and their savage fun at my expense. But she doesn’t laugh. She closes her mouth again and just looks sad.

  MEDICAL REPORT

  ROYAL MELBOURNE HOSPITAL

  FILE STARTED: DECEMBER 1994

  UPDATED: JANUARY 2008

  DR H. LONGABAUGH

  PATIENT NAME: Hazy Retina (Hereby referred to as the ‘Subject’)

  AGE AT MOST RECENT UPDATE (2008): 13 years old

  PARENTS: Harold & Iris Retina, Fairfield

  PATIENT CONDITION: Born ‘out of focus’. An physical condition, to say the least.

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMPTOMS: Subject appears blurry around the edges and the features of his face are indistinct. To look at the Subject is to feel that you are looking through binoculars that are out of focus, or eyeglasses with the wrong prescription.

  When Subject is very nervous, scared or uncertain, which is often (see Psychological Report), Subject can almost disappear, as though his entire body has become molecularly unstable. Subject has no control over this ‘condition’.

  Subject has no control over this ‘condition’.

  Subject’s parents report many occasions where Subject has fallen through walls, or been similarly physically ‘unstable’.

  Examples:

  1999: At kindergarten, Subject reportedly ‘lost’ focus and accidentally walked through a see-saw. Vivid recall of, quote: ‘other children screaming as I stood there, apparently impaled on the wood, wondering what the fuss was about.’

  2005: At 10 years old, Subject recalls being accused by his cousin, Lucy, of cheating at hide and seek by making himself invisible. After much coaxing by counsellor, revealed that his other cousin, Olivia, had kissed him and he had involuntarily disappeared. Was mortified to be accused of cheating, and reports he could not deliberately make himself vanish.

  2006: Ill-fated attempt at a family portrait, where photographer was unable to make Subject appear ‘in focus’. Subject appear ‘in focus’. Subject reports feelings of intense humiliation and shame.

  PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS: See full report, but Subject often refers to self as ‘a freak’. Parents (Harold and Iris) report that he spends many hours in his room, reading comic books and refusing to go outside. Reports of loneliness at school. No friends.

  HISTORY: A documented family condition.

  According to Harold Retina (father), Subject is the third known member of Retina family to have said condition.

  The first reported example apparently was an uncle in Perth, a son to Harold’s father’s brother. Not much known - he was ‘kept out of sight’ on a family farm in remote Western Australia.

  Second known example: ‘Uncle Blinky’, the son of Harold’s cousin, Gina, born in Sydney. Apparently born with his whole face pixelated, as though digitally distorted into small squares. Embraced condition and gained steady employment at TV stations, filling in for people being tried in the courts, whose faces must be obscured as they come and go from the Sydney Courthouse. Saved a fortune in special effects costs. Now believed to be overseas, living in New York where there is an entire TV channel devoted to court cases.

  No known contact with Melbourne branch of the Retina family.

  CHAPTER 2

  HOME IS WHERE THE

  HURT IS

  The dance rehearsal was three days ago and I haven’t left my room since, except to go to the bathroom, and to scavenge some food when my parents are at work or in bed so I don’t have to talk to them.

  About every hour or so, Mum comes and knocks on my door and asks if I’m all right. And I lie and tell her, yeah, I’m fine, but I want to be alone. I tell her I’m in the middle of a particularly great comic, one where the Southern Cross, an Australian Hero, is taking on an army of what look like alien vacuum cleaners.

  All of which is true except for the bit about me being fine.

  My mum thinks I need help. Not for the condition. What could anybody do? She says I need to see a counsellor. She says I need to learn to be more comfortable within myself. Hah! How could she know what it’s like to be inside what is laughingly called my body, on the occasions my body is actually visible? Dad’s even worse. Here’s a typical encounter:

  SCENE:

  TONIGHT AT DINNER. HAZY RETINA IS RELATIVELY STABLE,

  MORE IN FOCUS THAN OUT, HAVING A RARE MOMENT OF NOT

  ACTUALLY THINKING ABOUT HIS FREAKINESS.

  DAD: Say, Hazy, I’ve been meaning to tell you . . . did you read about that horse in China that was born with two heads? Apparently they managed to remove one of the heads so it’s now more or less a normal horse, although I guess its neck would probably be left at a strange angle.

  HAZY stares at DAD, trying to work out which of the nine separate incredibly painful torture techniques he’s so far thought of will hurt him the most.

  DAD: Still, I guess that nag won’t be winning the Melbourne Cup any time soon, huh?

  Cue animation sequence of kebab skewer through the eyeball. That would hurt the most. Even more than electric shocks to his groin . . . although, actually, now Hazy thinks about it . . .

  MUM: (worried, glancing at HAZY’s blurred but murderous face): Harold . . . let’s talk about something else, dear.

  DAD: I just thought the boy might find that interesting. HAZY slams down his fork.

  HAZY: Why? Because it is yet another story of how there are freaky things in the world that maybe, on a good day, might be even freakier than your absolute freak of a son, Dad?

  DAD: Oh, err . . . I only said it because I know you like horses, Hazy.

  HAZY: I hate horses.

  Scene ends in icy silence.

  You think I’m being mean and rotten to my old man, but trust me, when you’ve had to sit through this same conversation 100 or 200 times, with ever more freaky, disgusting subjects for him to compare with me, you’d be contemplating skewers to the eyeballs as well.

  I go to reach for another comic but instead grab a book that my father bought me in yet another misguided attempt to make me feel good about my ‘condition’. The book is called I’m OK – You’re OK and was written years ago by some doctor, Thomas Harris. I can barely make heads or tails of it, apart from the fact that when we interact with other people, there are only four possible situations:

  I’m not OK. You’re OK.

  I’m not OK. You’re not OK.

  I’m OK. You’re not OK.

  I’m OK. You’re OK.

  Options one and two pretty much cover my entire world, but that helps me how?

  The book completely fails to mention freak-show children born out of focus, as far as I can tell, and once you rule out ‘I’m OK’ under any scenario, how was old Dr Harris looking?

  I sigh, drop the book and pick up another comic until eventually Mum launches another sneaky bedroom raid and drags me out for dinner with her and Dad.

  CHAPTER 3

  CARROT TACOS FOR

  TABLE 47

  I should have spotted something was up from the moment she said we were going to The Vegie Bar. Halfway along Brunswick Street, Fitzroy – the coolest street in Melbourne – it’s a restaurant that would normally be way too fashionable for the Retina family to consider visiting, but it’s become our regular place to eat out. The reasons are simple. One, it is the only place we know of that serves carrot tacos, much loved by my dad as some kind of aftershock remedy to his son carrying the family visibility curse. Two, nobody looks sideways at somebody who is not actually in focus. The locals are either too cool to do a double-take, or they find somebody being out of focus pretty routine. Tonight we’re at our favourite table, down the back, near the corridor leading to the toilets.

  ‘Did you have a go at reading that book I got
you, Hazy?’ says Dad.

  ‘Dad, I tried. I really did. But what I need is a book entitled, You’re Not OK, You’re Not OK. Or maybe just Freak.’

  ‘You are not a freak, Hazy Retina!’ Mum weighs in. ‘I’ve told you a million times how much I hate that word. You’re just you.’

  ‘Oh boy,’ I say.

  Dad says a little too loudly, ‘Guess what!’

  ‘What?’ I reply. Mum looks worried.

  ‘The way I hear it, if you had a microscope and magnified every centimetre of a person’s skin, you’d find millions of tiny, too-small-to-see organisms living there.’

  ‘Harold, dear –’ says Mum.

  ‘Totally crazy-looking creatures too, with tentacles and scales and lots of legs, eating dead cells to survive.’

  I can’t keep the edge out of my voice. ‘This story had better not end with how I’m not as strange as I think, Dad.’

  Dad looks uncomfortable. ‘All I’m saying is, umm, well, isn’t that pretty incredible. Gee, I wonder when we’re going to get served?’

  He is saved by the arrival of Lurch, my favourite waiter. I call him ‘Lurch’ after the servant in the Addams Family because he’s got the same tall, gaunt, lumbering look. Lurch walks with a slowness that is completely at odds with The Vegie Bar’s frantic kitchen and the other waiters and waitresses who hustle from table to table, delivering burritos, organic vegetarian pizzas and café lattes. He always seems to be on the verge of an important thought, but never quite seems to get there, instead frowning to himself and occasionally staring into the distance. It’s as though Lurch is always holding himself back, somewhere deep inside. When he does talk, he rarely says more than one word at a time. And never looks sideways at my blur.

  ‘Ready?’ Lurch asks.

  ‘Yes, we are,’ says my dad, frowning at the menu one last time. ‘Can we order two serves of carrot tacos, please?’

  Lurch stares at Dad for what feels like a full minute, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Fine,’ he finally says, scribbling on his notepad. ‘And?’

  ‘I’ll have pizza number seven, please,’ says Mum. ‘And a glass of the house wine.’