Billy Bobbins Part 3

In his head he’d expected it to be different. He’d expected it to be like one of those old Western movies, where the hero pushes through the swinging saloon doors and instantly becomes the centre of everyone’s attention – the piano player stops mid-tune, the barman stops mid-pour, the card-sharks stop mid-cheat…
Nobody stopped for Billy as he entered the Redback Theatre. Nobody noticed as he dramatically flung open the door. Nobody watched as he stepped boldly into the room. Nobody stopped. Nobody cared.
Secretly, part of Billy gave a sigh of relief. Although it was an anti-climax after building himself up for this moment for months, he didn’t honestly know how he would have reacted if they had all stopped and stared. He had tried his best to convince himself that he was brave and determined, but in truth he suspected that, thrust into the limelight like that, he might well have turned and run terrified from the room like a shrieking little girl.
He told himself that the lack of reaction was a blessing in disguise, as it gave him a chance to calm the thumping in his chest, steady his shaking nerves, and take stock of his surroundings before taking the next step.
Directly in front of him, sitting on a group of tables, were the kids he had heard from the corridor. They were still laughing and joking at the short girl, who was still angrily shouting back at them…or was she? Now that he saw her, he wasn’t sure if she was really angry at all, or just pretending. To his left, up the back of the room, on the stage, a dimpled cheeked girl who he didn’t recognise from the play, twirled a pair of colourful, streamer-trailing balls on the end of long strings, like he had seen buskers do outside Flinders Street station once when his Grandma had taken him Christmas shopping in the city. Lying on the stage beside her, unconcerned by the missiles flashing past just inches above their heads, another couple of girls were busily engrossed in each other’s mobile phones, alternating between furiously typing out messages on the tiny number pads, and rolling about laughing uproariously at the presumably hilarious replies. They in turn received weary glances from a group of four girls in black jumpers, sitting at a table by the wall to Billy’s left, with books and papers spread out around them, apparently studying for some test or assignment.
More students sat chatting on the edge of the stage, on chairs, on tables…Billy felt his heart begin to thump again. He hadn’t realised the Redback Theatre Group was so big, there had only been five or six students involved in the play on Transition night. He felt his fears start to get control of him once more, twisting his stomach and clutching at his chest. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Without even realising it, he began to edge back towards the door. At least he could still slip away unnoticed.
“Whoah! Careful kid!” The voice came from directly behind him, catching him completely off guard and making him jump in fright. He spun around and cannoned directly into a tall lanky boy standing in the doorway. Momentarily dazed, Billy stumbled back into the room, his head reeling, and collided embarrassingly with a table.
They hadn’t paid attention before, but the loud crash grabbed everyone’s attention now. Billy felt twenty pairs of eyes boring into him. Conversation stopped. A heavy silence pressed down on the room. Billy’s face burned with embarrassment. He wished there was some place to hide, some tiny crack that he could press himself into and disappear.
To his left, he saw a tall, thin boy stand up, about to speak. He trembled uncontrollably as he waited to hear what he would say…
“Hey Kirsten…who’s this, your new boyfriend?”
The room erupted into howls of laughter, followed quickly by another piercing shriek of anger from the short girl. She hurled herself at the boy. “Screw you, Kenny!” she raged, as the boy quickly ducked under a table and popped up the other side. Looking around wildly, he grabbed at the arms of two pretty girls leaning on a nearby table.
“Quick, Deb, Tezza – hide me!” He ducked as the girl hurled a pencil case, whizzing just inches past his ear. Laughing but unsympathetic, the girls pushed him away.
“Don’t hide behind us you wuss!” they chuckled. He circled around, keeping a table between himself and the furious girl, and then made a lunge for Billy himself. Billy froze, stiff as a board as the boy grabbed him and held him in front like a human shield, ducking more flying missiles and taunting the girl.
“Hey, hey, careful now Kirby! You don’t want to miss, you might hit your little boy-toy!” His dig procured another shriek of rage and another flying pencil case whistled by – terrified, Billy felt the zipper brush past his ear.
“Ok, that’s enough…” An older, more authoritative voice. Billy glanced to his right, and for the first time noticed a teacher sitting smiling behind a big wooden desk.
“Yeah Kirby…enough…” the boy taunted again. The girl made another lunge at him, which he fended off by swinging Billy into her path.
“ENOUGH!” The teacher wasn’t shouting but it was clear that he was serious. The two kids paused.
“But sir! You heard what he said!” Again, Billy couldn’t tell if the girl was really upset or just playing along. He thought he could detect an edge of laughter in her voice.
“He was just teasing. How old are you now? You know better than to react.” Again, Billy caught an edge of laughter to the teacher’s voice.
“Yeah Kirby, you know better than to react” The boy continued his taunts, until the teacher calmly continued on.
“Besides, how many times have I told you, we all know why boys tease girls”
“Yeah Kirby, we all…hey wait…we do?” the boy looked quizzically at the teacher.
“Of course…” the teacher kept a perfectly straight face, “They do it to cover up that they have a crush on them.”
The room burst into laughter once more as the boy screwed his face up in disgust.
“Ewwwwww! No way!” He pushed Billy at her and backed away as she made mock kissy faces at him, laughing.
“Awww come on Kenny-wenny, don’t you want a kiss”
“Get away from me you freak!” he warned, again greeted by howls of laughter from the room. Pretending to be offended, the girl grabbed the still-terrified Billy.
“Maybe I will take this guy!” she pouted, “He’s more of a man than you anyway!” More roars of laughter erupted, but Billy felt his face burn with embarrassment. Seeing his discomfort, the teacher spoke up once more.
“Kirby, leave the poor kid alone.”
“Yeah Kirby, you’re scaring him,” spoke up one of the black jumper girls, “Look at him, he’s terrified…gosh!”
Laughing, the girl let him go.
“How sad is that, even little kids are too scared to go out with me!” she complained, as she returned to her friends on the table. The black-jumper-girl kept her attention on Billy.
“What are you doing here anyway, kid?” She spoke sort of quickly, but her voice was kind, and Billy felt himself liking her straight away. This was it, the moment he’d been building up for all these months. He took a deep breath.
“I…uh…” He hesitated, then with a supreme effort, gathered the last of his courage and pressed on boldly: “I want to join the Redback Theatre Group”

To be continued