Extract From My Young Adult Novel Part 2

School

Is nothing but a pain in the arse.

Full of history.

Who cares if some guy with a tin head roamed the bush, saved the day. What’s that gonna change now?

And what’s with Pythagoras and his theory. Doesn’t make sense.

Let me tell you what does.

History is what happens to blokes at school who like to take it up the arse. Tin armour can’t protect them.

Wogs multiply and are taking over school.

English is everyone’s second language. Just listen.

You want discussion questions?

Are Asians wogs?

What do Aussies look like?

What am I?

 

12 Noon Cab Ride

I hop in the back.

The taxi smells like breath when it’s starving.

Maybe he’s one of them people that fasts.

“I’m going to Coburg. Pitt Street.” I place the cake on my lap. Her favourite.

“I know Corburg. Is my area,” says the cabbie. He’s got a hat that looks like a beehive on his head.

I don’t care. “I’m in a hurry.” I stare at the meter. If I had a job that turned cents into dollars that quick I’d be laughing.

She’ll be okay. Once I get home.

I’ll make it. Just.

“You ditch school, huh?” He eyes my uniform. His eyes dart from side to side in the rear view mirror, like them ping-pong balls.

Is this guy for real?

He taps the steering wheel, his hand big and brown.

Like mine. Almost.

Except his are cracked like them drought areas they show on the news. We could be related.

Hope not.

“I ask no more questions to you,” he says.

But can’t know for sure with my mysterious genes. “You reckon you can go faster?”

He nods. The beehive moves. “Ah,” he says, his eyebrows creasing his forehead. “You meeting girl.”

“Hmm…yeah.” Like I’d ever see a chick in this uniform. It’s green. Does me no favours. I look like an asparagus, tall and lanky, rough on top. “Can you drive faster?”

He hits the gas for a few seconds. “I tell something to you. I have wife I love. But this job I meet many people. Many woman. Sometimes devil tempt me. You know?”

This guy is shitting me.

“You know?”

Na, the devil doesn’t do it for me. Tight jeans and the right arse does.

“Okay, I ask no more questions.”

Like he’s offended.

Pascoe Vale Road rushes past the window. Boys with caps crowd Broady Station. Wog boys who think they’re ‘sick’. Yeah, they are. ‘Sick’ from being stupid. Boys with porcupine hair eye each other. Boys that can’t share Broady.

The cabbie gargles words.

Gotta get home before she does.

I nearly forgot.

Nearly.

Extract From My YA Novel

Me

I’m a great package.

Oh yeah.

Wrapped in brown cellophane.

Feet flat like slugs.

A real turn on.

 

Beasts                                                                                               

When people see me and Ma I know what they think. How can a beauty like her make a beast like me. I don’t blame them. I’m ugly. The guy people look twice at to gawk at my long chin. It juts out like them chillies they serve at Mexicano restaurants. That’s what happens when your father’s The Flash. You get stuck with random genes.  

Not Ma’s beautiful ones.

Nah.

I got a nose that belongs to Pinocchio. Black eyes like them olives Ma likes. I was made with raging hormones and alcohol in a bar. I’m thinking a dark corner. Music, beer, strangers bumping.

Pumping.  

Ready in a minute.

Point is, it ain’t Ma’s fault my features are sharp, jagged like them villains you see in cartoons.

It’s his.   

Whoever he is.

There must’ve been something about him that Ma liked. Even for a few minutes. 

Before he disappeared.

Obviously not his looks.

I couldn’t give a shit if he had personality or charisma.

It’s good looks that’s important. Not humour, not character. It’s the body, the physical package. And how you use it.

Coz in this world beauties get anything they want.

And beasts?

We get shit.

 

Lesson #1

Ma’s face is scrunched up like a bulldog.

Her forehead wet with fear.

“Phillip! Do not overtake the car! Do you hear me! Slow down!”

The L plate in the back shakes.

Like my insides.

Ma holds the dashboard, bones stretch her skin.

“Slow down, Phillip!”

Blind spot.

Check.

Sorry, Ma.

“If you overtake this car, Phillip, we’re having two movie nights this week!” Her fingers a big V in the air.

I hit the brakes.

Time for professional lessons.

 

My mind

Sixteen sucks girls fart and bleed they’re hot like Ma but not all there looks mean shit but the world says no not another damn movie night must get out must find a way to ditch Ma Hollywood and popcorn no more find a job Ma says I can’t remember when but he’s gone and here I am

My mind’s a cell for words that zoom at 100 kms an hour.

 

ID

The name’s Phillip. I look like one, sharp nose and all. It’s an ugly name that should be locked up in Buckingham Palace reserved for the royals. Where it belongs.

Extract from my first novel “Orayt?”

Meadow Heights: the love child of Broadmeadows. She has her mother’s green fields, windy roads and tired hills that have slanted after years of carrying ungrateful homes on her back. Her mini shopping centre satisfies kebab cravings, and the imported Turkish goods crowd delicatessen shelves, bringing excited locals greetings from their homeland. The local video shop is in an endless identity crisis, changing names often, whereas the Meadow Heights Primary School juggles identities in portable classrooms. Lush walking trails weave between streets, connecting homes, bulk billing medical clinics and milk bars that are havens for loitering teens in this cultural conundrum.

At Meadow Heights shopping centre, teenagers with lowered caps are swooping on fish and chips like famished seagulls. Ali passes them and Mum’s crumbled shopping list waves before him like a hand beckoning us towards the entrance.

“Abla, I hope Zara teyze doesn’t want sucuk,” he says, trying to decode Mum’s Turkish words scrawled on the back of a white envelope. “Coz it stinks!”

He hands me the shopping list and her scribbled fragments pulse in my palm like a big heart. “Sorry…” I try hard to suppress a smile. Sucuk is at the top of Mum’s list, underlined twice. The Turkish salami is a minced meat concoction that lures you with its delicious spices and once devoured, burns a hot trail of indigestion down to your belly, leaving you parched for the rest of the day. To Mum and Aunt Nez it’s a small price to pay for this delicacy that they cook, toast, fry, barbecue, or eat raw in more than 10 dishes.   

“Yuck,” he mumbles, “they are gonna burp garlic all the time.”

A few women are crowding the shopping centre entrance, their hands waving in excitement, as if telling a story of their own. I ignore their nosy stares and walk inside the heart of Meadow Heights, this haven for homesick Turks. The smell of simit, a bagel like roll drenched in sesame seeds, is strong and Ali tracks the scent to the bakery. I pay for two, and Ali wears the simit on his wrist.

“It’s like that lolly bracelet but bread.”

I laugh as he takes a bite from his simit bangle, eyes closed. This is how simple it is, to savour a moment, to capture it with all senses. In another place, kids his age are balancing wooden trays of simit on their heads with the weight of their future, weaving in and out of neighbourhoods, trying to find a tomorrow in the dusty streets of Turkey.