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taking every possible opportunity to bump, push, jostle, shove, collide with, elbow, prod, dig, jab and shove me, so that I spent most of my lunchtimes careening around the playground and the school corridors as if I were trapped in some gigantic pinball machine.
    All right, I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I stand up for myself? Why didn’t I do something about it? But what would you suggest?
    Threaten Barry Bagsley?
    Look, Barry, I’m warning you, if you don’t stop picking on me I’ll make you listen to my father telling his how-Ishmael-got-the-name-Ishmael story.
    Flatter him, perhaps?
    Barry, Barry, Barry, you shouldn’t be wasting your time just making
my
life miserable-you’re so much better than that. Why don’t you start a singing career? That way you can make
millions
of people miserable.
    Appeal to his better nature, maybe?
    Look, Baz old buddy, you’re obviously a very sensitive and caring person. I think you would be great with animals. Have you ever considered working with orang-utans? Who knows? One day the orang-utans might even make you foreman.
    Bribery, you say?
    Look, B.B., have I got a deal for you. If you just leave me alone
you can have all my worldly possessions–three dollars seventy-five in loose change and my twenty-centimetre-diameter ball of used Blu-Tack.
    Of course, I guess I could always plead with him while at all times maintaining my dignity:
    Please, Mr Bagsley sir, please stop picking on me. Please, please, pretty please. By the way, would you like me to wash these feet of yours after I’ve finished kissing them?
    Don’t worry, I gave each of them serious consideration. But who was I kidding? Talking to Barry Bagsley was like trying to reason with an avalanche. You could say whatever you liked but you’d still end up being pummelled into oblivion. So I did nothing and I tried to convince myself that if I took him on, somehow I would be lowering myself to his level. Of course, the real reason had more to do with fear and the likely prospect of Barry Bagsley terminating my life with painful and extreme prejudice.
    There was that one time, though, I guess I did stand up to Barry Bagsley … well, you know, sort of.

11.
INSIDE THE MINCING MACHINE
    It happened on the last day of first term. I was on my way home. I had just passed through the school gates and was about to turn down the long cement path that ran between Moorfield Creek and a row of six playing fields imaginatively referred to by everyone at St Daniel’s as ‘The Fields’.
    Normally I had no trouble avoiding Barry Bagsley after school. If he wasn’t tied up with rugby or cricket training, he always bolted from school on the final bell like an escaping prisoner. As a matter of survival, I made it my business to know as much about Barry Bagsley’s daily routine as he did. That way I knew when I could leave school straightaway, when it was wise to wait in the library (a place Barry Bagsley never voluntarily visited), what areas of the school grounds and playing fields to avoid and which route home I should take.
    On this particular day, however, even with all available intelligence at my disposal, I had taken only one step on the path alongside the Fields when I glanced up and saw Barry Bagsleyand two of his mates fifty metres or so down the track. Luckily they hadn’t seen me yet. All I had to do was turn back and take the long way home. And this is exactly what I would have done if I hadn’t seen
him.
    I recognised the uniform straightaway-the green and blue of my old school, Moorfield Primary. I’d missed him because he was so small–probably only in Year Three or Four–and the other larger boys had blocked him from my view. At first I thought it was some kind of game, because Barry and the other two, who I now recognised as Danny Wallace and Doug Savage, were tossing something between them while the little kid