Chapter 39: Awesome

Thursday 11-Oct 2007

They arrived a little early at Joe's coffee shop.

The first thing Chris did was pick up the paper. The headline was real simple: "AWESOME". Splashed across the front page was huge photo of Lisa with Andrew beside her. She was directing something with her arm, her expression focused and happy. In the background there were students sitting on the road studying. And she did look awesome.

Beside the picture, in big obvious text, was the email that they'd drafted last night, with the two lines containing the word "awesome" highlighted to stand out. Their email? In the paper? That was quick work, but he wasn't real sure he was happy about it.

Shahia just laughed when he showed her. "Well, we did say to forward it to anyone at all. You can't argue with that for a cc: list."

When Officer Prescott came in, she sat down and shook all their hands, except for Maria's. Then she looked at them. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

Chris looked at Shahia, and they both had a blank look. They looked at her. "Uhh, no?" said Shahia.

She laughed. "Late last night, Lisa sent an email to central command saying that from the three thousand registration emails they had, they were estimating maybe thirty thousand people today. I saw a report about how many might register, and we guessed fifty percent. So that would mean sixty thousand kids sitting on the inner city streets. But now you put some wisecrack on the front of the newspaper about the biggest game of soccer in the world!"

Chris looked embarrassed. "That was my idea, but we just sent it to our friends."

"Do you know what sixty thousand school kids would mean?"

Chris and Maria shook their heads.

"No, well neither does central command. But they're guessing that the entire inner city is going to be shut down today."

Chris looked at her with his mouth open. Shahia was first to respond. "That's impossible!"

"Why?"

Shahia was opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. Officer Prescott burst into a peal of laughter. "It's pretty funny from up here, I'll tell you that. But no one down there is amused; we've had to cancel leave, some special events."

"We feel real bad. Will all the police be mad with Lisa?"

At this, the policewoman's face softened. "No, none of us will. She's taken an issue that she was mad about, that there is an incredible amount of anger about throughout the whole community, and turned it into a huge protest of unimaginable scale, and not one officer is concerned that there might be any violence. You can't begin to guess how much we like her!"

It was a quiet day; they alternated sitting in Joe's shop doing their writing and keeping an eye on the TV for updates, and going and playing at the park. The weather was fine, and everything was just lovely.

The TV was struggling to keep up implications of some sixty-thousand kids — that was their running guess, probably from the police ‑ sitting on the inner city roads studying. Many businesses had simply shut down, and people were sitting around or joining in with the kids. The tram network was only just operating, the trams unable to get through the inner city at all. There were interviews with business leaders tearing into the government for their lost income over something so stupid. Some admitted their own kids were out on the streets somewhere, and said they were going to find them and join them for lunch and the upcoming soccer game.

At lunch time, a bunch of primary school kids turned up at the park where Chris and Shahia's family were eating lunch.

"Hey, want to be a virtual part of the world's biggest soccer game?"

Even Shahia and Alyssa joined in, and Chris ended up holding Maria on his shoulders and only pretending to play. This was like a dream ... maybe he was asleep?

Before the kids left, they formed into a group, and gave out a big chant together: "Lisa is like, totally awesome". Then they ran off, laughing their heads off. Chris and Shahia shared a look. That was just so magical, it couldn't possibly be real. A minute later they reappeared, laughing even more at the expression on Chris's face, and passed on an invitation from their teacher for Chris and Shahia to come and join them in school.

Chris wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he just couldn't imagine that this wasn't Officer Prescott's doing one way or another, so they agreed. For the early part of the afternoon, they sat in the small school talking to the kids, all beside themselves to be part of this huge event going on in Melbourne — big events had always been so far away. Chris even did a reading of his "Dinkum Mates" story.

Just before three o'clock Chris's phone rang. It was Officer Prescott. "Hey Chris, go back to Joe's place and watch the television." She wouldn't say why.

They hadn't been there for long when the policewoman turned up. She sat down with them. "Look, just call me Mandy," she said.

"What are waiting for?" asked Chris, looking at the soapie running on the TV.

Mandy smiled. "I just heard what's about to happen. You'll see soon."

Chris returned her smile. "You said you wouldn't report us. But I'm pretty sure the people who matter know that you are in contact with us."

She smiled at him. "So, did you have fun today?"

Shahia laughed. "Oh, thank you, Mandy. I hope your son enjoyed it!"

Chris looked at her, astounded. Mandy laughed again, "Chris, you're not the only sharp one."

Just then the TV changed to a news flash. The announcements came one after the other, bang-bang-bang.

First, the Chief Commissioner came on, an excerpt of a press conference. She was estimating the crowd at somewhere between sixty and eighty thousand, but acknowledged the difficulty of counting such a crowd. She officially announced that they'd dropped all charges relating to the whole incident.

Second, they showed the Federal Minister for Immigration giving an impromptu interview outside his office. "I have reviewed the case of Shahia Esfahani-Baracat, and I can categorically say that I do not understand why there was even an issue. Cases like this should never be deported. And in this particular case, I have also reviewed the statement about Australia day made by the candidate and she is clearly suitable to be counted as an Australian in every way. I have signed an order approving her application to be a citizen of Australia. All she needs to do is fill out a few minor details on the application."

Chris glanced at Shahia. Her face was glazed over.

His attention was grabbed by the TV again. The Victorian State Minister for Community Services was making his own statement. "I will not be taking questions, thank you. I have reviewed this case which was raised such a great deal of community interest. The actions of the Department have clearly been inappropriate, and I shall be asking the Department to review our internal procedures in this regard. However this case raises many challenging issues and it must be understood that the complexities of this case do not give us any reason to question the extremely high standards to which this Department holds itself.