JACKO'S GANG

When Tiffany's best friend joins Jacko's gang Tiffany feels lonely and miserable. For awhile it seemed she could have her own boyfriend, Dave Trung. But Jacko's gang label him a nerd and a wanker because he's Vietnamese. She drops him and is invited to join Jacko's gang on a six day beach camp. A holiday away from parents, police, and adults; where they can be free to do whatever they like. But the beach camp turns into a disaster. The boys are nearly always drunk, and when Tiffany—trying desperately to be one of the gang—gets drunk, two boys take advantage of her.

When they return to school things are worse than ever: she is no longer in the gang, her best friend has found someone else, and her potential boy friend, Dave Trung, has now got a new girlfriend. But it is when she reports one of Jacko's gang to the police for selling drugs at school that all the students turn against her. Well—almost everyone—a nerd joins her in her stand against Jacko's gang with surprising results.

Most importantly, this story is about learning to have the courage to stand up when everyone else is sitting down; to be an individual.

She glanced at Wilson. His eyes were dull and she realised he was partly drunk. She knew she'd have to be careful of him. She didn't trust anyone who was drunk--especially herself. But the afternoon breeze was blowing in from the sea making her feel relaxed. If she got Wilson to walk a couple of kilometres he might sober up. But he had other ideas.

'Come on, Tiffany. I've waited long enough, give me a kiss.' He grabbed her hand and put his arm around her waist. 'I'm so horny from looking at you. If we do it up in the sandhills no one will ever know. I won't tell the others.'

In the distance she could hear the trail-bikes coming closer.

'No, I don't want to. You don't even use condoms.'

'Arr what's the point? You're not going to get pregnant doing it a couple of times. You're too young.'

'Fat lot you know! Did you sleep through the sex education classes?'

She wriggled away from him, but he held her hand tightly.

'If you don't give me a fuck, I'm going to tell you're father you went on this camp with three boys and no teacher. I'll tell him everything. I'll tell him how you got drunk and had sex with all the guys. Everything!' He was shouting at her now. The trail-bikes were only one hundred metres away and slowing down.

She stood facing Wilson, who looked angrily at her, waiting for her answer. She twisted her hand from his grasp.

'No! No! No! Got it?'

They turned as the trail-bikes slowed down and came to a stop one on each side of them. She looked at the guys on the bikes. Had they heard the two of them shouting and come to help? What did they want?

They were both about eighteen or nineteen. They had tattoos and wore only dirty shorts. They parked their bikes, and the tallest one said to Wilson, 'Take off, punk. Or get your head punched in.'

Tiffany thought they were trying to protect her from Wilson.

'It's okay,' she said. 'He wasn't going to hurt me. We were just arguing.'

The bikies laughed. 'Great! Now piss off, Dorky. We wanta talk to the chick.'

Wilson looked dazed. The tall bikie raised his fist. 'Take off or you're dead meat!' Tiffany saw they were menacing, she didn't know what they wanted but there was no point in arguing. 'Okay, we'll go,' she said, turning she began to walk away from them. But the fatter bikie reached out and grabbed her blouse by the back of the neck, she struggled and it ripped the buttons off. Wilson stood still, looking dumbfounded— staring at Tiffany's breasts. 'Don't— ' he began, but the tall bikie took a step towards him with a closed fist and Wilson started walking away.

'Okay, I'm going. She's a slut anyway! Do what you like to her.' He walked off towards the sandhills.

Tiffany was near to panic. Both bikies turned away from Wilson who was walking off, apparently leaving her. She thought that surely he would run back to the camp and get help from the others. But Jacko and Roy would be drunk and Strapper doped to the eyeballs on pills.

Tiffany slipped out of her torn blouse, trying to get away from the bikies; the fat one was left holding the blouse. 'What do you want?' She had freed herself and began walking backwards. They laughed and walked around their bikes towards her, gawking at her breasts.

'We want you, sweetheart. We're not going to hurt you. We just want a little fun. Your boyfriend thinks you're a slut. So we should be able to satisfy you.'

As he talked they moved towards her slowly, but she kept her distance by walking backwards. She felt ashamed of her bare chest. They were staring at her breasts. She wanted to get her blouse back but it was behind them, dropped on the sand.

They started running towards her, one on each side. Tiffany spun around and began sprinting barefoot along the edge of the water. They were wearing thongs and found it awkward to run. They stopped and kicked them off, but already she was twenty metres in front, sprinting along the beach. She glanced backwards toward Wilson. He was sitting down on the sand in the distance, watching like a vulture, waiting to see what would happen.

When she turned to look back again she noticed the bikies had stopped chasing her and were walking back to their bikes. Maybe they were only kidding. Now they would turn around and ride their bikes back to where they came from. She heard the engines start, rev up, while she kept walking away. She turned and watched; they were coming after her. She ran for her life along the hard sand. Whenever she ventured into the soft sand she slowed to a jog. It didn't matter because in a few seconds they had caught up to her, following along a metre behind her, laughing, watching—waiting for her to exhaust herself and fall helplessly to the sand.

Tiffany thought of turning and running up to the soft sand and into the grass, and then back along the ridge till she reached the camp. But they could follow on their bikes, and she would never last the distance—a kilometre. She would tire quickly in the soft sand, and they could grab her whenever they felt like it.

But what if she ran into the ocean?

She stopped abruptly, the bikes overshot her before they could turn. She doubled back and ran straight into the water. She didn't look, but lifted her knees high as she sprinted through the shallow waves towards the breakers. When she was waist deep she looked back. One of them was standing, grinning, and holding the two trail bikes, the tallest one was running through the water towards her.

The waves were quite rough. She dived through a dumper and came up struggling, half swimming, half walking through the water up past her waist. She began swimming, heading out to the deep water. She looked back and saw he was swimming after her. She turned and swam parallel with the beach, trying to avoid the breaking waves. Tiffany was tiring, not being a strong swimmer, but he wasn't so hot either. Yet after another thirty metres he was alongside of her.

Tiffany felt him grab her by the waist-band of her shorts. In desperation she turned, took a deep breath, and flung her arms with all her weight around his neck. They were out of their depth, and they went down, Tiffany clinging to him. He struggled beneath the waves, and when she opened her eyes underwater she could see his open mouth gulping in water, his eyes panic-wide. Like her, he had been out of breath when she dragged him under. Taking that last breath gave her the advantage. His hands let her go, his legs were kicking out trying to push him back to the surface for air, but his feet were not touching bottom. Her arms slipped from around his neck, but she managed to grab one of his wrists with both hands. Flapping about with one arm, he couldn't get his head out the water. She held on to him, her lungs aching, while under the water he panicked, swallowing mouthfuls, coughing, choking, lashing out with his free arm and legs. He punched her hard in the side and she let him go, they struggled up to the surface. She gulped air, while he could only splutter and cough the water from his lungs, unable to get a decent breath.

He turned and started struggling towards the beach, swimming and coughing. Tiffany quickly regained her breath, since she hadn't swallowed any water. Swimming after him, she caught up, and managed to fling her weight onto his back, trying to swim over the top of him. He sunk like a stone. But as he did, he lashed out with feet and arms in a frenzy of madness. Tiffany copped a couple of kicks in the legs and on the shoulder, then she swam away leaving him to struggle weakly towards the shore, coughing, gasping and white faced.

Tiffany swam along the beach-front staying in the deep water. She stood for while catching her breath, watching his slow progress towards the beach. She watched from the chest-deep water, feeling tired but triumphant. Alone, she had held off two guys with trail-bikes.