A Thousand Water Bombs (16 page)

‘SILENCE!’

We tried. It’s not easy to shut up when something’s that funny.

‘Tom. Roddy. What is it?’

‘The smell, Miss,’ they both said at the same time.

‘Told you,’ said Jamie. He was heading for trouble. No doubt.

Miss Walsh did a raging bull flare of her nostrils, strode past my row and the one behind, stopped by Roddy and sniffed.

‘Right, children. Yes, there is a smell. It’s some sort of cooking smell, probably coming from the kitchen. And it’s not at all offensive, so put your hands down.’

The hands went down. The giggling trailed off. I looked down at my desk, because if I’d caught the eye of any of the Tribers I’d have been doubled up with laughter again. Miss Walsh
tried to go on with the lesson but it was pointless. No one was listening.

The bell went for the end of morning school. She picked up her bag and scarpered. I don’t think she should have chosen teaching. It’s fine when everyone’s behaving properly but
if there’s even a hint of trouble she’s useless.

‘Best lesson we’ve had in ages,’ said Fifty.

‘Best laugh I’ve had in ages,’ said Jonno. ‘What is it with Jamie? He’s like a magnet for trouble.’

‘Can you smell anything?’ said Bee.

‘No,’ I said.

The class was nearly empty. Copper Pie started smelling everyone’s desks like a bloodhound trying to get the scent of a fox. I thought he was trying to be funny but . . .

‘Here it is,’ he said.

He stood between where Roddy and Marco sit.

‘What?’ said Bee.

‘The smell. Keep up, Bee.’

She went over. ‘So, there’s a cooking smell. So what?’

‘I know what it is,’ said Copper Pie.

‘Go on then,’ said Fifty.

‘Chicken piri-piri. I love it.’

As soon as he said it, I could smell that he was right. I’ve never tried it but we went to this chicken place for Amy’s birthday and the sauce smelled exactly like the smell in our
classroom. Before I could say anything, Bee opened Roddy’s desk, sniffed it and shut it.

‘You’re not allowed to do that,’ I said.

I got a shut-up-Keener look. She tried Marco’s desk next.

‘Mystery solved.’ She held up a plastic bag. Inside there was a tub but the lid can’t have been tight enough because there was a puddle of dark orange sauce with lumpy bits,
like sick, in the corner of the bag.

‘Chicken piri-piri and rice,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Told you.’

‘KEVOCESTAFAZENDOCOMMAMEMOLCHO?’ screamed Marco the marked man with the motorised mountain board and matching motor mouth.
I
jumped a mile.
He
jumped over two desks,
snatched the bag off Bee, made a face that could kill a crow (to borrow Copper Pie’s dad’s expression), ran off and slammed the classroom door behind him. It was all over in a
second.

He’s going to be the death of me,
I thought. We’d had two close shaves in less than twenty-four hours. I decided it might be an idea to stay away from Marco.

‘I think we should steer clear of our Portuguese classmate for a while,’ said Fifty, hearing my thoughts again.

‘Agreed,’ said all the Tribers together.

Unfortunately, someone else decided
exactly
the opposite.

bunking off

After lunch there was a space where there should have been a body.

‘Has anyone seen Marco?’ asked Miss Walsh.

I studied the scratches on my desk.

‘No, Miss,’ said Alice. She had a whacking great bandage on her elbow covering the minuscule scabby bit she’d picked.

‘Anyone else?’

There were murmurs: no idea, not seen him.

‘Right, could you all get out your extended writing books and carry on with the piece we started on Tuesday. You’ve all got a beginning so today we’re going to try and move the
story along by introducing the problem and a decision. Use the planning sheet to remind you. I won’t be long.’

Miss Walsh disappeared, like Marco.

‘Should we have said about the lunch box?’ mouthed Fifty. Good job I can lip read.

I shook my head. Why admit something that might have nothing to do with the reason Marco had vanished? He’d probably gone off on his skateboard to terrorise some old ladies with walking
sticks out for their afternoon stroll. Or got lost.

‘Same,’ he mouthed.

Bee got up and went over to Jonno’s desk. They had a quick talk and then she went back and sat down. Jonno winked at me. Amazingly Copper Pie was doing what Miss Walsh said. He was
actually writing – if the hieroglyphic symbols he makes can be classified as writing.

If no one else was worried, why should I be? I read the beginning of my story, titled:
The Day of the Great Wave
. We were meant to be writing about a journey – not necessarily on a
train or a bus, it could be the sort of journey where you go from being a wimp to being brave, or fat to thin, or thin to fat I suppose – but that would hardly be a happy ending.

I hadn’t written one word when Miss Walsh flew back in.

‘I’m very pleased to see you all sitting quietly. Carry on working on your own. Hands up please if you need any help.’

Alice’s hand shot up. Yawn!

‘Where is Marco, Miss?’

‘It appears he went home, Alice. I expect he felt unwell and wasn’t familiar with the rules, which are . . .?’

‘We mustn’t leave the school grounds without a letter,’ said Alice.

‘Excellent. So let’s get on, shall we?’

The journey in my story was a second-by-second description of lying on my surfboard in the green water far out at sea, way beyond where the waves were breaking. I was waiting for the perfect
wave. I watched as a massive wave built up until it was like a wall of water behind me. I got ready (positioning my board and getting my head together – after all, surfing’s a dangerous
sport) and then paddled like crazy to stay ahead of the white water, before catching the wave and riding the surf all the way in.

‘Yes, Alice.’

‘I’m stuck, Miss.’

Miss Walsh walked over to Alice’s desk and they started discussing
Going to Grandma’s House on the Train
. It sounded thrilling – buying tickets, eating snacks, and the
highlight – doing a puzzle magazine. She needed to spice it up. Glancing out of the window and witnessing a murder at an old not-used-anymore station would do.

‘Can you think of something a little more unexpected, Alice?’

Even though she keeps her voice the same, you can tell Miss Walsh would like to put Alice in solitary confinement. If Alice spent a few minutes thinking, instead of always putting her hand up,
she’d have ideas like the rest of us.

The door opened.

‘Excuse me, Miss Walsh.’
What did the Head want?
‘Once again, I need to talk to five members of your class.’ It sounded serious. And I didn’t like the use of
the word ‘five’.

‘Help yourself,’ said Miss Walsh.

There was no time to wonder what was going on . . .

‘Bee, Keener, Copper Pie, Jonno, Fifty. Come with me please.’

My heart started thumping twice as fast and twice as hard. My face went a raspberry colour. My armpits went soggy. The unswallowable lump appeared in my throat.

I heard a whisper. ‘Don’t cry, Keener.’ It was Callum, obviously enjoying the look of terror on my face. I tried to look not-bothered. I couldn’t.

I was last so I shut the door behind me and followed the queue of Tribers marching behind the Head. We went into her room. She sat down and left us all standing in a ring opposite her. She
stared at each one of us in turn. The silence was killing me. I just wanted to confess, to whatever it was we’d done.
I did it. I did it. Punish me.

‘I have had a most unpleasant conversation with Marco’s father.’

She did the CCTV scan of all our faces again, before she went on.

‘I understand you have taken it upon yourselves to rifle through his desk, which is a violation of his personal space. Do you know what I mean by that?’

‘You mean it’s his and it’s private,’ said Fifty. ‘We’re very sorry —’

‘AND you have removed his lunch and ridiculed it, which could be seen as . . .’ The Head paused.

‘Racist?’ said Fifty.

What was he thinking of? Racist is a worse word than bully.

‘I didn’t say that, did I?’ said the Head. ‘But . . . Marco told his father that you were studying his lunch as though it was something odd or funny.’

‘It smelt,’ said Copper Pie. ‘That’s all.’

‘Loads of kids smelt it in the lesson before lunch,’ said Bee. ‘We were trying to find out what it was, that’s all. To help out. People were nearly sick.’
Lay it
on, Bee,
I thought.

‘We didn’t only look in Marco’s desk. We looked in Roddy’s too.’ Why did Copper Pie think admitting more crimes would help?

‘So that proves it wasn’t anything to do with Marco. It was to do with the smell,’ said Fifty, looking like a smug, but small, lawyer.

‘So you would have me believe the incident was not directed at Marco?’ The Head could do with a lesson in plain English. It was almost easier to understand Marco.

‘It was directed at the
sm-e-ll,
’ said Copper Pie, as though the Head was thick.

‘And we didn’t laugh when we found out what it was,’ said Jonno. ‘Why would we? I’d always choose something spicy over a ham sandwich.’

‘Me too. I love piri-piri,’ said Copper Pie.

‘We were about to find Marco to tell him his lunch had leaked when he came in and started shouting at us,’ said Bee. Not quite true but . . .

The Head’s face relaxed and some of the really deep trenches in her forehead smoothed out a bit.
Much less scary.

‘Perhaps there has been an element of misunderstanding. It isn’t easy to join a school midway through the term, as Jonno should know, and, as you may remember from when Jozef joined
your class, we need to help those whose first language is not English.’

What was she talking about? Joe could always speak English.

‘I’d forgotten that, Miss,’ said Bee. ‘He used to get all muddled up and now he speaks like the rest of us.’

‘Better than some of you,’ said the Head, nodding towards C.P. ‘But back to the matter of the lunch. Amends must be made.’

Most of my problems had gone away. I could swallow, the beating inside my chest wasn’t quite so violent and my raspberry face felt more like pale pink – not that I could see it.

Get on with punishment and let me go back to my daydream about the ginormous wave and me on it,
I thought.

‘I think it would help Marco, and his parents, to feel more comfortable about his start in the school if he were made to feel welcome. And who better to show them that there was no malice
intended than you five?’

Bee nodded. Everyone else did too. We didn’t want to, that was obvious, but you can’t say ‘no’, can you?

‘He will be back in school tomorrow, and I’d like you to take care of him at break times, including lunch, every day for a week, so that he’s not left to cope on his own. By
then he should have settled in, and your duties will be over, although of course you still have to be
friend-ly
.’ The school motto, again! We don’t all have to be friends, but we
all have to be friend-ly. ‘I know I can rely on you.’ She clapped her hands and shooed us away.

‘I
don’t
want to babysit that lunatic,’ said Bee, on the way back to class.

‘You’re the one who went snooping in desks,’ said Fifty.

‘Only because Copper Pie went smelling.’

‘It’ll be torture,’ I said.

The only Triber who wasn’t moaning was Jonno. Bee noticed too.

‘You think we’re mean, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes, I do. I hated being new, but at least I could understand everything that was going on. He’s new
and
can’t speak very good English. Don’t you feel a bit sorry
for him?’

Silence.

Jonno and Bee didn’t wait for us after school because they were going to the pet shop on the way home to buy treats for Doodle.

‘My friend Ravi, who’s got the Labrador, says you have to have treats for the puppy with you
all
the time, so that your dog gets a reward every time it’s good.’
Jonno was like a talking dog manual.

So that left the three of us to moan about babysitting Marco without Jonno making us feel mean.

‘What are we going to do with Marco? I said.

‘What can we do with him?’ said Fifty. ‘He’s a total nutter.’

Worse than that – he’s a scary nutter,
I thought. I kept seeing his angry face when he leapt over the desks. I’d rather babysit Doodle.

‘We could talk football,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Ronaldo’s from Portugal.’

‘And I suppose we can tell him everything about school,’ I said. ‘You know – don’t go in the far loo because it leaks over your shoes.’

‘Don’t go to the dinner lady with the black bun because she’s mean with the pasta,’ said Copper Pie.

‘Never be late for PSHE when the Head takes it. If Miss Walsh is messing with her hair it means she’s stressy and about to explode. That sort of thing,’ said Fifty.

‘But it means a whole week not being Tribe, except after school,’ I said.

‘Well, we can’t get out of it,’ said Fifty.

‘Maybe Bee could bribe some other kids to do it?’ said Copper Pie.

‘Bad idea. Bribes always mean trouble,’ I said.

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

Moaning doesn’t make you feel any better – it makes you feel worse. ‘Let’s not think about it,’ I said. ‘Let’s think about the surf trip
instead.’

Fifty and Copper Pie didn’t look too thrilled. Copper Pie says he can’t swim, but I’m sure it’s a lie, and Fifty doesn’t like the sea because when we’re
knee-deep he’s underwater.

‘Come on, it’ll be fun.’

‘Let me think,’ said Fifty. ‘Cold, wet, more cold, more wet, salty, cold, wet. Count me out.’

‘Fine. Me, Bee and Jonno then. Wimps.’

‘Did your dad really say he’d take us?’ said Copper Pie.

‘Yep! This Sunday. All the Tribers are invited. It’ll be great. We’re going to Woolacombe.’

‘Great for you,’ said Fifty. ‘
You
can do it.’

‘Is it hard?’ said Copper Pie.
A flicker of interest,
I thought.