Attack of the Cupids (3 page)

He dragged out a dog-eared old exam paper that was the colour of dried cream. The text was marked
with many underlinings and words were pencilled illegibly in the margins. He marked a question with a cross and handed it to her. ‘. . . You'll need to read your way into a tragedy or two. It's a pity we don't start
Othello
until next term. But you'll some useful stuff in chapter eight of the textbook. I'm sure you'll cope.'

‘Oh. Thanks.'

So that was: 1) read next term's Shakespeare as well as this one; 2) read a minimum of one more that they weren't going to do at all this year; 3) write essay that no one else was being asked to write. Grimly Sally added them all to her list. She wasn't going to leave them not done if they were there to be done. But right now they ranked well below Tony Hicks and Global Warming and dress sense in the order of priority.

The question on the paper read ‘Comedy and Tragedy: how thin is Shakespeare's line between laughter and tears?'

‘Happy Birthday,' she muttered.

Mr Kingsley's sparse eyebrows furrowed upwards.

‘Sorry,' said Sally. ‘I've got birthdays on the brain.'

‘Yours?'

‘It's at the weekend.'

‘Congratulations.' He began to gather up his books
and papers (of which there were many). After a little while he realized that Sally was still in the room.

‘Are you waiting for me?' he said.

Sally shook her head. ‘I'm in here next period,' she said. ‘Might as well just stay.'

‘Very good.'

The classroom door closed behind him. Outside, a football rose high into the air, fell and was caught by brown, long-fingered hands. Sally heard Tony whoop. She saw Zac Stenton grinning. Who was going to be sitting with those guys next period?

Her
next period was French. Of course she didn't have her French books with her. She'd have to go round to her locker and fetch them back here. She might as well do that now. Except that what she wanted to do was stop here and look out of the window.

(Cupid? Stupid!)

Punt, whoop, laughter. A plane trailed its white wake across the sky. More carbon in the atmosphere. How long could this last?

Not thinking about the birthday.

Clangaclangaclangaclangaclangaclangaclangaclang!
The bell. The sounds of feet on stairs. Voices calling. Suddenly everyone outside was on their feet and drifting in towards the building. Her French books were
still in her locker on the far side of the quad. She had to go and get them. It would be just dumb to be late, after spending the whole of morning break in the place she was supposed to be. People were already crowding along the corridors, books in their arms and bags over their shoulders. Sally crowded with them, looking vaguely around for Alec and Tony and Zac but not really expecting to see them.

Then, suddenly, the crowds
were
Alec and Tony and Zac, tall and white-shirted, shouldering towards her from the other direction. Alec still had the ball under his arm. Sally's jaw had just time to drop. Her mouth had just time to say ‘Hey.' Alec passed her and he hadn't heard.

Tony had. He said ‘Hey-Hey,' back. Though Sally wasn't sure he knew who had spoken to him.

‘Hey, Sally,' said Zac. He smiled. ‘How's your summer?'

‘Mr Kingsley . . . English . . .' said Sally.

That was all there was time for. Even the roll of her eyes had to be done over her shoulder. The crowds closed in again. She pushed on towards her locker, towards the books, the lists, the ✓s that were jostling for their place in her day.

A voice spoke in her mind. It said:

‘Why not ask them?'

‘Tony etc? To the birthday? Because I don't want to get laughed at by the entire school, that's why. Plus I'd get murdered by Viola.'

‘Ah. But I've got you thinking about birthdays now, haven't I?'

Sally's body was moving down a school corridor at a brisk walk. In her mind, she was also in the corridor. But now a whiteboard had appeared ahead of her and was preceding her down it at the same pace as she was walking. Standing at the whiteboard, wielding a marker, was a small (and warty) little person with beady eyes, flabby grey skin and a red pillbox hat.
From under the hat peeped tufts of gingery hair, and also two tiny horns. His name was Muddlespot.

Swiftly Muddlespot sketched on his travelling whiteboard a picture of Sally and her twin sister Billie. It was obvious which girl he meant to be Billie because he drew her with a massive frown and a mouth that was open to say something really loud and unpleasant. Grinning, he added a banner that read ‘HAPY BIRTDAY'.

‘Two birthdays for the price of one,' he smirked. ‘So nice to have a twin! What could be better?'

‘I know where you're going with this,' said Sally.

Muddlespot's grin widened. ‘Shall we just remember all the birthdays we can?'

‘All right,' Sally groaned. ‘Bring it on.'

There was a pattern to birthdays in Sally's house. Each one was different. But every year things were somehow the same.

It was coming. Sometime in the next few days there was going to be an earthquake of a row. Everyone at home knew it. Sally knew it, Billie knew it, Mum knew it. Greg (Mum's current partner) knew it. Shades the cat had moved into his bomb shelter behind the umbrella stand.

It was like a storm on the horizon, like the GCSEs next year. You could feel it the moment you stepped through the door. The house was chaos. Mum was beside herself. The toaster wasn't working and Greg was keeping his nose glued to a magazine or a computer or TV screen, which was driving Mum doubly beside herself. All this was as it always was. But there was something beneath it all: a feeling as if everything in No. 19 Darlington Row – every object, every person, everything down to the spiders in the crevices and the house mites in the dust – was slowly winding itself taut.

A week before the birthday, even the tea started tasting different.

‘. . . I
am
listening,' said Sally (in her mind, as her hands worked automatically to dig her French books out of her locker). ‘But you're not making sense.'

‘Sense?' said Muddlespot in injured tones. ‘How much more sense do you want?'

‘You said Billie thinks I'm stupid because she can get anything she wants just by shouting for it.'

‘Yes.'

‘But just now you said she shouts because
she
feels stupid and she thinks I'm the one who has everything.'

‘I said that?' Muddlespot tried to look innocent. For someone like him, this was actually quite difficult.

‘Several times.'

‘I am what I am,' said Muddlespot, giving up on looking innocent and trying instead to look superior. ‘I don't
have
to be consistent. Nowhere in my job description does it say—'

‘I'll notice if you're not. Now get on with it. You're in charge of this class, aren't you?'

There was a quick flurry in Sally's mind. On the board the banner now read
and the two girls looked a lot more like Sally and Billie than they had at first. That was because Sally had come up, taken the marker and redrawn them. She had also corrected Muddlespot's spelling. She had even added (with what he felt was a touch of unnecessary sarcasm) a school timetable, and had labelled the current period ‘Double Evil'.

You're in charge of this class, aren't you?
Sure, sure . . .

There was only one person in charge here. It wasn't him.

‘So,' he said, feeling a bit shaken and in need of
a holiday in the heart of some volcano. ‘So, where were we? Here we have the presents Billie is going to get' – he drew a large pile of blocks in front of the picture of Billie – ‘and here's what you'll get . . .' He drew a single very small square in front of Sally.

‘Mum's not that stupid,' said Sally. ‘If she did that Billie would have a row with her about not being fair on
me
.'

‘Er – would she?'

‘It's more complicated than you think. Here. While you've been talking I've written an essay. You've got to mark it.'

Muddlespot looked at the twenty closely-written pages she handed him. It was titled
Why Should I be Bothered about Birthdays?
He felt stunned.

‘. . . I included some reasons you don't seem to have thought of,' said Sally.

‘Oh,' said Muddlespot.

‘. . . On both sides . . .'

‘I suppose you have,' said Muddlespot sourly.

‘. . . And you have to set me some homework,' said Sally. ‘All my teachers do.'

‘Ah, yes,' said Muddlespot ‘Um. Think of three things you want on your birthday that no one's going to give you.'

‘Easy,' said Sally. ‘A sunny day, world peace and an end to poverty.'

Muddlespot wondered how many of Sally's teachers shot themselves.

‘If you don't mind,' he said, ‘I think I need to lie down.'

‘Then perhaps it is my turn,' said another voice.

A powerful figure stepped forward. He was winged, dressed in a neat white dinner jacket and wore a purple bow tie. His jaw was strong and square. His forehead was high and square. Under his crisp white shirt his muscles were massive – and square. His wings were of white light (and they were square too). His flaming eyes were shaded behind Raybans of translucent ebony. He was an angel, but no ordinary angel. He was the closest the heavenly hosts came to a decorated hero.

His name was Windleberry.

Confronted by Evil, Windleberry knew what to do. He smote. And when Evil had been properly smitten he chased it howling back into the dark, hot places from which it had come. In his experience, this worked every time. It would have worked now. He outnumbered poor Muddlespot ten to one all by himself.

But he was here to be Sally's guardian angel, and for Guardians the rules were a bit different. A
Guardian was supposed to be an idea in the mind he was guarding. Muddlespot, too, was an idea, albeit a vile and loathsome one inserted by The Enemy. Ideas couldn't just start smiting each other. It caused confusion and headaches and things. What happened when two opposing ideas met in a human mind depended very much on the mind's owner, and the rules they set.