Dare Game (10 page)

‘I’m not!’ I said, insulted.

‘Here.’ He reached out with his great pink hand and suddenly I was hauled upright. ‘OK now? Mind you, it’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have messed around with my football.’

‘I wasn’t messing, I was tackling! You’ve got a totally useless defence. Here –’ I gave a sudden lunge, all set to prove my point, but he was wise to me now and got the ball well away before I could get near it.

‘Give over, kid!’ he said, laughing – and then he dribbled the ball round the corner.

‘Don’t go! Hey, Football, come back. Play with me, eh? There isn’t anyone else. Go on. Football?’

But he’d gone.

‘See if I care. You’re lousy at football anyway,’ I yelled.

Then I sloped off. To the house. I decided it was definitely going to be
my
house. Until I go off and live with Mum and have my very own
real
house.

I’d not got the cushion and the blanket organized. Or any proper provisions. I searched my pockets for forgotten goodies. The best I could do was an ancient chewed piece of gum stuck in the corner of a tissue. Well, I
think
it was gum. Certainly it didn’t look very appetizing, whatever. I didn’t have any cash on me either. It looked like I was going to have to play skinny-starving-to-death-fashion-model in my house – not my most favourite game.

But the weirdest thing happened. I went up the scruffy path at the back, investigating an old Kentucky Chicken carton with my foot just in case. (No luck at all, totally licked clean to the bone.) I climbed in through the back window, negotiated the kitchen, and walked into the living room, my footsteps sounding oddly loud on the bare floorboards. The old curtains were drawn so it was quite dark in the room, but I could still see my red velvet sofa in the middle of the room . . . with a big black velvet cushion at one end and a
blue
blanket neatly covering the worst of the muddy marks.

I stared at them as if I’d conjured them out of thin air. It was like one of those old fairytales. I squinted long and hard at the cushion and the blanket to see if they were being toted about by disembodied hands. I liked this idea even if it was kind of spooky. Maybe the hands were perched in a corner somewhere ready to flap their flying fingers at my command?

‘OK, the cushion and the blanket are spot on, but what about some
food
?’ I said, snapping my own fingers.

Then I stopped mid-snap, my nails digging into my thumbs. I’d spotted an upturned cardboard packing case over by the window, with a checked dishcloth neatly laid over it like a little tablecloth. There was a paper party
plate
with an entire giant packet of Smarties carefully arranged on top in rings of colour – brown, green, blue, mauve, pink, red, orange, with yellow in the middle so that it looked like a flower.

I shivered from right up in the scalp down to the little taily bit at the end of my spine. My favourite food in all the world is Smarties. And here was a big plate of them beautifully laid out just for me.

‘It
is
magic!’ I whispered, and I circled the cardboard table.

I put out a hand and picked up a red Smartie. I licked it. It was real. I popped it in my mouth, and then hurriedly shoved another handful after it in case they suddenly disappeared. Then I went to draw the old dusty curtains so I could have a closer look and suss out how this magic was working.

I yanked at the curtain – and screamed. Someone else screamed too!

A boy was sitting scrunched up on the window ledge, knees up under his little pointy chin,
hands
clasping a book, mouth gasping, eyes blink-blink-blinking.

‘What are you
doing
here? Are you trying to frighten me?’ I yelled.

He clasped his book so tightly it was in danger of buckling. His eyes were little slits because his face was so screwed up. ‘You frightened
me
,’ he whispered.

‘What are you doing in my house?’ I demanded.

He sat up a little straighter. ‘It’s my house, actually,’ he said timidly.

‘You don’t live here.’

‘Yes I do. Well, during the day I do. I’m making it my home. I brought the cushion. And the rug. And organized refreshments.’

‘You what? Oh. The Smarties.’

He looked over at the plate. ‘You spoilt my pattern,’ he said.

‘It’s only babies who play with food. Well, that’s what they said at the Children’s Home when I made my peas climb up my mashed potato mountain.’

‘Did you really think it was magic?’ he asked.

‘Of course not!’ I said firmly.

‘I thought by the sound of your footsteps
you
were really big and scary,’ he said, unclenching and swinging his legs free. ‘That’s why I hid.’

‘I
am
big and scary,’ I said. ‘Bigger than you, anyway, you little squirt.’

‘Everyone’s bigger than me,’ he said humbly.

‘How old are you then? Nine? Ten?’

‘I’m nearly twelve!’

I stared. ‘You don’t look it!’

‘I know.’

‘So what are you doing here then?’ I asked, helping myself to another handful of Smarties. I offered him the plate, seeing as they were his refreshments. He said thank you politely and ate one blue Smartie, nibbling at the edges first like it was a biscuit. He didn’t answer me.

‘Are you bunking off?’ I asked.

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘You won’t tell, will you?’ he said, swallowing his Smartie.

‘I’m not a snitch.’ I looked him up and down. ‘Fancy you bunking off! You look too much of a goody-goody teacher’s pet. Dead swotty!’ I pointed to his big fat book, trying to work out the title. ‘Alex-an-der the Great. The great what?’

‘No, that was just what they called him.’

‘As in Tracy the Great?’ I rather liked the sound of it. ‘That’s me. Tracy.’

‘I’m Alexander,’ he said.

‘Ah. Alexander the not-so-great. So. You’re obviously dead brainy. Why do you need to bunk off? I bet you come top of everything.’

He nodded. ‘Yep. Except for PE. I’m bottom at PE. I always bunk off on games days.’

‘You’re mad. PE’s a bit of a laugh. Especially when it’s football.’

I’m truly Tracy the Great at footie, famed for my nippy footwork and dirty tackles. Old Vomit Bagley goes bright red in the face blowing her whistle at me.

Alexander was whingeing on about them being even worse then.

‘Them?’

‘The other boys. They tease me.’

‘What about?’

Alexander ducked his head. ‘All sorts of stuff. Especially . . . when we’re in the showers.’

‘Aha!’

‘They laugh at me because . . .’

‘Because you’re Alexander the not-so-great!’ I said, giggling.

Alexander flinched as if I’d hit him. I suddenly felt mean. I hitched myself up on the window seat beside him. ‘So you bunk off?’ I said.

‘Mmm.’

‘Haven’t they complained to your mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what did she say?’

‘She never says anything much. It’s Dad.’ Alexander said the word ‘Dad’ as if it meant Rottweiler.

‘What did
he
say?’

I could feel Alexander trembling. ‘He said – he said – he said he’d send me away to boarding school if I didn’t watch out, and then I couldn’t play truant. And he said I’d
really
get bullied there.’

‘He sounds dead caring, your dad,’ I said, and I patted Alexander on his bony little shoulder.

‘He says I have to learn to stand up for myself.’

I snorted and suddenly gave him the teeniest little push. He squealed in shock and nearly fell off the window seat. I hauled him back. ‘You’re not even very good at
sitting
up for yourself,’
I
said, shaking my head at him.

‘I know,’ Alexander said dolefully.

‘So come on then. Try fighting back.’

‘I can’t. I don’t know how.’

‘I’ll show you.’

He was in luck. I’m the greatest fighter in the world. I’m especially good at getting a sly punch in first. And I don’t just rely on fists. I’m great at kicking shins. If I’m really pushed I bare my killer choppers and bite.

I pulled Alexander off the window seat and tried to get him to put his fists up. His little hands drooped back down to his sides.

‘I can’t fight. And anyway, I can’t hit a girl.’