The Day the Ear Fell Off (8 page)

‘Do you really think so?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely,’ said Bee.

Absolutely not,
I thought. But I said, ‘Copper Pie, you can’t seriously think we should —’

‘I know, I know. But I don’t like being pushed around.’

‘And what sort of Tribe are we if we let other kids say where we can go and where we can’t?’ said Jonno.

Help!

Fifty was my only hope. I knew he didn’t really want to save the alley . . . but Jonno got there first. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

No, please. Surely they weren’t going to make it our next mission.

‘Maybe it should be our initiation,’ he said. ‘A way of being worthy enough to be a member of Tribe.’

‘Maybe it should,’ said Fifty. ‘Initiations are cool.’

‘Top idea,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Blood in. Blood out.’

‘What does
that
mean?’ I said. I had to know. I can’t do blood. If being in Tribe meant blood I’d have to resign. Suddenly being a breath-holder with no friends
didn’t seem such a bad thing.

‘You’re sick,’ said Bee. ‘We’re not
that
sort of gang. Don’t worry, Keener. They only do the blood thing in comics.’

Phew!

‘Think about it,’ said Jonno. ‘Groups have initiations to test whether you’re brave enough or strong enough, or whatever, to join. Going down the alley fits perfectly. We
all agreed the Alley Cats shouldn’t be allowed to torture everyone. Let’s be brave and show them we don’t care. If we go together and don’t listen to what they say,
what’s to be scared of?’

‘Nothing. We can do it,’ said Copper Pie.

‘Well said, C.P. You’re one brave Triber.’ Bee gave him a cheesy smile, and then turned to me.

‘Keener, you need to shape up. No wusses in Tribe.’

Thanks, Bee!

‘You know
why
he’s chicken, don’t you?’ said Fifty, meaning me.

Jonno shook his head.

‘Please don’t say it,’ I pleaded with Fifty.
He wasn’t going to rat on me, was he?

‘Keener. We’re Tribe now. No secrets. All for one and one for all.’

‘Tell us, Fifty,’ said Bee.

‘They call him “Pinky Prince Charming”.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said, trying to sound like I didn’t care, but they were already laughing so it didn’t really work. I could feel my face going the Pinky Prince colour.

‘Why?’ said Jonno.
Did he really need it spelling out?

‘Because that’s the colour he always goes when they ask him why he doesn’t plait his beautiful long blond hair.’

With friends like mine, who needs enemies! I can’t help the way my face behaves and all surfers have long hair and it’s not my fault I’m blond. I wished someone would change
the subject.

Thankfully someone did – my sister Amy. ‘Mum’s home,’ she yelled. ‘She says ten minutes and then it’s tea for you and chucking out time for them.’

‘OK.’

‘Right,’ said Bee. ‘We’ve got ten minutes to work out the Tribe initiation.’

a load of useless ideas

Copper Pie spoke first.

‘It’s easy. We storm the alley with guns. I’ve got four – a spud gun, a cap gun, a water pistol and a cowboy gun with a holster that doesn’t do anything but looks
good.’

Bee and I said, ‘No.’

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

‘We can’t do that,’ said Jonno. ‘It’ll start a war.’

Copper Pie’s eyes lit up.

‘We could scare them though, couldn’t we?’ said Bee. ‘We could wear balaclavas and run down the alley shouting. That would scare me.’

‘And me,’ I said. ‘I’d be scared
wearing
a balaclava.’

‘Same,’ said Fifty. ‘And I don’t look good in hats, they squash my hair.’

‘You’re all wimps,’ said Copper Pie, but he didn’t mean it . . . I don’t think.

‘Really we should tell the Head and leave it to her to sort out,’ I said.

Everyone groaned.

‘The alley’s not school property. She wouldn’t do anything,’ said Bee.

‘So, apart from storming them, which is unlikely to work, we’ve got no ideas,’ said Fifty, nicely summing up the situation.

There was a pause while we all had a think (or pretended to anyway). I was concentrating really hard on a solution that would make Tribe look good, rather than evil. I hoped the others were too
(except Copper Pie, who can’t think ‘nice’). Because we’d given ourselves a label, I felt we had to live up to it. A gang could wear balaclavas and all that, but not
Tribe.

‘Why do you think they do it?’ asked Fifty.

More silence.

Fifty said it again. ‘Those girls in the alley, why do you think they stop everyone and tease them?’

I shrugged to show I wasn’t deaf, I just didn’t have an answer.

‘Because they can,’ said Jonno. ‘Because there are loads of them.’

‘There must be fifteen at least,’ said Copper Pie. ‘That’s a rugby team.’

‘Safety in numbers and all that,’ said Bee. ‘It makes them brave.’

‘Yeah, I bet they wouldn’t be so brave on their own.’

Ping. Something that Copper Pie said made a light bulb come on in Jonno’s head. It was so obvious we could almost see the light shining through his eye sockets. We waited for him to reveal
all.

‘Go on, Jonno. We know you’ve thought of something,’ said Fifty.

‘Maybe I have,’ he said. ‘They’re brave because there are lots of them. Maybe we could split them up.’

‘
Qué?
’ said Bee. Another one of her pet expressions. It means ‘what’ in somewhere she went on holiday.

‘Do you know anything about herd behaviour?’

‘You mean listening?’ I said.

‘No. Not “heard” as in ears. We’ve done ears, remember! “Herd” as in cows.’

‘Like “flock”,’ I said to make it clear I understood.

Every other name for a group came next, not all of them in the dictionary.

‘Cut,’ said Bee, slicing the air with her hand. We shut up.

‘So they’re a herd of girls and they move in a pack. How does that help?’

‘Herds all go the same way, don’t they?’ said Jonno.

‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ Bee can be horrible sometimes.

‘Well, I read somewhere that if one animal splits off in another direction the herd will let him go, but if two animals bolt the herd assumes there’s a good reason for it, like a
predator they can’t see, and they all follow.’

‘Thrilling,’ said Bee, hands on hips now. ‘But we’re dealing with girls, not sheep, cows or wildebeest, and there are no predators.’

I butted in. ‘Apes and humans are ninety-eight per cent the same.’

‘So what you’re saying is that we’re all sheep?’ said Fifty.

‘Yes. Most people are sheep because they like following, not leading,’ said Jonno. He was quite excited by his idea – but he was the only one.

‘What’s this biology lesson got to do with the alley?’ snapped Copper Pie, who was chucking a scrumpled up pork pie wrapper against my window and trying to catch it.

‘Well, if we could get two of the girls to run off, then the others should follow and we could take their place,’ said Jonno.

‘If we could work out how to get two of them to run, we could get
all
of them to run,’ said Bee. ‘Forget it.’

‘So we’re back to weapons,’ said you-know-who.

‘No,’ said Bee. ‘You can’t walk down an alley and take potshots at strangers – even if you’re only firing spuds. We’d be arrested.’

‘Well, what’s your big idea then, bossy?’ said Copper Pie.

‘Ooooooh!’ said Fifty. ‘She won’t like that.’

‘Well, she can lump it because
she
hasn’t got an idea.’

‘Have so.’ Bee obviously hadn’t got an idea, but was desperately trying to think of one.

We waited. Copper Pie folded his arms and stared at her.

‘Cakes,’ she said.

‘Is it word association?’ said Fifty. ‘Icing.’

‘Frostbite,’ said Jonno.

She did the fringe flick – a sign that she was serious and we were all numbskulls.

‘I’ll make some cupcakes and we can take them up the alley and give them to the Alley Cats. Everyone loves cupcakes.’

It was so bonkers no one said anything.

‘I assume that’s agreed then?’ She looked around like an auctioneer doing that ‘going once, going twice’ thing before banging his hammer and shouting
‘Sold’. Our time was nearly up.

‘No, it’s not. We should vote,’ said Copper Pie. He pointed his pointing finger at Bee and pretended to pull the trigger. It was getting a bit out of hand. I prefer it when
C.P. and Bee are on the same side.

‘Fine,’ said Fifty. ‘Friends, nobles, countrymen —’

‘And countrywomen,’ added Bee.

‘Yes and countrywomen. You have one vote only to choose between baking and warmongering —’

‘What about my idea?’ said Jonno. No one said anything.

‘Actually, all this talking has given
me
an idea,’ said Fifty. ‘Let’s talk to them. Let’s go down the alley together and introduce ourselves to the Cats.
It’s much harder to be rude to someone who’s nice to you.’

‘I’m bored with this,’ said Bee. ‘We’ve got four ideas. Let’s vote.’

‘Hang on. What about you, Keener? What’s your idea?’ said Fifty.

Great! Put me on the spot, why don’t you?

‘Errr . . . we could do what Copper Pie said.’

‘Way to go!’ shouted C.P. and slapped me on the back.

Quite why I said that I can’t tell you. I think it was because Bee called me a wuss. I was fed up with being the one who has to be persuaded into everything. I wanted to be daring for a
change. And opting for cupcakes was hardly daring.

‘Are you sure, Keener?’ asked Bee.

See, she didn’t believe me. I shrugged my shoulders.

Copper Pie thumped me again. It would have been less painful if he’d just said, ‘Thanks.’

‘Two votes for warmongering then.’

What had I done? If everyone else voted for their own idea we would win.

Bee stared hard at Jonno. She moved her lips but
his
mouth spoke.

‘Cakes,’ it said.

How did she do that?

‘Two votes for cakes. Two for war.’ Bee grinned.

‘Come on, Fifty. Vote for me and I’ll look after you. You can have the cap gun.’ Copper Pie put his arm round Fifty and ruffled his hair. Fifty loves his black curly hair
almost as much as he hates people messing with it. He growled and Copper Pie jumped away pretending to be scared. They like fooling around.

‘Nope. I’m voting for myself.’

‘I know,’ said Jonno. ‘How about we do all three?’

‘That’s nuts. We can’t attack them, talk to them and eat cake with them at the same time,’ said Fifty.

‘We could. It doesn’t matter if it’s cakes, chat or squirting with water and bombarding with potatoes, as long as it stops them singing songs about us.’

‘He’s got a point.’ Bee looked round at the rest of us.

‘Sounds good to me. I’ll be a good team player and follow Captain Jonno’s orders.’ Copper Pie saluted at Jonno and stamped his foot.

‘Me too,’ I said. Glad that I wasn’t going to be sent down the alley waving a cowboy gun with only Copper ‘The Maniac’ Pie by my side.

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

‘Since when have I been Captain?’ said Jonno. ‘Since when has there even
been
a captain?’

He looked really cross. We all looked at each other. We’d obviously done something wrong, but weren’t sure what.

He carried on. ‘I thought all Tribers were equal. That’s what you said, Keener.’

There was a delay in my brain transmitters so Fifty spoke for me. ‘I think Copper Pie just called you Captain because you’re the one who has good ideas.’

‘No, I’m not.’ Jonno shook his head. ‘My idea about herds was rubbish. Bee said so.’

I’m sure the others felt every bit as confused as I did. I’d have loved someone to call
me
Captain.
What was going on?

‘Well, it
was
rubbish, but your idea to put everything together isn’t,’ said Bee. ‘It’s clever.’

‘You don’t get it, do you? Firstly, it’s no good having ideas if you don’t have anyone else to have them with. Secondly, ideas just pop up. Anyone can have them. I only
had my idea because you all had yours. Thirdly, you don’t know me. You only met me four days ago. You don’t know that without you, I wouldn’t dare do anything.’

He looked a bit odd. Not Jonno-like at all. Smaller . . .

‘But you invaded our territory and didn’t budge even when we all stood against you. You dared to do that,’ said Fifty.

‘Only because I had to.’ His bottom lip was sticking out a tiny bit. Flo’s does that when she doesn’t get her own way (and so does Fifty’s sometimes).

‘What d’you mean?’ said Copper Pie.

‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend moving to a new school when everyone’s already made their friends. The only kids who ever want to be friends with a new boy are the
weirdos who’ve never had a friend because they’re seriously strange. Trust me, I’m an expert. So you either stick it out on your own and wait for someone to notice you’re
human or you do it my way – work out which of the kids couldn’t care less whether there’s a new kid or not because they’ve already got friends.
They’re
the
normal ones. That’s why I chose you lot, because you didn’t need any more friends.’