2: Chocolate Box Girls: Marshmallow Skye (5 page)

6

I don’t say any more to Summer about my dream, although I’m still thinking about it all the way to school. First period is history. Mr Wolfe is new at Exmoor Park Middle School, and everyone thinks he is wired to the moon. He wears tweed jackets with elbow patches and corduroy trousers in beige or mustard yellow, and he always smells faintly of toast. He looks like he might be better suited to a career at Hogwarts, or perhaps as an extra in a horror movie featuring werewolves. No wonder Alfie Anderson likes to tease him.

I think history is cool. It’s all about stories, about how the past shapes the present and the future, and I’ve loved it ever since I can remember. Back in Year Four I got a gold star for my Egyptian project, which involved trying to
mummify a Barbie doll with lengths of toilet roll in front of the entire class. ‘Awesome, Skye,’ Alfie said. I think he liked the bit where I told the class how those ancient Egyptians used to remove the mummy’s brains by dragging them out through the nostrils with a hook. Boys are kind of bloodthirsty for stories like that.

I think I prefer the Clara Travers kind of history – doomed love stories and amazing clothes. But even though I love history, I am not at all sure about Mr Wolfe. I can’t help feeling a little bit sorry for him, though.

Today he is late coming to class, and Alfie has set up a practical joke. As the new history teacher walks into the room, a wastepaper basket balanced on top of the slightly open door topples down on him, showering him with scrunched-up paper.

He peers at us through his horn-rimmed glasses. ‘Amusing,’ he says. ‘Do you know something, class? History is full of unpredictable events, but we can
learn
from them. They teach us to expect the unexpected –’

Mr Wolfe whips the chair out from under his desk suddenly, as if expecting to see a Whoopee cushion or a drawing pin Blu-tacked to the seat. Nothing. He checks
under the table, sifts through the papers on his desk and squints at the whiteboard as if checking for traps.

‘See?’ he proclaims. ‘History teaches us to be prepared!’

Not quite prepared enough, alas. Mr Wolfe is forgetting one very important lesson – history repeats itself.

I cannot bear to watch.

‘Sir!’ I say, waving my hand in the air, but Mr Wolfe just smiles and tells me to wait a moment.

He steps into the stock cupboard to fetch our textbooks, and that’s when Alfie Anderson’s rucksack, balanced all that time on the top of the stock-cupboard door, crashes down on top of him, knocking his glasses to the floor.

The whole class just about fall off their chairs laughing.

‘History didn’t teach you to expect that, Sir,’ Alfie snorts.

Mr Wolfe turns a strange shade of crimson. He picks up the rucksack, which is extra heavy because Alfie has stuffed it with history textbooks to give it more oomph. His hands shake a little as he does this, and so does his voice.

‘Alfie Anderson, is this your rucksack?’ he asks.

‘Yes, Sir!’ Alfie says. ‘I wonder how it got over there?’

I think what happens next is partly Alfie’s fault, for
pushing Mr Wolfe too far. It is also partly Mr Wolfe’s fault for losing his temper and not pausing to pick up his glasses from the floor. You could even say a part of the blame rests with Mr King, the head teacher, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That is how history works, though. It is all about cause and effect, but there is a lot of luck involved.

Mr Wolfe hurls the rucksack through the air at Alfie, and it misses completely and flies right through the window, shattering glass all over the classroom. There’s a squeal of brakes from outside and an outraged yell.

‘What the devil is going on up there?’ a familiar voice roars.

It is very unlucky indeed that the head teacher happened to be parking his car beneath the window at that exact moment. A few of us sitting near the window watch as the rucksack bounces off the roof of Mr King’s new Skoda Fabia, denting it slightly, then slides to the ground, knocking off a wing mirror on the way.

‘Whoa,’ Alfie says. ‘Nice shot, Sir!’

But Mr Wolfe sinks down on to his chair and puts his head in his hands, and this time nobody laughs at all.

‘Alfie!’ I hiss. ‘What have you done?’

‘What have
I
done?’ Alfie echoes, all innocent. ‘I didn’t break the window!’

‘Alfie!’ I growl. ‘This is not funny. He could lose his job over this! Do something, or –’

‘Or you’re history,’ Summer says crisply, from across the aisle.

A few moments later, the classroom door bursts open and Mr King storms in, carrying the rucksack. He is purple with fury.

‘Mr Wolfe!’ he roars. ‘What is going on? How did this happen?’

The history teacher stands up, squaring his shoulders and raking a hand through his hair, but it is Alfie who speaks.

‘It was me, Sir,’ he says, calmly and clearly. ‘I was messing around and Mr Wolfe told me to stop, and … it was an accident, Sir, but I was to blame.’

He hangs his head, and for the first time in living memory, I feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for Alfie Anderson.

‘My office, now, Alfie,’ Mr King says. ‘I will send the janitor over to clean up the broken glass. Mr Wolfe, take
your class down to the library until this mess has been cleared up.’

The door closes, and Mr Wolfe faces the class, slightly shell-shocked.

‘Is … is anybody hurt?’ he asks.

‘No, Sir.’

‘That’s something at least,’ he says. ‘Well … as you can see, history is happening all around us, all the time. Some events stay in our minds and memories forever, and I have a feeling that was one of them.’

‘Too right,’ Millie mutters, beside me.

‘Sometimes, though, you don’t always get the full picture,’ Mr Wolfe frowns. ‘History isn’t always what it seems, and it’s all too easy to get the wrong idea. You have to piece together the clues to make sense of it all …’

I blink. Suddenly, Mr Wolfe is not so much werewolf as a wise history guru whose words make me catch my breath – what he says about clues makes me think about Clara Travers. Maybe I could find out more about her, piece together her story, if I can just find some more clues. The dream is still vivid in my mind, as if I actually did slip back in time and see the world through Clara’s eyes for a moment.
My heart beats hard at the thought of it. Does that make it not so much a dream, but more … a kind of haunting?

I frown, shaking the idea out of my head.

‘I’d better set the record straight,’ Mr Wolfe sighs. ‘History likes a hero, but I can’t let Alfie take the blame for this. Go along to the library, Year Eight. I will see the head and get this sorted out.’

So, yeah … history. It is never boring, or at least not for long.

7

‘He’s not as bad as I thought,’ Summer says as we pile on to the bus for Kitnor.

‘Who, Mr Wolfe?’ I ask. ‘Or Alfie?’

Summer rolls her eyes. ‘Mr Wolfe, of course,’ she says. ‘There is no hope whatsoever for Alfie.’

In some ways, you cannot blame Alfie Anderson for being slightly unhinged, because he has a very strange family. His parents are ageing hippies who run the village health-food store and wander around wearing tie-dye T-shirts and smelling of patchouli oil, which is a little bit like the smell of a cat litter tray in my opinion. His two little sisters wear lots of handknitted sweaters and skirts that jingle when they walk. I guess Alfie is just trying to be different, and you can’t blame him for that.

I think there might be hope for him, actually. A glimmer.

And then I change my mind, because the minute I sit down he legs it along the aisle and flops down beside me in the seat I was saving for Millie.

‘Old Wolfie was a legend, back there,’ he tells me. ‘Mr King was about to ring my parents … I could have been kicked out. And then Wolfie waded in and I am off the hook, except for a week’s worth of lunchtime detentions. Y’know, I think I could get to like history lessons, although I am more interested in actually
making
history than writing about it …’

Alfie’s brown hair is gelled into three or four different directions, which makes him look a little like he has just crawled out of a wind tunnel. I don’t think he is likely to be making history with his charm, good looks or personal style, at least not any time soon.

Millie gets on the bus and tries to nudge Alfie out of the way with her schoolbag, but he will not move. He seems to be settling in for the day.

‘Millie, Millie,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You are a lovely girl, but Skye and I would like a bit of privacy right now. We have important matters to discuss.’

‘Weirdo,’ my friend says, flopping down into a seat across
the aisle. The bus lurches into action, and I am stranded with the most annoying boy in the whole of Year Eight. Great.

‘What are you playing at, Alfie?’ I huff. ‘I will not do your history homework for you, if that’s what you’re thinking!’

‘As if!’ he protests, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘Although it would probably be fun for you, Skye, because you love history. You wear all that freaky vintage stuff and everything …’

He flicks my stripy scarf and shoots a meaningful look at my navy blazer and matching beret. OK, I admit I am the only person on the bus wearing a school blazer. I admit I found it in a jumble sale, and added in the scarf and beret because I’d seen them in an ancient kid’s book about a boarding school. I admit I am probably the only kid at Exmoor Park Middle School who sometimes gets told off for actually
wearing
school uniform.

Is it my fault it’s fifty years out of date? I happen to have a special interest in the history of fashion.

‘So anyway,’ Alfie ploughs on. ‘I need some advice. It’s serious.’ He lowers his voice and looks around the bus, anxiously. ‘I’m in love. Can you meet me in the Mad Hatter on Saturday to talk about it?’

My tummy flips over … and not in a good way. More in a queasy, please-don’t-let-this-be-happening way.

I remember Alfie jumping out on us by the graveyard at Halloween, almost as if he had been waiting for us. I remember the way he stopped clowning around and took the blame in the classroom earlier on after I glared at him. This is bad … very, very bad.

‘No!’ I squeak, horrified. ‘I mean, I am very … um … flattered. Of course. But … I just don’t feel the same. At all!’

Alfie looks confused. ‘Flattered?’ he echoes. ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’

‘You,’ I say patiently. ‘And … well, me.’

Alfie Anderson laughs so hard then I think he might do himself an injury. ‘No, no, NO!’ he says, once he has recovered the power of speech. ‘I am not in love with
you
, Skye, obviously!’

I am torn between a deep sense of relief and feeling slightly offended that the idea of being in love with me should be quite so hysterically funny.

Alfie notices my frown.

‘Not that there’s any reason why someone
wouldn’t
fancy
you,’ he says quickly. ‘It’s just that you’re a mate, y’know? Not that you are actually hideous or anything.’

‘Thank you,’ I say huffily. ‘I think.’

‘No worries,’ Alfie shrugs. ‘But anyway, I need some advice, and obviously, we can’t talk properly here on the bus, so I thought if we met up this Saturday –’