Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week (2 page)

‘He seems to think,’ said the woman with the tattoo, ‘that I murdered his father.’

The Head Teacher stared at her.

So did Archie.

‘I saw him stealing a handbag,’ said the woman with the tattoo, ‘from someone he’d mugged in the car park, and I was coming down to tell the office to call the police, when I found him in the hallway and he gave me this note.’ She held it out. ‘Here. You can read it yourself.’

The Head Teacher took the note. ‘
You murdered my father
 . . .’ he said, reading it aloud, ‘ . . .
and for this you must die
.’ He looked at Archie, puzzled. ‘You
really
think Miss Hurrell murdered your father?’

‘Ho!’ said Archie. ‘Ha horse hot!’

‘So why did you write this?’ asked Mr Gunn. ‘I don’t understand how . . .’ He stopped, and let out a sigh of relief. ‘Ah, Cyd! Thank goodness you’re here!’

Archie was as relieved as the Head Teacher to see Cyd. She was his best friend and, more importantly, Cyd was the one who seemed to sort everything out when odd things happened to him.

‘Miss Hurrell says Archie mugged someone in the car park, stole their bag, then came into school and tried to murder her,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘You don’t know what really happened, do you?’

‘I’ve already told you what happened!’ said the woman with the tattoo. ‘He came at me with a knife—’

‘Please!’ The Head Teacher held up his hand and turned back to Cyd. ‘Can you explain any of this?’

‘Well, I can explain about the note,’ said Cyd, who had been studying it. ‘I think you were reading the wrong side. The
You murdered my father
bit is the first line of a story we have to write for Miss Jensen. On the other side it says
Mrs Boyd is in the car park with her arm stuck
down
a drain
. I expect that’s what Archie was trying to tell you. He probably found her, and she asked him to go and get help.’

‘Hess!’ said Archie. ‘Hat’s hite!’

‘I expect she asked him to take her bag to the kitchens as well,’ Cyd continued, thoughtfully, ‘so that they had the menu and could make a start on lunch.’

‘And what about the knife?’ asked the Head Teacher.

‘Well,’ said Cyd, ‘I’m only guessing, but Archie may have wanted to show Miss Hurrell the menu, to explain why he had the bag, and had to take out the knife to get it.’ She looked at Archie. ‘Is that right?’

‘Hess,’ said Archie, looking very relieved. ‘Hess! Hat’s hite!’

There was a long pause.

‘I . . . I don’t believe it!’ said Miss Hurrell.

‘No,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Nobody ever does.’

The Head Teacher sorted everything out very efficiently. He sent Archie and Cyd to the kitchens with Mrs Boyd’s bag, he sent Miss Hurrell, the woman with the tattoo, back to her classroom, and then went out to the car park to look after Mrs Boyd.

On the way back from the kitchens, Cyd told Archie about their new teacher.

‘She’s quite interesting, really,’ said Cyd. ‘Mr Gunn told us she used to be a professional wrestler.’

‘Hot hahenned,’ said Archie, ‘hoo Hiss Hensen?’ He was trying to say
What happened to Miss Jensen
, their old teacher.

‘She’s in hospital,’ Cyd explained. ‘Miss
Hurrell’s
looking after our class until she comes back.’

‘How hong hill hat he?’ asked Archie.

‘Mr Gunn said maybe a few days. Perhaps a week.’

‘Ha heek?’ Archie sighed. He liked Miss Jensen, because when odd things happened to him, she never got upset or angry, and she had
never
thrown him onto the ground and sat on him.

‘Miss Hurrell’s not that bad,’ said Cyd, ‘when you get to know her. I’m sure she didn’t mean to hurt you.’

And indeed Miss Hurrell was most apologetic to Archie when he got back to the classroom.

‘I’m
so
sorry,’ she said. ‘Mr Gunn told me about the odd things that happen to you, but when you gave me that message and then took a knife out of the bag I . . . I still can’t believe it!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Is it true that something odd like that happens to you
every
day?’

‘Hess,’ said Archie.

‘But why?’

‘I hone ho,’ said Archie.

‘Archie’s father has a theory,’ said Cyd, ‘that it’s the Laws of Chance. He says that odd things happen to most people at some time in their lives, but not in an even number. Some people have a few odd things happen to them, some people don’t have anything odd happen at all, and some people have odd things happen to them every day.’

‘Like Archie?’ said Miss Hurrell.

‘Hess,’ said Archie.

‘The trick is not to get too upset about it,’ said Cyd, ‘and just keep smiling.’

And for the rest of the day that was what everyone tried to do.

Though Archie’s mother was definitely not smiling when he got home and she saw the state of his clothes.

‘That was a new shirt this morning,’ she said, pointing to the torn collar. ‘And now look! Anyone would think you’d been in a wrestling match!’

She went off to find a needle and thread.

‘Honestly! I don’t believe it, Archie!’

ON TUESDAY, WHEN
Archie and Cyd got to school, Mr Gunn told them that Miss Hurrell would not be coming back as their class teacher. After what happened on Monday, she had decided that life would be less stressful if she went back to being a professional wrestler.

‘So you have another new teacher today,’ said Mr Gunn. ‘Her name is Miss Humber, and I’ve warned her about the odd things that happen to you.’ He smiled encouragingly at Archie. ‘I think you’ll like her.’

Archie
did
like Miss Humber. She was a round, jolly woman, almost as wide as she was tall, and the first thing she did when she saw Archie was tell him that, if anything odd
happened
, he was not to worry, but to come straight to her.

In the morning, nothing odd did happen, but in the afternoon Miss Humber told her class she would show them how to make a fruit salad.

‘A fresh fruit salad,’ she said, ‘is much better for you than cakes, and biscuits, and sweets, and ice cream, and doughnuts, and chocolate croissants and buns covered in thick white icing and . . .’ She paused, and then added. ‘A fruit salad keeps us all healthy and happy!’

Everyone in the class was given a different task. Some children had to peel the fruit and chop it up. Some were sent down to the kitchens to boil up the skins into a syrup, and some were given cameras to take pictures of the whole process so they could make a display afterwards.

Archie’s job was peeling the bananas.

Miss Humber gave him a bag with the bananas in it, which he carried over to his
table
. He was about to reach inside, when he saw something moving.

It was a spider.

A big one.