Dare Game (3 page)

‘No, I’m talking to my shoes,’ I said crossly.

I expected him to have a go at me too but he just nodded and mopped the little spurting scarlet fountain. ‘I have a quiet chat to
my
shoes when things are getting me down,’ he said. ‘Very understanding friends, shoes. I find my old Hush Puppies especially comforting.’

The little squirt gave a whimper and Mr Hatherway gave him another mop. ‘Come on, pal, we’d better get you some first aid.’

He gave me a little nod and they walked on. Up until that moment I was convinced that this new school was 100% horrible. Now it was maybe 1% OK, because I quite liked Mr Hatherway. Not that I had any chance of having him as my teacher, not unless I was shoved out of Year Six right to the bottom of the Juniors. And the school was still 99% the pits, so I decided to clear off out of it.

It was easy-peasy. I waited till playtime
when
Mrs V.B. waved me away, her nostrils pinched like I smelled bad. So I returned the compliment and held my own nose but she pretended not to notice. It was music in the hall with Miss Smith after playtime so I was someone else’s responsibility then. Only I wasn’t going to stick around for music because Miss Smith keeps picking on me too, just because of that one time I experimented with alternative uses of a drumstick. So I moseyed down the corridor like I was going to the toilets only I went right on walking, round the corner, extra sharpish past Reception (though Mrs Ludovic was busy mopping the little kid with the nosebleed. It looked like World War Three in her office) and then quick out the door and off across the yard. The main gate was locked but that presented no problem at all for SuperTracy. I was up that wall and over in a flash. I did fall over the other side and both my knees got a bit chewed up but that didn’t bother me.

They hurt quite a lot now, even though they’ve stopped bleeding. They both look pretty dirty. I’ve probably introduced all sorts
of
dangerous germs into my bloodstream and any minute now I’ll develop a high fever and start frothing at the mouth. I don’t feel very well actually. And I’m
starving
. I wish I hadn’t spent all my money on this notebook. I especially wish I hadn’t picked one the exact purple of a giant bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. I shall start slavering all over it soon.

I’d really like to call it a day and push off back to Cam’s but the clock’s just struck and it’s only one o’clock. Lunchtime. Only I haven’t any lunch. I can’t go back till teatime or Cam will get suspicious. I
could
show her my savaged knees and say I had a Dire Accident and got sent home, but Cam would think I’d been fighting again. I got in enough trouble the last time. It wasn’t
fair
. I didn’t start the fight. It was all that Roxanne Green’s fault. She made this sneery remark to her friends about my T-shirt. She was showing off in her new DKNY T-shirt, zigzagging her shoulders this way and that, so I started imitating her and everyone laughed. So she goes, ‘What label is
your
T-shirt, Tracy?’

Before I could make anything up she says, ‘
I
know. It’s Oxfam!’

Everyone laughed again but this time it was awful so I got mad and called Roxanne various names and then she called
me
names and most of it was baby stuff but then she said the B word – and added that it was true in my case because I really didn’t have a dad.

So I had to smack her one then, didn’t I? It was only fair. Only Roxanne and all her little girly hangers-on didn’t think it was fair and they told Mrs Vomit Bagley and she
certainly
didn’t think it was fair and she told Mr Donne the headteacher and, guess what, he didn’t think it was fair either. He rang Cam and asked her to come to the school for a Quiet Word. I was yanked along to the study too and I said lots of words not at
all
quietly, but Cam put her arm round me and hissed in my ear, ‘Cool it, Trace.’

I tried. I thought c-o-o-l and imagined a beautiful blue lake of water and me swimming slowly along – but I was so sizzling mad the water started to bubble all around me and I ended up boiling over and telling the head what I thought of him and his poxy teachers and putrid pupils. (Get my vocabulary, Mrs V.B.!)

I very nearly ended up being excluded. Which is mad. I should have been even cheekier because I don’t
want
to go to this terrible old school.

So I’ve excluded myself.

I’m here.

In my own secret place. Dead exclusive. My very own house.

Home!

Well, it’s not exactly
homely
at the moment. It needs a good going over with a vacuum or two. Or three or four or five. And even though it’s kind of empty it needs a spot of tidying. There are empty beer cans and McDonald’s cartons chucked all over the place, and all kinds of freebie papers and advertising bumpf litter the hall so you’re wading ankle-deep when you come in the front door. Only I didn’t, seeing as it’s locked and bolted and boarded over. I came in the back, through the broken window, ever so carefully.

I went in the back garden because I was mooching round and round the streets, dying for a wee. I came across this obviously empty house down at the end of a little cul-de-sac with big brambles all over the place giving lots of
cover
so I thought I’d nip over the wall quick and relieve myself. Which I did, though a black cat suddenly streaked past, which made me jump and lose concentration so I very nearly weed all over my trainers.

When I was relieved and decent I tried to catch the cat, pretending this was a jungle and the cat was a tiger and I was all set to train it but the cat went ‘Purr-lease!’ and stalked off with its tail in the air.

I explored the jungle by myself and spotted the broken window and decided to give the house a recce too.

It’s a great house. It hasn’t quite got all mod cons any more. The water’s been turned off and the lights won’t switch on and the radiators are cold. But there’s still a sofa in the living room, quite a swish one, red velvet. Some plonker’s put his muddy boots all over it, but I’ve been scratching at it with my fingernails and I think it’ll clean up a treat.

I could bring a cushion. And a blanket. And some
food
. Yeah.

Next time.

But now it’s time for me to go . . . back to Cam.

Cam’s Home

CAM IS FOSTERING
me. It was all my idea. When I was back in the Children’s Home I was pretty desperate to be fostered.
Ugly
desperate. They’d even tried advertising me in the papers, this gungy little description of me outlining all my bad points together with a school photo where I was scowling – and so no-one came forward, which didn’t exactly surprise me. Though it was still awful. Especially when one of the kids at school brought the newspaper into school and showed everyone. That was a different school. It wasn’t much cop either. But it was marginally better than this one. This one is the worst ever.

It’s Cam’s fault. She said I had to go there. Because it’s the nearest one. I
knew
I’d hate it from the very first day. It’s an old school, all red brick and brown paint and smelly
cloakrooms
and nearly all the teachers are old too. They sound like they’ve all been to this old-fashioned elocution school to get that horrid sarcastic tone to their voices.

You know: ‘Oh, that’s really
clever
of you, Tracy Beaker’ when you spill your paint water (accidentally on purpose all over Roxanne’s designer T-shirt!), and ‘I’m amazed that
you’re
the one who scribbled silly words all over the blackboard, Tracy Beaker’ (wonderfully wicked words!), and ‘Can you possibly speak up a bit, Tracy Beaker, I think there’s a deaf old lady at the other end of the street who didn’t quite catch that’ (I
had
to raise my voice because how else can I get the other kids in my group to listen to me?).