Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks (7 page)

‘I’m so sorry, darling.’ Mum put her hand on top of mine. Weird. I didn’t think the forgiving bit would come before the telling-off bit. I waited to see what was coming next. ‘I feel dreadful that you didn’t feel you could come to me or Dad. Surely you know we would always try to help someone?’

No,
I thought, but I said, ‘I thought you’d have to tell someone.’ That was a lie. I never thought seriously about telling Mum at all. What could she have done? Given up her job as a doctor to look after Copper Pie’s neighbour? I
don’t
think so.

‘It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that you’re safe.’ Mum’s eyes were watery. ‘But you must promise to come and talk to me if there is ever a problem again that you need help solving.’ A tear trickled down Mum’s face. ‘Promise?’

I nodded. She wiped her cheek.

‘Although it was wrong to leave school without permission, going to help Jim was
very, very
kind. I think your Tribe should feel proud.’

Mum being so nice was quite odd. I was half waiting for a telling-off but half getting the idea there wasn’t one coming.

‘The Head said she would leave the disciplining to the parents. All she intends to do is ask you to sit outside her office tomorrow.’

I nodded again. And because I hadn’t spoken for a while I added, ‘Can I go now?’

‘Of course, you can. I’ll call you when tea’s ready.’ I got up. ‘And don’t you worry about Jim. I’m going to make a few calls.’

Finally, I escaped up to my room.

Copper Pie sent me a text:
BIG JIMS WORKING AT RED HOUSE.

That’s what his mum’s nursery is called, The Red House. Although it isn’t actually red, it’s brick-coloured.

I texted back:
WOT?

So he rang me. My ringtone is
Mission: Impossible. Amy
says it’s lame. Hers is a recording of herself saying,’ Pick up. Pick up’. It’s freaky, her voice without her body.

‘Keener, it’s me. You’ll never guess.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ I said. ‘Big Jim’s working in the nursery.’

‘How did you guess?’

‘You texted me, idiot.’

‘Oh yeah.’ He didn’t say anything else. He’s not that good on the phone.

‘Are you going to explain, then?’

‘Mum said she felt guilty. Guilty that I didn’t think she’d help, and guilty that Big Jim thought she’d turn him in. So, I’m in the clear and Big Jim’s coming in here every day till he’s better. He’s gonna eat with the kids. Mum went and fetched him after she left the Head’s and by the time I got in he was sitting in the armchair and all the little brats were sitting round his feet. They loved him.’

I could just see it. Big Jim with his wild white hair and his shirts with big checks that Bee says are like tea towels, laughing his big laugh. Even if he wasn’t ace at making up fantastic stories just the look of him would make you smile, because
he
smiles all the time, and teases, and laughs, and he’s huge. (I should have said that earlier – it explains his nickname.) He’s taller than a normal door, and probably almost as wide.

‘So problem’s solved.’ I was pretty pleased. I’d bunked off and managed to stay out of trouble even though I was caught. Amazing.

‘Yep. And Mum’s let me choose tea. We’re having pasty and chips, and then me and Dad are going over the park with a football. See ya.’ He ended the call before I could reply.

I looked around my room, deciding what to do before tea.
Pack, I
thought. I knew it was three days till camp but it wouldn’t hurt to start sorting out what I wanted to take. I got out my rucksack, the one that I take on holidays, which is bigger than my school one. And that was when my phone rang again, and it was Bee, and I didn’t like what she had to say.

‘Keener, the Head’s just rung my mum.’
So what, I
thought. The Head had spoken to all our mums. But I said, ‘Has she?’ to sound interested.

‘She told Mum that she’d decided it would be better for us to use next week’s camp to “reconnect with the other members of our year group”.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means, she’s going to split us up. We’ll all have to be in separate groups. It’ll be awful. I could be with Callum . . . ‘ She paused.

Even worse, I could be with Callum,
I thought.

‘Why did she say that?’ I said. ‘That’s not what she told us in her office.’

‘She must have changed her mind.’

A thought came to me –
if Bee hadn’t disagreed with the Head about ‘citizenship’ the Head wouldn’t have devised an extra punishment, but
I kept it hidden because Bee wouldn’t have liked it one bit.
Her big mouth could do with staying shut sometimes.
I kept that thought hidden too.

‘I’m going to ring the rest. We need a plan. I’m not spending a week in a group with Alice, or Callum or Jamie. No way. Bye.’

Bee rang off before I could reply. I sat holding the phone for a bit wondering what sort of plan could change the Head’s mind. The answer was as clear as if it was written across the blue sky in white smoke from a Boeing 747.

N                         O                          N                          E

I don’t know how long I stayed like that. Completely still. But eventually Mum called us for tea and on the third shout I did what she said and went downstairs. I wasn’t looking forward to the school trip anyway. Now it was fifty times worse, knowing I wouldn’t be with mates.

Mum and Amy and Flo chatted about rubbish: Flo’s latest pom-pom animal (a mouse), Amy’s spotty boyfriend and Mum’s asthma clinic (my sisters like hearing all about Mum’s work – no idea why).

‘What’s up?’ Mum was looking at me. It wasn’t surprising really. While she’d been chatting and eating, I’d managed to sit at the table and not eat even one pea, or one grain of rice, or one flake of salmon (in honey and soy sauce which is quite nice).

‘Camp,’ I said.

‘It’s fun,’ said Amy. ‘You have a fire and the teachers mess about, and there’s loads of cool stuff to do.’

‘It’s only fun if you’re with your friends,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Mum. ‘All your friends will be there.’

‘But we won’t be together,’ I said. ‘The Head said she won’t let us be a team at camp next week.’

‘Because you skived off school?’ Mum asked.

I nodded. Mum obviously didn’t know anything about it. She said ‘Did she now?’ in an odd voice, and made a face that I couldn’t quite work out. Amy started telling us all about her week at camp. I stopped listening.

There were still a few days to go. I decided to push all the worry out of my brain for a while. (I did it the usual way – making up stupid words that don’t exist, like
compodasty
and
mewminny.)
It helped – I ate my tea and even managed to forget about camp for a bit. I reckoned when the Tribers were all together, one of us would come up with an idea. One of us always does.

After tea I helped Mum in the garden. She’s a hopeless gardener – her fingers aren’t green, they’re toxic. We made the rockery together. I did all the hard work lugging the stones. She did the planting. It’s all weeds now. We attacked them together but Mum got fed up after a bit so I finished it myself. I had a super-deep hot bath after that, fell into bed and went straight to sleep without letting anything to do with camp sneak into my thoughts.

Fridays should be good. Dad always has a Friday feeling -that means a good feeling, because it’s nearly the weekend. My Friday started off bad. From the minute I woke up
(thanks for the early morning body slam, Flo)
all I could think about was being away from home for four days and having to team up with kids I don’t like and, worse, sleep in a tent with kids I hardly know. I tried the
compodasty
stuff but my brain wasn’t playing. My brain was only interested in what I was going to do about CAMP.

There was only one way I was going to feel better. I had to get to school, and quick. I needed the Tribers. I wolfed a couple of wet Weetabix (they don’t require chewing, they don’t taste of anything either), shouted ‘Bye’ to no one in particular and headed off. I texted Fifty on the way to make sure I didn’t have to spend ten minutes waiting for him at the corner where we meet.

‘What’s the hurry? Flo bullying you again?’

Ha ha, Fifty!
I ignored his stupid remark and launched straight in to the CAMP problem. Fifty listened to me go on about how bad it was going to be, and when I stopped so he could say something back he said, ‘Same’.

It’s no help having a friend like Fifty when there’s trouble. We didn’t need ‘Same’. We needed solutions. We needed the others.

As we turned out of the alley I could see Copper Pie standing by the school gates, eating a bag of crisps – from a distance they looked like salt and vinegar. He usually has beef.

We were about to cross the road when I heard a dog bark – it was Doodle, dragging Bee and Jonno, and way behind was Bee’s mum. Thanks to Doodle’s speed we all got to the gates at the same time (except for Bee’s mum).

‘What are you stuffing those for?’ said Bee to Copper Pie. Doodle tried to put his nose into C. P.’ s pocket. He could obviously smell the remains of his endless snacks.

‘Ran out of beef,’ he said, between chewing. His teeth were covered in a layer of mashed crisps.

‘Idiot, I meant why are you eating crisps for breakfast? They’re one of the top five bad foods. It’s so unhealthy,’ said Bee. Her mum had just caught up with us – she shrugged her shoulders as if to say,’ I don’t know where she gets it from.’

‘It’s not breakfast. That was ages ago.’

Bee rolled her eyes, like a mum whose child won’t eat his greens.

‘Are we going in?’ she said. It did seem a bit odd standing at the gates and not going through them.

‘Do you think we’re meant to go straight to the office or are we allowed in the playground before registration?’ asked Jonno.

I knew the answer but I wasn’t going to say it. If no one else remembered, I wasn’t going to be the one making us sit like lemons (but not as yellow) outside the office before school.

‘Office,’ said Fifty. ‘The Head said every spare minute.’

Jonno gave Doodle a big rub on the back, and kissed his neck. That boy is weird. And we left Bee’s mum and walked slowly towards the main door.

I don’t know about the rest of them but I couldn’t have cared less about the uncomfortable seats waiting for us. I was worried about being under canvas with Callum, or jammed up next to Jamie in a sleeping bag.

Copper Pie opened the door. Fifty went next, then Bee. I was next. As I put my foot on the step I heard Flo’s foghorn voice.

‘There’s Keener, Mummy. He’s going to sit by the Head’s room, isn’t he, Mummy?’

I carried on in, without a glance. The five of us walked in complete silence along the corridor. There were only three chairs outside, but still no one spoke. Jonno and Copper Pie went and got two chairs out of Mr Dukes’ classroom. They lined them up and we all sat down . . . and waited for the bell, or the Head – whichever came first.

But what came first was a whole lot more amazing . . .

There was the sound of lots of feet, some clompy and some clickety. We all zoomed in on the direction of the approaching army. It didn’t sound like kids, and teachers don’t usually go round in herds.

Incredibly, it turned out to be mums. To be specific, my mum, Bee’s mum (but no Doodle), Copper Pie’s mum (she was in the front) and Fifty’s mum. I strained to see behind, in case Jonno’s mum was there too, but there were only four. I don’t know why I said ‘only’ – I mean four mums coming into school on a Friday morning was quite a few.

‘What’s going on, Mum?’ said Bee.

Copper Pie’s mum was obviously the Commanding Officer. She did the talking.

‘We’ve come to sort out the Year 6 camp. It’s your last trip in this school. Don’t you worry. You’ll either be together, or you won’t be going.’

I wanted to cheer. My face was flooding with bright pinkness. It was like having Jiminy Cricket or a fairy godmother or a genie or something come and grant you a wish like in fairy tales. I looked over at Mum and she winked. I wanted to give her a great big hug. I couldn’t remember her ever standing up for me before. I had a look round to see what the other Tribers thought of it all.

Copper Pie was holding his fist in the air,’ Yes!’

Bee had pushed her fringe out of her eyes and was standing up, hands on hips, like a scary Amazon.

Fifty was still sitting, grinning a grin so big it was like the Cheshire Cat’s grin in
Alice in Wonderland
when the rest of the cat has disappeared.

But Jonno . . . well, he was . . . sitting, looking at his knees.

I nudged him. ‘We’ve got an army of mums to fight for us. Tribe wins again.’

He raised his mop of bushy hair to look at me. ‘Great. Really great.’

I got it. I expect Bee got it before I did – she’s good at people. I bet Fifty got it too – he’s like his mum, he knows what’s going on underneath. I bet Copper Pie still hadn’t got it, but he would, as soon as it was pointed out. Jonno was the only one of us whose mum hadn’t come to the rescue. Jonno’s was the only mum who didn’t care. It’s funny, I liked her when I first met her. She wears beads in her hair that play tunes as she walks, and she’s really . . . sophisticated, like in a magazine at the dentist’s. But I don’t think she’s that nice because we never get invited to his house (I’ve been twice, once invited, once not) and she didn’t come to the summer fair, and she made Copper Pie turn the telly off the only time he ever went there. The more I thought about it there was quite a lot of evidence against her.