Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks (8 page)

Copper Pie’s mum knocked on the Head’s door, three times.

‘Come in,’ said the voice.

I wish I could have seen the Head’s face, but there wasn’t a chance. The four mums marched in and the door banged shut.

We did a totally spontaneous silent Tribe handshake. It was hard not to laugh. Whoever would have thought the mums would come into school to stick up for us? It was almost too fantastic.

The bell went.

‘What do we do?’ said Fifty.

We all wanted to stay to see what happened but we knew that would only cause more trouble.

‘Let’s go,’ said Bee. ‘Come on, Jonno.’ She grabbed his arm and said something I couldn’t hear. I expect she was trying to make him feel better. I think Copper Pie must have heard because he punched Jonno – that means ‘You’re our mate, even if your mum’s let us down.’

* * *

The day went on and on and on. We sat outside the Head’s office at morning break, at lunch and at afternoon break. The Head didn’t say one word to us. Not one word. We all wanted to ask her what had happened, but no one dared. Judging by her face, she detested us even more than she had the day before. Good job we were only a month away from leaving junior school. I texted Mum but she didn’t reply, and neither did Fifty’s mum. Copper Pie didn’t dare text his mum and Bee said her mum had left her phone at Bee’s brothers’ place. It was no good, we had to wait until we got home. Loads of the little kids who saw us sitting in a line in the corridor giggled and pointed and all that, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that we had to be allowed to be Tribe at camp. That’s what mattered.

We agreed to all go home together, and although the Tribehouse would have been good, we agreed to go to mine because Fifty thought his mum was taking Probably Rose to have her hair cut. (What hair? The little wisp on top? I didn’t have my hair cut until I was about three. Probably Rose isn’t even two. My mum took me to the barber and he got out his electric razor thing and I was frightened so I kicked him. That’s quite unlike me – I must have been terrified.)

So we legged it to mine, and we arrived seconds behind Mum who had parked the car and was just helping Flo get her ‘absolutely amazing’ (code for rubbish) painting out of the boot.

‘Hello,’ said Mum. ‘Do we have the pleasure of the whole Tribe?’

We all nodded. I knew I had to be the one to ask – it was my mum – but I was having trouble getting the words out.
What if it hadn’t worked? What if the Head had told our mums to go away and leave the running of the school to her? What if she’d said Tribe was expelled and we could only continue in school if we were Tribe-less? What if. . .

Mum saved me.

‘I expect you’d like a blow-by-blow account of our meeting with the Head.’

‘Yes, please,’ said Bee.

‘The Head didn’t look too pleased to see us,’ said Mum. ‘But we explained that we felt strongly that you shouldn’t be punished so severely for trying to help Jim.’

‘But they shouldn’t have left school, Mummy,’ said Flo.

Mum gave Flo the evil eye.
Go Mum!

‘You can either stay in here,’ said Mum. She paused and put her finger in front of her lips. ‘And listen. Or you can go in the living room.’

Flo made the ugly face. Mum ignored it and looked at Fifty. ‘Your mother was excellent, Fifty. She was most concerned that if you weren’t allowed to be with your friends at camp as a direct result of helping someone, the lesson you would learn would be to not help someone another time.’

What an awesome argument. The Head was teaching us how
not
to be good citizens.

‘What did she say to that?’ I asked, dying to hear that she’d collapsed sobbing and begged our mums to forgive her.

‘I think that was when there was a knock at the door and Jonno’s dad came in. I didn’t catch his name, is it Andrew?’

All of a sudden Jonno was smiling big time.

‘Yes. No, I mean, it’s Adrian. What was my dad doing there?’

‘The same as the rest of us,’ said Mum. ‘Looking after our Tribers.’

Copper Pie punched Jonno. I think he was a bit overenthusiastic because Jonno lost his smile for a second and rubbed his arm.

‘Go on,’ said Bee, adding, ‘please’at the end.

‘Well, there’s a man with a genius for talking! Adrian was most charming, and after thanking the Head for helping Jonno to settle in, and thanking all of us for having such welcoming children,’ (she smiled at us, one at a time) ‘and apologising for being late, he turned our rather confrontational beginning into the most agreeable meeting. The Head agreed she had been a little hasty in her decision about camp. And Adrian suggested she was in fact showing how very concerned she was for the safety of her pupils, who should
not
be out roaming the streets.’

‘So are we in the clear?’ asked Fifty.

‘Absolutely,’ said Mum.

It was time to celebrate. Jim was going to get to stay at home, thanks to Copper Pie’s mum, and we were going to be together at camp. Mum brought out some chocolate chip cookies and made up a jug of blackcurrant. We all sat down at the table, except Jonno.

‘I think I’ll get off, if that’s OK?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Fifty. ‘This is chocolate.’ He pointed at the plate of cookies, that was already half empty.

Jonno wobbled his head from side to side as though he was a set of scales weighing it all up.’ No, I’ll get off. I kind of want to thank my dad.’

‘Thank your dad later,’ said Copper Pie, taking two more cookies to go with the one still in his mouth.

‘Let him go,’ said Fifty. ‘Leaves more for us.’ He was joking, almost certainly.

I didn’t say anything, and it wasn’t because I had my mouth full of sweet crumbly chocolate, it was because I understood. Tribers are meant to stick together, but that doesn’t mean they have to stay in the same room. Jonno wanted to go, and that was fine. Wherever we all are, we’re still a team. We’re still Tribe.

‘Hang on a sec, Jonno,’ said Bee. ‘Tribe handshake.’ She slapped down her hand and the rest of us followed.

One, two, three. We threw our hands high in the sky.

I had a Friday feeling. A really good one. I reckoned we all did.

By Sunday night I was all packed up. One sleeping bag with small pillow inside, one middle-sized rucksack with all my clothes for the week including a waterproof and my wetsuit, a towel and a wash bag, one pair of wellies hung on the outside, one small rucksack for days out, everything named. Mum had given me a pep talk that covered subjects ranging from sleep problems to advice about food.

Everything about me was ready, except me. I didn’t want to go. I’m just not the sort of kid that wants to go away for a week with school. I like holidays, but that’s different because you’re with your family. I sat on the bed and tried to give myself a Keener pep talk. It went like this:
Keener, you’ll be with Tribe all week, eating, sleeping, mucking about. It’ll be good.

I repeated it a few times and I could feel my brain starting to believe it might be true, and then Dad came in. His pep talk was quite different from Mum’s, no toilet or bathroom tips.

I decided to focus on Dad’s last sentence. Being back home again.

Flo woke me up by dangling two of her homemade pompom animals over my face. It took me a few minutes to work out that I wasn’t in a woolly animal dream and that it was setting-off-for-camp day. I had a poke around inside my head to decide how I felt – not too bad. In fact, I was quite keen to get on with it. The sooner we got there, the sooner I got back home.

I didn’t walk because I had too much stuff. Mum dropped me off. She kissed me (in the car, not in front of the world) and said ‘You’ll be fine.’ And then she drove off.

The whole of Year 6 had been told to stand in the netball court next to our bags. Some Year 6s did exactly that. A whole other lot of Year 6s ran around like lunatics, excited about the trip, I guess. And there were a few waiting with their parents.

The Tribers stood together. I didn’t feel much like talking so I let them chatter on while I inspected everyone’s luggage.

Jonno had a proper walker’s rucksack with a tiny sleeping bag strapped on the front. All very organised.

Copper Pie had a Man United sports bag with big black wellies sticking out of the pocket, a bright red sleeping bag in a see-through plastic bag and a small day sack, bursting full. I didn’t need to ask – he’d obviously brought snacks.

Bee’s rucksack looked brand new. It had a surf-type pattern on it. I quite liked it. She was wearing her wellies.

‘Where’s your sleeping bag?’ I asked.

She turned to answer me. ‘Crammed it inside,’ and then went back to the conversation which seemed to be about whether Doodle would go back to being a badly behaved puppy without Bee there to make her mum treat him like a dog, and not a baby, for four days.

Fifty’s luggage was totally un-camp-like. He had one of those wheelie suitcases that businessmen take on aeroplanes (and business women, Bee would say). His sleeping bag was tied on to the handle of the suitcase and so were his wellies. On his back he had one of those cool rucksacks with water in them that you can suck as you go along (I think they’re called CamelBaks, that would make sense wouldn’t it? You know, humps).

‘Is that new?’ I pointed at the tube, resting on Fifty’s shoulder.

‘Yes. Mum bought it. Doesn’t want me to get dehydrated.’ He did a great big suck. ‘I like it. It’s like a dummy.’

‘What’s nice about a dummy?’ I said.

‘Don’t know, I never had one. Neither does Probably Rose, but she sucks her thumb so I bet she’d like one.’

Dummies were obviously more interesting than Doodle’s behaviour. Everyone piled in.

‘I had a dummy,’ said Copper Pie.

‘That figures,’ said Bee. We all laughed. He looked confused.

‘She means you are a dummy,’ said Fifty.

‘They’re not called dummies any more,’ said Jonno. ‘They’re pacifiers.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ said Fifty. ‘Giving them a name no baby could possibly say.’ He demonstrated. ‘Give me my gaga gaga pac-if-i-er, gaga.’

‘It’s because dummy isn’t a nice name,’ said Bee.

‘What about plastic people in shop windows?’ said Fifty. ‘They’re dummies.’

And we do dummies in football,’ said Copper Pie.’ You pretend to do something but you don’t.’

And they have dummy runs and that means practice runs,’ said Jonno.

‘But if you’re a dummy it means you’re stupid. So that’s why they changed it. You can’t call babies stupid. End of.’

The bell went. The dummy conversation, even though it was boring, had done a good job of passing the time.

Miss Walsh stood by the gate and said something in a loud voice. I didn’t get what she said because I was too busy staring at how funny she looked. Starting at the bottom, she had on big boots and those plastic things that go up to your knees to stop your trousers getting wet (hers were green) and baggy trousers and a belt with all sorts of things hanging off it (like a cowboy, but no guns) and a waterproof with reflecting stripes and a whistle round her neck and, worst of all, a brown leather hat with a big brim, like Australians wear – although they have corks hanging off theirs. She looked like we were going on an expedition, not getting a bus to Devon.