The Bed and Breakfast Star (20 page)

But I couldn’t be absolutely sure she was telling the truth. I wished I was as little as Pippa so she could pick me up and give me a big hug to reassure me. I felt little inside. And stupid. And sad. And sorry.

I was extra loud and noisy and bouncy and bossy at school to try to make myself feel big again. It didn’t work. I kept telling jokes to Funny-Face and he kept laughing, but Mrs Fisher was frowning and she made us stay in at playtime and write out I MUST LEARN TO BEHAVE PROPERLY IN THE CLASSROOM fifty times.

Funny-Face is not very good at writing. His words wobble up over the line and slide down below it. His spelling’s a bit wobbly too. He missed out one of the ‘s’s in classroom. Mrs Fisher pointed this out huffily. I was scared she might make him do it all over again, so I tried to lighten things a little.

‘Why can’t you remember there are two ‘s’s in class?’ she said crossly. ‘I’ve told you enough times.’

‘Which ‘s’ did he leave out this time, Mrs Fisher?’ I said.

It was a joke. A bit of a feeble one, but a joke all the same. Only Mrs Fisher just thought I was being cheeky.

Do you know what happened? We had to stay in at lunchtime too. Funny-Face had to write out CLASSROOM another fifty times, and I had to write out a fresh fifty: I MUST LEARN NOT TO BE CHEEKY IN THE CLASSROOM.

‘That’s silly, anyway,’ I muttered. ‘That sounds like I can be cheeky in the hall and cheeky in the corridors and cheeky in the toilets and cheeky all over the place. And I wasn’t blooming cheeky to start with. I was just joking.’

‘You and your
^*
@!+!@
^*
jokes!’ said Funny-Face, laboriously drawing ‘s’s.

‘Hey, don’t be like that. Listen, this boy was kept in at lunchtime just like us and his teacher said he had to write out this sentence of not less than fifty words, right? So do you know what he wrote?’

‘No, and I don’t care,’ said Funny-Face. ‘Here, I’ve got all these poxy ‘s’s in the right place, haven’t I?’

‘Yes. Though hang on, you’ve started to miss out your ‘o’s now. There are two in classroom. Like us two in this classroom. But listen to the punchline bit of my joke. This boy wrote, “I went to call my cat in for the night so I stood at the door and called: ‘Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .’”’

‘Shut
up
, Elsa.’

‘No, I haven’t done enough kittys – there are supposed to be fifty. And you’ve missed out another ‘o’ there –
and
there.’

‘You’ll be going O in a minute, when I punch you right in the nose,’ Funny-Face growled.

‘What do you give a pig with a sore nose? Oinkment,’ I said, snorting like a little pig myself because I think that’s one of my funnier jokes.

Funny-Face didn’t think it funny at all.

‘Why don’t you shut your cakehole?’ he said, and he sounded so menacing I did what he said.

I wished he hadn’t used that expression. We still hadn’t been allowed to have our dinners and I kept thinking very wistfully of cake. When horrible old Mrs Fisher eventually let us go, we had to squeeze in right at the end of second-sitting dinners, when all the goodies had long since gone. Not one chip left. We had to make do with a salad, and no-one ever chooses bunny food from choice. I know some excellent bunny jokes but I decided it might be better to keep them in their burrow in my head. Funny-Face still didn’t look ready for mirth as he chomped his way morosely through his lettuce.

We had a new teacher in the hall in the afternoon to take us for singing. It was a relief to be free of the Fishy-Eye and I was all set to sing my cares away. I didn’t know many of the songs but I’ve always been good at improvising. So I threw back my head and let rip. But the teacher stopped playing the piano. Her face was all screwed up as if she had a terrible headache.

‘Who is making that . . . noise?’ she asked.

We stared at her. What did she mean? We were all making a noise. We were singing.

Only she didn’t seem to appreciate that. She made us start again, this time without the piano. I decided not to let this faze me. I sang out joyfully. The teacher shuddered.

‘You!’ she said, pointing.

I peered round. No, it wasn’t anyone else. She was pointing at me.

‘Yes, you. The little bed-and-breakfast girl.’

The other children around me sniggered. I felt my face start to burn, like the Royal Hotel’s toast.

‘Could you try not to sing so loudly, please?’ said the teacher.

‘Why?’ I said, astonished.

‘Because you’re singing rather flat, dear. And completely out of tune. In fact, it might be better if you didn’t sing at all, even softly. How about just nodding your head in time to the music?’

The other kids collapsed, nudging each other and tittering.

‘Some stage star, eh! She can’t even sing in tune,’ they hissed.

I had to spend the whole singing lesson with my mouth shut, nid-nodding away like Little Noddy. I didn’t feel much like making a noise after that. I hardly said anything on the way home from school. Funny-Face kept having a go at me, but I didn’t respond.

‘What’s up, Elsa?’ said Naomi, putting her arm round me. ‘Here, I’m sorry my mum got mad at you. It wasn’t really fair for her to pick on you.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s what everyone does. Pick on me,’ I said gloomily.

‘Hey, don’t be like that. You’re always so cheerful. I can’t bear it when you’re all sad. Tell us a joke, go on.’

But for the first time in my life I didn’t even feel like telling jokes. Mum gave me a big hug when I went up to room 608. She sent Mack out for a special Kentucky chicken tea.

‘To make up for last night, lovie,’ said Mum. ‘Sorry about that. And Mack’s sorry he got snappy too. He’s feeling better now.’

Mack might be feeling better, Mum might be feeling better. I didn’t feel better at all.

I normally love Kentucky chicken takeaways. I like to sit cross-legged on the floor with Pippa and kid on we’re American pioneers like in
Little House on the Prairie,
and we’re eating a chicken our Pa has raised and there are prowling bears outside who can smell it cooking but we’re safe inside our little log cabin.

‘Play our game,’ Pippa commanded, but somehow I couldn’t make it work.

I usually finish off the game by pretending Hank is a baby bear cub and we all feed him bits of chicken (Hank loves this game too) and then we have a jolly sing-song. But now I didn’t feel I ever wanted to sing again.

I didn’t want to say anything.

I didn’t want to tell jokes.

I didn’t want to be me.

‘Do try and cheer up, Elsa,’ said Mum. ‘Come on, you’re going to have to go to bed if you sulk around the room like this.’

‘I don’t care,’ I said.

So I went to bed really early, before Pippa – even before Hank. Of course it was difficult to get to sleep when the light was on and the telly was loud and there were two and a half people and a baby still racketing round the room, but I put my head way down under the covers and curled up in a little ball with my hands over my ears.

When I woke up I couldn’t hear anything even when I took my hands away. I stuck my head out the covers. I could hardly see anything either in the dark. It seemed like the middle of the night.

And yet . . . someone was cooking supper somewhere. I could smell chips. People sometimes stayed up really late and made midnight snacks. I licked my lips. I hadn’t eaten all my Kentucky chicken because I’d felt so fed up. I could do with a little snack now myself.

I wondered who was cooking in the kitchen. I’d got to know most of our sixth floor by now. Most of them were quite matey with me. I wondered if they’d consider sharing a chip or two.

I eased myself out of bed. Pippa mumbled something in her sleep, but didn’t wake up. I picked my way across the crowded floor, tripping over Pippa’s My Little Pony and stepping straight into a Kentucky chicken carton, but eventually reached the door. I opened it very slowly so that it wouldn’t make any noise and crept outside into the corridor. Then I stood still, puzzled. There was a much stronger smell now. And there was a strange flickering light coming from right down the end, in the kitchen. And smoke. You don’t get smoke without . . . FIRE!

For just one second I stood still, staring. And then I threw back my head and gave a great lion roar.

‘FIRE!’ I shouted. ‘FIRE FIRE FIRE!’