The Girl With Death Breath and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls (4 page)

But there was really nothing he could do. Time went on and Anne became worse. She even went crazy in the school vegetable patch. Chadstone Central Primary School had one of those fantastic programs where kids are allowed to grow fruit and vegetables in the school grounds and then make yummy meals in class. It used to be one of Anne's favourite things to do. But not anymore.

She squashed all the tomatoes in her fingers, kicked the pumpkins (it hurt a bit but she pretended she didn't feel a thing), snapped all the beans in half, stomped on the strawberries and smashed the blueberries with a garden stake.

‘Look,' she said. ‘Instant fruit salad.'

Her parents tried their best to calm her down, and Anne knew they were probably right when they said that the best way to beat boredom is to find a new hobby or sport or read a book. But Anne didn't want to find a ‘grown-up' answer to her problems. Not just then, anyway. It was as if she'd gone so far down the bad track that to turn back now would make her look foolish.

Finally, Mrs Noakes said, ‘Anne, unless your behaviour improves we'll have no choice but to expel you.You'll have to leave here and go to another school. Do you understand?'

‘Understand?' said Anne. ‘The sooner the better.'

It was only a short time later that Anne was gone. On her last day, Mrs Noakes tried one last time to talk to her.

‘This might seem like a funny thing to say,' said Mrs Noakes, ‘but you do realise, I hope, that once you leave here you can never come back?'

‘Bonus,' said Anne, crossing her arms.

A year went by and in that time Anne started and quickly finished at three different schools.
All of them boring.
And all the time, although she would never admit to it, those words went around in her head.
‘Never come back.'

For some strange reason – maybe because she knew it could never happen – going back to her old school, Chadstone Central, became something she wanted more than anything else in the world.

Over and over again she remembered the time she scored the winning goal against Solway and how they sang all the way home on the bus. The time she cuddled the little kindy kid when she found her crying on her first day. And the time that terribly shy but really nice Richard Hewson asked if he could walk home with her.

She hadn't seen Richard since she left Chadstone Central.
I wonder what he's doing
now?
thought Anne.

Anne even found herself walking home past Chadstone Central, just to have a look at the old place. And she found herself realising that there was nothing wrong with Chadstone Central. Or any other school for that matter. Just something wrong with her.

Late one afternoon, Mrs Noakes was packing her bags to go home when there was a knock at the door.

It was Anne.

‘Sorry to bother you,' said Anne, ‘but there's something I just have to ask. Please. If that's okay, I mean?'

‘Go on,' said Mrs Noakes.

‘You know how you said I could never come back,' said Anne. ‘Did you really mean it?'

‘Yes, I did,' said Mrs Noakes. ‘But I can tell the Anne Spinks I spoke to then isn't the same girl I see standing before me now. This one is more than welcome.'

You would never have guessed twelve months ago that Anne Spinks would end up crying and hugging the school principal. And that Mrs Noakes would have a tear in her eye as well.

When Boofer Barnes started at our school because he'd been kicked out of his old one for bullying, you didn't have to be that smart to see trouble coming our way. Especially when our own school bully, Meat-Head Morgan, said, ‘Great. With two of us we should be able to bash up three times as many kids.'

Good maths, Meat-Head.

To get into our school, Boofer promised that he would change his ways, of course. He'd be a good boy. And they believed him. Der!

Well, it wasn't long before Boofer had every one of us shaking with fear. On the way to school, on the way home, at lunchtime, even in class. From the very first day, Boofer was punching us on the arm, tripping us and spitting on our backs. Giving wedgies, corkies, bockers and headlocks. Jumpers were ripped, rulers snapped, books torn and school bags thrown over fences.

‘Only reason I got kicked out of my old school,' said Boofer, ‘is a couple of little sucks dobbed on me. Anyone tries ratting here and they're dead.'

As far as I could work out, Boofer was nasty because he thought the rest of us were a pack of wimps. And wimps deserve to get bashed. Fair enough. We weren't all weakies, of course. It's just that Boofer was twice as big and strong as any kid I'd ever seen. But that didn't seem to have entered his big, fat, ugly head.

Of course, Meat-Head Morgan was most taken with Boofer's thuggery and it wasn't long before he was thumping everyone even harder than before. And sucking up to Boofer something shocking.

‘That kid you just decked,' Meat-Head would ask Boofer. ‘Do you want me to jump on him as well? Or knee him or something?'

Like a vulture, he was, hanging around for Boofer's scraps. With Boofer being so huge, even Meat-Head looked small. But for some reason, Boofer let him tag along.

The bullying soon became so bad that some of us found excuses not to go to school. Earache, headache, sick stomach, heart attack…

My father must have cottoned on, because he pulled me aside for a chat.You know how parents usually don't know anything? Well, sometimes, he did make a bit of sense. He could tell I was scared to go to school and he guessed it was because of bullying.

‘There's one thing worth remembering,' he said. ‘All bullies are cowards. Gutless. Because they only pick on people smaller than them. People they know they can beat. You watch in a football match. They'll run around whacking everybody from behind but they'll never, ever go into the packs where they might get hurt. They'll never go in for the hard ball.'

Which set me thinking. The very next day at school, having been hit by Boofer again that morning, I gave everyone the shock of their lives.

‘Mrs Cullen,' I asked, ‘I think we should have a football match in the next PE lesson. My team against Boofer's team. And I want to play on Boofer because I'm going to show he's got no guts.'

Do you think that didn't cause a stir!

Now, it so happened that I was one of Mrs Cullen's favourite students and although I knew she'd yell at me for being so rude, I also knew that she would probably say yes. And she did. Because she was smart. Although most teachers would have guessed by now that Boofer was up to his old tricks, no-one had evidence. No-one had actually seen anything or heard any complaints.

So, it was as if Mrs Cullen thought,
I don't
know what he's up to, but it's probably worth
a try.

The team I picked was, of course, way better than Boofer's because I was friends with everyone and knew all the best players. My team was so much better, in fact, that we could just about do as we liked. Kick a goal if we felt like it, let them kick one if we didn't. Which was part of my secret plan.

Of course Boofer ran around crunching everyone from behind, just as Dad had said, but he never, ever went into the packs. We played almost the whole game without doing anything special, just working it deliberately so that the scores were always level.

And then finally the game was almost over. Suddenly, Boofer found himself standing alone with the ball rolling towards him. On my signal, everyone had kept their distance from Boofer, but by now the ball was almost at his feet.

‘Get him!' I yelled. ‘If he kicks a goal, they win!'

Kids ran from everywhere with fierce looks and bloodcurdling screams. So the pack that Boofer had been avoiding all day was suddenly around him!

We didn't even need to tackle Boofer. Instead of picking the ball up, Boofer turned to jelly. Sooked off completely. He dropped to his knees and covered his head with his arms like a scared rabbit. And then, as the whistle went for the end of the game, Boofer lifted his head to see the rest of us standing in a circle, smiling and laughing, ‘Wimp, wimp!'

‘I hope you do keep bullying us,' I said to Boofer as we turned to walk away, ‘because it will always remind me of the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life. And,' I added, as I took out the camera I just happened to have in my pocket, ‘this will make a great photo for the end-of-year school magazine.'

Boofer stayed out on the ground for a very long time, refusing to get changed until we had all left. Everyone, that is, except Meat-Head Morgan. Poor Meat-Head had slipped in the change rooms after the game and torn the nail off his big toe. Life can be so unfair, can't it?

Jane Bransgrove couldn't understand it. ‘Why do some people have so much and others hardly have anything? That fat, ugly Lucille Hardy's got a horse, a tennis court, a bike – everything! Yet poor little Emma White has holes in her jumper, holes in her shoes and holes in her lunchbox where some food should be.'

Emma lived in a caravan park with her mum and four brothers and sisters. She hadn't seen her dad for years. He used to write to her sometimes, but even that stopped. ‘He's just really busy,' Emma told Jane.

Jane played with Emma most nights at the caravan park. And there was never anything to eat. Nothing. Girls get hungry after school, but poor Emma's mum never seemed to have any money, even for food. So Emma always looked thin and pale and sad. And Jane was tired of feeling bad about it.

One night, Jane lay in bed thinking. What could she do to help? Maybe she could sell some of her toys and give the money to Emma's mum. But who'd want a doll's house the dog sleeps in, or old Britney Spears posters?

Perhaps she and Emma could get jobs after school. But where? Jobs were hard enough to get for grown-ups.

Then she thought of it.
Old Billy Dunn.
Billy Dunn was a nice old man who lived next door and used to collect newspapers and bottles and sell them. Until he found something better. Much better. Panning for gold.

‘There's plenty of gold still around, if you want to look for it,' Billy was always saying. ‘Especially in the hills up the back.'

Jane knew he was telling the truth because Billy had just bought a new truck. So Jane pestered Billy to take her and Emma with him one weekend.

Billy didn't want to, at first. He said it was no place for a little girl. Much too dangerous. There were old mine shafts you couldn't see, snakes, spiders…

‘I'm not scared of any of that!' said Jane. ‘Emma and I see snakes all the time. At the back of the caravan park.'

‘What about your parents?' asked Billy.

‘They won't mind,' said Jane. Secretly, she knew they would mind. A lot. So she'd have to ask them when they were in a good mood.

‘Well,' said Billy. ‘All right. Just the once. And just to make sure your parents are happy, I'll ask them myself. Tomorrow.'