Masterminders

by Tara Basi

  “Wow, fantastic, that’s really great Bobby. I mean 1p is not much but its OK, it’s not really about the money.”

  “Good to hear Terry, you’ll need to raise the whole £10.23p by next Friday.”

  “What?”

  “Exactly, but I’ve secured resale rights, we’ll make a killing once the viral campaign takes off, which of course it will. And, did I mention, you get a free copy of the VT the day after publication,” Bobby added as though that would make everything alright.

  “£10.23p by the end of next week? £10.23p. More than £10? A tenner plus a bit, are you mad Bobby?”

  “Stop whining Terry, you’re going to be a published author, now to the marketing.”

  We spent the whole weekend practicing Bobby’s insane marketing campaign ready for the launch on Monday morning. I played along in a bankrupt daze not really understanding what Bobby was up to, but hoping all his trouser belt fingering was going to save me.

  It wasn’t properly raining on Monday morning; instead, we had a wet dewy mist substitute, which was just as wet but harder to hide from.

  “You know what you have to do Terry,” Bobby whispered as we both stood in the centre of playground with damp misty bits trying to climb up our trouser legs. I sighed, and pretended to myself that I was still home in my nice warm bed and just having a nightmare about the start of the campaigning.

  “Do I have to?” I said.

  “You want to be famous, right?” said Bobby.

  I took a deep breath and started running.

  “Oh my god, that is just amazing,” I screamed and spiralled around every playground corner, “when does it come out? I’ve got to get a copy!” I ended up back in front of Bobby.

  “Please, you’ve gotta help me Bobby,” I screamed again at an impassive Bobby, “I can’t stand it, get me a copy, just one! There must be some way.” I did my spiral playground run again, screaming the words out on repeat, and returned to Bobby and collapsed in a heap at his feet sobbing. Bobby didn’t say anything, he just walked away and stood quietly in one of the darker corners of the playground. I went to the opposite corner and we waited, but not for long.

  “What’s happening, tell me?” Tiny Tim whispered out of the corner of his mouth. He leaned with his back against the wall next to me and pretended to tie the shoelace on his wellington.

  “It’s a secret, right? A super-secret, you can’t tell anybody, nobody, not even your cat. This Saturday and for 9 days after the VT’s going to be dishing the dirt on the Power 3. All their secrets, everything, even the naughty bits. An undercover reporter, disguised as a wheelie bin, has been hiding in the playground for months, taking pics and everything,” I whispered and that was that.

  “Is he still here?” Tim asked staring intensely at the two wheelie bins that were always in our playground.

  “Duh, no…. he left last week,” I explained to Tiny, who smiled, touched his nose, winked, nodded, pulled his jacket collar up and strode off into the mist.

  I’d done all I was supposed to. If anybody else asked me anything I would say, “Ask Tiny Tim, he’s the expert, he told me all about it,” and then shiver with excitement and giggle insanely.

  At our next break Bobby was surrounded by the Power 3. They only seemed to be talking, which was odd; not the talking, but the lack of any beating before, during or after.

  “It’s all sorted Terry. The Power 3 wants me to come up with a plan to stop anyone seeing the undercover expose in the VT, and, they’re willing to pay,” Bobby explained excitedly.

  “What about my poems, you can’t stop my poems. That’s gotta be illegal, against art or something,” I spluttered, suddenly not liking this marketing stuff at all.

  “We get the articles censored. Nothing’s happening to your poems, unless of course we can’t raise the £10.23p,’ Bobby whispered giving me a keep-up look.

  “But there are no articles, we made that up,” I answered, trying to keep-up.

  “Exactly, now let’s go see Mr Singh,” Bobby hissed and then stared up at the sky clenching and unclenching his fists for a moment before we set off.

  Mr Singh was at his usual place behind the counter looking bored and thoughtful at the same time.

  “Hello, mad disgusting poet, come to get master lesson from famous Mr Singh?” Mr Singh smirked rather unkindly, but he’d soon learn, well, if I could find £10.23p, which was unlikely, so he probably wouldn’t.

  “Mr Singh, as an astute business man, I’m sure you’ve thought about running a state of the art marketing campaign to increase sales, of say, for instance, the VT, but could never find the right one. Am I right?” Bobby asked.

  “No.”

  “Exactly, so that’s where B&T Global Advertising comes in. We have a unique offering. We guarantee to logarithmically expand your sales of the VT for 10 days starting this Saturday, or your money back,” Bobby explained while waving his hands about and doing extreme smiling.

  “Rubbish, same old dying people buy VT every day, never changes. Only ever get four copies. Soon be three, Mr Donks not looking too good lately.”

  “For £15 we can guarantee you’ll sell one hundred copies of the VT every day for ten days. Think of all the extra footfall,” Bobby continued, obviously running a bit wild.

  “Why I want peoples’ foot fall off. How’s that good for business, unless I sell walking sticks. No, it’s all rubbish. Extra ninety six copies only £20 profit for me. Ten days, is… I give you £2,” Mr Singh finally offered, after his eyeballs had stopped wobbling.

  Bobby and Mr Singh haggled away for a good hour and finally Mr Singh agreed to £5 now, £5 after he’d actually sold 1000 copies of the VT.

  “Right Terry, to the Power 3.”

  “You sure about this, Bottom Face?” Tony asked with the usual mix of threat and disgust.

  “We give McFont £20 and he’ll spike the articles. Can’t say what the journo might do, but nobody’s going to believe anything that’s not actually in the paper officially.”

  “Who’s this journo swot? We’ll fix him ourselves,” George demanded with menaces. I tried to hide a little tremble as it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn’t have signed the poems with my real name.

  “Huge ex-psycho-marine, best not disturbed,” Bobby whispered while sneaking a glance at the wheelie bins.

  “You could be making all of this up. Maybe you get £20 and there was never going to be anything in the VT anyway,” Madge, the brightest spark in the Power 3, suggested.

  “Oh no, it’ll be properly done, it’ll be obvious, you’ll see. Or you know where to find Terry and… me,” Bobby offered, with a bit too much of a pause between the Terry and the Bobby.

  Bobby rushed the £20 from the Power 3 and the £5 from Mr Singh to Mr McFont before I could even mention my preference for anonymity. He was back within the hour.

  “All sorted Terry, paid your £10.23 and Mr McFont agreed to spike the Power 3 articles for a guaranteed increase in circulation,” Bobby announced breathlessly. He’d just made it back to the playground before lessons.

  “How can he spike the articles and still publish my poems? I don’t get it,” which I knew was a stupid question only because of the way Bobby’s eyes rolled around even before I’d finished speaking.

  “There are no articles, just your poems, it’ll all be obvious on Saturday. Just wait. Meanwhile we still have work to do. You’re going to be up all night putting the posters up,” Bobby answered as he handed me a piece of paper.

  “This makes no sense,” I hissed in frustration.

  “It’s marketing, nothing to do with sense. I thought it best we sign your poems with a pseudonym. Things could get very ugly next week.”

  I was annoyed the pseud kid was going to get all the credit for my poems but also relieved. The Power 3 could be very harsh critics. It was a long night. I stayed after school and printed off a hundred posters. Around midnight I snuck out of the house and trudged all over the island sticking them up. In the morning every
one woke to the same strange message:

  ‘Look for the Aliens. Look for the Diet.

  They can’t silence me, the truth will come out. All their secrets will be revealed in the VT from this Saturday for 10 days. But only for those who can read the code!

  Wiki-Alien-Diet’

  On Saturday morning the queue outside Mr Singh’s Post Office went all round the town square. It carried on down to the beach, where the line extended all the way to the end of the beach dump. People on the beach had to keep running back and forth, balancing the risk of losing their place in the queue, getting wet feet from the incoming tide or impaled on spiky rubbish in the dump. And the Post Office hadn’t even opened yet. Bobby and I were sitting inside the Café enjoying our hot Galaxy Grande CAC and carefully studying the VT. Bobby had got Mr Singh to open the Café first. As usual there was today’s copy of the VT on a chain attached to the table. At first, nothing in the VT made any sense. The whole of the front page was blank, except for one sentence.

  ‘This page intentionally left blank for reasons of national security or some such.’

  I frantically flicked through the pages, but my first poem wasn’t there.

  “Bobby?” I wailed, trying to be brave but feeling an unmanly big weep coming on. After all that work and midnight fly-posting we’d failed.

  “Look under ‘Sale or Swop, Date or Not’,” Bobby said and smugly smiled.

  And there it was: ‘Alien Lunch by Wiki-Alien-Diet’ sandwiched between an ad for an off-road pram and an offer of a free massage for eligible young women. “Wow, fantastic. I’m published, I’m famous! But only you know I’m Wiki-Alien-Diet,” I suddenly realised with a little disappointment.

  “When the Power 3 are no longer a threat we can reveal the true identity of Wiki-Alien-Diet, if you still want to own up to… this,” Bobby explained, pointing a wobbly finger at my wonderful poem. I felt so much better. It’d only be a couple of years before the Power 3 left for the Big Island school and then I’d step forward and people would shower me with money, and girls would scream when I walked past.

  Actually I didn’t have to wait that long at all. When I went back in the evening to Mr Singh’s shop, to get my own copy of the VT he’d set aside he, gave me a very funny look.

  “I know this Alien rubbish disgusting thing yours. Great poetry like My Sikh Cat get nothing, and you, you, get filth in paper and everyone desperate to read. You must be going to be big star author someday so sign my copy of VT now, and keep it quiet, want only rare first Wiki-Alien-Diet poem VT signed edition, and here’s £5,” Mr Sigh said, looking like he was chewing an especially bitter CAC seed pod.

  As I walked home past Mr Dicklightly’s bookshop I saw he’d put a notice in his window saying Wiki-Alien-Diet was permanently barred, with a p.s. saying, ‘yes that means you, you little tease’. I never liked books anyway, so that wasn’t a problem.

  I was almost famous, a published author. I had an official fan in Mr Singh, and Bobby had given me another £5 left over from agent’s expenses. This writing thing was definitely for me, especially when I saw Madge go completely red with passion reading one of my poems in the playground. True, Tony and George also turned red quite a lot over the next 10 days but I don’t think that was passion. For a long time afterwards everyone on the island argued about the secret message in the coded Wiki-Alien-Diet poems. Sometimes we’d sit quietly in the Café tent listening to the Wiki conversations outside the Klutzy Boffo Bookshop.

  “It’s obviously about the war, Tony Blair, George Bush, gettit?”

  “Whose Madge then?”

  “Duh, the Mujahedeen.”

  “Of course it’s not about that. It’s a warning about the risk to the global economy of mounting US debt. ‘Aliens Poo Too’ is quite clear on the subject.”

  “What? You’re crazy.”

  And so it went. I was way cleverer than I’d ever imagined.

  I posted some of my best poems to Dad so he could see how well I was doing at school. It didn't quite work out as I’d expected. Mum and Dad ended up having a huge row on the phone about my education. It seemed Dad thought I was being overeducated, risking a thickening of my brain cells, while Mum thought my education was going just fine. No one mentioned my fab poetry.

  Chapter Eleven – Revolution

  This time of year I was used to going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark, but today was worse than usual. Crunched-up black clouds covered the whole sky, almost hanging low enough to touch. Though you wouldn’t want to because you just knew they were packed with big fat raindrops. We weren’t going to see a sunrise today. Ignoring the dark clouds I ran to the playground to tell Bobby my amazing news.

  “I’m spending the New Year with my dad in Glasgow. Mum just told me. Isn’t it fantastic,” but Bobby didn’t seem to think it was fantastic. He just stared at his feet and winced when I mentioned my dad.

  I joined him and leant back against the church wall. We were quiet for a little while.

  “How’s your dad?” I asked, expecting the usual shrug or a quick change of subject. For once, Bobby actually seemed about to answer. He started to mumble something I couldn’t quite make out. Just then the Power 3 strolled past.

  “Look, it’s super-losers, even lost their dads,” Tony shouted and then sneered in the awful way only Tony could. It made you feel bad, even if you’d no idea what he was on about, which I didn’t. Me and Bobby knew exactly where our dads were.

  Bobby went crazy. His face went all red and screwed up, he looked really mad. I’d never seen Bobby like that. With his arms flailing like a pair of propellers he threw himself at Tony. Unlike Tony, Masterminder Bobby was no fighter. Tony easily sidestepped Bobby’s charge, tripped him up and sent him sprawling. In a second Tony was sitting on Bobby’s chest pinning his arms down with his knees, one hand around his throat, the other raised in a balled fist, which he just held there. “My mum says your dad won’t make it to Christmas. Shall we bet on it?” Tony whispered with a nasty grin.

  I was terrified, rooted to the spot. Bobby thrashed around in a helpless rage as Tony just stared at him coldly. Instead of just hitting Bobby, Tony made a horrible noise at the back of his throat. I just couldn’t let that happen to my friend. I ducked my head down and charged, roaring as fiercely as I could, but the mix of fear and adrenaline turned my battle cry into a very high pitched squeal.

  As I passed George he crashed his huge fist down onto the back of my head and almost knocked me out. I’d only taken a couple of steps. At least it made Tony pause for a moment, enough time for Madge to intervene.

  “Enough, let’s go. You shouldn’t have said those things about his dad,” Madge shouted at Tony, still sitting on Bobby’s chest. He twisted around and gave her a really filthy look, then got up and left with George.

  “Sorry Bobby. That was very brave Terry,” Madge said quietly, before turning to follow after Tony and George.

  I shook my head to clear the ringing noise in my ears and the hallucination that Madge had said something nice to me, but the hammers kept on quietly banging. Bobby helped me up. He was still in a rage, but at the same time I could tell he was trying hard not to cry.

  “Thanks… for… helping, and…. good news. About your dad,” Bobby sniffed.

  “What was Tony going on about?” I asked, still confused about what had just happened.

  “Forget it. There’s more important stuff,” Bobby answered, almost back to his old self.

  “Really, what?”

  “Revolution, a playground revolution. Now I need to think, we’ll talk tomorrow. Bring fake blood and mascara,” and with that mysterious response Bobby shuffled in to school.

  The new school day dawned with the same horrible dark weather, but I didn’t really notice. I’d spent most of the night wracking my brains about Bobby’s revolution. Who would be revolting and against what? I just couldn’t wait to get to school to hear Bobby’s plan. My feet flew across the pavement as I ran as fast as I could towa
rds the playground. I don’t think the school janitor had ever seen a queue outside the school gates, even if it was just me queuing. As soon as the gates were opened I rushed in and ran around a bit to keep warm and calm down while I waited for Bobby. I didn’t have to wait for long.

  “We’re going to overthrow the tyranny of the Power 3 and give the playground back to the children,” Bobby announced with a steely determination. “Cool, how?”

  “A spontaneous mass uprising by the children for the children. A peaceful and dignified protest against the dictatorship of the Powers.”

  “Will that do it?”

  “Not really, but the peaceful protest will be supported by a black-ops campaign against the Power 3,” Bobby explained in more hushed tones.

  “Black-ops, fantastic,” I squealed.

  “And we’ll need a martyr,” Bobby continued staring directly me.

  “Martyr, as in saints-type horrible-death martyrdom?” I asked, no longer enjoying the plan as much as I had been.

  “Exactly. Now, did you bring the stuff?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually have any fake blood but I gave myself a nose bleed and mixed it with ketchup to bulk it up. I couldn’t find any mascara. I don’t think my mum uses it, so I made my own out of coal dust and pencil shavings. Here,” I explained as I handed over a little tub of my precious essence with ketchup and another full of black powder.

  “They’ll have to do,” Bobby sighed, rather ungratefully I thought given I’d stayed up half the night filling the two tubs.

  Then Bobby did something very strange. He threw himself on the ground and rolled about till he looked a right mess. Just as suddenly he got up and vanished into the playground toilets. A few minutes he later he reappeared and I was shocked. He looked like he’d been beaten up really badly. His face was streaked with blood and he had a huge black eye. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a big brown envelope addressed to the ‘Power 3’.