by Mark Lowery
Vanya stood up nervously, but Rosie leapt to her feet, quickly slathering lipstick on to her face. By the way, people aren’t meant to have make-up in school but last year Rosie got a letter from her doctor (which she clearly wrote herself) saying that, if she couldn’t wear make-up at all times, she would ‘literally die of embarrassment’ and ‘her blood would be on Mrs McDonald’s hands’.
‘So,’ Jason said, his voice still shaking. ‘One of you girls is gonna be my date tonight. The other is gonna miss out. I can reveal that the girl who’s going to the prom with me is …’
Everything seemed to slow down.
There was a long pause, just like when they announce the winners on BRT. Someone dimmed the lights. The whole audience began a drumroll on their knees. I glanced over at Vanya. I couldn’t read her face – was she excited? Nervous? A little freaked out? Meanwhile Rosie was practically having an asthma attack. ‘OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG-OMG!’ she squealed, crossing her fingers and bouncing up and down like a mad kangaroo.
I realised that Trevor had produced a second camera, which he was pointing directly at me. I was just wondering why, when Jason closed his eyes, then slowly said, ‘Vanya!’
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. All around the room people were cheering and cooing and whooping and drabbing. Rosie screamed, then staggered off out of the room, ranting that ‘someone would pay for this’.
‘Excellent,’ said Trevor from the side of the room.
The crowd quietened down. They were all staring at Vanya now. The camerawoman was so close that she probably could’ve counted Vanya’s eyelashes.
‘Oh,’ said Vanya, looking uncomfortable. ‘Well … I mean … er … I like you and we’re good friends, but er … I’ve been thinking …’
My eyebrows shot up my forehead. It sounded as if … surely not … but maybe … was she about to turn him down?
This was great!
Over at the side of the room, Trevor looked like he was going to explode.
Vanya glanced down at me – ME, I might just say here – then continued. ‘I’m not sure because …’
But before she could finish, there was a blood-curdling scream from outside the hall.
Kick Its Head In
Everyone spun round. Moments later, the door flew open, and there was Rosie, lipstick smeared across her face. ‘Help!’ she cried. ‘It’s a …’
She didn’t get the chance to finish. But she didn’t need to either because, at that moment, something smashed into her from behind and knocked her to the floor.
There was total chaos in the hall.
The people closest to the door were scrambling out of the way. Children in the front few rows were screaming. Teachers were panicking and flapping their arms about.
Then I saw why.
A sheep.
There was a flipping sheep in our leavers’ assembly. A big male one, with horns and wool and legs and everything. It charged past our class and into the audience, bucking and tossing its head about as kids clambered over each other to escape.
What the stuffed doughnut was going on here?
‘Go on, Jason! Kick its head in!’ screamed Gamble.
Jason didn’t answer him. He was dealing with the situation bravely. Well, by ‘bravely’ I mean he’d run away and was now halfway up the wall bars, wailing like a baby.
Gamble looked at him, then huffed out his cheeks. ‘All right. Fine,’ he sighed. Then he strode into the audience, his arm raised above his head. I noticed a pointy silver thing in his hand. With a swipe of his arm, he plunged it into the sheep’s neck. The sheep wobbled around for a few moments. Then it slumped to the ground and was still.
The whole hall went quiet, apart from the snoring of the sheep and the sound of Jason weeping from high above us.
‘Oh, this is marvellous!’ Trevor said, focusing his camera on him. ‘Keep those tears flowing, Jason. This’ll look great on TV.’
Who Was Responsible?
After the assembly was cut short and the hall evacuated, we all went back to class. Jason Grooves was sitting on a chair, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He was drinking a hot cup of tea that Trevor had brought for him, and making these strange whimpering noises.
Oh, please, I thought. It was a sheep, not a flipping T-rex.
And do you want to know the worst thing? Vanya had her arm around him. Her arm! Everything had looked great for a few seconds in the assembly – like she might reject him or something. And now she was hugging him! This was a disaster.
‘Say something, Jason,’ urged Trevor.
‘But I don’t feel li–’
‘Do it!’ said Trevor.
Jason sighed. He squeezed Vanya’s hand and gazed into her eyes like he was a sick puppy or something. ‘I don’t think I could take any more bad news today.’
What a weasel!
‘Oh – er … well …’ said Vanya.
I gulped. Was she about to agree to go to the prom with him?
Luckily, Mrs McDonald interrupted her.
‘Right,’ she said, from the front of the room. ‘Who was responsible for bringing a sheep into our leavers’ assembly?’
Of course, we all knew the answer to this already. Everyone turned towards Gamble. In the corner, Mr Gibbons’ pencil whizzed across his clipboard.
‘I was trying to be nice to Jason, innit,’ protested Gamble. ‘He said he hated sheep. I nicked it off a farmer. I thought me and him could take it out at playtime and take turns punching it. It was meant to stay in the toilets till then.’
‘But Jason loves all animals,’ said Trevor loudly. ‘He does not hate sheep at all. Remember that. Rule four – we’ve got to like the hero.’
Jason muttered something under his breath.
‘Darren. You brought a stolen sheep into school so that you could … beat it up?’ asked Mrs McDonald, removing her glasses.
Gamble looked confused. ‘Yeah. It was meant to be a surprise. I thought Trevor and Jason would put in a good word for me with Mr Gibbons afterwards.’
Without looking up, Mr Gibbons turned over his page and kept on writing.
‘I don’t really understand …’ said Mrs McDonald. She wasn’t the only one.
‘Jason kept saying he was upset after he lost to that juggling sheep in the BRT final,’ said Gamble, ‘so I thought it’d make him feel better if he could batter a sheep.’
If you ignored the fact that Gamble was going to attack a poor, defenceless animal which he’d kidnapped from a farm, I guess that this was actually quite a kind idea.
It was hard to ignore the bit about kidnapping and attacking the sheep though.
‘Told you. The kid’s completely crazy,’ said Miss Clegg to Mr Gibbons.
‘Hmmm,’ replied Mr Gibbons, still writing. ‘Very interesting.’
This was terrible. Not only was one of my best friends hugging Jason Grooves, but my other one was getting an even more awful report than before. He’d definitely be sent to the behaviour unit now. This day just got worse and worse.
I took a deep breath. Someone had to do something. Someone had to try and save Gamble from this total mess. And then maybe Vanya might think that this someone was a nice person who tried to help other people. And then she might stop hugging other people.
‘It was my fault,’ I said loudly. Everyone turned to face me now.
Was this such a good idea after all? Probably not, but it was too late – I had to keep going. ‘I … er … told him to do it. Darren was innocent. If anyone gets into trouble, it should be me.’
The camerawoman pointed her camera at me.
‘This could work,’ said Trevor. ‘Nice bit of drama with our evil villain.’
‘But Darren said …’ began Miss Clegg.
‘He lied,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘He was trying to save me. He always does stuff like that because he’s a really great kid. I brought the sheep in. Lucky Darren was here to put it to sleep. He’s a hero.’
‘Why would you bring a s
heep to school?’ asked Mrs McDonald, totally confused.
Jason glared at me. ‘Huh. Obvious. He wanted to upset me. Kid’s been shredding my tangerine ever since I came back. And I’ve been trying to be friendly.’
Vanya was shaking her head and looking at me with total disgust.
This hadn’t worked out quite as well as I’d hoped. Maybe sticking up for Gamble wasn’t such a great idea after all.
‘Is this true, Darren?’ asked Mrs McDonald.
Gamble looked at Mr Gibbons, then at Jason, then at me. At least I can still help Gamble, I thought. Reluctantly, I gave him a little nod. He seemed to understand and he sniffed. ‘Yep. Lucky I always carry a tranquilliser dart just in case.’
There was a long pause.
‘I’m sorry. Just in case of what?’ asked Mrs McDonald.
‘Dunno.’ Gamble shrugged. ‘I might need to knock someone out so I can pull out their teeth without them noticing or summat. I mixed the poison myself.’
Mrs McDonald pretended not to hear him. ‘And what are we going to do with a sleeping sheep? It’s still in the hall.’
‘Make burgers out of it?’ suggested Gamble.
A couple of people gasped in horror. Mr Gibbons was writing so fast his hand was a blur.
‘All right, all right,’ Gamble said. ‘Call my uncle Terry. He’ll come and get it in his van.’
‘And hurry up about it,’ snapped Trevor. ‘We’ve got to start setting up the hall for the prom right away.’
Mrs McDonald sighed. ‘Roman. Can you please say sorry to Jason?’
She sounded like she knew it wasn’t really me who was responsible for the sheep.
I mumbled an apology to Jason without looking at him.
Mr Gibbons seemed to be rubbing out everything he’d just written.
‘Oi! McDonald,’ said Miss Clegg, ‘you can’t seriously believe it was Roman. It must’ve been Darren. The kid’s a nutter. He’s always doing stuff like this. Remember when we had those baby chicks in class and he tried to swallow one whole?’
Mrs McDonald ignored her. ‘Miss Clegg. Please could you ask the caretaker to move the sheep out of the hall, then call Darren’s uncle?’
Miss Clegg let out a massive sigh, like she’d just been asked to unblock a toilet with her bare hands or something. ‘Of course, Your Majesty,’ she muttered as she left the room. ‘What did your last slave die of?’
Boring Morning
The rest of the morning was pretty boring. We had to make a pile of all our old school books to take home. My punishment for the sheep was to do this in the corridor away from everyone else. I didn’t mind too much. It meant I didn’t have to be in the same room as Jason, Trevor, Vanya, Gamble or Rosie.
Because Gamble was being interviewed by Mr Gibbons somewhere, I had to sort out his books as well. He’d done hardly any work all year. His maths book had a massive bite out of the corner and his English book looked and smelled like he’d eaten fish and chips off it. Tucked into his Romans topic folder was a flattened dead frog. And the only piece of work in his geography book was a map of the world, with all of the countries coloured in black. It had the title: ‘Wot wil bee left wen I mayk my bomb.’
All morning, I kept my eye on Jason through the classroom window in the corridor. Because he had no work to sort out, he just spent the whole time chatting to Vanya.
I kept on thinking about when he’d asked her to the prom. It had sounded like she was about to say no. But then again, she’d been so friendly with him all week that I didn’t know what to think. It was really confusing and made my brain hurt.
The strange thing was that Jason kept looking across the room as Vanya was talking to him. It was like he was more interested in something else. I couldn’t quite tell who or what he was looking at, but a few times Trevor stopped the filming and told him off.
At lunchtime, Trevor had organised a load of workmen to come in and sort the hall out for the prom. We had to eat in the classroom.
Because of this, the Year Six Random Choice Menu had been completely cancelled. The food was absolutely horrific: leftover spaghetti hoops from the other day. Obviously, I didn’t eat any of these. It meant that all I could have on my plate were a couple of ‘Potato Groofles’. These were another new Jason Grooves product – this time potato waffles in the shape of Jason doing the drab.
Surprisingly enough, I didn’t fancy eating them either, so I was absolutely starving by the time the afternoon came around.
During the rest of lunchtime, everyone signed each other’s shirts. People weren’t really talking to me after they’d seen episode one of the TV show, so the only person who signed mine was Gamble. Well, I say ‘signed’. Actually he just drew an enormous pair of boobs right across the front of it.
Rounders
In the afternoon, I was allowed back in class for the big rounders match that Mrs McDonald had been banging on about all week. Of course, I didn’t really want to play. I hate rounders. It’s totally pointless. Someone throws a ball. Someone else hits it with a stick. They run round in a circle while other people try to tap the ball against some posts. The end.
See: rubbish.
And it doesn’t help that I’m about as good at hitting the ball as a drunk jellyfish holding a piece of celery in its bottom.
Last term in PE we all had to invent our own sport. Mine was called Doughnutball. It’s way better than rounders and much easier to play. Basically, you split into two teams, sit down on the grass and eat doughnuts all afternoon. We weren’t allowed to play this though. Apparently, it wasn’t ‘healthy enough’ and PE is about ‘being active’ and ‘keeping fit’.
We all went out on to the field. Trevor split us into two teams (Mrs McDonald seemed to have given up on being in charge, and Trevor said he wanted to ‘get the balance right’ for the TV show).
This meant that I was on a team with Rosie Taylor, while Vanya and Jason were on the other team. I was a bit cheesed off about this – the last time I was on Rosie’s team for rounders, she accidentally hit me with her bat. Well, I say ‘accidentally’ – she did chase me round the field three times first.
‘The Groove-stars will bat second,’ said Trevor.
‘We usually toss a coin,’ replied Mrs McDonald.
Trevor ground his teeth together. ‘We’re making a TV show. I don’t care. Bald man. Will you keep score? You’ve got a clipboard.’
Mr Gibbons looked up from where he was standing at the side of the pitch. ‘Oh no. Sorry. I’m just here to watch young Darren. And … er … speaking of Darren. What’s he doing over there?’
Gamble was at the far side of the field, scrambling over the fence from the staff car park. Weirdly, he seemed to be coming from the TV crew’s van. When he reached the field, Trevor the TV guy winked at him. Gamble winked back.
This was seriously weird.
‘What’s going on?’ I whispered to Gamble, as he lined up next to me.
Gamble tapped his nose. ‘Top secret, innit. Told you – I’m trying to show what a helpful kid I am.’
I don’t like it when Gamble is secretive. Like that time he entered me for the ‘Miss Bikini Babe Worldwide’ beauty competition by sending in Photoshopped pictures of my head stuck on to the body of a woman in a swimsuit. I only found out when I got invited to America to take part in the final.
As he sat there, ignoring me, the game started.
Here are the highlights:
There were no highlights.
My team scored six rounders, but I didn’t really help much with this. On my turn, I managed to hit the ball, which was a completely new experience for me. Unfortunately it went straight up in the air, bounced off the top of my head and was caught easily by Jason Grooves at backstop. He celebrated by triple backflipping over to Vanya, then doing this stupid dance with her. I nearly cried.
On Gamble’s turn, he managed to score a rounder without actually hitting the ball. When it was bowled to him, he caught it, shoved it down his undies, then ran all
the way round. Nobody tried to stop him.
‘Shouldn’t he be out?’ asked Trevor.
Mrs McDonald shook her head. ‘We don’t normally say that Darren is out. There was an … incident last year. One of the other children had to have a rounders post removed from his nose.’
‘Oh,’ said Trevor.
After that, we got a fresh ball (nobody was going to touch the one that’d been down Gamble’s pants without a pair of thick gloves) and my team had to field.
Nothing interesting happened until the last batter came forward, with the scores tied at six rounders each. It was then that everything went very, very wrong.
A Slap in the Ear
Of course, Trevor had arranged it so that Jason could hit the winning rounder. Jason swaggered up, swinging the bat around and spinning it over his wrists.
‘OK,’ said Mrs McDonald, with the camera pointing at her. ‘Score this rounder and your team wins, Jason.’
The camera and everyone else’s eyes turned towards Jason. Off the pitch, Vanya Goyal was cheering him and clapping her hands.
Suddenly, I had this burning feeling that took over my whole brain. I had to stop him scoring the winning run. This was totally unlike me. Normally I couldn’t care less about winning or losing in rounders. Usually the only thing I worry about is making sure I don’t get caught eating the secret doughnut I smuggle on to the pitch under my T-shirt.
But not today.
As Jason took up his position, I suddenly felt something I’d never felt before: I wanted to do well in PE. I wanted to get him out. I wanted to stop him from winning. He’d messed up this whole week with this TV show, and the prom, and making Vanya hate me. And now I wanted to do something about it.
‘I’m warning y’all. JG does not like to lose at anything,’ he said.
The ball was lobbed towards him and he pulled back his bat. I crouched forward, ready to spring into action to stop the ball when he hit it.