All the Fun of the Fair: A hilarious, brilliantly original coming-of-age story that will capture your heart

by Caroline Hulse

  If there’d ever been a zombie at Monkford Fair, I’d have definitely heard.

  Sean came round the corner and I rushed to zip up The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™ safely in my bag.

  He bumped his shoulder into Lewis’s in a friendly hello. He looked from me to Lewis. ‘Did you see McAllister’s face when he missed that penalty?’ Sean put a hand to his forehead and made the tosser sign. ‘Wanker!’

  Me and Lewis both nodded hard.

  ‘What a wanker,’ Lewis said.

  ‘Complete wanker,’ I agreed. ‘His face!’

  I wondered whether to add Gascoigne is such a mercurial player, but thought – not now.

  Sean had been hanging around us a lot more since everyone had heard about the magazines. At breaktime in the main corridor, a crush of kids came up to me and he made himself into a barrier. ‘Come on, people.’ He held his hands up like a lollipop lady. ‘Let the girl through.’

  And the crowd parted like I was . . . well, like I was Kelly from Winchester herself.

  There was no real school news that day, probably because there was so much news from outside of school. Liam said his dad knew the policeman who stopped the bomb (not true – the bomb went off) and Sean said his dad was one of the people who scooped up the arms, legs and heads and put them all in a big paramedic bucket (and because I’m a good friend to Sean, I didn’t say his dad drives an ambulance in Stoke, not Manchester. Or point out – heads? Nobody died).

  I don’t think anyone talked about anything but the magazines, the bomb and football all day. Not even the teachers.

  Though the teachers didn’t talk about the magazines, of course. Which was a good thing.

  Oh – and Richard Plant, the kid from Edinburgh, was off sick. Bad tummy, his mum said.

  I don’t think anyone, kids or teachers, was surprised.

  Mr Kellett was late for our English lesson, of course.

  ‘Quiet!’ He ran in, his face a little red, his tie skew-whiff. ‘Today, we’ve got a very important lesson. Settle down.’

  He started writing on the board. As his shirt stretched, you could see a line of sweat down his back.

  There were some mutterings from the class, bored already.

  Mr Kellett made his face into a rock. ‘I said settle down.’

  He turned to write more. His back’s big, with lots of muscles, because Mr Kellett does lots of boxing and used to be a semi-pro footballer and played for Altrincham Town. He’s the one in our school who everyone knows would win if there was a teacher fight.

  Dr Sharma would win if it was girls-only. Mr Kellett would win the overall.

  ‘OK.’ Mr Kellett stopped writing. ‘Get your exercise books out. Today we’re going to talk about. . .’

  He stepped back and pointed at the board.

  Gascoigne’s genius volley, Seaman saving that penalty, and how England are DEFINITELY DEFINITELY GOING TO WIN EURO ’96!

  The class went wild. Wild. Kids jumped up, banged their desks, hooted like weird monkeys – and Mr Kellett just smiled.

  It’s things like this, why everyone likes him so much. Things like this, and how good he is at sports and fighting.

  Sean ran across the room – ‘He leaps like a salmon and . . .’ He did an impression of a footballer heading the ball, and Mr Kellett didn’t even stop that.

  Even I was enjoying the class a little bit.

  At least, I was enjoying it until Mr Kellett said, ‘And are we going to annihilate the Netherlands tomorrow night?’

  Everyone roared and Mr Kellett said, ‘Now, who can tell me the meaning of annihilate?’

  Kids started shouting words – ‘destroy’, ‘take down’, ‘murder’, ‘crush’.

  But not me.

  Tomorrow night? Again?

  I supposed it was good for Richard Plant, at least. And I didn’t think we had any kids from the Netherlands in our school – though if we did, I’d soon find out.

  And I supposed it gave me more time for spying round the house. It was useful to know one time I could be pretty sure that my upstairs-downstairs, jack-in-the-box parents wouldn’t be getting up from the sofa.

  The bell rang and everyone rushed out.

  I went up to Mr Kellett with my book of lists, a finger wedged inside to mark the right page. ‘Mr Kellett?’

  ‘Fiona.’ He beamed. ‘Not your kind of lesson, eh?’

  ‘No, I love football,’ I said quickly. ‘Did you see McAllister’s face when he missed that penalty?’

  ‘Ouch.’ Mr Kellett smiled. ‘Poor man. Must have smarted.’

  ‘I was wondering, as you’re good at words’ – I opened my book to show him – ‘if you could tell me about these?’

  He looked at my list.

  He glanced up. ‘Mercurial?’

  ‘Gascoigne,’ I said.

  ‘Constitution?’

  ‘Of Ukraine.’

  He seemed to be waiting, so I added, ‘I’ve been reading the paper this weekend.’

  Mr Kellett laughed like I’d said I went on a spaceship.

  ‘OK’ – he pulled up the chair next to me – ‘well, far be it from me to discourage that. Let’s concentrate on mercurial and constitution for now, and maybe leave ammonium nitrate and tremble triggers for another time.’

  Mrs Vernal didn’t want to talk about football, of course. Two hundred hurt was more her kind of thing.

  ‘Shocking. And less than thirty miles from here!’ Mrs Vernal put her hand on the scarf at her neck. ‘You kids. I don’t know how you can even take something like this in at your age. The futility.’

  It’s things like this that make me want to like football. I feel I’d fit better on Mr Kellett’s team than Mrs Vernal’s.

  She shook her head slowly. There was a long pause. Around our drama circle, kids shifted in their seats.

  ‘Should we talk about the footy instead?’ Greeney asked.

  ‘Hard as it is,’ Mrs Vernal said, ‘we need to acknowledge these things. In my classes, what matters is authenticity. Real life. And all the horrors that come with it. Because that is how we flower and grow.’ Mrs Vernal looked around the circle of chairs. ‘Does anyone have anything they want to share with the group?’

  No one answered.

  ‘Surely some of you have some feelings about what has happened?’

  The room was quiet. Even the hands-up, me-me-me-miss kids weren’t going to talk about a bomb. However much Mrs Vernal wanted us to.

  Mrs Vernal could try to make us talk about it till she’d run out of voice . . . but even the smart-arse kids couldn’t know where to start with knowing what the right answer was about a bomb, could they?

  School distracted me from thinking about Mum and how Scar-bad I’d been, going in Danielle’s room that morning.

  After school, I was in a good mood in the park, as Lewis and I practised different spy crawls from the handbook.

  I watched Lewis attempt feline crawl, using the broken bit of fence round the tennis courts for cover.

  ‘The book says don’t drag your feet,’ I said. ‘And it’s important you keep your head low. Stop bobbing.’

  ‘I’m not bobbing.’

  ‘You’re bobbing all the time. It’s like you’ve got a chicken’s head.’

  He got up and dusted his hands off. ‘You try.’

  I threw the handbook down. ‘Seal crawl.’ I made sure my whole body was on the ground and just moved my arms.

  Pretty quickly, I got out of puff. ‘It’s all very well for the book to say pull with your arms and use your toes and push down to move forward,’ I said, my hot breath coming back from the grass in my face, ‘but they don’t have skinny arms like me, do they? And my toes hurt.’

  ‘I think you’re doing fine,’ Lewis said. ‘You’ve moved a few metres now.’

  I st
retched over to grab The Junior Spy’s Secret Handbook™, which still felt closer to me than it should. ‘I’m going to practise flat feline crawl instead. You try too.’ I looked at the handbook and threw it on the ground. ‘You have to stay down, and crawl with one leg straight. Always.’

  And Lewis and I stopped talking and concentrated on pulling one dead foot behind us, like soldiers in a war film.

  Crawling a distance in a proper, professional crawl is harder than it looks. Like doing doggy paddle, but without water. Lewis and I were so busy trying to stop our heads bobbing, we nearly flat-feline-crawled right into each other.

  ‘Ow!’ When Lewis lifted his head, he had light in his eyes. ‘Look at us! It’s like Spy versus Spy!’

  We burst into giggles and rolled over onto our backs. We laughed into the sun. My laugh was still a bit breathy from being puffed out.

  ‘You got your inhaler?’ Lewis asked.

  ‘Always.’ I rolled back over onto my front to get my breath back. ‘But I’m fine.’

  ‘This is enough fun, just practising,’ Lewis said. ‘We don’t need to investigate Danielle. See?’

  I nodded. It was fun. Maybe Lewis was right. I didn’t need to do any actual spying.

  I thought how sad Mum had looked when she found me in Danielle’s room that morning.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll just practise.’

  ‘You mean it?’

  I got down on the ground and made front crawl arms. I lifted my head. ‘I mean it.’ I tried to seal crawl again, the bumpy grass pressing against my tummy. ‘And I’m not even lying this time.’

  When I let myself in through the back door afterwards, the house was silent.

  Nearly silent. I could hear the soft sound of music upstairs.

  I remembered Dad saying he was staying at Uncle Jim’s tonight. ‘Mum?’

  No answer.

  The music got louder as I moved through the kitchen into the lounge. A woman sang in a high, sad voice about a winner who was taking it all. And a loser who was somewhere, standing small.

  I dropped my rucksack. I moved to the bottom of the stairs and leaned against the wall.

  Invisible creepy crawlies marched across my neck.

  The song faded out.

  I was about to walk up the stairs when the piano started up again. The same song.

  I stood there, uncertain, as the sad woman sang. About victory and destiny. About gods throwing dice and people playing aces and building fences. The woman’s voice was pretty, but strange. She sang loo-serr rather than loser.

  I looked down at my feet, the creepy crawlies back on my neck again.

  Suddenly, I felt hot. Boiling, boiling hot.

  I stamped upstairs. ‘MUM!’

  I burst into Danielle’s bedroom.

  Mum sat on the floor next to the record player, her legs tucked to the side. The room was a mess – books off shelves, records out of sleeves. There were clothes all over the bed. Mum even had one of Danielle’s scarves tied in a bow on top of her head.

  The sad woman was reaching the long bit of the chorus.

  ‘the winner takes it a-ll-ll-ll’

  Mum slowly raised her head to look at me. Lots of hair had fallen out of the scarf, into her face. She didn’t even try to adjust it.

  We stared at each other.

  I looked at the glass next to Mum. At the big bottle that said Bells on it, next to the glass.

  The room smelt of pub. ‘Have you been here all day?’

  Mum looked at the bottle and glass, like she’d only just noticed they were there. She looked back up at me, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Fiona, I’m so sorry.’

  I folded my arms. ‘Are you drunk?’

  The song finished again.

  Mum lifted the lid of the record player. She moved the arm so that it was back on the start of the record.

  She dropped the lid and the piano music started up. The sad woman sang about how she didn’t want to talk.

  I just stood there. Frozen. Shivery.

  Mum jerked her head up. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t tell your dad, Fiona. I’m so sorry.’

  I couldn’t look at her screwed-up, pleading eyes.

  I looked away. ‘Did you find anything for me, then?’ My voice sounded tighter, stretched like an elastic band.

  ‘Any what, darling?’

  ‘You were in here to look for stuff for me. For the car boot sale.’

  Mum reached up and out with her arms, like a baby wanting a hug.

  I ran out of the room.

  I stood in the hallway as the song finished. The piano of the song started up again.

  I stood there for a second, wavering. Then I made a decision, hard.

  Never mind what I’d decided earlier. I’d changed my mind – I would investigate Danielle’s death after all. I’d go to the police station, first thing tomorrow.

  And with Mum out of the way, there was something else I could do.

  I took a pair of scissors to the peninsula and cut a slice from Mum’s curtain fabric. I took the slice upstairs with a needle and thread, and went to work on my coat, making a secret pocket.

  If Mum ever left Danielle’s room, I was going to steal that record and sell it at the fair.

  So Mum could never ever play it again.

  10

  People always say Monkford is a great place for kids to grow up – but it’s only ever adults who say it.

  (paradox)

  Thirty-one days to the fair

  I didn’t see Mum the next morning.

  I didn’t even try to speak to her when I got up. I just got in my school uniform and went straight to the police station.

  I threw my rucksack on the floor and put my hands on the counter. ‘I’d like some information, please.’

  The man in glasses behind the counter blinked.

  When he didn’t ask, I said, ‘About a murder in 1982.’ I looked at my feet. ‘Well. Maybe a murder, it’s not clear. I’m not sure how she died. That’s part of the problem.’

  The man looked at his colleague and back to me. ‘How old are you, darling?’

  ‘Nearly twelve.’

  He leaned forward and put his elbows on the counter. ‘We’re quite busy catching adult criminals here. Probably best you head into school, eh, love?’

  I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. I swallowed.

  ‘You’ve not left yet, little one?’ The man looked at his colleague again and back at me. ‘There something else?’

  I made myself say it. ‘Have you got any jobs?’

  When he just started laughing, I picked up my rucksack and hurried to school.

  I wouldn’t be correcting anyone if they called police the filth later.

  And I wouldn’t want a job with the filth anyway.

  School news!

  Turns out we do have a kid from the Netherlands; we just didn’t realise for a while because her name’s Zoe Peters and that doesn’t sound very Dutch. But all the kids did loads of looking until we found one.

  So that’s good.

  Except maybe for Zoe Peters.

  And those people who say Monkford is a great place for kids to grow up? They’ve never been in the girls’ toilets at our high school.

  It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have bought that can of Sprite at the shop next to the police station. And I shouldn’t have sung to myself in the toilets, especially not the song the Little Mermaid sings as she brushes her hair with a fork. I don’t even watch kids’ films anymore – haven’t for ages. I must have heard someone else singing that song, and if I knew who that was, I’d be furious.

  Bang bang bang on my toilet door. ‘Who’s that singing?’

  I stayed completely still.

  ‘If you don’t
come out, we’ll batter you.’

  I peeked through the slit at the side of the cubicle. Three older girls stood around, all arms and boobs and hair. Bigger than me in every way. If I was the Little Mermaid, they were all Ursula the Sea Witch.

  I unlocked the door. I burst through the cubicle door as quickly as I could, a tough cowboy in a saloon bar.

  ‘I was singing by accident.’ I put my hands on my hips and stared the tallest one in the eyes. ‘No big deal.’

  ‘You’re the girl who has the magazines.’

  I looked up at her without blinking. ‘Yep.’

  She stared back. ‘And you’re also the kid who shows her pants.’

  ‘I’m the kid with the magazines,’ I said.

  ‘Ew, monkey bars. That’s so dirty,’ another sea witch said.

  You do something once, for a reason you don’t even remember, and it stays with you for ever, like it’s been written on all your school jumpers in permanent marker.

  I made my voice strong. ‘That was ages ago. In primary school.’

  ‘Once a pants girl, always a pants girl.’

  I strode towards the door. The three sea witches blocked me.

  I folded my arms. ‘Like I said, now I’m the girl with the magazines. Do you want me to tell my friends in Year Ten that you’re picking on me? Do you want me to tell Craig Parsons?’

  Craig Parsons was probably tall enough to buy his own magazines but, at the mention of the hardest kid in Year Eleven, the sea witches looked at each other.

  I took that second to rush between them and out into the corridor.

  ‘And they just let me go!’ I said triumphantly to Lewis. ‘I didn’t get a Chinese burn or my head flushed or anything.’

  We sat on the grass after school outside the second-biggest bush in the park, hunched over, concentrating. We were making spy kits out of matchboxes, our foreheads going sweaty in the sun.

  ‘Everything’s changed now.’ I unfolded my matchbox’s end sections. ‘We’re popular! If there was a school trip now, we could probably sit near the back of the bus. Three rows from the back, even.’ I wrote code flap on each of the unfolded end sections in tiny writing. ‘This is a bit fiddly.’