Weird

by Jeremy Strong

  Mrs Kowalski shuffled closer to me. ‘Have I? I don’t think so, Matron. Oh no, only water and tablets. Two tablets they were, a pink one and a white one, or was it a white one and a blue one?’

  As I listened to Mrs Kowalski gabbling I felt something hard press against my back. She was pushing something against my spine, then slipping it inside the back of my trousers. She’d pushed something into my trousers!

  ‘What about a spoon, Mrs Kowalski? A tablespoon from the dinner service. Have you taken a tablespoon?’

  ‘Oh no, Major, not at all. I do have a teaspoon in my room. Would that be of any use?’

  The Major ignored the offer. His face wore a tired frown. ‘It’s the fourth one to go missing in the last few weeks. I thought the first might be an accident, but when four go missing, that’s not an accident, that’s theft. I don’t suppose you know anything about spoons or where they might be, Mrs Kowalski?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t, Major. I took my tablets, just like you said. A pink one and a blue one, but I didn’t take a spoon. Do you know, when I was a child I had a special spoon and the handle was a tiny giraffe. His feet held the spoon end and his neck and head were the handle. And I lost it. Such a shame. I don’t suppose you know where it is?’ Mrs Kowalski blinked at the Major with sad, wet eyes.

  The Major groaned with frustration and turned to Matron. ‘Take her back to her room, Matron, while I continue this ridiculous hunt.’

  Matron bundled Mrs Kowalski away and the Major turned to me. I kept my back to the wall.

  ‘I trust you haven’t seen a large tablespoon anywhere?’ asked the Major.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you find any please bring them straight to me. I really can’t stand it. There should be a dozen of everything, including tablespoons, and now there are only eight. What would you think if you saw two ranks of soldiers and one was shorter than –’ The Major broke off suddenly and shook his head. ‘No, you wouldn’t understand, youth of today and all that. Hmm!’ He grunted and snapped his head up as if he was standing to attention.

  ‘How many bathrooms have you got left to do?’ he barked.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Carry on.’ The Major spun on one heel and marched off to the stairs.

  I reached behind me and pulled the hard object from my trousers. I knew what it was going to be of course, but I was confused. One part of me was thinking, why on earth would an old woman want to steal a tablespoon? The only answer I could think of was because she’s deranged, just like Matron said. On the other hand, Mrs Kowalski had sounded pretty much together when she was talking to me and, besides, why hadn’t I owned up and shown the Major the spoon? Something mysterious and quite possibly dangerous was going on at Marigolds and now I was probably involved in it, whatever it was, up to my neck. Weird.

  Fizz

  I have never seen such a huge woman in my life. It was like she’d been pumped up. And her boobs! No wonder mine are so small. This woman had obviously hogged most of the world’s boob-filling for her own nefarious purposes. Talk about selfish. She said she was Matron and yelled at me right from the start.

  ‘You’re late!’

  ‘Am I?’ I looked at my watch, not that I have one, but it’s the thought that counts.

  ‘There are two rules here: never be late and don’t question me,’ thundered Matron. ‘I ask the questions and you answer. Got it?’

  ‘Mrs Singh, our maths teacher, she says we won’t learn anything if we don’t ask questions.’

  Matron folded her thick arms beneath her bosom, which made it swell even further. It reminded me of blowing up balloons, those really big shiny ones, and then you release them and they go sspllllrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, farting crazily in every direction. Suppose Matron’s boobs were like that? The way she shoved her arms under them and heaved away it looked like they might burst out of her jacket at any second and take off. Weapons of mass destruction, if you ask me. And now she stood there, flaunting them in my face while she studied a letter. She slowly leaned forward until her face was centimetres from mine.

  ‘Felicity Foster-Thompson. Very high and mighty. You’re the smart one, I suppose? There’s always a smart one. Don’t worry. It won’t do you any good.’ She straightened and gave me a shark-smile. I gave one back. My teeth, being mostly metal, are a lot more sharky than hers. She leaped back as if I’d actually bitten her, which I almost nearly did, but I’m a practising vegetarian. When I say ‘practising’ I mean I haven’t actually started yet. I’m working on it. Do you think I say ‘actually’ too much? Anyway, when it comes to concealed weapons I have a surprise up my sleeve, or rather, in my mouth.

  I noticed Matron was standing on a big doormat that had WELCOME printed across it. Ha ha ha. What a travesty. It should have said SHOVE OFF.

  ‘Your skirt’s too short,’ Matron snapped.

  ‘I can’t help it. It’s my long legs. If they were shorter the skirt would come further down.’

  ‘Are you deliberately trying to annoy me, or are you congenitally stupid?’

  I tried to look congenitally stupid, which isn’t difficult when you’ve got fifty-thousand-year-old specs on. I have found that looking stupid is the best means of defence when it comes to dealing with people over twenty, and Matron was well beyond. Her only hope of rescue now was a Time Lord.

  I followed her in, and we were barely over the threshold when a giant with the most stupendous fungal growth under his nose came striding over.

  ‘Major Trubshaw,’ he boomed. ‘You’re late. Any particular reason?’

  ‘Bus didn’t come.’

  ‘What bus? There isn’t a bus that passes here.’

  I sighed. ‘So that explains it.’ I tried to look congenitally stupid again.

  Matron regarded me as if I was something horrible dragged off the street. Well, I had been dragged off the street, almost, but I’m not horrible. Not all the time, anyhow.

  ‘This is Felicity Foster-Thompson,’ muttered Matron, sucking in her cheeks. Why did she have to do that?

  ‘Humph! How old are you?’ growled the Major.

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘Are you indeed? What’s all that muck on your teeth?’

  ‘It’s a brace. It’s NHS. My parents won’t allow me a proper one. I wanted an aqua-blue one like Sita’s, which would be really cool, but my parents are, like, so Victorian, no, worse than Victorian, they’re Tudor and they said no way, which is why I have to go out like this, frightening the natives. Anyway, it’s not muck, it’s just a –’

  ‘Stop!’ cried the Major, holding up a hand. ‘Stop right there, young lady! I asked you a simple question. I do not require your life history, your genealogy or anything other than a simple answer. There’s one rule here and that is: always answer the question and nothing else.’

  ‘That’s three rules,’ I pointed out, and the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by a few thousand degrees. Whoops!

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the Major.

  ‘Matron says there are two rules and you say there’s one rule, but they’re not the same rule, so that makes three rules. So, there’s… not… one… rule… there are… three,’ I said and I could hear my voice getting quieter.

  Matron was flaring her nostrils at me and priming her weapons of mass destruction. The Major squeezed a ridge of flesh on his forehead with his fingers. Maybe it helped him think more clearly.

  ‘Let’s begin again,’ he suggested. ‘You take orders from Matron and myself. I think that makes everything perfectly clear.’

  The Major flashed a gritted-teeth smile at me, as if he was daring me to challenge him. I guess that sometimes you have to play ball. Sometimes you meet someone who simply can’t see how ridiculous they seem to everyone else, especially me. Anyhow, keeping quiet had the desired effect, and the Major turned to the flint-faced Air-bags next to him. ‘Good. Put her on tea duties, Matron.’

  ‘Yes, Major.’

  ‘When you’ve got the girl settled come and see m
e in my office. Another tablespoon has gone.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Indeed. We shall have a full-scale search this time. Report back to me as soon as you can.’ Off went the Major, marching down the corridor, left, right, left, right.

  ‘What are you staring at, girl?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Good. Follow me.’

  Matron led and I followed, quietly humming. ‘Matron had a little lamb, its fleece was white as…’

  ‘What’s that?’ hissed Matron. ‘Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, girl.’

  I mouthed at Matron’s back. As we passed a corridor I thought I saw a shadow move, and then it was gone. Eeek! A shiver went down my spine. I could see it all happening – Fourteen-Year-Old Girl Found Dismembered and Eaten by Starving OAPs in House of Horror.

  Matron took me down into the bowels of the building, where there was a very small kitchen and a huge storeroom filled with cleaning materials. I have never seen so many buckets and mops and so on.

  ‘First job is make tea. Trolley’s over there. You need twelve cups and saucers, one for each of the residents, plus the Major and myself. When you’ve made the tea it goes on the trolley. Bring tea and biscuits to the Major and myself. Then take tea to each resident, one biscuit each. Avoid Mr Winkleberry in Room Seven.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘That’s confidential,’ Matron announced flatly. ‘When you’ve seen to them you come back to us to collect our dirty crockery, then back to the residents to do the same, then down to the kitchen to wash up. Understood? Good. Get on with it.’

  I made the tea and put a big pile of biscuits under a towel because I had decided to give the wrinklies two each. I am such a rebel. When I am mature, and have acquired bigger boobs and contact lenses and finished all my university courses and been made Top Scientist in the World, I am going to be a rebel, like Boudicca, only with a better dress sense. I mean, have you seen that statue of her in London? She’s charging into battle, in a chariot, and she’s gone topless! What kind of behaviour is THAT? I ask. Perhaps she was hoping to frighten the Romans. She should have taken Matron with her. Matron would have scared them witless. Mass panic.

  Anyhow, I bet the residents would like an extra biscuit. The residents – who I hadn’t even seen yet. Where were they all? I was in an old people’s home and I hadn’t seen a single one. And then there was the mysterious Mr Winkleberry. What was that about?

  I fed and watered Matron and the Major, who were deep in discussion about the Great Spoon Vanishing, which was obviously Hugely Important and would probably bring down the government and create chaos throughout known civilization like that butterfly in the rainforest. Then I set off to find some actual residents, and it didn’t take long to find them, because they were all sitting in their rooms like they’d been told to go and stay there and not to come out until they were prepared to say sorry.

  They were quite nice really and they weren’t knitting coffins or falling to bits – well, not much, at any rate. Miss Dash’s eye fell out a couple of times, but it was a glass one so I guess that was to be expected. I had to tell each one about Josh and me being on work experience. They were all smiles and so chatty, except for Mr Gumble, who’d lost his false teeth so I could hardly understand a word he said.

  One lady wasn’t in her room, so I didn’t see her, and there was a French woman, Madame Dupont, who was lovely and smelled of flowers and looked ever so elegant and French, which isn’t really surprising I suppose, seeing as she was. I told her I was going to study in Paris and become a famous scientist (and rebel) and she said she liked my skirt and she wasn’t rude about it, like Matron. I told her what Matron had said.

  ‘Mais oui, of course it’s too short,’ said Madam Dupont, seriously. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? And you look so chic. You are très jolie, you know, very pretty.’

  Ha! That was something to tell Evie, who says I look like the Pink Panda. I said didn’t she mean the Pink Panther? And she said no, she meant the Pink Panda and that’s why she said it. According to Evie my prehistoric spectacles are like panda rings round my eyes. She’s very supportive like that.

  Anyway, I could feel myself go all hot. ‘If you see a boy called Josh, will you tell him I’m pretty?’ I begged. Madame Dupont laughed.

  ‘This Josh. He is your boyfriend, n’est-ce pas?’ She watched my face. ‘Oh, I see. He is not your boyfriend. Not yet. Do not despair, ma petite.’ She was tops – and she spoke French really well.

  And they all liked their extra biscuit. I told them they mustn’t choke or die or I’d be in big trouble and most of them said they were always in trouble anyway. Then I had to go and collect everything and wash it all up and by the time I’d done that I was totally exhausted and it was lunchtime and that was when I saw Josh for the first time. (I can’t call him Goat. I know Charlie and all his friends call him Goat, but it’s not very nice, is it? I mean, you wouldn’t want to be standing at the altar in church with the vicar going: ‘Do you take this Goat to be your lawful wedded husband?’)

  Josh couldn’t see me because he was half turned away and backing out of a storeroom with his arms full of toilet rolls for some strange reason and he looked so tall and strong. How can anyone carry a mountain of bog rolls and still look so gorgeous? It shouldn’t be allowed. At least it should be allowed but only for me. I called to him and he was so surprised he dropped everything and toilet rolls went bouncing about all over the place. He whirled round and glared at me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. I am so lame. Pathetic.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he grunted and began scrabbling for toilet rolls. I helped and crawled about on all fours thinking: this is romantic. I’ve always wanted to go on a toilet-roll hunt with my dream-boy. Although, actually, to tell you the truth, it was quite good because Josh was crawling about on all fours too and he has got the most hunky bum in the world. I could follow him to the ends of the Earth – well, at least as far as the end of the corridor, because my knees were getting sore. I told him it was lunchtime and we could go down the shops.

  ‘Together?’ he said.

  ‘No, I thought I could go first and then you could creep out after me disguised as a giant yellow duck so nobody can recognize you and carrying a big sign that says I AM NOT WITH HER.’

  ‘Are we allowed to go at the same time? That’s what I meant. Have you met Major and Mrs Monster, the twin tubs?’ I nodded meekly and felt terribly stupid. ‘I’m hungry,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve been doing this all morning.’

  ‘And I could murder a tortoise,’ I said, and then thought: I don’t need to try and look congenitally stupid – I AM stupid!

  ‘You eat tortoises?’ Josh looked blank.

  ‘No, I just don’t like them much,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Oh boy,’ sighed Josh, as well he might, and we went out for lunch. He had a ham and mustard sandwich and I had egg and cress and he told me a joke and I laughed and he said I had a bit of sandwich stuck to my face. So I checked in my little mirror and discovered all these bits of cress caught up in my brace. It looked like I was growing mould all over my teeth. I had turned into a walking display of germ cultures. That was guaranteed to increase my charm rating by at least minus 100 per cent. And then I thought, hang on, he could really have made something of that. He could have told me I looked gross, because I did, but he just said I had something on my face. Maybe he secretly likes me!

  Anyway, he went quiet after that and you know how, like, you think someone wants to say something, but they’re sitting on it? It was like that, but not literally. I wanted to ask him but I reckoned just for once I’d shut up and wait and in the end he spoke.

  ‘Did you meet Mrs Kowalski?’

  ‘No, but I did meet Madame Dupont. She’s French and quite cute really and she even said that…’

  ‘Mrs Kowalski is weird,’ Josh interrupted. ‘She wears stealth slippers.’

  ‘Stealth slippers?’

  ‘That’s what she calls them.
You can’t hear her coming. She appears suddenly from nowhere. I don’t think Major and Matron like her.’

  ‘That’s because they don’t like anyone.’

  Josh stared at me. He seemed quite surprised. ‘Do you think so? You could be right. Matron took Mrs Kowalski away to be searched.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘They thought she’d stolen a spoon.’

  I recalled the Major’s conversation with Matron earlier and asked Josh what kind of spoon.

  ‘This kind,’ said Josh, pulling a tablespoon out of his bag. I wasn’t expecting that.

  Josh

  I didn’t have a chance to give the spoon back to Mrs Kowalski. I had no idea what she was doing with it but it was obviously important and meant to be kept secret. I was swinging back to my first impression that maybe she was a bit mad or something. It was all too weird. I needed to talk but the only person available for listening was Fizz and I had no idea what she’d do or say. I don’t think she has any idea of what she’s going to do or say either.

  Fizz is very strange. One moment she’s talking like some demented crazy-creature, with bits of sense all mixed up with complete gibberish, and then she’s staring at me with big eyes like she’s never seen me before. Not to mention the skirt she was wearing. I don’t remember seeing her in anything like that before and I’m sure I would have remembered. Maybe she wore something like it to the disco but I only had eyes for that floppy top. Her legs are quite something. Shame about the face. Big sis, Lauren, looks fantastic, so I guess there were no genes left when it came to making daughter number two.

  Fizz surprised me coming out of the storeroom this morning and I spilled all the toilet rolls. It had taken me five minutes to get that lot carefully balanced in both arms and she goes and jumps up behind me and I drop the lot. So she gets down on her hands and knees and starts helping me collect them together again and she’s wiggling her behind at me. That’s what it felt like but I don’t suppose she realized. Anyhow, I’m not saying what I saw. So by way of returning the favour I showed her my spoon.