by Anna Wilson
We really were a great team.
Finally the two weeks were up and it was the day of the Talent Contest. I had not been able to eat even one crumb of my breakfast because my tummy was full to the brim with butterflies and probably other kinds of creepy-crawly things as well, judging by how I was feeling.
‘Summer, you must eat something,’ Mum said as she slurped her coffee.
‘Why?’ I asked grumpily. ‘You’re not.’
‘Don’t answer back, Summer,’ Mum snapped, which is what she always says when she knows that I am right and she has not got a leg to balance on.
I ignored her nagging and went to check over Molly’s list yet again for the thousand millionth time to see that I had got everything I needed for the contest.
Molly’s mum had been brilliant as usual and had helped us get the Classy Costumes together. She has always kept fantastic old clothes that the family don’t want any more in a huge trunk in the attic. It has dresses and hats and cloaks and jackets and even things like walking sticks and funny shoes in it. If you push your hands right in deep, you can feel all kinds of interesting things that have fallen to the bottom and sometimes you pull out surprise things like big red clowns’ noses or funny pairs of glasses that are way too big – once I even found a wig.
Anyway, we weren’t wearing clowns’ noses or wigs for our dance. (I could just imagine what Frank Gritter would have to say about it if we did . . .) Mrs Cook had found a couple of old black leotards on to which she had sewn some stars made from scraps of silver fabric. Then she had lent us each a top hat that had been used in a play she had been in hundreds of years ago when she had been young. She had cleaned them up and stuck a band of the shimmery fabric around them so that they matched Effortlessly and Elegantly with our leotards.
‘You will wipe the floor with the opposition!’ she had declared when she saw us in our costumes.
(I didn’t like to say anything as she had been so helpful and nice and I didn’t want to seem rude, but I had no intention of doing any floor-wiping – or any other kind of cleaning – at the Talent Contest. I was going to have fun, and housework of any sort was not going to come into it.)
Honey and I were getting ready in the back room at home.
‘Are you ready?’ Mum asked, coming to find us.
April was behind her. ‘Do we really have to sit through this dross?’ she asked in her usual oh-so-charming manner.
‘April, you know how hard Summer and Molly have worked for this contest,’ Mum said.
‘And Honey!’ I added, giving my pup a tickle under the chin. I didn’t want Honey to get offended at this DELICATE stage of the proceedings. She might go off into a mega-huff and not perform. I did not want everything to go melon-shaped at this point.
Mum drove us all to school. I left Honey with her and April while they parked the car, and I went into the hall where the Talent Contest was going to take place. Mr Elgin was busy putting the finishing touches to the stage and the seating arrangements. Lots of Year Fours were in the hall including, to my utter dismay, Frank Gritter – with Meatball!
‘What are you doing with Meatball?’ I asked him.
He grinned in that outrageously annoying fashion of his and, as if he was announcing a circus act, he yelled, ‘Roll up, roll up! Come and see the amazing Mr Frank Gritter and his fabulously obedient and talented dog, Miiiiiiiiiss Meeeeeatbaaaaall!’ And then he bowed before an imaginary audience, that is, me.
I rolled my eyes in the most extravagant way I possibly could to show him that I thought it was a load of rubbish. But inside I was QUIVERING. Frank was doing an act with Meatball! What was I going to do? Molly had told me very firmly that no one else would be COURAGEOUS enough to do an act with a pet. And when Honey saw Meatball, she’d go crazy doolally just like she did at the obedience classes. Just like she did when she saw ANY other dog, let alone her mum.
I had to tell Molly about this truly disastrous calamity and try and get us out of the contest before it all went horribly wrong and we made utter foolish fools of ourselves.
I turned to run and find my best friend and hurtled straight into –
‘Summer,’ said Rosie Chubb. She was almost snarling. ‘I want a word with you. Not only have you stolen my best friend Molly, but you’ve stolen my idea for the dance as well!’ she hissed. A bit of her spit landed on my nose, which rather detractivated from her attempt at looking fiercesome, I thought.
How had she found out? We had kept it a secret from everyone except Mr Elgin! He had promised not to tell anyone.
This was turning into a day of Hellish Proportions.
15
How to Be Pup Idol
I ran into the school car park to find Mum and tell her to take Honey home right away.
‘There you are, Summer!’ Oh no, it was Molly and her mum and dad. ‘Where is Honey? You have remembered your costume, haven’t you? Actually it doesn’t matter if you haven’t cos Mum—’
‘We can’t do it, Molly,’ I blurted out.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We can’t do this contest with Honey and the dance!’ I shouted in a bit of a tearful manner.
‘What’s going on, Summer?’ Mum and April had appeared with Honey. At the most Inconvenient Moment, of course. Honey was already looking very excited.
I took a deep breath and told them about Frank and Public Enemy Number One, who was at that very second eyeing up my guts to use them as garters (though what she would do with garters is a mystery to me. No one wears them these days.)
‘I cannot believe that you are letting a show-off like Frank Gritter get to you!’ Molly cried. ‘He does not stand a chance in a squillion with his silly mutt.’
‘Hey! That’s Honey’s mum you’re talking about!’ I said.
Molly pursed her lips at me like she does when she wants to tell me that I am totally missing the point. ‘As for Rosie,’ she went on, ‘she’s much more angry with me than she is with you, because I told her to her face that she was a useless dancer and that I’d rather dance with a dog than groove with a goofy-faced gerbil like her.’
‘Molly!’ said Mrs Cook.
‘No one speaks about my Best Friend the way Rosie did, and gets away with it,’ said Molly.
My heart expanded so much that I thought it might burst out of my chest in true life. (That was rather a terrifying PROSPECT as I didn’t want an ambulance called in to make this whole day even more of a chaotic disaster scene.) I decided there and then that I would do the show. How could I not, when my Best Friend was one hundred and ten per cent on my side?
‘Come on then, Molly!’ I announced. ‘What are we waiting for?’
Molly grinned. We linked arms and, leaving Honey tied up outside next to Meatball, we went into the hall to get ready for our act.
Once we were changed into our classy leotards and matching top hats, Molly and I took our places at the front of the audience with the rest of our year. Then Mr Elgin walked up to the stage and spoke into a microphone:
‘Welcome to Year Four’s Talent Contest! Thank you for coming. The children have been working hard on their acts, and we have a vast array of different talents to share with you. Without more ado, let me introduce the first act. A big round of applause, please, for Miss Sophie Block and her puppets!’
I have to say, it was probably the most direst of dire acts to start the show with. Sophie Block is the youngest in the year, and she is really quite immature and babyish and still likes playing with dolls a lot. And her so-called ‘puppets’ are actually just over-big dolls. And they are ugly. And Sophie’s act was just her talking to her dolls in a squeaky sicky voice and telling them stories like ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. Really quite yawnsome.
There were a few more equally truly awful acts along the lines of people playing recorders and standing on their heads for five minutes (not at the same time though) and I was beginning to think that maybe Honey, Molly and I would have the tiniest chance of winning.
&nbs
p; Then it was Frank’s turn with Meatball.
What can I say? They were truly faberoony. Meatball was the obedient-est pooch in the history of pooch obedient-ness, and Frank had total control over her. She sat when he said ‘SIT’, she rolled over when he said ‘ROLL OVER’ and she gave him her paw when he said ‘PAW’. Needless to say, there was loads and loads of clapping and cheering after this.
‘Well, that’s that,’ I said under my breath. ‘We will Pale into Insignificance next to Frank and Meatball.’
I slumped back into my seat to ENDURE – in other words, put up with, the next act which was . . .
‘. . . Rosie Chubb performing some ballet,’ Mr Elgin’s voice was beginning to take on a rather wearisome tone of speaking.
Rosie came on stage in a pink fairy outfit. She looked out into the audience until she had found me and Molly and glared very hard at us in a distinctly un-fairylike way, I thought, and then she did a curtsy. And then – oh dear – she began to dance to some music which she had brought along on a CD player. It was the most lamest of lame dances I have ever seen in my whole life. She fell over when she tried twirling in what Molly whispered was ‘supposed to be a pirouette’. Then she leaped into the air and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor. And then she skipped across the stage like an elephant in wellies and fell over her own huge feet. But she just did not stop dancing. She carried on and on making a total and utter SPECTACLE of herself.
I should have been pleased. But as the dance went on (and on, and on) some people in the audience started to snigger and giggle, and I found that I was actually feeling quite sorry for Rosie. After all, she had thought that Molly was going to be doing the dance with her.
But Rosie had still gone on and danced alone.
Even though, as Molly pointed out, she had the talent of Your Average .
And then someone in the crowd started laughing really loudly, and Rosie’s face went a dark pink colour, which looked quite bad against the fairy tutu, and even from where I was sitting I thought I could see her bottom lip wobble. This made me feel quite outraged. Couldn’t they see that she was doing her best and actually being quite brave, getting up on stage in front of about a hundred people and dancing (well, falling over mostly) like that?
What I did next was really very strange when I thought about it afterwards. But at the time I did it without thinking.
I ran outside, grabbed Honey, then ran back inside and grabbed Molly. Then I marched them to the front of the stage and I pressed the stop button on the CD player.
Molly was pulling her hand away from mine and hissing at me, ‘What are you doing?’
But for once I was not going to worry about what my Best Friend was thinking. I knew that I had to do the Right Thing.
I put our CD of Atmospherical Music that we had chosen for the contest into the player and walked up to the flabbergasted Mr Elgin and took the microphone from him and had a quiet word: ‘Trust me on this,’ I said. (I have to say he didn’t have a very trusting look on his face, but I wasn’t going to be Put Off at this stage.)
I tapped the microphone in a professional manner and said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, a big round of applause for Rosie Chubb who has just done a wonderful job at introducing the main part of her act, which is in fact: PUP IDOL!’
And then I started whooping madly with excitement (and Deranged craziness) and Honey started leaping around the place, and the audience seemed to think something very interesting was about to happen and so they all whooped as well.
While everyone was clapping and cheering loudly, I BECKONED with my finger for the girls to come closer and I whispered: ‘Rosie – you’re a great dancer. Just improvise to the music I’m about to put on. Molly, go ahead as planned.’
‘But Summer—!’ Molly tried to get a word in, but I just gave her the kind of look Mum gives me when she wants me to do as I’m told.
I settled Honey and told her to ‘LIE DOWN’ and gave her a treat.
Then I pressed play on the CD player, and Rosie stood in one of those ballet positions called something like demi-first-plié-position and even managed not to fall over, and Molly crouched down in her starting position for our dance so that she was facing Honey, and I crouched down on the other side of Honey, and the music started.
We had decided to use the Mission: Impossible music that they had used on Pup Idol as it was the most atmospherical music we could think of, and it meant that we could copy some of the moves we had seen on the telly.
The music started in that creepy way it does: der, der, der-der, der, der, der-der, der, der, etc, etc, and so on. Honey was watching Molly very intently indeed – well, the treat in Molly’s hand, anyway, and as Molly moved backwards in time to the music, Honey moved forward, as if she was sliding along on her tummy.
Then I called ‘Honey!’ and she leaped round, almost doing a spin in mid-air as the music got faster and more exciting. I held a treat up to get Honey to put her paws on my shoulders and we danced like a couple of people at a ballroom-dancing competition.
At that very moment in time I suddenly felt like the proudest person in the world. Honey was looking right into my eyes and even though her tongue was hanging out and she was panting for England, her eyes seemed to say to me, ‘I’m pretty proud of you too, Summer!’
Was this it? Did this mean that we were at last well and really Bonded in true life?
Then Molly broke the Tension of the moment because we’d got to the part in the routine where she had to call Honey and hold her cane/walking-stick thing out like a pole for the high jump. In her other hand she held a treat, so Honey’s eyes and nose followed the treat . . . and then Honey did it! She jumped higher than she’d ever jumped before!
I was a bit worried that she was going to crash into Molly – or Rosie, who was still doing some weird kind of ballet-twirling behind Molly.
(Rosie seemed to have taken me very seriously when I said ‘improvise’ and she was now tiptoeing around the stage with a grim look on her face as if she was a baddy in the film Mission: Impossible and was being followed by a policeman, except that baddies don’t generally wear pink tutus.)
In any case, I didn’t have time to DWELL on what Rosie was doing, as Honey had actually landed beautifully and was now running in a loop around the stage and making her way back to me. I held my cane/walking-stick thing quite low and parallel to the floor and showed Honey a treat and said, ‘UNDER,’ and Honey scooted under the cane, keeping her body close to the ground.
Then she went behind me and I said, ‘UP,’ and she put her paws on my shoulders and looked into my eyes again, and Molly ran around behind us and beckoned to Rosie who was still doing her weird baddy-in-a-tutu routine, and the four of us stepped forward in time to the music, turning our heads from side to side as if we were all baddies looking out for policemen coming to get us.
Then the music ended and we all turned to face the audience and Honey dropped down on to all fours.
There was a split second which felt like about five hours during which nothing happened. The whole hall was completely silent.
It was like that moment at the end of Seeing Stars when you are waiting to hear who has actually won, but they make you wait and wait to Build Up The Sense Of Anticipation. It was almost unbearable the way the air was filling up with all this Tension. I could almost smell it – unless that was Frank’s socky whiff wafting out towards me.
My heart started beating at top speed and volume so that everyone must have been able to hear it and possibly even see it bumping around inside my chest. I thought I was going to die right there on the spot. And then a voice shouted, ‘WHOOOO-HOOOOO!’
I looked to see who it was: it was Frank Gritter. He was climbing up on to his chair and clapping his hands wildly, and as he climbed up, all the other ninety-nine people in the hall whooped as well and clapped and shouted ‘Encore!’ (a French word which means ‘You’re so fab – please do your act again’) and everyone was yelling and stamping their feet and climbing o
n their chairs. Someone even threw a plastic flower at me, which I decided to take as a compliment, although I thought it was a pretty weird thing to do.
And then Mr Elgin came on to the stage. He looked quite stern: his eyebrows were knitted together into one black spiky caterpillar and he was frowning over the top of his glasses, and I thought, Here we go. Summer Holly Love, prepare yourself for the biggest and hugest telling-off of your life right here in front of one hundred people.
He picked up the microphone from the side of the stage where I had left it and said, ‘Words fail me.’ (Except they most obviously didn’t, because he then went on to say some more.) ‘Judging from the unanimous reaction of the crowd, I think I need say no more than, “Congratulations, Summer, Molly and Rosie!”’
‘And Honey!’ Frank shouted.
‘. . . and indeed Honey,’ said Mr Elgin, doing a bad job of disguising a grin that was escaping from the corners of his mouth. ‘That act has to be the most original I have ever seen . . . and so the winners of the Year Four Talent Contest are . . . Miss Love, Miss Cook, Miss Chubb and Miss – er – Honey Love!’
I shook my head. It couldn’t be true. We all bowed and hugged each other (except Honey, of course). I even hugged Rosie, and she sort of hugged me back.