Harriet Bright in a Pickle
Page 2
‘Mr Moody is just a big grump,’ whispered Harriet Bright.
Melly Fanshawe nodded. ‘Let’s play I Spy,’ she said.
Harriet Bright groaned. How could she play I Spy at a time like this?
Paul Picklebottom was telling whale jokes at the back of the bus.
He said that Harriet Bright was just like a whale when she was in the water.
All big
and floppy
and s l o w - m o v i n g.
Harriet Bright was the worst swimmer in the school.
Paul Picklebottom was the best.
Mr Moody said he must have webbed feet.
Harriet Bright had seen Paul Picklebottom’s feet when they went to visit the aquarium and had to take their shoes off to go inside the tropical fish enclosure.
Harriet Bright looked closely to see if he had any extra toes.
She could only see five on each foot, but he did have scaly heels.
‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T,’ said Melly Fanshawe.
‘Taramasalata,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘What?’ said Melly Fanshawe.
‘It’s pink and Greek,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘No,’ said Melly Fanshawe.
‘Timbuktu,’ said Harriet Bright.
Melly Fanshawe frowned. ‘It has to be something you can see,’ she said.
‘Tarantula,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘Can you see a tarantula?’ said Melly Fanshawe.
‘Yes,’ said Harriet Bright. ‘It’s crawling up the side of your seat.’
‘It can’t be a tarantula,’ said Melly Fanshawe. She looked behind her. ‘It’s a big, black, hairy …
She screamed very loudly.
Mr Moody came running and the bus driver slammed on his brakes.
‘A tarantula is a spider,’ said Harriet Bright as Mr Moody caught the spider and threw it out the window.
Melly Fanshawe glared at her. She didn’t like spiders.
‘Tyrannosaurus Rex,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘Where’s Tyrannosaurus Rex?’ said Melly Fanshawe crossly. ‘I’m not playing this game anymore.’
Harriet Bright pointed at Mr Moody. ‘It’s HIM!’ she whispered. ‘He’s big and fierce, and I know he eats meat. He won the hot-dog eating competition at the school fete last year.’
Melly Fanshawe sighed. ‘Well, you’re sort of right,’ she said. ‘It was TEACHER.’
Teacher, teacher
on the moon,
how I wish you’d
go there soon.
Way above the world
so high,
a starry dinosaur
in the sky.
Teacher, teacher
on the moon,
how I wish you’d
go there soon.
‘I don’t like today,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘Tomorrow will be better,’ said Melly Fanshawe.
12.43 pm
Harriet Bright looked out of the window.
There was a signpost at the corner:
When I’m grown up and famous, she thought, I’ll eat chocolate for breakfast and I won’t have to go in swimming races.
Harriet Bright was reading a book called The Lives and Times of Famous People. She had written a whole stack of poems in case she ever met any of them.
She didn’t want to be lost for words.
Poem for meeting Queen Elizabeth I
(Harriet Bright knew that Queen Elizabeth I had died more than four hundred years ago, but sometimes people just fell through holes and became time travellers. People in books did that all the time!)
Your Majesty, I love your wig.
It sits high on your head, all fluffy
and big.
My hair is straight and cut in a bob.
Mum says I can grow it when I get
a job.
Mr Moody often talked about famous people in sport. Last week he had told them about famous Olympic swimmers – people who had broken world records. He said they were !Inspirational! because they trained very hard to be as good as they could.
Then he wrote an equation on the blackboard:
Harriet Bright didn’t like this equation. She liked ones like:
Chocolate + Milk = Chocolate Milk
or
28 + June = Harriet Bright’s Birthday
(1 present + 2 presents = 3 presents)
Then Mr Moody made them run around the school oval three times!
Harriet Bright’s mother said that exercise just didn’t run in the family.
‘And we come from a long line of non swimmers,’ she said, ‘thanks to Great Uncle Cedric. He had a Nasty Moment with a wave when he was forty-four. And fear of another Nasty Moment has been passed down from one generation to the next.’
‘Does that mean you’ll write me a note?’ Harriet Bright had asked hopefully. ‘You could tell Mr Moody about our Nasty Moments and say that I absolutely can’t possibly go into the water!’
Her mother had smiled. ‘It’s good to try different things, Harriet,’ she had said. ‘You might just discover you have a talent you didn’t know about.’
The bus rounded another corner. Harriet Bright could see the aquatic centre ahead.
It was big and shiny, with a brand-new outdoor pool.
Harriet Bright felt funny in the tummy.
The bus pulled into the car park, and everyone began to scramble for their bags.
‘OK,’ shouted Mr Moody above the noise, ‘out of the bus and into the change-rooms. The races start in twenty-five minutes, and I don’t want anyone to be late. Did you hear that, Harriet Bright?’ he added sternly.
‘Yes, Mr Moody,’ she mumbled.
Horrible Day Getting Worse, she thought to herself.
1.27 pm
Little gusts of wind rippled across the blue pool. Red, green and yellow flags fluttered above the water.
It looked just like a fair, thought Harriet Bright. But without the Ferris wheel and toffee apples and fairy floss. And fun. She shivered in her swimming togs.
The stands were full of people who’d been watching the swimming all morning. The Year 4 races were the last ones of the day.
Harriet Bright looked up at the sky. Big black clouds were moving in to form bigger above.
‘Please rain in the next three minutes,’ she said to the clouds. ‘I promise I’ll never complain about anything again. I promise I’ll feed the cat every day, even though cat food really stinks.’
Melly Fanshawe came and stood beside her. They were in the same heat. ‘Don’t worry, Harriet. It’s only 25 metres. It’ll be over soon.’
‘Let’s swim together,’ said Harriet Bright.
Melly Fanshawe looked at her doubtfully. ‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know if I can swim as slow as you. I might drown.’
Everyone was lined up on the blocks, waiting.
Harriet Bright looked at Mrs Fletcher, the school principal. She was supposed to be starting the race, but she seemed to be in a bit of a flap.
She was waving her hands in the air and shouting, My husband Arnold gave it to me before he left for a safari in Africa.’
Her face was all red and upset.
Mr Moody looked impatiently at his watch.
‘Ah, Mrs Fletcher?’ he said. ‘I really think we should begin –’
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ she snapped.
‘ONYOURMARKSGETSETGO!’ she shouted very quickly.
Harriet Bright jumped into the water. It was freezing! Goosebumps on her arms and legs.
Paul Picklebottom was in the lane next to her. Splashing and kicking furiously.
He looked like a sleek fast fish.
Harriet Bright tried to get her arms and her legs to move at the same time but they just didn’t seem to want to. She kept swallowing big gulps of water when she opened her mouth to breathe.
She thought of Great Uncle Cedric and his Nasty Moment when he was forty-four.
P
aul Picklebottom was halfway down the pool, and Melly Fanshawe wasn’t far behind.
Harriet Bright was coming second to last.
Reece Thomas was just behind her.
He had broken his arm a couple of months ago and it still wasn’t very strong.
At least I’ll be faster than Reece Thomas, she thought.
But then Reece Thomas passed her.
Harriet Bright was coming last!
I wonder if you can die from embarrassment? she thought. Maybe I’ll be the first person ever.
Luckily she had her face in the water so no one could see her red cheeks.
Paul Picklebottom was already at the end of the pool. The crowd was cheering loudly.
Harriet Bright put her head right under the water so she couldn’t hear them.
It’s very quiet down here, she thought as she looked around in the bleached-blue water. If I really was a whale, I could stay here forever.
And then she saw something, lying right in the corner at the bottom of the pool, tucked half under a leaf.
A gold ring.
Harriet Bright bobbed up to the surface, took a great mouthful of air and dived straight down towards the leaf.
She curled her finger around the ring and headed for the surface again. She could see the smudgy reflections of people staring down and pointing at her.
She held her hand up in the air, and the ring glittered in the sunlight.
It was just like an OLYMPIC MOMENT.
The crowd stood and cheered.
Melly Fanshawe raced over with a towel and a big smile.
Mrs Fletcher began to cry, big fat tears rolling down her blotchy cheeks.
‘Well done, Harriet,’ said Mr Moody as he helped her out of the water. He didn’t look so fierce when he smiled, thought Harriet Bright.
After all the races had finished, Paul Picklebottom got a medal for winning the Year 4 final. The spectators cheered and stamped their feet.
‘And we have another very special award,’ said Mrs Fletcher. ‘To Harriet Bright, for her deep-diving skills – and for finding my precious gold ring. Thank you, Harriet.’
The crowd clapped very loudly.
Harriet Bright didn’t have a poem for this special occasion but she thought she would make one up on the spot.
She was about to speak when, suddenly, everyone jumped up and ran for cover.
It had just started to rain.
The Friday BEFORE the Monday
‘Harriet – look!’ said Melly Fanshawe, pointing at the noticeboard.
Harriet Bright beamed.
‘Cinderella is my Most Favourite fairy tale,’ she said. ‘There’s a ball, and a prince and a dress with sparkly bits.’
‘I like the fairy godmother,’ said Melly Fanshawe. ‘She turns the mice into four white horses. That’s much nicer than catching them in mouse traps.’
Paul Picklebottom was kicking a soccer ball against the wall. ‘Fairy tales are for girls,’ he said.
‘And brick walls are for boys,’ whispered Harriet Bright to Melly Fanshawe as they all hurried into the classroom.
Mrs Glossia was writing the parts in Cinderella on the blackboard as they sat down at their desks.
‘HEY, Harriet Bright,’ shouted Paul Picklebottom from the back of the class. ‘You could be the pumpkin.’
‘And you could be the sister of them all,’ muttered Harriet Bright from the front of the class.
‘Does anyone have any questions about Cinderella?’ said Mrs Glossia.
‘Are there any dragons in it?’ asked Paul Picklebottom. ‘Or big monsters with
Mrs Glossia sighed.
Harriet Bright sighed too.
She was nine but Paul Picklebottom was ten!
How could he get to be double digits and not know anything about Cinderella?
Harriet Bright was planning to know something about everything by the time she was twenty and really old.
‘Cinderella is a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm,’ said Mrs Glossia, writing their name on the blackboard.
‘Why was she called Cinderella?’ asked Ruby Frost.
‘She used to sit by the cinders of the fire at night, lonely and tired,’ said Mrs Glossia.
‘Most people don’t have real fires anymore,’ said Harriet Bright. ‘Should we call her something else?’
‘What, like, Heaterella?’ sniggered Paul Picklebottom.
Harriet Bright ignored him.
Sometimes it was the best thing to do with boys.
Especially Paul Picklebottom.
‘I’ve got some special homework for you over the weekend,’ said Mrs Glossia.
Harriet Bright sat up straight.
She special homework.
‘First,’ said Mrs Glossia, ‘I want you to decide who you’d like to be in the play.’
Well, that’s easy, thought Harriet Bright. I know who I want to be.
‘Then,’ said Mrs Glossia, ‘from the moment you wake up on Saturday morning, and for the rest of the day, I want you to pretend you are that person.’
‘What do you mean, Mrs Glossia?’ asked Polly Manning, flicking her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.
Harriet Bright glared at Polly Manning’s perfect ponytail.
Polly Manning always got the best parts in school plays.
She said that acting was in her blood. Her mother was in a TV commercial for hair shampoo.
Polly Manning had been Rapunzel last year. She had had to sit on top of a ladder all night and wait to be rescued by the prince.
When the prince finally climbed up the ladder, Polly Manning cried out that she had pins and needles in her feet and couldn’t move.
Nobody had known what to do after that because Rapunzel didn’t say that in the play.
There had been a Great Big Silence.
Mrs Glossia had had to rush on stage with a sign saying:
‘It’s called “getting into character”, Polly,’ continued Mrs Glossia. ‘I want you to understand what it’s like to actually be that person.’
Paul Picklebottom looked at Mrs Glossia blankly.
But Harriet Bright knew exactly what she meant.
She could see it all:
And, suddenly, she knew.
Harriet Bright wasn’t going to be a world-famous poet anymore.
That had just been a phase she’d been going through.
Harriet Bright was going to be a …
WORLD-FAMOUS
ACTOR.
Thoughts of a
WORLD-FAMOUS actor
‘I’m Cinderella,’ said Harriet Bright to Mr Beatty at the corner shop. She always stopped here on her way home on Friday.
‘That’s nice, Harriet,’ he said, scooping out her favourite strawberry ice cream then dipping it in chocolate and sprinkling it with nuts. ‘Say hello to your mum and dad for me.’
‘I’m Cinderella,’ she said to her mother and father when she got home.
‘That’s nice, Harriet,’ said her mother.
‘And you’re my wicked stepmother,’ said Harriet Bright.
‘Excellent!’ said Harriet Bright’s mother. ‘A character part. I like those. Your Aunty Beryl was on the stage, you know. In The Twelve Days of Christmas. She was the best partridge I have ever seen. Though I did feel that the pear tree let her down. The leaves tickled his nose and he sneezed uncontrollably through the first ten days of Christmas. Poor Aunty Beryl,’ she sighed. ‘It wasn’t easy being a partridge in a sneezing tree.’
Harriet Bright’s father looked up from his newspaper. ‘Who will I be, Harriet?’ he asked.
‘You can be my kind but weak father,’ said Harriet Bright. ‘You get bossed around by the wicked stepmother too. But you aren’t in the play much.’
Harriet Bright’s father smiled. ‘That’s good, because your kind but weak father has a big game of golf tomorrow,’ he said.
Harriet Bright took her school bag upstairs and thought about Cinderella.
‘Cinderella was very unha
ppy so I need to be very unhappy too,’ she said to herself.
‘I’m going to make a list of all the things that have ever made me unhappy.’
Harriet Bright took out her notebook and started to write.
Harriet Bright looked at her list. It was very long.
I’ve been so unhappy, she thought with surprise. And this made her feel very sad – not like Harriet Bright at all. I must be getting into character, she thought. Just like Mrs Glossia said. Because I’m Cinderella now, I’m feeling lonely and sad. And very hungry too. It’s funny how changing your name can change the way you look at the world.
She thought of old Mr Crabbeapple who lived down the road.
Harriet Bright’s mother said he didn’t have a kind word to say about anyone.
But he did have lots of ones.
Harriet Bright hadn’t heard some of them before.
‘If he wasn’t so old and lonely, I’d report him,’ said Harriet Bright’s mother.
‘Crabby by name, crabby by nature,’ her father always said when they drove past his house.
Maybe Mr Crabbeapple just needs to change his name, thought Harriet Bright. To something more cheerful.
She made a note in her book to suggest this to him next time he yelled at her.
Then her mother called from downstairs. ‘Dinner’s ready, Harriet.’
Harriet Bright slammed closed her Unhappy Times and jumped off the bed.
‘Lucky I’m still really Harriet Bright. And BRIGHT’S a word. Like a trumpet. It’s against my name to be unhappy for too long,’ she said to herself as she skipped downstairs for dinner.
Cinderella SATURDAY
‘Morning, Cinderella,’ said Harriet Bright’s mother as she pulled back the curtains.
Blazing sunlight settled on Harriet Bright’s face and tried to squeeze under her eyelids.
‘G r r r r r,’ said Harriet Bright. ‘What’s the time?’
‘It’s 7.59 on a beautiful Saturday morning,’ said her mother, throwing back the duvet.