by Ali Sparkes
After dinner they shared the washing up duties, although Freddy looked aghast when Rachel handed him a drying up cloth. Not long after, with Bessie fed and watered and put into her basket in the hallway, they went to bed. It was early, but they were tired out. Teaching modern history to Polly and Freddy was a full time occupation now for Ben and Rachel. And learning it was clearly pretty exhausting too. Their great-aunt and uncle looked done in.
Rachel and Polly fell asleep fast, even though they were excited and nervous about school the next day. But at around midnight Rachel woke up and noticed a light under the door. She got up, crept carefully past Polly’s sleeping form, opened the door and peered across the landing. Freddy was in the bathroom, the door ajar. He was staring into the mirror above the sink, holding a tissue to his nose. Seeing Rachel, he screwed it up and threw it into the toilet, immediately flushing it away. He walked past her, back to bed, with a tight smile.
‘You swore,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget.’
‘The question is, should I care about a promise made fifty-two years ago by Nikita Khrushchev?’ said the Russian president. From the wall of his vast marble office, Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union in 1957, stared down at them all, along with Bulganin, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. Ivan and Gregor said nothing. They were still in shock from what they had found in the bunker.
‘Do we have all his work? All his notes?’
Gregor nodded.
‘So then, perhaps we can work on without the man himself. But this …’ The president flipped his computer monitor around and looked at the grainy faces on its screen. Four children, clustered round a desk, somewhere in England. ‘This makes it all so much harder to decide. I think we need to negotiate a new deal. I want to meet these children first.’
Gregor nodded to Ivan. ‘Tell Tara to go ahead,’ he said. ‘With care … but quickly. We don’t want to alert the British for as long as possible … in case they don’t know already.’
‘Do you think the British government has any idea?’ asked the president.
‘Tara says she can’t be sure,’ said Gregor. ‘There has been … activity … in the town. A retired policeman has been looking up his old notes on the case. Jerome Emerson—who is the uncle of the fair-haired children— was seen in London, but our man lost him on the Tube. He may be back home by now. It’s worrying. The British have been jumpy and curious ever since Tarrant crawled back to them last year. If we’d got that letter on time we would have known to stop him. We’re sending three operatives to assist Tara. She’ll make her move before the British work anything out.’
‘Good. Good. Tell your agent, good work.’ The president stood up and smiled. ‘I will make time for a children’s tea party for, shall we say, Wednesday?’
‘Polly is new—so I’d like you all to give her a warm Amhill Secondary welcome,’ beamed Miss Janaway. The class murmured indistinct greetings and someone made a quiet farting noise, but Miss Janaway, sitting back down with a discreet smooth of her tartan skirt, did not notice. She was close to retirement age and very good at not hearing things after so many years’ practice.
‘Polly, perhaps you’d like to come up and tell the rest of the class a little bit about yourself,’ said Miss Janaway.
Rachel groaned and she let her forehead flop into her palms as Polly skipped happily to the front of the class. Rachel raised her eyes fearfully as her great-aunt turned and smiled at everyone and began to speak in a voice like the queen (despite the many hours Rachel had spent trying to beat this habit out of her).
‘Hello, everyone! My name is Pauline … er … Robertson, but everybody calls me Polly. I’m jolly pleased to meet you all. I know it’s going to be frightfully difficult to catch up with you all, as I’ve not been to a school quite like this before, but I mean to try. I hope you’ll all be kind and not think I’m a total clot when I get into scrapes with algebra. Algebra’s probably my worst subject! I’m always getting into scrapes with algebra.’
There was a stunned silence.
Miss Janaway coughed. ‘Um … perhaps you could tell us a bit about your last school, Polly?’ she prompted.
‘Oh—oh yes.’ Polly went slightly pink. Rachel knew it was because she was about to make up a ‘fib’ about her last school. Polly was a hopeless liar. ‘Well, you’d probably think it was a bit qu—peculiar, really. Not a bit like this. I grew up on a hip—hippy commune, I think you might call it. We all lived in a sort of camp in the woods and everyone sort of helped everyone else and we got taught by the grown-ups, in the big … um … well … we called it a wigwam.’
Everyone sat in yet more stunned silence, although Rachel very nearly moaned aloud. They had rehearsed and rehearsed this! And now Polly was making bits up. They’d never mentioned a wigwam!
‘Everyone ate together and we all slept in hammocks and cooked over open fires.’ Polly was getting into her stride now. ‘We grew our own food and caught rabbits to eat. I can skin a rabbit like anything!’
There were gasps and the vegetarian girls clutched their friendship bracelets and whimpered.
‘But, as you can probably guess, I don’t know an awful lot about the twenty-first century … I mean, that is, I haven’t had much to do with television and CD-Rons and DBDs and such like.’ A titter ran around the class. Rachel tried to work out whether it was a mean titter or a friendly titter. Too early to tell. ‘I’ve come here—with my brother Freddy—because Father thinks we need to get into a proper school now, so we can take proper CGSE exams. We’re living with Rachel and Ben, because they’re sort of related to us.’ Rachel flinched, as several of her classmates turned to stare at her, and then felt guilty. She was going to have to look after Polly and it was no good pretending it wasn’t going to be embarrassing.
‘And they’re both absolutely super!’ concluded Polly, and the class collapsed into hysterical laughter. Polly beamed around at them all, her face awash with confusion, worry, and hope. Rachel reckoned her face could stop working so hard. It needn’t bother with hope.
‘First you get the skin off—you’ve got to use the right kind of blade or flint, or it’ll just be a mess and you don’t want to be eating clumps of fur,’ instructed Freddy. The boys in 9C leaned forward in their seats. ‘So you run the blade between the fur pelt and the sinews underneath and if you do it right you don’t even spill any blood! Then, when the fur’s out of the way you have to get its guts out. And let me tell you—that can be jolly messy if you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘Do you cut its ’ead off?’ said one of the Pincer twins, much to Ben’s alarm.
‘Well, yes, of course!’ said Freddy. ‘You wouldn’t want to eat baked eyeballs, would you?’
‘Right—well … that’s … that’s been very interesting, Freddy,’ said Mrs Ryan, looking slightly green. ‘Not exactly what I had in mind by way of introduction, but—very interesting. Although please be aware, killing, cooking, and eating of rabbits or other animals during school time is strictly forbidden.’
‘Of course, miss.’ Freddy smiled at her. ‘I absolutely wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘Please go and sit back down now,’ said Mrs Ryan. Freddy returned to his seat amid much whispering and narrowing of eyes. The boys of 9C had not made up their minds yet. Some of the girls had, though. One or two vegetarians were maintaining disgusted looks, but the majority of the girls were smirking at each other and widening their eyes and playing with their hair. Ben bit his lip. Freddy already had a few admirers. What would they think if they knew he was sixty-six?
Freddy’s stories of life in the hippy commune had been quite exciting, Ben had to admit, even if he knew they had completely made them up the night before. Some bits were true, though. Freddy actually had caught and skinned a rabbit, as part of his boarding school’s survival training. Some soldiers had come and taken his entire year out on Salisbury Plain for a weekend, to teach them basic survival skills. They’d set up snares and traps.
Mrs Ryan was handing out timetables an
d homework diaries, to prepare them for the term ahead, and soon everyone was filling in their details. Freddy had been seated next to Ben, and Ben glanced across to be sure his great-uncle was OK. Freddy seemed fine. So far, because of his gory stories of gutting rabbits, the other boys hadn’t started going for him over the posh accent. Ben had tried to get him to drop a few aitches but as soon as he’d got into his rabbit story, he’d forgotten and was sounding like a visiting duke again in moments. For now though, he looked like every other kid in the class, his head bent over the homework diary, filling in details. Then again … Ben leaned over and jabbed his finger at the Date of Birth line. Freddy blinked and then nodded. He scribbled out 7 April 1943 and, after a little calculation, wrote 7 April 1995. He put the pen down gravely and Ben guessed he was, for a moment, lost in the weirdness of it all.
Ben gave him a sympathetic grin. Freddy nodded and smiled back. With his mussed up hair and ordinary school clothes, he really didn’t stand out that much, thought Ben. They’d not done badly.
The door opened and the head teacher, Mr Gerard, came in. Freddy shot up from his seat and stood to attention. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. The head teacher stopped and looked around at this new pupil, his eyebrows raised. The rest of the class had, as usual, remained slumped over desks, continuing with whatever they were doing. Now though, they fell silent and sat up, staring from Freddy to Mr Gerard.
‘Well … er … good morning, er …’
‘Frederick Robertson, sir,’ said Freddy, although he was beginning to look a little uneasy now.
‘Good morning, Frederick. You must be new … we … er … well, we don’t stand on ceremony when I come into the room.’ Mr Gerard fiddled with his tie and smiled.
‘We don’t, sir? Oh—I see. Sorry, sir. We did at my old school, sir, when a master came in.’ There were sniggers now, rising and falling like a malevolent sea around the new boy.
‘Well, it’s very nice to be wished good morning, nonetheless. You may sit down now.’
Freddy nodded and sat. Ben looked uneasily around as the head teacher had a word with Mrs Ryan. The Pincer twins were making twisty shapes with their mean fists and Rory O’Neal was whispering, ‘Good morning, sir—oh, good morning, sir! Jolly good show, sir! Really rather super to meet you, sir!’ not very quietly. The girls were giggling openly.
‘Just keep your head down and try not to say anything,’ muttered Rachel, as she and Polly queued up for lunch. But Polly was staring, appalled, at what Rachel had just given her.
‘You mean we eat off our trays? With no plate?’ Her high voice, filled with disdain, rang out across the dining hall.
‘The tray is the plate, you dummy!’ hissed Rachel. ‘Please—keep your voice down!’ She led Polly along and thankfully the girl said no more other than, ‘Yes please,’ or ‘No thank you,’ as the dinner ladies dolloped mashed potato, carrots, and beef casserole into the correct sections on her tray-plate. A cellophane wrapped mini Swiss roll occupied the dessert dent and then Rachel plonked a knife and fork into the cutlery dent and a cup of apple juice into the cup bit. ‘See,’ she said. ‘It works perfectly well. And it saves on washing up.’ Polly nodded doubtfully as she sat down beside her great-niece.
Rachel had deliberately made for the table tucked into the corner furthest away from the dinner queue, and chosen seats which meant their backs were to everyone. She desperately hoped they wouldn’t get noticed. Kids in her class had been whispering ‘Absolutely super!’ at her all morning. They were having a whale of a time; even Joanne and Carrie, who were normally her friends, were singing it out by break time. Poor Polly couldn’t understand what was wrong with calling someone absolutely super.
‘It’s just—old-fashioned!’ sighed Rachel, scooping up mash with her fork. ‘I’m sorry, Polly—it was a really nice thing to say, but they’ll be taking the—making jokes about it—forever now. That’s what kids are like. You must know that.’
‘I do know that. It’s just that, in my school, they would have laughed at you for wearing a torn blouse or having something stuck in your hair. Here …’ she looked around and blinked mournfully, ‘it seems you ought to have a torn blouse or something stuck in your hair. It’s all topsy-turvy.’
‘It’s more to do with the way you talk,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re just too—posh. I’m sorry, but they’ll think you’re stuck up. I know you’re not,’ she added, hurriedly, as Polly’s face fell. ‘I know you’re great— brilliant—and really brave! But they don’t understand that. They can’t.’
‘So I just have to change myself to make them happy,’ said Polly, spearing a carrot with feeling.
‘If you want to fit in,’ said Rachel. It was a pathetic thing to say. It wasn’t right. But it was true.
‘Come on, then, let’s get this over with!’ Freddy raised his fists and danced from one foot to the other. He looked like the lion out of The Wizard of Oz.
The Pincer twins grinned at each other.
‘L-look—j-just leave him alone!’ said Ben, glancing anxiously around the playground and wishing a teacher would show up and save Freddy from the bashing that was lining up for him. He would be standing shoulder to shoulder with him, of course, but Roly O’Neal was sitting on his chest.
‘L-l-l-leave him alone—p-p-pleeeeease!’ mimicked Roly and leant his elbow on Ben’s ear. Ben struggled and tried to hit out at him, but Roly was huge and he just couldn’t get his arms free.
‘Get your fat backside off him, you lout!’ shouted Freddy. Roly shouted with laughter and the Pincer twins went in. Even from his squashed viewpoint on the gritty tarmac, Ben would never forget what he saw next. Freddy, still dancing about like a boxer, waited until the twins were nearly upon him, and then jumped up, grabbed their heads and bashed their skulls together with a clunk. They were poleaxed. They fell over with high-pitched screams. Freddy shouted ‘Score!’ and danced across to Roly. Roly headbutted him in the stomach.
The first sign of serious trouble in the dining room was the way the juice in Rachel’s cup suddenly juddered—sending out little circular ripples—like that scene in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex is coming, thought Rachel. The T-Rex was coming. The T-Rex more commonly known, at Amhill Secondary, as Lorraine Kingsley. Lorraine plonked her considerable weight onto the chair opposite and slammed her tray down on the table. Her carrots hung briefly in the air before returning to their dimple in the red plastic tray with a plop. Lorraine didn’t say anything, but she looked at Polly. She dug her knife into her mash and hooked it up into her mouth, where she spread it across her grey-tinged tongue, and all the while she looked at Polly.
She got through all her mash this way, and then went on to the carrots. She was nothing if not methodical. And still she stared at Polly. Once, Polly opened her mouth to speak, but Rachel elbowed her in the side and shook her head vigorously. So Polly continued to pick through her lunch with the occasional glance up to see if the girl opposite was still staring. She was. At length, when she had spread all her chicken casserole into her mouth and swallowed it (there was no sign of a fork in the cutlery dent) Lorraine Kingsley poked a sausage-like digit at Polly.
‘Say “absolutely super”,’ she instructed, in a voice as thick as her finger.
‘I—I beg your pardon?’ said Polly.
‘You ’eard. Say it. Say “absolutely super”. Everyone’s going on about it and I missed it and I don’t like missing things.’
‘Absolutely super,’ muttered Polly.
‘You takin’ the—’
‘Polly just said it!’ cried Rachel in alarm. ‘She just said it—like you asked her to!’
Lorraine Kingsley screwed her block-like face into a suspicious sneer. ‘She didn’t say it proper! She said it sarcastic-like, di’n’t she? She didn’t say it proper.’
Rachel sighed. ‘Polly—please—just say it like you said in class.’
‘Absolutely super,’ said Polly again—this time with more feeling.
‘Again,’ sniggered Lorraine.
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‘Absolutely super.’
Lorraine bashed the table so hard that neither Polly nor Rachel could prevent a little scream. ‘Oi! You lot! Get over’ere! She’s doin’ it! She’s doin’ it again!’
A tide of faces arrived around their little table. Rachel felt her skin heat up. This could be nasty.
‘Do it again!’ ordered Lorraine, poking her blunt, gravy spattered knife towards Polly.
Polly narrowed her eyes.
‘Absolutely super,’ she muttered, into the remains of her half-eaten meal.
‘Again!’ chanted Lorraine and a few of the others echoed her.
‘Absolutely super.’
‘AGAIN!’ chanted everyone.
‘Absolutely super.’
‘Louder!’ bawled Lorraine, her small eyes shining.
Polly stood up and took a deep breath as if she meant to project across the whole room this time. Then she picked up her food tray and upended it on Lorraine’s head. ‘Well, that’s absolutely super, at any rate,’ she said, with a smart rap to get all the gravy and beef out.
‘Whizzer first day!’ said Freddy while the school nurse checked over his ribs one more time. His torso was red and purple. ‘You all right there, old girl?’
From behind a wodge of bloodied tissues Rachel gave a cheerful thumbs up. They all very much hoped her nose would stop bleeding by home time. Polly tried to smile sympathetically, but her split lip was very sore. ‘I know just what to use to get the blood out of your blouse,’ she said, carefully. ‘Cold water and a little salt rubbed in.’
Ben sat on a plastic seat in the corner of the school’s medical room and watched his hand swell up a little more. The knuckles were violet and green already. He grinned. He wasn’t a violent boy by nature, but he still felt a grim satisfaction every time he thought about the way his fist had connected with Roly O’Neal’s chin. Just the once, of course, but even so … He hoped Roly’s chin looked worse than his hand.