A Thousand Water Bombs

by T. M. Alexander

  The water bombs arrived before I left for school, so we had five days to prepare a thousand. Fifty and me spent morning break and lunch break (apart from the eating part) filling them in the art room. We found a good way to tie the neck of the balloons but it involved forcing the end through the knot and then grabbing it with our teeth and yanking. The combination of the rubber and the water had, after a hundred bombs or more, made our lips raw. By afternoon break we’d had enough. When we got to our patch under the trees, Jonno was on the floor studying the creepy crawlies that he thinks are his friends, Bee was standing cross-armed and Copper Pie (who should have been helping) was messing about with a football.

  ‘Get in here, Copper Pie,’ Bee yelled, so loudly that the teachers in the staff room probably dropped their coffee cups.

  ‘Right, Tribers. Today’s Monday. The summer fair’s on Saturday. I asked the Head if we could make posters and she said, “We can’t have everyone plastering the walls of the school in posters, can we?” Is she mad? The Give and Take’ (Bee had adopted my dad’s suggestion) ‘is the only environmentally responsible stall at the whole fair. Exactly how committed is she to the planet?’

  Phew! Bee was in motormode.

  ‘But it won’t work if we don’t let everyone know in advance – they won’t bring anything to swap,’ said Jonno.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Bee. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Spread the word in the playground,’ said Jonno.

  ‘Too random,’ said Bee. ‘It’ll be like Chinese Whispers.’

  I wasn’t that interested. (And talking hurt my lips too much anyway.) Neither were Copper Pie and Fifty. We let Bee and Jonno rabbit on about how to advertise the swap stall.

  ‘I’ve got to find someone with slimy lip stuff,’ said Fifty. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘You can ask Flo,’ I said. ‘She brings all sorts of pink pots to school.’

  Fifty went off, and Copper Pie sloped away too. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet but I wasn’t worried about it. I should have been, but I wasn’t.

  four days till the bombs drop

  It was all coming together nicely. Bribery was the answer. (But not the sort of bribery that got us in trouble over School Council elections.) No way could me and Fifty fill and tie a thousand water bombs, so we brought in some help. It was his idea. One free water bomb on the day of the fair for each ten filled, tied and put in the bucket. We were giving away the profits but who cared? There were six Year 5s in the art room with us and they worked while we watched.

  Fifty’s brain must have been working overtime because he said he’d also solved the swap stall problem. I didn’t get a chance to find out how because Callum poked his head in.

  ‘What do you want?’ said Fifty.

  ‘I want to know why you’re playing with the little kids.’ He meant our Year 5 workers.

  ‘It’s teamwork. Not something you’d know anything about, Hog.’

  ‘Hog’ is Copper Pie’s name for Callum, because he hogs the ball in football.

  ‘Looks like a sweat shop,’ said Callum, before he disappeared along the corridor.

  ‘So how have you solved the swap stall problem?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘Tell me, now.’

  Bee and Jonno poked their heads round the door to see how we were getting on.

  ‘Tell us what?’ said Bee. She forced the idea out of him.

  ‘You know the class list?’ said Fifty.

  We all nodded. Each class has one. It’s emailed to the parents and has name, address, phone number and email address of everyone in your class so your parents can invite the whole lot to your birthday party even though (in my case) you only like four people.

  ‘I emailed all the kids in our class who have a brother or sister in another class and got them to send me their list so now I’ve got the whole school. We don’t need posters or Chinese Whispers. We can send an email about the Give and Take.’

  As if the Head would let us do that? Fifty can be dim sometimes.

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Bee. ‘I’ll write the words, you send it.’

  ‘No, not fantastic,’ I said. ‘There are rules about who can have your details and use them and all that . . .’

  Oh no! I’d seen those looks before. The you’re-such-a-drip ones.

  One of the Year 5 workers stopped tying and said, ‘He’s right. Data protection. Unless all the parents crossed the box about sharing data you’ll be in trouble.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Fifty, looking down at him somehow even though the Year 5 was taller.

  ‘My mum’s an expert in data protection.’

  ‘Well, don’t tell her then,’ said Bee.

  ‘Or the deal’s off,’ added Fifty.

  The worker went back to water-bomb assembly.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bee. ‘You can leave them to it. Let’s go and find Copper Pie and then we can have a go at the email. We need to get people to act. The swap stall’s going to be huge.’

  ‘Hey slaves,’ said Fifty. ‘We’ve got a meeting about the fair. Carry on and we’ll be back before the end of lunch to count your bombs.’

  It was good being managers. No chapped lips. No rubber taste in your mouth.

  Bee found Copper Pie and dragged him away from his exciting game kicking the ball against the wall repeatedly, like a machine. We sat in our den listening to Bee make up advertising slogans to explain the stall.

  ‘That’s too many words,’ said Jonno. ‘It needs to be simple, and short.’

  ‘Like Fifty,’ said Bee. Good one!

  ‘Watch it!’ said Fifty.

  ‘How about – get something for nothing,’ said Jonno.

  ‘It’s not nothing though. It’s get something for something else you don’t want,’ said Fifty.

  ‘That’s not snappy though, is it? Slogans are meant to be memorable.’ Jonno was right.

  ‘Something you want, for something you don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Something you want, for something you don’t,’ Bee repeated. ‘That’s it, Keener.’

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘We all agree,’ said Jonno. ‘Get sending, Fifty.’

  ‘I’ll do it as soon as I get home. Operation Email will be complete by 1700 hours.’

  I was pleased I’d come up with the slogan, but that meant I was involved, which I wasn’t pleased about. I avoid trouble like surfers on Solana Beach avoid great white sharks. The email was bound to come flying back at us – outraged parents, abusing the class list system, an unfair advantage, the data protection police . . .

  ‘I’m going back to the art room before the bell goes. Coming, Fifty?’

  ‘Sure.’

  On the way I tried to talk him out of it. He doesn’t like trouble either. But he was dead set on it.

  ‘It’s on your head,’ I said, but it wouldn’t be, would it? It would be on Tribe’s.

  I checked the computer before I went to bed. The email was there. And it was from Fifty, making him prime suspect if the Head found out. He could have at least used his mum’s address.

  From: j.reynolds@bcffd.com

  Subject: SOMETHING YOUWANT, FOR SOMETHING YOU DON’T

  Date: 22 May 16:47:45 BST

  To: undisclosed-recipients

  At the summer fair on Saturday there is going to be a Give and Take stall. Please bring something you don’t want, to swap for something you do.

  No money involved. This is an environmentally friendly stall.

  three days until the swap shop

  We were all hanging around by the gates before school, except Copper Pie.

  ‘Have you ever known Copper Pie be late? asked Fifty.

  I thought about it. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Never,’ said Bee.

  ‘He’s probably trying to avoid the water bomb production line,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Has he even done one?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Fifty.

  ‘How many ar
e ready?’ asked Bee.

  I looked at Fifty to see if he knew. His face was blank, so I answered. ‘About . . . four hundred?’

  ‘So will you finish in time?’

  ‘We will if we bribe some more kids,’ said Fifty.

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Bee. ‘You will too, won’t you, Jonno?’

  ‘If I have to, but I’m going to make a lip shield first so I don’t end up like them.’

  He pointed at me and Fifty. Our lips had stopped bleeding but they were still a peculiar dark red colour, like we’d been gnawing raw meat.

  Thanks to Bee’s organisation, at lunchtime there were four Tribers (no Copper Pie – off sick according to Miss Walsh), three of the Year 5s from the day before (two were off sick, probably with lesser-known lip fever, and one had given up) and three new ones. In between bombs she told us how much stuff she’d already collected for the Give and Take, and how many kids had told her they were bringing cool things to swap.

  ‘Don’t forget we’ve got to go back to that lady who said she’d sort through her rubbish,’ said Jonno (Swap Stall Deputy).

  ‘Let’s go after school,’ said Bee. ‘And then I need to do some cleaning. Some people are really disgusting – there’s chewing gum on the French horn.’ Something sticky from someone else’s mouth – yuck.

  BEST ITEMS

  Boomerang

  French horn

  Heart-shaped hot water bottle with no stopper

  Mini darts set

  Car seat with sticky patches

  Set of skittles

  New red and yellow stripy tights

  Half of a pair of crutches

  A typewriter

  Pair of snow boots

  Fruit bowl

  An old-fashioned pram

  ‘But what about the meeting?’ I said. (It was Wednesday.)

  ‘Let’s postpone,’ said Bee. ‘Too much to do before Saturday.’

  ‘Let’s have a meeting after the summer fair instead,’ said Jonno.

  ‘Good idea, in the Tribehouse with cakes,’ I said, remembering the fantastic marshmallow cupcakes Bee made to bribe the Alley Cat girls, ages ago when Tribe was new.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘There’s no time to make any,’ said Bee. Shame!

  ‘I’ll get Mum to buy some,’ said Fifty.

  Water bombs waiting in the art room, ready to burst, a pile of treasures in Bee’s garage, ready to swap, and a tray of cakes waiting in the Tribehouse, ready to eat. It was all going too well . . .

  ‘So here you all are,’ said the Head. I had my back to her, so I stayed right where I was. Someone must have warned her about our factory – no prizes for guessing who.

  ‘Who would like to explain this?’ A piece of paper flapped behind my head. Something told me Operation Email was about to explode. Fifty was standing opposite me. He was trying hard not to confess, but it’s hard to lie to the Head. He managed a few seconds, maybe even eight, of mouth-firmly-shut silence and then . . .

  ‘It was me. I did it —’

  But that was as far as he got.

  ‘Fifty did it because you wouldn’t let us put up posters and without posters no one would know to bring stuff to swap so our stall would be ruined and it’s the only environmentally responsible stall at the whole fair and you’re not supporting it even though you pretend to care about the planet.’

  Oh no! Please will someone shut Bee up before she accuses the Head of being personally responsible for climate change.

  Someone did: Jonno.

  ‘What Bee means is that we’re really committed to the recycling idea and as we couldn’t do posters we . . . tried something else, and we’re sorry if emails aren’t allowed either, but I don’t think we knew that rule, did we?’ Jonno looked at the rest of us. Fifty and Bee shook their heads. I shook the back of mine. If there was a chance we might get away with it, we’ll never know because . . .

  Bee put her hands on her hips, looked through me at the Head and said, ‘If the suffragettes had obeyed the rules, women wouldn’t have the vote and you wouldn’t be Head of our school, you’d be a housewife.’

  I was so glad I couldn’t see the Head’s face. Her voice was enough. It was like a skewer and I was the kebab – all my major organs were pierced.

  ‘You have been very rude, Beatrice. And the parallel with the women’s movement is not valid in this case. Get up to my office and wait there.’

  THE SUFFRAGETTES BY BEE

  They sound like a hip-hop band, don’t they?

  When my nan’s nan was born women weren’t allowed to vote in elections. (And black people weren’t allowed to vote in America.) It’s weird because everyone knows that’s wrong so why did the governments allow it?

  The Suffragettes were a group of women who protested and in 1918 they got the right to vote, but only if they were over 30 and had their own houses! That’s still not fair so there was another rule made in 1928 and then men and women had the same rights. In America it took much longer for everyone to be equal. They could all learn from us – our Tribe is absolutely equal. Adults don’t know much about being fair.

  Off she went, but the Head stayed.

  ‘Amir, why are you helping to fill the water bombs for a Year 6 stall?’

  ‘I’m a slave, Miss.’

  That’s all we needed: being accused of slavery. I put my head in my hands. Could things get any worse?

  two days till blast-off

  Amazingly the Head sent Bee home. Fifty filled me in on the way to school the next day. He’d called her to check she was OK because she never came back to class. According to Fifty, Bee realised she was in deep deep trouble so she did the thing girls always do – she cried. And she told the Head her dad had left home. And that the email was her idea and she made Fifty do it.

  I said, ‘So if there are “family problems”, you’re allowed to be rude, have slaves, ignore the data protection rules and have the afternoon off. Result!’

  That made Fifty mad. ‘Keener, she is upset. You’re the only one who doesn’t seem to mind that Bee’s mum and dad are probably going to divorce.’

  ‘But I thought it was all better. I thought your mum . . . you know . . . waved her wand.’

  ‘She did. And Bee’s dad is back home but he still says the twins have to go. He’s given them two weeks to find somewhere else to live . . . or else.’ He did the cutthroat sign.

  Oh! I thought. And vowed to be a bit nicer. Especially as it was thanks to Bee we’d stormed through the water bombs and had less than a hundred left to do. That reminded me.

  ‘What did the Head say about using Amir as a slave?’

  ‘Stroke of luck there. Amir said it was only a joke – said he was helping out of the kindness of his heart.’

  ‘Excellent.’ I was worried we’d be in the poo for that.

  ‘But he made Bee agree to double the rate for saying it: two free water bombs for every ten filled.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ I said. Filling the water bombs was a terrible job. That reminded me of something else: it was about time Copper Pie lent a hand.

  ‘So what was wrong with Copper Pie yesterday?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t you ring him?’

  ‘No,’ I said. Normally I would have done, but with the fair, the email, slavery . . . I’d forgotten he was ill.

  ‘He’ll be at school today. He’d have to be dying from orange-hair fever for his mum to let him stay home two days.’

  But he wasn’t. Maybe he had contracted orange-hair fever. I texted him, but nothing came bleeping back.

  Instead of a proper lesson, Miss Walsh asked us all to go through our plans for the fair.

  ‘It’s worth spending an hour now to make sure none of you forget anything essential on Saturday. We want to put on a good show for the parents, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ said Jamie. Callum’s other half.

  ‘Why don’t we start with you then, Jamie? Who are you teamed up with?’

 
‘I’m with Callum . . .’ They’re always together – no one else likes them. ‘. . . and Copper Pie.’

  I must have misheard. And so must all the other kids in our class, who had their mouths hanging open. And so must Miss Walsh.

  ‘Did you say you were with Callum and Copper Pie?’

  Jamie nodded. And turned to smile at me, and then Fifty, and then Jonno and then Bee.

  ‘Well, pop up here, Jamie and Callum. Copper Pie’s off sick so you’ll have to explain the stall without him.’

  I didn’t know what was going on but the one thing I knew for sure was that Copper Pie was not doing a stall with them. They were trying to wind us up. As soon as our fellow Triber was back at school he’d be on the water bombs, as agreed. And they’d be high on his list of victims.

  ‘It’s called Save or Score,’ said Callum. ‘I’m the goalie, Copper Pie’s the scorer. If you score three goals against me, or save three shots from Copper Pie, you win a fiver. Jamie’s doing the money.’

  ‘That sounds excellent,’ said Miss Walsh. ‘We’ve talked about trying to pick a stall that uses your talents and you’ve clearly taken notice of that.’

  They carried on talking about details: a sign, somewhere to keep the money and rules about how close the shooter could get to the goal. I wanted to interrupt and explain that it wouldn’t be happening, unless they found another shooter, but after the slave and suffragette comments Tribe didn’t need more trouble. I made they’re-completely-mental faces at the other Tribers instead.

  Roddy did his and Harry’s stall and then Bee stood up and introduced the Give and Take and Fifty did the water bombs.

  ‘I trust you’ll issue a health warning with each sale,’ said Miss Walsh. ‘We don’t want soaked teachers, or parents.’

  Fifty made a serious face. ‘Absolutely, Miss. We wouldn’t want that either.’

  Alice went next. She gave a demonstration of her face painting, making Molly into a monkey. She said she’d been practising. It looked like someone had rubbed Molly’s face in the mud.

  It went on and on. The usual things: Lucky Dip, Splat the Rat, Stick the (Blu-Tack) Tail on the Donkey, Guess the Name of the Teddy.