‘By using the metal detector that doesn’t work very well.’ She held it up. ‘I was messing about, trying to cheer her up, and the bleeps starting getting closer together. So I followed them. And hey presto, there were the medals.’
I gave Flo a disappointed look.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said.
‘If you’d wanted to tell us, why didn’t you? I said.
‘Because she was embarrassed. And that’s why she wouldn’t do the reconstruction, isn’t it Flo?’ Jonno peered over his glasses at her.
‘I didn’t want to lie anymore,’ she said.
‘So, what are we going to do about Flo?’ said Bee, hands on hips.
‘Nothing,’ said Copper Pie.
‘We’ve got to do something. We need to return the medals to Jack, without being caught.’ Bee raised her eyebrows. They disappeared under her fringe.
‘Is that what we’re going to do?’ I said. ‘Do you think that’s fair? Fair and TRIBISH?’ I shouted the last word.
‘Well, she’s sorry. Aren’t you, Flo?’ Flo nodded at Bee.
‘So if you’re sorry about something, that’s enough, you cry and everyone covers up for you?’ Ten eyes turned to me in horror.
‘Well, we can’t turn her in,’ said Copper Pie. ‘I wouldn’t even do that to Charlie . . . I don’t think.’
‘Great! So we can steal cars, laptops, phones . . . and as long as we’re sorry, it’s OK.’
‘Keener, listen. You can see how bad she feels. It was a mistake. If we hand the medals in, saying we found them by the bags, like Flo planned. Problem solved. Jack gets his Show and Tell back. Flo will never do anything like it again.’
‘Please, Keener. Please.’ Flo tried the big-eyes look. It almost worked.
‘I bet we’ve all done something we’re ashamed of,’ said Fifty. ‘Something we’d rather forget.’ I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.
THINGS TRIBERS ARE ASHAMED OF (DON’T TELL ANYONE)
COPPER PIE: When Charlie was a baby Copper Pie used to feed him his mashed up food, but he ate most of it himself, so Charlie didn’t grow very much and cried a lot because he was hungry. It stopped when Charlie learnt to speak and told his mum.
BEE: Used to drop her sweet wrappers when her mum wasn’t looking, but one day a man ran after her and told her off. (She’d never do that now - she’s eco.)
FIFTY: Pretended to be four (when he was actually nine) so he could go in the Soft Play with Probably Rose, but accidentally went too fast down the slide and took out three toddlers.
JONNO: Told his mum he’d lost his expensive denim jacket, but really he put it in a bin because he didn’t like it.
KEENER: Went to feed the ducks with Fifty but the geese started trying to get the bread, so Keener threw the bag at Fifty and ran away, leaving his friend to be pecked to death.
‘Come on, Keener,’ said Jonno. ‘She’s your sister.’
‘And what if Jack was your brother?’ I said. ‘And he’d been crying at home about his lost medals. How would you feel then?’
There was silence. I’d made a good point – I could tell.
‘We’d feel differently,’ said Bee, eventually. ‘But we’re not Jack’s friends or family, we’re Flo’s. It’s about loyalty, Keener, something Tribers are meant to know all about. Come on, Flo. Let’s go and mattress surf and leave your brother to work out what’s right.’
Bee took Flo’s hand, which seemed very little, and led her out. One by one the others followed and left me on my own, with the medals lying on my blue rug.
Mr Dukes
‘Mr Dukes,’ said Bee. Mr Dukes bent his head slightly to show he was listening. (He really is quite a nice teacher.) ‘We found these.’ Bee held out her hand and the three coloured ribbons slipped over her fingers, making the medals dangle down and bang each other.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Jack will be pleased. Where were they?’
‘Under where the coats are,’ said Fifty. ‘We decided to search the school really well in case the medals were lost, rather than taken. We started by the Year 3 classes and there they were!’
‘Strange,’ said Mr Dukes. ‘We searched thoroughly ourselves.’
‘Not thoroughly enough,’ said Bee, with a cheeky little smile that made me want to puke, but made Mr Dukes smile.
‘Well, thank you very much.’He disappeared back into the classroom. We disappeared back to our patch for the rest of break. Job done.
MR DUKES’S CLASSROOM – 11.01 A.M.
Mr Dukes: Jack, good news. Some Year 6s found your medals.
Jack: Brilliant. Where did they find them?
Mr Dukes: Outside the classroom, amongst all the debris.
Jack: We looked there.
Mr Dukes: You can’t have looked well enough.
Jack: But we did.
Mr Dukes: We ll perhaps the Year 6s are better at looking.
Jack: Who was it who found them, Mr Dukes?
Mr Dukes: It was Bee —
Jack: And the Tribers. I’m right, aren’t I?
Mr Dukes: Good guessing. Yes, it was. You might want to thank them.
Jack: I’ll go now.
Mr Dukes: Not now, Jack. Break’s over. You can find them at lunchtime.
Jack: If I was a Triber I’d have found the medals.
Mr Dukes: I don’t think being a Triber had anything to do with it.
Jack: It did, Mr Dukes. They can do anything.
Mr Dukes: They’re ordinary children, like you, Jack.
Jack: No, they’re not. They’re . . . different.
Mr Dukes: Sit down now, Jack. And keep hold of those medals.
the ballerina’s head
At lunch, Jack came to see us on our patch. It was totally embarrassing. He thanked us five hundred times and wouldn’t go away. It felt so fake, pretending we were heroes when in fact we were accomplices of Flo the thief. He asked loads of questions about Tribe that we tried not to answer. (And he had his sweatshirt on back to front – always does according to Bee.) Eventually he got bored, and went off to muck about with his cronies.
‘ We so don’t need Jack thinking we’re his best friends,’ said Bee.
‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I mean, if he hadn’t been mean to Flo she wouldn’t have been mean back.’
‘If that’s what you think, how come it took you a whole weekend to decide whether or not to cover up for Flo?’ Fifty asked me. Good question. But I had the answer.
‘It didn’t,’ I said. ‘I decided right away. But I wanted to make sure she was properly sorry so I made her wait.’
‘You’re evil,’ said Copper Pie, but he was laughing. Bee and Jonno weren’t. I could see they thought I was a monster.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I said. ‘I told her last night. After I’d made her do all the vegetables for Sunday lunch, and the washing up, and the drying. Amy tried to help but I explained that Flo had been nasty and she wanted to make it up to me by working hard. I waited until Mum had put her to bed and then told her I’d decided to go along with the plan to return the medals. Simple.’ (No way was I ever going to tell on Flo. Far too risky. She’d be poisoning my blackcurrant and cutting holes in the bum of my trousers forever more.)
‘Keener, you are one mean brother,’ said Bee.
‘No, I’m not. Flo’s one mean sister. And if you’re interested, what I spent most of the weekend doing was investigating how it was that my metal detector could find three little medals in a box of woolly pom-poms when it couldn’t spot a 50p buried in sand even when it was right over it.’
AN INVESTIGATION BY KEENER INTO MY RANDOM METAL DETECTOR
I collected ten different things, all of which were metal or had metal in them. I tested them to see which ones made the machine bleep. I also measured the distances between the plate of the metal detector and the object, at the point the bleeping started. I even buried some of the objects in a plant pot full of mud and tested that.
THE OBJECTS
&nb
sp; Key, nail clippers, beer-bottle top, spinning top with metal middle and rubbery outside, baking tray, Flo’s scooter, a pin, another pin but with a green plastic end, fork, red plastic magnet.
CONCLUSION
My metal detector is completely random. It bleeps when it feels like it. Finding the medals was luck.
‘Who cares. We found the medals. That’s all that counts,’ said Bee. ‘Let’s forget it. I mean Show and Tell is really Show Off and Tell. Do you remember that pottery ballerina that Annabel Ellis brought in and said she’d made?’
‘How could we forget?’ said Fifty. ‘You nearly broke the ballerina’s head off trying to wrestle it out of Annabel’s hands to see if it had a Made in England stamp on the bottom.’
‘Which it did,’ said Bee. ‘And I remember being desperate the next week to find something amazing to take in to really annoy her.’
‘That’s what we should do,’ said Jonno.
‘What?’ said Bee.
‘We should help Flo find something amazing to take for Show and Tell. Something Mr Dukes would be interested in. It would make her feel good. And show Jack that she’s not afraid to try again, even though he was mean about Fat Cat.’ We were all silent. ‘What do you think?’ he said.
‘Let’s do it,’ said Bee.
‘Same,’ said Fifty.
‘I’m in,’ said Copper Pie.
There was only me left. I hadn’t decided what I thought so I had to do the thinking bit out loud, because they were all waiting for me.
‘Part of me doesn’t see why we should help Flo, because she was the one who did the stealing. But another bit of me thinks Jack didn’t have to be so horrible about Fat Cat – even though it’s rubbish. And the other thing is, Flo never gets picked. You know what teachers are like. They always pick the same kids.’
‘They pick kids like you, Keener,’ said Fifty. He’s right. They do.
‘I think it would be nice if she could be picked just once.’
‘That sounds like a yes to me, Keener,’ said Jonno. I rewound the scene in my head and listened to what I’d said. Jonno was right. It was a yes. Show and Tell, here we come, I thought.
‘I know!’ I said. ‘My swimming medals. They’re bigger and shinier than Jack’s medals, and there are more of them. And there’s a silver cup too. Flo could take them.’
Bee sighed. ‘That wouldn’t work, would it? They’re not hers. She didn’t win them. You did.’
‘But Jack doesn’t know that,’ I said.
‘Keener, for someone who’s clever, you’re quite thick. Flo needs to take something she’s proud of. Taking your medals would be another lie. How is your little sister meant to work out right from wrong if her big brother can’t?’
Good job my mum and dad didn’t hear that, I thought.
‘Good point,’ said Jonno. ‘We need Flo. Only she can decide what she’s proud of.’
‘That won’t work,’ I said. ‘She was proud of Fat Cat.’
‘We’re back where we started then,’ said Fifty.
‘Exactly right,’ said Jonno. He stood up, wiped the bits of bark and general woody stuff off his shorts and disappeared out of our shady patch into the sunny playground. He headed straight for Flo.
show and tell
Miss Walsh congratulated us in class. She made us all stand at the front. It was even more embarrassing than when Jack did it, knowing we were actually in league with the other side. I went pink, as usual.
‘Some of you may know that Jack, in Year 3, lost the medals that he brought in to school last week for Show and Tell. I’m pleased to say Mr Dukes tells me that five members of 6W found the medals by searching the school at break time when they could have been out playing. Children’ (she looked at us) ‘or should I say “Tribers”,’ (she winked – how embarrassing!) ‘I think it’s wonderful that you tried to help, and I’m sure the rest of the class would like to join me in a round of applause.’
There was some unenthusiastic clapping. We sat down as quickly as we could. Being Tribe is great, but everyone knowing we’re Tribe is not so great. (It’s the attention, I could do without it.) Evaporation, condensation, freezing and melting came next. But Jonno wasn’t taking any notice. He spent the whole lesson drawing on a piece of paper stuffed inside his science book. I asked him about it at lunch.
‘I’m going to help Flo make Fat Cat better.’
‘He’s not ill,’ I said. (That’s about as funny as I get.)
‘No, but he’s ugly,’ said Jonno. He took a piece of folded-up paper out of his pocket and flattened it on the lunch table. It was a drawing with labels showing what each bit was made of. Fat Cat’s head and body were still pom-poms, and the ears were still cardboard, but the whiskers were now matchsticks and there were twig legs, buttons for eyes and a tail made of a bit of coat hanger (so it could stick up in the air) with wool wound round it.
‘It looks brilliant,’ I said. ‘But it needs a collar.’
‘Good idea.’ Jonno drew a collar and wrote ribbon, on the label. He held it up so the others could see. ‘What’s the idea?’ said Fifty.
‘I told Flo I’d show her how to make Fat Cat even nicer. Good enough to be picked for Show and Tell. This is the plan for her to follow. I want her to make it and tell the class how she did it all on her own. Do you think she’ll be able to do it?’
‘I’ll help her,’ I said. (I’m good at modelling. My secret weapon is a glue gun.)
‘Not too much, though,’ said Bee. ‘She needs to do it herself.’
‘Tell you what, Keener,’ said Jonno. ‘I’ll give her the plan, but I won’t tell her you’ve seen it. You can accidentally-on-purpose spot her trying to make Fat Cat beautiful and help her if she needs it. OK?’
‘Message received and understood,’ I said.
‘If it’s any good, she can make me a pom-pom elephant,’ said Copper Pie. He looked deadly serious, so we all wet ourselves laughing. (Quite why he loves elephants I don’t know, but he does.) It was one of those great lunchtimes when everything seems funny and we’re not bored and we all know exactly what the others are thinking.
Before we dumped the trays and headed out to the playground, Fifty decided to make an announcement. ‘Tribers, the mystery of the missing medals has been successfully solved, without anyone being found guilty, which was clever of us. But not only has Tribe forgiven the thief, we are now helping her to see right from wrong, by making delightful toy animals for Show and Tell. Let’s hear it for Tribe.’
We did a handshake in the middle of the hall. Who cares? Everyone knows we’re Tribe.
‘I’m off to see Flo,’ said Jonno. ‘See you later.’
That night I lurked around Flo’s room, but I didn’t see any evidence of plastic surgery on Fat Cat. She seemed to be playing ‘Grown-up Barbies have a Spelling Test’. So I went and got this old book Dad lent me about someone who’s nice half the time and evil the other half, bit like Flo, and settled into my hammock. I meant to go and check again after she’d had her bath but I forgot. By the time I thought about it again she was in bed, lights off. I felt guilty. I knew Jonno would be disappointed that Flo hadn’t followed his plan. I’ll get up early, there’ll be time to do it before school if we bolt breakfast, I thought.
deluxe fat cat
Flo was ready for school. Completely ready – dressed, fed, hair combed, teeth cleaned (ish). I hadn’t even had my cereal.
‘You’re ahead of yourself this morning,’ said Mum.
‘I want to be early. Can we go early, Mum?’
‘We might manage it, but I’ve got a few things to do before we leave, like eat.’
‘Can I go with you, Keener?’
My normal response would be ‘No’, but I thought about it for a second before I said, ‘No’.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ I whispered back.
‘It’s called Luxury Fat Cat.’
She’d got me interested. I skipped cereal, grabbed
a banana and left with Flo.
‘Show,’ I said as soon as we were out of sight of the house.
‘Jonno drew me a picture showing me what to do,’ said Flo. ‘I like Jonno.’
She reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic wallet. In it there were four sheets of paper all with really careful drawings of pom-pom animals, with labels, just like Jonno had done. The first one was Fat Cat. The rest were Fat Guinea Pig, Fat Elephant and Fat Hippo. All done by Flo.
‘They’re brilliant,’ I said.
‘I’m going to make a pom-pom zoo. Do you want to see Luxury Fat Cat?’
‘I do,’ I said. And I really did.
She pulled out a red velvet bag with a tie-top. (It came with her magic set.)
‘Ready?’ I nodded. Out came Luxury Fat Cat. And he was excellent. Flo had, somehow, done everything Jonno said, but better. Fat Cat’s face (blue button eyes, a sewn-on mouth and nose and plaited grass for whiskers) was brilliant. The fluff of the pom-pom covered all the joins so the legs (she’d used lolly-sticks) and tail looked great as well. And the collar was silver with some writing on it in black. I had a closer look. DELUXE, it said.
‘It means luxury in France,’ said Flo, beaming at me.
I was impressed. I couldn’t wait for the Tribers to see. It was like one of those programmes Mum won’t let us watch where they completely change what someone looks like. Fat Cat was now Deluxe Fat Cat. ‘How did you do it?’ I asked.
‘I showed Jonno’s drawing to Mr Morris and he gave me some stuff from the art room. I needed Dad to help’ (Mum doesn’t do craft) ‘so after Mum put me to bed I stayed awake and waited and waited till he came home and then we did it, in my pyjamas, and I didn’t go to sleep until it was the day after.’
‘Wow!’ I was a bit jealous. Dad’s never done modelling with me in the dead of night.
Flo and I were second on our patch, after Copper Pie. We waited until all the Tribers had arrived before Flo showed them the drawings, and the ‘Deluxe’ Fat Cat. Jonno was so pleased you’d have thought she was his sister. Copper Pie was over the top about how good it was – I’m pretty sure he wanted to ask for the pom-pom elephant, when she’d made it.
A Thousand Water Bombs Page 11