Floods 4

by Colin Thompson

  Not only did most of Sunnyview School think Betty was cool, but so did Mrs Hulbert, though cool was not a word she ever used except when she was describing the weather. Mrs Hulbert thought Betty was lovely because when the two girls came home from school that day, Mrs Hulbert thought she had never seen Ffiona so happy. She even got out the chocolate biscuits, which were only for very special occasions like Christmas and birthdays.

  ‘So the new school is wonderful, then, is it?’ she said, pretending not to notice when Ffiona gave Betty a second biscuit and took another for herself.

  ‘It is with Betty looking after me,’ said Ffiona. She told her mother about the incident on the way to school that morning.

  ‘An elephant, dear?’ said Mrs Hulbert. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Gosh.’

  Betty was tempted to tell the truth about the elephant being an accident, but Mrs Hulbert said she thought it was quite funny even if it did seem very unlikely, so Betty just drank her glass of milk and kept quiet. She could have explained to Mrs Hulbert that the Floods were witches and wizards, but Betty decided that was something maybe her mother should do. When she got home she told her own mother what had happened before realising she’d been banned from doing any magic, but Mordonna thought it was hilarious.

  ‘We’ll make a deal,’ she said. ‘You can do magic, but only when it’s to help someone like Ffiona.’

  ‘OK.’

  Meanwhile, Bridie was making plans for her revenge. Due to her tiny brain, which didn’t work very well, the plans were very slow in getting made and were also pretty stupid.

  ‘What we’re going to do, like, is, like, kidnap Betty Flood’s nerdy friend, yeah?’ she said to her three collaborators.

  ‘Right, cool, yeah,’ said friend one.

  ‘Totally. I’m, like, yeah, whatever,’ said friend two.

  ‘Umm, I’ve got to go and help my mum,’ said friend three, who had a tiny bit more brain than the others.

  ‘No you don’t,’ said Bridie. ‘You’re just being chicken.’

  ‘No, no, I mean, yeah, my mum said I’ve got to go and do a thing for her.’

  ‘If you tell anyone, I will, like, totally kill you,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, no, I won’t tell anyone,’ said friend three.

  ‘Well, whatever,’ said Bridie. ‘Just run away, mummy’s bubba, we don’t need you anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said friend one.

  ‘Yeah, and we, like, never liked you anyway,’ said friend two.

  When she had gone, the three girls worked out their plan to kidnap Ffiona. The first bit would be the hardest. That was to get Ffiona away from Betty. They walked to school together. They were in the same class all day and then they walked home together.

  ‘OK, like, I’ve got an idea,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Brilliant,’ said friend one.

  ‘Yeah, like, yeah,’ said friend two. ‘What?’

  ‘We have to send a kid to the classroom and say Ffiona’s mum needs to see her,’ said Bridie.

  ‘What, and we, like, grab her before she reaches her mum?’

  ‘What mum?’ said Bridie.

  ‘You said her mum wanted to see her.’

  ‘Not for real, stupid. It’s just to get her out of the classroom,’ said Bridie.

  ‘But if it’s not for real, she won’t come,’ said friend one.

  ‘She won’t know it’s not for real. You are, like, so totally dumb sometimes,’ said Bridie.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said friend two, who was even dumber.

  ‘We need someone to go and do the message,’ said Bridie. ‘I mean like, none of us can go, ’cos she wouldn’t believe us.’

  So they got Bridie’s little sister – who was also not very bright – and she agreed to go to Ffiona and Betty’s classroom the next day to deliver the message, in return for not getting a French burn and ink down her dress.

  ‘I still don’t understand how we grab her without her mother seeing us,’ said friend one.

  Bridie started to explain again, but then gave up. Next to her slaves, she felt really clever. This was one of the two main reasons she had chosen them in the first place. The other reason was that they were the only ones stupid enough to want Bridie as a friend.

  ‘Just leave it to me,’ she said, ‘and make sure to bring some string and a sack to school tomorrow.’

  ‘My dad’s got one,’ said friend two. ‘I’ll borrow his.’

  ‘One what?’

  ‘A sack. I haven’t, like, seen it, but I think it’s totally brand new because I heard him telling my mum that he got the sack last week.’

  ‘Wow, that is, like, really weird,’ said friend one. ‘You don’t suppose he knew we would need one and got it specially, do you?’

  Bridie closed her eyes and gritted her teeth to stop herself from banging the two idiots’ heads together. She started to speak but then thought better of it and just said, ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  ‘Come in,’ called Mrs Magpie, Ffiona’s teacher.

  The door opened and Bridie’s little sister came in.

  ‘Molly McTort, and what do you want?’

  ‘Got a message, miss,’ said the little girl.

  ‘Right.’

  Molly nodded and smiled and turned to leave.

  ‘Do you want to give the message to me, Molly?’ said Mrs Magpie.

  ‘Umm, umm…’ said Molly and began to cry.

  ‘It’s all right, dear. Nothing to worry about,’ said the teacher, handing Molly a tissue. ‘I think you’re supposed to give me the message.’

  ‘Get ink on me,’ Molly cried and looked like she was about to wet herself.

  ‘No you won’t,’ said Mrs Magpie. ‘No one’s going to put ink on you. Now why don’t you sit down here and tell me the message.’

  ‘F-f-f-f-f, F-f-f-f, F-f-f, Ffiona mummy here,’ said Molly.

  ‘Well done. Well, Ffiona, it sounds as if perhaps your mother’s here and wants to see you,’ said the teacher. ‘Off you go, and drop Molly off at Mrs Dunbarton’s classroom on the way.’

  Ffiona was very surprised. Not once since her first day at school five years ago had either of her parents ever come to any of Ffiona’s schools. They were the sort of people who were a bit scared of teachers and always felt inferior in their presence.15 Even when their poor daughter had been badly bullied, the most they had done was write an apologetic letter to the headmaster – and as everyone knows, any letter written by a parent to their child’s school is skilfully and professionally handled by putting it unopened into a rubbish bin where it is dealt with by eventually converting it into compost. Rather than make a fuss, Ffiona’s parents just kept moving house.

  So it was unheard of for Ffiona’s mother to come to school. Even if her granny had dropped down dead, Mrs Hulbert would have waited until Ffiona got home to tell her.

  ‘Are you sure my mother’s here?’ she asked Molly.

  Molly looked as if she was going to burst into tears again, so Mrs Magpie told Ffiona to take her back to Mrs Dunbarton while she rang the front office to see if Ffiona’s mother really was there.

  As soon as Ffiona and Molly turned the corner towards the kindy classes, Bridie crept up behind them and put the sack over Ffiona’s head.

  The ‘kidnap Ffiona’ plan had not included Ffiona screaming at the top of her voice, so when she did, Bridie dropped the rope and the three bullies ran off. By then Molly was crying out loud too and several teachers came out of their classrooms to see what was going on. Having heard the scream, finding Ffiona with a sack in her hand and Molly crying her eyes out, they all came to the same conclusion.

  Ffiona had been trying to kidnap Molly.

  ‘Miss Hulbert, you are in big trouble,’ said the headmaster when Ffiona was taken to his office. ‘In all my years as a teacher, I have never experienced anything like it. What on earth were you thinking? Were you going to hold Molly ransom?’

  ‘I, no, I�
�’ Ffiona began, but no one would let her get a word in edgeways.

  ‘For goodness sake, the McTorts are probably the poorest family in the school,’ said the headmaster, adding with a grin to his deputy, ‘If I was going to kidnap a child I’d take one of the Huntley-Smiths. They’re loaded.’

  ‘No, I, but…’ Ffiona tried to explain as Bridie and her teacher came into the office.

  ‘She tried to totally kidnap me too, sir,’ said Bridie, ‘but I managed to escape. I was, like, coming here to get you, sir, when my teacher found me with the spraycan next to the graffiti.’

  The headmaster forced himself to try to understand what Bridie was saying, but he was having difficulty.

  ‘Only it wasn’t I what done it. It was her,’ Bridie went on, pointing at Ffiona. ‘I don’t never, like, not know what them words she wrote on the wall means.’

  The headmaster gave up. They hadn’t learnt how to deal with triple negatives in headmaster training.

  Then Mrs Magpie and Betty arrived and began to try to straighten things out. The trouble was, the headmaster was one of those pompous sort of people who finds it very difficult to change their minds or ever admit they’ve made a mistake. As far as he was concerned, Ffiona Hulbert – who was obviously a troublemaker or else she wouldn’t have been to so many different schools – had been trying to kidnap sweet little innocent Molly McTort. He managed to overlook the fact that Molly was in training to become a big stupid bully like her older sister and practised each day by picking the scabs off her knees and making other toddlers eat them.

  As far as he was concerned, Molly was innocent and Ffiona was a potential gangster terrorist.

  ‘You are suspended pending further investigation,’ he said to Ffiona. ‘I will need to speak to your parents and maybe even the police.’

  The mention of the word ‘police’ took the smile off Bridie’s face. The McTorts were old acquaintances of the police. At any given time at least three uncles or cousins or nephews were in gaol and the police used to joke that the McTorts had a season ticket to prison. But if Bridie had one talent – and she did only have the one – it was that she was really good at telling lies. Most people usually guessed she was lying about things, but they could never get her to admit it. Some people, like the headmaster, were too lazy to think about it so they just believed whatever she said.

  So all of Ffiona and her teacher’s arguments fell on deaf ears.16 He decided to suspend Ffiona because it was the easiest thing to do.17 When Betty protested, he threatened to suspend her too. Mrs Magpie, who had a soft spot for girls like Ffiona, let Betty out of school early to look after her.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Betty reassured Ffiona as they walked home. ‘It’ll all get sorted out.’

  ‘But my parents will be so ashamed they’ll have to move again,’ said Ffiona. ‘And…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I won’t see you any more,’ Ffiona blurted out, ‘and you’re the only friend I’ve ever had.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Betty. ‘I am your friend and what friends do is look after each other. You must not worry. Your mum and dad won’t even know anything’s happened at school, never mind want to move. So don’t worry.’

  One type of magic Betty was always good at was making people feel better and Ffiona put her arm round Betty’s shoulder and gave her a big hug.

  ‘You’re the best friend anyone could ever have,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I?’ said Betty. ‘Come on, let’s get this sorted out.’

  They went into Betty’s room and rang the school.

  ‘Headmaster, please,’ said Betty, in a voice that sounded exactly how Mrs Hulbert would have sounded if she wasn’t as nervous as she was. ‘Headmaster? This is Mrs Hulbert. I have just been speaking to my daughter and I am absolutely outraged.’

  ‘So am I, Mrs Hulbert,’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Not about the same thing,’ said Betty. ‘How dare you accuse my daughter of trying to kidnap one of the worst children in your school? If I don’t receive a full written apology and hear that both McTort children have been expelled by tomorrow morning, my brother, the Minister of Education, will hear about it.’

  ‘Oh, er, but, but, but…’ said the headmaster.

  ‘Impersonating an outboard motor will not help you at all,’ Betty continued. ‘And quite frankly I am disgusted. I would like you to ponder on what life would be like as the headmaster at the school on St Kilda in the Outer-Outer-Hebrides, a place where the sun seldom shines and all there is to eat are puffins and seaweed.’

  ‘I, umm…’

  ‘Never mind that. Do I make myself clear?’

  Silence.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ said Betty.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Hulbert,’ said the headmaster. ‘Is your brother really…?’

  ‘I do hope you’re not suggesting I might be telling lies,’ said Betty. ‘If that was the case I imagine St Kilda might be too good for you. I’m sure my brother could arrange a cultural exchange with one of the remand schools in Transylvania Waters.’

  ‘No, no, of course not, Mrs Hulbert,’ said the headmaster. ‘I’ll deal with the McTort girls straight away.’

  ‘My daughter will be back at school tomorrow,’ said Betty. ‘Think yourself lucky I don’t remove her for good. Next time you feel like bullying her, just remember who her uncle is.’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘And I’ll thank you not to phone me again. You have nothing to say that I want to hear.’

  The headmaster began to say that he hadn’t phoned in the first place, but Betty had hung up.

  ‘Wow,’ said Ffiona, ‘that was brilliant, Betty. Do you think it will work?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Betty.

  And it had. The headmaster sent for Bridie and told her she had to tell him the truth.

  ‘I never done nothing. It was that witch girl,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Which girl?’ said the headmaster.

  ‘No, yeah, but no, witch girl, stupid, not which girl,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, child, there’s no such thing as witches. Just tell me the truth.’

  ‘Yeah, but I, like, come from a broken home,’ said Bridie.

  ‘I know that,’ said the headmaster, ‘but it was you who broke it.’

  ‘So?’

  This went on for about half an hour with the headmaster getting nowhere. What he didn’t realise was that for Bridie to tell the truth would have been a whole new experience for her and her brain wasn’t big enough to fit any new things into. Also, the headmaster kept using words like ‘deceitfulness’ and ‘subversive’, which had way too many letters in them for Bridie to have been able to understand them.

  The headmaster had never been to Transylvania Waters or even seen a photo,18 but he had heard stories of how an incredibly handsome young student teacher, who may even have been a minor prince, was once sent there and came back six months later as an eighty-five year old Belgian geography teacher with warts.

  After an hour of trying to get the truth out of Bridie and failing, he put his head in his hands and said, ‘Well, I’m chucking you out of school anyway, and your sister goes too.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Bridie defiantly. As she left the room she added, ‘Well, yeah, I did do what you said with the kidnap thing and, like, my mum’s a gypsy and I’ll get her to put a curse on you.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever,’ said the headmaster.

  Betty and Ffiona turned up for school the next day and everyone pretended nothing had happened. Not one single teacher said a single word about the incident at the next staff meeting because everyone realised that life was a lot more peaceful without the McTort girls there. Without Bridie’s influence the other bully girls kept their heads down and didn’t dare bother anyone in case they got thrown out too. One of them even learned to write her own name in crayon in joined-up writing.

  ‘Yeah, like, the kidnap didn’t go totally to plan, but we still, like, got a result,’ said Bridie to
her two friends when they met at the mall after school, as she used her Tartytat Scarlet Flash lipstick to write something unrepeatable on the window of the ‘Happy Babies’ nursery shop.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said friend one. ‘How was that then?’

  ‘I don’t have to go to school no more,’ said Bridie. ‘That is well cool.’

  ‘Won’t your mum and dad, like, go spazz and totally freak out?’ said friend two.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Bridie. ‘Like I’m going to tell them, as if.’

  ‘But what about school?’

  ‘Who needs it?’ said Bridie. ‘Ain’t nothing what they can learn me anyway.’

  ‘What, you mean, like, you’re not going to tell them and you’ll just pretend you’re going to school?’ said friend two.

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Bridie. ‘And I’ll come down here every day. Brilliant. Anyway, my dad’s not there and my mum never wakes up until Oprah starts so I can, like, stay in the house anyway until, like, um, err, what’s that thing what comes after two?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Yeah, I can like stay in the house until three o’clock and my mum wouldn’t know.’

  ‘We didn’t get the witch girl, though,’ said friend one.

  ‘Yeah, well, I decided to let her off. She’s well scared and won’t bother me again,’ said Bridie.

  ‘Yeah, but listen,’ said friend two, ‘what about the sack I took to school? My dad only got it last week. He’ll go totally spazz if I don’t take it back.’

  ‘Well, just tell him you brought it to school for, like, show and tell, and that nerdy girl stole it.’

  ‘Cool,’ said friend two. ‘Anyway, I think my dad’s got loads of other sacks. He’s always coming in and telling my mum he’s got another one.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  So because of Betty’s magic Mr and Mrs Hulbert never found out about the trouble at school, which was a good thing because they probably would have moved house again and they didn’t want to.

  Mrs Hulbert was over the moon that Ffiona had her first best friend, but she also thought that maybe Mordonna could become her first best friend. At that point she hadn’t met Nerlin, but she wondered if maybe he might become Mr Hulbert’s first ever best friend too.