The Bed and Breakfast Star

by Jacqueline Wilson

  Still, if I had to go to school, that was the one I wanted to go to. So that I could still see Jamie.

  ‘Of course you can’t go, Elsa. You’d have to get two buses. And then walk miles. We can’t afford the fares. And you’d wear out your trainers in weeks. No, you’re to go to this Mayberry School where the other kids go.’

  Only they didn’t all go, of course. Naomi went. The Asian kids went. One or two others. But Funny-Face and nearly all the boys bunked off every day.

  I decided that’s what I’d do. I might know I was intelligent, but this school might give me the wrong sort of tests. I could easily end up being thought thick all over again. There was no guarantee at all I’d find another Jamie.

  I started hanging around more with Funny-Face and the others. I had to work hard to get them to like me. I had to tell them lots and lots of jokes. They soon got sick of my usual repertoire. Get that fancy word. I’m not thick. I know lots and lots of things, though they’re not usually the sort of things they like you to know in school. All comedians have to have a repertoire – it’s all the jokes in their act. So to impress Funny-Face and his Famous Five followers I had to tell a few rude jokes. Naughty jokes. Blue jokes. Dirty jokes. You know the sort.

  The trouble was that Pippa still hung round me most of the time, and she heard some of the jokes too. I told her and told her and told her that she mustn’t repeat them, but one time she forgot. She told Mack.

  And then guess what. SMACK.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault this time,’ said FunnyFace afterwards.

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Pippa, and she burst into tears.

  ‘You didn’t mean to,’ I said, giving her a cuddle. ‘Here, don’t cry, you soppy little thing. It’s me he smacked, not you.’

  ‘You don’t hardly ever cry,’ said Pippa.

  ‘She’s tough,’ said Funny-Face, and he sounded admiring.

  ‘Yeah, that’s me. Tough as old boots,’ I said, swaggering.

  So on the Monday I was due to start school I set off with Naomi, but the minute we got down the road I veered off with Funny-Face and the Famous Five.

  ‘Hey, Elsa. Why don’t you come with me?’ Naomi said, looking disappointed. ‘I thought we were friends. Why do you want to go off with all the boys?’

  ‘We are friends, Naomi. Course we are. I just don’t want to go to this dopey old school, that’s all. I’ll see you after, same as usual, and we’ll play in the toilets and have fun.’

  ‘But it isn’t a dopey school, really. And I hoped we’d get to be in the same class. I even swopped desks with this other girl so there’d be a place for you to sit beside me.’

  ‘Oh Naomi,’ I said, fidgeting. She was starting to make me feel bad. But I really didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t even want to be in Naomi’s class and sit beside her. Naomi looked like she was really brainy, being a bookworm and all that. I knew I was intelligent, Jamie said so, but I hadn’t quite caught up with all the things I’d missed, and maybe it would still look as if I was thick. I didn’t want Naomi knowing.

  So I went off with Funny-Face and the others. I bunked off with them all day long. It was OK for a while. We couldn’t hang about the hotel or risk going round the town because someone would spot us and twig we were bunking off school, but we went to this camp place they’d made on a demolition site. It wasn’t much of a camp, just some corrugated iron shoved together with a blue tarpaulin for a roof. It was pretty crowded when we were all crammed in there knee-to-knee, and there was nothing to sit on, just cold rubbly ground.

  ‘Well, you could make it a bit comfier, couldn’t you?’ said Funny-Face.

  ‘Yeah, you fix it up for us, Elsa,’ said one of his henchboys.

  ‘Why me?’ I said indignantly.

  ‘You’re a girl, aren’t you?’

  I snorted. I wasn’t going along with that sort of sexist rubbish. They seemed to think they were Peter Pan and the Lost Boys and I was wet little Wendy.

  ‘Catch me doing all your donkey work,’ I said. ‘Hey, what do you get if you cross a zebra and a donkey? A zeedonk. And what do you get if you cross a pig and a zebra? Striped sausages.’ I kept firing jokes at them as the resident entertainer, and so they stopped expecting me to be the chief cook and bottle-washer into the bargain.

  They started bullying the littlest boy, a runny-nosed kid not much older than Pippa, getting him to run round the site finding sacks and stuff for us to sit on. He tripped over a brick and cut both his knees and got more runny-nosed than ever, so I mopped him up and told him a few more jokes to make him laugh. It was heavy going. His name was Simon and he certainly seemed a bit simple. But he was a game little kid and so I stuck up for him when the boys were bossing him around and when we were all squatting on our makeshift cushions and Funny-Face started passing round a crumpled packet of fags, I wouldn’t let Simon sample a smoke.

  ‘You don’t want to mess around with ciggies, my lad, they’ll stunt your growth,’ I said firmly, and I gave him a toffee chew instead.

  I spurned Funny-Face’s fags too. I can’t stick the smell and they make me go dizzy and I’ve seen my mum cough-cough-coughing every morning. But even though Simon and I didn’t participate in the smoking session it still got so fuggy in the camp my head started reeling. It came as a relief when the blue tarpaulin suddenly got ripped right off and we were exposed by this other dopey gang of boys also bunking off from school. They threw a whole pile of dust and dirt all over us as we sat there gasping, and then ran away screeching with laughter.

  So then, of course, Funny-Face and the Famous Five started breathing fire instead of inhaling it, and they went rampaging across the demolition site to wreak their revenge. I rampaged a bit too, but it all seemed a bit ridiculous to me. There was a pathetic sort of war with both gangs throwing stones rather wildly. Simon got over-excited and wouldn’t keep down out of range, so he got hit on the head.

  It was only a little bump and graze but it frightened him and he started yelling. The boys just stood about jeering at him, though they looked a bit shamefaced. So I rushed over to him going ‘Mee-Maa Mee-Maa Mee-Maa’ like an ambulance, and then I made a big production of examining him and pretending his whole head had been knocked off and he needed a major operation. Simon was so simple he believed me at first and started crying harder, but when he twigged it was all a joke he started to enjoy being the centre of attention as a major casualty of war.

  The war seemed to have petered out anyway, and the rival gang wandered off down the chip shop because it was nearly lunchtime.

  That proved to be a major drawback to bunking off. None of us lot had any lunch. We didn’t have any spare cash either. As DSS kids we were entitled to a free school lunch but they just issued you with a ticket, not actual dosh you could spend. So as we weren’t at school we were stuck. I began to wish I hadn’t been so generous with my toffee chew.

  One of the boys found half a Yorkie bar he’d forgotten about right at the bottom of his bomber-jacket pocket. The wrapping paper had disintegrated and the chocolate was liberally sprinkled with little fluffy bits and after he’d passed it round for everyone to nibble it was all slurpy with boy-lick too – but it was food, after all, so I ate a square.

  I was still starving all afternoon and getting ever so bored with bunking off. I had to keep an eye on the time so as I knew when to go back to the Oyal Htl as if I’d just been let out of afternoon school. When you keep on looking at the time it doesn’t half go s-l-o-w-l-y. Half a century seemed to plod past but it was only half an hour.

  But e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y it was time to be making tracks. And then I found out I’d been wasting my time after all. Mum had decided to trot down to the school with Hank and Pippa to see how I’d got on for my first day. Only I wasn’t there, obviously, so she went into the school to find me and of course the teacher said I hadn’t ever arrived.

  Mum was MAAAAAAAAAD.

  And then Mack got in on the act and you can guess what he did.

  So I storme
d off in a huff all by myself.

  I sat there and it hurt where Mack had hit me and my tummy rumbled and I felt seriously fed up. But I didn’t cry.

  And then I heard footsteps. The clacky-stomp of high heels. It was Mum come to find me. I thought at first she might still be mad, but she sat right down beside me, even though she nearly split her leggings, and she put her arms round me. I did cry a bit then.

  ‘I’m sorry, sausage,’ she said, nuzzling into my wild lion’s mane. ‘I know he’s too hard on you sometimes.

  But it’s just that you won’t do as you’re told. And you’ve got to go to school, Elsa.’

  ‘It’s not fair. I don’t want to go to that rotten old school where I don’t know anyone.’

  ‘You know that nice Naomi. She’s your friend! Oh, come on now, Elsa, you’re never shy. You!’ Mum laughed and tweaked my nose.

  ‘The others all bunk off. The boys.’

  ‘I don’t care about them. I care about you. My girl. Now listen. You don’t want to go to school. I don’t want you to go to school. I’d much sooner have you round the hotel keeping the kids quiet for me. I’ve missed you something chronic today.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, cheering up considerably.

  ‘Yes, but listen. You’ve got to go to school because it’s the law, see, and if you don’t go they can say I’m not looking after you properly. You know the Social are always on to us as it is. We don’t want to give them any excuse whatsoever to whip you into Care.’

  She’d got me there. So I had to go the next morning. I set off with all the other kids – and then when we got to the end of the road, Funny-Face and the Famous Five all called to me.

  ‘Come on then, Elsa.’

  ‘Come with us, eh?’

  ‘Come to the camp.’

  Little Simon even came and held my hand and asked if I’d come and play ambulances with him. His face fell a mile when I had to say no. So I gave him a packet of Polos and showed him how to poke his pointy little tongue through the hole. That cheered him up no end.

  ‘Elsa! Why aren’t you coming?’ said Funny-Face. ‘You chicken or something?’

  ‘Hey, why did the one-eyed chicken cross the road? To get to the Bird’s Eye shop.’

  ‘That is a fowl joke,’ said Funny-Face.

  We both cracked up.

  ‘Come on. You can be good fun . . . for a girl,’ said Funny-Face.

  ‘You can be quite perceptive . . . for a boy,’ I said, and I waved to him and walked off with Naomi.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend then?’ she said.

  ‘Look, I’m the one that’s meant to make the jokes,’ I said. ‘Him!’

  ‘He fancies you all the same,’ said Naomi. ‘You and him will be slinking off to room one hundred and ten soon.’

  ‘Naomi!’ I nudged her and she nudged me back and we both fell about giggling.

  The Manager and the bunny lady can’t let Room 110 because the damp’s got so bad all the wallpaper’s peeled off and the Health Inspector’s been round. But someone nicked a spare key and some of the big kids pair off, boy and girl, and sneak into the empty room together. They don’t seem to mind the damp.

  But catch me going anywhere with Funny-Face. Least of all Room 110.

  Naomi and I had a laugh about it, like I said, but as I got nearer and nearer the school there suddenly didn’t seem anything to laugh at.

  ‘Cheer up, Elsa. It’s OK, really it is. Look, tell me a school joke.’

  I swallowed. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. For once I didn’t really feel in a jokey mood. Still, a comedienne has to be funny no matter what she feels like.

  ‘OK, so there’s this geography teacher, right, and he’s asking all the kids where all these mountains are, and he says to the little thick one, “Where are the Andes?” and the little thick one blinks a bit and then pipes up, “At the end of my armies.”’

  My own andies were cold and clenched tight. I felt like the little thick one all right.

  I was right to feel edgy. I didn’t like this new school at all.

  I didn’t get to sit next to Naomi in her class. I was put in the special class, which was a bit humiliating for a start. They said it was just for a little while, to see how things worked out. Hmm. Fine if they did work out. But what if they didn’t? Where do you go if you’re too thick even for the special class? Do they march you right back to the Infants?

  I didn’t like my teacher in this strange class I got stuck in. I wanted a young man teacher like Jamie. Mrs Fisher was old and probably a woman (though she had a moustache above her upper lip).

  She also had a hard voice that could rip right through you, though when I first got shoved in her class she stretched her thin lips in a smile and said in ever such sugary, sweetie tones that she was pleased to meet me, and oh what a pretty name Elsa is, and here was my notebook and have this nice sharp pencil, dearie, and why don’t you sit at the front where I can see you and write me a little story about yourself.

  She was trying to kid on she was really interested in me, but she couldn’t fool me. When she took us all out in the playground to have P.E., she got talking to one of the other teachers. The other teacher saw me barging around doing batty things with a bean bag and asked Mrs Fisher who I was. Mrs Fisher didn’t even tell her my name. She just said: ‘Oh, that’s just one of the bed-and-breakfast children.’

  I’m not even a she. I’m a That. Some sort of boring blob who doesn’t have a name, who doesn’t even have a sex.

  Elsa the Blob. Hey, I quite like that idea. I could be a great big giant monster Blob and squelch around obliterating people. Mack is still first on my list but Mrs Fisher comes a close second.

  I wrote her a little story about myself all right. I wrote that my real name is Elsarina and I’m a child star – actress, singer and comedienne – and I’ve been in lots of adverts on the telly and done panto and heaps of musicals, and I was actually currently starring in a travelling repertory performance of Annie – me playing Annie, of course. And I wrote that my mum and the rest of my family are all in showbiz too, part of the company, and that’s why we’re currently living in a hotel, because we travel around putting on our shows.

  I tried to make it sound dead convincing. But when she read it she just gave me one of those smug old smiles.

  ‘This is certainly some story, dear,’ she said. ‘Rather a fairy story, I’m afraid.’

  The other kids tittered, though they didn’t know what she was on about. She handed me my story back with all my spelling and punctuation mistakes underlined. There seemed to be more red ink on the page than pencil.

  But I was not deterred. If I was meant to be thick then some of the kids in the class were as dense as drains, and gurgled into the bargain. So I tried out my Elsarina story on them, and they were all dead impressed, even the big tough guys. I gave them a few quick samples of my comic routine out in the playground and some of them laughed and then I treated them to a rendition of ‘The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow’. I forget what a powerful voice I’ve got. One or two of them ran for cover, but those that stayed seriously seemed to appreciate my performance.

  School didn’t seem quite so bad at this stage. I had my little group of fans who happily drank in everything I told them. I got a bit carried away and started elaborating about my mum being this really beautiful actress and yet she could belt out a song and dance up a storm in this really classy cabaret act . . . and every so often I seemed to step outside myself and hear my own voice and I could see I was tempting fate telling all these lies. Well, they weren’t completely lies. Mum did use to be beautiful before she met up with Mack and had some more kids so that she lost her lovely figure and gained a few worry lines. She could still look beautiful if only she’d bother to slap on some make-up and do her hair properly. She really did use to sing and dance too. She’d sing along to all the records on the radio in a happy husky voice and she’d dance away, wiggling her hips and waggling her fingers. So Mum could sing and dance and if only she
’d had the right breaks then I’m sure she really could be a star . . .

  All the same, I shut up at lunchtime when I met Naomi. It was great to have my own special friend to wander round the playground with. School dinners weren’t so bad either. They weren’t a patch on my Mega-Feast at home with Pippa, but you were allowed to choose what you wanted, so I had a big plateful of pizza and chips, and I set all our lunch table laughing with a whole load of pizza jokes that aren’t fit for publication. Even my silly old chip joke went down well salted.

  ‘Hey, you lot, what are hot, greasy and romantic? Chips that pass in the night!’

  The afternoon wasn’t so great because we had to divide up into groups to do all this dumb weighing and measuring. I could do that easy-peasy but I didn’t have much clue when it came to how you write it all down. I didn’t want to admit this so I made a lot of it up, and then of course Mrs Fisher came nosing around and when she saw all my calculations she sighed and scored a line right through them, so it was obvious to everyone I’d got it all wrong. She sat down with me and tried to explain how to do it. I felt stupid in front of all the others and so I couldn’t take it in. She had to go through the whole gubbins again, speaking e-v-e-r s-o s-l-o-w-l-y because she obviously thought she had a right moron on her hands. The other kids started to snigger by this stage, so when Mrs Fisher at last left us in peace I had to work hard to regain their respect. I started on about my stage clothes and my mum’s stage clothes and my little sister Pippa’s stage clothes, and once I’d started on Pippa I couldn’t stop, and soon I’d turned her into this adorable little child star with chubby cheeks and a head of curls and though she hadn’t started school yet she could sing and dance like a real little trooper.

  I was certainly going a bit over the top here, because even Mack and Mum admit that Pippa is plain. Well, the poor kid can’t help it, being lumbered with Mack as a dad. She hasn’t got chubby cheeks, she hasn’t got curls (Mum did have a go with her curling tongs once when Pippa was going to a party but her hair ended up looking like it had exploded). She isn’t even little – she’s nearly as big as me though she’s half my age – and as for singing and dancing, well, Pippa can’t ever remember the words to any song, let alone the tune, and the only sort of dancing she can do is slam-dancing, though she doesn’t mean to barge straight into you.