The Bed and Breakfast Star

by Jacqueline Wilson

  We had a new teacher in the hall in the afternoon to take us for singing. It was a relief to be free of the Fishy-Eye and I was all set to sing my cares away. I didn’t know many of the songs but I’ve always been good at improvising. So I threw back my head and let rip. But the teacher stopped playing the piano. Her face was all screwed up as if she had a terrible headache.

  ‘Who is making that . . . noise?’ she asked.

  We stared at her. What did she mean? We were all making a noise. We were singing.

  Only she didn’t seem to appreciate that. She made us start again, this time without the piano. I decided not to let this faze me. I sang out joyfully. The teacher shuddered.

  ‘You!’ she said, pointing.

  I peered round. No, it wasn’t anyone else. She was pointing at me.

  ‘Yes, you. The little bed-and-breakfast girl.’

  The other children around me sniggered. I felt my face start to burn, like the Royal Hotel’s toast.

  ‘Could you try not to sing so loudly, please?’ said the teacher.

  ‘Why?’ I said, astonished.

  ‘Because you’re singing rather flat, dear. And completely out of tune. In fact, it might be better if you didn’t sing at all, even softly. How about just nodding your head in time to the music?’

  The other kids collapsed, nudging each other and tittering.

  ‘Some stage star, eh! She can’t even sing in tune,’ they hissed.

  I had to spend the whole singing lesson with my mouth shut, nid-nodding away like Little Noddy. I didn’t feel much like making a noise after that. I hardly said anything on the way home from school. Funny-Face kept having a go at me, but I didn’t respond.

  ‘What’s up, Elsa?’ said Naomi, putting her arm round me. ‘Here, I’m sorry my mum got mad at you. It wasn’t really fair for her to pick on you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s what everyone does. Pick on me,’ I said gloomily.

  ‘Hey, don’t be like that. You’re always so cheerful. I can’t bear it when you’re all sad. Tell us a joke, go on.’

  But for the first time in my life I didn’t even feel like telling jokes. Mum gave me a big hug when I went up to room 608. She sent Mack out for a special Kentucky chicken tea.

  ‘To make up for last night, lovie,’ said Mum. ‘Sorry about that. And Mack’s sorry he got snappy too. He’s feeling better now.’

  Mack might be feeling better, Mum might be feeling better. I didn’t feel better at all.

  I normally love Kentucky chicken takeaways. I like to sit cross-legged on the floor with Pippa and kid on we’re American pioneers like in Little House on the Prairie, and we’re eating a chicken our Pa has raised and there are prowling bears outside who can smell it cooking but we’re safe inside our little log cabin.

  ‘Play our game,’ Pippa commanded, but somehow I couldn’t make it work.

  I usually finish off the game by pretending Hank is a baby bear cub and we all feed him bits of chicken (Hank loves this game too) and then we have a jolly sing-song. But now I didn’t feel I ever wanted to sing again.

  I didn’t want to say anything.

  I didn’t want to tell jokes.

  I didn’t want to be me.

  ‘Do try and cheer up, Elsa,’ said Mum. ‘Come on, you’re going to have to go to bed if you sulk around the room like this.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said.

  So I went to bed really early, before Pippa – even before Hank. Of course it was difficult to get to sleep when the light was on and the telly was loud and there were two and a half people and a baby still racketing round the room, but I put my head way down under the covers and curled up in a little ball with my hands over my ears.

  When I woke up I couldn’t hear anything even when I took my hands away. I stuck my head out the covers. I could hardly see anything either in the dark. It seemed like the middle of the night.

  And yet . . . someone was cooking supper somewhere. I could smell chips. People sometimes stayed up really late and made midnight snacks. I licked my lips. I hadn’t eaten all my Kentucky chicken because I’d felt so fed up. I could do with a little snack now myself.

  I wondered who was cooking in the kitchen. I’d got to know most of our sixth floor by now. Most of them were quite matey with me. I wondered if they’d consider sharing a chip or two.

  I eased myself out of bed. Pippa mumbled something in her sleep, but didn’t wake up. I picked my way across the crowded floor, tripping over Pippa’s My Little Pony and stepping straight into a Kentucky chicken carton, but eventually reached the door. I opened it very slowly so that it wouldn’t make any noise and crept outside into the corridor. Then I stood still, puzzled. There was a much stronger smell now. And there was a strange flickering light coming from right down the end, in the kitchen. And smoke. You don’t get smoke without . . . FIRE!

  For just one second I stood still, staring. And then I threw back my head and gave a great lion roar.

  ‘FIRE!’ I shouted. ‘FIRE FIRE FIRE!’

  I banged on room 612,1 banged on room 611, I banged on room 610, I banged on room 609, charging wildly back down the corridor and bellowing all the while.

  ‘FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE FIRE!’

  I shouted so long and so loud it felt as if there was a fire in my own head, red and roaring. And then I got to room 608 and I went hurtling inside, screaming and shouting as I snapped on the light.

  ‘FIRE!’ I flew to Mum and shook her shoulder hard. Mack propped himself up on one elbow, his eyes bleary. ‘Shut that racket!’ he mumbled.

  ‘I can’t! There’s a fire along in the kitchen. Oh, quick, quick, Mum, wake up! Pippa, get up, come on, out of bed.’

  Mum sat up, shaking her head, still half-asleep. It was Mack who suddenly shot straight out, grabbing Hank from one bed, Pippa from the other.

  ‘It’s OK, Elsa. I’ll get them out. You wake the others along the corridor,’ he said, busy and brisk.

  ‘Oh good lord, what are we going to do?’ Mum said, stumbling out of bed, frantic. ‘Quick kids, get dressed as soon as you can – I’ll do Hank.’

  ‘No, no, there’s no time. We’ve just got to get out,’ said Mack. ‘No clothes, no toys, no messing about – OUT!’

  ‘Baby Pillow!’ Pippa yelled, struggling, but Mack held her tight.

  ‘I’ve got him,’ I said, snatching Baby Pillow from Pippa’s bed.

  Then I went charging down the corridor, calling, ‘FIRE FIRE FIRE!’ all over again.

  The smoke was stronger now, and I could hear this awful crackling sound down the corridor. One of the men went running towards the kitchen in his pyjamas, but when he got near he slowed down and then backed away.

  ‘Get everyone out!’ he shouted. ‘The whole kitchen’s ablaze. Keep yelling, little kid. Wake them all up, loud as you can.’

  I took a huge breath and roared the dreadful warning over and over again. Some people came running out straight away. Others shouted back, and someone started screaming that we were all going to be burnt alive.

  ‘No-one will be burnt alive if you all just stop panicking,’ Mack shouted, charging down the corridor, Pippa under one arm, Hank under the other, Mum stumbling along in her nightie behind them. Mack was only wearing his vest and pants and any other time in the world I’d have rolled around laughing, he looked such a sight.

  But we all looked sights. People came blundering out of their bedrooms in nighties and pyjamas and T-shirts and underwear. Some were clutching handbags, some had carrier bags, several had shoved their possessions in blankets and were dragging them along the corridor.

  ‘Leave all your bits and bobs behind. Let’s just get out down the stairs. Carry the kids. Come on, get cracking!’ Mack yelled. He banged his fist against the fire alarm at the end of the corridor and it started ringing.

  ‘You nip down to the fifth floor and get that alarm going too, Elsa!’ Mack yelled. ‘And keep calling “Fire!” to get that dozy lot woken up properly. Go on, pal, you
’re doing great.’

  I shot off down the stairs and searched for the fifth-floor fire alarm – but it had already been broken weeks ago by some of the boys and no-one had ever got round to mending it. But I wasn’t broken. I was in full working order.

  ‘FIRE!’ I roared. ‘Get up, get out! Come on, wake up! FIRE FIRE FIRE!’

  I ran the length of the corridor and back, banging on every door, screeching until my throat was sore. Then I rushed back down the stairs, pushing past sleepy people stumbling in their nightclothes, desperate to find Mum and Pippa and Hank and Mack, wanting to make sure they were safe.

  ‘Elsa! Elsa, where are you? Come here, baby!’

  It was Mum, forcing her way back up the stairs, shouting and screaming.

  ‘Oh Elsa!’ she cried, and she swooped on me, clutching me as if she could never let me go. ‘I thought you were with us – and then I looked back and you weren’t there and I had to come back to get you even though Mack kept telling me you were fine and you were just waking everyone up . . . Oh Elsa, lovie, you’re safe!’

  ‘Of course I’m safe, Mum,’ I said, hugging her fiercely. ‘But I’ve got to get cracking down on the fourth floor now. No-one else has got such a good voice as me. Listen. FIRE!’

  I nearly knocked Mum over with the force of my voice.

  ‘Goodness! Yes, well, I don’t see how anyone can sleep through that. But it’s OK, they’ve got the other fire alarms going now and some of the men are seeing that everyone’s getting out. They’ve rung for the fire engines. So come on now, darling – hang on tight to my hand,’ said Mum.

  We made our way down the stairs, clinging to each other. There was no smoke down on the lower floors but people were still panicking, surging out and running like mad, pushing and shoving. One little kid fell down but his mum pulled him up again and one of the men popped him up on his shoulders out of harm’s way. The stairs seemed to go on for ever, as if we were going down and down right into the middle of the earth, but at last the lino changed to the cord carpeting of the first floor and then even though our feet kept trying to run downwards, we were on the level of the ground floor.

  The Manager was there in a posh camel dressing gown, wringing his hands.

  ‘Which one of you crazies set my hotel on fire?’ he screamed. ‘I’ll have the law on you!’

  ‘And we’ll have the law on you too, because your fire alarms aren’t working properly and we could all have got roasted to a cinder if it wasn’t for my kid,’ Mack thundered. He was still clutching Pippa in one arm, Hank in another. He turned to me – and for one mad moment I thought he was going to try to pick me up too. ‘Yeah, this little kid here! She raised the alarm. She got us all up and out of it. Our Elsa.’

  I’m not Mack’s Elsa and I never will be – but I didn’t really mind him showing off about me all the same.

  ‘That Elsa!’

  ‘Yes, little Elsa – she yelled “Fire!” fit to bust.’

  ‘She was the one who woke us up – that little kid with the loud voice.’

  They were all talking about me as we surged outside the hotel on to the pavement. Lots of people came and patted me on the back and said I’d done a grand job, and one man saw I was shivering out in the cold street and wrapped his jumper right round me to keep me warm. Someone had dragged out a whole pile of blankets and the old ladies and little kids got first pick. There weren’t enough to go round.

  ‘Come on, Jimmy, you can be a gent too,’ said Mack, seizing hold of the Manager and ‘helping’ him out of his cosy camel dressing gown. He draped it round a shivery Asian granny who nodded and smiled. The Manager was shaking his head and frowning ferociously. He looked even sillier than Mack now, dressed in a pair of silky boxer shorts and nothing else. The bunny receptionist looked a bit bedraggled too without her angora jumper and with her fluffy hair in curlers. Switchboard looked startling in red satin pyjamas – a bit like a large raspberry jelly. Now that everyone was safe out in the street this fire was almost starting to be fun.

  Then we heard a distant clanging and a big cheer went up. The fire engines were coming! We all crowded out of their way, and firemen in yellow helmets went rushing into the hotel with all their firefighting equipment. Lots of the kids wanted to go rushing in after them to watch. Funny-Face had to be frogmarched away by his mum, and Simple Simon and Nicky and Neil started their own fire-engine imitations, barging around bumping into people. Even baby Hank cottoned on and started shrieking like a siren.

  Several ambulances arrived although no-one had actually been hurt, and the police came too. And guess who else? A television crew. Not the Children in Crisis people. These were from one of the news stations. And there were reporters too, running around with note-books, and photographers flashing away with their cameras although all the people in their underwear started shrieking. Everyone asked how the fire started and who discovered it and someone said ‘Elsa’ and then someone else echoed them and soon almost everyone was saying ‘Elsa Elsa Elsa’.

  Me!

  People were prodding me, pushing me forwards towards the cameras and the microphones and the notebooks. It was my Moment of Glory.

  And do you know what? I can hardly bear to admit it. I came over all shy. I just wanted to duck my head and hide behind my mum.

  ‘Come on now, lovie. Tell us all about it. You were the one who raised the alarm, weren’t you? Come on, sweetheart, no need to be shy. It sounds as if you’ve been very brave,’ they said. ‘Tell us in your own words exactly what happened.’

  I opened my mouth. But no words came out. It was as if I’d used up all my famous voice yelling ‘Fire!’ so many times.

  So someone else started speaking for me. The wrong someone. The someone who really doesn’t have anything to do with me. We’re not even related. Though now he was acting as if he was my dad and I was his daughter.

  ‘The poor wee girl’s still a bit gob-smacked – and no wonder! My, but she did a grand job raising the alarm,’ Mack boasted, strutting all around. He was careful to hold in his tummy all the time the cameras were pointing his way. He couldn’t flex his arm muscles properly because he was still carrying Pippa and Hank, but he kept carefully arranging his legs as if he was posing for Mister Universe. He didn’t half look a berk. He sounded a right berk too, prattling on and on about his wee Elsa. If I’d had any voice left at all I’d have contradicted him furiously.

  Then little Pippa piped up.

  ‘Yes, my sister Elsa’s ever so big and brave. She rescued my baby!’

  ‘She rescued the baby?’ said the reporters, looking at Hank.

  ‘Yep, she went and got him out of his cot. I was crying and crying because I thought he’d get all burnt up and Dad and Mum wouldn’t let me go back for him—’

  ‘They wouldn’t go back for the baby?’ said the reporters, their eyes swivelling from Hank to Mum and Mack.

  ‘Not our baby. It’s just Pippa’s pillow. She calls it her baby,’ said Mum quickly. Then she realized the cameras were aiming at her, and she clutched her nightie with one hand and did her best to tidy her hair with the other. ‘Don’t worry, we made sure we had our baby Hank safe and sound. But certainly if it hadn’t been for our Elsa then we could still be in our beds right this minute – charred to cinders,’ said Mum dramatically.

  ‘Yes, Elsa banged on our door and woke us all up. We’d be dead if it wasn’t for her. She rescued all of us,’ said Naomi’s mum. ‘Me and all my babies,’ she said, showing them off to the camera.

  ‘Elsa’s my best friend,’ said Naomi, nodding her head so that her plaits jiggled.

  ‘Elsa’s my best friend too and she rescued us and all,’ said Funny-Face, and then he pulled the funniest face he could manage, all cross-eyes and drooly mouth until his mum gave him a poke.

  My mum was giving me a poke too.

  ‘Come on then, pet. Haven’t you got anything to say for yourself? All these nice gentlemen want you to say a few words about the fire. Come on, lovie, this is your big chance
,’ Mum hissed.

  I knew it. I swallowed. I wet my lips. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Fire,’ I mumbled. It was as if my voice could still only say one thing. I concentrated fiercely, trying to gain control. Fire crackled through my thoughts. My brain suddenly glowed.

  ‘Do you know what happened to the plastic surgeon who got too close to the fire?’ I said, in almost my own voice.

  ‘What plastic surgeon? There was a medical man in there? Did he get out OK?’ the reporters clamoured.

  ‘He melted!’ I said, and fell about laughing.

  They blinked at me, missing a beat.

  I decided to forge right ahead like a true professional.

  ‘What were the two Spanish firemen called?’

  ‘We haven’t got any Spaniards in our team,’ said one of the firemen, wiping the sweat from his brow and replacing his helmet.

  ‘OK, but what would they be called? Hosé and Hose B! Do you get it?’

  He didn’t look very sure. Mum gave me a violent nudge.

  ‘Elsa, stop telling those silly jokes!’ But once I got started I couldn’t ever seem to stop.

  ‘Why did the fireman wear red trousers?’ I paused for a fraction. Everyone was still staring at me oddly. ‘His blue ones were at the cleaners!’

  ‘Pack it in, Elsa,’ Mack hissed, looking like he wasn’t so sure he wanted me to be his wee Elsa after all.

  ‘It’s the shock,’ said Mum firmly. ‘She’s just having a funny five minutes.’

  ‘Only she’s not being flipping funny,’ said Mack.

  ‘Yep, I think we’d better cut the jokes,’ said the television man gently.