The Day the Ear Fell Off

by T. M. Alexander

  ‘And countrywomen,’ added Bee.

  ‘Yes and countrywomen. You have one vote only to choose between baking and warmongering —’

  ‘What about my idea?’ said Jonno. No one said anything.

  ‘Actually, all this talking has given me an idea,’ said Fifty. ‘Let’s talk to them. Let’s go down the alley together and introduce ourselves to the Cats. It’s much harder to be rude to someone who’s nice to you.’

  ‘I’m bored with this,’ said Bee. ‘We’ve got four ideas. Let’s vote.’

  ‘Hang on. What about you, Keener? What’s your idea?’ said Fifty.

  Great! Put me on the spot, why don’t you?

  ‘Errr . . . we could do what Copper Pie said.’

  ‘Way to go!’ shouted C.P. and slapped me on the back.

  Quite why I said that I can’t tell you. I think it was because Bee called me a wuss. I was fed up with being the one who has to be persuaded into everything. I wanted to be daring for a change. And opting for cupcakes was hardly daring.

  ‘Are you sure, Keener?’ asked Bee.

  See, she didn’t believe me. I shrugged my shoulders.

  Copper Pie thumped me again. It would have been less painful if he’d just said, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Two votes for warmongering then.’

  What had I done? If everyone else voted for their own idea we would win.

  Bee stared hard at Jonno. She moved her lips but his mouth spoke.

  ‘Cakes,’ it said.

  How did she do that?

  ‘Two votes for cakes. Two for war.’ Bee grinned.

  ‘Come on, Fifty. Vote for me and I’ll look after you. You can have the cap gun.’ Copper Pie put his arm round Fifty and ruffled his hair. Fifty loves his black curly hair almost as much as he hates people messing with it. He growled and Copper Pie jumped away pretending to be scared. They like fooling around.

  ‘Nope. I’m voting for myself.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jonno. ‘How about we do all three?’

  ‘That’s nuts. We can’t attack them, talk to them and eat cake with them at the same time,’ said Fifty.

  ‘We could. It doesn’t matter if it’s cakes, chat or squirting with water and bombarding with potatoes, as long as it stops them singing songs about us.’

  ‘He’s got a point.’ Bee looked round at the rest of us.

  ‘Sounds good to me. I’ll be a good team player and follow Captain Jonno’s orders.’ Copper Pie saluted at Jonno and stamped his foot.

  ‘Me too,’ I said. Glad that I wasn’t going to be sent down the alley waving a cowboy gun with only Copper ‘The Maniac’ Pie by my side.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Since when have I been Captain?’ said Jonno. ‘Since when has there even been a captain?’

  He looked really cross. We all looked at each other. We’d obviously done something wrong, but weren’t sure what.

  He carried on. ‘I thought all Tribers were equal. That’s what you said, Keener.’

  There was a delay in my brain transmitters so Fifty spoke for me. ‘I think Copper Pie just called you Captain because you’re the one who has good ideas.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ Jonno shook his head. ‘My idea about herds was rubbish. Bee said so.’

  I’m sure the others felt every bit as confused as I did. I’d have loved someone to call me Captain. What was going on?

  ‘Well, it was rubbish, but your idea to put everything together isn’t,’ said Bee. ‘It’s clever.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? Firstly, it’s no good having ideas if you don’t have anyone else to have them with. Secondly, ideas just pop up. Anyone can have them. I only had my idea because you all had yours. Thirdly, you don’t know me. You only met me four days ago. You don’t know that without you, I wouldn’t dare do anything.’

  He looked a bit odd. Not Jonno-like at all. Smaller . . .

  ‘But you invaded our territory and didn’t budge even when we all stood against you. You dared to do that,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Only because I had to.’ His bottom lip was sticking out a tiny bit. Flo’s does that when she doesn’t get her own way (and so does Fifty’s sometimes).

  ‘What d’you mean?’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend moving to a new school when everyone’s already made their friends. The only kids who ever want to be friends with a new boy are the weirdos who’ve never had a friend because they’re seriously strange. Trust me, I’m an expert. So you either stick it out on your own and wait for someone to notice you’re human or you do it my way – work out which of the kids couldn’t care less whether there’s a new kid or not because they’ve already got friends. They’re the normal ones. That’s why I chose you lot, because you didn’t need any more friends.’

  It was quite hard to follow. He chose to be friends with the people who didn’t want to be friends with him, because the ones who want to be friends with a new boy are saddos with no friends.

  I worked it out just in time to hear the last bit of Jonno’s speech.

  ‘I don’t want to be Captain. I’m just happy not to be Jonnono-friends.’ He sighed.

  (Can you believe that on his first day Jonno looked round the classroom and chose us to be friends with? That made me feel pretty good.)

  ‘Jonno, you’ve offended us now,’ said Bee in an upset voice with eyes to go with it.

  Poor Jonno. All he’d done was admit he wanted us to be friends and now Bee was angry . . .

  ‘How dare you call us normal!’ She smiled an enormous magazine-cover smile and gave his arm a squeeze and we all started to laugh. It wasn’t really that funny but we were all relieved that she was only teasing.

  TRIBERS’ EMBARRASSING MOMENTS

  KEENER: Fell asleep sucking his thumb on the way back from a school trip to the museum.

  BEE: Put her hand up in assembly to ask Mr Morris a question and accidentally called him ‘Dad’.

  JONNO: Every time he starts a new school

  FIFTY: Knows all the words to The Sound of Music and sang along when we watched it at school.

  COPPER PIE: The sleepover when Keener found Trumpet the elephant under C.P.’s pillow

  We didn’t get a chance to talk about how the Tribe initiation Treats, Talk or Torture (Fifty came up with that) was actually going to work because Fifty and Bee went off to play with Flo, who was mattress surfing. (She drags the spare mattress up the stairs to the top landing, piles all her favourite cuddly toys on it and then slides down. It always ends in tears because the cuddlies fall off, or Flo does.)

  ‘You wouldn’t be sliding on that mattress again, would you, Flo?’ shouted Mum. ‘Not after the banister nearly dislocated your elbow.’

  ‘No, Mummy,’ shouted Flo. ‘Keener’s friends are doing it.’

  We did the Tribe handshake: one, two, three, and then everyone legged it.

  ‘I’ve got a lot to get ready,’ said Copper Pie.

  They’d decided to attack the alley the next day. I didn’t remember agreeing but . . .

  ‘And I need to get cake-making.’

  Bee makes incredibly delicious cakes. She can cook all sorts of things. Her dad and her brothers don’t do anything in the kitchen. Bee complains because boys should learn to cook too but her mum doesn’t agree. Neither do I. I’d much rather eat them.

  I had hoped that Fifty would stay behind because we had a problem . . . Going down the alley after school wasn’t going to be easy if I was on the way home in the back of the car with Flo, and Fifty was with his mum and Probably Rose. We needed to invent a reason why we didn’t need picking up.

  It was strange that I hadn’t heard his mum come to get him. I looked out of my bedroom window in case he was waiting outside. Nope. I was about to check downstairs when I noticed a Fifty-sized shape quite far up the street walking along with Jonno (I could tell by the hair). No mums in sight.

  That decided me. We’d talked about it for long enough. If Fifty had somehow
managed to persuade his mum to let him walk around on his own, then it was time I stood up to my mum. If you’re prepared to confront an alley full of girls, all older than you, then dealing with your own mum can’t be that hard. I thought I’d try and find that Keener of Tribe voice again – the one that was a bit louder.

  As I was in a deciding mood, I decided something else too. Rather than lying in bed worrying about Treats, Talk or Torture, which is what I would usually do, I thought I’d try something Fifty’s mum had suggested. (Her job is to do with making people think differently so that they’re happier or richer or have less headaches or something.) She said that when I hear the voice in my head saying worrying things, I could remind myself that it’s not real, it’s just worry. The voice could just as easily say good things, or sing, or say rubbish words like ‘compodasty’.

  Worrying makes no difference to whether things turn out right or not.

  I made up loads of excellent rubbish words after that and totally forgot to worry.

  My favourite rubbish word: ‘flimflog’.

  treats, talk or torture

  I walked to school on my own. Not with Fifty. Not with anyone. Result! It happened at breakfast:

  Me: ‘Mum, I want to start walking to school and back.’

  Mum: ‘I think it’s marvellous that you want to be independent, and of course the exercise would do you good, but —’

  Me: ‘I know all the reasons but I’m Year 6. I’m sensible. And I don’t want to be the only one of my friends who has to go with his mum.’

  Amy: ‘Let him, Mum.’

  Mum: ‘If you’d both let me finish. I was about to say that I’ve spoken to Fifty’s mum and we agreed it was time, BUT to start with, I’d like you to text me when you get there and make sure you’re home by half past four.’

  Me: ‘Oh!’

  Amy: ‘Is that all you can say?’

  Me: ‘Can I start today?’

  Mum nodded.

  Amy: ‘There’s something you’re missing, bro.’ She put her hand up, thumb by her ear, little finger by her mouth.

  Me: ‘Mum, I don’t have a phone.’

  Mum: ‘Tomorrow’s Saturday. I thought you could drag your dad to the shops after your swimming lesson.’

  Flo: ‘I want a phone. Why can’t I have a phone? It’s not fair. I’m always last . . .’

  That’s when I left. It was so cool striding out of the door on my own. I was already choosing my phone. One of those phones that slides open and plays music, so I can walk along with earphones. And a ringtone that no one else has got.

  Copper Pie was hanging around by the school gates. He had a huge plastic bag, the sort they give you in toy shops.

  ‘Keener! How come you’re walking?’

  ‘Mum’s finally realised I can cross roads and refuse lifts from strangers. And because she wants me to be safe, I’m getting my own phone.’

  ‘If she wants you to be safe she should have gone for a Desert Eagle, best semi-automatic pistol ever made —’

  ‘Why do you say stupid things like that?’ said Bee’s voice, before I spotted her body.

  ‘Because he’s stupid, of course,’ said Fifty, from behind Bee.

  ‘Who’s stupid?’ asked Jonno as he came through the gates.

  ‘Last one to the den is,’ said C.P. sprinting off with no chance of it being him. Last one there was Bee, probably because she was carrying a cake tin!

  I hadn’t had much to do with Callum (public enemy number one) since term started. He stays away from us because we’ve got a not-so-secret secret weapon – Copper Pie.

  So at morning break, the last thing I was expecting was his ugly face poking through the branches while we were trying to plot the after-school assault (or hopefully tea party) in the alley.

  ‘Hello,’ he shouted.

  We all stopped talking.

  ‘Carry on. Don’t mind me,’ he said.

  ‘What d’you want, Hog?’ Copper Pie calls him that because he never passes the ball. Instead of wanting the team to win, all he wants is to be the one who scores.

  ‘Callum. The name is Callum.’

  ‘Callum, it’s private, OK?’ said Bee. ‘So push off.’

  ‘Stressy. I’m watching you. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m watching you.’ And then he was gone.

  ‘What did he mean?’ asked Jonno.

  ‘Nothing. He’s an idiot,’ I said.

  ‘A clever idiot who we should be wary of, or an idiot idiot?’

  I thought for a minute. ‘Ummm . . . a clever idiot, I suppose. He sucks up to teachers. He controls most of the games in the playground – you know, says who can play and who can’t, decides what they do . . . He’s almost as fast a runner as Copper Pie here.’

  ‘Remember the “almost”, it’s important,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘And he doesn’t like you?’ said Jonno.

  ‘He’s never bothered us and we don’t bother him,’ said Fifty. ‘But . . . perhaps he doesn’t like Tribe.’

  ‘He doesn’t know about Tribe,’ I said.

  ‘He may not know we’re Tribe,’ Fifty went on, ‘but he knows there are five of us now and that we’re always together. Maybe he thinks we’re plotting a coup. Playground Tsar’s reign of terror ended by secret tribe.’

  ‘Now you’re talking, Fifty. Maybe we should take over,’ said Copper Pie, rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Wicked gangmaster toppled by Tribe. Sounds good,’ said Bee.

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Jonno. ‘The alley, then Callum.’

  It was as if he knew we were up to something. Back on our patch after the dullest history lesson ever (plotting towns with ‘chester’ or ‘cester’ in their names on a map of England to show where the Roman forts were), we were about to decide the details of Tribe’s Treats, Talk or Torture initiation when his ugly mug popped up again.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’ he asked.

  Copper Pie was guarding it with his life. He’d kept it by him all day. Guns aren’t allowed in school.

  ‘The body of the last person to bother me, Hog.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be a weapon, would it?’

  I made a how-did-he-know face at Fifty. Fifty made a we’re-done-for face at me.

  ‘So I’m right,’ said Callum.

  Bee rolled her eyes at us and made a give-it-away-why-don’t-you face.

  Sorry, I wanted to say.

  ‘If you start making trouble for me . . .’ Copper Pie stepped towards Callum.

  ‘Don’t bother with him,’ said Jonno. ‘If he really thinks we’d be stupid enough to bring a . . . I don’t know . . . a gun, or a bow and arrow to school, then it’s his duty to go and report us. Off you go, Callum.’

  He went. Jonno has that effect on people.

  ‘What did you say that for?’ said Fifty. ‘Everyone knows Copper Pie is stupid enough to bring a gun.’

  ‘I am not,’ said C.P.

  Bee pointed at the bag.

  ‘I am,’ he said.

  Bee started laughing. They all joined in, but I couldn’t see what was funny about being caught with a bag of guns, even if they were harmless.

  ‘I don’t think Callum will risk telling on us,’ said Bee. ‘I mean . . . there might be a weapon in the bag, there might not.’

  ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ I said. But what I wanted to say was: To make absolutely sure he doesn’t tell, we could let Copper Pie biff Callum a little bit . . .

  Thanks to Callum’s interference, the only time left to sort things out was while we ate lunch, before Copper Pie had to take up his position on the naughty chair.

  ‘Well?’ said Fifty.

  No one was talking. Everyone was chewing.

  ‘Come on. What are we going to do?’

  Bee sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better start us off. Right, we’ll walk up the alley together, ignoring all the chanting, teasing, whatever . . .’

  ‘OK,’ said Fifty.

  ‘And then . . .’

  You could see th
at Bee’s brain was busy but nothing was coming through.

  Silence. Even Jonno seemed stumped. I don’t know why I always expect him to be the one to come up with something. After all, he’s just a boy, like me, except a bit cooler, slightly more interesting and . . .

  ‘How about you get a cake for every shot you dare fire?’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Have you been listening at all, Der-brain?’ said Bee. ‘The cakes aren’t a reward for us. They’re a bribe for them. Honestly!’ She gave him a withering look and he withered a bit, but tried again.

  ‘We could shoot them with cakes instead of potatoes. Aim into their mouths.’

  ‘Shut up, Copper Pie,’ said everyone (except me).

  Because I, that is me, Keener, had got an idea. And it couldn’t be worse than one of his. I opened my mouth and let the words tumble out.

  ‘It’s simple. Fifty can go first because he’s in charge of talking. He can explain that we want them to stop the name-calling so we can use the alley whenever we like. Then Copper Pie can show them his arsenal and then Bee can step in and say that we’d rather share our cakes than be enemies.’

  Made sense to me.

  ‘Makes sense to me,’ said Fifty. I’m sure he heard my thought.

  ‘Let’s hope they choose cakes,’ said Jonno. ‘What if they choose war?’

  I was so pleased with myself I thought I’d try again.

  ‘If they choose war we could start at the beginning again and Fifty could explain why war wouldn’t be good for them or us, and then we could try the cakes again.’

  ‘It’s all down to you then, Fifty,’ said Bee.

  He creased his forehead.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Just say the word and I’ll have my telescopic gun-sight trained on them.’

  ‘You wish.’ Fifty laughed.

  ‘So is that it then?’ said Jonno.

  Everyone was staring at me because it was my idea. I hesitated. I knew I should say, ‘Yes, that’s the plan’, in a confident manner. But what if it failed . . .?

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Bee.

  She clicked her fingers on both hands (I wish I could do that) and stood up. ‘I’m going to catch the Head. Tell her I’ve looked at the Earth Day website before she changes her mind about Go Green.’