Seriously Sassy

by Maggi Gibson

  ‘Here, boy! Over here!’ I call softly. I think maybe Magnus is a bit scared of dogs, cos he doesn’t immediately start tickling Brewster’s ears or doing the kind of things doggy people do. Then, before I can stop him, Brewster starts sniffing Magnus’s shorts! It’s so embarrassing. Honestly, I don’t know where to look. I thought Brewster was the one member of the family I could trust. I grab his collar and drag him off and start blabbering on about how Brewster is blind and how his lady love died and he’s really not been the same since. As if that in some way excuses his anti‐social behaviour!

  But at least it gets us both laughing again and we climb up on to the wall that borders the woods so Brewster can’t make any more unseemly advances. Then we chat for a while and Magnus asks if maybe I’ll write a song for him sometime. I blush and don’t let on I already have.

  When it’s time for him to go, we don’t kiss or anything. Thank goodness! I need some advice or training first. Maybe the Girl Guides could introduce the Snogging Badge. They could ask the Boy Scouts to volunteer as guinea pigs. It would be a whole lot more useful than the Brownie Skills Badge I got for sewing on a button, tying a knot, washing my hands, reading a map and addressing an envelope. And a whole lot more fun.

  Or maybe on their thirteenth birthday every new teen could get a kissing guide and video. Something like Snogging for Idiots might be a good start.

  Anyway, just before he leaves, Magnus says, ‘So are you my girlfriend now?’

  And I say, ‘Yes.’

  And he says, ‘See you tomorrow!’

  Then he goes jogging up the road. And just as he disappears round the corner, he leaps up and punches the air, like he’s really happy.

  Which I am too.

  I think.

  Breakfast this morning was somewhat fraught.

  First I had to skilfully evade Dad’s THREE THOUSAND AND ONE QUESTIONS I MUST ASK ABOUT THIS BOY MAGNUS, by screaming at him to butt out of my life and get on with his silly election campaign.

  Then guess what? He only INSISTED I APOLOGIZE to MUM for FIBBING about who I was meeting last night. Luckily, though, she’s just finished a chapter in her book called ‘Secrecy and the Teenage Psyche’. ‘No need to overreact,’ she pointed out calmly. ‘Sassy is actually behaving normally.’ And Dad was so astonished he burned the toast.

  Finally I had to tell Pip IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS I will NOT be bringing Magnus home to meet her for quite some time. If ever.

  As a result I am now going to be late for school. Which is why I hurtle out of the house at break‐neck speed and trip over Twig, who’s sitting – uninvited – on my front doorstep.

  ‘Do you mind?’ I squeak, rubbing my shin, which has collided painfully with his skull. ‘What exactly are you doing?’

  Twig squints up at me through his tousle of hair. Brewster’s lying across his lap, almost purring with pleasure. I shoo Brewster away and he lopes mournfully off. Instantly I feel bad. It’s Twig I want to be horrible to, not Brewster.

  ‘I’m waiting for you,’ Twig says, massaging the back of his head as he gets to his feet.

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ I say loftily. ‘Some people go to school, you know.’ And I stride off down the path.

  Twig follows me.

  ‘Hold on! Please?’ He jumps the fence and plants himself in front of the gate.

  I make a big play of looking at my watch and sighing heavily. Biology’s first thing and I’m hoping to get paired up with Magnus.

  ‘Please move out of my way,’ I say firmly. Twig isn’t much bigger than me. And slight. If I push hard enough I can easily barge past him. And I will if I have to.

  ‘Your name’s Sassy, isn’t it?’

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘Well, I’m Twig.’

  ‘I know,’ I mutter, ‘you told me already.’ I’m too late for registration now, so there’s no point in rushing. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to slip straight into biology without Smollett seeing me.

  ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ he blurts.

  ‘Is that a chat‐up line?’ I tease.

  ‘No, there really is something I want to show you!’ His cheeks go pink. ‘In the woods.’

  ‘You’re making it worse,’ I smile.

  ‘Seriously, Sassy, you were wearing a Friends of the Fowl T‐shirt last night and you sang that song about dolphins and things, so –’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I thought you might care –’

  ‘Care about what?’ I ask, curious now.

  ‘About Bluebell Wood.’

  ‘Of course I care about Bluebell Wood! In fact, I care about all woods. Everywhere.’

  Twig brightens. ‘Look, this will only take a couple of minutes. Just come with me. See for yourself. It’s important.’

  I glance at my watch. If I go to school without finding out what he’s so worked up about it’ll bug me all day. And if I’m quick I should still be able to make the start of biology.

  ‘OK,’ I say, following him along the road to the wood. ‘But this had better be good.’

  When we reach the first trees Twig leads the way down the main path. After a few hundred metres he cuts off through the bushes.

  I pick my way along behind him, and I’m just thinking maybe this is all a big wind‐up – after all, Megan did say he was a bit weird – when Twig turns and signals to me to keep down.

  And that’s when I see him. A man in a suit, with an orange hard hat on, like they wear on building sites. He moves between the trees, stopping every so often to make notes on a clipboard.

  Twig looks at me.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ I whisper.

  ‘That’s what I want to find out. He was here yesterday too. Up at the other end of the woods.’

  ‘So maybe he’s a tree surgeon?’

  ‘Tree surgeons don’t wear suits,’ Twig whispers. ‘And he had one of those measuring camera things on a tripod with him yesterday. I checked his car out too. The back seat’s covered with plans. Like they’re planning to build something here –’

  ‘But they can’t!’ I gasp.

  Too loud.

  The man spins round and spots us. Twig crouches lower. But I don’t. I stand up as if there’s nothing at all odd about being discovered in the bushes.

  The man eyes me for a moment. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school, kid?’ he says, frowning.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in an office?’ I smile as I wipe some cobwebs from my shoulder.

  He sighs heavily. ‘Look. I’ve got work to do. Why don’t you just run along?’ He turns his back and makes another note on his clipboard.

  ‘What kind of work?’ I ask, struggling out of the bushes and moving towards him.

  ‘None of your business.’ He holds the clipboard close to his chest.

  ‘No, no! It is my business!’ I insist, swinging my backpack off and unzipping it.

  The man rolls his eyes and takes his mobile out. ‘Look, kid. Get lost – NOW – or I’ll call your headmaster.’ He eyes my uniform. ‘Strathcarron High? That’ll be Mr Smollett. I’ll just call him, let him know you’re skipping class… ’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ I giggle. ‘Mr Smollett knows I’m here. In fact, my whole class is here. It’s part of our environmental studies project.’ I pull a notebook and pencil from my bag. ‘All about Bluebell Wood. So maybe I could just do a short interview with you?’

  I sit down on a boulder, open the notebook and lick the top of my pencil like they do in old police movies. ‘So if you’d like to tell me your name, and what you’re doing here?’ I ask, as authoritatively as possible.

  He stares down at me. ‘Look, I’m counting the trees. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Counting trees… ’ I repeat, writing it down. ‘So why are you counting the trees?’

  He sighs heavily. ‘I really don’t have time for this.’

  ‘But it would be such a great help for our project! And I’m so glad I found you before any of the others. It’s like
getting a scoop, isn’t it? And my teacher will be really pleased.’

  Just then there’s a loud CRACK from the bushes. I guess it’s Twig. ‘That’ll be my friend, Twig!’ I say. The man scowls at me.

  ‘Honestly, it is his name!’ I smile. ‘He’s the photographer on the project. But he’s very shy. He’s probably taking photos of us right now.’

  ‘Look, I don’t want my photo taken,’ the man says, holding his clipboard up in front of his face.

  ‘Why not?’ I ask sweetly.

  Just then the man’s mobile rings and he stomps off through the trees. ‘I can’t talk right now,’ I hear him muttering. ‘The whole place is crawling with school kids. I’m coming back to the office.’

  ‘Thank you ever so much for your help!’ I call cheerily after him. ‘We’re going to be here all day!’

  ‘Wow!’ says Twig, emerging from the under‐growth, wide‐eyed as a bush baby. ‘That was amazing! Whatever he’s up to, you’ve scared him off. For today at least.’

  I tuck my notebook back in my rucksack, trying to make out it was no big deal, but my tummy feels a bit tight and sick.

  ‘So what do you think he’s up to?’ I ask quietly. ‘I mean, I can’t think it’s anything good, or he would have just told me, wouldn’t he?’

  Twig leans against the trunk of a huge old beech tree and looks up through the green canopy of leaves. Beyond them the sky’s a beautiful blue.

  ‘I think they’re going to build something here,’ he says. ‘Houses or shops or something.’

  ‘But they’d need to get, what do you call it… planning permission… wouldn’t they?’

  Twig shrugs. ‘They’re supposed to. But once the trees are chopped down, you can’t put them back up again, can you? So some developers take their chance. Go ahead without it.’

  I look around the woods. A squirrel runs up the trunk of one of the trees. Birds dart through the branches. The sound of birdsong fills the air. I love it here. It’s the only place in Strathcarron where you feel you’re away from all the roads and buildings and concrete. The only place where you can feel truly alive. I breathe in deeply. The air is fresh and sweet. Like you can smell the greenness, almost taste it on your tongue.

  ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’ I ask.

  ‘I only moved here a couple of weeks ago.’ Twig smiles. ‘So I don’t know anyone. Except Megan, of course. But what’s the point in telling her? If they want to build more shops here she’ll probably turn up to cheer them on.’

  ‘She wasn’t always like that,’ I say, surprising myself, cos it’s almost like I’m defending her. ‘We were best buds all through primary. But she changed, you know, when her parents split up.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a tough call,’ he says quietly. ‘It kinda knocks you sideways for a bit.’

  We both sit quiet for a few minutes.

  ‘I don’t want them to change this place,’ I say as a pale yellow butterfly flutters by. ‘But I don’t see what I can do about it.’

  ‘But look what you’ve done already!’ Twig says, suddenly animated. ‘You’re a true eco‐warrior! The way you scared that guy off. I could never have been as clever as that. And you were so funny!’

  I smile at Twig. It’s sweet that he thinks I’m clever. And funny.

  ‘But I don’t see what else I can do,’ I say.

  ‘We need to let people know Bluebell Wood is under threat. Start a campaign. I’m new here. No one knows me. But you’ve got friends,’ he says. ‘Contacts.’

  ‘No,’ I say suddenly, remembering the dire warnings Dad gave me about the Paradiso’s Panties Incident and the promise I made not to get into any trouble. ‘I can’t get involved.’

  Twig looks at me like I’ve lost the plot. ‘But why not?’

  ‘Because I made a promise to my dad. He’s standing for election and –’

  ‘Your dad’s standing for election?’ Twig exclaims, so excited he’s almost dancing. ‘That’s perfect. Don’t you see? He can make it an election issue. Get media coverage! That’s brilliant!’

  Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that? If they’re planning to destroy our woods without us knowing then that’s a hot local issue.

  This could be EXACTLY what Dad’s campaign needs!

  Determined to speak to Dad as soon as he gets home tonight, I leave Twig in the woods and dash off towards the school.

  But I don’t go in by the gate. From bitter experience I know Smelly Smollett will be lurking there, his bald pate glinting in the sun, eager to scoop up any latecomers and march them off to his office for some mindless torture.

  Instead I climb the back wall, sprint across the playing fields and skip in the side door the seniors always jam open so their sleepy mates can straggle in late.

  I straighten my uniform, then walk casually along the corridor, hoping against hope I don’t bump into any teachers. I’m almost at the door of Mr Hemphead’s biology room – where Magnus will (I hope) be pining for me – when Mr Lovelace, Magnus’s swim coach and principal PE teacher, appears at the far end of the corridor.

  There’s something about Mr Lovelace that gives me the heebie‐jeebies.

  It might be the fact that he always wears tiny red shorts three sizes too small. Or the way he prowls the corridors with a mean and hungry glint in his eye.

  ‘You! Girl!’ he bellows and I stop in my tracks.

  He stands, hands on hips, rising up and down on the balls of his feet as he waits for me to walk the long lonely length of the corridor towards him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he barks when at last I’m standing in front of him.

  And I don’t know why. I honestly don’t. But suddenly I hear myself saying, ‘Megan, sir. Megan Campbell.’

  He nods slowly. ‘Why are you not in class, Megan?’

  Oh no! What am I going to say? ‘I’ve been at the dentist’s, sir.’ I flash my teeth at him. ‘Just got my train tracks off.’

  Mr Lovelace squints at me like he’s trying to decide whether or not to believe me. And, yes, it’s true! I cannot deny it! And I will forever feel ashamed for doing it. But I do that fluttery thing with my eyes that Pip always does when she wants to come over all sugary‐seductively sweet.

  His expression softens. ‘Well, run along, Megan,’ he says. ‘Don’t keep Mr Hemphill waiting.’

  The bell for the end of first period rings just as, almost collapsing under the weight of the guilt of the lie I’ve just told, I reach the biology room door.

  Moments later Taslima and Cordelia come out and link arms with me. Magnus passes, heading in the opposite direction. He gives me a big wave. Megan clocks him and I swear she looks so furious that her perfectly straight hair frizzles.

  ‘You’re OK,’ Taslima laughs as we wander into maths. ‘Mr Hemphead took the register and when he called your name Cordelia had this hunch you were just late, so she did this great impersonation of you shouting, “HERE, MR HEMPHEAD, SIR.”’

  ‘And,’ says Cordelia, adjusting her scarlet hair ribbons, ‘I think he must have that senile dimension thing, cos ALL PERIOD he didn’t even notice you weren’t there.’

  Great! That’s even better than I could have hoped for. But even if I’d got detention for being late it would have been worth it. When it comes to doing the right thing suffering an hour’s detention is nothing. Ask Nelson Mandela. Stuck in prison on Robben Island for twenty‐seven years to protest against apartheid in South Africa. That’s TWICE as long as I’ve been alive – but he survived, because he knew deep down his cause was just.

  I don’t see Magnus again till last period in English. He grins at me when he comes into the room and heads straight for my desk.

  ‘I’ve got swim practice after school,’ he says. ‘Got more time trials coming up. Maybe I could text you later?’

  ‘Do you want my number, then?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure,’ he says, and sticks out his hand. ‘Write it there.’

  Shakily I print the number on to the back of Magnus’s
hand. Just as Megan arrives. She fires Magnus a filthy look, then tosses her long blonde hair like she couldn’t care less.

  I smile sweetly at her as Magnus goes to his seat. Deep inside I’m going, Wey‐hey! One to Sassy. Nil to Megan!

  As Miss Peabody launches into a passionate explanation of romantic love in Romeo and Juliet I sit deep in troubled thought. Who would have imagined that a pacifist and animal‐rights campaigner like me could get so much pleasure from a fellow human being’s suffering?

  I make a mental note to speak to Taslima. Maybe this is how Vlad the Impaler first got a taste for inflicting pain. Maybe he had a childhood friend who’d done him a dreadful wrong and then one day he made them suffer and discovered he quite liked it. Next thing he was chopping people’s heads off and sticking them up on stakes all round the city walls.

  Who knows, a well‐timed spot of therapy in his teenage years from a good friend might have stopped him. Before it was all too late.

  As soon as Dad gets home I corner him and Digby in the campaign cupboard. They listen carefully while I tell them about Bluebell Wood and the man with the clipboard.

  ‘So what you’re saying, Sassy, is that you bunked off school this morning,’ Dad says sternly.

  I stare at him in disbelief. ‘That’s hardly the point, is it?’ I exclaim.

  ‘Oh yes it is!’ Dad fumes. ‘I ask you to behave like a model daughter for three weeks. You promise you will. And next thing you’re skipping off school, going into the woods – with some boy you don’t even know!’

  ‘Let’s just cool it here,’ Digby says bravely. ‘Sassy knows she should have been at school on time. Right, Sassy?’

  I nod.

  ‘So it won’t happen again, will it, Sassy?’

  Tight‐lipped, I nod again. I daren’t open my mouth or, I swear, I will explode all over my father, messier than a boiled egg in a microwave, and my demo disc will be gone forever. Which would be so sad, cos I’ve only one more week left to behave.

  Dad sighs. ‘So where’s this going, Digby?’

  ‘Sassy has brought us some information. We should look into it. I’ve got a mate in the planning department. I’ll get on to him first thing. We’ll take it from there. But what mustn’t happen, Sassy,’ he fixes me with a steely stare, ‘is you going off on some wild campaign with only half the information. You must leave this to the adults. Let us deal with it.’