by Dyan Sheldon
I grabbed Kuba’s arm.
“I want to talk to you,” I said. I smiled.
“Not now,” said Kuba. “We can talk at supper.”
But I wasn’t going to be fooled by the old “we can talk at supper” ploy.
“No,” I said firmly. “Now.” I yanked her round to the comparative privacy of the front of the bus.
Kuba straightened her hat. “What’s the matter with you, Elmo? I don’t want to be the last to get my bag.”
“Never mind your bag. You and I have something to discuss.”
“Oh, really?” I could tell she was acting because she looked so totally blameless and surprised. “And what’s that?”
I told her what it was.
“What’s the big idea?” I demanded. “First you beg me to come so you won’t be on your own, and then you stick me with Archie Spongo.”
“I didn’t stick you with anyone,” said Kuba, calm as a stone. “Mr Palfry’s the one who told you to sit with him.”
But I knew her too well to be fooled by that.
“Hah!” I said. “Mr Palfry had nothing to do with it, and you know it.”
“Elmo,” said Kuba, sounding like the most reasonable person on the planet, “they’re getting the bags out – Ariel’s waiting.”
I was still holding her arm. I tightened my grip.
“I am not here to protect Archie Spongo,” I told her. “I do not want to be involved in his problems. I do not want to be involved with Eddie and Mark. I want to stay as far away from the lot of them as I can get.”
“You’re a free agent,” said Kuba. “You can do what you want.”
“I want you to promise that you’ll stop interfering,” I said. “As of now.”
Kuba gazed at me with the innocence of a violet.
“Me? You know I don’t interfere, Elmo.” She smiled shyly. “It’s not allowed.”
“Just promise that you won’t,” I insisted. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“So don’t have any.” Kuba turned to go, but I held tight.
“Promise. Say the words. Say, ‘Elmo, I promise you I won’t interfere in your life any more.’”
Kuba sighed heavily. “Elmo,” she said in a sing-song voice, “I promise you I won’t interfere in your life any more.”
As promises go, it lacked warmth and spontaneity, but it covered the main points.
I let go of her arm. “Good. I just want to have a peaceful, boring time like everyone else.”
“Boring?” Kuba’s smile was amused. She gestured to the old huts and the dark old woods, not a neon sign or souvenir shop in sight. “How could you have a boring time here?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I’m looking forward to finding out.”
As luck would have it, my bag was the last one to come out of the hold.
I watched the driver’s feet wave up and down as he lay on his stomach and shone his torch into the darkness.
“There it is!” he cried. “Right in the corner.” He gave it a tug. “I don’t know how it got back there,” he grunted as he pulled it towards the opening. “Those rough roads must have shifted it.”
Everyone else was already inside by the time I got to the lodge. They were all sitting on the floor. Mrs Smiley was sitting on a bench that looked like a log, giving everyone the usual lecture about working together and co-operating and not giving the teachers or each other a hard time. Then she started going through the details of daily life in the wilderness. Everybody looked pretty bored.
Kuba and Ariel were up at the front, so I slipped in at the back next to Carl and Jamal.
Mrs Smiley said that the two lodges would be known as A and B, and that the girls would sleep in A, the one we were in, and the boys would sleep in B.
“There are four beds in each room, and each lodge has two loos,” said Mrs Smiley. She clapped her hands together. “Since we have a few people absent with the flu, it works out perfectly.”
Ariel raised her hand. “Are there showers or baths?” she wanted to know.
“Metal tubs and a big kettle,” called Eddie.
Mr Palfry said, “Shhh!”
Mrs Smiley laughed good-naturedly. “Showers,” she informed Ariel. And she told us where they were, and where the kitchen was, and where the dining room was.
Then they split us up and Mr Palfry started giving out the boys’ rooms while Mrs Smiley gave out the ones for the girls.
Things went smoothly until he got to Mark and Eddie. Mark and Eddie wanted to share with Archie and Jamie.
Mr Palfry shook his head. “No, Eddie,” he said. He put on his stern, no-nonsense face. “Not Jamie. Jamie just eggs you and Mark on. You’ll have to find someone else.” His eyes ran round the room. “Does anyone want to bunk with Eddie, Archie and Mark?”
The boys who didn’t have a room yet all looked at the floor. There were knots in the wooden boards that made it look as if it was smiling back at me.
“Come on, you lot,” urged Mr Palfry. “Who’s going to volunteer?”
If you asked me, it would be like volunteering to walk into a nest of vipers.
Mr Palfry tapped his pen on his clipboard. “Let’s remember what Mrs Smiley said about team spirit and working together,” urged Mr Palfry. “Who wants to swap with Jamie?”
The face in the floorboards agreed with me; it looked as if it winked.
“Elmo!” Mr Palfry was the happiest he’d sounded since the bomb scare. “Brilliant. At least someone understands about teamwork.”
I looked up, my mouth open. “But—”
Mr Palfry’s eyes were on his clipboard. “That’ll be Elmo, Archie, Eddie and Mark in room 3B.”
“But Mr Palfry!” I shouted. “Mr Palfry, I didn’t volunteer.”
Mr Palfry’s happiness vanished as quickly as it had come. “Of course you did,” he snapped. “You put your hand up.”
This was wrong. This could not be. In my worst fantasy about the class trip, I’d never considered this possibility for a second – not even for less than a second.
“But Mr Palfry—”
Mr Palfry’s attention had returned to his clipboard. “So that means Carl, Jamal, Andy and Jamie are in 6B.”
“Can you believe it?” said a voice a lot sweeter than honey behind me. “Ariel and I are in 3A.”
I looked round. Kuba and Ariel were passing by with their bags, headed, I assumed, for room 3A.
Kuba’s smile was so sweet I felt as if I was stuck to it.
“It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?” said Kuba.
“Yeah,” I said, my heart sinking somewhere round my toes. “It certainly is.”
NIGHT ONE AND COUNTING
“When my sister was at Campton they went skiing,” Ariel was saying. She had some fluffy pink things in her hair that bounced every time she moved her head. They were pretty hypnotic. “They stayed in a chalet and there was a disco in the main hotel every night and a whole room of arcade games. Now that’s my idea of a cool school trip.” She waved her hand at the picturesque scene of rampant vegetation beyond the dining room window. “This is my idea of hell.”
Kuba smiled over her bread and butter. “It’s nothing like hell,” said Kuba. “Hell’s much more like Harrods on the first day of the January sales.”
I’d never been to Harrods (my mother has principles about that too, of course), but I laughed. I was feeling better now that I was finally away from my room-mates. It turned my stomach to see Mark and Eddie making up to Archie. I’d unpacked as quickly and invisibly as I could, but I’d still found it pretty stressful. Eddie and Mark were neither quick nor invisible. They kept up a constant stream of jokes while they unpacked, amusing themselves by going through Archie’s things and teasing him about everything from his pyjamas to his toothbrush. Any time Archie looked a little more bewildered than usual, they’d whack him on the back and say, “All right, Archie? All right, mate?” And Archie would laugh and nod and say everything was all right. It was like watching a la
mb being petted as it was taken to the slaughterhouse.
“I’m surprised you volunteered to share with Mark and Eddie,” said Ariel. “I didn’t think you three were friends.”
“We’re not,” I said. “I didn’t exactly volunteer.” I flicked a meaningful look at Kuba out of the corners of my eyes. “There was a bit of a mix-up.”
Ignoring my meaningfulness, Kuba turned to me with another of her impossibly sweet and gentle smiles. “What mix-up was that?” I could practically hear harps playing in the background. “Mr Palfry saw you put up your hand.”
“Mr Palfry saw someone put up a hand,” I corrected her. “That doesn’t mean it was me, or mine.”
Kuba, of course, didn’t blink. “You were at the back of the room,” she reminded me. “If it wasn’t yours, it must have been the hand of God.”
Only Ariel thought this was a joke.
“Poor you,” said Ariel. I hadn’t noticed it before, but she had a very sympathetic smile. “Eddie and Mark are sooo juvenile.”
Juvenile wasn’t quite the word I’d choose to describe Eddie and Mark – psychopathic seemed more accurate – but it was close enough. I started to revise my opinion of Ariel. She still reminded me of a Barbie doll, but she was obviously much more intelligent.
“It’s Archie I feel sorry for,” said my loyal friend, Kuba Bamber. “They never stop taking the mickey out of him, and he has no idea how to fight back.”
“Heavy artillery might help,” said Ariel.
I decided to stay non-committal. “Boys will be boys…” I muttered vaguely.
Kuba humphed. “You wouldn’t say that if it was you they were picking on, Elmo Blue.” She looked at her fork in a critical way. “If you ask me, it’s about time somebody stood up to those two.”
“That’ll be the day,” said Ariel. “Amy Johnson told them off once for nicking her glitter nail polish and painting Mrs Smiley’s desk with it, and they put her telephone number up in the phone box outside the pub. Mr Johnson nearly had a fit.” Ariel brushed some crumbs from her fluffy pink jumper. “Anyway, it was pretty funny about the bomb, wasn’t it? You have to admit that.” She glanced over to the liveliest table in the dining room. “And they do seem to be getting on all right now.”
I reckoned it depended on what you meant by “getting on all right”. Mark and Eddie, on opposite sides of the table, were flicking tiny bread missiles at each other. Everybody seemed to think this was hilarious, even Archie Spongo, who happened to be sitting right in the line of fire. There were crumbs all over his plate, but he kept smiling and laughing with the others.
“That’s what they said when they were building the Tower of Babel,” said Kuba. “It’s getting on all right now…” She scooped up some peas with her fork. “That was just before it fell apart.”
I didn’t know much about the Tower of Babel, but things started falling apart in room 3B almost as soon as the door shut behind us for the night.
Archie couldn’t find his pyjamas. “They cannot walk,” he kept saying over and over. “Where can they be?”
He took everything out of his drawer and put it all back.
“They’re not there,” he said. He was looking at me, but he was talking to his good friends Eddie and Mark.
Eddie climbed up to his bunk. “Search me,” he said. He gave Archie a friendly, matey grin. “What would I want with your pyjamas?”
Archie blinked. “Well…” He obviously thought this was a reasonable question.
Mark snuggled under his covers. “Don’t look at me.” He sounded as if he was already half asleep. “I like the pyjamas I have.”
Archie stared at his open drawer as though there was some possibility that in the last few minutes his pyjamas had decided to return. “But what will I do?”
Eddie yawned again. “You’ll just have to sleep in your underwear, won’t you?” he mumbled.
Unfortunately Archie couldn’t sleep in his underwear, not unless he wanted to die of hypothermia. His pyjamas weren’t all that had disappeared – his blankets had gone too.
“I’d lend you one of mine,” said Eddie, “but I’m very sensitive to the cold.”
“Me too,” said Mark. “See!” He stuck his foot out from under his warm blankets. “I even sleep in my socks.”
Archie looked at me again. Mark and Eddie looked at me too. Archie’s look said, Help me! but the look Eddie and Mark were giving me said, Don’t you dare!
They didn’t have to worry. I, for one, had no intention of daring anything. So far my policy of being invisible was working just fine.
“I haven’t been feeling that well,” I told Archie. It was more or less the truth. “I’ve got to keep warm.” I rolled over to end the discussion.
“Do you think someone took them for a joke?” asked Archie.
“Probably,” said Eddie. “You know what this lot’s like.”
“Yeah,” said Mark. “Probably someone took them for a joke.”
“I’m going to tell Mr Palfry,” Archie decided.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Eddie. “Mr Palfry’s been in a bad mood all day. You’ll just make him angry.”
“Yeah,” agreed Mark. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“But why should he be angry with me?” asked Archie reasonably. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Archie went off to get Mr Palfry.
As soon as the door shut, Eddie and Mark were out of their beds. They weren’t tired any more. They raced about, putting Archie’s pyjamas and blankets back where they’d found them.
“You’ll keep your mouth shut, Elmo, if you know what’s good for you,” Eddie warned the back of my head.
I was pretty sure I knew what was good for me. I started to snore.
Mr Palfry marched into the room like a guard in a film who’s been dragged from his dinner to sort out one of the prisoners.
“What’d I tell you lot?” he demanded. “It’s been a long day. I’m in no mood for your games.”
“Games?” Eddie’s voice was hazy with exhaustion. “We haven’t done anything, sir. I swear. I was practically asleep.”
Also practically asleep, I rolled over so I could see what was going on.
Mr Palfry looked from Eddie to Archie’s bunk. Then he looked at Archie.
“And what do you call those?” asked Mr Palfry.
Eager to demonstrate his improving grasp of English, Archie answered immediately. “Blankets,” he said, and then stopped in confusion. He blinked. “But, sir—”
Mr Palfry was holding on to his patience the way a bat hangs on to the roof of a cave. “Let’s have a look for those pyjamas, shall we?” he asked in a really tight voice.
“They’re not in my drawer, sir,” Archie insisted. “I told you, I removed everything.”
Mr Palfry, however, was already opening Archie’s drawer. Carefully and methodically, like the man of science he is, he too removed everything from the drawer. The pyjamas were at the bottom. He lifted them out and handed them to Archie.
“Perhaps you forgot where you put them,” suggested Mr Palfry. “We all forget things when we’re tired.”
Archie opened his mouth, but he didn’t say anything.
“I know this is your first school trip, Archie,” Mr Palfry went on, “so you’re probably nervous as well as tired.” He gave Archie a smile that was meant to be sympathetic, but I thought looked a bit threatening. “What do you say we just forget about this little incident? All right?”
“It’s all right with us,” said Eddie generously. “We just want to get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” said Mr Palfry. “We most certainly have.”
It took me about two seconds to fall asleep. Partly because I was exhausted from the stresses and traumas of the day, and partly because if anything more was going to happen that night I really wanted to miss it.
I had a dream.
In my dream I was on the school trip. I was wearing my new trainers, an
d everybody thought they were really cool. Eddie and Mark were desperate to sit with me. For some reason I was pretty chuffed about that. I thought it meant they liked me. In real life I didn’t care if they liked me or not as long as they didn’t torment me, but in my dream it was tremendously important that they did. Neither Kuba nor Archie was in my dream. The camp was different too. Instead of the rustic cabins and lodges of Camp Wyndach, we were staying in a modern hotel with bright lights and an indoor pool. Eddie, Mark and I all shared a room. Mr Palfry stuck his head round the door and said goodnight, and then he turned out the lights and I fell asleep.
The weird thing was that even though I was asleep, I was sort of awake at the same time. I could hear the others whispering and moving around, but for some reason I didn’t think anything of it. They lifted up my bed and carried it out of the room. I knew what they were doing, but I didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t until I heard the laughter that I woke up.
In my dream I opened my eyes. My bed was in the lobby of the hotel. Everybody was standing around it – not just everyone from my class and the teachers, but other guests at the hotel and bellboys and people like that. Even the bus driver was there. But it wasn’t all the laughing people who caught my attention. It was my feet. Instead of my new, to-die-for trainers, my feet were wearing my old Womble slippers. The really bizarre thing is that for a second I was really happy to see the slippers. I woke up when the people in my dream all started singing, “Remember you’re a Womble.”
I lay there for a few seconds, just catching my breath. I was damp with sweat and my heart was pounding. What a nightmare, I thought. It was worse than the dream where you turn up for school in your pyjamas.
The word “pyjamas” repeated itself in my head. Pyjamas … pyjamas … everyone seeing you in your pyjamas.
Kuba’s words sort of drifted through my head as well. You wouldn’t say that if it was you they were picking on … if it was you … you … if it was you…
And that’s when I realized what was really happening. It wasn’t me being humiliated in front of everyone – it was Archie.