Mr Robinson just had a faded posy of fabric flowers on his desk. He also had a framed picture of his daughter. Behind Lulu’s desk is an entire wall that’s spray-painted with rainbow-beaked toucans and a life-size flamingo, courtesy of her daughter.
“I suppose … a little bit,” I say.
A LOT, actually.
To be specific, all through breakfast I’d wondered two things…
1) where Swan was (she hadn’t come down from the dorm), and
2) why Lulu had boomed though the tannoy that she needed to see me once I’d finished eating.
Yaz had her theories.
“Maybe Swan’s too embarrassed to face you after what happened with your dino-thingy,” she’d whispered to me in the dining hall as I picked at my beans on toast. “And hey, maybe Lulu’s heard from your mum!”
I was so excited at the idea of Mum calling – and telling Lulu when she was picking me up – that I couldn’t eat a bean more.
Instead I’d hurried along to Lulu’s office straight away, dodging a lobbed cabbage as a couple of Newts played a game of ten-pin bowling in the corridor.
And so here I am – not so much perched on the edge of my seat as squiggled in the middle – waiting to find out when I need to get my bags packed and ready…
“Well, I just wanted to say that it’s been really terrific having you here at St Grizzle’s this week, Dani!” Lulu says brightly.
And…?
There’s got to be an ‘And…’, hasn’t there? And we’ll miss you when your mother comes for you…? THAT sort of ‘And…’ is what I want to hear next.
“And I’ve been hearing such lovely things about you,” Lulu carries on. “You’ve really made quite an impression on everyone.”
OK, so not the kind of ‘And…’ I was hoping for, but it IS one that makes me blush.
“Really?” I mouse-squeet in surprise.
“Oh, yes. Mademoiselle Fabienne says you’re a very mature and thoughtful girl. And Miss Amethyst was incredibly impressed with the lesson you taught the Newts. She said the way you inspired them was quite remarkable.”
Wow. I’ve never been called mature, thoughtful and remarkable before. Miss Solomon at my old school is nice enough, but the only thing she’d called me lately was Daisy instead of Dani when she muddled me up with the class hamster.
“As for the students, well, what can I say?” Lulu continues. “The younger ones are all a bit starstruck and desperate to get your attention. Sorry if it’s sometimes in the wrong way.”
Lulu turns and gives me a wry smile. I guess she’s talking about the triplets and the marshmallow incident. Or the fact that they blackened a sliver of their front teeth just to copy my ‘look’…
But I guess I’ve got stuff wrong, too. I haven’t tried to talk to Blossom to say thanks for her funny little ‘HELLO, DANI DEXTERER’ stick message.
“But there is one thing in particular I’d like to talk to you about,” Lulu carries on, coming to perch herself on the edge of the desk. “Do you know what I caught Yaz doing after bedtime last night?”
“No,” I mumble, feeling a flicker of guilt. What me and Yaz have in common is our plans to get away from St Grizzle’s as soon as possible. Has Yaz become more determined to escape because of our chats? Maybe Lulu found her climbing out of the dorm window with her case, a snack-pack and a map to the nearest station…
“I caught her in the kitchen drawing cartoon faces on all the eggs,” says Lulu. “Yaz said she wanted to film them. She said she got the idea from YOU.”
Oh … am I in trouble?
“And for that, I want to thank you VERY much, Dani!” says Lulu earnestly. “In the last couple of months, we haven’t managed to get Yaz interested in ANY of the fun, creative things we’re doing here at the all-new St Grizelda’s. What you’ve done is quite, quite miraculous!”
So now I’m mature, thoughtful, remarkable AND quite, quite miraculous?
I’m also red. Very, very red with a ginormous mega-blush under the gaze of my beaming head teacher.
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!
Hurray for the distraction! Lulu smiles at someone in the doorway, and
*SQUOOOFFFLE-pfffffffffff…* myself around to see who it is.
“I’ve got a message from Swan,” says Zed, rolling backwards and forwards as if he’s nervous. “Could she speak to Dani upstairs in the dorm, please?”
“Sure, I think we’re done here,” says Lulu, reaching a hand down to me. I shyly grab it and let myself be hauled up in one quick move.
“Thank you,” I mutter, then follow Zed as he swivels himself around and heads back along the corridor, with a quick veer left to avoid slip-sliding on plastic-drinks-bottle skittles and cabbage balls that’ve now been abandoned by bored Newts.
“What does Swan want?” I ask him nervously.
All the lovely compliments I just had heaped on me fade away with every step. After all, Swan is (whisper this) a tiny bit scary. Is she about to have a go at me for overreacting to the school mascot nibbling some dumb old toy of mine?
“Um, dunno,” says Zed, though I think he might have a bad case of the fiberoonies.
We’re at the bottom of the grand staircase now, where Twinkle is eating the last couple of leaves left on the remains of the pot plant.
“Got to leave you here,” Zed announces with a grin, nodding down at his chair.
“Oh, of course,” I say, and begin to tiptoe my lonely way up the carpeted steps, a flump of dread glooping in my tummy.
“Dani?”
I pause and gaze back down at Zed.
“Yaz says you’re not going to stay. Is that true?” he asks.
The heart-tugging, puppy-in-the-rain expression on his face makes it too hard to be honest and say “yes”, so I just give him a vague, cowardly shrug in reply. Then I quickly turn and head on up to the first floor, the dorm and whatever Swan has in store for me. (Gulp.)
With a heavy heart and heavier steps, I take my key out of my pocket – but the door to the Fungi dorm is already open wide.
And hold on – what’s that?
From inside I hear titters and shushed giggles. Is there going to be an audience for my dressing-down from Swan?
“Deep breath, Dani,” I tell myself. I step into the room and see a muddle of schoolmates.
There are Otters on the floor and Newts are perched on various top bunks like raggle-taggle rows of sparrows on rooftops.
Conkers hunker on the bottom bunks, including Yaz, who gives me a wave and a you’ll-be-fine smile.
In fact, everyone is grinning and giggling, as if secrets might spill out any second.
Then a skinny, scruff-haired goblin leaps in front of me, and grabs my hand.
“LOOK, Dani Dexterer!” yelps Blossom, pointing over to my bunk in the corner, where Swan sits crosslegged on my duvet.
I gasp. But it’s not the sight of Swan that’s making me gasp.
It’s the giant T rex that’s spray-painted on the wall by my bed. Its roaring head nearly touches the ceiling. Its powerful tail trails under the window.
It might be the most AWESOME thing I have ever seen.
“It’s … it’s a sort of sorry,” Swan says, wafting her hand towards her handiwork. “Like it?”
“I LOVE it!” I say as I let myself be led closer by Blossom.
“And she did something else!” Blossom says urgently, pointing to something resting in Swan’s lap.
Swan offers it up to me and my heart goes squidge. It’s my T rex. He has a bandage around his gnawed tail and a lookalike plaster cast on his chewed left leg. There’s even a crutch made of twigs and string wedged under his weeny arm.
“He’s not the way he was, but I think he can still act,” says Swan with a smile that’s halfway between cheeky and hopeful. So she knows about my mini-movies? Yaz must’ve told her.
“Y’know, I think he can,” I tell her, taking my star ex-toy from her outstretched hand.
“And I made you a present, to
o, Dani Dexterer!” says Blossom, taking something from behind her back and passing it to me. “It’s to say ‘Happy You’re Here’. It’s a model of a bird’s nest.”
I gaze down at Blossom’s lumpy gift, which looks like it’s been made of mud … and bits of bird’s nest.
“Thank you,” I say quickly, and am quickly deluged with claps and whoops.
I glance around at the small and not-so-small girls in the dorm and see nothing but sunshiney smiles.
And in that moment, a hard blue something melts inside me.
“Do you want to come and play bowling downstairs, Dani Dexterer?” asks Blossom as the applause begins to fade.
“Um, in a minute,” I tell her, as I realize that one important someone isn’t in the room – and that I have a different answer to the question he asked me.
With (just about) the whole school’s eyes on me, I hurry out of the dorm and pitter-patter at high-speed down the grand staircase till I reach the hall.
Zed’s not there.
But the front door is open … and now I see that he’s over by the statue of St Grizzle’s, gloomily throwing coloured hoops at her hands.
I hurry past the hatch to the office, where Twinkle is up on her back legs licking the pages of the visitor’s sign-in book while Toshio snoozes at his desk.
Outside, the warm sun is on my shoulders as I run towards Zed.
“Hey!” I call out, waving the hand that’s still clutching my precious lumpy mud nest.
“Hey!” Zed calls back, waving a green plastic hoop in return.
“Listen, I’ve been thinking, and—”
Ding-a-ling-a-ling! goes my phone before I can finish.
“Uh, here,” I say, quickly reaching up and putting my recovering T rex and Blossom’s present in St Grizzle’s handy hands so I that can fish my phone out of my pocket.
Great – it’s Granny Viv!
“Hello … Dani?” says her voice in my ear.
“Hi, Granny Viv,” I say with a huge smile. “How’s Wales? How’s your friend?”
I just realized I hadn’t asked before. I’ve been too wrapped up in how I was feeling.
“Eh?” mutters Granny Viv, sounding momentarily confused. “It’s lovely, and Daphne’s fine – why do you ask?”
“Because she’s been ill, and you went to look after her?” I reply, feeling pretty confused, too.
“Oh, I just told your mother that to make her feel guilty; to show her that SOMEONE appreciated me and trusted me to look after them!” says Granny Viv, with an embarrassed, slightly guilty laugh. “Anyway, never mind that. How are YOU, sweetheart?”
“I am good,” I tell her, which I know is going to come as a pretty BIG shock. “In fact, I am better than good. Granny Viv, I’ve changed my mind. I LIKE it at St Grizzle’s. I think I might want to stay!”
Zed’s “WHOO-HOO-HOO!”s practically drown out what Granny Viv says next.
“Oh, I was dead set against you going to St Grizelda’s, of course, but as soon as I saw that new website I was SURE you’d really like it!” I just manage to hear her say. “When you were telling me about it, Dani, I thought it sounded such TERRIFIC FUN!”
Everything here IS terrific (crazy, weird) fun. Why didn’t I get that till now?
I guess I just didn’t allow myself to see how great St Grizzle’s really is because I felt like … well, I felt like it meant I didn’t love, love, LOVE Mum and Granny Viv and Arch and Downboy and home.
But I think – I know – I can still love them all and be happy here…
WHUMFFF!
I gasp as something clunks into me and I find myself plonked backwards on to Zed’s knees.
“Help!” I shriek.
“You’re STAYYY-IINNGGGG!” yells Zed, taking us on a victory hurtle down the incline of the driveway to the school.
“Dani? Dani, hold on – I need to tell you someth—” I hear Granny Viv say before we’re out of range and the connection cuts out.
A few speeding seconds later, Zed spins his chair round to stop us before we hurtle too far. A few seconds more and we’re both still trying to catch our breaths from the speed and the laughing.
“You idiot!” I giggle, pushing myself up off his lap and shaking myself sensible. “I lost my gran there!”
Sure she’ll have left a message, I check my phone and yes – there she is. A little dizzy, my fumbling fingers accidentally press the speakerphone button.
“Oops – don’t know what happened there…” Granny Viv’s voice drifts out as I stare back up the driveway at the grey school building with its painted flowers and bugs and silliness at every window. And there’s the statue of St Grizzle, her hands adorned in yellow rubber gloves, and carefully holding my gifts and Zed’s hoops, wearing the plastic-spoon crown at a rakish angle on her stone head.
What a great, GREAT place St Grizzle’s is…
“…but listen. There’s a problem,” Granny Viv says urgently. “I know I haven’t been, well, TALKING to your mum much since she decided to send you away. But we finally spoke this morning and she’s been SO worried about you – especially with all the texts and messages you’ve been leaving her – that she’s decided to cut her course short.”
NO!
“She’s found another boarding school and she’s coming to take you to see it.”
NOOOO!
“Today.”
NOOOOOOOOO!
“Hey, don’t worry, Dani!” says Zed, who’s heard everything, of course. “It’ll be all right!”
“Will it?” I ask him, hoping he’s got an excellent plan up his T-shirt sleeve.
“Er, I dunno … it’s just something people say, isn’t it?” he says sheepishly.
Stupid random boy – I’m doomed…
OK, maybe I’m not quite doomed.
Zed might’ve failed when it came to having a plan but luckily he’s related to someone frighteningly sharp and smart.
And right now, the frighteningly sharp and smart Swan is tap-tapping her pen against a clipboard as we all stand to attention in the front entrance hall.
“Dorms tidy?” she asks, reading from the Dani’s-Not-Quite-Doomed To-Do List.
“Dorms are tidy,” says Yaz, proud of her dorm-tidying team of Conkers and Otters.
“Hallways and corridors free of games and goats?” Swan checks next.
“Yes!” says Klara. “The Newts put EVERYTHING away. And I tied Twinkle to the tree in the back garden.”
That’s good. Mum doesn’t need to be welcomed by a rampaging goat when she arrives, which could be ANY MINUTE NOW.
AARRGHHH!
“Everyone clean and in their best clothes?” Swan continues.
“Absolutely,” says Miss Amethyst, smoothing her hands over a rather spectacular purple velvet dress and lilac pashmina.
“I meant the kids,” Swan snaps, glowering at Miss Amethyst over the clipboard.
“Oui, the children are clean and tidy,” Mademoiselle Fabienne nods enthusiastically.
“Me, too,” says Lulu, who’s wearing her smartest jeans, a simple white blouse and hair that’s been blow-dried by Yaz. “You know, I still think this is over the top. I’m sure if I just spoke to your mum, Dani, I’d be able to convince her that St Grizelda’s is the perfect school for you…”
“Lulu, one word. CLOSURE,” Swan tells her own mother sternly.
“But—”
“But Swan’s right, Lulu,” Yaz bursts in. “You can’t afford to have anyone else leave. And as you know, my father is coming for me any time now, so you HAVE to encourage new people to stay, in any way you can…”
Bless her, Yaz might be desperate to go – and is convinced I’ve gone loopy for wanting to stay – but she’s still oddly loyal to St Grizzle’s.
Accepting that fewer students + less money = St Grizzle’s closing, Lulu nods resignedly.
“OK. Last checks,” Swan announces. “Refreshments?”
“May-Belle’s made cakes – she’s just getting them out of th
e oven now,” I tell her, relieved that the triplets aren’t in charge of the catering. Their job was to go out and beautify St Grizzle herself, to make a good first impression on Mum.
That done, they’re now huddled by the bottom of the stairs, tying tissue-paper flowers to the bare branches of the pot plant that Twinkle demolished.
“Cool,” says Swan, tap-tapping further down the list. “Toshio – can you run through your speech again?”
“Yes,” Toshio answers her, giving a low bow that my mother can’t fail to find polite.
“‘Welcome, Mrs Dexter. Please take a seat and I’ll let the head teacher know you aren’t here.’”
Swan narrows her eyes at him for a second then shrugs. “Close enough.”
“Hey, I think I hear a car coming!” says Zed, who’s on watch at the front doors.
I think I’m about to faint and so I twist the head of my T rex to distract myself.
Everybody at St Grizzle’s has practised being normal all morning, but we probably would’ve needed several months’ worth of rehearsals to make it convincing.
“Yep – car coming up the driveway!” Zed confirms.
“Time to get into position,” orders Swan. “Everyone to Miss Amethyst’s room, ready for the Newts’ performance.”
This is good. This is working. The Newts have been in there rehearsing ‘The Periodic Table Song’ for the last ten minutes. Mum HAS to be impressed by a bunch of eight-year-olds knowing all the chemical elements several years before they’re actually taught them in school.
“Yes, well, good luck with THAT!” Mrs Hedges suddenly calls out as she bustles through the back door with armfuls of clean laundry. “The Newts are all out on the lawn and the state they’re in, I don’t think they’re coming inside anytime soon…”
“LOOK WHAT THEY’VE DONE! THEY ATE THEM!” wails May-Belle, tearing from the kitchen with a tray of mostly empty paper cupcake liners.
The three cakes left untouched are ominously black, as if they’ve been burnt. But on closer inspection, I can see they’re not burnt at all. They’ve just been covered with a thick layer of goth-coloured icing, as Lulu has just noticed.
St Grizzle's School for Girls, Goats and Random Boys Page 7