Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon

by Pamela Butchart

Cammy sent me a text on Monday morning before school:

  I was mammothly relieved when I found out that Cammy wouldn’t be at school. I mean, things were going to be bad enough for me when I saw Edward after the “note” incident on Friday, without me having to worry that Cammy was going to inflict even more crazy upon the school.

  But then, at lunch, something crazy DID happen. Something I did NOT expect.

  Out of nowhere …

  “Hi, Peri.”

  Oh my God … he remembers my NAME! Wait – I hate him now.

  “So, where’s Cammy? You two not performing together today?”

  And then he grinned at me.

  Is he making fun of me again? To my FACE?

  I was JUST about to explode when he said, “So, what did your secret note say? I hope it was worth me risking another detention for!”

  Oh my God. He didn’t write it! It must have been one of the poopulars. Of COURSE!

  “Oh. Err. It was just about the dancing thing yesterday.”

  I CANNOT believe I just told him that. I CANNOT tell him what it said.

  “So, why exactly did you guys start dancing in the cafeteria?”

  “It wasn’t just a dance, you know. It was for charity.”

  Oh my God. What am I saying?

  “Oh. Right. I didn’t know that.”

  Why would you? IT’S A LIE!

  “So how much did you raise?”

  “Five hundred pounds.”

  SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!

  “WOW! Really?” he said.

  NO!

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “That’s unbelievable!”

  “Yet, very believable.”

  I have a disease.

  “Which charity?”

  “Sorry?”

  Oh my God. I cannot think of a charity. Not ONE!

  “Which charity are you giving the money to?”

  Oh no, no, no, no! Think, think, think, think, think!

  “The Dinner Ladies’ Foundation.”

  AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGG!

  “The what?!”

  And now he’s looking at me with a really weird look on his face.

  “The Dinner Ladies’ Foundation. So they can get new ladles. For the soup.”

  WHAT am I saying?!

  “Oh. Erm. OK.”

  I can’t breathe. Change the subject.

  “So I see you didn’t get the soup. Was that because you didn’t like the look of the ladles?”

  STOP TALKING ABOUT LADLES! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU??!

  “Erm, no. I just wanted a sandwich.”

  Now he thinks I’m obsessed with ladles. Great job, Peri!

  “Mmmmm … ham … yummy. Is that your favourite?”

  I shouldn’t be allowed to talk to people.

  “Erm, I suppose so. What do you have?”

  I can’t believe he’s still sitting here talking to me. Maybe he’s too scared to get up in case I run after him and beat him to death with a ladle. STOP THINKING ABOUT LADLES! Think about sandwiches. OK. What did he ask me again? What’s in my sandwich. OK. Oh my God. I’m looking right at it, and I have NO IDEA what it is.

  “Oh. I don’t know what’s in it. I’ll have to taste it.”

  I think I’m having an out-of-body experience.

  Thank God I’ve remembered how to eat. Take a bite. Good. Now chew. What does it taste like? Uh-oh. That was too much. Oh my God. Some just fell out of my mouth. It’s tuna. It’s definitely tuna. I can see it on my skirt.

  Oh my God. STOP DRIBBLING TUNA ALL OVER YOURSELF!

  STOP EVERYTHING!!!

  And now I’m choking. Properly choking. Hand slapping on the table, face going red, lips turning blue, choking.

  And then it all started to get a bit fuzzy. But I do remember my PE teacher, Miss Gretcher, lifting me off my seat and squeezing my ribs until a huge tuna ball shot out of my mouth and on to the table.

  Right in front of Edward.

  And then I died inside.

  Later that day…

  That night I decided to go and see Cammy. I mean, I didn’t really care about her next crazy plan to get us noticed any more. It didn’t matter now. Nothing could be worse than what I’d already done to myself that day.

  Cammy seemed really excited to see me. She ran down to get us both yoghurts and told me that she wanted to hear all about what I’d been up to since Friday.

  So I told her about Gran and the woman across the road with the curtains, and she laughed LOADS and said she wished she’d been there, which made me feel a bit guilty.

  Then I told her about what had happened at lunch with the tuna ball. And about how we somehow now had to raise £500 and give it to the dinner ladies.

  “Why ladles?” said Cammy. “Do you like them?”

  “I don’t know why, Cammy! That’s what I’m telling you. I went mad, I tell you. MAD!”

  “It’s just, if you’d said spoons that would’ve helped promote our band.”

  “I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time, Cammy. I was a bit, well, nervous, you know?”

  “Why were you nervous?” asked Cammy. She was clearly oblivious to the fact that I liked Edward, or that he was awesome.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. I could feel my face start to burn again.

  “So, go on, show me the rest of your ‘unique’ ideas for the band,” I said.

  Cammy’s eyes lit up and she pulled her notepad out and started drawing things that made me laugh.

  “What IS that?” I asked.

  “Spoon-trousers,” said Cammy matter-of-factly. And then we both burst out laughing.

  So, today was weird. And it went from weird to weirder.

  WEIRD

  I was walking to History when Edward stopped me and asked if I was OK.

  I immediately began checking my shirt for chocolate milk, under my shoes for toilet roll and my nose for bleeding.

  “I’m talking about the choking thing, yesterday,” Edward said. “You know? Your ‘near-death by tuna’?”

  I burst out laughing. He laughed too. I was surprised that I was actually able to laugh about the tuna-ball incident.

  “I’m fine, thanks. Sorry about that,” I said, suddenly feeling awkward again as I visualised the tuna-ball landing on the table in front of him.

  “So, how’s the band going?” Edward asked.

  The awkward feeling began to spread up towards my neck. I had no idea what to say. No, that’s not true. I definitely wanted to let him know how much I’d wanted him to be in our band, and how annoyed I was with Cammy for sending him away. But I had no idea how to translate that into actual sentences that didn’t make it sound like I was obsessed with him.

  So I settled for, “It’s OK, thanks.”

  He continued to smile at me, but I noticed that he looked the tiniest bit disappointed.

  And then all of a sudden Cammy was there. I hadn’t actually noticed her arrive.

  “Can I ask you a quick question about your foot eczema, Peri?” she asked.

  Edward glanced down at my feet.

  I literally couldn’t think of anything to say. And then Edward said he had to go, and Cammy dragged me into the loo and started showing me her feet.

  That afternoon in History things started to get out of hand. Mr Galloway kept saying the word “POVERTY” over and over again, and it sounded weird because of his Irish accent.

  He said it so much that I couldn’t really concentrate on any of the other words he was saying. I just kept waiting for him to say “POVERTY” again. Then I started to think about the word “POVERTY” way too much. And that made me need to say it quietly to myself quite a lot.

  But then I said it so much that it started to sound really weird, and I couldn’t remember how to say it the way that didn’t sound weird, because the way I was saying it sounded new (and also a bit like a pirate). And then I noticed Cammy staring at me.

  “Are you OK?”

  “Not really,” I said. “H
ow do you say ‘poverty’? I’ve forgotten.”

  “What?”

  “Poverty. The word. How do you say it?”

  “What do you mean? You just said it!”

  “So you understood me then? I’m saying it right?”

  “Err, yes. Are you feeling OK?”

  But then I couldn’t say any more because Mr Galloway flicked his hair at us, which is quite impressive since he doesn’t really have any. Well, he does, but it’s only a little slimy bit on the top of his head, and it doesn’t exactly slope over his face into his eyes or anything. So it’s certainly nothing that he would need to “flick”. But that doesn’t seem to stop him.

  Anyway, once Mr Galloway was done flicking or twitching or whatever he was doing, I tried to explain to Cammy all about the “POVERTY” thing. But Cammy wasn’t really getting it, and that’s when things started to get out of hand.

  It went a bit like this:

  “Say ‘POVERTY’, Cammy.”

  “Poverty.”

  “Now say it again, over and over.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  “Poverty, poverty, poverty, poverty.”

  But she wasn’t getting it. I could tell by her face.

  “Can I stop now?”

  “Fine.”

  Trust Cammy NOT to get something TOTALLY obvious.

  “Do you not think some words sound weird, Cammy? I mean, who decided that ‘poverty’ should be a word anyway? I mean, what IS poverty?”

  And that’s when Mr Galloway came rushing over.

  “What a BRILLIANT question, Pero!”

  Long story. Well, not really. Mr Galloway just thinks my name is Pero. I told him on the first day that it wasn’t. And he apologised. But then he must’ve forgotten. And now I can’t be bothered to bring it up again.

  “Sorry, sir … what question?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “What IS poverty, Pero? What a brilliant question! Let’s have a class discussion right now!”

  I thought about trying to explain to Mr Galloway that I knew exactly what poverty meant, and that it was just the actual word I was having trouble with, but if Cammy didn’t get what I was talking about, then I doubted Mr Galloway would.

  The debate started off OK. People kind of adopted this way of talking about poverty that made it a lot easier to think of something to say when it was your turn.

  For example people said things like:

  Poverty is not having enough food.

  Poverty is living off one pence a day.

  Poverty is being homeless.

  So everything was going fine. And I had my “Poverty is…” sentence for discussion all ready. But then this really snooty kid who sits beside me put up his hand and said:

  “Poverty is being so poor you cannot afford proper school shoes.” And then he looked at Bobby Hammer’s feet and smirked.

  And Bobby Hammer went BERSERK. Proper berserk. First he started shouting at the snooty kid and telling him to shut his “stupid posh face” and then he started laughing at him and calling him “Sir Snooty-Pants the third”. Then he kicked a chair over. And then he started crying.

  Then, Angela McAllister started screaming, “THAT CHAIR ALMOST TOUCHED ME! I COULD HAVE BEEN KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS!” And she ran from the class and went right to the head teacher and said she had been caught in the middle of a “hate crime” between the rich and the poor. She’s a nightmare.

  So then we all had to be interviewed individually by the head, and tell him EXACTLY what had happened in class.

  So I explained all about how this whole mess started, and about how strange the word “poverty” is, and then I asked the head if he would say it over and over again, so I could show him what I was talking about, but he wouldn’t. And then he asked me to leave.

  In the end, both Bobby and “Sir Snooty-Pants the third” got detention (even though the whole thing was pretty much my fault, if you think about it).

  When I got home that day, Mum sat me down and said that the head teacher had called (brilliant) and that he’d said I’d been acting strangely in his office today. He also mentioned the “spoon thing”. AND the double-detention thing.

  I decided not to even bother trying to explain, because my mother always just makes up her own mind about what she “thinks” has happened anyway. And there’s NO arguing with her, so what’s the point?

  So when she asked me why I’d been acting so strangely in the head’s office, I just said, “I was acting strange because I’m strange.” But Mum wouldn’t let it go.

  It wasn’t a fun conversation:

  “Peri. My sweet angel. Have you joined a terrible gang?”

  “No, Mum.”

  “You can tell me. I’m your mother. Dad and I will always love you. No matter what.”

  I can’t believe this is happening.

  “No, Mum. Of COURSE I’ve not joined a ‘terrible gang’. I’m eleven.”

  “Well, is it woman troubles then?”

  I should have just said I was in a gang.

  “No, Mum. And would you please, please stop asking me about that every five seconds.”

  “Well, what is it then? Are you being bullied? OH MY GOODNESS! THAT’S IT, ISN’T IT? YOU’RE BEING BULLIED! MY ANGEL IS BEING BULLIED BY THUGS AND HOOLIGANS!”

  I suppose I should just be thankful that I have a mother who seems to care about me so much.

  But I am not.

  “Mum, listen. I am NOT being bullied. Well, not really. I mean, people laugh at me sometimes, but—”

  “Give me their names.”

  “What?”

  “Their NAMES, Peri. Give them to me.”

  All of a sudden she has a pen and paper.

  “I don’t know their names. Look, it’s nothing serious. I mean, it’s just high-school stuff. It doesn’t bother me.”

  “Well, when you do get bullied, Peri—”

  “Wait. Don’t you mean if? IF I get bullied?”

  “Well, you are a bit different.”

  Here we go.

  “And sometimes people don’t appreciate ‘different’. Not like I do.”

  EH?

  When has my mother ever appreciated me being different? I distinctly remember her throwing a tantrum when I transformed my ballet tutu into a very useful parachute for my dinosaurs.

  Also, is it possible that she is SO mad that she doesn’t even realise a large portion of the laughing and pointing at school is due to HER shenanigans on Parents’ Evening?

  THANKFULLY I managed to change the subject from “terrible gangs” and non-existent bullies to my upcoming twelfth birthday.

  Mum got really excited when I brought it up. Mum LOVES birthdays.

  She began asking me the same questions she asks me EVERY year (even though she knows the answers). For example:

  Mum: What cake would you like this year?

  Me: Colin the Caterpillar, please!

  Mum: The one from Marks & Spencer?

  Me: Of course.

  Mum: Wonderful!

  Me: Thanks, Mum.

  But then she got a weird look in her eye.

  I should have KNOWN she was up to something.

  A few days later I found out why Mum had been so excited about my twelfth birthday. She was planning a surprise party for me (she’s quite sweet sometimes, I suppose).

  Cammy accidentally spilled the beans at school the day before the party when I suggested we go to her house to practise on my birthday.

  At first I panicked a little, because Cammy looked at me weird when I suggested it, and then she looked at Cara. I thought maybe they’d planned to do something without me, and that they’d just been found out or something.

  But then Cammy blurted out, “I can’t do this! I don’t DO lies! Your mum’s throwing you a surprise party.”

  And that’s how I found out.

  That night I kept freaking Mum and Dad out by sneaking up on them to see what they were up to
. It was hilarious listening to all the rubbish lies they came up with.

  For example, I caught Mum blowing up balloons in the utility room (the door has frosted glass – she clearly didn’t think it through) and she tried to tell me I had to run to the garage and help Dad RIGHT AWAY as he was having an (unexplained) emergency. I walked out of the kitchen to find Dad sleeping on the sofa.

  I was actually quite looking forward to my birthday party. I’d assumed that it would probably just be the family and Cammy, and Cammy’s mum. And Cara, I guessed. And that we’d have a big dinner together, eat cake, laugh and listen to music.

  But I was wrong.

  I mean, I know it’s really nice that Mum wants to make me feel special on my birthday. But she DOES know that I don’t really like a fuss. So why does she ALWAYS have to take things too far?

  So what happened is that I walked home with Cammy and Cara after school to find that all the blinds were shut and the lights were off.

  We went inside and as I walked into the dark living room (pretending I couldn’t see the human-shaped lumps at the side of the couch) I prepared to act surprised.

  But it turned out I didn’t need to pretend because Mum gave me the fright of my life when she appeared ninja-style at my side and screamed, “SURPRISE!” into my face. I almost had a heart attack.

  And then the lights went on and everyone started singing happy birthday to me. It was nice (even though they were making quite a big fuss).

  But then as I looked around the room my positivity was challenged.

  I realised that there were quite a few faces I’d genuinely never seen before. I started to panic because I absolutely HATE being in the position when someone knows you, and your name, but you don’t know THEIR name, so you try to hide it and be super-happy to see them but then you can TELL by their face that they’ve clocked what’s going on, and they know that you don’t know their name (or who they are) and that you’re just pretending. And then YOU know that THEY know that YOU know. It’s horrible.