Alex Sparrow and the Really Big Stink

by Jennifer Killick

  ‘Are you trying to hide?’

  ‘Hide? Er, no. I was just tying my shoelace.’

  I guess she didn’t need to sniff the air to know that was a whopping lie. Awkward.

  ‘Your shoes have velcro straps,’ she said.

  ‘Well your shoes are boots, which are against uniform policy, but you don’t see me giving you a hard time about it.’ Distraction. Nice save, Alex.

  She turned to Darth Daver and said, ‘This is Alex. Alex, this is…’

  ‘Darth Daver…’ I said. There was no avoiding it now. I looked around just in time to see Jason, Kyle and Ronnie laughing really hard as a conker pinged off the side of my head. Someone had thrown it, and so fast that even with my lightning reflexes I was taken by surprise and fell back, right on my butt.

  ‘Found some freak friends that stink as much as you, Sparrow?’ Jason shouted loudly so everyone could hear.

  How was I supposed to answer that? I tried to think of some excuse, something to make it clear to Jason that these weird kids were not with me. But before I could speak, a scabby hand reached down and firmly but gently pulled me to my feet.

  ‘Are you OK, Alex?’ Darth Daver brushed some dust off my jacket sleeve.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you Darth Daver.’

  ‘No worries, dude. See you tomorrow.’

  Darth walked out of the school gate. Jason and the others had gone too. It was just me and Jess.

  She looked at me like I was a total moron. ‘You know his name is just Dave, right?’

  I’m ten now, so Mum lets me walk to the corner by myself and she picks me up from there. Jess is eleven, so apparently she can walk home completely on her own, and she has her own phone. She lives in a flat with her mum a few roads away from me. She texted her mum to say she was coming over to my house for a bit and her mum was totally chill about it, because apparently, ‘they’re more like best friends than mum and daughter’.

  When we got to the corner, my mum was completely annoying. ‘Ooh, who’s your new friend? When we get home, I’ll get you some snacks and then I’ll leave you two alone. Lovely to meet you, Jess, hope to see you again very soon.’ Well embarrassing.

  Jess and I walked ahead so we could chat. I know Mum was thinking I wanted Jess to be my girlfriend and I didn’t want Jess to get her hopes up, so I made sure there was a big gap between us and I tried to be a bit rude so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

  ‘So, Jessticles – you don’t mind if I call you Jessticles, do you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s offensive.’

  ‘But it really suits you! Anyway, what was that pigeon saying to you at lunch?’

  ‘He said he works for The Professor.’

  ‘He works for The Professor? How does he “work” for The Professor?’

  ‘He wouldn’t tell me much. He said they can’t have stuff “getting out” and he has to be sure that we aren’t, erm, grasses.’

  ‘But I mean, what does he do for The Professor exactly? Carry his shopping? Put the bins out?’

  ‘I don’t know. All he said was that he works for The Professor and that there is something bad happening at our school. We were both given powers so that we can find out what’s going on. He also said The Professor hopes we have our powers under control.’

  ‘Under control? What does that mean?’

  ‘I assume it means we can make it so that we can choose when to use them.’

  ‘So yours goes off all the time?’

  ‘Yeah, I can hear the voices of every animal around me, even the ones I can’t see, like the birds in the trees and the mice in the undergrowth. Why are you smirking like that?’

  ‘Undergrowth. Makes me think of hairy bottoms.’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t need to ask if yours goes off all the time…’

  So my stink was still following me around.

  ‘Then we need to start trying to control our powers and to track down The Professor,’ Jess said.

  ‘Ooh, a mission!’

  Agent Alex was back in the game.

  We sat in the kitchen eating pizza and making a list of ways we could try to find out where The Professor was. First, we got to work on the web. Have you ever Googled ‘The Professor’? If you want to learn a lot of stuff about some woman from Victorian times who wrote books with her sisters, give it a go. If you want to learn the whereabouts of a mysterious scientist who tricked you into paying £19.99 for a life-ruining lie detector, don’t bother. We spent ages going through page after page of rubbish and couldn’t find a single lead. You’d think that if other people had been innocent victims of this nutter’s telephone electrocution, there would be some evidence – posts, blogs, something – on the web. But there was nothing.

  We trawled through the phoney professors, some basketball player, some DJ, some mental old guy from New York who apparently walks the streets throwing popcorn at people. None of them looked scientisty. None of them could be our The Professor.

  I had plenty of other ideas, but Jess thought most of them were stupid.

  ‘Match.com.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Match.com.’

  ‘Er, why?’

  ‘Think about it. Being a professor must be a lonely job. All those long, cold nights at the lab. He’s probably desperate for a Mrs Professor to go home to.’

  ‘Maybe he already has a Mrs Professor. The recorded message on the phone was a woman’s voice.’

  ‘She sounded too young to be Mrs Professor.’

  ‘Why? The Professor might be young.’

  ‘Jess, you idiot. Everyone knows that all professors are old with glasses and crazy white hair.’

  ‘You’re the idiot, Alex. Why don’t you come up with some ideas that don’t completely suck?’

  ‘At least I’m coming up with ideas.’

  While we were working, I could feel someone watching me. I looked around but there was nobody there. Nobody but Miley the goldfish swimming around her tank and peering at me with her bulgy eyes.

  ‘Jess, would you please tell Miley to stop staring at me all the time? It’s really off-putting.’

  ‘Fine, though she’s probably only staring because you have a freakishly oversized head.’

  ‘I do not! Do I?’

  Jess was at the fish tank, twitching away. I thought it would be a short conversation. What could a dumb goldfish possibly have to say? But there was a lot of talk going on. Jess asked the odd question, but mostly there was just silent twitching.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘His name isn’t Miley, it’s Bob.’

  ‘That’s a weird name for a girl fish.’

  ‘He isn’t a girl, dufus.’

  ‘Oh. Is he really stupid?’

  ‘No. He’s amazing. Very perceptive. And because he observes all day every day, he knows loads of stuff.’

  ‘No way, and there was me thinking he was brain-dead.’

  ‘Alex, we’ve been through this before. He can hear you!’

  ‘Oh yeah, my bad. Sorry, Bob.’

  ‘You’re lucky he can’t poo on you.’

  ‘If he’s so smart, why does he just swim in circles all day?’

  ‘What do you expect him to do? Write an essay? Perform brain surgery?’

  ‘Well obviously not, the paper would get all soggy and he doesn’t have the appropriate tools. But he could do something cool, like back flips or blowing bubbles in the shape of different exotic fruits. Ask him why he swims in circles. Go on, ask him!’

  Jess asked the question and I waited impatiently while she spasmed through his really long reply.

  ‘He has to swim in circles. He can’t stop. He has a routine.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘He has a routine – swim seven circuits clockwise, then seven circuits anti-clockwise. He can’t break the routine, it’s very important to him.’

  ‘What if he wants to chill?’

  ‘He doesn’t chill, unless it’s scheduled. He needs to keep everything in order or he gets upse
t.’

  ‘Blimey. Someone needs to learn how to relax.’

  ‘Not everyone’s like you, Alex. Thank God.’

  ‘But that’s mental! Proper OCD!’

  ‘Again: He. Can. Hear. You.’

  ‘Oh yeah, soz. Each to their own and all that.’

  ‘He wants me to pass on a message to you.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘He says you eat too much ham.’

  6

  The Only Way To Be In Style Is To Block Your Ear Stink With A Rubbish Hat

  After our research on The Professor turned out to be a total waste of time, I’d spent the rest of the evening trying to control my power so I could show off to Jess. I tried the obvious things: putting scrunched-up toilet paper in my ears and poking around with a Lego lightsaber. The toilet paper just made everything sound muffled and I poked too far with the lightsaber and made blood come out of my ear. I hate blood, especially when it’s mine. In the end I found an old hat of Dad’s with earflaps attached. It looked completely stupid but I thought it might keep some of the smell in.

  The next morning I sat down for registration hoping that the rest of my class had somehow been victims of a random group accident which had wiped their memories. Maybe something involving a giant bear with rabies. That would be cool. No such luck.

  ‘Hey, Alex! I hope you had a bath last night. And this morning. Stinking weirdo.’

  I didn’t need to look round to know it was Jason’s voice. People started sniggering.

  ‘Hey, Poo-Breath! Did you get that hat off a tramp?’

  More laughing. I’m not usually one to ignore that kind of abuse but I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make things worse. I carried on writing rude names for Jason on the desk with my finger and thinking about how Batman didn’t have to put up with this kind of treatment.

  I felt something hit my arm and the laughing increased. Then something else struck the back of my neck. The laughter got louder as more people joined in. I turned my head and found that my sweatshirt was covered in gluestick-coated missiles. There were bits of rubber and balled-up paper stuck all over me. Mum was going to kill me when I got home.

  I picked a paper clip off my sleeve. ‘Ooh, I need some new stationery. Thanks, Jason, you’ve saved me a trip to WH Smith.’

  ‘I thought I could decorate your tramp-hat.’ Jason was really enjoying himself.

  ‘Most of it landed on my back, so you have a rubbish aim. Probably why you can’t get on the school cricket team.’

  While Jason sat fuming and trying to think of a witty comeback, our teacher, Miss Fortress, walked in. Miss Fortress always looked tired and annoyed. It was like her trademark look. Yoda had his cool hooded robe, Nick Fury had his eye patch, and Miss Fortress had her ‘up-all-night-drinking-coffee-and-worrying-about-stuff’ face – you never saw her without it.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Fortress,’ we all chanted.

  ‘It is morning, I suppose, but whether it’s good or not is another matter.’

  ‘Miss Fortress,’ Jason said, ‘Alex has been messing around with the gluesticks.’

  My ear vibrated and a particularly horse-manurey smell swirled through my nostrils. It was like being at a farm.

  ‘Miss Fortress,’ Jason called out, ‘can I move seats? It really stinks around here.’

  ‘Jason, it’s only 9am and you’re already giving me a headache. Just go to PALS, all of you, so I can have ten minutes without anyone getting on my nerves.’ Miss Fortress was never at her best in the morning.

  ‘But Miss Fortress,’ Carrie-Anne raised her hand, ‘you haven’t taken the register.’

  ‘I’ll just make it up. Nobody checks things like that anyway. Off you go.’

  We all filed down the corridor to PALS, where I made sure I sat right at the back. That way if anyone threw anything at me, I’d be able to see it coming.

  It also gave me the perfect viewpoint to check out what was going on. Most of it was same-old, same-old – the usual yawns, fidgeting, and notes being passed when Smilie wasn’t looking. But something was different. Some of the kids were acting strangely. They were sitting up, watching, listening and paying attention. Let’s be clear, there were always a few kids who did that in PALS. The Carrie-Anne types who always got the most merits, the best parts in the school shows, brought in cards for the teacher that they’d made themselves at home. You know the ones I mean. This wasn’t the same: these kids were riveted. They were watching the PALS screen like it was the best movie they’d ever seen. They didn’t look away for a moment, or slouch, or scuff their feet on the floor. Their hands were clasped in front of them, all neatly. And the weirdest thing was that some of these kids were the baddest kids in school, the ones who were always in trouble. Or they had been.

  When I met Jess at lunch, I was excited to tell her about what I’d seen. I spotted her talking to Darth Daver so I had a quick look around to make sure none of my mates were about to see me with them, and then I went over.

  ‘Hi Jess, hi Darth Daver.’

  Darth Daver looked up and smiled. ‘Hi, Alex, nice hat!’

  I thought for a moment he was being sarcastic but then realised my ear hadn’t gone off, so he must have actually meant it. It was the first nice thing anyone had said to me for days.

  ‘Hey, thanks, Darth Daver.’

  ‘You do look marginally less One Direction than usual.’ Jess said.

  We all chatted for a while and I had to admit that it was nice to have people to talk to. When I was with my old mates, my ear went off all the time but it didn’t fart once with Jess and Darth. Maybe my power had gone away, or maybe I had it under control. Or maybe they just didn’t lie. When Darth Daver went to band practice, I got my chance to talk to Jess about our investigation.

  ‘I think I might have some intel on our mission.’

  Jess raised an eyebrow. ‘Intel? Who do you think you are, James Bond?’

  ‘Duh, no, I’m much younger, handsomer and spyier than him.’

  ‘Right. What have you found out?’

  ‘Some of the kids are acting strangely. They’re being really good.’

  ‘You interrupted my conversation with Dave for that? Wow, my mind is blown.’

  Jess’s inappropriate sarcasm made my ear go off, so clearly my power hadn’t gone away. I was disappointed but, more importantly, I was very mad with Jess.

  ‘Firstly, I don’t see what’s so bad about me joining you and Darth Daver. You were probably just discussing what song you want played at your funeral or something like that. At least when I’m around you talk about things that aren’t depressing. I’m like a hashtag-smiley-face. I did you a favour. And secondly, the kids are being weird-good, not normal-good.’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘You want an example? No problemo. You know that Year 1 kid who pushes everybody, the one we call Pushatron 2000?’

  ‘Everyone knows him, though not everyone calls him by such a stupid name. He’s even more annoying than you.’

  ‘Thank you, I’m going to take that as a compliment.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. It wasn’t one.’

  ‘Anyway – have a look at him over there by the gazebo.’

  We both looked over to where Pushatron 2000 was picking up litter. (Who does that at lunchtime, I mean really?) He had a black bin bag and was walking between groups of kids chatting and playing, collecting rubbish from the playground floor.

  For once, Jess’s expression changed from its usual frown of moody-slash-disgustedness to one of surprise. ‘He’s not pushing anyone!’

  ‘Exactly, Jessticles, exactly. Let’s go and find out why.’

  I walked casually up to Pushatron. ‘Hey, why are you on litter patrol?’

  ‘Good afternoon, friend! I’m just doing my bit to keep our school in a tip-top state. A tidy school is a happy school!’

  ‘Oh, defos. But wouldn’t you rather be doing something else, though? Maybe … pushing someone?’

  ‘Goodness
, no. There’s no need to push and shove, instead let’s hug and share the love.’

  He came at me and Jess with his arms wide open. Jess looked horrified and backed away, so I had to sacrifice myself and let him put his arms around me while I sort of patted his back. It was pretty awkward.

  ‘Thanks for the hug, kid. It was extra-squeezy, just how I like them.’

  ‘Anytime, friend!’ And the kid formerly known as Pushatron 2000 went back to picking up empty crisp packets.

  ‘Just one more thing … just to clarify: nobody made you spend your lunchtime picking up rubbish? You’re doing it because you want to?’

  ‘Oh yes, after all, a tidy school is…’

  ‘A happy school, yeah, we got that,’ Jess interrupted. Honestly, that girl is not good at pretending to be nice to people so that you can get what you want from them. Non-pushing Pushatron didn’t seem to take offence though, he just stood there smiling and nodding. That is until Marek from Year 4, a.k.a. The Sniffler, ran past and a screwed-up tissue fell out of his pocket onto the floor. Newly named Hugatron 2000’s face dropped into an expression of shock and devastation, like someone had just run over his puppy. The kid looked crushed. He stared at The Sniffler’s back for a moment, in a world of his own, and then suddenly seemed to snap out of it.

  ‘Excuse me, friend, I must get back to my duties,’ he said and ran off.

  ‘So that was super-weird,’ I said to Jess as we watched him scurry after the snotty tissue, blowing gently across the playground.

  ‘I think your stink is getting better – I couldn’t smell anything, even when he was lying about picking up rubbish for fun.’

  ‘My stink isn’t getting better, Jess, my stink is as stinky as it has ever been. That’s the weirdest part of all: he wasn’t lying. Something has happened to that kid. Something has totally changed him.’

  ‘Something or someone?’

  ‘That’s a very good question.’

  7

  I Am The King Of Stealth. And Door Safety.

  From then on we both watched the kids closely. We watched them in class: always arriving precisely two minutes early and laying out their books and pencil cases on the table in the exact same way. Sometimes we messed with them by ‘accidentally’ bumping into their desks, making their books all wonky. For a second, they would look panicked, but then they’d put everything back where it was and smile.