Darcy Burdock, Book 2

by Laura Dockrill

The bell rings for lunch. Will and I stick to the walls like we are spineless whilst the rumbling avalanche of bigger students rushes through us, tearing little ones off the staircase, picking them off like flower heads, barging shoulders and elbowing. Luckily too much is going on for him to remind me about already getting told off by Mrs Ixy, so we just follow the protesting stampede to the dinner hall, which smells of oven. Lunch time is not like how I imagined. There isn’t a jukebox for starters like how the American TV shows promised I’d have at Big School. Also there wasn’t anybody dancing on tables or doing rap battles in little huddles. There were no gangs of goths or punks or rude girls. Nobody carry-hugs their books to their chest and slams their lockers like on TV too. Nobody has an apple. All I can see is the same grey uniform repeating over and over and over and over again, and queues of people holding trays and moving so fast, exactly knowing what they wanted to order before they’d even looked at anything. Even though Will and I have packed lunches I have a quick sneak peek and am amazed to see rows of hot sugary doughnuts, swelling muffins, pots of wedges and trays of noodles, piles of chips, sausages, fish fingers, toasties . . . burgers with buns? Mac’n’cheese! Nobody is eating boring things like a sandwich. I am fed up and look at my mushy banana. Will looks at his tinfoil box of limp treasure.

  ‘Wish we were having burgers,’ he says.

  ‘Why can’t we?’ I ask, though my tummy basically says this for me in rumbles.

  ‘We don’t have any money.’

  ‘Money? You don’t need to bring money to school, you idiot.’

  ‘You do need it, look.’ Then to my absolute mighty horror, Will points to a tall wiry goggle-glasses woman in a little white paper hat typing numbers into a till and giving students their change. Will was right. This was like McDonald’s. Or somewhere else just as fancy that people who work go to in their lunch hour. This was like being catapulted into being a growed-up human adult in one second.

  Will murmurs, ‘I wish I had money.’

  And I whisper back, ‘Me too.’

  How confusing, in our old school nobody wanted school dinner and now here everybody couldn’t get enough of it. We thought we were the clever ones bringing our own stuff in, but we weren’t. Not at all. Resigned to our lunch boxes I huff and try to look cool but there isn’t an obvious place to sit or be, and every time you go to sit somewhere, somebody rushes in before you’ve even blinked. Now I know why Mum gets so stressed in the Tesco car park. Will and I hardly say a word to each other, chewing and swallowing, just waiting for the day to roll to a close.

  This school day seems like a lifetime and I am nearly falling asleep in my chair when Mrs Ixy calls me over and says she wants to talk to my parents after the bell for this final lesson goes. I don’t see Mrs Ixy asking Bella to bring her parents in. Oh, I’m going to be thrown out, aren’t I? Already. Couldn’t even make it one day, not even one. Mum is going to say I’m a disappointment and I’m going to have to be homeschooled by Grandma and learn only about old things whilst Will goes on to be an excellent magician or something.

  Feel sick.

  Dad is waiting in the car to collect me. It is embarrassing because he has taken the afternoon off to pick me up and has hip-hop music blaring and sunglasses on to look cool but it’s so disturbing. I wish I was small again and could wrap up in clingfilm like a small soggy soft sandwich in a Barbie lunch-box. He is waving energetically but still kind of trying to have a keeping it casual sort of look about him. I am so worried that I must ruin his efforts with my bad news that I’ve only been at school for roughly approximately 0.4 seconds and my teacher has already requested to see my dad.

  ‘There’s my big monkey!’ He is so happy. ‘Check out my swag!’ He slaps the steering wheel. ‘Let’s go and get a milkshake! Strawberry for the lady!’

  He winks . . . and then I cry. I am sad because this is not how I had imagined this day to go. I wanted us to have a milkshake and talk about how cool and inspiring my new teacher is and all the new friends I made and all the new amazing things I learned, like how heavy the planets are and what giraffes eat and how long it takes for a light bulb to come on and what another word for ‘vomit’ is and what 51,237 plus 89,762 is and if vampires exist and what all the types of butterfly are, but I don’t know any of this. All I know is Dad has to see the teacher. Then he takes his sunglasses off.

  ‘Oh, no, Darcy, what’s the matter? Don’t cry. I’m sorry, I was playing, I was being silly. I am sorry.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I sniffle.

  ‘Well, what is it then?’ He is really worried and that makes me sadderer.

  ‘It’s my new witch teacher, she wants to speak to you.’

  ‘What? She wants to talk now?’

  I nod. I see a tear fall onto my new blazer, worming its cheeky way into the yuck material.

  Dad gets out and locks the car, he checks himself in the mirror – see, even he is terrified of this school business.

  ‘Come on then, monkey. Dad’s here.’

  I lead Dad into my classroom, where Mrs Ixy is sitting filing some work away into beaten up cabinets.

  ‘Mr Burdock? Hi, I’m Mrs Ixy, you can call me Barbra.’

  Barbra. Barbra is NOT a witch’s name.

  ‘Hi, Barbra, I’m Darcy’s dad and personal idiot.’ He giggles, trying to make a joke, but Mrs Barbra Ixy is not amused. Dad looks embarrassed.

  ‘Thanks for popping in.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I want to talk to you about Darcy.’

  ‘Phew, glad it’s not about me!’ Dad jests, but no, it doesn’t work.

  I am shaking. I have never felt this frightened because it feels like an axe is about to fall on me at any moment and take my life away. I am going to get kicked out. I am going to never get a job in real life or be able to drive a car like Will’s big sister Annie or go shopping in expensive shops. I’ll have to leave my house and become a person that has to forage for fruits and berries and live in a cardboard house. Or worse, go back to my original future ambitious career plan . . . being a grandad.

  ‘Mr Burdock, your daughter Darcy has a stunning imagination.’

  I’ve heard this one before . . . and so has Dad by the looks of things.

  ‘Really, Mr Burdock, I think Darcy is very talented, her writing today was easily the best in class – perhaps the best I’ve seen at this age.’

  My dad’s face pours open into sunshine and so does mine.

  ‘Wow, that’s come as a surprise, I mean, not a surprise, I knew she was talented, she’s always writing, she’s writing all the time, I mean, she’s writing every day, about everything, she never stops, she can go for hours, you should see her writing books, no you should read the one about the Octopus – what’s it called, love?’

  ‘The Octopus story?’ I say, all proud and tangled up in a mixed emotion bag, and Mrs Ixy is smiling widely.

  ‘Yeah. It’s really, really good.’ Dad has got carried away and is a bit out of breath.

  ‘Her last school sent me some of her creative writing and she did lots in class today. I would like Darcy to write for the school magazine, Mr Burdock – what do you think about that, Darcy?’

  ‘OK,’ I say, because I can’t think of any other words. My brain has vanished on to catch the next train of thought where I can see myself with a ginormous quill on a posh writing desk dressed in some beautiful quilted two-piece power suit, scribing paragraphs of excellence for the rest of my life and never getting in trouble. They might even use my face on the £5 note one of these days. THAT is how excellent I am.

  Chapter Eight

  At home, Mum smiles broadly as she begins to pop peas out of their shells, the soft sound of them tapping each other gently. She’s being all hippy these days after what she calls ‘over-consumption’, and drinking herbal tea and meditating and recycling and fresh food munching but with the exception of oven chips and wine because they are her fix. A fix is something that fixes you a small bit when you’re down – mine is choco
late and writing, obviously. (P.S. And biting off my fingernails occasionally and spitting out the nail and letting it flllllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy across the room like a skeleton helicopteretta to a landing which is unknown to the pilot.)

  I smile back and check out my milk moustache in the toaster, looking good.

  ‘I am so proud, Darcy. Such a hit, and on your first day too! You must be so happy.’

  ‘I am. I have to go to this meeting tomorrow first thing, with all the other magazine people, and decide what I am going to write about. I think I might wear my hair in a professional plait.’

  ‘Good idea. Well, we better give that hair a wash and a brush.’

  OH. RIGHT.

  And it is a couple of hours later and this is happening . . .

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGGGG!’ I scream.

  ‘Sit still,’ Mum says through gritted teeth.

  ‘AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGGGGG! It kills.’

  ‘Don’t be a baby.’

  ‘How am I being a baby? You would never ever in a zillion years cause this much hell to a baby and also babies don’t have hair like this!’

  ‘Darcy, do you want your hair in a professional plait?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, sit still then.’

  ‘I have a headache.’

  ‘Look at this knot, are you serious? It’s like a dreadlock. Look at it.’

  ‘I want dreadlocks.’

  ‘I might have to cut it out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This dreadlock, it’s so big and knotty, the brush is doing nothing for it.’

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘Darcy, there is the end of a crayon in here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’ Mum leans her open palm before me and inside the small curve of her hand is the head of a bright pink crayon. ‘Ridiculous.’

  ‘I wanted it there,’ I say smugly, but really I am thinking, How on earth did the end of a crayon get in my hair? My head and eyes and hands feel all fizzy and twinkly from all the stingy vicious clawing of my scalp.

  Poppy walks in. Great. Her eyes can’t help but show me they are happy to see me sweaty and in pain.

  ‘That’s why I keep my hair straight and short,’ she hisses and does a pirouette ballerina-type move that makes me hope she breaks her ankles. ‘Always brushed and washed,’ she adds and then she gets ready for the big bomb: ‘Just how Mum likes it. Always tidy.’

  ‘Always ugly,’ I bark back.

  ‘Well, yours always looks like a hairy mammoth,’ she snaps.

  ‘Girls. Come on.’ Mum’s getting irritated, but in a smiley way, one of my favourite ways of how she gets actually, sort of not wanting to laugh but not being able to help it.

  The next morning I wake up more professional than even probably a professor. This is how my plait looks – excellent.

  I stroll quite confidently into school but then I see Clementine leaning against the gates with a gaggle of girls that all look like pop stars or big sisters and I just look small and flea-like. They all laugh when I walk towards them, and I’m sure it isn’t about me and walk past but when I look back they are looking at me and giggling even more and Clementine is whispering and her eyes are on me. I start running through my brain all the things that could be funny about me today . . . my hair – maybe the plait looks stupid and try-hard, maybe I have toothpaste on my chin? It’s probably these stupid Dompy shoes, to be honest. I feel clown-like and sore-thumb-ish. How has Clementine made friends already? I know that American accent does all the hard work for her, that and the fact her mum buys her designer handbags. What’s she got to keep inside them bags, anyway . . . felt tips? It’s annoying she doesn’t have to try like me. I might move to America for the opposite effect, even if it does mean eating plastic cheese.

  I’ve also noticed that boys and girls don’t really hang out with each other so much in this school either; it’s not like small school where everybody blends in like kittens and it doesn’t matter who you are, you all just snuggle in. I bet Will has noticed this too. I wonder if he will want to spend lunch time with me even though I forgot to ask Mum for burger money and have to eat Dad’s packed sandwich?

  I hurry to the meeting which is in the library – I can’t wait to escape there, as books never judge you. The library is not how I thought it would be at all. In my head I pictured the local library near my house which is sticky and plain and the books all have tacky tape around the spine and the floor is all squeaky and the blinds have tea stains on them (and I even once saw a deaded mouse behind the A–D section in the fiction bookcase but I just mumbled ‘oh dear’ to myself and went to look in the religious section to perhaps find a prayer and read it to the mouse, but then I decided not to because all the words were way too hard in all the books).

  But this isn’t that at all. The staircase is huge and wooden and bold like a princess staircase, with a big sweeping balcony fenced the whole way around the top. The windows are stained glass in thousands of mighty glorious colours and shadows, and paint magical scenes onto the carpet below when the sun shines through. The books are well looked after and sleep in their own little shelves: it feels warm in here, safe and cosy and as quiet as actual silence. I finally feel like I can breathe. The idea of the meeting cheers me up a bit. Mrs Ixy isn’t there because students run the magazine, so instead there is a massive giant girl with a big chunky fringe and pink braces on who I think is in charge.

  ‘Hi,’ she beams and I curl up a bit from the sudden sound of her voice. ‘It’s OK, we can talk in here today. I know you’re not meant to talk in libraries but they know we’re having a meeting.’ She introduces herself as ‘Nicola, but everybody calls me Koala because I am sleepy and cuddly’. I won’t be doing any of that Koala-calling business, I think to myself, but obviously I do because I don’t want to upset this leader, who calls herself The Editor.

  Koala (Nicola) sits at the head of the table – her legs are so long they are running underneath the table like sewage pipes. She introduces the rest of the team.

  There is Gus, he is the Assistant Editor. He is OK but his nails are really very dirty like he is always digging up plants. His teeth are too sharp for a human; I am wondering why he wasn’t given the chance of being a dinosaur instead of a boy.

  Maggie, who is in charge of crosswords, puzzles and quizzes, is really cute and her nose in upturned like an imp. She has curly hair in bunches and lots of pen drawn all over her hands in designs and words.

  Arti is in charge of artwork. Arti is very quiet but I can see her pad of paper and it is full of drawings of quite stunning things like stars and eyes. Wish I could draw like that, although if I was an amazing drawer I’d be drawing things like moose wearing bikinis rather than stars, I suspect.

  And then Oliver (Olly) Supperidge. Even after just one meeting I can officially announce that he is my new best person to not like and here’s why. EVERYTHING that anybody says during the whole meeting he has to argue with or challenge or disagree with for no other reason than he enjoys watching others squirm their way out of his nasty traps, like bugs under a glass.

  So Koala suggests that I talk to the group about who I am and what I’ve written in the past and my favourite book. The whole time Olly is rolling his eyes and tutting and deep sighing and he keeps looking behind my head to see if anybody more cooler or interesting is walking into the library.

  Koala can see that Olly’s behaviour is very rude and says, ‘Erm, Olly, if you haven’t noticed, Darcy’s talking.’

  And then Olly goes, ‘Agh, soz’ (as if that’s a real way to apologize) and then he stretches back into his chair and overdramatically yawns, and during this stinky yawn says, ‘Darcy, you don’t even have a portfolio. I mean, you’re still basically a kid, what have you actually done?’ He is being really nasty and trying to expose me but before I can answer he talks about the feel of the magazine and starts using all these posh expensive words like ‘contempt’ and I think that alienates (whi
ch means to make people feel like the odd one out like an alien) our readers. If I ever got a chance to meet an alien I would never leave them out, I would properly hang out with them, not even forced.

  Koala frowns at Olly and smiles her braces at me – they sparkle. ‘Why don’t we all ask Darcy a question about what we can look forward to with her being involved in the school mag?’ Koala really enjoys speaking like a teacher. She asks, hoping to break the ice, ‘Olly, why don’t you kick us off?’

  Olly finds it hard not to be rude. He laughs and then chews the end of his pen. Leaning on the back legs of his chair he sniffs and says, ‘Personally I find this question near impossible to frame because I would much rather we were welcoming a male writer to the magazine.’

  ‘A boy?’ Maggie squeals.

  I snarl. What’s the difference? I can’t believe my ears.

  Maggie glares at Olly. ‘What do you mean? A boy writer, why?’

  ‘Well, I think my articles have completely smashed it, I mean, I’ve set the bar pretty high, I know I’m writing stuff that people want to read and I’m worried that a female writer might . . . you know . . . lower the standard of the magazine, like I don’t think they will want to read a beauty column or to hear about stupid ponies and baking and the colour pink.’

  ‘I’m sure some people would like to hear about that sort of stuff, but luckily for you, Olly, I don’t think that’s exactly what Darcy had in mind, was it, Darcy?’ Koala asks me. Her eyes are so wide right now it’s like they might drop out of their sockets, rolling onto the carpet, collecting up dirt and hairs.

  The room feels numb and almost a bit hysterical but I am not confident or comfortable enough to start giggling. I feel sorry for Olly that he thinks girls aren’t as good as boys, he will certainly be growing up to be one of those idiot men that says ‘women can’t drive’ or ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’. My dad would NEVER EVER think like that or else he would get his head chopped off with Mum’s toenail clippers. I say loud and proud, ‘I write about stuff that inspires me . . . you never know, Olly, you might make it into a story yourself one of these days.’