Supercharged!

by Jeremy Strong

I could almost see Masher’s brain working. (He does have one, I think, but it’s about the size of a baked bean’s baby bean.) Things were slowly beginning to make sense and then –

  It came into his head.

  ‘So if THAT is your great-gran, WHO is scoring all those GOALS?!’ Masher’s eyes burned holes in Pete’s back. ‘And where is your great pal Pete, eh? Eh? EH?’

  But Gee-Gee wasn’t going to have any of that.

  ‘That looks like a bit of a ding-dong,’ she muttered. A moment later she spun her wheels so fast they spat gravel all over Mum’s feet.

  ‘I’m not putting up with any of this nonsense,’ shouted Gee-Gee, as I raced after her, trying to keep up. ‘I’m not scared of a bunch of gangsters. I wrestled tigers in Africa.’

  ‘Gee-Gee, there aren’t any tigers in Africa,’ I panted.

  ‘That’s because they were so scared of me they ran away,’ she yelled back.

  By this time it looked as if Masher and his pals were about to murder anyone they could lay their hands on. There was only one thing for it. It was superhero time!

  But it didn’t happen quite like that. Masher McNee was not the only one who had rumbled us.

  Mr Butternut had turned into Mr Horrible Hairy Face and my mum was doing her nut.

  ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, young man,’ they chorused.

  Before I could open my mouth Gee-Gee was spinning the wheels of her chair and she was off again, whizzing across the playground. At first I thought she was after Pete, but all she wanted was the football! Gee-Gee was on it in a flash and she rammed it into Masher’s goal.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Masher cried.

  ‘Going to stop me, doughnut?’ Gee-Gee yelled back. And that’s how the football match started up again. By the time the bell went for the end of play, we had lost count of the number of goals Gee-Gee had scored.

  ‘I think we won,’ said Gee-Gee with great satisfaction, as I pushed her back to Mum.

  Mum watched all this with a sour face. ‘Just look at Casper’s great grandmother – racing round, doing wheelies, scoring goals, yelling her head off – what kind of example is that?’ she grumbled to Mr Butternut. ‘And those children are in big trouble too.’

  Mr Butternut didn’t seem so sure. ‘The children? Oh, you can’t blame them.’

  ‘What?’ cried Mum. ‘Why ever not?’

  My teacher tugged his beard thoughtfully. ‘I was the one who asked them to bring in something old and treasured, so if anyone is to blame it’s probably me. As for your grandmother, what a splendid old lady. I hope I’m as perky as that when I’m in a wheelchair.’

  I’m telling you, that Mr Butternut is the best teacher EVER!

  Mind you, I was still in BIG TROUBLE when I got home. And so were Pete and Gee-Gee. (But it was worth it!)

  That’s the noise Pete makes when he has spent far too much time with Uncle Boring.

  He starts snorting like an animal in pain – quite possibly a giraffe with a sore knee – something like that.

  ‘He’s driving me bonkers,’ moaned Pete. ‘He’s been droning on all morning about chewing my food thirty-six times.’

  I looked at my friend with sympathy. ‘Why does it have to be thirty-six?’

  ‘Uncle Boring says it’s good for you. It’s all because it took me about five seconds to eat my cereal this morning. The next thing is he’s going on at me as if I’ve just committed some major crime, like putting jellyfish in his bath.’

  ‘Have you ever put jellyfish in his bath?’ I asked.

  Pete threw me a dark glance. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘how can you possibly chew cereal thirty-six times? It goes all soggy.’

  ‘Exactly. He is Mr Stupido. I’ve no idea why my mum goes out with him. He’s not even good-looking. Mr Horrible Hairy Face is better-looking than Uncle Boring.’

  And just at that very moment I had a BUTTERLY BRILLIANT idea. I grabbed Pete’s arm.

  ‘Why don’t you get your mum to go out with Mr Butternut?’

  Pete was so stunned he couldn’t speak. At last he croaked, ‘ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? HE’S OUR TEACHER! HE’D BE LIKE MY STEPDAD. I’D PROBABLY HAVE TO CALL HIM UNCLE BUTTERNUT!’

  ‘It was just a thought,’ I muttered.

  Pete put both hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘Please don’t think.’

  ‘Casper, you need a brain to think, and yours is obviously on a very long holiday far, far away from your head. It’s probably on Saturn or Jupiter.’

  Huh. Sometimes even your bestest-ever friends can be a disappointment to you. I knew for sure that I was on to something. I could help Pete. It was a great idea. Definitely.

  So after Pete had gone I went to my room and scrabbled around among my bits and pieces. Finally I found a picture of Pete’s mum. It was really a photo of Pete, but his mum just happened to be in it. I cut Pete out of the photo. Then I settled at my desk and wrote a letter. I did it really, REALLY carefully with my bestest-ever grown-up handwriting.

  Actually Pete’s mum is not a widow at all, she’s divorced, but I thought Mr Butternut would feel sorry for her if he thought her husband was dead. (See? I am THAT clever!)

  Mr B would probably comfort her and they would definitely fall in love. Then they’d get married!

  And Uncle Boring would disappear forever and ever. Hooray! (And then maybe Pete would come and tell me it was a brilliant idea of mine after all.)

  I took the letter into school the next day and slipped it on to Butternut’s desk when he wasn’t looking.

  I put that last bit so he would know it was important. A few minutes later I saw him spot the envelope. Mr Horrible Hairy Face picked it up, frowned, glanced around the class, opened it and read the letter. I watched as his eyebrows slowly slid up his head. He blinked at the letter several times and then scanned the class again. I quickly pretended to be doing my work, but I could feel Mr Butternut was looking at Pete, right next to me. It felt like his eyes were on telescopic stalks.

  Mr Butternut didn’t say a word. He tucked the letter inside his jacket and then got on with marking our work. Phew – I’d done it! All I had to do now was sit back and wait until five o’clock on Friday.

  AND THEN, out of the blue, a massive rhino-sized thought came thundering into my brain.

  Somehow I would have to find a way of getting Pete’s mum to make a special tea for Friday.

  I had two days to work something out. Maybe I could get Pete to invite ME to tea. Then I could just let Mr Butternut turn up and I would creep away and let them fall in love and – there’s going to be a wedding!

  ‘What are you doing on Friday?’ I asked Pete.

  ‘Friday? I haven’t got a clue. That’s weeks away.’

  ‘It’s the day after tomorrow,’ said Sarah Sitterbout, who knows EVERYTHING. She wasn’t supposed to be listening (but she was).

  Pete shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I’ll be doing on Friday. Probably shouting “Hooray, it’s the weekend, we don’t have to go to school!”, or something like that. Why are you asking, knobbly-kneed twiglet person?’

  ‘No reason, really,’ I said. ‘It’s just that I think we might run out of food on Friday.’

  This was supposed to be a

  ‘Your mum could go to the shops,’ Pete answered. Obviously the hint wasn’t nearly big enough.

  ‘She’s got a sore foot,’ I invented.

  ‘You could give her a piggy-back.’ Pete snorted at his own joke.

  Huh. That friend of mine was pretty slow at getting the message. I struggled on.

  ‘Ha ha. Suppose we have nothing left to eat by Friday afternoon? We’ll be starving by five o’clock.’ This had to work. This hint was as big as the Titanic.

  ‘Your dad can do the shopping,’ Sarah piped up very matter-of-factly. Thanks a lot, Sarah. That sank the Titanic good and proper, didn’t it? I watched it vanish beneath the waves.

  So that was the end of that very-useful-I-don�
��t-think conversation. The day passed without a single idea coming into my head. That evening I lay in bed, trying to think up some clever plan. I tossed and turned all night. My bedclothes ended up in such a twisted mess, it felt as if I was being spifflicated by a python.

  Thursday wasn’t much better. The only useful thing about school was that I kept looking at Mr Butternut and thinking what a good husband he would make for Pete’s mum. He was kind and good-looking in a crumbly, teacherish kind of way.

  Pete’s mum was quite pretty, I suppose. I mean, she wasn’t an ancient hag with a warty nose or anything like that, but she was getting on a bit – thirty-five at least.

  The main thing was that I knew in my deepest, deepest self that I was doing THE RIGHT THING! It was going to work and Uncle Boring would soon be nothing more than a distant (horrible) memory.

  I went home with Pete as usual and followed him into his house. I was hoping something useful might happen. It started off all right.

  ‘Mrs Jenkinson’s got a sore foot,’ Pete told his mum.

  ‘Really? Is it bad?’ she asked. I seized my chance.

  ‘She can’t go shopping,’ I said. (Hint hint).

  ‘Maybe you can get her shopping, Casper?’ Pete’s mum said brightly.

  Why couldn’t anyone just invite me round for tea! It was SO simple and OBVIOUS!

  ‘Or, how about you come to tea at our house tomorrow? I’ve got chocolate cake that needs using up and I’ve plenty of food here.’

  HOORAY! AT LAST!! I let out a huge sigh and beamed my uttermost thanks at Pete’s mum.

  ‘Good,’ she smiled back. ‘Bring your parents and Abbie. They’ll be hungry too.’

  NO! NO!! NO!!!

  That wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t want them around. They’d get in the way and muddle things. It was important that Mr Butternut only had eyes for Pete’s mum. Now I would have to find a way to keep the rest of my family at home. Huh. If it wasn’t one problem, it was another – in fact it was three others.

  I went back to my house and told my family we’d been invited to tea next door.

  Then Abbie and I had a nice argument where she told me she was going out on Friday afternoon anyway. And I said yes, she was probably going to see her BOYFRIEND to have a SNOG.

  So then she tried to kill me. I didn’t mind. I just tried to kill her back. It’s what happens most days.

  Anyhow, as things turned out, Dad couldn’t come either because he was going to be working overtime. That just left Mum to deal with. And Uncle Boring.

  As we left school on Friday, Mr Butternut called after us and winked at Pete.

  Pete was pretty puzzled. ‘We won’t see him later. And why did he wink at us? I think Mr Horrible Hairy Face is losing his grip on life. Teachers do, you know. As they get older, they get nuttier.’

  We went straight to Pete’s house. I was hoping that if I left Mum alone, she would forget the time and not come round for tea. Pete’s mum was busy getting the table ready, while Uncle Boring watched.

  I don’t know how Pete puts up with Derek. He really is the most boring man in the whole wide world. All he does is wander around telling people how to do things.

  ‘You mustn’t carry your bag like that, Peter. It will make you lopsided. You should always carry a bag on your back or clutched to your front.’

  So Mr Clever Clogs Pete said: ‘Why does my bag have a handle if you’re not supposed to carry it?’

  ‘That’s because the bag makers don’t know any better,’ answered Uncle Boring evenly. ‘Now, if I was a bag maker I would make sure you put them on your back or your front.’

  I suddenly thought of a way to get rid of Derek.

  ‘That’s very interesting,’ I told him. ‘I bet you could find out lots more interesting things about bags in the library down the road. Why don’t you go and see?’

  Uncle Boring said he loved libraries, but he only ever went to the library if it was Tuesday.

  I had to think of something to get rid of him. ‘Did you know you’ve got a flat tyre on your car?’ I asked.

  Uncle Boring stood quite still and stared at me for several seconds. At last he spoke.

  ‘That is very strange.’

  ‘Really?’ I croaked. ‘Why?

  ‘Because I don’t have a car.’ said Uncle Boring.

  I might have known!

  Then he started droning on about using buses and how there was one bus he liked best. ‘It’s the number fifty-seven. It’s yellow and I call her Doris.’

  ‘There’s a bus you call Doris?’ repeated Pete in disbelief.

  Uncle Boring nodded and smiled. Pete and I looked at each other. Sometimes the world of adults seemed very, VERY strange.

  By now I was panicking. Mr Butternut would be arriving at any moment. Suddenly I knew I had to do something major to get Derek out of the room.

  A stunning plan suddenly into my head.

  ‘Pete’s got a brilliant model of a bus,’ I told Uncle Boring.

  Pete looked very puzzled, as well he might. ‘Do I?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, it’s that old vintage one. I remember your mum put it up in your loft.’

  ‘She did?’ Pete still looked puzzled. I made frantic signs at him that we should get Uncle Boring up into the attic.

  ‘I’d be very interested to see that,’ droned Uncle Boring. Hooray! I actually began to like him for a second or two.

  ‘You could go up and look at it,’I suggested. ‘Pete, show your uncle where the hatch is and the stepladder.’ And I silently mouthed ‘DO IT!’ at the same time.

  At last Pete moved. ‘Come on,’ he said and we all trooped upstairs.

  ‘We have to get him out of the room downstairs,’ I whispered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Trust me,’ I answered. Well, that put him on instant alert!

  ‘Casper, what are you up to?’

  ‘Look, there’s the hatch!’ I cried. ‘And there’s the stepladder. Up you go. I think the bus is at the back somewhere.’

  Uncle Boring rubbed his hands together. ‘Right-ho. This is very exciting. A vintage model bus. Wonderful. Up I go. Switch on the light. It’s at the back somewhere, you say. Right-ho.’ And Uncle Boring disappeared into the loft, burbling to himself. I quietly closed the hatch and removed the stepladder.

  Pete gripped my arm. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  Saved by the doorbell! Mr Butternut at last!

  ‘Come on,’ I said brightly. ‘You’ve got visitors.’

  I raced downstairs, opened the door and there was – MY MUM!

  Mum looked very surprised. (No wonder!) ‘Really?’ She looked at her feet and shook her head. ‘No. They’re fine.’

  ‘Never mind,’ laughed Mrs Jawolski. ‘Come and help me in the kitchen.’

  Pete grabbed my arm again and dragged me away from them. ‘Will you tell me what’s going on?’

  Saved again. That doorbell was doing a grand job! Surely it had to be Mr Butternut this time. Now everything would be all right, wouldn’t it?

  NO, IT WOULDN’T!!

  MY MUM came hurrying through from the kitchen.

  SHE WAS ONLY GOING TO ANSWER THE DOOR!

  Pete’s mum was supposed to answer the door, not mine! Now Mr Butternut was standing on the doorstep, smiling at MY MUM!

  ‘Goodness me,’ said Mr Butternut, ‘I didn’t realize you were so young.’

  My mum blushed. SHE BLUSHED! IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS! Mr B was supposed to fall in love with Pete’s mum, not mine!

  At that moment Pete’s mum appeared from the kitchen. ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  My teacher smiled. ‘Hello, everyone. I’m Mr Butternut from the school!’

  Mr Butternut gave Pete a big wink. ‘Peter left his sweatshirt in the classroom and as I was passing I thought I would just drop it in.’ And he winked at Pete again.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ smiled Pete’s mum. Good, this was getting better. ‘Would you like to come in for some
tea?’

  Brilliant! Hooray! It was working!

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ said Mr Butternut, ‘but my wife and baby are waiting in the car. We’re just off to get the weekend shopping.’

  MR BUTTERNUT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO HAVE A WIFE AND BABY!

  WHAT DID HE HAVE TO GO AND DO THAT FOR?

  And so Mr Butternut left – with his wife and baby. Huh.

  Pete’s mum gazed around. ‘Where’s Derek?’ she asked. ‘He was here a moment ago.’

  I hoped nobody else could hear the distant thumps coming from somewhere up above. Not to mention the odd cry.

  And then we had tea.

  And after tea my mum went home.

  And then Pete started.

  ‘YOU INVITED BUTTERNUT TO TEA, DIDN’T YOU? I BET YOU WROTE SOME STUPID, CRUMBY LETTER! HE KEPT WINKING AT ME! YOU’VE MADE ME LOOK LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT. YOU ARE MR STUPIDO AND I HATE YOU!’

  Pete hurled himself at me. There was only one thing to do. It was time for some superheroics.

  So we made up and were friends again and we all lived happily ever after. In fact we ended up thinking it was pretty funny. I wonder if Uncle Boring has found that non-existent toy bus yet?