Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks

by T. M. Alexander

  T. M. Alexander likes writing in the morning and sleeping in the afternoon. She does all her plotting while she swims up and down the lake. Her favourite pudding is chocolate anything and her worst pudding is fruit.

  Find out more at www.tmalexander.com

  Get to know the Tribers at

  www.tribers.co.uk

  Other Tribe books:

  The Day the Ear Fell Off

  A Thousand Water Bombs

  Labradoodle on the Loose

  For trusty Bod

  First published in Great Britain in 2011

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd,

  5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text copyright © T. M. Alexander, 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any

  means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of T. M. Alexander to be identified as Author

  of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 158 4 (paperback)

  eISBN: 978 1 84812 201 7

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

  Cover design by Patrick Knowles

  Cover illustration by Sue Hellard

  Contents

  Author

  Keener Bunks Off

  Late For Lunch

  The Details

  Same

  Wednesdays

  Jonno’s Turn

  You Wait for a Bus, Then Two Come at Once

  Leavers’ Week

  Bee’s Turn

  Keener Bunks Off

  Beans on Toast

  For Once Shouty Shouty Doesn’t Shout

  The Lull Before the Storm

  The Storm

  Reputations at Stake

  Under Canvas

  Big Jim’s a Wow at the Red House

  All I Can Think About Is Camp . . .

  Mum’s Army

  The Blow-By-Blow Account

  All Packed Up

  The Bus

  Sick in the Sink

  I Love my Sleeping Bag

  Wakey Wakey

  Land Ahoy

  The Woods

  Get Me Out of the Woods

  Tent Talk

  A Great Way to Start the fay

  The Race Is On

  An Assault on Tribe

  Matters

  Campfire’s Burning

  There’s Fifty

  The Final Challenge

  The Highwoods Awards Ceremony

  Keener

  Bunks Off

  Late

  For Lunch

  It was sausage and mash for school lunch – result! I turned round to start off a Tribe handshake (only really meant for great triumphs) but after I slapped down my hand, only three others followed . . . when there should have been four. I stopped my other hand in mid-flight.

  ‘Where’s Copper Pie?’

  Bee’s head, Fifty’s head and Jonno’s head all turned to look behind. There was Alice, and behind her Marco and Ed. But no Copper Pie.

  ‘He must be here. He’s not exactly going to miss lunch, is he?’ said Bee.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  They were right. Copper Pie never skips a meal. In fact he has extra snacks in between to ensure his stomach is never less than half full.

  ‘Maybe he snuck in early,’ said Jonno.

  On Tuesdays we have to wait until last to go in for dinner. It’s a killer. I scanned the tables to see if our redheaded friend was already munching . . . No.

  The thump took me by surprise. It was right in the middle of my back. I lurched forwards and nearly crushed a Year 3 (easily done).

  ‘Sorry,’ I said to the Year 3, before I turned round to face my out-of-breath friend, ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘Sorry, Keener. Couldn’t stop in time,’ said Copper Pie. ‘I smelt the sausages.’ (Pant. Pant.) ‘Didn’t want to miss out.’

  ‘Where were you?’ said Fifty.

  Copper Pie didn’t answer, because someone else did.

  ‘He was somewhere he shouldn’t have been,’ said Callum. He walked towards us with a knowing look on his face.

  We don’t like Callum, and he doesn’t like us. We helped him once, not because we wanted to but because we had to. It didn’t change a thing. If Tribe was a ruling pary, Callum and Jamie would be the opposition. No question.

  ‘Go away, Hog,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Why? Got something to hide?’ said Callum.

  ‘No,’ said Copper Pie. He stepped so close to Callum, he was nearly treading on the toes of his trainers. ‘I just don’t like you.’

  It looked like trouble, but thankfully Alice – the most irritating girl in the class, except on this one occasion -decided to get involved.

  ‘You’ve jumped the queue, Callum. Get to the back or I’ll tell . . .’ She looked around for a teacher.’ I’ll tell Mr Morris.’

  ‘Go ahead. I’ll tell him Copper Pie pushed in too, and we can carry on with our little chat at the back, on our own.’ Callum was definitely up for a fight.

  ‘You’re wrong there,’ said Bee. ‘Copper Pie was here all the time. Wasn’t he, Tribers?’

  There was general nodding. I don’t really like lying but . . . Callum looked at Alice. Behind her, I could see Mr Morris walking our way.

  ‘But he wasn’t, was he, Alice?’

  Alice stared straight back at him . . . and nodded, slowly. Go Alice! She’s not a Triber (and never could be), but she’d stood up for us. We could try to be a bit nicer to her, I thought. Except that she’s the most annoying girl, times a million – so maybe not.

  Callum curled his lip, like a villain in an old film, said, ‘I’ll be watching you,’ and disappeared to the back of the line.

  ‘What was that all about?’ said Jonno.

  We all looked at Copper Pie.

  ‘Is it all right if I get my sausages first?’ he said.

  We sat at our favourite table in the corner.

  ‘Go on then, spill the beans,’ said Bee.

  ‘I think Callum saw me coming through the gates.’

  No big deal, I thought. Copper Pie must have wellied the ball right out of the school grounds. It happens regularly. We’re not allowed to set a foot outside the perimeter without permission, but no one ever asks. They just dash out, and dash back in.

  ‘He won’t tell on you,’ said Bee. ‘It’s not worth it.’

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Depends how much he saw,’ said Copper Pie.

  Jonno laughed. ‘Why? Did you do a quick raid on the café while you were there? Did you nick a hot chocolate?’

  I laughed too. But Copper Pie stayed deadly serious.

  ‘What is it?’ said Bee, flicking her black fringe out of her eyes to give him her best stare.

  ‘Callum was outside the gates too, getting his ball.’ Copper Pie paused.

  ‘And?’ said Bee.

  And he might have seen me coming from the alley.’ Copper Pie winced.

  It was very confusing. Why would Copper Pie be coming out of the alley between end of morning school and last sitting when he should have been in the playground? I hadn’t seen him, but I’d assumed he was practising in goal. He often does.

  ‘But where had you been?’ said Fifty.

  ‘I bunked off,’ said Copper Pie. I g
asped. This was bad. In fact, worse than bad. He carried on. ‘There was something I had to do. And the trouble is, I’ve got to do it again tomorrow, and the next day . . .’

  I had no idea what the ‘something’ was but I could see what was coming. It was going to be another problem for Tribe to sort out. Why we couldn’t have a few normal days being normal children, I didn’t know. But one of the Tribers was in a fix, and that meant we were all in a fix. I waited, with a bit of a worry growing inside, to hear the details.

  The

  Details

  All sausage eating stopped. All eight eyes were trained on Copper Pie. He took a breath.

  ‘I kicked my football over the fence last night.’ He paused. We all willed him to hurry up but no one said anything out loud. He started again.

  ‘Usually Big Jim shouts at me from his kitchen when I go and get it. He sits by the window a lot, watching the birds. He has lots of birds because he puts up those feeders and fills them with peanuts. I sometimes steal a couple.’ Copper Pie paused again. This story was going to take a lot of telling.

  ‘He usually says things like, “Get out of my garden, you redheaded layabout”. Or he calls me Tomato-head, or Robin . . . but it’s a joke.’

  He does, and it is. I can remember the first time I heard Copper Pie’s neighbour shouting. I was waiting in the garden, with Copper Pie’s brother Charlie, for the ball to be chucked back over. I don’t know exactly what Big Jim said, because I was too shocked by how loud his voice was, but I know that Copper Pie shouted back, ‘Shut up, you grumpy old man’, and then there was loads of laughing. I still don’t get the joke but Copper Pie and Big Jim are rude to each other all the time and that’s how it is.

  ‘I got my ball from over by the hedge, and on the way back I went right by his window. His car was out the front, so I knew Big Jim must be in. He’s too old to walk very far.’ There was a big pause. So big that Fifty started eating his sausage. So big that Copper Pie had to be nudged into action.

  ‘What did you see?’ said Bee. ‘What did you see through the window?’

  I leant forward in my chair. Jonno pushed his glasses right up to the top of his nose. Fifty took another bite.

  ‘I saw Big Jim,’ said Copper Pie. ‘He was on the floor.’

  Bee made an I’m-shocked noise and put her hand over her mouth. All I could think was blood. Fifty swallowed and spoke for all of us.

  ‘Copper Pie, please, please could you tell the story without all the gaps because we’d like to know whether your neighbour was dead, and if not, what your neighbour lying on the floor has to do with you bunking off. And if possible we’d like to know before the afternoon bell goes.’ Fifty used a posh voice and a pleading face and pressed his hands together to make pleading hands.

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Copper Pie. ‘The back door wasn’t locked -never is – so I went in. I thought he was unconscious, you know, in a coma, but he spoke as soon I got in. He said, “Can you give me a hand, Pumpkin-head?”’ (Copper Pie rolled his eyes.) ‘I asked him if I should get Mum but he said “NO”-and he really meant it. So I helped him up, which was like lifting a . . . yeti.’

  A sack of potatoes is what people usually say,’ I said.

  ‘Shut up, Keener, or we’ll never get to the end,’ said Bee.

  I shut up.

  ‘Anyway, I got him into the armchair and that’s when I noticed all the other things that were wrong.’ (Oh no! I thought. This is where we get the blood and gore.) ‘There was a brown puddle on the floor with two wet Bourbon biscuits, a broken mug, and the cat’s bowl was turned over and there was cat food everywhere, but no cat.’

  ‘Was it rabbit poo in a tasty stew?’ asked Fifty. Stupid thing to say considering we were trying to hurry the story up. That’s Fifty for you.

  ‘Shut up, Fifty. This is serious.’ Bee did the glare.

  Fifty did a sorry face. ‘Go on, Copper Pie,’ he said.

  ‘Anyway, it turns out Big Jim had fallen out of the tree on Saturday. He was filling the bird feeder and he slipped off the chair he was standing on. He went to hospital. It must have been when we were out or Mum would’ve noticed. He’s got a bandage on his arm and he’s broken his ribs. And Carlotta – that’s the cat – had disappeared, cos she was hungry.’ Copper Pie leant right back so that his chair was balanced on two legs. He seemed to have finished. We all looked at each other.

  ‘So do we need to find the cat? Staple posters to all the lampposts with a photo?’ said Bee. ‘Organise a search party like we did when Doodle was lost.’

  I wished she hadn’t said that. I still feel guilty about losing her dog, even though Doodle ended up having a lovely sleepover at the café.

  ‘No. The cat came back while I was there. Must have heard me open the tin.’ (Quite funny for C. P. – he’s not very witty.) ‘It was turkey and something.’

  ‘Copper Pie, it’s very sad for Big Jim, but what’s it got to do with you coming out of the alley at lunchtime?’

  I was glad Bee had asked. I didn’t want to in case the answer was obvious to everyone else but me. I concentrated on my sausages for a bit.

  ‘You went to see him, didn’t you?’ said Jonno.

  C.P. nodded. Trust Jonno to work it out, I thought.

  ‘Couldn’t you have waited till after school?’ said Fifty.

  ‘He needed his lunch,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Since when have you been Meals on Wheels?’ Fifty laughed, but Copper Pie didn’t.

  ‘Since now,’ he said.

  None of it was making sense. There are social workers and nurses who look after people who are hurt. Why was Copper Pie doing it? It’s not as though he was qualified. Imagine the advert in the paper:

  ONE GINGER-HAIRED BOY,

  GOOD AT FOOTBALL AND

  FILLING HIS FACE, BAD

  AT EVERYTHING ELSE,

  REQUIRED FOR HOME HELP.

  As if!

  ‘But why you, Copper Pie?’ said Jonno.’ Doesn’t he have a family?’

  ‘Nope, no family. But he told the doctors he did. That’s why they let him come home.’

  Fifty stepped in. ‘Copper Pie, can you try to tell the story without any gaps? If you say it all at once, rather than in bits, we might understand.’

  ‘I’m trying, OK!’ Copper Pie swung his chair forwards and the front legs made a loud bang.’ He told the hospital his daughter would look after him, but it was a lie. He doesn’t have a daughter. But he said if they knew he was all on his own they wouldn’t have let him out. They’d have put him in a home.’ The situation was becoming clearer.’ He said, “I’d rather be dead than stuffed in a home with a load of dribbling idiots watching Antiques Roadshow and looking around for their dead pets. “‘ A picture of an old lady stroking a stuffed cat with a sticking-up tail and glass eyes popped into my head.

  ‘So you’re looking after him?’ said Bee, sounding as though it was close to being the worst thing in the world.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. What else was I meant to do? One arm doesn’t work so he can’t make any food. And it hurts him to bend down so he can’t feed the cat. He can’t even open a tin. The half a tin that was left in the fridge ended up on the floor cos it hurt so much when he tried to bend over.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask your mum to help?’ said Fifty. (Fifty’s mum would be in there like a shot, making healthy food and preparing him herbal tea while she did a bit of reflexology on his big toe to make him relax. She’s good at looking after people. Copper Pie’s mum wouldn’t be quite so good but I’m sure she’d at least give him a jam sandwich and a beaker of squash, like she does with the nursery kids.)

  ‘I wanted to, but Big Jim said my mum would feel she had to call social services, and they’d take him away. I can’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Except us,’ said Jonno.

  ‘But what can we do?’ said Bee. ‘I mean, Callum’s already clocked you. It’s only a matter of time before he catches you if you go every day and then the Head’ll have the p
erfect excuse to get rid of you.’

  Copper Pie shrugged, picked up his fork and ate his sausages, whole. We did the same, except we cut them up and chewed.

  What a mess, I thought. But at least it’s nothing to do with me.

  ‘There’s only one thing for it,’ said Jonno.’ Tribe’ll have to help out. If Callum’s going to be spying on Copper Pie, let him. One of us can go and feed Big Jim and his cat instead.’

  No way, I thought. Being a Triber was the best thing in my life but that didn’t mean I’d agree to being a truant. Nope, not me.

  Same

  It was Tuesday afternoon, which means science and then D. T. We did photosynthesis in science. It’s completely straightforward but there are always stupid questions, usually from Alice. And if not, Jamie (Callum’s sidekick). This week it was both.

  Alice’s hand went up first. ‘Miss Walsh, do plants eat three meals a day, like we do, or all the time?’

  She doesn’t really think plants eat three times a day. She says things like that for attention. I immediately changed my mind about being nicer to her for being on Copper Pie’s side in the lunch queue.

  Jamie’s question was slightly more sensible: ‘What does the plant do if there isn’t no sun?’ But he shouted out instead of putting his hand up so we all had to listen to our teacher explaining the rules, again!

  And then she said, ‘Does anyone want to tell Jamie the answer?’

  I knew it, but I didn’t want to say so. I’m already called Keener, I don’t need to make it more obvious by being even keener – if you get me.

  Jonno did his version of putting his hand up, which makes him look like he’s bidding in an auction. One finger goes up for a second and that’s it.

  ‘Plants store some energy to use when there isn’t enough sunshine.’

  ‘That’s right. Well done, Jonno.’

  Miss Walsh put Jonno’s name on the board in the column with the smiley face at the top, under Bee’s. (She was up there because she did a mime in P. E. of trying to walk a disobedient dog. Miss Walsh said it was good, but as Bee’s dog is a disobedient dog it wasn’t that hard.) No one was in the sad-face column. Yet.

  On the way to D.T. Callum caught up with us.