“Does everybody think Basil is wonderful?” Noah asked Jack at break, and then wished he hadn’t as Jack started to tell him how clever and intelligent and generally brilliant Basil was, in every way. Jack and Noah were still sitting together as usual, but the way Jack went on about Basil, with such admiration in his voice, made Noah think his friend was only sitting with him out of habit, not because he really wanted to. He could tell who Jack would rather be with.
It was as if Basil had cast a spell over everybody. When the bell went for lunchtime, Noah took longer than usual to get there because of his crutches. He hobbled along in the wake of the rest of the class, watching them surging around Basil and begging him to sit next to them at lunch.
“Nice, isn’t he?” said a little voice beside Noah.
He turned on his crutches, clumsily. It was Pigface.
“Is he?” Noah said bitterly. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Everyone wants to be his friend,” Pigface said wistfully. “I wish I was popular like him.”
“Yeah, well, if you had a big house with a swimming pool, and a fancy computer, you probably would be,” Noah told him, stomping off on his crutches. “And a dad who works on the telly,” he added over his shoulder, “instead of on a pig farm.”
Unexpectedly, Pigface turned red. “Where’s Jack?” he asked Noah, hurrying after him.
“Classroom monitor,” Noah said shortly. That was something else that had changed while he was away. “He’s helping put out all the stuff for Art after lunch.”
“Oh yeah.” They had reached the end of the lunch queue. “Do you want a hand?” Pigface asked Noah.
Noah looked at the people at the other end of the queue, carrying their trays of food. He looked down at his own hands, resting on the crutches, and realized. There was no way he could walk and carry his lunch. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Why hadn’t Jack, his supposed friend? He felt stupid; foolish, caught out.
“I don’t mind helping you,” Pigface said. “Honest.”
“OK then.” Noah’s voice was gruff. “If you want.”
Because Pigface had carried his lunch for him, Noah felt he couldn’t very well go and sit down somewhere without him. So they sat there together in silence and ate their lunches, and Noah ignored Pigface, watched his friends clustering around Basil and wondered just what was so special about him.
After lunch Mrs Gentleshaw came up to Noah in the art lesson. They had all been told to paint something to do with the sea, and everybody was milling around, choosing their paints and spreading paper on their tables, with a great deal of chatter.
“Is everything all right?” the teacher asked Noah.
“Yes, thank you,” said Noah, puzzled. Why shouldn’t everything be all right?
“I was wondering if your leg was hurting,” she went on.
Noah looked down at his leg. It hadn’t hurt for ages now, weeks. It was just a nuisance still having to use the crutches.
“It’s fine,” he told Mrs Gentleshaw.
“It’s just that you seem a bit quiet.”
Noah wondered why she was bothered. What did she expect him to be doing, jumping from table to table and entertaining the class with funny faces and jokes? Besides, he could hardly get a word in edgeways with Basil hogging all the limelight. Who wanted to speak to him now the famous Basil Moroney was around?
He could hardly say all that, though.
“I’m fine,” he said again instead, and got down to his painting with a severe do-not-disturb expression on his face.
Jack turned to him during the lesson, holding a paintbrush loaded with cobalt blue. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Noah sighed impatiently. “Of course I’m all right.”
“I just wondered if your leg . . .”
“My leg’s fine, OK?” Noah said shortly, and turned back to his own painting. Why did everyone keep asking if he was all right? Why couldn’t they all just leave him alone?
“That’s good,” said an admiring voice suddenly in Noah’s ear.
Noah span round abruptly, or as abruptly as was possible with crutches. “What?”
“Your painting.” It was Basil. “It’s really good. I’m useless at art.”
Noah looked at Basil’s own effort. It was an abstract swirl of brilliant vivid colours, peacock green and magenta and turquoise, and at its heart was a leaping silvery dolphin. It didn’t look useless to Noah. Far from it.
“Yeah,” he said scornfully. “Whatever,” and he turned back to his own work. It was a picture of the beach, sea and sand and sky, and it looked flat and boring even to his own eyes.
“No, really,” Basil insisted gravely. “It’s excellent. Honestly.”
Noah turned to face him again slowly. “You don’t have to be nice to me,” he said. “You don’t have to say nice things about my picture. You don’t have to – to patronize me!”
Basil looked taken aback. An expression of pained surprise spread across his features, and he frowned slightly. “I’m not,” he said. “I’m not patronizing you.”
“Yes you are. You’re pretending your picture is rubbish and mine’s good, when anyone with half a brain can see it’s the other way around!”
Basil looked at Noah, and Noah looked at Basil. Then Basil smiled. “Look,” he said reasonably. “I just want to be your friend.”
Noah pulled a disbelieving face. “Why? Why do you? You’re everybody else’s friend – why should you need me, too?”
And he turned away from him, back to his picture, and daubed great black thunderclouds across the sky, which gathered pace and dripped down on to the sea and the sand, and finally covered everything.
Chapter 5
Noah and Jack were still friends. Of course they were. They had known each other for so long. But Noah couldn’t help noticing how much time Jack was spending with Basil. It was partly because Noah’s bad leg prevented him from going outside to the playground at break times. He was down to using only one crutch now, but he still couldn’t get about normally. He couldn’t run around at all. And football was out of the question. But it wasn’t just in school. Jack had begun going round to Basil’s house too, although he always asked Noah if he minded.
“Do you mind if I go round Basil’s tonight?” he would say; or at break, “I’m just going out to have a kick-around with Bas, is that OK?”
Noah wanted to say “No, it’s not OK,” or “Yes, I do mind.” But how could he?
“I haven’t seen much of Jack recently,” Mum said one day, when Noah got home after school. “Is everything all right between you two?”
“Of course it is,” Noah told her. He took two slices of bread out of the bread bin. “Can I make some toast? I’m starving.”
Mum reached into the cupboard for the peanut butter. “Why don’t you ask him round for tea one day this week?”
“Who?” Noah jammed the bread into the toaster and pushed the handle down.
“Jack, of course!” Mum laughed. “That’s who we’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah.”
“So why not ask him? What about Friday? You could get a video, make it a sleepover.”
The toast popped up. Noah put one slice on a plate and spread it carefully with peanut butter. He cut it in half, took a bite and chewed it carefully. He swallowed. Then he answered Mum. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”
Mum was puzzled. “But why not?”
“I don’t think he’d want to come. I think he’d rather be with Basil.”
“Who’s Basil?”
“New kid.” Noah peanut-buttered the second slice of toast thickly and poured himself a glass of milk. “Is it OK if I take this upstairs? I’ve got homework.”
Before long, it seemed to Noah that nobody in the class was talking to him. It wasn’t that they were ignoring him, exactly. More that Basil Moroney was so obviously Flavour of the Month, and Noah didn’t see how he could possibly compete. Actually, he didn’t see why he s
hould even try.
To be strictly truthful, there was somebody who was talking to Noah more and more, and that was Pigface. Every day he sidled up to Noah, in lessons, at break, and stood around chattering to him. Or rather, chattering at him. Noah rarely said anything back, but that didn’t seem to worry Pigface.
He just prattled on; Pigface, who had barely had a word to say to anybody before now. It was as if he recognized a fellow outcast, another loser like him. Noah was being befriended by Pigface, the class joke! He would have preferred it if nobody at all spoke to him.
“Look at him,” Noah said one day during English, looking over at Basil. He was standing at Mrs Gentleshaw’s desk, showing her a piece of work. “Look at the teacher’s pet!”
“Basil’s not a teacher’s pet. He’s probably only asking her a spelling or something,” Jack said.
A tinkle of laughter came floating over from the teacher’s desk.
“Oh, yeah,” Noah said, in furious disgust. “Sucking up, more like! Just look at him – oh, Miss, look at my wonderful poem, Miss! Don’t you think I’m the bee’s knees, Miss – don’t you think I’m the cat’s whiskers, the vicar’s bloomin’ knickers!”
The last word came out louder than Noah had intended. Much louder. There was a small silence. Noah had heard of the expression “He wished the ground would open and swallow him up”, but before now he hadn’t really understood just what it meant. He did now, though.
“Noah Barton.” Mrs Gentleshaw was standing in front of him, looking stern. “Get on with your work, please. In silence. I don’t want to hear you shouting out words like that in my classroom again.”
A shocked thrill passed through the class like an electric current. Noah knew that it was not because he had shouted “knickers” in Mrs Gentleshaw’s classroom, but because he had been so horrible about the saintly Basil Moroney. No-one’s ever going to talk to me again, thought Noah, sunk in gloom and embarrassment. I’ve really done it, now.
But the worst thing of all, worse even than having only Pigface to talk to, was not being able to play football. He could hobble out to the playground at break times now, and he could see the others running up and down, kicking a ball around. He would stand and watch them enviously, dreaming of the time when his plaster was off, the crutch cast aside. He could join in then, like old times. The good old days, he thought wistfully. They all wanted to be my friend then. They’ll all talk to me when I can play football again.
He was watching them one day when the ball landed near his feet, kicked by none other than Danny Gibbs.
“Kick it back,” commanded the Under-11s captain, before he realized at whose feet the ball lay. “Oh, it’s Noah’s Ark. You can’t kick any more, can you? Sorry, didn’t realize! Go and fetch it, Dud!”
Steven Dudley was Danny Gibbs’s best mate, and the team’s champion goal scorer. He sprinted over to where Noah stood. Noah bent to retrieve the ball, with some effort, and handed it over.
“Thanks, Noah’s Ark.” Steven Dudley lobbed it back into the game with practised ease.
Noah felt his face turn crimson with shame and anger and frustration. Nobody had called him Noah’s Ark since he’d first started school. The teacher had put a stop to it then, he remembered.
He thought he’d forgotten all about it, but he remembered it now, all right. And remembering it made him feel upset and little and feeble all over again.
Noah watched the players rushing about with energy and enthusiasm and skill. There was Danny Gibbs, and Steven Dudley, and all the others. Even Jack was being allowed to join in today. And there, at their centre, was Basil Moroney.
Noah felt he might choke with the strength of the feelings inside him. He turned away and began hobbling back to the classroom.
“Never mind,” said a sympathetic voice beside him. It was Pigface. Of course. “You’ll be able to play again soon. I’m sure you will.”
“Oh, just shut up!” Noah flung at him furiously, and stumped off as fast as his one good leg could carry him.
The next morning Mr Carstairs stood up in assembly. “This is the Under-Eleven team chosen to play against Ransome House next week,” he announced.
Noah felt a flutter of excitement, despite himself, but stopped his ears. What was the point of even listening when he knew his name wouldn’t be on the list? Probably never will be again, he thought gloomily.
Mr Carstairs was coming to the end of the names now. “Steven Dudley . . . William Jenkins . . . Basil Moroney.”
And Noah’s misery was complete.
Chapter 6
Noah’s plaster finally came off on a Friday. The following Tuesday was a PE day. At last he could join in again. They were playing softball and, to Noah’s horror, Mr Carstairs paired him and Pigface together.
“You can help him, Harry,” the teacher told Pigface. “Practise some gentle throwing and catching together. Give him a bit of a hand.”
“A bit of a trotter,” Noah heard someone whisper, and he blushed with shame. To think he’d come to this: him, sporty Noah Barton, youngest-ever Under-11s player, reduced to being helped at pathetic throwing and catching by fat ungainly Pigface!
Halfway through the lessons someone came in with a note for Mr Carstairs. “I’ve just got to nip out to the office for a moment,” he told the class. “Just carry on sensibly, please.”
Jack went over to Noah. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Noah snapped.
Jack gave him a strange look, and a small pang went through Noah. The trouble was, he couldn’t seem to stop the boiling feelings bubbling up, or the angry words coming from his lips. It was as if there was a well of poison deep inside him. It wasn’t caused by Jack, though. Noah knew that. It was caused by Basil.
“Catch, Noah!”
Pigface lobbed another foam ball clumsily, underhand, and it swung away a metre past Noah’s left shoulder. Noah leant awkwardly sideways, stuck out his arm, overbalanced and fell to the floor with a thud. The entire class dissolved in laughter.
“Butterfingers!”
“Oops, dropped it!”
“Noah, Noah!”
“Where’s the flood, Noah! Where’s your ark!”
Noah picked himself up with dignity. Only his pride had been hurt, but the whole class was laughing at him. Even Jack was sniggering. The only person who wasn’t laughing was Pigface.
“Go on,” said Noah loudly, getting to his feet and spreading his arms wide, “have a good laugh at me. Ha ha ha! Go on. It’s so funny to laugh at someone for doing something they can’t help, isn’t it? And as for laughing at their name – well, that’s absolutely hilarious.”
Most of the laughter stopped, although one or two were still giggling. Pigface opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but at that moment the door opened and Mr Carstairs came in again and started chivvying them all back to the softball.
“Sorry,” Jack said to Noah in the playground at break. “Sorry for laughing at you earlier, when you fell over. You just looked so funny. Did you hurt yourself?”
But before Noah could answer, Rosie Bailey from their class came bouncing over, her plaits flying. She looked full of self-importance. “So, are you coming to the party, Jack?”
“What?” Noah frowned, puzzled. “What party?”
Rosie and her friend Emily giggled behind their hands in a particularly silly way. Out of the corner of his eye Noah could see Jack waving his hands around and shaking his head and mouthing “No!” in a for-goodness’-sake-don’t-tell-him kind of way.
Noah glanced at Jack sharply. “What party?” he repeated suspiciously.
The girls giggled again.
“Basil’s party,” Rosie said. “His birthday party. On Saturday.”
“He’s invited the whole class,” Emily put in smugly. “Except you. And Pigface.”
“He doesn’t want you to come because you smell!” shrieked Rosie triumphantly, and they linked arms and tripped across the playground, l
aughing loudly.
Noah glared at Jack accusingly, and Jack just shrugged.
It was the shrug that did it. Noah’s face contorted with rage, his fists clenched at his sides. Before he knew what he was doing he had launched himself at Jack.
The two boys fell to the ground, Noah punching and kicking at every bit of Jack he could reach, and Jack fighting him back, blow for blow. The blood pounded in Noah’s ears as he and Jack scuffled in the dust, his breath coming in shallow little gasps. Inside his head a voice repeated over and over again, full of loathing, Hatehatehatehate. He wasn’t sure any more who the hate was aimed at. It was just there, inside him, all the time.
Everyone else in the playground clustered excitedly around the two struggling boys. “Fight!” they chanted. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Mrs Gentleshaw was on playground duty. Noah was suddenly aware of her legs and feet, looming in front of his face.
He and Jack unfastened themselves reluctantly and scrambled to their feet. They stood before the teacher, hanging their heads in shame and waiting for her to tell them off.
But she never did. When Noah couldn’t bear the waiting any longer and risked looking up, he was amazed to see that Mrs Gentleshaw didn’t look angry at all. She looked upset and bewildered. She shook her head sadly. “But you’re friends,” she said at last. “Best friends. Why are you fighting? Best friends don’t fight.”
And neither Jack nor Noah could answer her.
Chapter 7
“Why?” Mum said. She shook her head too, sadly, as Mrs Gentleshaw had done. “Why fight with Jack? For that matter, why fight at all? It’s so unlike you, Noah. I just don’t understand . . .” She trailed off sadly, as if she didn’t know what to say.
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