Year Two Forever and Ever

by Laura Pearson

  “There, angel,” she said. “You must have been freezing standing there in your pants! These will warm you up!”

  It was only early autumn, so Jessica hadn’t been cold. And now that she was dressed for winter, she was very, very warm. Ava could see her sweating.

  “Hot chocolate, girls?” asked Mrs Peabody. “Biscuits?”

  At first that sounded nice. Ava and Jessica both had some chocolate digestives. But then Mrs Peabody insisted that Jessica try some lovely gingerbread men too, and have another hot chocolate. And some chocolate fingers. And another hot chocolate. Then Mrs Peabody just happened to find some other biscuits in her desk, which were lovely and delicious and had cream in the middle so Jessica simply had to try those. By her twentieth biscuit, Jessica could hardly chew she was so full, but Mrs Peabody took out a box of Jammie Dodgers and smiled brightly.

  Sometimes you can have too much of a nice thing.

  By the time Jessica was able to escape Mrs Peabody’s office, she hoped she’d never see another biscuit of any kind, ever again. She’d also had enough hugs to last her until she was a hundred years old.

  When Jessica was gone Mrs Peabody picked up a walkie-talkie from her desk. “Operation Biscuit Tin is complete,” she said over the radio.

  “Roger that,” said Ava, who had been lurking in the hallway. Colonel Crunch had taught her that “Roger” meant “I understand”. Ava pushed another button on the walkie-talkie. “Colonel Crunch, Jessica’s heading for the Year Six classroom. The targets are all assembled.”

  Ava and Zoe sneaked up to the Year Six classroom behind Jessica. They stood in the doorway and peeked in.

  The first person they saw was Elizabeth. For once in her life, she wasn’t talking. At least not properly.

  “Acissej…” Elizabeth spluttered. “Erehw evah uoy neeb?” Whatever Elizabeth was trying to say made no sense at all, and it was taking ages for her to get it out.

  “Mrs Swan said that since Elizabeth is so good at talking, for her second time in Year Six she has to learn to say everything backwards!” Ava heard another Year Six girl tell Jessica.

  Then Ava spotted Lucy, another of Jessica’s classmates. Lucy’s sparkly headband had been snapped in two and she was holding a huge chunk of her own hair. “One of the new Reception girls cut it off!” she told Mrs Swan.

  Mrs Swan had her feet up on her desk. She was reading a book.

  “Oh dear, that’s too bad, Lucy,” said Mrs Swan, patting her on the head. “Were they playing hairdresser? They’re so little they hardly know what they are doing.” Mrs Swan wasn’t really paying attention. She hadn’t even taken the register yet.

  “Sorry, girls,” continued Mrs Swan. “This book is so good I can’t put it down. I’ll just finish this chapter whilst you get settled.”

  The Year Six girls sat down at their desks. They waited. And waited. The book Mrs Swan was reading must have been very good. Mrs Swan laughed. She cried. She forgot all about her class.

  After ages and ages, Mrs Swan finally stood up and wrote something on the white board in very, very tiny letters.

  The entire class leaned forward over their desktops to try to read what she had written. Suddenly there was a great creaking noise and all of the Year Six desks collapsed on the floor.

  “Whoops-a-daisy!” said Mrs Swan. “I guess you must be getting too big for those desks, girls! Ah well, never mind.” She went back to her book.

  The Year Six girls sat amongst the broken remains of their desks. Ava watched from the doorway. The screws that normally held the desks together were in Mrs Swan’s desk, where Ava had hidden them after school yesterday.

  “How did you even think of that?” whispered Zoe.

  Ava smiled to herself. Johnny was always taking things apart. He had a whole collection of bolts and screws under his bed. Things came crashing down all the time at Ava’s house: cupboards, shelves, doll buggies, dining chairs… Sometimes little brothers can teach you a thing or two. If they don’t crush you first.

  “Operation Screw Loose, mission accomplished,” said Zoe into the walkie-talkie. “Begin Operation Peace and Quiet.”

  “Roger that,” came back Colonel Crunch’s voice. Suddenly the loudest noise Ava had ever heard filled the Year Six classroom. Everyone ran to the open window. In the playground below, Colonel Crunch was drilling into a huge piece of metal.

  “Apologies!” he screamed over the screeching, grinding, brrruming noise. “I’m making an extension for the slide.”

  “Close the window!” shouted Jessica. But they couldn’t close the window, because it was stuck. It was stuck because Colonel Crunch had superglued it open earlier that morning.

  Mrs Swan opened her desk drawer and took out a pair of earmuffs. She put them on and then looked at her class.

  “Oh dear, don’t you have any earmuffs, girls? Always be prepared, that’s what I say!” she shouted over the noise. None of the Year Six girls had any earmuffs. Jessica did have the hat from lost property. She tried to pull it down over her ears but nothing could block the sound of Colonel Crunch’s drill.

  “Mrs Swan?” screamed Jessica. “What shall we do now?”

  Mrs Swan pointed to the tiny letters on the board.

  The Year Six girls leaned forward again over the pieces of their desks. The tiny word on the white board read:

  NOTHING

  “That says nothing,” shouted Jessica.

  “I wrote the WORD nothing,” shouted Mrs Swan. “But actually that word does say something. It tells you what we are going to learn today.”

  “We are going to learn nothing today?” shouted Lucy.

  “Exactly!” yelled Mrs Swan. “You already know everything there is to learn in Year Six. So we shall all have to find things to keep ourselves busy! Now if you’ll excuse me, girls, this book really is very good.”

  “But we need something to do!” shouted Jessica.

  “OK, fine, girls. If you insist!” yelled Mrs Swan. She stood and wrote on the whiteboard again, in bigger letters:

  Please write “WE LOVE CRABTREE SCHOOL

  AND WE WANT TO STAY FOR FOREVER

  AND EVER” five thousand times.

  The Year Six girls couldn’t really complain because they’d asked for something to do. It took AGES, and it was much worse than doing nothing. By the time they were done writing, Mrs Swan had finished her book, knitted an entire jumper and was painting her fingernails. For the Year Sixes, the day only got worse as it went on.

  PE was a disaster.

  Year Five, who were very cross about not being in Year Six like they were supposed to be, had been more than happy to help with Year Three’s plan. They had taken all of the Year Six PE kits and coated the bottoms of their trainers with cooking oil from the kitchen. The Year Sixes slipped and slid through the school as they made their way outside.

  “Whatever is the matter with you today, girls?” asked Mrs Yards, the PE teacher.

  Mrs Yards made the Year Sixes stand on their heads in the playing field for their entire PE lesson. “This is great for building strong minds!” she shouted over the noise of Colonel Crunch’s drilling. “If you aren’t going to Year Seven we have to keep everything you learned in Year Six right at the tippy-top of your brains!” Greasy oil from their shoes dripped down over the Year Six girls’ faces.

  To make matters worse, when Colonel Crunch finally finished his drilling he decided to water the flowers on the edge of the playing field. But he kept watering the upside-down Year Six girls instead.

  “Whoops! Sorry, Miss White!” he said to Jessica. “I thought you were a giant sunflower. I must get new spectacles.”

  Lottie, Isabel, Zoe and Ava crowded around a window to watch Operation Slip ’n’ Slide.

  “Is it too mean?” asked Ava, as one of the Year Sixes toppled over on to the wet grass.

  “No,” said Zoe. “It’s the only way to get them out. And isn’t it funny how red their faces have gone from being upside down?”

  “Ye
s,” said Ava. “They look just like tomatoes.”

  Ava and her friends all moved away from the window as the freshly watered, tomato-headed Year Sixes came back inside. They slipped past Mrs Peabody’s office in their slimy shoes.

  “There’s so much more good stuff coming up!” said Lottie, looking through her notebook. “Operation PE complete,” she said into the walkie-talkie. “Begin Operation Crumble Jumble, Mrs Crunch.”

  “Roger,” came back Mrs Crunch’s voice.

  On the way to lunch the Year Sixes passed the Rainbow Room. Isabel and Lottie had been hard at work there all morning. The fairy lights and fuzzy rug were in a sad little pile in the hallway. “Health and Safety,” Colonel Crunch told Jessica and her friends as they passed. “If the Rainbow Room is going to be another Reception classroom, we have to make some changes.”

  That morning the new Reception girls had scribbled all over the walls of the Rainbow Room. With help from Isabel and Lottie, they had torn up the beanbag chairs too, so it looked like it had snowed beans. The Rainbow Room had become the Blizzard Room.

  Lunchtime was the most awful thing of all.

  Usually there were two lunches, one earlier for the younger half of the school and then a later lunch for the bigger girls. But not today. Mrs Crunch said she was honoured that the Year Six class wanted to stay. She made an important announcement: from now on all of Crabtree School would eat together. The dining room was so crowded that the Year Sixes were forced to eat with the new Reception class on their laps. Ava, Lottie, Zoe and Isabel squeezed right in with the Year Sixes so that they could see their plan at work.

  The Reception girls from both this year and last year made sure to cry all the time and to spill A LOT. Lunch was a brand new recipe: broccoli, turnip and porridge bake with some strange kind of purple meat in it.

  “Kcuy,” said Elizabeth, and you didn’t need to be good at listening backwards to understand her.

  Pudding was Mrs Crunch’s apple crumble.

  “At least,” said Jessica to Elizabeth over the screeching of the Reception girls, “at least it is my favourite pudding today.” She took a huge bite of apple crumble.

  “And four, three, two, one…” Zoe was whispering to Ava.

  “AHHHHHHHHH! YUCK!” Jessica screamed. “IT’S. SO. SOUR!!!” But when she reached for her glass of water, she found bits of broccoli floating in it. The Reception girl in her lap had been washing her hands in Jessica’s drink.

  “Mrs Crunch, this apple crumble tastes, errr, different from usual,” said Jessica when she was sure she wasn’t going to be sick. Even though she was miserable, Jessica was still trying to be polite. Ava had to admire that.

  “New recipe,” said Mrs Crunch. “It’s crab apple crumble. No use wasting all of these perfectly delicious crab apples, especially when we have extra mouths to feed. Why, just this morning I gathered enough of our crab apples to serve this apple crumble every single day for forever and ever.”

  “Forever and ever is a long time,” said Jessica softly.

  “It is indeed,” said Mrs Crunch.

  The messiest, loudest, slipperiest, most confusing, wettest, worst-tasting day ever at Crabtree School was drawing to a close. It was nearly time to go home, and all Ava could do was hope that their plan had been enough to ruin the best school in the world.

  Zoe had been sure that the Year Sixes would run off screaming straight away after lunch, but she was wrong. Ava could see that both of Zoe’s watches now said three p.m., and Jessica and her classmates were all still there. They looked terrible though: the Year Sixes were exhausted, starving and covered in mess. They were wandering from room to room like lost puppies. The rest of the Crabtree girls were tired and hungry too, and the Reception girls both new and old had sore throats from screaming so much.

  It was time for Jessica, Elizabeth and the rest of their class to decide whether they could face another day at the new and different Crabtree School. Moving on had to be their idea. This was important because, according to Lottie, eleven-year-olds did not like being told what to do. But none of these eleven-year-olds looked well enough to decide anything, so Mrs Peabody called Jessica and Elizabeth into her office to see if she could give them a little nudge in the right direction.

  Ava and Zoe rushed back to their old hiding place under the crab apple trees, bringing Isabel along with them. Lottie was nowhere to be found. Today Mrs Peabody’s window was open just a crack, and they could hear everything that was happening in her office.

  “So,” said Mrs Peabody. “Are you still planning to stay with us for forever and ever?” The headmistress gave Jessica and Elizabeth a huge smile and pulled out a tray of biscuits. Jessica looked as if she’d just been offered a plate of big hairy spiders.

  “Yes,” said Jessica quietly. She was tugging at the very, very small uniform dress Mrs Peabody had given her that morning. It was so tight that the sleeves were pinching her arms.

  “Yes, what?” asked Mrs Peabody, looking extremely puzzled.

  “Yes, we still want to stay,” said Jessica. Elizabeth just nodded. She’d had just about enough of talking for one day.

  “For forever and ever?” gasped Mrs Peabody. “Still?”

  “Yes,” said Jessica.

  “Sey,” said Elizabeth firmly.

  “Are you telling me that you like the changes we’ve made around here?” said Mrs Peabody. “And you won’t get fed up of having lunch with four-year-olds every single day?”

  “Well, I don’t like crab apple crumble,” admitted Jessica, who even then couldn’t quite get the sour taste out of her mouth. “But this is my school and I still love it.”

  “Me too,” said Elizabeth. “I mean, em oot.”

  “Oh, girls,” said Mrs Peabody. She didn’t know whether to be pretend kind, which wasn’t really kind at all, or genuinely kind, like she usually was.

  Ava and her friends looked at each other. They couldn’t think of anything to do. It was all up to Mrs Peabody now.

  “Girls,” she said gently, “if you really feel you need to, maybe you can stay a bit longer.” She didn’t squish their cheeks or give them any fake hugs.

  “She’s ruining it!” whispered Zoe.

  Suddenly there was a loud bang. The big bottom drawer of Mrs Peabody’s desk slammed open, and a voice coming from inside shouted, “NOOOOOO! This is not what is supposed to happen!”

  The sight of Lottie popping up from Mrs Peabody’s drawer startled Isabel so much that she fell back against a crab apple tree. Dozens of crab apples showered down on Ava and Zoe. Both of them shouted.

  Everyone inside the office heard them, but no one cared. They were watching Lottie, who was very, very cross and stamping her feet on the bottom of the desk drawer. Mrs Peabody’s desk was tipping dangerously to and fro.

  “How can you possibly, possibly, ever want to stay ONE MORE SINGLE MINUTE at Crabtree School?” screeched Lottie. “We’ve worked so hard! Everything was so perfectly, wonderfully awful!”

  “You mean you did it on purpose?” asked Jessica. She looked at Mrs Peabody and Lottie, then out of the window at Ava. “The noise, the food, the standing on our heads? You want us to leave that much?” Her feelings were hurt.

  Ava pulled the window open further and stuck her head through so she could see Jessica better. “No. I mean, yes,” said Ava. “Yes and no.”

  “Pardon?” said Jessica.

  “I mean, no, we don’t want you to leave, because we like you,” Ava explained. “But yes, your class has to go. You can’t stay in Year Six forever and we DEFINITELY can’t stay in Year Two forever.”

  “Why should we go?” Elizabeth said. She’d had quite enough of speaking backwards. “We’ve been here for seven years. This is our school!”

  “But you’re big girls, you don’t belong here any more!” cried Zoe.

  “I don’t understand,” said Lottie, who had calmed down a little bit but was still standing in Mrs Peabody’s desk drawer. “Yes, it’s lovely here. Yes, Crabtree S
chool is the best primary school in the whole world. But just think about all of the amazing things there are about senior school!”

  “I don’t want to think about it!” shouted Elizabeth. She had found her voice again and there was no going back. “And I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! Never, never, never!” She sounded like one of Isabel’s little sisters. She was even stamping her feet.

  Then Ava heard the sound of someone sniffling. Jessica had tears running down her cheeks. Mrs Peabody’s hands began to shake and her eyes got googly. Even Ava had to admit that it was terrible to see an eleven-year-old crying in school. What was going on here? Jessica and Elizabeth were acting just like the new Reception girls.

  And then all of the sudden Ava understood: The Year Six girls were scared.

  Crabtree School was the cosiest, warmest, safest school on Earth. And even on its very worst day, it wasn’t the kind of place that was easy to leave behind.

  Outside Mrs Peabody’s window a small crowd had gathered behind Ava and her friends. Colonel and Mrs Crunch were there, and so were Mrs Swan and Miss Cheeky and Mrs Yards. There were also a few stray Reception girls who had been following Ava around all day. Everyone had been watching, and now everyone seemed to understand that a new plan was needed.

  Mrs Peabody calmed herself down and crouched beside Jessica and Elizabeth. She did her best not to look at Jessica’s tears.

  “Girls,” she said. “I know it is a bit scary, but think of all the wonderful new friends you’ll make, and the lovely things you’ll learn at your new schools.”

  Mrs Peabody sounded exactly like what she was: a grown-up trying to make children feel better. It didn’t work.

  The trouble was that Mrs Peabody really didn’t know anything about Year Seven. It had been a very long time since she was eleven. Her job as headmistress of a primary school meant that what she did know about school ended in Year Six.