“The idea was that you keep a low profile, Frank. Running around the place with your hair on fire is not what I’d call a low profile. I can’t believe it, honestly, I can’t. Please tell me, Frank, please tell me that at least you didn’t frighten the wits out of the Ramsbottom girl. Not after all the trouble I went to this morning, phoning the school, making sure you were in the same class as her...”
I look up at him, slightly startled.
“You didn’t even notice, did you, Frank? That you’d been transferred from 8D to 8B? No, I didn’t think so... you can be so stupid sometimes...”
8 B? A different class? I fetch my pad.
My form teacher’s not Mr Balls? I write.
“No, Frank, you’re form teacher’s not Mr Balls. He’s called Mr Willis, or is it Mr Wallace?”
I shrug my shoulders.
“Now,” continues Dr Babbage, still pacing up and down, “what did you make of this Ruby girl?”
She’s a bit moody. She’s not fun, like Benny is.
“Benny is a six-year-old boy, Frank. Ruby is a thirteen-year-old girl.”
He’s got a point.
Later, when I’m up in the bathroom, I hear the muffled tones of Dr Babbage on the phone downstairs. I can’t figure out what he’s talking about, but I can tell he’s not enjoying it much. I’m guessing he must be talking with Colonel Stump.
I’m right. When he’s finished, he comes upstairs and sits next to me on my bed, his face wrinkled by a serious frown.
“Stump’s not very pleased,” he says. “In fact, he’s bloody furious. It was all I could do to stop him coming around to give you a good beating.”
I would thank him if I had my pad with me.
“In the end, he settled on a nasty threat, to encourage you to think twice before you screw up again. Listen to me carefully, Frank, and please understand that these are Stump’s words, not mine. OK?”
I’m OK. So far.
“You’ve always liked your Saturday playtimes with Benny, haven’t you?”
I nod enthusiastically.
“Noticed anything unusual about his mother?”
I mime a writing action, and Dr Babbage goes downstairs to fetch my pad and pencil.
She’s a bit stroppy, I scribble when he returns.
“I was thinking more along the lines of her appearance, Frank. She’s Chinese, for heaven’s sake. And Benny isn’t, is he? You never thought that a bit odd?”
I shake my head.
“She’s not his mother, Frank. Stump took Benny from a city slum, two years ago. Found him roaming the streets, foraging for food. Benny had no parents, and as far as Stump could tell, nobody who’d notice if he went missing. So, he just took him, and brought him to the base.”
My writing hand is shocked into silence. I kind of know what’s coming.
“Benny is just another part of Stump’s project, Frank. I didn’t want to tell you, because I had no reason to, until now. Benny was brought in as a kind of … leverage … should things go wrong with you.”
Leverage? I write.
“Stump initially had some concerns that you might prove stubborn, that you might refuse to do as you're told.” says Dr Babbage. “He came up with this plan, to find you a friend that you could bond with. Then if you refused a task, or messed up in some way, he would tell you that if you don't comply, he could arrange for little Benny to have an accident.”
I’m not liking this, not liking it at all.
"Of course, you never did refuse a task. You're such a brave boy. And you've never messed up. Until now."
I groan my disapproval. Dr Babbage is not looking me in the eye.
"So, there we are,” he surmises. “It’s not a nice situation to be in, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. The ball’s in our court. Just follow Stump's instructions, Frank. Settle in at school. No more scenes. Get Stump his damned documents. That way, Benny will be stay safe.”
If that’s meant to be reassuring, then Dr Babbage has completely misjudged me. This whole conversation has left me feeling nauseous. I fake a big yawn and write goodnight in my pad. Dr Babbage looks surprised (it is still only 7 o’clock, after all) but he soon gets the message and walks out of my room, switching the light off on his way out.
*
It’s Wednesday morning, and as I walk into the classroom to join 8B for morning registration, I try to appear cool, as if nothing has happened. It doesn't go well. I’m met with a cheer from the seated children. It seems that I’ve already acquired something of a reputation at Cheasley High. I sit down at the same desk as I did yesterday, but this time it seems that everybody wants to talk to me; everybody, that is, except the angry-looking boy called Wayne, who scowls at me from the back of the class.
I’m wearing a wide-brimmed hat to cover the chaos of my scalp, and the other children keep asking me to take it off to see what’s underneath. One boy seems particularly keen, snatching at the hat from behind and knocking it to the floor. The class lets out a collective gasp.
“David, pick that up and give it back, right now!” bellows the teacher, springing suddenly to life.
“Sorry, Mr Willets. Just having a bit of fun. Here you go, Bernie, have it back...”
The boy hands me the hat. Did he just call me Bernie? My head is spinning with all the attention, and I’m starting to feel quite confused. When the bell goes, Ruby is the first out of the room, and I lumber after her, pad in hand.
Why did that boy call me Bernie? I write, pushing the pad in front of her face so that she can read it easily.
“Work it out, weirdo” she says, swiping the pad away as if it were an annoying insect.
It’s double English first, and I sit next to Ruby, near the door. A big fat lady reads us a poem about the devil. I try to look attentive, and to remain as inconspicuous as a grey boy wearing a trilby can. When the teacher asks all questions to the class, she bypasses me completely. I may be wrong, but I get the impression that somebody has told her about me; that I can’t speak very well, that I had an ‘incident’ in science yesterday, and that it might be inadvisable to ask me questions.
Following her bizarre analysis of the poem, we get a real treat: twenty minutes quiet reading time, in which I’m given a book about some children during the war. It’s great - it has enemy planes, crash landings, guns, the whole works. I get so absorbed that Ruby has to nudge me hard when the teacher looms over me demanding the book back. I’m not even half way through it, and I’m desperate to know what happens next. The teacher says I’ll have time to carry on with the book next week. I can’t wait. It’s the first decent story I’ve read, and I hope there’s lots more like it.
On our way to the next lesson, I hand Ruby a sheet from my pad, on which I’ve asked her what book she was reading, and what she thought of it.
“The same one as you, dumbass. The whole class was reading it.”
Since she hasn’t given me the sheet of paper back, I reach into my bag for my pad and scribble the next question. What does she think of the book? It’s a big moment: she takes the pad, and I get the first response from her that isn’t completely derogatory:
“I like it. I like all sorts of books. Reading’s one of my things.”
This time she hands the pad back rather than hitting me with it or throwing it at me. I feel ecstatic. I’m getting somewhere. I follow her to our next lesson: maths with a guy called Mr Spratt, who delivers the whole lesson in strange symbolic code. I don’t understand any of it. I wonder how long it’ll be before somebody here realises how completely stupid I am.
After maths, the bell rings for lunchtime, and I accompany Ruby tentatively to the canteen, which is housed in a cold, dark hall near the back of the school. Children of all shapes and sizes are arriving in the hall, gradually filling up the rows of rickety tables. The air is filled with a warm, meaty smell, and some of the children are queuing up at the front, of the hall with plates in their hands. A male teacher with freckles and a stubby nose is pacing up and down th
e lunch queue, telling the children to take their hands out of their pockets. Luckily, I’ve brought my own lunch - my bag is weighed down with the stuff.
Ruby gives me the strangest look as I plonk three big tubs full of my special semolina on the table, and start rummaging around in my bag for my big spoon.
“What the hell is that stuff?” she asks, glaring at my tubs.
Semolina, I write.
“But it’s blue!”
Her face is a right picture as I reach into my bag and produce a two-litre bottle of blue lemonade, placing it alongside my semolina.
“Holy Malonie, all your lunch is blue! What are you, an alien?”
It’s my magic juice, I write, and she lets out a sharp laugh, spitting out bits of her tuna and cucumber sandwich.
My medicine, I add on the next line for explanation, but she continues giggling as I begin to shovel the semolina into my mouth.
“You’re so weird,” she says eventually, shaking her head in disbelief. I find myself wishing that she knew just how weird I really am. I notice that nobody has sat next to us, which is odd considering all the attention I got this morning. A thought pops into my head, and it’s so alarming that I put down my dripping spoon and immediately pick up my pencil.
Have you got any friends? I write, and I kind of know the answer before she even speaks, from the expression on her face.
“I’m quite new here as well,” she says, looking awkwardly down at the floor. “I started last May. My dad’s in the army, we move around a lot. Hardly worth making friends, is it?”
There’s not a lot I can say to that, but I suspect she’s not telling me the whole story.
Our quiet thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of three boys with mean expressions on their faces. The short one in the middle is Wayne from our class, but I don’t know the other two - they look older, probably from a higher year. Their shirts are out, and their ties look shorter than everyone else's. Wayne sits down right next to me, with his two friends opposite him.
“This your chow?” he asks, picking up one of my tubs and examining it with a look of distaste. I reach for my pencil, but Ruby stops me, putting her hand on my arm and covertly slipping my pad and pencil into her bag below the table. Wayne doesn’t notice, and his companions are too busy scanning the room for approaching teachers.
“Funny colour,” snorts Wayne, taking the lid off one of the full tubs. He looks across the table, and one of the older boys gives him a nod. Then - in one quick motion - he pours the entire contents of the tub into my big floppy bag. I watch as the semolina drips over my books and folders, my diapers and creams, working its way into every stitched crevice of the bag.
This isn’t good. If I don’t have my lunch, with my full dose of magic juice, I’ll end up feeling faint. I might even pass out. Or worse. I glare at Wayne, as speechless as ever. He reaches for the second tub, but I make sure I get there before him. I grab the remaining two tubs and my lemonade, then move across to an adjacent table. Faster than I’ve ever done, I consume what’s left, drinking the semolina in big, horrible gulps, before slugging the lemonade. Then, calmly, I return to my chair, put the tubs and the bottle on top of the runny mess in my bag, and sit next to Ruby as if nothing’s happened.
“You think you’re really funny, don’t you?” says Wayne. “And why are you staring at me like that with those stupid buggy eyes? Eh?”
Wayne grabs the fingers of my right hand and begins to bend them backwards towards my wrist. All this is happening below table level, where no teachers can see.
“You think you can make yourself popular, don’t you? By doing stupid things, like setting your hair on fire? Well think twice, freak boy. It’s my gang that rules round here.”
My fingers are almost touching the face of my watch. Pretty soon, some of them are going to snap. I turn to Ruby, who’s looking whiter than ever, and shrug my shoulders.
“Why isn’t this hurting you?” snorts Wayne. “What’s wrong with you?” He lets go in frustration and leans up to me so that our faces are almost touching. His breath smells of stale crisps.
Now, as you know, I don’t feel pain. What happens next is not a result of Wayne bending my fingers. Neither is it a result of his smelly cheese and onion breath. It’s simply the fact that I’ve just gulped down about four litres of goopy fluid, without taking a breath. So up it comes, or at least some of it, in a torrential blue torrent. Half a gallon of pop and semolina, plus some unidentified chunks from breakfast, come rushing out of my mouth and into Wayne’s face.
He reacts quickly, drawing away, but his face and hair takes the brunt of it. The rest splatters onto the table, and some onto Ruby’s sleeve. It’s a paler blue coming up than when it went down, which is good news since it means that my body must already have absorbed quite a bit of the magic juice. But it hasn’t done much for my quest to keep a low profile. Several teachers and kitchen staff come rushing over to assess the situation, but they don’t seem to know what to do.
“Get a mop!” shouts one of them. A bizarre image of a cleaner going at Wayne’s face with a mop and bucket springs into my mind. The thought causes me to smile.
“If you think this is funny, paleface, then you’ve...”
I don’t get to hear the end of his sentence, for I feel one of my faints coming on. The canteen begins to spin and whirl around me, as if my head has come loose. I feel myself slumping off my chair and heading downwards like a sack of grain. The last thing I notice before I pass out is Ruby, with her big white face and twirling pigtails, reaching downwards, grasping at my arms, trying in vain to catch me before I hit the floor.
*
I wake up on a bed in a tiny, windowless room. There’s a lady in a pale blue apron, pottering around a grey metal sink at the far side of the room. Her back is turned to me, and I have to groan quite loudly to get her attention. When she turns, the first thing that strikes me is that her face is startlingly familiar. I rack my brains to think where I might have seen her before. The second thing to strike me is a cold wet sponge, which she pushes against my face, wielding it like a sanding block, scraping curls and flakes of dried puke from my skin.
“I’m Mrs Smith, the school nurse,” she grunts in a surprisingly un-nurse-like fashion. “Have you fainted before?”
I try to nod, but she’s being so enthusiastic with the sponge that I can hardly move my head.
“Do you often vomit?”
I nod again, and this time (I think) she notices.
“It says on your form that you have a hereditary condition, and a severe speech impediment. It doesn’t mention sickness and fainting. You won’t be able to stay here, you know, if you keep passing out and chucking up over other pupils. You’d be better off in a special unit, if you ask me, or a hospital. I’ll make enquiries.”
It’s fair to say that Mrs Smith has one of the least friendly voices I’ve ever heard. She talks to me like I’m the bad dog whose poop she’s just stepped in with her party shoes. Suddenly I want to get out of the room, right now, and away from her.
“You can go back to lessons now. But if another ounce of sick dribbles from your mouth, I’ll personally kick you all the way home. Understand?”
She’s no Florence Nightingale, it must be said. She virtually pushes me out of her room, closing the door briskly behind me, leaving me alone at the top of the steps where I stood yesterday with Miss Bagley. The yard is empty, but across it I can see the bobbing heads of children through the windows of the science block - afternoon lessons are already well underway. I have no idea where I’m meant to be, and I suddenly feel a yearning for my friend Ruby. I consider going back into the nurse’s hut to ask her advice, but I can almost sense the humming of evil from within the walls. I begin to meander my way across the yard, looking every inch the lost new boy, trying to remember his way back to the main reception.
*
“It sounds like today’s been a much better day!” says Dr Babbage, after reading my hastily-written account.
I decided to leave out the bit about the bullies and the vomiting and the fainting and the nasty nurse, choosing instead to write enthusiastically about Ruby and what I learned in my lessons.
“Well done, Frank, I knew you could do it! We should celebrate. I’ve got a couple of surprises for you...”
He disappears off into the kitchen, leaving me slumped in the low sofa in the front room. A few minutes later he comes back with a big steaming bowl, which he places on a mat on my lap.
Blueberry crumble! I grunt my thanks, before tucking into one of the biggest and bluest crumbles I’ve ever seen.
Dr Babbage rubs his hands together with obvious glee. “You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get fresh blueberries around here!”
He leaves me to shovel the deliciously sweet feast into my mouth, and comes back after a few minutes, panting and carrying a cardboard box that’s almost as long as his arm span.
“I tucked this under the shelves in the conservatory,” he explains, “so that you wouldn’t see it when you came in.” Given the size of the box, it’s hard to imagine tucking it under anything, but I do feel excited - I like a good surprise.
It’s even better than I imagined! It’s a huge TV, the sort that fills half the wall. This feels like Christmas! I put my bowl down on the carpet and help him unpack the screen. We have quite a laugh figuring out where all the cables go. But just as Dr Babbage is feeling around blindly behind the set for the plug socket, the doorbell rings. It makes me jump, and Dr Babbage and I look at each other for a while like contestants in a “who’s wearing the biggest frown?” competition. Dr Babbage trudges into the hallway. I notice that he’s limping slightly.
I catch up with him as he opens the door and get my third nice surprise of the evening. There, standing in the doorway, is Ruby Ramsbottom! And next to her is a little puppy, one of the cutest I’ve seen, with golden fur, little folded ears and big, brown eyes.
Frank Wasdale- First Mission Page 4
