Emu-mail

by Merv Lambert

  Although it had stopped for a while, the rain had started to fall again, as Billy reached the school gates. Everyone was hurrying home. Billy felt miserable. No M! Suddenly Jilly caught up with him and there was M just behind her, but he was walking quite slowly with a dreamy look on his face.

  “What’s the matter with him, Jilly? Is he all right?” asked Billy anxiously.

  “I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to believe it,” replied his sister, and so she told him.

  What had happened was this. M had nipped into Jilly’s classroom just before the door closed and had stood next to her, while the form teacher, Mr. Barraclough, called the names for registration, and had remained at the back of the school hall all through the assembly. He had seemed quite normal for an emu, especially the one that Jilly and her brother had come to know recently. Jilly’s first lesson was French and M was standing there calmly as usual. The class stood up, as in came the French teacher, Mademoiselle Jolie. The name suited her because she really was very pretty.

  “Bonjour, la classe,” she said.

  “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Jolie,” chorused the class.

  “Asseyez-vous,” she said. The class sat down. Only Jilly saw M spin round on one leg and lay his head on her table. There was a glazed look in his eyes and the curve of his beak made him look as if he was smiling.

  Whenever Mademoiselle Jolie asked a question, the pupils raised their hands but M stretched his neck right up towards the ceiling and Jilly could see his beak trying to say the French words, although he made no sound. The lesson was about how to talk about the weather in French. Outside it was still raining. Of course M found it impossible to say, ‘Il pleut’, but he nodded approvingly and enthusiastically, when the children got it right. All the time he gazed adoringly at Mademoiselle Jolie.

  Towards the end of the lesson Mademoiselle Jolie was showing pictures of various kinds of weather and asking questions about them. Accidentally she dropped one of the brightly coloured cards and M zoomed to the front of the room, and before it could hit the floor caught the card in his beak, returned it neatly to her hand, and gave a little bow. Mademoiselle Jolie gasped. So did the children. Only Jilly saw it all.

  “Il fait aussi du vent,” (It’s windy as well) joked Mademoiselle Jolie. The class laughed. M span round and round with joy and the draught he made caused a pile of papers on the front desk to flutter to the floor. Jilly rushed forward to save the situation.

  “M, behave yourself!” she hissed, as she gathered up the papers and handed them to the teacher.

  “Merci, Jilly,” said Mademoiselle Jolie.

  M was still standing at the front of the room with a silly look on his face. Fiercely Jilly dragged him back to her table.

  When the lesson ended, Mademoiselle Jolie said, “Au revoir, la classe,” and left. M gave another little bow, span round several times on one leg and hopped joyfully towards the door. Jilly just managed to stop him from following Mademoiselle Jolie to her next class. It was quite difficult for Jilly to control her large emu friend. Her classmates would perhaps begin to wonder what was going on.

  If the first lesson of the day was a success, the second was a disaster. The boys and girls stood nervously outside the history room, lined up and waiting for the fearsome Mrs. Harrow-Dann. Along the corridor she swept.

  “In!” she barked, and the class trooped into the room. They stood warily at their tables. The teacher barked again. “Sit!” She really was a terrifying person. She sounded and looked like a sergeant-major in the army, but her moustache was fiercer.

  Jilly glanced at M, who seemed horror-struck. His eyes glared fiercely and he was frowning at this dreadful woman.

  “Steady, M,” murmured Jilly.

  “Did you say something, Jilly?” growled Mrs. Harrow-Dann.

  “N…No, miss,” said Jilly. “Sorry.”

  “What are you sorry for, if you said nothing?”

  “I don’t know, miss. Sorry.”

  “Well, stop saying sorry then!”

  M was looking more and more angry. Jilly was getting more and more worried, as the lesson went on. Mrs. Harrow-Dann had given out some worksheets about the Vikings. One of the tasks was to draw a Viking longship. All the children were working quite hard at this. Mrs. Harrow-Dann was strolling round, making occasional little grunts that could have been satisfaction. M stepped nimbly out of the way each time she came near, and she was at the other side of the room, when it happened. A rather spiteful girl called Selina, who disliked Jilly, saw her chance to get her into trouble. Quickly reaching her right hand forward, she tugged sharply at Jilly’s hair.

  “Ow!” yelled Jilly, and glowered at Selina.

  Mrs. Harrow-Dann glared at both girls and suddenly Selina shouted, “Ow! Ow! Aaiee!”

  Only Jilly had seen M give Selina some of her own medicine.

  “What’s going on?” roared Mrs. Harrow-Dann. The children all froze, as if expecting her to breathe fire like a dragon.

  “Well?” she shouted. “Selina Smattersby, explain!”

  “I don’t know, miss,” spluttered Selina. “Somebody behind me pulled my hair.”

  “Don’t be so stupid!” snapped Mrs. Harrow-Dann. “There’s no one sitting behind you. You’re in the back row! Go and stand at the front. And you, Jilly Burton, what have you to say?”

  “Somebody pulled my hair, miss,”

  “Did they?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Who, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Can’t say, miss.” Jilly, unlike Selina, did not like getting other people into trouble.

  “Go and stand at the front. The rest of you, get on with your work.”

  Twenty-five heads bent over their work again. Pens and pencils scribbled and drew, but twenty-five pairs of ears were also listening to what was being said at the front of the class.

  Mrs. Harrow-Dann was now in full spate. She liked to inspire fear. She cranked up her fury.

  “How dare you shout out in my class! I’m the only one who does that!”

  “Yes, miss,” said Jilly and Selina together.

  “Don’t interrupt, when I’m talking to you!”

  “No, miss,” said Jilly and Selina together.

  “And don’t interrupt, when I’m shouting at you!”

  This time both girls said nothing.

  “For interrupting my lesson you will spend breaktime in detention in this room. Go back to your seats.”

  Forlornly the two girls went and sat down, but Jilly was too late to stop M, who had dashed to the front. Not all of the children saw what happened next. Some of them saw the flower-vase standing on top of the cupboard behind the teacher’s desk tip forward. Suddenly a stream of dirty water and a bunch of tired chrysanthemums fell onto Mrs. Harrow-Dann’s head. Two surprised, furious eyes glared out from under a ruined, very expensive hair-do and some very sorry-looking flowers. Only Jilly had actually seen M using his beak to tip over the vase. All the children, however, burst out laughing.

  “Silence!” roared Mrs. Harrow-Dann. The children only laughed louder.

  Then Mrs. Harrow-Dann sent someone to fetch her a towel, and gradually the class settled back to their work. Occasionally someone gave a muffled giggle. Jilly glared at M, warning him to behave himself, and when the bell rang for the end of the lesson, she was glad. True to her word, Mrs. Harrow-Dann made Jilly and Selina stand in silence facing the wall, but she did not know that M was fiercely on guard next to Jilly.

  Twenty minutes later the last lesson of the morning began. When Jilly’s class entered the science lab, Selina went sulkily to sit at the back. Jilly was at the second bench from the front. M quite liked the science teacher Mr Brown and seemed to listen carefully to him explaining the simple practical exercise the class were about to do. The children all put on their safety-goggles. They placed a beaker of salt
water on a frame over a Bunsen burner. As the water heated, the steam rose and met a cooler container. The steam turned back into water and ran down into a separate container. Eventually the water would be separated from the salt, which would be left behind in the first container. Everyone seemed to be busy. M walked up and down, keeping a beady eye on Selina. Suddenly she walked to the front, as if to fetch something, but on the way she deliberately bumped into Jilly’s back. This time M waited. When Selina returned to her bench, carrying a ruler and with a satisfied smile on her face, M nudged her in the back quite cleverly, so that her hair, of which she was very proud, touched the flame of the Bunsen burner. Of course the hair began to burn. Mr. Brown, who was very alert to the dangers of the lab, dashed up and smothered the flames with a damp cloth before much harm was done. Only Selina’s pride was hurt. Her beautiful hair now had a small singed gap at the front. She thought she must have stumbled accidentally, but she was rather upset and sulked for the rest of the lesson.

  Billy didn’t see Jilly at lunchtime either. Their classes had dinner at different times and because of the rain they kept to their own classrooms. Billy was still worrying about M. Was he all right? Had he caused any trouble? The afternoon passed very slowly for him, but for Jilly the next lesson went quite well. Mr. Kirby really knew how to teach I.T. and made it interesting. M seemed quite content, whizzing round looking at the screens of the computers. Selina with her singed hair was frowning but tended to do that anyway.

  For the last lesson of the day Jilly had games. The rain had stopped and the sun had appeared.

  “Good!” shouted Miss Spongely. “Come on, girls. We’re going outside now to pitch number 2. It’s a bit muddy, but that makes it more fun.”

  The girls walked out onto the playing field, and M was waiting patiently there. Miss Spongely led them through a few warming up exercises. Then they practised hitting the ball with their hockey-sticks. Miss Spongely showed them how to hit the ball with her stick reversed.

  “Remember, you are not allowed to hit the ball with the back of your stick,” she said. “Now we are going to play a short game with whites versus blues, and see if you can use that skill we have just practised.”

  The game started, and M got quite excited, running up and down at the side of the pitch, but never interfering with play. Jilly was playing very well and enjoying herself. Selina, in white, with her hair ruined, was still sulking. Suddenly she saw her chance. Pretending to hit the ball with reversed stick, she deliberately tripped Jilly and then said insincerely,”Oh, sorreee!” She felt a bit better now and began to grin. Miss Spongely had not seen exactly what she had done. Selina knew she had got away with it. She waited for another chance. The next time Jilly got the ball Selina ran towards her and, pretending to strike the ball really hard, cracked her hockey-stick against the back of Jilly’s leg. Miss Spongely blew her whistle for a free hit to the blues.

  “Are you all right Jilly?” she asked.

  “Yes, miss,” answered Jilly, but a bruise was already forming on her calf. Selina was grinning broadly now. M, however, was furious. The next time Selina went to hit the ball she appeared to topple forward and almost float through the air. Of course it was M at work again. He dropped her in the biggest, muddiest puddle at the side of the pitch. ‘Splosh!’ She ploughed right through it on her face. Everyone laughed, except Selina, whose beautiful hair was now also very, very muddy. In fact she was covered in mud from head to foot.

  “Oh dear! Wrong sport!,” joked Miss Spongely. “We only do high diving at the swimming pool!” Everyone laughed again except Selina.

  “I hate games!” she muttered.

  For the rest of the match she kept well away from Jilly. At the end the blues had won1-0 and Jilly’s friend Carla had scored the goal. M had not tried to take part, and nodding his head at Jilly, he trotted off to wait for her and Billy at the school gate. A few minutes later the bell rang for the end of school. It was raining hard again and people were coming out of the main building and hurrying home. Mademoiselle Jolie got quickly into her small white car and drove off. On seeing her, M span round with joy. Selina was passing by dejectedly. There would be trouble ahead, but that’s perhaps another story.

  3

  M Behaving Badly Again

  It was raining again on Saturday morning. M loved going out in the rain. He never seemed to get wet. Today Billy and Jilly were going to the supermarket to help their mother with the shopping.

  “No, you can’t come with us, M,” said Billy. “You’re too big to get in the car.”

  M just cocked his head on one side.

  Soon Billy and Jilly were leaving the house, as their mother drove them in her small silver car out of town and towards the supermarket. Suddenly Jilly glanced out of the car window.

  “Oh, no!” she gasped.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Burton.

  “Nothing, Mum. It’s all right.”

  However, Jilly dug Billy in the ribs and pointed out of the window on her side. M was effortlessly keeping up with the car, loping along on his long legs.

  The supermarket was already quite busy when they arrived. Mrs. Burton parked the car and sent Billy to fetch a large trolley. M trotted next to him, as they all went through the doors, which opened automatically for them. Nobody else saw their large emu. First the family went round the fruit and vegetable sections and gradually their trolley began to fill up. M somehow managed to skip around everyone. Everything was going quite well until they came to the end of an aisle, where a lady in a white uniform was handing out free samples of cheese and wine in order to encourage people to buy some to try at home. Just as Mrs. Burton was about to take the small plastic beaker of wine the lady was handing to her, a skinny youth wearing a black tee-shirt with the name Yobber on it and a white baseball cap snatched it and raised it to his mouth to drink it. Lightning fast, M stuck out his beak and sucked all the wine out of the beaker and the youth found himself drinking nothing.

  “What?” he gasped. He looked suspiciously at the beaker. Then he flung it angrily onto the floor near the feet of the lady in white.

  “You gave me an empty one!” He spat out the words viciously.

  “No, I didn’t. You took it. And I wasn’t offering it to you,” answered the lady firmly.

  “Oh, yeah?” said the youth aggressively.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Burton. “It was for me.”

  The youth turned, snarling, towards her. Suddenly he seemed to twist further to his right. All M did was to line him up and push down on his shoulders so that he was now sitting in a very large plate of soft gooey cheese with everyone laughing at him.

  “Serves you right,” said a burly security guard. Gripping the boy by the collar of his shirt, he lifted him out of the cheese and marched him towards the exit.

  Meanwhile the lady in white had replaced the ruined cheese plate with a fresh one, and M with a wicked little smile on his face had gulped down the contents of several of the little wine beakers, while she was not looking. Quickly she refilled them all and gave one to Mrs. Burton. M now had a permanent little smile on his face. Mrs. Burton tasted the wine, gave a little grimace and said, “No thank you. It’s a little too strong for me.”

  M was hopping along cheerfully following the family, when suddenly he whizzed round the corner of the aisle and back to his new favourite drink, the free wine. When he returned shortly afterwards, Billy and Jilly were looking round anxiously for him. Now he looked even more cheerful.

  The family trailed round the aisles filling the trolley. M, however, was hopping a little unsteadily and beginning to cause some problems. He was no longer the nimble, quick-footed emu Billy and Jilly were used to. He lurched slightly and hit the trolley of an old lady, who glared at the children and their mother, blaming them, but saying nothing. Next a big man had to take avoiding action, as M lurched against Mrs. Burton and nearly pushed her into his
back.

  “Watch it, missus!” he snapped.

  “Sorry, sorry. Someone pushed me in the back,” she apologised.

  Moments later it was Jilly’s turn. M accidentally tripped her, but caught her arm with his beak just as she was about to fall against a young woman pushing a trolley with a small child perched on the seat.

  “Oops! Sorry,” said Jilly. The young woman smiled and the baby laughed.

  “Billy, we must do something. I think M’s drunk,” hissed Jilly so that their mother could not hear.

  “Yeah, I know,” remarked Billy gloomily. “I’ll try to hold onto him. You push the trolley.”

  Unaware of the problems M was causing, Mrs. Burton suddenly said,” I’m just off to the toilet. I’ll find you in a minute or two,” and she dashed off, gripping her handbag.

  Jilly now took hold of the trolley, but found just how difficult it was to control it with M making sudden lurches and bumping into it. She lost count of the number of times she had to say sorry to people, who just managed to avoid being hit by it or having their fingers on their own trolleys smashed by M knocking it against them. The little old lady they had annoyed before suddenly appeared in the aisle in front of them coming from the opposite direction. Looking very angry, she was gritting her teeth and approaching quite fast. She was determined not to give way. Billy had a sinking feeling. He foresaw it would be the ‘Battle of the Trolleys’ or even the ‘War of the Trolleys. Somehow M also realised what was about to happen and bravely stood in front of the old woman’s trolley, just managing to turn it to one side.

  “Ow! Ow! Ow!” yelled an old man, waving his bruised fingers. “I’ve just been mugged by her!” He pointed at the old woman.

  “No, you’ve not!” she snapped. “I’ve not stolen anything from you!”

  “’Sorry’ would have been a good start!” he snapped back.

  “Hey! What’s going on?” demanded a loud, rather pompous voice. It was the duty manager of the store, hurrying down the aisle followed by one of the security men.