by Anne Fine
‘Howard!’ Miss Tate warned.
But no one can stop you staring. The pages in Joe’s work book were clotted black and nasty. A troupe of drug-crazed centipedes in leaking ink boots had clearly held a barn dance over most of them. The rest looked tidy in comparison. (Not tidy enough to read. Just tidy in comparison.)
‘I think we’re talking high hopes here,’ I couldn’t help observing to Miss Tate. ‘Reach for the stars, and all that. “Writing More Neatly” is well down our Joey’s page of contents, if you ask me. I think he ought to stick with “Learning to Write”.’
For all this was Happy Class, her tone turned pretty frost-topped.
‘I’ll thank you to pipe down, Howard Chester,’ she said. ‘Joe here does have the odd little problem with his schoolwork, but he’s struggling along manfully.’
‘Manfully?’ I snorted. ‘Scruffily and messily, more like!’
Joe flicked back to the pages in the front.
‘I’m definitely improving,’ he insisted. ‘See how much better and neater my work is since I started special lessons twice a week with Mrs Hooper?’
I took a look. I looked in the front of the book, and I looked in the back.
‘That Mrs Hooper is one brave, brave lady,’ I observed.
Miss Tate said warningly:
‘I’m losing patience with you, Howard.’
So I stowed it till she left. Then all I did was watch as poor Joe picked up his pen, gripped it so hard his hand looked like some paralysed tarantula, and wrote, pitifully slowly:
‘That won’t do,’ I told him. ‘There’s five mistakes in that. Not to mention the truly dismal standard of penmanship.’
Joe tried to stick up for himself.
‘But you can read it, can’t you?’
‘Of a fashion.’
‘It’s the best I can do.’
‘Then you’re writing the wrong book,’ I told him patiently. ‘Always, in project work, it’s best to trade on your strengths, not on your weaknesses.’
Joe sighed.
‘Not sure I have any.’
If you don’t mind, I’m breaking off to make a short public service announcement here. I know when someone says to you, ‘I’m not sure I have any strengths,’ you’re supposed to pat their paw kindly and say to them: ‘Of course you do! Everyone has strengths. It’s just that some people’s are more hidden than others. And some people’s don’t show up in school.’
I know you’re supposed to say that. OK? It’s just that that isn’t what I said.
What I said was:
‘Oh, I don’t know. You’re really good at writing really badly.’
You want to know my big mistake? I’d said the magic words: ‘You’re really good at –’ That was my big mistake. Here was this sad case at my side, whose teachers probably hadn’t drawn a smiley face at the bottom of his work since he was three, and I was saying he’s really good at something.
‘Do you think so?’
He beamed so wide, I thought his face might split. For one grisly moment, I feared he would even lean over and hug me.
Then it was Worry Hour again.
‘But will you help?’
So tell me, all you bigheads out there reading this: what would you have said? Here I am, stuck in Happy Valley School, where everyone is peachy-sweet, and this poor dimple-head thinks that I’m being nice, like everyone else.
I’d like to see you wriggle out of it any better than I did.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll help.’
I picked up my pen. I wrote the title in big, clear capitals, so he could copy it on to one of the bits of card he’d spent break cutting to make covers. And copying isn’t hard, so he made quite a decent job of it. I won’t say it was neat. And there were way too many fingerprints. And he’ll take time to crack this business of the backwards ‘e’.
But I was proud of it. And so was he.
After a bit, Miss Tate trills over our way:
‘So how’s it going, Joe?’
He sticks his tongue back in his mouth to answer her.
‘It’s going well. Howard is helping me.’
Now didn’t Miss Tate look pleased at that!
‘And, Howard, how about your own work?’
‘It’s still a secret, Miss Tate.’
‘Well, just so long as you’re getting on with it.’
I looked at my nice white cover on which, so far, I’d written diddley-squat.
‘Getting along nicely, Ma’am.’
She nods away, all happy as a clam. My mother’s always saying it, and it is true. Some of these teachers are so away with the fairies, they should be put right out to grass.
4
Trash or treasure?
I would have found it easier to work in a street riot. You wouldn’t believe the noise Joe Gardener made, trying to write. His pen clattered to the floor ten times a minute. He said ‘Sorry!’ half a dozen times whenever he stabbed me with his elbow. And every few seconds he lifted his desk lid and rooted through the garbage inside.
It was like sitting next to a giant gerbil.
‘What is the matter?’ I asked finally.
He turned his worried face in my direction.
‘What do you mean?’
I tried the question round another way.
‘Why aren’t you working?’
‘I am working. You can see I’m working.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t see you working. All I can see is you knocking things off the desk, and flapping your paper, and lifting your desk lid every ten seconds to stir up the mess inside.’
‘Well, I am working.’
‘You’ve got nothing done.’
And it was true. So far he’d managed:
I felt a little brutal. He looked crushed.
‘What is that, anyway?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘What you’ve written.’
‘Can’t you read it?’
I gave it my best shot.
‘Ik you ore?’
He sighed so heavily, I knew I’d got it totally wrong. I tried again.
‘Ik –’
‘If.’
My turn to stare.
‘If?’
He pointed.
‘That’s an f.’
‘In your dreams!’
‘Be fair,’ he argued. ‘That is definitely an f.’
‘And I’m a wombat.’
His face dropped.
‘Well, that’s why I was looking in my desk. Somewhere I’ve got a special sheet of paper with a lot of words written out for me.’
I peered into the dark abyss that was Joe Gardener’s desk.
‘How could you ever find one special sheet of paper in that tip?’
Flushing, he tried to defend himself.
‘I’m looking for my dictionary as well.’
I dipped a finger in and gingerly stirred a few mucky papers about.
‘No sign of any books in here.’
‘Maybe it’s sunk to the bottom.’
‘Why don’t you clear it out, for heaven’s sake? Then you’d be able to find things.’
He said unhappily:
‘I do try. It’s just –’
His voice trailed off. It didn’t matter, though. I didn’t really need telling. I’d seen him take a million years to (try to) write three words. If someone like Joe tried clearing his desk, he’d have a beard down to his feet before the job was done.
I pushed my blank How-to book cover aside.
‘All right,’ I sighed. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘But we’re supposed to be –’
I didn’t stop to listen. I just punted up the front to fetch the waste-paper bin. Miss Tate’s beady eye fell on me the moment I stretched a hand under her desk.
‘Howard?’
‘Just borrowing the bin,’ I explained.
‘But, Howard. That bin’s for everyone.’
I think what I hate most about being in school is being
treated like a halfwit.
‘Yes. I do understand,’ I said. ‘But, right at this moment, Joe and I need it most because he can’t get down to work until we’ve cleared out his desk and found his dictionary.’
A strange light flickered in her eyes.
‘Cleared out Joe Gardener’s desk?’
I think I got the look right. I think my expression clearly said, ‘Yes, lady. You get the pay cheque. I do all the work.’
No more trouble from her, then. I carried my trophy back, and planted it on the floor beside Joe’s desk. Then I pointed to my chair.
‘You sit here.’
He shifted over. (Putty in my hands.)
‘Right,’ I said, lifting out the first disgusting sheet of chicken-scratchings. ‘Trash or treasure?’
‘Trash,’ he admitted.
I lifted another. ‘Trash or treasure?’
‘Trash.’
This is my mother’s trick. She uses it on me three times a year, before my grandmother’s visits.
‘What about these?’
‘Trash. Trash. Trash. Trash.’
It took a while. I had to keep putting my foot in the bin to stamp the rubbish down, and make more room. But gradually we worked our way down all the tides of rubbish in his desk. And once or twice we had a nice surprise.
‘Treasure! I lost that pound weeks ago!’
Or:
‘My dental appointment card! Mum’s been nagging me for that!’
And suddenly, a triumph!
‘Hey! That’s my special sheet of paper!’
‘Take a break.’
I strolled across to Flora.
‘Borrow your sticky tape?’
Miss Tate had spotted me.
‘Howard,’ she trilled. ‘We don’t go wandering in this class without putting up our hands first, to ask permission.’
What is it with teachers and this stupid ‘we’ business? Miss Tate had been rolling round the room all morning, and never once put up her hand.
‘Gosh, sorry!’ I warbled, and scuttled back with Flora’s tape in hand. I used a lot. (No point in messing about.) I stuck that special sheet of paper on the desk so well it won’t go walkabout again. And I took a look at it.
once knew called guess
ready caught night garden
school hospital break doing
That sort of thing. And maybe I was in a mood because I hadn’t had time to get started on my own work.
‘Oh, right,’ I muttered. ‘All the really hard words.’
Joe lifted his face.
‘That’s right,’ he said gratefully. ‘All the words where it’s easy to make mistakes.’
So I admit it. Though I didn’t smirk, I was still feeling pretty superior as we ploughed through the silt at the bottom of his desk.
‘Trash or treasure?’
‘Trash.’
‘Into the bin. And this?’
He reached for it in relief.
‘My dictionary!’
‘Just try to keep it near the top in future.’ (Miss Tate could take lessons from me.) ‘Is that the lot?’
He took the last thing I was holding up.
‘Trash.’
He dropped it in the bin, and was about to put his foot on it when I reached down and snatched it.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s just a photograph.’
‘I know it’s a photograph, Bean-brain,’ I told him sharply. ‘But what is it?’
He shrugged.
‘It’s just a model that I made last year.’
‘Just a model?’ I inspected it. Then I inspected him.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘But may I ask you a very personal question? If you can make a three-metre model of the Eiffel Tower out of macaroni, why can’t you keep your desk tidy?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’m sure I don’t.’
I was still staring at him when the bell rang. I hadn’t got any work done. But I’d achieved something. I’d shifted a major health hazard in the next desk. I’d got to know the worst writer in the world. And I’d worked out he wasn’t daft.
Not bad for my first morning, you’ll admit.
5
Quieter around here
I soon found out why he’d been sitting alone before I showed up to take the last desk. Come silent-reading time, my hand spent more time flapping in the air than turning pages.
‘Miss Tate. Joe’s sound-it-outs are getting on my nerves.’
‘He’s driving me mad, Miss Tate. No one could read against his mutterings.’
‘I’ve read exactly four pages. Exactly four. Each time he starts up, I have to go back to the top of the page.’
Miss Tate laid down her marking pen.
‘Joe. Please try and do your sound-it-outs more quietly.’
He went even redder than he was before.
‘I am. You’d practically need an ear-trumpet to hear me, Miss Tate.’
‘Howard can hear you well enough.’
‘I most certainly can,’ I burst out. ‘C-a-t, cat. D-o-g, dog.’
‘That isn’t fair,’ said Joe. ‘I’m reading about camels.’
When I got home that night, I asked my dad:
‘What’s wrong with him, anyway? How can he have enough of a headful of brains to walk and talk, and not be able to write “would” and “could” without making eighty mistakes?’
‘Wiring,’ my dad said darkly. ‘Faulty wiring. A bit like that flat we rented in Rio.’
I nearly died in a fire in that flat. So next day, back in school, I made an effort to be more sympathetic.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Either you get your act together a bit, or I will murder you. Which is it to be?’
‘I try,’ he said. ‘I really try. It’s just that some things don’t stick.’
‘It’s not as if you’re stupid,’ I complained. ‘If you were stupid, we’d know where we stand.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
I got the feeling he’d been saying it since he was born.
‘Oh, never mind,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll work something out.’
And some of the things I worked out went quite well. That afternoon I tackled should (along with would and could).
‘Start it with one of your ghastly little sound-it-outs, and then remember “Oh, you little darling” for the end.’
‘Oh, you little darling?’
‘O-U-L-D.’
‘Brilliant!’
Then his face fell.
‘But how do I remember which words it works on, Howard?’
‘Try putting them in a rhyme.’
And suddenly it was drama night at the next desk. Joe Gardener was pulling an imaginary cloak around his shoulders, twisting his face into an evil leer, and saying to me cruelly:
Oh, you little darling!
You know you would if you could,
And you should!
I pushed him off smartly. He fell on the floor.
‘I hope you two aren’t distracting one another,’ called Miss Tate.
We kept our heads down for a bit. I tried to get on with my work, but over and over my eyes were drawn to Joe’s ‘How to Write Really Badly’ book. I tell you, this boy works like a duck with a shovel. It is so horrible, you have to watch. And, after about a billion false starts, he’d only got this far.
I pointed to the last big filthy smudge.
‘What’s this supposed to mean?’
‘Efficient,’ he said bravely. But he was worried, you could tell.
‘Backwards “e”s,’ I warned.
He fixed the ‘e’s.
‘Now is it right?’
‘Oh, no,’ I told him. ‘We’re still miles from home.’
Sadly, he crossed it out, and wrote good above it.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘I always end up having to use the easy words I can get right.’
‘You can’t do that. People will think you’re a halfwit.’
‘Well, that won’t do, will it?’
I sat and thought for a while. And then:
‘I’ve got it! ICI is an efficient company.’
‘So?’
‘So you can remember that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ I said triumphantly, writing it down in the big baby letters I had already learned to use for him, ‘it sorts out the difficult middle bit.’
He stared at it for a while. Then:
‘Got it!’
Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn’t. (He’d be the last to know.) In grim fascination, I watched his slow, scruffy progress down the page, till the bell rang for lunch.
‘Goody!’ he said, stuffing things in his bag. ‘Time to go home!’
‘But we haven’t had the afternoon yet.’
‘Oh.’ His face did fall. But I can’t say he looked all that surprised. And, later, when it really was time to go home, he looked surprised all over again.
‘He has no sense of time at all,’ I told my dad. ‘If you ask him the days of the week, he’ll reel them off all right. But even if someone told him it was Tuesday yesterday, he still won’t realise that it’s Wednesday today.’
My father tossed chopped onion in the pan.
‘How is he on the months?’
‘He says he knows them. But he misses out November.’
‘You get to Christmas sooner, I suppose. And what about the alphabet?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Ask him tomorrow.’
So I did. He had to sing it. But he sang it perfectly. By G, I’d started conducting. And when he finished with a flourish on X,Y,Z, I said to him:
‘If you know your alphabet as well as that, how come you have to spend the best part of a week riffling through your dictionary to find the letter you’re after?’
‘Singing’s different.’
I reported back that night.
‘He says that singing’s different.’
And while my dad chopped parsley for the salad, I did my imitation of Joe Gardener scouring the dictionary for the letter W.
My dad looked up from the chopping board. ‘Show you a trick?’
He took the dictionary from me.
‘What do you bet that I can’t turn to the M’s in one go?’
