by Anne Fine
But here!
Here in Walbottle Manor (Mixed), it was like winning an Olympic Gold. These people weren’t sinners. They were good. And nice. And kind. And pretty helpful themselves.
I couldn’t help it. I knew that I was doing a bit of a Beth act, but the words popped out.
‘I’m going to treasure this.’
Miss Tate gave me a little affectionate push, and I went back to my seat. As I threaded my way between the desks, I noticed that on every one there was a tiny home-made model, Joey-style. Robots and scarecrows and rockets – that sort of thing.
‘Have you been buying me votes?’ I asked suspiciously when I got back.
‘Why should I buy you votes? I didn’t know that you were making me that brilliant How-to-Survive-to-the-Very-End-of-School chart.’
I was pretty put out.
‘How did you work out what it was? I was keeping it so secret I haven’t even put it in the display.’
He tapped his nose. Then he reached in his desk, took out the security screen and set it up on the desk. Just as I thought he’d finished, he lifted a hidden flap set on his side, and then another, and then slid a panel round.
‘Mirrors!’
‘Sideways periscope action.’
‘Cunning!’
‘Worked a treat.’
(If I were broke, I’d sell this boy to Secret Services.)
I drew the How-to book out of my desk.
‘So there’s no point in hiding it any longer?’
‘Not really, no.’
I handed it over.
‘I hope it helps, Joe.’
He took it and stared at it the same way he’d stared at the medal in his hand. Opening it, he turned the pages, one by one. I had a sudden vision of all the squares I’d spent so much time counting and measuring and setting out, gradually being filled with bright brilliant colours that steadily and cheerfully spread across each page, from start to end.
On the back cover, I’d written in block capitals:
AND NOW FEEL FREE TO GET ON WITH WHAT YOU’RE REALLY GOOD AT ALL DAY!
(I’d been determined to get those magic ‘You’re really good at –’ words into the book somewhere.)
He looked so happy.
‘I don’t even have to use felt pen to fill it in,’ he mused. ‘I could glue a square and sprinkle it with glitter or dried leaves or –’
‘I see it’s going to be Mess-As-Usual around here.’
But he wasn’t listening. He’d looked up to see the parents pouring in.
‘Mum! Dad! Quick! Over here!’
They hadn’t got halfway across the room before he was bragging. ‘Mum! I won a prize! A real prize! Look, it’s a medal!’
I thought his mother was going to burst with pride. And Mr Gardener took the medal from his son’s hand and inspected it reverently.
‘Your great-great-granny won one just the same!’
How long has Miss Tate been teaching? A thousand years?
Now Joe was thrusting the How-to book under his parents’ noses.
‘And look what Howard’s given me, to keep me going!’
I crept away, before the Gardeners kissed me. I wasn’t expecting my parents because, a whole lot earlier in the term, I’d noticed all the notes from school were clearly addressed to Mr and Mrs Chester (who are they?) and I’d felt justified in dropping them straight in the bin.
And I was halfway right. My dad did hear a rumour of the Open Day while he was in Harvey’s delicatessen, but he couldn’t leave his milles feuilles unattended any longer in the oven, so he couldn’t make it. And Mum was slipped the wink by the van driver, who wanted an excuse to come back earlier. But when she told someone at the door her name was Mrs Howard, she was sent off to quite another room, and was delighted with the work she saw.
Later, I asked her, ‘Didn’t you notice that I wasn’t there?’
‘Of course I noticed. It’s just I thought that you were embarrassed because of that beautiful essay that you wrote.’
‘What beautiful essay?’
‘My favourite book ever: Six Little Peppers and How They Grew.’
I didn’t get off scot-free, though. The van driver found his way back to our room, and he took a great interest in my work.
‘Excellent, Chester,’ he kept saying, as he leafed through my books. ‘You’ve tried really hard here, I can tell. And this piece is good, too. Yes, I can see you’ve made considerable effort.’
He went up to Miss Tate then, to tell her all he’d been doing for the last hundred years, and that, even though I could clearly do with a little more practice with division, on the whole he thought I was doing really well.
‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Tate said. ‘Though I admit his How-to book was quite a disappointment.’
‘Yes, I agree. I do think he took a bit of a liberty with the spirit of the project.’
‘Quite naughty, in fact.’
‘Well, never mind. Most of the rest of his work is up to scratch.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Tate. ‘We’re all very proud of Howard.’
The van driver looked a bit baffled.
‘I was talking about Chester, here.’
‘Chester?’
Miss Tate looked thoroughly confused. But, rather than worry the lady who had given him the happiest days of his life, the van driver moved away. I could have stayed to explain things, but Flora needed a spot of help carrying her new Wheel of Fortune out to the van. On the way down the steps, I asked about something that had been preying on my mind.
‘Did Joe give you a model to vote for me?’
She looked me calmly in the eye over the Arrow of Opportunity.
‘No.’
‘He did give you a model, though, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you did vote for me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because he asked you?’
‘No,’ she said. And then, because she could tell that I didn’t really believe her, ‘But maybe because he did explain how very much you had helped him.’
I thought about it while she went off to ask the van driver if he’d mind dropping the Wheel of Fortune off at her house after we’d been back to Joe’s, and then bringing everything she owned back to the Gardeners’, in fair exchange. And I decided that, if Joe had gone to all that trouble to explain to everyone, then I must have been really helpful. I must have deserved the prize.
I ought to tell Miss Tate my real name again some time, I suppose, if we stay in this godforsaken dump very much longer.
Then again, maybe I won’t. Howard is nicer than Chester, after all.
And, when you think about it, Howard’s happier.
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