A Thousand Water Bombs

by T. M. Alexander

  Jonno was obviously confirming the details for the Tribe surf trip. Trust him to ring and check with Dad. He’s like a responsible adult.

  ‘Yes, we’ll see you then. Bye Jonno.’

  Dad turned to me. ‘He’s very nice, that new friend of yours.’

  ‘He’s a Triber, Dad. We’re all nice.’

  Dad winked at me. Flo can’t bear anyone else getting any attention so she scrambled on to his lap. Amy was already on her boyfriend’s lap. It’s gross.

  ‘So there’ll be six on Sunday.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Do you think you’ll be outsurfed by the five Tribers?’

  ‘No, I can handle you lot. But what about the mystery guest? Has he ever been on a board?’

  ‘Who’s the mystery guest?’ I could tell it was a joke or a trick, but I didn’t get it. That’s not unusual – there are lots of things I don’t get until someone else explains them to me.

  ‘Jonno said you’re looking after some new boy and asked if he can tag along?’

  My mouth fell open. I started to dribble because there was no bottom lip to keep my saliva in.

  ‘Do I presume from your face you didn’t know about this?’

  ‘He hates the Portuguese boy, Daddy,’ said Flo.

  Thank you, Flo. Always ready with a helpful comment.

  ‘I don’t hate him. It’s just that we’ve never taken anyone with us before and I wanted it to be just the Tribers.’

  I sounded about five. I knew Dad would be disappointed by my attitude. Don’t you hate the way parents use the word disappointed?

  ‘I’m a bit disappointed —’ See!

  Dad went on about how I should be kind to a boy who’s arrived in England all the way from Portugal. And how I should have learnt that it’s exciting to make new friends. But just because Jonno turned out to be one of us doesn’t mean anyone else would, does it? I didn’t say that to Dad. I didn’t say anything. I was too busy being:

  1. mad that Jonno hadn’t asked me first;

  2. mad that Jonno wanted marked-man Marco to come;

  3. mad that Dad said ‘yes’ without asking me;

  4. mad that the day was bound to be ruined;

  5. just totally, completely, utterly mad.

  ‘Doesn’t chicken piri-piri come from Portugal?’ said Amy. That made me even more mad. If we hadn’t found the chicken piri-piri we wouldn’t have got the babysitting job and if we hadn’t got the babysitting job, we wouldn’t be taking Marco to Woolacombe on Sunday. Would we?

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  JONNO ON THE PHONE TO RAVI, BEST FRIEND FROM WHEN JONNO WAS AT SCHOOL IN GLASGOW, OWNER OF TAYLOR THE LABRADOR AND ALL-ROUND GOOD GUY

  Jonno: Hi Ravi, it’s me.

  Ravi: Hello Smee.

  Jonno: Are you ever going to get bored with saying that? I said ‘It’s me’, not ‘It’s Smee’.

  Ravi: Don’t get your knickers in a twist. It’s a joke.

  Jonno: But it’s a bad joke. And a really old joke.

  Ravi: What d’you want? I’m killing the last of the Gweeshans and I need to concentrate.

  Jonno: Doesn’t matter. Go and kill your Gweeshans.

  Ravi: No, go on, spill. I can kill them with one hand.

  Jonno: I think I’ve upset Tribe.

  Ravi: You think or you know?

  Jonno: I know.

  Ravi: What’ve you done?

  Jonno: Invited an outsider in, basically.

  Ravi: Is that allowed? I thought no one could join and no one could leave.

  Jonno: You thought right. But I didn’t mean to do it. The outsider, Marco, didn’t get what I was saying. I told him we were Tribe and now he thinks he’s one too.

  Ravi: That’s easy – tell him he’s not. Got to go. The Gweeshans are rioting.

  Jonno: But he’s coming surfing with us —

  Ravi: Knock him unconscious and when he wakes up, pretend to know nothing about a Tribe. That’ll work. Byeeee!

  a Tribe of five

  I rang Fifty straight after my swimming lesson on Saturday morning (I found eight pound coins left in the lockers which is a record – six pounds was the next best).

  ‘Have you heard about Marco?’ I said. Fifty had. Jonno had told Bee, and she’d come straight round to Fifty’s with the news. And it was worse than I thought. Marco wasn’t only coming surfing with us, Jonno’d actually asked him to join Tribe.

  Copper Pie was going round after football so I threw my towel and trunks in the general direction of the washing machine and legged it over there as well. Or tried to.

  ‘Bye Dad. Off to Fifty’s.’

  ‘Hang on a minute. The boy that’s coming with us tomorrow – I think I should call his mum. I don’t feel right taking him off for the day having never met the parents, or the boy, in fact.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘So do you have a number?’

  ‘Nope, sorry.’

  ‘Could you get the number?’ Dad raised his eyebrows, which meant ‘try and be helpful’.

  ‘I’ll text you.’

  Dad raised his eyebrows even higher, which meant ‘you’ll forget’.

  ‘I won’t forget,’ I said. And legged it, properly this time.

  They were in the Tribehouse – Fifty on the safe, as usual, Copper Pie leaning against the wall and Bee standing with her hands on her hips – it means business.

  ‘He can’t be a member of Tribe. We’re a Tribe of five – that’s it. No question. The Tribe waiting list is closed, forever.’ Bee was impressive. And it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

  ‘But how do we tell him?’ said Fifty. ‘We’re meant to be babysitting him. We can’t tell him to get lost or the Head’ll be on our backs again.’

  Jonno barged in, out of breath and with steamed-up glasses.

  ‘Sorry everyone,’ he said.

  I should think so too, I thought.

  ‘I should think so too,’ said Fifty. Stealing my thoughts again. ‘Going around inviting strangers to be Tribers.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ said Jonno. ‘Did Bee tell you exactly what happened?’

  There was some shrugging.

  ‘Well, no one told me,’ I said.

  ‘Good, because that means I get another chance to explain,’ said Jonno, pushing his mad hair off his face. I don’t know why he does that because every single hair springs straight back to where it started. ‘Marco completely misunderstood me. I couldn’t think of much to talk about, so I started telling him that we’re Tribe and he thought the “we” meant him too. But I didn’t realise at first. I thought he was getting muddled up between “you” and “us” but when I said “we”, as in Tribe, were going surfing he got really excited and assumed he was coming too. That’s when I worked out he thought he was a Triber too. I tried to put him right but he made that angry face and did some Portuguese shouting so I . . . gave up.’

  ‘Why did you tell him about Tribe?’ said Fifty. ‘Why didn’t you talk about . . . ?’

  ‘The weather?’ I said. That’s what we’re famous for in this country.

  Copper Pie wasn’t happy either. ‘Babysitting doesn’t mean blabbing.’

  ‘He’s a stranger and he usually speaks Portuguese. What was there to chat about?’ Jonno was getting it in the neck and he didn’t like it. His voice wasn’t apologetic any more. It was miffed. He stared at Copper Pie. ‘What would you have done?’

  It was a pointless question. Copper Pie wouldn’t have tried to be friendly in the first place.

  ‘OK. OK,’ said Bee. ‘But I bet you made Tribe sound really fantastic, didn’t you?’

  ‘I might have,’ said Jonno, squirming a bit.

  ‘How fantastic?’ I asked.

  ‘I can guess,’ said Fifty. ‘Initiations, tackling gangs, standing up to the Head in assembly – that sort of thing.’

  Jonno nodded. ‘That’s about it.’

  I could see the others thought it made things worse, but I could see a way to use what Jonno had said to put Marco o
ff.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘we should make Tribe sound so dangerous, so wild, so . . . scary, that he’s too chicken to join. That could work.’

  I looked round at the faces of my friends. Copper Pie smiled – an evil smile.

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Superb idea, Keener,’ said Bee. ‘What d’you think, Jonno?’

  ‘I’ll do whatever I have to.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Marco can’t be a Triber,’ I said. ‘He might be all right. But so are Ed and Lily and they don’t get to join. I don’t want to be nasty but —’

  ‘We get the idea, Keener,’ said Bee.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ said Fifty. ‘We go surfing tomorrow and spend all day putting him off with tales of how fabulously daring we are? Like the Three Musketeers.’

  He pretended to swipe Copper Pie with an imaginary sword. It was hard, because he’s so small and cute-looking, to imagine he could be part of a Tribe too frightening to belong to. Oh well!

  ‘It won’t be that easy to do with Keener’s dad’s there,’ said Bee.

  Good point, I thought.

  ‘But the longer we let him think he’s one of us, the harder it’ll be to shake him off,’ said Fifty.

  ‘So let’s do it now,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘He’s not here, duh!’ said Bee.

  ‘But we could get him here, duh!’ said Copper Pie. ‘Jonno’s his best buddy – he could ring him.’

  ‘I could . . .’ Jonno looked around to see whether it was a ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decision.

  ‘Do it,’ said Bee. ‘If we get rid of him today, he won’t come with us tomorrow, will he?’ She clapped her hands together as though it was all sorted.

  Jonno got his phone out and made the call.

  ‘He’s coming.’

  It was almost too easy. We waited in the Tribehouse. I hoped the others had some ideas for scary stories because I had none, zilch, zero.

  I had a question though. ‘Jonno, why did you ask my dad if Marco could come? Why didn’t you ask me?’

  ‘Keener, think about it. Do you think I would ring you or your dad?’

  Me, I thought. ‘Me,’ I said.

  ‘So do you think I asked Flo for you or your dad?’

  Me, I thought. ‘Me,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly. It was Flo who decided to give me to your dad.’

  ‘Figures,’ I said. It made me feel better, knowing Jonno didn’t go behind my back on purpose, but not better enough to stop worrying about what we could say to scare off Marked-man-maniac-mountain-boarder Marco. We were quiet for a bit. We heard the doorbell. And then we were quiet for a bit longer, waiting for the doorbell-ringer to arrive in the hut, but it can’t have been Marco who did the ringing, because no one came.

  Except it was Marco, and the reason he was so long was because he was chatting to Fifty’s mum.

  ‘Hello Tribers,’ she said as she came to the door holding Probably Rose’s hand. ‘I understand there’s one more of you now.’ She gave Marco a terrific smile and he gave her one back. Help!

  ‘Hi,’ said Jonno.

  ‘Olá!’ said Marco, beaming at us all.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then.’ Fifty’s mum disappeared back up to the house.

  ‘You’re just in time, Marco,’ said Fifty. ‘We’ve got some trouble and we need muscle.’

  Trust Fifty to try and sound like some thug from the underworld. ‘Muscle’ wasn’t likely to be a word Marco knew. We needed to use normal ones.

  ‘Que?’ said Marco. That means ‘what?’ Bee used to say it – no idea why.

  ‘Trouble,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Fight.’ He put his fists up to demonstrate.

  That worked better. Or did it?

  Marco stepped back and put his fists up. Fifty quickly waved his hands about and did the talking-to-foreigners voice. ‘No. No. Not with us.’

  The fists went down.

  ‘With bad guys,’ said Bee.

  ‘And weapons,’ added Copper Pie. This time the demo consisted of cocking an imaginary gun, aiming through an imaginary sniper scope, and firing, complete with recoil. There really is no hope for that boy.

  ‘Why fight?’ said Marco. He was already looking a bit worried. Time for me to join in.

  ‘Because other tribes have been threatening us.’ I made a serious face.

  ‘With voodoo,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Idiot,’ said Bee, under her breath. ‘We fight, Marco, because we own this area.’ She drew a massive circle with her arm. ‘Understand?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And if you want to join us, you must lead the battle,’ said Fifty. He was really enjoying it – you could tell.

  ‘Go in front,’ said Bee. ‘On your own.’

  ‘At midnight,’ said Fifty. ‘Twelve o’clock. Dark time.’ He’d clearly forgotten how to say ‘night’.

  ‘With a hood. A black hood.’ Copper Pie was trying not to grin as he spoke. ‘And a weapon.’ He did the cock, target, fire, recoil thing again.

  It was all going really well, except I was beginning to feel a bit scared. All alone at night in a black hood with a weapon is the stuff of nightmares. Marco looked round at the five of us. We all stared back.

  Jonno, who’d been really quiet, stepped into the middle and adjusted his glasses so he could see over the top of them.

  ‘Will you, Marco, lead the fight for Tribe?’

  Marco’s eyes were massive and maybe a bit watery.

  ‘No! NO! NO!’

  ‘Then you can’t join us,’ said Bee, shaking her head and pretending to be sad. ‘We will have to fight alone.’

  ‘You,’ said Copper Pie, pointing at Marco’s T-shirt. ‘Not Tribe.’ I think he wanted to make it crystal clear.

  ‘Me. Not Tribe,’ Marco repeated.

  I felt loads of different things at the same time: sorry for Marco, but pleased that he was scared, guilty because we’d been mean, but relieved that it was over. He’d got the message, for sure.

  ‘Let’s go and see if Mum’ll let us have some biscuits,’ said Fifty, all cheerily.

  We piled off after him, with Marco at the back. He didn’t seem so keen on us now he knew we were warriors of the street. Excellent plan of mine. Probably Rose was already tucking in to a snack. I think it was raisins and apple but she’d obviously spat some of it out so there was a slimy look to it.

  ‘That looks yummy, Rose,’ said Bee.

  ‘A-pull.’

  ‘That’s right – apple.’

  Rose stuck out her tongue to show Bee. Hideous. Fifty did the proud-parent face.

  ‘Can we have something, Mum?’

  Fifty’s mum pointed at the worktop – there was a bowl of fruit. Fifty made a face. Fifty’s mum smiled, opened the cupboard door and brought out some rice cakes. Great! I don’t know why she buys them. I don’t know why we eat them. They’re like cardboard with air holes. Bee tried to give Rose one but she pushed it away and found a soggy raisin instead.

  ‘So what have you done with your new recruit?’ said Fifty’s mum.

  What had we done with our new recruit? He wasn’t anywhere obvious. Bee put her head out of the back door.

  ‘Errr . . . he . . .’ Fifty was struggling for words. An unusual sight.

  ‘He had to go,’ said Jonno.

  Fifty’s mum is not stupid, not where people are concerned anyway. She knew something was up. Time for a quick exit, I thought.

  ‘Thanks for the rice cake. Got to go. See you tomorrow, Fifty.’

  ‘What time does the torture start?’

  ‘We’ll be here to pick you up at seven-thirty. Don’t forget your trunks.’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling you’ll get me in the water whether I’ve got trunks or not, you mer-freak.’

  ‘Bye Rose.’ I was off. Feeling much better than when I arrived. The Marco problem was solved. All I had to think about was paddling out on my board, waiting for the wave and having the ride of
my life.

  (I was quite looking forward to having an audience too. Everyone likes showing off something they’re good at, don’t they?)

  a sticky situation and not from surf wax

  Me and Dad were in the car. We had bacon sarnies in our tummies, two boards on the roof and two wetsuits in the boot. We went to Fifty’s first, then Bee’s, Copper Pie’s and lastly Jonno’s.

  ‘One more stop and we’re off,’ said Dad.

  ‘Why? Do we need diesel?’ I said.

  ‘No, we’re full,’ said Dad. ‘But we need Marco, don’t we?’

  No we don’t, I thought. We’d forgotten to tell Dad he didn’t want to come any more.

  ‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ said Fifty, in an utterly unconvincing voice.

  ‘I think he is,’ said Dad, suspiciously. ‘I spoke to his dad yesterday. No thanks to you.’ Dad looked at me. I’d forgotten all about the text I was meant to send. ‘Took me a while to go through the parents on the class list but eventually I found someone who knew the family.’

  I was in the front seat, and I wished I wasn’t. I also wished someone would say something. No one did. Dad drew up outside an ordinary-looking house and as I didn’t jump out to ring the bell, he did.

  I turned round to eyeball the Tribers. Trouble. Dad obviously thought we were trying to leave Marco out. What he didn’t realise was that Marco wanted to be left out.

  The conversation at the door went on for a long time. I couldn’t see who Dad was talking to because the porch was casting a shadow. A couple of times Dad turned round and pointed towards the car. It was excruciating not knowing what was going on. Eventually, Dad shook hands with the hand of the person and came back to the car . . . with Marco and what had to be Marco’s board in a flash board bag. So he’s a surfer, I thought.

  ‘You! In the back.’ Dad pointed at me. Cross wasn’t the word. He was livid. I got out and climbed in the spare seat in the middle row. Marco took my seat. Dad turned round to look at us.

  ‘We are all going to have a nice day. But before we have a nice day, we’re going to have a chat. And then there’ll be some apologies. So enjoy the ride, Tribers, but before we get in the sea, we’ll run through the conversation you had with Marco yesterday. I’m most interested to hear the details. And after that I’ll tell you how hard I had to work to make Marco’s dad believe you five are not the most evil children that ever lived.’