St Grizzle's School for Girls, Goats and Random Boys

by Karen McCombie

  “Good morning, OTTERS!”

  I think of the staring triplets and shudder. I still don’t get why they blacked out bits of their teeth. But I bet they pelted me because they knew I knew they were Up To Something – i.e. stealing marshmallows – yesterday.

  “Good morning, FUNGI… Especially our newest, most fascinating fungus, Dani Dexter!”

  Stupidly, at the mention of my name, I blush. (It’s especially stupid since I’ve just been described as a kind of interesting mushroom.)

  “And Dani, in addition to this morning’s usual lessons, I have a special mission for you. See you at breakfast!”

  I look at Swan, hoping she’ll give me a clue what Lulu’s special mission might be.

  Swan just shrugs and – after throwing her towel on an empty bed – heads for the door followed by Twinkle.

  Guess I’d better get up and find out for myself, I think, swinging my legs out from under the duvet.

  CRUNCH!

  My toes were expecting cold lino, but that’s not what they got.

  “Ow!” I yelp, and my eyes instantly water from the pain of standing on something knobbly and uncomfortable. Blurrily I look down and see a random collection of twigs scattered beside my bottom bunk bed like some ‘You’re Not Welcome’ mat. “What IS this?”

  “Gift from Blossom,” says Swan.

  “Well, it’s a pretty dumb gift,” I moan, swiping the bits of sticks away with my foot. “I could’ve got a splinter…”

  I hear Swan sigh then close the door behind her with an annoyed-sounding BANG!

  Huh? What did I do?

  But there’s no time to figure it out. I’d better get dressed and see what Special Mission my crazy head teacher has for me…

  “Meh!”

  I can’t believe I’m tying a goat up outside a supermarket, while old ladies and mums and kids give me the strangest looks. I mean, who takes a goat shopping?

  Swan and Zed – all the time, apparently. She goes everywhere with them, just like a dog. And since I’ve got a REAL dog, I’ve been trusted with wrapping Twinkle’s rope-lead around a lamp post, alongside a very wary-looking Jack Russell.

  “Yeah, that knot looks strong enough,” says Swan as if she’s about to award me a Scout badge for Goat-Wrangling.

  Beside her, Zed checks the money in a Hello Kitty purse his mum handed him when we left St Grizzle’s for our shopping trip.

  “Meh!” Twinkle grumbles some more.

  “What’s up with her?” I ask.

  “She can see lunch,” says Zed, pointing to buckets of bouquets just inside the entrance to the supermarket.

  I stare at Zed in surprise – it’s the first time I’ve heard him speak. He has a shy but sing-songy sort of voice, completely different from his sister’s bored growl.

  Speaking of bored growls…

  “OK, let’s do it,” says Swan sharply, taking the shopping list out of her pocket and swooping off towards the store.

  THIS is the Special Mission Lulu had for me – and Swan and Zed. According to our head teacher, shopping is a Life Skill, and just as useful as reading and writing and knowing how to make chemicals explode in Science.

  Though I think it’s more to do with the fact that Mrs Hedges the housekeeper is in a Very Bad Mood with everyone for stealing random plates, vegetables and packets of marshmallows out of her kitchen yesterday.

  And so straight after breakfast, armed with wheelie shopping bags, I followed Swan, Zed and Twinkle out of the school’s shabby-but-not-chic double front doors. We rumbled past the statue of St Grizzle – today wearing Lulu’s plastic-spoon crown on her head plus a pair of yellow rubber gloves – and set off down the driveway to the lane that would take us to the village.

  There wasn’t much talking on the way, since we had to walk in single file, keeping an eye out for traffic. Swan flip-flopped at the front, with her own wheelie bag and Twinkle on a lead, with Zed pushing himself along behind, shopping bag dangling from the handles of his chair, and me trundling reluctantly in the rear.

  And now we’re just about to go into the supermarket on the busy, bustly High Street of the village when I can’t help noticing that we’re being stared at by passing schoolkids, all dressed in matching black trousers and green sweatshirts.

  “Hold your noses!” shouts a tall boy with a floppy blond quiff. “It’s some smelly Grizzlers!”

  The boy has that look that all meanies do; a smile that has not one speck of niceness to it.

  I feel my cheeks instantly pink up.

  Swan doesn’t go pink. She stays silent and super-cool, gives the boy with the quiff a Fierce Death Glare and blows a spectacularly big bubblegum bubble.

  POP!

  The boy looks like he’s about to say something, then can’t think of anything clever, so just sneers instead.

  Swan spins away from him, her black hair flapping like a victory flag, and right on cue the supermarket doors glide open for her.

  Following her in, I sneak a sideways glance at Zed and see he’s giving me one back – along with a small, shy smile. I realize it’s the first time I’ve seen him smile. I manage a shy smile back.

  “Wow, she is seriously fierce,” I mutter as I wrestle a trolley free from a parked row and watch Swan sauntering off along the vegetable aisle.

  “Tell me about it,” Zed replies, giving me something that’s pretty close to a grin.

  “Is she always like that?” I whisper as we wheel after his sister.

  “Pretty much.” Zed shrugs. “Though she’s more ratty than usual at the moment…”

  Zed suddenly looks thoughtful, but I don’t feel I know him well enough to ask what he’s thinking OR why Swan’s quite so grumpy. Especially now we’re catching up to her.

  “Who was that boy and his mates?” I ask as carrots and courgettes land thump-thump in the trolley, casually chucked there by Swan.

  “The one doing the talking was Spencer,” says Zed.

  “Him and his friends go to the village school and they think everyone at St Grizzle’s is a rival. Like we actually care that much,” Swan drawls. “And Spencer’s been making the ‘smelly’ remarks ever since Lulu ditched our uniform and we got Twinkle. He thinks he’s hilarious.”

  “Which he’s not,” says Zed, crinkling his freckly nose.

  “Tell you what WAS funny,” Swan says, turning to her brother. “When you accidentally on purpose ran over his toes last week in the crisp aisle!”

  Certain things are catching, aren’t they? Like colds, yawns and laughter.

  So when Swan and Zed start sniggering, I find myself grinning, too. It feels good. I don’t think I’ve felt happy like this since just before Mum told me about the Antarctic Expedition and everything in my world went twisty and odd.

  And once the laughing and the grinning ebbs away, I think of a question I’d like to know the answer to.

  “Did you guys like the school better the way it was, or the way it is now?” I ask.

  “Now, of course,” says Swan, looking at me as though I’m a nitwit. “It’s a LOT more fun. Not that it’s going to be for very much longer…”

  “What do you mean?” I ask as Swan swans off, grabbing shopping here, there and everywhere and me and the trolley struggle to keep up.

  “Our mum thought everyone would like a school that’s more fun,” Zed answers instead, zooming along by my side. “Turns out they don’t.”

  “Which is why most of the parents pulled their kids out,” Swan says over her shoulder as she checks the price on a mega-bag of marshmallows. “And if kids KEEP leaving, the school won’t be able to afford to stay open.”

  At that last remark, a thought zaps into my head. THIS is the reason Swan is extra-ratty at the moment – she’s worried!

  For a second, I feel a teeny flicker of pity for her – but that quickly vanishes when I realize that I have a little skippetty-hop of hope in my heart.

  Cos if St Grizzle’s closes down soon, I’ll HAVE to go home! Whether that means
sleeping in a cupboard at Granny Viv’s, or me and Granny Viv and Downboy squatting in the building site at our house, or maybe even Mum ditching the penguins and Antarctica for ME!

  Swan is too busy zipping through the shopping list to see the gladness lighting up my face – but Zed does.

  “You don’t like it at St Grizzle’s, do you?” he asks, with a look on his face like a puppy left out in the rain.

  “It’s not that,” I say, feeling myself blush again. “It’s just—”

  “Just that you aren’t giving it a chance, Dani,” Swan says icily, grabbing the trolley from me and pushing it to the nearest till. “It’s OK, you’re not the only one. I just feel sorry for the younger kids. It’s not great for them to see people turning up their noses at the students and the school.”

  I’m turning super-pink now. Is that what they think I’m doing? I’m not ‘turning up my nose’ at the Otters and Newts and everyone. THEY’RE the ones giving ME a hard time, mimicking the way I look and pelting me with sweets and cartwheeling themselves at me menacingly…

  “That’s not fair,” I say, feeling an achy twang in my chest at being misunderstood.

  “Well,” says Swan, beginning to pack the shopping into her wheelie bag as soon as it’s swiped, “you weren’t exactly grateful for Blossom’s gift this morning, were you?”

  “The sticks?” I say in surprise as Swan shoves a bag of potatoes into my arms.

  “She’d laid them out while you were still sleeping,” says Swan. “They spelled out, ‘Hello, Dani Dexter!’ Well, actually, it said ‘Hello, Dani Dexterer!’ – she hasn’t quite got your name right yet. But whatever, it was meant to be a nice surprise.”

  Oh … that mess was a message? For me?

  I have a horrible feeling that I might’ve got things a little bit wrong.

  But I’m not the only one.

  “Stop! NO!” comes a shout from nearby. “Leave those flowers alone!”

  Uh-oh. Speaking of sticks, Twinkle has somehow got herself free, trotted into the supermarket and is speedily turning a bouquet of roses into a bunch of thorny twigs.

  As Swan and Zed hurtle over to grab her, I do the obvious thing – snatch my phone from my pocket and take a photo.

  ‘My start to the school day,’ I text to Arch, Granny Viv, and – most importantly – Mum.

  If the sight of a goat running up the cheese aisle with a red rose in its mouth doesn’t get Mum driving here to rescue me, then I’m DOOMED…

  Think of a recycling bin.

  Imagine it upturned on to a table.

  Welcome to my first proper lesson of the day, art class, with the whole school – all twenty of us.

  Now think of a bum.

  Imagine it vibrating.

  That’ll be my phone, turned to silent mode in my jeans’ pocket.

  I slip it out and sneak a look at the screen to see who’s texting.

  Granny Viv!

  She’s got back to my message about Twinkle’s supermarket spree.

  But my smile of happiness fades when I see her reply.

  I wanted her to say something like…

  ‘My goodness, that’s ridiculous, my darling Dani! I’ll ditch my sick friend and come get you immediately, if not sooner!’

  Instead, her message just reads…

  Sighing, I put the phone down on the table in front of me and flick to YouTube, and me and Arch’s mini-movies. But not even the sight of all the Beanie Boos as Hobbits (with dusters for cloaks) can cheer me up.

  I’m not stressing about being caught on my phone, by the way. Mademoiselle Fabienne, the art teacher, is too busy to notice. She’s perched on her desk, strumming a guitar and singing something very sad-sounding in French. I’m no expert, but it doesn’t seem much like it’s got anything to do with art, or today’s subject that’s flashed up on the whiteboard: ‘Make What You Feel Inside’.

  Around me, the others are taking their time, constructing teetering, blobby or complicated-looking things out of milk cartons, cereal boxes, cardboard tubes and assorted bobbins, all held together with lashings of parcel tape.

  That’s everyone apart from the triplets, who are silently and happily gluing their fingers together.

  Oh, and Yaz. She’s sitting beside me with her open maths book, doing something technical with fractions.

  And me? I’ve finished my work already. As soon as I sat down I grabbed an egg box and painted it turquoise. Rubbish and blue, that’s how I feel. I should call it The Egg Box of Gloom…

  I flick to another mini-movie (Elmer as Batman, with a costume made from scraps of bin bag), but a movement outside the window catches my eye. Out on the back lawn, a frowny Mrs Hedges is attempting to peg some flapping bed sheets to the washing line while at the same time trying to stop Twinkle from butting her in the bottom.

  As I idly watch the mayhem, I think back to this morning and feel relieved that Swan and Zed didn’t think I was to blame for Twinkle’s escape. I mean, I may not be an expert at goat knots, but I was pretty sure I’d tied her rope-lead up nice and tight to the lamp post outside the supermarket. In fact, Swan and Zed seemed pretty positive that Spencer from the village school had something to do with it…

  I’m just remembering Spencer’s meanie sneer when I hear a small sniffling sort of sound.

  I turn my gaze away from the goat-and-grumpy-lady battle going on outside and look around the room for the source of the sniffle.

  No one else seems to notice it – they’re too wrapped up in describing their feelings with junk.

  Uh-oh … the sniffler – it’s Mademoiselle Fabienne!

  Is she – is she crying a little bit?

  She’s stopped strumming mid-tune, her head drooped, her long fair hair dangling over her guitar. Wait – didn’t Lulu say she was newish and homesick? Has she been making sad music, to show what’s inside?

  That makes me feel all kerfuffled.

  Cos if someone in class is upset, you put up your hand and tell the teacher.

  But if your teacher is upset, who do you tell?

  I’m pretty sure a teacher wouldn’t want all their pupils to see them feeling wibbly.

  So I should DO something… I just don’t know what.

  And then I have an idea. Scrabbling around in my hoodie pocket, I find a clean tissue. I scribble something on it in black felt pen, then stand up, grabbing a nearby pencil and sharpener.

  The bin is by Mademoiselle Fabienne’s desk. I walk over, and quick-as-I-can pass the tissue to the sniffly teacher, then pretend to sharpen the already-sharp pencil.

  Miss Fabienne looks down at the tissue in her hand. I hope she knows enough English to understand what I’ve written.

  Mademoiselle Fabienne looks up at me with tear-pooled eyes, gives me a watery smile, then blows her nose loudly and gratefully on the tissue, leaving only the tiniest transfer of black felt pen on her left nostril.

  Not wanting to draw attention to our teacher, I pootle back to my seat, feeling all glowy inside. And then I panic a little, when I see that my phone is NOT where I left it.

  “You did this?” whispers Yaz, lifting a page of her maths book to reveal my mobile, showing a T rex in a red cardboard phone box, miming along to Adele’s ‘Hello’.

  She must know I did, since ‘A Dani Dexter & Arch Adams Film’ is the strapline underneath.

  “Yes, me and my best friend make … made them all the time,” I say, correcting myself and feeling more like my painted egg box than ever.

  “You have more? Could you show me them later?” Yaz asks, her dark eyes bright and shiny and excited with something other than maths.

  Ooh, and I’ve just had the most peculiar feeling.

  Deep inside, hidden among the horrible homesickness and the big blue gloom, is a tiny sliver of sunshiny yellow.

  Hello happiness… I’ve missed you!

  It’s nice – just me and Yaz are in Fungi dorm right now, since Swan ambled off into the garden with the others after tea.

  What�
��s nicer still is that the yellow smidge of happiness keeps glowing and growing as I set out all forty-six ex-toys in rows along the dorm windowsills.

  At first Yaz is a bit bamboozled at the sight of them, but when I hold up my phone and show her the various ex-toys’ acting skills, she’s well impressed.

  “Could you show me how to do films like yours?” Yaz asks, staring starstruck at the unicorn after seeing it prance along to ‘Let It Go’. “I’d love to make some myself, just as soon as I get back home and dig my old toys out of the attic.”

  “You don’t have to use ex-toys,” I tell her. “You could just get a packet of googly eyes from a craft shop and stick them on anything – fruit, spoons, acorns – and turn them into characters!”

  “Ha!” laughs Yaz. “That would be fun. But my dad will be here ANY time to get me, so I’ll probably wait till then.”

  I get the feeling that it’s just Yaz and her dad, same as it’s just me and Mum.

  “So, um, what does your dad do?” I ask, staring at Yaz’s neat knot in her tie and wondering why her father hasn’t managed to rescue her from St Grizzle’s quite yet.

  “He’s a diplomat, so he travels a lot for work,” Yaz answers as she examines some more of my characters.

  “Sounds important,” I say, not really knowing what a diplomat does exactly. “My mum’s a zoologist. She’s going to be travelling, too – to Antarctica to study penguins for a really important project.”

  “No way! That is SO cool!” says Yaz, sounding impressed.

  The yellow glow inside me grows even more and suddenly I’m kind of impressed by Mum, too…

  CLUNK!

  The dorm door is flung open and Swan sticks her head round it.

  “Hey! We’re going to have another campfire tonight. Coming?” she asks.

  The yellow glow expands.