Bill's New Frock

by Anne Fine

  Nobody meant to end up in a riot.

  ‘SILENCE!’ roared Mrs Collins. ‘Go back to your places at once! I will give out the comics myself.’

  As she came over, everyone melted away from the comic box and drifted back to their own favourite wet-break places. Talilah and Kirsty sat side by side on the fat radiator pipes. Flora perched on the window sill. Philip and Nicky sprawled on the floor beneath table five, and Bill, who probably would have joined them on any other wet day, glanced down at all the marks and smears and tears he already had on his pretty pink frock, and then at the muddy grime and footprints all over the floor where his friends were – and thought better of it.

  He settled himself alone, leaning his chair back against the wall, and waited for Mrs Collins to hand round the comics.

  They were a shabby and dog-eared lot. It was with a slight shudder of disgust that Mrs Collins dipped her hands in the box to lift them out, and started round the room. Like everyone else, Bill hoped so hard that she would go round his way first, but he was out of luck.

  She went the other way. It took her ages.

  All of the Beanos went first, of course. Then all the Dandies. She gave out a Hotspur and a Lion, then several Bunties and some Victors.

  By the time she reached Bill Simpson, there was very little left.

  ‘Mandy?’ she offered him. ‘Or would you prefer a June or a Judy?’

  He could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t in the mood for discussion. So he contented himself with replying coldly:

  ‘I’ll have a Thunder, please. Or a Hornet.’

  ‘No more Hornets,’ she said, leafing through the last three or four comics left in her hand. ‘No Thunders, either. I thought I might still have a Valiant, but I must have given that to Rohan.’

  She thrust a Bunty towards him.

  ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘You’ll enjoy this. There are almost no pages missing at all.’

  And off she went back to her desk.

  Bill glanced down at the comic in his hands. He didn’t care for the look of it at all. He didn’t want to read it. What use was a Bunty? He wanted a Beano or a Dandy or a Thunder, and that was that.

  Melissa was sitting only a few feet away, absorbed in a Beano.

  Bill leaned across.

  ‘Hey, Melissa,’ he called softly. ‘Here’s a Bunty with all the pages and no torn bits. Do you want to swap?’

  Melissa gazed at him over her comic, her eyes widening even more as she realized he was serious.

  ‘You must be joking,’ she said, and went back to her Beano.

  Bill tried the other side.

  Flora was sitting firmly on one Dandy, and reading another.

  ‘Flora,’ called Bill. ‘Would you like a Bunty?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Flora said politely, without so much as raising her eyes from the page.

  Bill Simpson decided to have a go at one of the boys.

  ‘Rohan!’ he hissed. ‘Hey! Rohan! I’ll swap you my practically brand-new comic here for your tatty old Valiant with hardly any pages left.’

  ‘What’s your comic?’ asked Rohan. ‘Is it a Hotspur?’

  ‘No,’ Bill confessed. ‘No. It’s a Bunty.’

  Rohan just sniggered and went back to his comic. Clearly he thought it was just a good joke.

  Bill tried one last time.

  ‘Martin,’ he offered. ‘Will you swap with me as soon as you’ve finished that Victor?’

  Martin said:

  ‘Sure. What have you got there?’

  Bill said as softly as he could:

  ‘Bunty.’

  ‘What?’ Martin said. ‘What?’

  So Bill Simpson had to tell him all over again.

  Martin snorted.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘No thanks. I’ll swap mine with Melissa’s Beano instead.’

  And he went back to his reading.

  Bill blamed Mrs Collins, frankly. Though he couldn’t prove it, and wouldn’t dare ask, he firmly suspected that, if he had not been wearing the pretty pink frock, he would never have ended up with the Bunty. Mrs Collins could easily have arranged things some other way. She might have ordered Flora to give him the Dandy she was sitting on, to keep him going. Or she might have suggested to Rohan that Bill and he sit close together to read the Valiant at the same time.

  He couldn’t prove it – no, he couldn’t prove it. But he felt sore about it all the same.

  But clearly there was nothing to be done now. It was too late. Everyone else was reading quietly, and Mrs Collins didn’t look as if she would take at all kindly to any complaints. He could either waste the whole lunch break trying, completely in vain, to find someone who would trade their comic for his Bunty, or he could give up and just read the Bunty.

  He read the Bunty.

  And it wasn’t that bad. He read the story about the sneaky schoolteacher who switched the examination papers around so that her own spoilt and lazy daughter would win the one and only college place. He read the story about the brave orphan gypsy girl who led her lame pony carefully at night through a dangerous war zone. He was still quite absorbed in the very funny tale of three girls who had somehow found themselves responsible for an enormous hippopotamus with an even more enormous appetite, when a shadow fell over the page.

  Flora was holding out a Dandy.

  ‘Swap?’

  ‘In a minute. Let me finish this.’

  ‘Now or never,’ said Flora.

  ‘All right, then,’ said Bill.

  A little regretfully – he wouldn’t have minded finding out what the hippo ate next – Bill handed over his Bunty and took the Dandy. No sooner had he turned the first page than yet another shadow fell on him, and Rohan was standing at his side.

  ‘Here. You take this, and I’ll have that one.’

  In his hand, Rohan held a copy of June.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Bill, and he went back to his reading.

  ‘Come on,’ said Rohan. ‘Don’t be mean. Swap comics with me. I don’t want this one.’

  ‘I don’t want it either.’

  ‘You haven’t read it.’

  ‘I am reading this.’

  And Bill shook his Dandy in Rohan’s face.

  That was his first big mistake. His second big mistake was not moving fast enough when Rohan reached out and tried to snatch it.

  Rohan’s grip tightened over the top of the comic.

  ‘Let go of my Dandy!’

  ‘Don’t be so mean!’

  ‘Mean? Why should I give you my Dandy and take your rotten June?’

  ‘Because you might like it,’ said Rohan. ‘And I definitely won’t.’

  The penny dropped. It was the frock again. Bill couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t the morning been agonising enough? Now was even his lunch break going to be ruined because he just happened to be wearing this stupid, silly curse of a dress? If this was the sort of thing that kept happening to you if you came to school in a frilly pink frock, no wonder all the girls wore jeans!

  Bill Simpson had had quite enough.

  ‘Let go of my comic,’ he warned Rohan in a soft and dangerous voice. ‘Let go of it or I shall mash you.’

  In answer to this threat, Rohan tugged harder.

  The Dandy began to tear.

  ‘Let go!’ repeated Bill Simpson.

  Rohan pulled harder. Bill Simpson hit him. He clenched his fist and punched Rohan on the shoulder as hard as he could.

  Rohan yelped in pain, and dropped his half of the comic.

  Though his heart was thumping so fiercely his eyes couldn’t settle on the pictures, let alone read the print, Bill Simpson pretended he had calmly gone back to his Dandy.

  Until Rohan kicked out at him.

  In fact, his foot didn’t touch Bill at all. It tangled instead in the folds of the pretty pink dress. But it did leave a great, black criss-cross footprint on the flimsy material, and it was a kick.

  And Bill was furious. He leaped to his feet and started
hitting Rohan as hard as he could. Rohan put up his own fists to defend himself. And, within seconds, they were having a fight.

  The noise was tremendous. Everyone in the classroom started up at once – some asking who had started the fight, some egging on one side or another, some telling both of them to stop.

  Then, as the blows rained down on either side, everyone around fell silent. For this was the first really big fight ever seen in the classroom itself, and it was shocking. No one was ever surprised to see the odd, sly kick on someone’s ankle. Everyone had noticed the occasional deliberate tripping up, or hard nudge.

  But nothing like this. Not a real big fight. Never.

  It was Mrs Collins who put a stop to it. Striding across the room in a fury, she grasped both of them by the shoulder and hauled them apart.

  Both were scarlet with rage.

  ‘How dare you?’ shouted Mrs Collins. ‘How DARE you?’

  She was enraged, too. No one had ever seen her looking so angry. Her dark wet-break mood had turned so fierce she looked fit to kill. Her eyes were flashing, her nose had gone pointy, and her mouth had shrunk to a lemon-sucking sliver.

  ‘How dare you!’

  Rohan and Bill stood glowering at one another.

  ‘What is going on? Who started this fight?’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ snarled Rohan. ‘I didn’t start it.’

  ‘You did,’ snarled Bill, clenching his fists again. ‘You kicked me!’

  He showed the footprint on his pretty pink frock.

  ‘You punched me first,’ insisted Rohan, rubbing his shoulder hard to try to get sympathy from the bystanders.

  But Mrs Collins, for one, wasn’t impressed. She didn’t even appear to have heard what he said. She was busy leaning over to look at the footprint on Bill Simpson’s frock.

  ‘This is shocking, Rohan,’ she said. ‘Shocking! To leave a footprint as clear as this on the frock, you must have lashed out really hard with your foot.’

  ‘I was punched first!’

  But Rohan’s wailing did him no good. A look of scorn came over Mrs Collins’ face. Though she said nothing out loud, you could almost hear her thinking: How could a little thump on the shoulder from someone in a pretty pink frock excuse a great big kick from someone wearing solid, heavy, sensible shoes?

  So, thought Bill Simpson quietly to himself. There can be one advantage to wearing a frock.

  It didn’t last for long, though. She punished them both. She put them at neighbouring desks, and made them write Fighting is stupid and fighting is ugly in their best handwriting over and over again, till the bell rang.

  They sat with exactly the same sour look on their faces. Both were still furious at the unfairness of it all. To everyone else, they looked for all the world like a pair of scowling and bad-tempered twins.

  And every now and again, someone would tiptoe past and whisper in Rohan’s ear:

  ‘You look so angry.’

  But in Bill’s they whispered:

  ‘You look so upset.’

  6

  Letting Paul win

  As soon as the bell rang for the end of the lunch break, the sun began to shine again. It sailed out from silvery edges of cloud, and blazed over the playground.

  The puddles on the tarmac steamed gently, and then disappeared. The damp stains on the nursery wall dried. Sunlight reflected brightly off the rooftops.

  Mrs Collins stared out of the window, shaking her head in quiet disbelief. Then she turned to the class.

  ‘Pack up your work,’ she said. ‘I don’t care if lunch break is over. We’re going outside before it starts raining all over again.’

  The class was astonished. It wasn’t often Mrs Collins ignored the timetable on the back of the door. It was hard enough to get her to let them take time off to make decorations at Christmas and all the other festivals, or paint the back-cloth if they did a little play. Now here she was offering an hour or so in the sunshine without being asked.

  Nobody argued. They slid their books into neat piles, and put their pens and pencils and rubbers away.

  ‘Races!’ said Mrs Collins. ‘We’ll have a few races. We haven’t had races for such a long time.’

  They spilled down the steps out into the playground, and Mrs Collins led them quietly round to the back of the nursery where there was grass. Races were pleasanter on grass, and this patch was not even overlooked by classes still imprisoned in front of their work books.

  Out here they could have a really good time.

  The races came in every size and description, one after another, as fast as Mrs Collins could think them up. The light haired raced against the dark haired. The straight haired against the curly haired.

  ‘Those in frocks against those in trousers!’ roared Mrs Collins.

  She looked round. Only Bill had a frock on.

  ‘Forget it!’ called Mrs Collins. ‘That race is cancelled. Think of something else!’

  Someone did. Those wearing red raced against those wearing no red at all. Those who liked cats better than dogs raced against those who preferred dogs to cats. The first five in the class (in alphabetical order) raced against the next five, and so on and so on.

  The first few times he ran, Bill slowed himself up, trying to keep down the flapping sides of his dress. Then he stopped bothering. If he were in shorts, he wouldn’t mind, he decided. So why risk losing a good race just because he was haunted by a silly pink frock. He might be right back to normal tomorrow – but you could just bet there wouldn’t be races again!

  Soon everyone, not just Bill, felt much better. Their bodies unstiffened, their heads felt clearer, their spirits rose. Even Paul, who had a serious illness when he was a baby and could hardly run, scampered about, enjoying coming in last in the races.

  Mrs Collins had cheered up enormously too.

  ‘Those who have wheely-bins against those whose families put rubbish out in large plastic bags!’

  Everyone has rubbish. So everyone stood in line.

  ‘There are far too many again,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘We shall have to have heats.’

  As usual she divided them in fives, with one left over. This time it was Paul, so she sent him off in a heat of his own. He pranced along in his curious, loping fashion, and threw himself merrily over the finishing line.

  ‘I’m in the finals now! I won my heat!’

  Mrs Collins pushed the hair back from her face. She was hot.

  ‘Small break before this final,’ she called. ‘All of you stay here quietly while I slip inside for a moment. Whispering only!’

  And she hurried off to fetch a quick drink.

  Bill tucked the pink frock in tightly around his legs and lay back. The grass felt tickly under his arms and his neck. Above, the fat clouds sailed over an enormous sky. The cool breeze fanned his face. He felt perfectly happy.

  He heard Astrid whispering in his ear:

  ‘You’re in this final, aren’t you? You won your heat. So did I. So did Talilah and Kirsty.’

  ‘And Paul,’ Bill reminded Astrid. ‘He won his heat, too.’

  He narrowed his eyes against the sunlight to make them water and form rainbows between his eyelashes.

  ‘Kirsty will win,’ said Astrid. ‘She’s the best runner in the whole class. And I only won my heat because Nicky tripped.’

  ‘Races aren’t nearly so much fun,’ said Talilah, ‘when you know exactly who’s going to win.’

  ‘It must be much worse,’ whispered Kirsty, ‘if you’re someone like Paul, and know you’re going to lose.’

  ‘Paul can’t have won a race in his whole life!’

  Bill blinked the rainbows away. Now he was seeing shapes in clouds – a pig, a jug, a serpent with three heads, a wigwam.

  Beside him, the girls were in one of their huddles, still whispering away.

  ‘What if Paul did win, though?’

  ‘He’d be so thrilled.’

  ‘Wouldn’t his mum be pleased? She’s so nice. She sees me ov
er Blackheath Road every morning.’

  ‘She’d think we fixed it so her Paul won, though. And so would Paul.’

  ‘Not if we were clever.’

  ‘Not if we thought it out first, and made it look good.’

  Bill barely listened. He was distracted by the clouds still. He watched his three-headed serpent float over the wide sky overhead, and turn, slowly, slowly, into a giant wheelbarrow.

  The whispering at his side went on and on.

  Then:

  ‘Right,’ Kirsty said. ‘That’s settled.’

  She turned to Bill.

  ‘Now don’t forget,’ she whispered sternly. ‘Just as you’re reaching the finishing line, you get a really bad attack of stitch. You can’t go on. You let Paul go past you. You let Paul win, is that understood?’

  Bill took a last look at his cloud wheelbarrow. One of its handles was just floating away.

  ‘Right-ho,’ he agreed. It wasn’t exactly his idea of a really good race – letting Paul win. But that was girls for you, wasn’t it? Put them in a group and order them to whisper, and they’d be bound to come up with something like this.

  And what did it matter on such a lovely afternoon? If it would make Paul happy, let him win the race.

  ‘On your marks!’

  Mrs Collins strode round the corner. They jumped to their feet. Astrid looked horrified.

  ‘The back of your dress is covered with grass stains!’ she said to Bill. ‘And they’re the sort that never come out!’

  Bill shrugged, and made for the starting line. Paul was already there, hopping about with excitement. Astrid, Talilah and Kirsty took their places.

  ‘Get set!’

  Kirsty turned to Bill.

  ‘Bad luck, then,’ she whispered, and grinned.

  Bill winked back.

  ‘Go!’

  Talilah, Kirsty and Bill set off running. Paul shot away from the line in one of his extraordinary leaps. And as soon as he was a few feet ahead of Astrid, she fell tidily sideways and rolled on the ground, clutching her foot.

  ‘Oh, my ankle!’ she groaned – but softly, so that Paul would not overhear her, and turn back to help. ‘My ankle’s gone all wobbly. I can’t run at all.’