Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon

by Pamela Butchart

  So, after the whole “being-crowned-U.P. thing” by the horrible girls in our year, that’s when me and Cammy made a pact that no matter how mean, giggly-ly, hair-straightener-y and BORING all the girls in our year became under Jessica’s rule, we would NOT run home and put our mum’s make-up on or burn fantastic and helpful legwear. We would resist.

  Cammy called it “having bones”. Which I think means the same as “having guts”. It’s sometimes hard to understand Cammy. She’s a bit weird – in a good way (well, most of the time).

  Then Cammy made us both sign the “Declaration of Self Independence”, which said stuff like:

  We will be ourselves and stay EXACTLY the same as we were in primary school.

  We will still do ALL the fun things we’ve always done (Metal Detector Tuesdays, for example, will live on forever!).

  We will NOT wear lip gloss, straighten our hair or use fancy shampoo (but we will wear deodorant).

  We will refer to the “populars” as the “poopulars”.

  We will do whatever we want, just like we always have, even if it’s not what other people do.

  We will never EVER stop being best friends and we will never EVER let anything or anyone break the band of our friendship!

  The moment I signed it Cammy literally started screaming. I looked up and saw that she was smiling and tugging her hair (yes, I’m aware that this is not normal behaviour, but that’s just Cammy). But I knew EXACTLY what was happening. Cammy had just had a FANTASTICALABULOUS idea (which is what we call ideas when words like “fantastic” and “brilliant” just aren’t enough).

  I could see that Cammy was struggling to verbalise the idea. Her mouth was trying to do – well, something, and her arms were waving all over the place. This idea was BIG.

  “You OK, Cammy?” I asked, trying to remember the first-aid training we’d had in Year 6. But then all of a sudden Cammy grabbed a pen and started DRAWING ON HER BEDROOM WALL. That’s how serious this was.

  I watched as she manically scrawled over her Harry Potter wallpaper. At first I thought she might write, “HELP! I’M CHOKING!” but she didn’t. She began drawing what looked like a fried egg on Dumbledore’s forehead. Then she began merging his eyes together and giving them legs. And that’s when I realised she was drawing a guitar. But it wasn’t until she turned Harry’s scar into a saxophone (Cammy is quite skilled with a marker pen) that I realised what her FANTASTICALABULOUS idea was.

  She wanted us to start a band!

  Cammy and I weren’t always best friends. I mean, we were always friends but we never used to be proper (capital letters) Best Friends.

  It happened during a Year 5 school trip to see the worst film in the world. That was the day our best friendshipness was sealed.

  Cammy says it was fate, but I’m pretty certain it was the cheese.

  Note to reader: Cammy’s full name is Camembert. In case you don’t know, Camembert is also the name of a rather stinkful French cheese (Cammy’s mum’s a bit weird).

  Sometimes people make fun of Cammy, like the time she did Show and Tell in the style of an opera, rather than just saying it in a normal voice like everyone else. But that’s just Cammy.

  Cammy doesn’t usually care if people at school laugh at her. The only thing that REALLY upsets her is when people make fun of her full name. Being called Camembert never used to bother her that much (probably because most people in Year 5 don’t know what it is). But that all changed the day Robb Silverman caused a “scene” at the cinema.

  OK, so what happened is our old teacher (Mr Fran) wanted us to see “history in action” so he took us all to some film about the Victorians (which was terrible). The only good thing about going on the trip was that Mr Fran had said we could bring snacks with us (and I LOVE snacks).

  Mum never buys good snacks like chocolate or popcorn unless it’s a special occasion (like Christmas, my birthday or when she’s ready to “take her boss’s life”). But for some strange, unknown reason, this trip to the cinema to see an educational film was deemed by Mum to be a “special occasion”. I thought this was a bit weird, but hey, why argue!

  So anyway, Cammy brought snacks too. However, Cammy’s mum is a bit of a foodie and likes really weird things like olives and anchovies, and she absolutely loves CAMEMBERT CHEESE. And (unfortunately) this food-weirdness has rubbed off on Cammy.

  So when the film started Cammy pulled a full cheeseboard out of her bag (it even had a little bunch of grapes on the side!). And as soon as she cut into the Camembert, this terrible, sweet-yet-pungently-horrid smell escaped. Cammy didn’t seem to notice. But Robb Silverman did. He was sitting in front of us and he started screaming, “OH MY GOD! Was that you? WAS THAT YOU?!” to the boy sitting next to him.

  Then all the boys started blaming each other, and holding their noses, while Cammy just sat there slicing away, completely unaware that the smell was coming from her.

  That’s when Mr Fran came rushing up the steps to see what all the fuss was about, and told everyone to “Pipe down!”

  And then he said, “Stop it! It’s just Camembert. Camembert’s a smelly cheese.” And then he pointed RIGHT AT CAMMY.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Why didn’t he just take Cammy’s cheese knife and stab her in the back with it?

  That would have been less painful!

  Robb Silverman and the rest of the boys stared at Mr Fran with their mouths wide open. And then they all looked at Cammy and burst out laughing.

  For weeks after that everyone held their nose when Cammy walked past them in the corridor, and burst out laughing when her name was read out on the register and chanted “Sme-lly-CHEESE! Sme-lly CHEESE!” at her at least fifty times a day.

  You see, the tragic thing was that Robb Silverman and the rest of the boys didn’t realise that Mr Fran had been talking about the CHEESE being smelly. They thought Mr Fran had actually called CAMMY a smelly cheese!

  Mr Fran became quite popular after that, and when we were getting off the bus that day, Robb Silverman patted him on the back and called him a “legend”.

  And to make a really bad situation even worse, Mr Fran took being called a “legend” the wrong way, and I guess he felt all “inspired” or something because the next week he took us all to see a THREE-HOUR-LONG play about “Roman times”. But thankfully this time Cammy just took an apple.

  So anyway, on the bus going home after the “incident” I decided to take Cammy’s mind off the fact that Robb Silverman kept squeezing his face between the space in the seats in front of us and whispering, “I bet your feet smell like Cheddar, don’t they?” I did this by deciding to share a secret with her that I had never shared with anyone.

  That’s when I told Cammy that my real name is Petunia, and that through a series of (bizarre but fortunate) events, I’d managed to hide it from everyone for years.

  “But Petunia’s a nice name,” Cammy whispered when I told her.

  “So is Camembert,” I lied.

  “No it’s not,” she said. “It’s a cheese, Peri. But thanks.” And she was right, so I just smiled and didn’t say anything.

  “So,” whispered Cammy, looking excited. “Tell me how you’ve kept it a secret!” And then she pushed our jackets into the space between the seats in front to block out Robb Silverman’s face.

  I told Cammy that on the first day of primary school three things happened:

  1 I was permanently crushed (emotionally) by one of the office ladies.

  2 I was saved from a life of “Petunia” name-bullying by the very same office lady.

  3 I ended up being called “Peri Perry”, which, obviously, means I sometimes get weird looks.

  I’d been sent to the office to collect the “First Ever New Reception Register”. Our teacher, Mr Kenny, had said that I was very lucky to be chosen for such a Big Responsibility on the first day of school and he pointed down the hall towards the office and then shut the classroom door and totally abandoned me. I was terrified. I wasn’t RE
ADY for a Big Responsibility. I was only five years old for grapes’ sake! I didn’t even know HOW to collect the register from the office.

  I somehow managed to fumble my way down the corridor and find the office. But when I got there I couldn’t reach up to the glass door bit where the office ladies were because I was too small. So I just stood there for about ten minutes before I eventually worked up the courage to knock on the wall underneath the glass window.

  That’s when the office lady who would scar me for life stuck her head out and peered down at me. And that’s when I saw that she had a VERY weird eye.

  I was already pretty fragile, having been given the scary responsibility and then abandoned by my teacher and everything, so when I saw the weird eye I just lost it and started bawling.

  Weird-eye woman picked me up, pulled me right through the window into the office and sat me on her lap. I thought she was going to eat me.

  “What’s wrong, petal?” she asked.

  Well, I couldn’t tell her, could I?

  So I just kept crying.

  “What’s your name, sweet pea?”

  But I refused to tell her. If she knew my name she’d be able to find me if I escaped.

  But she wouldn’t give up.

  “Why won’t you tell me your name, honey?”

  So that’s when I began REALLY crying. You know, the kind of crying when you can’t catch a breath and it sounds a bit like you’re drowning in your own saliva, and before I even realised it I’d shouted, “No! Not my name. You can’t know my name!”

  “Is there something wrong with your name, darling?” weird-eye woman asked, looking concerned. “Is that why you’re crying?”

  I nodded that it was. I couldn’t tell her it was the eye.

  It worked. She released her grasp and sat me on the seat next to her. “OK, let me take a little look at your class register,” she said as she began typing on her computer, and then she turned the screen to me and said, “Oh. This must be you. Is your name Petunia?”

  I couldn’t believe it. She was a witch.

  “That’s why you’re crying, isn’t it? Mr Kenny sent you to get the new Reception register. But you’re scared that everyone is going to find out you’re called Petunia and that they’ll bully you because of your name, aren’t you?”

  I was stunned. I had NOT been worried about that at all! I didn’t even know there was something wrong with my name! I was crushed. Scarred for life.

  “Well, don’t you worry, petal. I’ll put a little note on the computer register next to your name that says not to call you Petunia. Now, let’s see. What’s short for Petunia? Hmmmm. Petty? No. Tunia? No, definitely not. What about Peri? It’s not perfect, but it’s a nice enough name. OK?”

  I nodded that it was OK. I was still in shock.

  “Good. I’ll say that due to ‘emotional reasons’ the teachers should never, ever call you Petunia. There. Done. Now you don’t have to worry about that ever again, Peri.”

  So I walked back to class, with a new name and a printout of the amended register.

  Cammy looked confused. And then she said, “You’d think she would’ve changed your first name to something else so that you weren’t called Peri Perry, wouldn’t you?”

  But before I could answer Cammy gasped and raised her hands to her mouth.

  “Her weird eye!” she whispered. “She didn’t notice your surname!”

  And I nodded that she was correct.

  And it was on that fateful, cheesy day in Year 5 that Cammy and I officially became best friends, bonded by the pain of our weird names.

  By some miracle, when we moved up to secondary school, Robb Silverman (and a lot of the other boys/disgustoids who’d witnessed the “Camembert’s a Smelly Cheese” incident) went to a different school from us (probably one that specialises in boys with “problems”). And AMAZINGLY, by the time we started at Fortress, everybody else from our old school seemed to forget about the whole “Camembert” thing.

  So that’s when Cammy decided that there was NO WAY anyone at our new school could EVER find out that her real name was Camembert, because then someone would bring up the whole “Camembert’s a smelly cheese” thing again.

  Cammy calls it her Deep, Dark Secret. To be honest with you, I don’t really think that Cammy’s secret is THAT much of a big deal. I mean, it’s pretty bad, but it’s not “I eat seagull sandwiches” bad. But I would NEVER tell Cammy that. I mean, even though Cammy is usually completely and utterly oblivious to what people think of her, her Deep, Dark Secret REALLY bothers her. To use Cammy’s exact words, she once said, “If anyone at Fortress ever finds out, I’ll be forced to shave my head to divert their attention.”

  And I’m 100% sure that would work, but I don’t really want her to be bald. So, to avoid anyone hearing Cammy’s full name being read out in class, me and Cammy decided to have coughing/sneezing fits every time the teacher did the register.

  That worked for the first two days at Fortress, but by day three our throats were hurting and people had started to move away from us in class. And I’m pretty sure I heard a rumour going round that me and Cammy had the plague.

  Our situation reached breaking point when I had to spontaneously scream in the middle of Maths when one of the office ladies turned up at class and began to ask for Cammy by her full name.

  We needed a new plan.

  Cammy tried crying outside the school office, but instead of taking pity on her like Weird-Eye had done to me in Reception, they just sent her to the nurse.

  So I suggested that we ask Cammy’s mum to legally change her name, because I’d seen a programme that said as long as you paid a fee, you were allowed to change your name to anything you wanted (which is awesome, and means you could change your name to Cheese on Toast if you wanted, and it would be completely legal and everything!). But Cammy said that her mum wouldn’t let her do that, and also that it would really hurt her feelings if she asked.

  So, since I knew there was really nothing else we could do, I tried to cheer Cammy up by reminding her of the time we found the list of “Possible Baby Names” in her mum’s favourite book, The Super in Superstition. I think my favourite possibility was Garlic.

  Seriously.

  GARLIC.

  If that isn’t grounds for murdering your parents in self-defence, then what is?!

  But, unfortunately, Cammy could not be cheered. She said that she might as well be called Garlic because at least Garlic was “cooler” than Camembert because of garlic bread.

  I didn’t really agree with her on that one, but I decided not to say anything because I personally don’t know what it’s like to live with the fear of everyone chanting “Smelly Cheese” in your face.

  But then on day four everything changed.

  Cammy heard a rumour in her Latin class that there was this boy in Year 10 who was a “hacker” and that he could hack into the school’s computer system and change things like a bad grade or a bad report before it was sent home (for the very reasonable fee of £20).

  I didn’t think £20 was a very reasonable fee at all, but Cammy said that you can’t negotiate with criminals. And that we shouldn’t try because The Hacker could be extremely dangerous. So Cammy made me give her all my pocket money (and some of my savings!) and together with her money (£2.75!) we had enough for the fee.

  But then there was a problem. We didn’t know who The Hacker was or how to find him because he had to keep his identity a secret. So we decided we’d ask someone in Year 10, and after being ignored by twelve people, flicked on the back of the head by four and handed a piece of used chewing gum by one, someone eventually felt sorry for us and answered our question.

  This is what we found out:

  Step 1: If you want The Hacker to do something for you, you have to go to the library and find a book called Cement: A Complete Guide.

  Step 2: You write your message on a Post-it note in invisible ink (using the invisible-ink pen, which is buried in the plant pot next to t
he shelf) and then stick it on the last page of the book. Then put the book back on the shelf.

  Step 3: Wait until 3.30pm. If The Hacker has decided to help you, there will be a note in the back of the book.

  So we did that, and then we waited until the end of the day. Then as soon as the bell rang we ran to the library and opened the book.

  And there was a note:

  Dear C,

  Accepted.

  Please insert £20 into the bag provided.

  Give to my assistant, who will be browsing in the history section. She will be wearing a red hat.

  Once payment is received your request shall be processed within 2 hours.

  Destroy this note.

  We looked up and saw a tiny girl wearing a red ladybird hat and mittens. She only looked about nine years old!

  We walked over quickly and handed her the money. She inspected it carefully for ages, and then she put the bag in her mitten and whispered, “Note?”

  I pointed to Cammy, and Cammy opened her mouth and showed her.

  “Excellent,” whispered the ladybird girl. “Now, go.” So we did.

  The next day, me and Cammy sat sweating in registration. Our registration teacher had just read out “James Baxter” and Cammy was next.

  “Maybe we should just cough anyway?” I said. “In case it’s a scam?”

  But Cammy just shook her head and gripped my hand even tighter under the desk. Her hand was sweating. Or maybe it was mine. It was hard to tell.

  That’s when I started to feel like everything had slowed down, and that Mr Burton was reading out the names in slooooooooow mooooooootion. I had to shut my eyes because I felt like I was going to pass out. And then he said it: