Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon

by Pamela Butchart

  “CAMILLA PANCETTA BROWN?”

  I couldn’t believe it. It worked!

  “CAMILLA? IS CAMILLA HERE?”

  “Yes! Yes! I’m here. That’s me! I’m Camilla!” said Cammy.

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “Peri, can you believe it?” she whispered. “It worked!”

  I wanted to ask why she hadn’t bothered to change the “Pancetta” bit (since pancetta is basically bacon) but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. I’m a good friend like that.

  After the whole “Ugly Pigeon” and “Hacker” dramas, things settled down for a couple of weeks, and me and Cammy spent most of our time working on band ideas!

  Mr Dolderer’s Chemistry class turned out to be a PERFECT place to work on our official band plans after we discovered a series of ancient instructions in an old textbook. The instructions were the kind you KNOW you really shouldn’t follow because you’re OBVIOUSLY being led into a trap by some smelly kid from 1995 who probably sat in the same seat you do now, licking the pages.

  But everyone ALWAYS follows the instructions (even though they pretend they don’t). I’m not really sure why everyone does it; I mean, it’s not like they don’t know what’s going to happen. I guess it’s just a case of dazzlingly stupid curiosity, like when you touch the side of a BOILING HOT plate to see if it’s hot almost immediately after the waitress has placed it down on the table in front of you and said, “Please be careful with the plate, it’s BOILING HOT.”

  In case you’re not familiar with the kind of “Textbook Instructions” to which I am referring, please see below:

  Imagine you have just opened your textbook and turned to page six. At the bottom of page six, someone has scrawled: “Turn to page 18.”

  So you turn to page 18, even though you know you probably shouldn’t.

  And on page 18 someone has written: “Turn to page 56.”

  And then: “Turn to page 103.”

  And so on, and so on.

  Until (after twenty or so pointless page turns) you reach the final page only to find the word: “SUCKER.”

  And that’s basically it.

  So a few weeks ago in Chemistry, Mr Dolderer handed me and Cammy what I am convinced must be the oldest textbook in the school. Part of the front cover pretty much dissolved in my hand as I held it, that’s how old it was.

  We were so shocked by the oldness of the textbook that we decided to search inside to find out just how old it actually was. And that’s when we discovered that it was published in 1989! An antique!

  Cammy rushed to the sink, put on a pair of rubber gloves and began turning the pages of the antique book VERY carefully. And then we found what we are convinced is the first EVER example of the “Turn to Page…” instruction game.

  We followed the instructions, turning a LOT more pages than you usually have to when you’re playing this game, and then Cammy turned to me and said, “I think this is a real one, Peri.”

  And I just KNEW that she was right, and that there was actually going to be some sort of SOMETHING at the end of this one.

  And there was.

  And it wasn’t a ten-pound note taped to the page.

  And it wasn’t the answer to the meaning of life.

  It was better.

  It was basically a “Get Out of Chemistry” pass!!!

  On the last page of the antique textbook, someone had drawn a tiny diagram showing the perfect seats to sit in if you wanted to avoid the eyes of Mr Dolderer. There was even a calculation next to the diagram showing how Mr Dolderer was too blind to see the last row of seats to the left of the room. Someone had even drawn beams coming out of Mr Dolderer’s eyes and scrawled mathematical equations next to them calculating the impossibility of his weak eyes being able to see the last two seats in the back row on the left.

  Wonderfully, there was also a list of questions we could ask Mr Dolderer, such as, “Which is your favourite element and why?”, which were apparently guaranteed to keep Mr Dolderer muttering away to himself for twenty-plus minutes while you had a snooze or got on with more important things.

  So, since me and Cammy have Mr Dolderer three times a week, it only took us a couple of Chemistry lessons to come up with

  Cammy said that every time she watches one of those TV talent shows, the judges are always going on about looking for The Next Big Thing, and that this was EXACTLY what WE needed to be. But it wasn’t as easy as that. I mean:

  Number 1: Me and Cammy had no idea what The Next Big Thing was.

  Number 2: We didn’t seem to like the same music as each other.

  Number 3: We couldn’t play any instruments.

  Number 1 (Discussed during “Lesson 1 of Freedom from Mr Dolderer”)

  Cammy said that we’d need to find out what was “cool” at the moment so that we could get a better idea of what TNBT would be.

  That’s when I told her I was sure to the power of 1000 that we would probably be some of the last people in the school to find out what was cool and that by the time we had, it wouldn’t even be cool any more. And that’s when we realised that we didn’t really want our band to be cool in a way that appealed to EVERYONE, and that we’d much rather be UNIQUE (which we’re pretty good at) and have a small number of fans who really “got” our music. Cammy called them our “following”.

  Number 2 (Discussed during “Lesson 1.5 of Freedom from Mr Dolderer”)

  Once we’d decided that our band was going to be unique, it was time to decide what our musical style would be.

  “I think we should probably figure out what instruments we’re going to play first,” I suggested. “You know, so we don’t end up deciding to be a flute-playing rock and roll band.”

  But Cammy said that that was the EXACT OPPOSITE of what we should do (since we were trying to be unique) and that we should make the instruments “work for us” and not the other way around (whatever that means), and then she wrote down “Flute-Playing Rock Band”, which made me laugh.

  Then we decided that we should each write a list of our favourite bands and songs and then compare them to see the similarities.

  It turned out there were SOME similarities, but those were mostly songs we both liked from when we were little. But what Cammy said she was much more interested in was what she called the “Key Difference” between our lists.

  “You clearly prefer SLOWER songs,” she explained. “I like really fast beats.”

  So to begin with we decided that our album would consist of five “slow” and five “fast” tracks. But then we had an even BETTER idea! We came up with the idea that WITHIN each song we would keep changing the speed from fast to slow; THAT would definitely be unique!

  Number 3 (Discussed during “Lesson 2 of Freedom from Mr Dolderer”)

  Deciding which instruments we would each learn to play turned out to be the easiest and quickest Official Band Decision.

  I went first and said that I’d always wanted to learn to play the keyboard, like my dad used to, and learn how to do all the awesome sound effects.

  That’s when Cammy said, “I support you in your decision to learn to play an unusual and unconventional instrument.”

  I didn’t think the keyboard was very unusual or unconventional at all!

  Then she said, “I hope you will be as supportive of me as I have been of your choice of instrument.”

  And that’s when I knew she was going to say something BANANAS that stretched far beyond UNIQUE into “OH WOW” (in a bad way). So I prepared myself for her to declare that she had chosen to play the world’s largest harp or one of those huge, vampire-ish organs with all the pipes that you get in churches. So when Cammy said she wanted to play the BONGO DRUMS I was very pleasantly surprised. The bongos are AWESOME!

  More Official Band Decisions that were made in Chemistry class that week were:

  We needed a third band member to play the spoons, because we DEFINITELY wanted to be called “The Spoons” (to add to our “uniqueness”).*

&nbs
p; I was going to use my dad’s old keyboard and Cammy was going to make her own bongo drums using instructions she’d found on the Internet.

  As well as being “unique” we needed to come up with a USP (ASAP!)**

  We had to secure a venue for our first live performance.

  We had to start practising!

  * I was not entirely convinced that having a spoon-player was the way to go, but agreed for the following reasons: (1) I liked the band name “The Spoons” (2) If I agreed to the spoon-playing I was allowed to say NO WAY to any other suggestion Cammy had – complete power! (3) I was 100% sure we wouldn’t find a spoon-player at Fortress Academy.

  ** Cammy assured me that USP stands for “Unique Selling Point” and not a disease we’d learned about in Social Ed, as I had feared.

  Once we’d decided we needed a third, spoon-playing, member for our band, Cammy wasted NO TIME AT ALL putting up a note on the Pupil Notice Board advertising this “Outstanding Opportunity”. She even attached two REAL SPOONS to the note, to make sure it got attention (which it did).

  By morning break that day, someone had ripped the spoons off the notice and written on it, “People Who Stick Spoons to Notices ARE spoons! GET A LIFE! HA HA HA HA!” But even though our poster had been utterly defaced (probably by Year 10s, who seemed to live for this sort of thing) Cammy had a giant grin on her face.

  And that’s when I noticed (to my shock and slight horror!) that two of the little “tear-off” strips with the time, date and place of the spoon audition were gone.

  That night, Cammy came over to my house so that we could start to write songs for our album.

  Cammy said we should each sit in a MEDITATIVE POSITION and let our current mood POUR OUT on to the page. And that WHATEVER came out we HAD to go with it – no changes. Because that way it would be more REAL.

  And then Cammy said that that was exactly what her mum did when she was writing poetry, and all of a sudden I had this strange fear that Cammy’s mum had maybe been one of the two people who had taken a little rip-off strip from our notice.

  So anyway, I found us a writing pad each, and then sat down and started to write anything I could think of. I was trying my hardest to make it sound like the kind of stuff you maybe hear in a song, like “Today is the day of all the days”, and “Stand up and show off your smiling hat” and all that. And to be honest, I felt like it was actually WORKING. I mean, I was probably in one of the best moods I’d been in since term had begun.

  After a month at Fortress, things were eventually starting to “look-up”, “improve” and even start to “be-much-less-horrific-than-the-beginning-of-the-term-when-Jessica-called-me-an-ugly-pigeon”.

  As soon as I saw Cammy in registration the next day I knew something bad had happened. I’d already spotted two poopulars sniggering at the back of the room and Cammy looked as if she’d been crying.

  “Cammy, what’s wrong? Did they say something to you?” I asked as I sat down and gave one of the poopulars my best “go lick a snail” face.

  “Nothing’s wrong! Look at these!”

  Cammy began eagerly showing me all of the songs she’d written when she’d gone home last night, and then she explained how some of them were so good that she’d been “moved to tears”.

  Then she pointed at me and said, “You’ve got something on your shirt.”

  I looked down and saw the BIGGEST chocolate milk stain EVER.

  The poopulars burst out laughing when Cammy began trying to rub it off with a tissue. That’s when I realised it had been ME they’d been sniggering about earlier, not Cammy. And in that moment I cursed the curse of the Ugly Pigeon. But just then a boy I’d never seen before walked in and handed Mr Burton a note. And then he SMILED at me!

  OK, so you’re probably thinking, “Yeah, of COURSE he smiled at you – you looked like you’d been pooped on.” But it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t smiling in THAT way, he was smiling in an ACTUALLY SMILING way.

  Before I could even think about whether or not to ask Cammy if she knew who the boy was, Mr Burton told us that Year 7 had been called to attend an emergency assembly.

  Everyone groaned and started getting up REALLY slowly, because we’ve been called to LOADS of these emergency assemblies so far this term (ALL of which have been about “crazes”) and we’ve only been here for four weeks!

  What usually happens is the head teacher stands on stage and warns us all not to take part in the latest craze, then demands that it “must end today or else!” But I really DO NOT understand why he does this, because clearly all the assembly does is actually SPREAD the craze even further.

  I think the crazes are a “term one thing” where people who aren’t as brilliantly unique as me and Cammy just want to copy whatever everyone else is doing so that they can fit in and avoid getting an Ugly Pigeon drawn on their locker.

  When I told my mum about all the assemblies she said that the head is probably just trying to avoid a dangerous and violent “gang culture” starting in the school, which made me burst out laughing because one of the first (and most ridiculous) crazes was actually started by Cammy by mistake (and I can’t really picture her as some sort of gang leader).

  We were in the cafeteria and Cammy was half asleep because she’d been up all night mapping the planets and discussing alien life forms with her mum. Anywayyyyyyyyy … she was so tired that she kind of went all weird and started dipping her pizza in her milkshake (by mistake!). A few people must’ve spotted this and started copying Cammy and chatting about it because later that day we were all called to an emergency assembly.

  The next thing you know, people started dipping all sorts of things: sandwiches, hot dogs, and I even saw one boy make a kind of meatloaf-float thing. That’s when the dinner ladies complained that we were all “animals”, refused to serve us and went on strike, and we all got a letter home about “dipping”.

  One of the best crazes to have hit Fortress so far was “Eggy Language”. This is where you take the first letter of a word, add the word “egg” to it and then attach the rest of the word. Let me “eggify” a sentence to show you what I mean:

  Please stop using the metre sticks as swords.

  This becomes:

  Pegglease seggtop ueggsing tegghe meggetre seggticks aeggs seggwords.

  It took a bit of practice to get right, but after about a week we were all pretty fluent in Egg. In fact, Eggy Language got so big that it actually started to feel a bit weird when you tried to speak normally.

  The teachers soon started to get REALLY annoyed at us. Mrs Rena, who teaches French, said that she could “NOT understand how we could have all more or less taught ourselves a foreign language in less than a week, but were still unable to master the simple basics of French after two years”.

  So that’s when Bobby Hammer said, “That’s because French is stupid.” And got sent to the head’s office.

  To be fair, Bobby had a point. I mean, it doesn’t matter how many times Mrs Rena tries to explain it to me, I DO NOT understand how a sofa can possibly be a “he” and a table a “she”. I prefer my furniture to be genderless.

  The major danger with crazes is that they can change mega-quick.

  Like the time in Year 6 when wearing headbands became pretty much compulsory. And then swapping headbands became the new “wearing headbands”.

  Just about this time, I went on holiday during term-time because of a “family issue” that wasn’t so much a “family issue” as it was a “holidays-are-cheaper-during-term-time-issue” and Mum just wrote a letter of lies and made me give it to my teacher. (Who then patted me on the shoulder and made a sad face.)

  So anyway, we went to Spain on holiday and it was OK-ish.

  Please see the following breakdown of events:

  Good Points

  I didn’t have to go to school.

  I didn’t have to do Maths (well, actually that’s not technically true, because at least forty times a day Mum would ask me, “How much is this in real money?�
�� And I’d have to work it out for her.

  I got a bit of a tan.

  I touched a fish in the sea.

  Bad Points

  I had to share a room with Mum and Dad.

  I was “force-friended” by my mum into spending every evening with an eight-year-old Welsh girl who was OBSESSED with horses and kept trying to get me to draws loads and give them names.

  My parents drank WAY too much sangria and did loads of embarrassing stuff, like laughing.

  Mum sang on the karaoke (a lot).

  I got burned on my left hand really badly and it grew to twice its normal size and stayed like that for the whole holiday. So every time Mum or Dad went to take a picture of me, I had to think fast and do something to hide my hand.

  But the absolute BEST thing happened on the very last day.

  I found this shop near the hotel that had these really cool headbands with elephants and parrots and geckos hand-painted on them. And they were HUGE.

  So I got one for me and one for Cammy, and decided that maybe we should join in this “wearing/swapping headbands” thing but, you know, in a different, “gecko-dancing-with-a-leopard” kind of way.

  So I turned up to school on Monday wearing my new awesome “arty” headband and noticed that people were staring at me. Really staring at me. I obviously assumed that the reason for this was because they were in AWE of my unique coolness, and that they were all itching to swap with me.

  But when class started, Rachel Walker refused to sit next to me and had to be moved. I had no idea why. But then Cammy sent me a text from under her desk that said: LOSE THE HEADBAND ASAP. NITS OUTBREAK.