Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon

by Pamela Butchart

  It turned out that while I was gone, all this headband-swapping had led to a serious head-lice epidemic.

  Typical.

  So for about two weeks after that everyone avoided me like the plague since I was the last one to be seen wearing a “Nit Band”.

  Note to reader: I am aware that I have been talking about crazes for a long time without actually telling you what THIS assembly was about. My apologies. I think I have been subconsciously trying to avoid thinking about what happened next.

  Now you will see why.

  You ready?

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT (THE ONE MILLIONTH “EMERGENCY” ASSEMBLY)

  This is when everything started to go wrong (bandwise).

  The head teacher got up on stage and asked for silence. He then began explaining that crime (specifically THEFT) would not be tolerated at Fortress Academy.

  I sat there wondering what had been stolen, assuming it must’ve been something quite serious, like someone’s purse or one of the school laptops or something.

  I was utterly and completely shocked when he said: “Stealing any form of utensil from the school cafeteria is a serious offence and will be dealt with very firmly indeed. I would hope that the person responsible for the recent theft will return the items before the end of day. Otherwise I will have no choice but to contact the authorities.”

  Cammy gripped my hand so tight I yelped.

  LOADS of people turned round and stared at me. Then the head teacher looked right at me and said, “Young lady, do you have something to say?”

  And then EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the assembly turned round.

  I felt my face burning. I wanted to turn and look at Cammy for help, but I literally couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I just sat there until the head teacher eventually said: “You are all dismissed. Except for you, young lady.” He pointed at me. “I’d like a quick word with you in my office.”

  Then all of a sudden a prefect was escorting me to the head’s office.

  I sat outside and waited for the head teacher to call me in. I actually had no idea what was going on. It had all happened so quickly!

  There had clearly been some sort of misunderstanding. I hadn’t stolen ANYTHING! Surely he would believe me? He might even laugh a little. Maybe he’s not as stuffy as he seems when he’s doing assemblies.

  “Ms Perry, do come in.”

  Or maybe he is.

  He made me sit there while he ignored me and talked to someone on the phone about paper for half an hour. By the time he put the phone down I wasn’t really scared that I was in the head’s office any more; I was bored. It felt like I’d been there FOREVER.

  And then he started talking about the spoons. SPOONS! I couldn’t help it, I actually burst out laughing when I realised that this was all about the two teaspoons Cammy had taped to our band notice. My God, this man seriously has WAY too much time on his hands. Spoon crime. That’s what important to him. SPOON CRIME! Not finding some way to raise school funds so that pupils don’t have to learn about Science from books that probably state the world is flat. No. Spoons. And paper, apparently.

  “This is no laughing matter, Ms Perry,” said the head.

  For a second I was feeling so annoyed (and a bit brave) that I thought I might actually say how stupid I found this whole situation, and maybe even point out that he had WASTED over half an hour of my education by making me sit here while he FINALLY made a decision between thirty or forty ruled lines per page of A4 paper.

  But I didn’t. Obviously. I’m not THAT stupid.

  Then he asked me if I’d taken the spoons. That’s when I decide to take the blame. This man was clearly going to punish whoever had taken his precious spoons. And there was no way Cammy would survive prison (or a detention).

  So I explain that I had BORROWED two teaspoons, and attached them to our notice, and that someone had then ripped them off and written all over it.

  He looked at me blankly for ages, and then he said, “Is this a joke? Do you think you’re being funny, Ms Perry?”

  I was speechless.

  He continued.

  “Do you expect me to believe that a person would tape two spoons to a notice, let alone be advertising for a SPOON-player in the first place?”

  To be fair to him, he had a point. It WAS a pretty unique thing to do (which was kind of the point).

  “And what about the rest of the stolen spoons?” he asked.

  My confused face must’ve said it all, because after that he stopped asking me questions and said:

  “Fine. I would like you to go back to class now. But before you do, please be assured that I have my eye on you and this very conveniently named band of yours. Please collect a double detention slip from Mrs Segar on your way out. Good day.”

  And you know what? I just took the detention. It seemed like the easy way out of, well, whatever this was!

  Cammy had bitten off most of her nails by the time I got to Geography.

  She listened intently as I explained about the weirdness of the head teacher, and about how he didn’t seem to believe me when I told him about the notice and our need for a spoon-player, and also what he said about keeping an eye on our band.

  I chose to leave out the bit about the detention because I didn’t want Cammy to start crying again, or offering to dress up as me and go in my place. She already felt too guilty. “I can’t believe you said it was you!” she said. “You could’ve been EXPELLED!”

  “But I wasn’t, OK? Just forget about it.”

  But Cammy would NEVER forget about it; she’s sweet (and sometimes quite annoying) like that.

  And then she reached over and gave me a hug.

  “Thanks, Peri.”

  I thought about how I’d almost stood up to that crazy spoon-tyrant of a head teacher and saved my best friend, and it made me feel all, I don’t know, hero-like, I suppose.

  And then Mr Phart (yes, his name is Mr Phart. And yes, you say it like you say fart) started actually SHOUTING at us for chatting (he is an overreactor).

  So that’s when me and Cammy decided to silently protest against his shouty behaviour by finishing our work really quickly and then spending the rest of the lesson making the “Worst Subjects (with detailed justification) List”. We both agreed that Geography should be at the top.

  Please see the following reasons:

  Reason 1: Geography involves Mr Phart.

  Reason 2: He is OBSESSED with the Netherlands.

  Reason 3: He wears sandals (with socks)

  Reason 4: On our very first week at Fortress, he gave me and Cammy a punishment exercise when he found our sketches of “The Phart Collection of Sandals for Men” in the back of my notepad.

  I was gutted when he ripped those sketches out. We’d worked really hard on them!

  The Phart Winter Sandal (for men):

  This snazzy sandal has built-in snow grips and is finished in luxurious faux fur. Guaranteed to keep those hairy tootsies toasty during the cold winter months.

  The Phart Air Blade Sandal (for men):

  Fitted with a state-of-the-art Toe Fan™, these sandals are perfect for sweaty feet and bothersome cheese-toes.

  And my personal favourite:

  The Luxury Limited Edition Phart Sandal (for men):

  This super-sandal has specially designed built-in socks (one size fits all). Choose from the following fabulous colours: grey, greyer, greyest and off-white.

  The day after Mr Phart found our sketches, he came to school wearing actual shoes.

  He looked massively uncomfortable walking in them, like he’d never worn shoes in his life and wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. They squeaked, which didn’t help, and he kept shooting me and Cammy dirty looks, as if it was OUR fault HIS shoes were squeaking (which I suppose, to be fair, it was in a way).

  I felt a bit guilty to begin with, but then I started to think about how we’d probably done him a favour. I mean, it’s kind of like when I was eight and Mum threatened to sew my dummy to
my school jumper if I didn’t give it up once and for all (yes, I am well aware that eight years old is far too old to still be sucking a dummy). I knew that everyone would laugh at me if I turned up at school with it stuck to my jumper, so I surrendered my secret stash of dummies.

  At the time, I remember thinking that Mum was just being really mean (especially since I knew for a fact that she had sucked her thumb until she was sixteen!). But now I realise that if she hadn’t forced me to give it up, I might still be addicted to sucking a dummy today. Can you imagine? I’d have to be home-schooled!

  So I suppose all the meanness was for my own good. Mum was only being cruel to be kind.

  And even though Mr Phart might hate us just now, I’m sure he’ll thank us for it one day. (Probably the day he eventually gets a girlfriend because he no longer wears socks and sandals.)

  At the end of the day we sat on the grass beside the hockey field and waited for our first spoon-player to arrive.

  It was probably a pretty stupid place to hold a spoon audition, since we were uncomfortably close to a lot of the poopulars, who had hockey practice, and also because the grass was wet.

  Cammy had almost made us cancel the spoon audition because she was worried the head teacher might turn up and start asking more spoon-related questions. But I managed to talk her round.

  But when the first spoon auditionee walked across the grass towards us I almost wished I HAD let Cammy cancel. I couldn’t breathe. And if it’s possible, I’d actually forgotten how to keep my mouth in a normal position. I was panicking. I felt as though I had WAY too many teeth. And I was very aware of my tongue.

  “Look!” said Cammy. “Someone’s coming. It’s a boy.”

  But it wasn’t just “a boy”. It was THE boy. It was SMILED-AT-ME BOY!

  “Hey,” said Smile Boy. And then he looked at me and SMILED AGAIN!

  It was too much. I couldn’t cope. I decided to be a statue.

  “Are you here to audition?” Cammy asked, seemingly unaware of how amazing the boy was.

  Smile Boy grinned and brought his hands out of his pockets. He had a spoon in each hand. Spoons suddenly seemed like the best things in the world.

  It was at this point that I realised I hadn’t been swallowing. Saliva had just been gathering in my mouth, and I was suddenly unsure about what to do with it.

  Then Cammy said, “Whenever you’re ready.” And I thought she was talking to me, so I tried to swallow but it went down the wrong way (of course!) and I ended up having a very unflattering coughing fit and had to excuse myself and go inside to the toilets.

  When I came back Smile Boy has morphed into the OPPOSITE of Smile Boy!

  A redheaded girl stood slapping a pair of spoons on her thighs at rapid speed while Cammy clapped along vigorously.

  “What’s going on?! What happened to … erm?”

  I realised I didn’t know Smile Boy’s name.

  It didn’t matter. Nobody was listening to me anyway!

  Cammy was now up on her feet dancing around the redheaded girl while she continued to play the spoons all over her body.

  “Cammy! What happened to the boy that was here?”

  “What? I can’t hear you. Come and dance!”

  “CAMMY! THE BOY! What happened?!”

  “Oh! His audition didn’t go well. He didn’t make the cut. But Cara’s GREAT, isn’t she?!”

  OH.

  MY.

  GOD.

  When Cara eventually finished her audition, Cammy didn’t really give me a choice about whether or not we should ask her to join our band. In fact, I believe Cammy’s exact words were:

  “Cara, you’re the BEST spoon-player I’ve ever heard, and there’s no one left to audition, so … Peri? What do you think? Can Cara join our band?”

  I mean, what was the point of even asking me that? Just WHAT could I have said other than, “Yes”? (Which is exactly what I said, since Cara was standing RIGHT THERE.)

  So anyway, I left them to chat spoons and headed home in a foul mood.

  The next day at school, Cammy said that it was time to plan our first official band practice. Despite the fact that I wasn’t completely on board with Cara joining our band, I was really excited about our first practice.

  We decided that lunchtimes and after school would be the best time to practise, since Cara had like a MILLION groups and clubs that she had to go to at the weekends.

  However, we couldn’t seem to find anywhere in school to practise.

  Our music teacher, Mr Fry, was no help, and in fact seemed to hate us, our band and music in general. Or at least that’s the impression he gave us when we told him all about The Spoons and asked if there was anywhere we could play.

  Rather than physically or even verbally applauding us for taking the initiative to form our own band (as a music teacher should) Mr Fry had looked personally insulted and told us that there were “no free music rooms whatsoever, at any time, on any day, especially at lunch or after school”. Which was CLEARLY a lie because as soon as the bell rings at the end of the day, Mr Fry runs straight to his car, which means HIS room is free!

  However, one of the other music teachers took pity on us. I thought her name was Miss Cardigan – although she doesn’t look anything like a “Miss Cardigan” and looks more like a “Miss Zap” or “Miss Pop” or something like that, because she’s really young, and always running around, organising loads of music stuff while Mr Fry just slumps at his desk drinking coffee.

  Once Mr Fry had slammed his door and gone back to his desk, Miss Cardigan took us down to the very end of the music corridor, past all the old instruments and boxes, and said, “As long as you don’t play too loudly, you’re welcome to practise in here.” And then she smiled, and I knew that her smile meant that we shouldn’t let Mr Fry know.

  We were MEGA-excited to have our own band space, and chose to ignore the fact that it was a large store cupboard with no windows and a weird smell. We didn’t care – it was ours!

  As soon as the bell went at the end of the day, I made Cara and Cammy wait while I made sure Mr Fry had driven out of the car park, and then we ran all the way to our practice cupboard.

  When we went inside and pulled the light on I realised that not ALL the teachers at Fortress were a lost cause.

  “Oh WOW!” said Cammy. “It looks like a professional recording studio!”

  Cammy was exaggerating a bit, but it REALLY did look amazing!

  Miss Cardigan had cleared out most of the old instruments and put in three chairs, a music stand … and an awesome new KEYBOARD!

  Just then there was a little knock on the cupboard door, and Miss Cardigan poked her head in. “Do you like it?” she asked, grinning at us.

  “We love it, Miss Cardigan!” I said. “Thanks so much for letting us borrow one of the new keyboards!”

  “Well, I heard you talking about your instruments with Mr Fry, and didn’t think you’d quite manage to lug a keyboard in here on your back every day for practice. You’re welcome. Enjoy!” she said, before disappearing, and then reappearing a few seconds later. “By the way, it’s Miss Carrigan,” she giggled. “But I DO like cardigans – they match my pointy specs!”

  Once Miss Carrigan had gone, we all chatted about how awesome she was and tried to guess what her favourite instrument might be. I thought she definitely seemed like someone who would play the electric guitar, but Cara said she thought she might play the flute, and Cammy agreed, which kind of annoyed me a bit.

  “OK,” said Cammy. “Let’s get started. I have something to show you!”

  And then she pulled the strangest pair of bongo drums I have ever seen out of her bag (not that I’ve seen a lot of bongo drums, but enough to know that these were weird).

  “What do you think?” she asked, beaming proudly.

  What I thought was that she’d used quite a few pairs of old tights to make the drum bit, and that she probably should’ve cut the long bobbly/holey leg bits off, which were hanging down like some
sort of horrible drum-dress.

  But what I said was, “Wow. Does it work?”

  Cammy answered by giving me a drum solo. And it actually sounded great!

  “The acoustics in here are perfect,” she said, looking round the store cupboard.

  Then Cara took a laptop out of her bag and put on a really fast dance track I’d never heard before. And then she produced her spoons and started playing along REALLY FAST. And it was (unbelievably) FANTASTIC!

  “WOW!” I said (and meant it!). “That sounds amazing, Cara!”

  Cara flicked her puffy red hair off her face and grinned. “OK, your turn!” Cammy squealed with excitement.

  That’s when I realised that I didn’t really have anything to play for them, as I hadn’t realised we’d all be expected to do brilliant solos today.

  To be honest, I felt a bit stupid. I’d assumed that being the only one playing an instrument that wasn’t home-made, or the spoons, I’d probably be the one carrying the band – you know, the best instrument/the leader/front-man. But having just heard how brilliant both Cammy and Cara were, I was feeling a bit nervous and awkward.

  “Is it OK if I don’t play right now? It’s just, I need to get used to this keyboard. I’ve never played on it before,” I lied. (I’ve played on it quite a few times in music class.)

  “Of course, of course!” said Cara, who was still grinning from ear to ear.

  So I put on the earphones and began composing my “brilliant” solo (no pressure!).

  I tried to concentrate on what I was doing, but I couldn’t help noticing how much Cammy was laughing at whatever Cara was saying. Was Cara funny? I hadn’t expected her to be.