Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon

by Pamela Butchart

  Then Cammy said that at bedtime she couldn’t get Margaret to come to bed, which was even weirder because Margaret ALWAYS goes to bed when Cammy goes to bed, because she likes to sleep on Cammy’s feet.

  Cammy said that she’d set her alarm to go off every two hours so she could get up and check on Margaret. But every time she got up to check, Margaret was still just sitting there staring at the wall. And then at 6am Cammy said she heard Margaret SCREAMING and ran downstairs to find Margaret was CRAZED and furiously ripping all the wallpaper off the wall at the same spot she’d been staring at all night!

  And that’s when I realised what had happened. MARGARET KNEW ABOUT THE PAINTING! She’d had a premonition! So I told Cammy all about how I’d been woken up at EXACTLY 6am because of all the hammering and that Mum had been hanging the unicorn painting on the DINING ROOM WALL!

  I felt terrible! The hideousness of Max’s painting had tormented Margaret to the point of madness. Poor Margaret.

  Once I’d finished explaining what had happened to Margaret, Cammy grabbed her coat and put it on over her pyjamas.

  “Come on!” she yelled, and started running down the stairs.

  “Wait! Where are you going?!”

  “WE NEED TO DESTROY THE UNICORNS BEFORE THEY KILL MARGARET!”

  By the time we got back to my house it was still only 7am, and Mum hadn’t left for work yet. I didn’t have a CLUE what we were going to do, or how I was going to explain why Cammy was in her pyjamas, or why she looked like a madwoman (and also why she was probably going to set fire to Mum’s painting!).

  But as it turned out, I didn’t have to. Mum didn’t even seem to notice we were there. She was too busy being in a “mood”. And then I noticed that the painting was gone.

  I asked Dad about it (Mum looked a bit too “dangerous” to be asking her any questions) and he said that he had taken it down because he couldn’t face eating his prunes with the “unicorn-fiasco” staring at him.

  But wait.

  Don’t celebrate for me yet.

  Can you guess where my dear mother decided to put it?

  Of course.

  Where else?

  The painting looked even bigger in my tiny room. I shut the door and looked at Cammy with my serious eyes.

  “Cammy,” I whispered. “No one can ever know.”

  Cammy nodded.

  “We have to make this look like an accident, OK?”

  Cammy nodded again.

  And that’s when we came up with our brilliant plan:

  The plan went down like this:

  “OUCH! OUR LEGS. PLEASE HELP!”

  Enter Mum.

  “Oh my God! Are you all ri—”

  Mum spots the painting (which was now a “unicorn-massacre”).

  “MY PAINTING!!”

  “My LEG!” I scream. (For real this time! Mum stood on me by mistake while rushing towards her “beloved” painting.)

  “We tripped over the large Oxford Dictionary,” said Cammy.

  “And then we fell into the desk and the chair and spilled all of these containers,” I said.

  “And then the scissors flew up and opened mid-air,” Cammy added.

  Mum didn’t look convinced.

  I had to think fast.

  There was a tiny scratch on my leg from where Mum’s high heel had nicked me.

  I squeezed it and squeezed it.

  I am a genius.

  “I’m hurt, Mum, look!”

  “STEVE, GET UP HERE NOW! IT’S AN EMERGENCY!”

  It turns out that the “emergency” Mum was referring to was 2% my injured leg and 98% the “unicorn-massacre”.

  Mum made Dad phone all the painting restorers he could find online, even though I’m pretty sure that even a painting restorer with actual magical powers wouldn’t be able to fix what me and Cammy had done.

  But it was all worth it. Because a few minutes later Cammy’s mum sent Cammy a text to say that the vet had given Margaret the all-clear.

  The next few days were hell. EVERYONE at school thought Max Martin was my boyfriend, INCLUDING SMILE BOY. It was a disaster.

  The difficult thing about an incorrect rumour is that people tend to talk about it behind your back; hardly anyone actually comes up and asks you if it’s true or not. They mostly just accept that it’s true, especially if they want it to be. There’s very little you can do about it other than wait it out and hope that some poor person is accused of eating chips out of a bin or something, which then takes the heat off you.

  At one point in the school cafeteria that week, I witnessed two poopulars walk up and say something to Max, to which he responded with a little smile and shy little shrug.

  The poopulars in question then looked at me and began giggling. I almost lost it there and then. I actually had to hand my plate of pasta back to the dinner lady (which she was FURIOUS about) because I knew that if I didn’t leave the cafeteria right away I’d definitely scream:

  “MAX MARTIN IS NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, MY BOYFRIEND!”

  But I knew that as much as that would get the truth “out there”, it would also put ME further “out there” and I’d probably end up being laughed at even MORE.

  Cammy threw her egg sandwich back into the fridge and ran after me all the way to the music cupboard.

  She said that even though today wasn’t a “scheduled rehearsal” we should still definitely “jam” to help me get my “feelings” out. So we did.

  I’m not sure if it was because it was just me and Cammy, or if it was due to my raging anger, but I suddenly didn’t feel bothered about playing random things in front of Cammy without rehearsing them first, so I unplugged the headphones and just went for it!

  Cammy went mad on the bongos, and every sound effect I hit on the keyboard seemed to blend PERFECTLY. We even managed to make up a crazy-good, half-fast/half-slow song that had us both in hysterics. We were going bananas, and at one point Cammy was lying flat out on the ground with her eyes closed and I’d put on Cammy’s glasses and both of our jackets. I don’t know why. But it was HILARIOUS!

  If other people had been able to hear our music, they probably would’ve thought that we’d gone mad, especially at the bit where the only sound effect that fit with Cammy’s percussion (in my mind) was the noise of a dog barking repeatedly for almost a full minute. But we thought it sounded great!

  Me and Cammy laughed MUCH more than she had with Cara during our first band practice. It was awesome, and definitely the best fun I’d had in months!

  The day after our “mega jam sesh”, we arranged with Cara to have a band meeting at Cammy’s that night. It was going to be our most important band meeting yet.

  Cammy had typed up an agenda and asked us to keep the whole night free.

  I REALLY wanted to say that there was quite a lot on the agenda and to suggest that we have the meeting at the weekend, because I knew that Cara wouldn’t be able to come (since she’d made it clear she was “busy”).

  I’d decided that one of two things was going on with Cara: (1) She was hiding something that she didn’t want us to know, or (2) She just didn’t like me.

  Either way, I would have much rather she wasn’t at the meeting. That way I could just relax, and me and Cammy could have fun like we’d had the day before – like we ALWAYS used to before starting at Fortress.

  But then (quite suspiciously) Cara turned up at Cammy’s and said that she couldn’t stay. She said she had some sort of emergency group/club/committee meeting thing. But I didn’t really believe her because she wouldn’t look me or Cammy in the eye when she said it. And then she rushed out and got back in her mum’s car and they drove off.

  I thought about bringing up the whole “I-told-you-Cara-was-being-weird-and-now-I-definitely-think-she’s-hiding-something” thing, but I decided just to leave it and enjoy myself.

  So me and Cammy made a “Band-Snack-Plate” and began discussing the agenda.

  Agenda Item 1 – USP

  It was actually kind of
spectacularly, amazingly spooky and perfect how we came up with our Unique Selling Point. We were mid-jam when we both noticed that Margaret was STARING at us from the seat Cammy had put out for Cara.

  And then all of a sudden she started wailing and making all sorts of weird noises and we both just instantly KNEW that Margaret:

  a wanted to be part of our band

  B was awesome

  C was going to be our Unique Selling Point!!! (And clearly, having a cat in your band is the most awesomely amazing band USP ever, ever, EVER!!)

  We kept playing, and trying loads of new stuff. Margaret was absolutely LOVING it. At one point Meg came in and accused us of bothering Margaret, though she didn’t put it that nicely. But when she tried to take Margaret away from our “hideous noise” Margaret flopped out and made her body all heavy, which is what she does when she wants to stay somewhere. So Meg left in an even worse mood than when she came in.

  And that’s when Cammy said, “Oh my God. Do you think Margaret was maybe a singer in a band or something in a previous life?”

  So I played a little tune on the keyboard and looked at Margaret and she looked WAY happy. And then Cammy did the same on the bongos and Margaret made a BRILLIANT sound.

  “What if she’s the reincarnation of a rock-god or something?” I said.

  We were excited by this idea and decided to try to find out WHO Margaret had been in a previous life by playing her songs by loads of dead rock-gods.

  So we went online and played tune after tune to Margaret until eventually her ears went completely flat and her body did that still thing and she opened her eyes wider than I’ve ever seen her open her eyes before (or that I knew was even possible). And that’s when we KNEW she was the cat reincarnation of Elvis.

  We started making plans immediately:

  1 Margaret would sit on a podium and ad-lib throughout the performance.

  2 Margaret would be the face of The Spoons – we’d make up T-shirts and badges, and put her on the front of our album.

  3 We would prepare ourselves for STARDOM!

  The only problem we had in relation to creating lots of band merchandise (spectacularly decorated with Margaret’s face surrounded by spoons) was that we didn’t have ANY money to pay for the flyers, badges, T-shirts, wristbands and Margaret-mugs. We’d used our savings on Cammy’s criminal name-change.

  We were planning to ask Cara if she could chip in when we saw her at lunch practice that day, but she ended up having to cancel again because of one of her clubs.

  (I was starting to wonder just how committed Cara WAS to The Spoons, since she’d missed the big meeting at Cammy’s and then another band practice.)

  So we had the BEST, most UNIQUE band EVER, but no money to successfully promote ourselves.

  However, sometimes life can surprise (and disgust) you in equal measure.

  It happened after lunch when I opened my workbook in Maths and found one of Mr Jackson’s arm hairs between the pages. I knew it belonged to Mr Jackson because he’s got quite hairy arms, and I’m guessing he would have been using them in the process of marking my workbook.

  So anyway, I nudged Cammy and pointed to the hair, and she said that she thought we should keep it.

  “What? Why?!” I said. “That’s gross!”

  “No, it’s fine. We can sell it!” she said. And then she picked it up and put it in her sandwich bag (with her crusts). It was disgusting.

  I had no idea who would possibly want to purchase one of Mr Jackson’s gross arm hairs (currently nestled in smoked-salmon sandwich crusts), but Cammy was adamant that loads of girls at Fortress loved Mr Jackson. Cammy said she was pretty sure that if she could “authenticate” the hair, then she could sell it or trade it for something big.

  I did not agree (unless by “big” she meant an even longer hair).

  But (scarily) it turned out that I was wrong.

  Word of the captured arm hair spread throughout the school. Some of the girls in the year above even came up to us and asked to see it! But Cammy said that there was to be no viewing until tomorrow, once the hair had been properly “prepared”.

  So that night I reluctantly went round to Cammy’s house to help her “prepare” the hair for the sale. We got an old ring box, and placed the hair gently on the white cushion, and closed the lid. After that, I thought we were done (especially since we’d risked our lives by sneaking into Meg’s room and stealing a ring box) but Cammy said we still needed to create the “Authentication Document”.

  So Cammy spent ages making this really official-looking document on her computer, which said things like:

  I hereby declare that The Hair is truthfully and lawfully a former resident of Mr T. Jackson’s forearm (unable to certify if right/left).

  Then she said that I was the one who had to sign it (since I had discovered “The Hair”).

  I did not want to sign this document for the following (obvious) reasons:

  Obvious Reason 1

  I would look completely mad.

  Obvious Reason 2

  YUCK!

  Obvious Reason 3

  Cammy’s document looks so official (and had the tiniest “small print” I have ever seen) that I was scared that if I signed it I might actually be entering into a marriage with The Hair.

  To cut a long story short, she forced me to do it. Cammy is a very convincing person.

  At least I know that if I ever do anything wrong when I’m older, like accidentally murder my parents, Cammy will be able to convince the judge that I am, in fact, the victim.

  The next day we had a very successful viewing session (except for the part where a sad-looking girl in the year above drooled on my hand a bit when she was reading the Authentication Document).

  In the end, Cammy took a surprise phone call and then said that the sale had gone “private” and that the buyer had asked to remain anonymous as part of the agreed sale. When I asked how much we had sold the hair for, all Cammy said she could tell me was that it had been sold for a “significant amount” and that she wouldn’t be able to tell me until the sale had “finalised” (whatever that meant). However, I was assured that I would receive 50% of the profit, so I wasn’t really bothered. I mean, if I’d been sad enough to purchase a human arm hair, I’d want to remain anonymous too!

  A few days later we EVENTUALLY managed to meet with Cara to update her on all the new band stuff.

  “I’m sorry I’ve not been able to come to rehearsals,” said Cara when we got to the music cupboard.

  “That’s OK,” said Cammy. “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh yes!” said Cara. “I’ve just had to help my mum, you know, erm, go to the dentist and stuff. She’s really scared of the dentist.”

  Cammy nodded that she understood, and began telling a story about her worst dentist experience.

  I couldn’t believe it! No WAY was Cara telling the truth. How many times did her mum have to go to the dentist?! And what type of dentist is open after seven on a Friday night?

  That’s when I remembered that Cara had said she had some sort of emergency committee meeting or something when she’d turned up at our planning meeting and then left.

  “How was your committee meeting?” I asked.

  “Oh. That. It was cancelled,” she mumbled, and then she started playing her spoons really loud (obviously so I couldn’t ask her any more questions).

  She was definitely hiding something.

  After practice, Cammy told Cara all about Margaret and our awesome plans.

  Cara thought that having Margaret as a fourth band member was “inspired” and immediately began composing a spoon-percussion beat in Margaret’s honour.

  Cammy said that she’d had to make a few “executive decisions” when ordering the band merchandise online with her mum last night, and that she’d managed to get some T-shirts and a few mugs. But that instead of the badges and wristbands, she’d seen an “unbelievable offer” for personalised socks, so she’d spent most of the money
from the arm-hair sale on those.

  I was furious. I mean, we’d spent AGES together at the weekend deciding EXACTLY what to buy, and how many, and how much, etc, etc. And Cammy had just gone and changed everything without even talking to me about it!

  “We can’t go round the school giving out SOCKS!” I blurted out (in not a very nice way) before I could stop myself.

  Cammy looked shocked.

  “I thought you’d like them,” she said. “They’re much more unique than badges or wristbands, aren’t they?”

  “I think socks are a great idea,” said Cara.

  Of course she did. She thinks EVERYTHING Cammy does is brilliant.

  So I just shut up about the socks, and said that everything was fine even though it wasn’t. But there wasn’t really anything I could do about it.

  The rest of the practice went OK. We chatted a bit about Margaret, and Cara managed to learn all the new songs we’d written at the weekend really quickly.

  We got so caught up in everything that we didn’t actually hear the end-of-lunch bell, and ended up having to drop everything and literally RUN to class.

  That night Cammy sent me an SOS text:

  I knew this was going to be bad. When everyone else freaks out and eats a gallon of peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream, Cammy has a sugar-free yoghurt.

  Thankfully, Cammy just lives around the corner, so I was able to get there quickly since this was obviously an emergency.