Petunia Perry and the Curse of the Ugly Pigeon
Page 14
“We recorded them last night at Cammy’s,” said Cara. “I’m working on them with your dad now.” And then she disappeared again.
There was an awkward silence for a bit.
“I’m sorry,” said Cammy. “I shouldn’t have got so cross with you.”
I shook my head. “Cammy, I honestly didn’t mean to blurt your darkest secret out. I was being an idiot, trying to impress a stupid boy, but I’m back to my normal self now, I promise! I’m never going to think about Edward Snail-Trail ever again.”
Cammy smiled.
“Well, you MIGHT have to think just a little bit about him.”
And then she pointed behind me, and I saw that he was walking towards me. The Snake-Snot Master himself.
“Just listen to him, Peri,” said Cammy, and then she gave me a big hug and left me there in complete bewilderment.
“OK, you need to get away from me,” I managed to say before Edward actually dropped to his knees and looked like he was going to cry.
“Peri, I’m begging you! Look, I’m actually begging you! I didn’t tell ANYONE about Cammy’s real name. Jessica overheard our conversation. SHE’S the one who told everyone. You have to believe me!”
I suppose that did seem a whole lot more likely.
“Cammy told me that you thought I’d been trying to wreck the band. I promise I didn’t steal the spoons. I DEFINITELY didn’t put them in Cammy’s bongos and I had NO IDEA the head would be at the gig!”
I watched as he stood up and started to struggle with his trouser leg.
“And I honestly fell off my bike,” he said. “Look!” And then he pulled up his trouser leg and there was a massive scabby scar with stitches that went right up his leg and over his knee.
“I had to go to A&E and everything, but I didn’t want to make a big deal because Cammy was crying when I turned up and I felt bad for letting you guys down. And by the look on your face, you were a bit mad at me.
“Do you believe me, Peri?”
I stared at him for a while. I knew he was telling the truth.
“I believe you,” I said.
“So you’re not going to get your boyfriend, Max, to beat me up then? I’ve genuinely been very concerned about that,” he said, smiling.
“Max Martin is NOT my boyfriend,” I said (hopefully for the last time ever!).
Edward grinned. “You sure?”
“Very,” I said.
He went back down on his knees again, even though it must’ve really hurt.
“Petunia Perry …” he said, and I burst out laughing because it looked like he was about to propose.
“… can I be a Spoon again?”
The gig was an AMAZING success. Sure, there were a few glitches. Like when no one remembered the words and Dad plunged the entire venue into darkness for over thirty seconds.
Actually, I think that one worked in our favour, because Cammy started doing a really cool, kind of creepy bongo solo and Margaret began wailing (she likes the dark). Then just as we all joined in, the lights came back on, which kind of made it look like it was on purpose. (And would have been 100% awesome rather than 95% awesome if Max Martin hadn’t been audibly weeping because he’s scared of the dark.)
Margaret, hands down, gave the best performance of her life. At the end of the last song, she started making all SORTS of noises we’d never heard before.
But then even after we finished playing and were packing up, Margaret wouldn’t stop wailing. So me, Cara and Edward all went back to Cammy’s with her mum, to make sure Margaret was OK. Me and Cammy thought that she was maybe having one of her “psychic migraines” but when we were in the car Margaret began yowling a LOT so Cammy’s mum pulled over and called the 24-hour vet (and a couple of other people) and within minutes of getting home, the vet, Cammy’s mum’s spiritualist and someone with a LOT of candles turned up.
As soon as the vet began examining Margaret he said that she was in labour. We were all STUNNED. We didn’t even know she was PREGNANT!
The vet kept saying that he couldn’t understand how the other vet Margaret had been taken to a couple of weeks ago could have missed it.
“There’s definitely a full litter in there,” he said as he touched Margaret’s tummy.
Cammy’s mum said that she’d noticed Margaret had got a bit of a tummy lately, but had just thought it was because people (and she meant me, Cammy and Cara) had been feeding her junk food.
The vet said that Margaret needed peace and quiet (which made me feel TERRIBLE because she’d just been to a rock concert!). So I phoned Mum and she came and picked us all up.
We all chatted to Mum about the gig, but mostly about Margaret the whole way to Edward’s house. And when Edward got out, he squeezed my hand a bit, but no one else noticed except for me. It was amazing.
The next day at school, Cammy came RACING into registration.
“I’ve been up all night!” she screamed. “Margaret’s had QUINTS!”
Mr Burton immediately assumed Cammy was talking about a person giving birth to five babies and he looked totally shocked.
Once we’d set him straight, Mr Burton (who happens to be a cat person) got quite excited and asked if she had any pictures. Cammy (of course) had about five hundred photos of the kittens on her phone.
Mr Burton managed to connect Cammy’s phone to the projector and we showed them to the whole of our registration class. Even the poopular girls at the back loved them, and EVERYONE was asking Cammy if they could have one!
At one point Cammy pointed to the littlest, tiniest one and said that she’d called it Pigeon, and everyone laughed, and I knew right away that I had to have it (if Cammy and my mum would let me!).
And then all of a sudden Miss Carrigan turned up at the door with Jessica Clark and asked to see Cammy outside.
I started to worry that Jessica had maybe accused Cammy of doing something to her, but Cammy came back in after a few minutes and sat down.
“What was THAT?” I asked.
“Jessica just apologised to me for what she did to my locker. Miss Carrigan’s taking her to see the head now,” she said.
Wow. I hadn’t realised just how good a teacher Miss Carrigan was. She must’ve had to quiz Jessica for HOURS to eventually get a confession out of her!
I tried to imagine Jessica apologising to Cammy outside.
“Do you think she really is sorry?” I asked Cammy. She hadn’t looked very sorry when I’d seen her at the door. She’d looked more annoyed.
“No, not really, but I don’t care,” she said. Just then Mr Burton flicked to the next picture and Cammy started telling everyone what this kitten was called and why.
I smiled. Cammy was right. Who cared about stupid Jessica Clark?
Then suddenly the picture of the kitten disappeared and was replaced with a video.
At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, and then I realised it was the school cafeteria. “This isn’t mine!” said Cammy. “My phone doesn’t do videos!”
We all stared at the screen, watching as Jessica stuffed loads of spoons into her school bag. I couldn’t believe it!
Mr Burton furiously tapped all the keys on his keyboard, but nothing would make it go off. The video was on a loop!
Then the bell went and we heard EVERYONE in the corridor talking about it.
When we went out we saw that it was also playing on the big info screens all the way along the corridor too!
“Oh my God, Cammy! Is it playing on every screen in the school?” I asked, stunned at what was happening.
I couldn’t figure out who had done this!
Cammy pulled me to one side and handed me a note.
“I found this in my locker last week. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but…”
I unfolded it and read:
Dear C
The Hacker would like you to know that he is in NO WAY responsible for leaking the information about your real name. He wants you to know that he will fight any legal ac
tion you try to take against him, and also that his mum is a lawyer. However, he is very sorry that everyone found out and that Jessica Clark has been making fun of you. So, as a gesture of goodwill, he would like to offer you some compensation.
Destroy this note.
“It was the HACKER!” Cammy whispered.
“He must’ve been at our gig and knew that it was Jessica who sabotaged us with the spoons!”
Just then I spotted ladybird girl in the middle of the corridor, looking up at the screen with a little smile on her face.
And then I spotted her hat.
“Cammy, LOOK!” I said. “Look at her hat!”
Ladybird girl had at least six of our band badges on her little red hat.
“Oh wow!” said Cammy. “Wait. Do you think that she might be the hacker?”
Just then she spotted us staring at her.
Ladybird girl gave a wave. And then she winked and disappeared into the crowd.
Copyright
For Perrine
PETUNIA PERRY AND THE CURSE OF THE UGLY PIGEON
First published in the UK in 2015 by Nosy Crow Ltd,
Crow’s Nest, 10a Lant Street,
London SE1 1QR, UK
This ebook edition first published in 20115
Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and / or registered trademarks of
Nosy Crow Ltd
Text copyright © Pamela Butchart, 2015
Cover and interior illustrations © Gemma Correll, 2015
The rights of Pamela Butchart and Gemma Correll to be identified as author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously. Any resemblence to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978 0 85763 488 7
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