The Spy Who Loved School Dinners

by Pamela Butchart

  Sometimes when my mum is telling me off, my dad says, “Ah, leave her be. Her heart’s in the right place. Isn’t it, Izzy?”

  And I say, “I hope so!” Because if it’s not, it could be ANYWHERE! Like in my arm or my knee or even my big toe! And THAT is a bit worrying. Especially if the doctors need to find it to make sure I’m not dead or something.

  Dad usually says things like that when he’s sticking up for me because I’ve done something that makes Mum go MAD. Like the time I told Mum to close her eyes and made her kiss the daddy-long-legs that lost two of its legs when I stood on them by mistake. But then Mum opened her eyes because it tickled her nose. And she screamed, and hit it away. And that made the daddy-long-legs lose ANOTHER leg.

  I tried to tell Mum I was only trying to get her to kiss it better, like she used to do to my leg when I was little. But Mum just kept screaming. And then Dad told me to put the daddy-long-legs outside, and I started crying because I didn’t think Martin would survive outside without all his legs.

  Another time Mum went mad was the time Dad wasn’t well, so I made him a cup of warm milk. But then Dad said that the milk looked a bit green, and that it tasted funny, but I told him to drink it anyway for the NUTRIENTS.

  And then Mum shouted, “Izzy! Down here, PLEASE!” And then she said that it was NOT OK to put milk in the kettle, and that it was DEFINITELY not OK to put broccoli in too. And then she said that was why the kettle had smoke coming out of it, and also why I was now banned from the kitchen for life.

  But there was one time that not even Dad could save me from getting into DEEP TROUBLE. And that was the time that had to do with the spy who loved school dinners, and France, and the Discovery ship and all the ice-cream and scurvy (which is a deadly skin disease). So it was VERY SERIOUS! And Jodi (that’s my friend) says that we are all lucky to be alive!

  It all started when Miss Jones (that’s our teacher) told us that a new pupil would be joining our class, and that she was French, and that she was from France, and that her name was Mathilde (which sounds a bit like Matilda, but isn’t).

  We all got REALLY excited about the new girl coming. And it was even better because she was coming all the way from another country!

  Miss Jones made us do lots of French lessons before Mathilde arrived, and then she gave us all French dictionaries so we could look up all the words Mathilde said, and find out what they meant.

  Miss Jones said that Mathilde was very good at speaking English, and that she knew lots of English words. But she also said that we should try to use French words, so that we could make Mathilde feel more at home, and also to practise our French.

  I was really pleased when Miss Jones said that Mathilde knew lots of English words, because I am not very good at French, and I wanted to be able to speak to the new French girl and ask her if she lived beside Disneyland Paris. And if she had ever eaten frogs’ legs or snails, like Dad said she might have.

  Mum got annoyed at Dad when he told me about the snails and the frogs’ legs. She said, “Don’t be daft, Stewart!” (That’s my dad.) “Just because someone’s French doesn’t mean they eat frogs’ legs!”

  And then she said, “That’s like saying that just because YOU’RE from Scotland YOU eat haggis and wear a kilt all day!”

  And then Dad burst out laughing and said, “I’ve never eaten haggis in my LIFE! And I HATE my kilt!”

  And then Mum said, “Exactly!” and threw a tartan sock at Dad and walked away.

  Then Dad said that Mum was right, and that Mathilde probably DIDN’T eat frogs’ legs OR snails. And that he had only been joking, and that it wasn’t really a funny joke. But I decided that I was going to ask Mathilde about the snails anyway, just to be sure. Because we get LOADS of snails in our garden and I could collect them all in a box and give them to her, because I don’t really like the snails, and I definitely wouldn’t eat any of them.

  So anyway, on Friday Miss Jones asked me to stay in at break to talk about Mathilde coming. Miss Jones said that she wanted me to take SPECIAL CARE of Mathilde when she got here and make sure she settled in OK. So I said that I would, and I was REALLY excited because EVERYONE wanted to be friends with the new French girl, and I couldn’t WAIT to tell Zach and Jodi and Maisie that I had been the one picked to be in charge of her.

  Zach and Jodi and Maisie are my friends. Zach lives in the flat downstairs from us, and Mum says we have been friends since we were babies. And I have been friends with Jodi since the first day of primary school when Jodi wouldn’t let go of her mum’s leg until me and Zach pulled her fingers away one at a time.

  And Maisie is our new friend. We weren’t really friends with her until two months and one week ago, when we all went through a TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE together when we thought Miss Jones was an alien.

  I used to think that Maisie was a bit weird, because she’s always fainting and stuff, and also because she’s a bit of a scaredy-cat. But now I think she’s great.

  So anyway, I told everyone about how I was in charge of looking after Mathilde. And Zach said that we could take Mathilde to The Den. But then Jodi said she wasn’t sure in case Mathilde told.

  The Den is the secret room that nobody except for us knows about under the stairs that lead to the toilets. And it’s where we have our secret meetings and stuff. The Den has loads of cool things in it like chalk from the old days, and a sink, and even a kettle! We think it’s where the old caretaker used to have his breakfast and hide from the Head Teacher because he didn’t like him. But now the old caretaker has retired and we’ve got the key. But we don’t bother locking the door any more because nobody except for us knows that The Den exists, and also because we lost the key.

  So anyway, I said to Jodi that we would HAVE to show Mathilde The Den, because Mathilde had to stay with me AT ALL TIMES. And then I said that I HAD to come to The Den to do important things, like feeding the moth, and making plans for the swimming pool we were digging behind the bike shed, and that Mathilde would have to come too. And Jodi couldn’t really argue with that, so she just said OK.

  So we made a “WELCOME MATHILDE!” poster and put it up on the wall. And then we tidied up a bit. And then we wiped all the dust off a bucket so that Mathilde would have a chair to sit on. And then we went back to class.

  On Monday Miss Jones said that Mr Murphy (that’s the Head Teacher) would be bringing Mathilde to our class at 10 a.m. And that I would sit with her, and that I would be in charge of loads of stuff like speaking to her, and taking her for lunch, and taking her to the toilet. Miss Jones said that I was also in charge of telling Mathilde all about our Antarctica project and about how we were learning about all the animals that live in Antarctica, and about the Antarctica explorers, and about how the weather in Antarctica is so SEVERE that you would probably die instantly if one of your gloves fell off by mistake.

  I was really excited to be the one picked to be in charge of Mathilde, and I was WELL PREPARED because I had made Dad take me to Asda so I could get an extra pencil case, extra pencils and a new glitter pen, so that I could share with Mathilde if she didn’t have any new school stuff yet.

  And I had polished my good school shoes, and Mum had even ironed my socks so that I could look PROFESSIONAL. Because, like Maisie said, I was practically a teacher now.

  Then before I went to bed I had drawn a picture of what I thought Mathilde would look like, and I gave her dark hair, and blue eyes, and a green jumper with a snail on it and then I put the drawing in my pencil case.

  So anyway, I kept looking at the clock to see if it was 10 a.m. yet, and I think the clock must have been needing new batteries or something because it was taking AGES to get to 10 o’clock, and I was just ab
out to ask Miss Jones if she could fix it when Mr Murphy appeared at the door with a REALLY tall girl.

  I didn’t realise that it was Mathilde at first, because the girl was so tall I thought maybe she was one of the prefects or something.

  But then Mr Murphy said, “Good morning, 4J! This is Mathilde.” And I was SHOCKED! Because Mathilde was really tall, and she had short blonde hair, and she didn’t look ANYTHING like the picture I had drawn.

  And then everyone said, “W-E-L-CO-M-E, M-A-T-H-I-L-D-E,” really slowly, like Miss Jones had made us practise so that we said Mathilde’s name right.

  Miss Jones shook Mathilde’s hand, and then she waved at me to come up to the front. But then Mr Murphy looked at me funny. And then he said something to Miss Jones. But Miss Jones just smiled and told me to introduce myself.

  But I had forgotten how to introduce myself in French, so I just said, “Hi. I’m Izzy,” and shook her hand like Miss Jones had done, because I didn’t really know what else to do.

  Then Mr Murphy looked at me funny again, so I just smiled at him like Miss Jones had (even though I am not actually speaking to the Head Teacher at the moment, but I will tell you all about that later).

  Then when Mr Murphy went away, Miss Jones starting doing the lesson REALLY slowly so that Mathilde would understand. And sometimes she tried to use the French words. And sometimes she forgot what they were, and then she had to use the French dictionary.

  But I couldn’t really pay attention to what Miss Jones was saying to us because I was still thinking about how TALL Mathilde was, and how SHORT her hair was, and how she didn’t look anything like I’d thought she would!

  And then I looked at Mathilde’s hands and saw that she had long fingernails with purple nail varnish on them. And we are NOT ALLOWED nail varnish in our school. Not since we were making the cakes for the school cake sale and Jodi had borrowed her mum’s fake nails and stuck them on with Pritt Stick, and then one of them had fallen off in the cake mix, but Jodi didn’t know, so she just kept stirring and making the cakes. But then Lynsey Perry’s mum found a blue fingernail in her lemon sponge and said that she could have “CHOKED TO DEATH!”

  So that’s when nail varnish, and nails, and cake sales got banned from our school, and we all got a letter home about it. And now Mum clips my nails every Sunday night, and sometimes she does our cat’s too, and she even uses the same clippers, which I don’t think is very HYGIENIC and is probably the reason I got tonsillitis.

  So I got out my new glitter pen and wrote a list in the back of my notebook. And it said:

  And then I saw that Mathilde had tan tights on, and we are not allowed tan tights! We are only allowed black, or grey, or red, or white, and sometimes bare legs (but only if it’s summer), but NEVER tan tights (but I don’t really know why). So I added that to the list too. And then I tried to pay attention to what Miss Jones was saying.

  At break time I said to Mathilde, “Do you want to see The Den?” But Mathilde didn’t say anything back. So I just took her.

  When we got there, Jodi and Zach and Maisie were already there. And Zach had pretended to put the kettle on and said that he was going to make us all a cup of tea.

  Zach likes making the tea even though we’re not allowed to boil the kettle and there are only three cups now because Zach broke one. But none of us really likes tea anyway, so we usually just hold the cups and pretend we do.

  So we gave Mathilde a cup of cold tea, but she just stared at it and didn’t say anything.

  So I said, “Mathilde, do you like The Den?” And we all looked at her to see what she would say. But she didn’t say anything.

  And then Jodi said, “ARE – YOU – OK?” And she said it really slowly and REALLY loud. But Mathilde still didn’t say anything.

  Then Maisie said that maybe we needed to use the French words. But none of us could really remember any French words, except for “bonjour”, which means “hello”, and “oui”, which means “yes”, and “jambe”, which means leg. So we said all of those words, but that just made Mathilde stare at us even more!

  And then Maisie said that Mathilde looked a bit scared. So Zach said that we should just point to the banner that we made for her, and smile a lot. So we did. But then Mathilde looked even MORE scared. So we stopped smiling and took her back to Miss Jones.

  I explained to Miss Jones about how there was something wrong with Mathilde, because she wouldn’t speak any English words, and not even any French words.

  And then we watched while Miss Jones tried to get Mathilde to speak. But she wouldn’t. Not even when Miss Jones said a full sentence to her in French. Mathilde just stared at her like she had stared at us.

  Miss Jones told Mathilde that it was OK if she didn’t want to speak right now. And then she told us that Mathilde was probably just shy and that we should be patient with her.

  But, like Mum says, I find it very hard to be patient. Like the time Mum made the Winnie the Pooh chocolate lollies for the cake sale, before cakes got banned. And I COULDN’T WAIT for them to set and go hard, so I could have one. So I kept taking them out of the fridge and drinking a bit out of the mould. And then when Mum went to get them in the morning, none of the Winnie the Poohs had any legs, and Eeyore didn’t have a head.

  And then Mum said, “You might as well just eat them now. I doubt anyone will pay for these poor souls!” So I did, but they didn’t taste as good as when you could drink them.

  So anyway, I made sure I was PATIENT with Mathilde. And so I only asked her twice about Disneyland Paris, and the frogs’ legs, and the snails. And then when she didn’t answer I asked her only two more times. But she STILL didn’t answer.

  So I gave up. Because I was starting to think that maybe Miss Jones had got it wrong, and that maybe Mathilde COULDN’T speak any English words. And that maybe she couldn’t even speak any French words either. Or that maybe she was the wrong Mathilde, and there was another Mathilde, who was shorter, and who had dark hair and blue eyes, who had been taken to the wrong school by mistake. And I was just about to explain all of this to Miss Jones when the bell went and it was time for lunch.

  I couldn’t BELIEVE what happened when we took Mathilde to get lunch. We had just sat down at the table, and I had made sure that Mathilde had everything she needed, like a knife and fork, and the Good Juice, and a milkshake. But then when we started eating, Mathilde picked up her tray and walked away!

  So I shouted, “Mathilde! Where are you going? DO YOU NEED UN WEE?!” But Mathilde just ignored me and kept on walking. And then she sat down at a table at the other end of the hall, all on her own, and started eating her lunch!

  I thought that Mathilde was going to get into trouble from Mrs Kidd (the evil dinner monitor) because usually you are not allowed to move seats during lunch. And Mrs Kidd makes you sit in the same seat until you are COMPLETELY finished. And she says things like, “This is NOT a buffet. Sit down!” and “DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A TAKEAWAY!” And so I knew that this was something I would have to add to the “List of Things to Tell Mathilde”.

  Then Zach said, “What’s she doing?” And I said that I didn’t know.

  And that’s when Jodi said, “I think she hates us.”

  And I got really upset, because I didn’t understand why Mathilde hated us and didn’t want to sit with us, or why she didn’t want to answer any of my questions, or why she wouldn’t even say ONE WORD to me. And then when I looked again I saw that she was writing something in her little black book.

  Then after lunch when we went to class, I saw that Mathilde was already there. And that she was sitting at the wrong table.

  So I told Miss Jones. And then I told her about what had happened at lunch, and about how I didn’t do ANYTHING AT ALL to upset her, and that all I did was eat my lunch and ask Mathilde about snails one more time only.

  Then Miss Jones said, “It’s OK. If Mathilde wants to be on her own, then that’s fine.”

  So I just went and sat down. And didn’t even LOOK at Mathilde
. Because if Mathilde didn’t want to be friends with me, then I didn’t want to be friends with her.

  On Tuesday, Miss Jones said that we had to make an information poster about our favourite Antarctic animal.

  To begin with I was going to do it about penguins, but then I didn’t want to any more because it reminded me about the argument I’d had with my Uncle Lou from London at the weekend (who can be VERY annoying even when he’s being nice and bringing me gifts).

  Me and Uncle Lou had had a bit of an argument because he got me a pencil case with polar bears on it and said it was because I was doing my project on Antarctica. So I said that I liked the pencil case, especially because one of the polar bears looked a bit like Zach, but that it wasn’t really about my project because polar bears don’t live in Antarctica. And that’s when Uncle Lou started laughing at me. And then he said, “Of course they do.” And I said that they didn’t. And then Mum said that it didn’t really matter right now. And I said that it did because Uncle Lou was wrong about the polar bears.

  And that’s when Uncle Lou said that I was “SILLY” (which made me really annoyed). And then he said that Antarctica was the coldest place on earth and that that was where polar bears and penguins lived. So I said that he was right about the cold and about the penguins but that he was wrong about the polar bears. But Uncle Lou STILL didn’t believe me! Even when I explained about how it was IMPOSSIBLE and that penguins and polar bears live as far away from each other as you can get, even further than Uncle Lou lives from us! And that’s when Mum said that I should go and put the kettle on and that she’d make us all some tea. So I reminded her about how I was banned from the kitchen for LIFE and that’s when Uncle Lou said he was going to show me on the computer about how he was right about the polar bears and about how I was wrong. So Uncle Lou searched on the computer, and that’s when he found out that he was wrong and I was right. But I still said thank you for the pencil case.