The Spy Who Loved School Dinners

by Pamela Butchart

  So anyway, Maisie decided to do her poster on the humpback whale because she thinks they’re cute, and because the humpback whale leaves Antarctica in the coldest months, and Maisie says that that’s what she would do if she had to live in Antarctica because Maisie is scared of the cold and usually wears two coats to school.

  But Jodi wouldn’t tell us which animal she was going to do her poster on, and she kept trying to hide her poster with her hand, because she’s like that sometimes. But then she said that she needed ALL of the black felt-tip pens, and so that’s how we found out she was doing her poster on the EMPEROR PENGUIN, because penguins are only black and white, and you don’t get white pens.

  I said that I wanted to do my poster on KRILL, because it sounds funny, and Zach said that he wanted to do his poster on the SEA SPIDER (which was my second favourite, so it annoyed me a little bit when Zach picked it). So Miss Jones said that me and Zach should work as a pair and do a really big information poster about all the different Antarctica SEA CRUSTACEANS, which are all the weird things in the sea that are not really fish, like crabs, and shrimps, and krill, and other things.

  And then when we were doing our posters Zach got up and went to sharpen his pencil (even though his pencil didn’t need sharpening, and he was just saying that it did so he could have a wander and look at everyone’s posters). Then when Zach was finished pretending to sharpen his pencil he came back the long way, and he walked past Mathilde’s table, and I saw him peeking over Mathilde’s shoulder at the little black book she’s always writing in. And then he looked SHOCKED.

  And when he sat back down he wouldn’t tell me what he’d seen. He just said, “SSHHH!” and grabbed my pen, and his hand was all sweaty so I knew that what he had seen was going to be serious, and also probably life-threatening.

  And then Zach wrote down what he had seen in Mathilde’s book. And it said:

  And even though it was in French, and I’m not very good at French, I knew that the words meant

  But then Jodi said that the French words Zach had written down could mean something completely different in English, like “SERPENT” or “RABIES”. So she took charge of the French dictionary and looked up the words. And they did mean SECRET PLAN.

  So then I pointed out that I was right and Jodi was wrong, and she got annoyed. And then she said that maybe I should just guess the rest of the words myself since I was obviously OBSESSED with French.

  And so I said, “FINE. I WILL!” And then she said she didn’t care about the stupid French words any more and went back to her seat.

  But we couldn’t find “L’COLA” anywhere in the dictionary, so we didn’t know what Mathilde’s secret plan was about.

  Then Jodi came back over, and she had OBVIOUSLY been listening, and she said, “I think we should ask Miss Jones.”

  But then Maisie said, “I think ‘l’cola’ means cola. Like the cola you drink. It probably just has an ‘L’ first because it’s French.”

  But I didn’t really think that Mathilde was doing a plan about cola, because I couldn’t see any cola, and because we’d never seen Mathilde drinking any, and also because it didn’t really make sense.

  So we asked Miss Jones what “L’COLA” meant. And Miss Jones got really excited because she thought Mathilde had spoken to us and that was how we’d heard the word. But I told Miss Jones that Mathilde still hadn’t said one word to us. And then I said that I thought I’d heard Mathilde say “CHEESE” earlier, but that she was just sneezing.

  So anyway, Miss Jones looked at the word and then she said it meant “cola”. But we said that we didn’t think it DID mean “cola”, and we asked her if there was anything else it could be.

  So Miss Jones looked at the word again and then she said, “Are you sure you’ve spelled it correctly?”

  So we all looked at Zach and he said, “Yes, I’m sure.” But I wasn’t so sure because I think Zach might need glasses, because sometimes his eyes can read things wrong.

  Like the time Mum took us to the cinema and I went to the toilet before the film and when I came out of the toilet to wash my hands Zach was standing at the sink next to me washing HIS hands. And we both screamed a little bit when we saw each other and I shouted, “You’re in the GIRLS’ TOILETS!”

  And he said, “No, I’m NOT! You’re in the BOYS’ TOILETS!” And then two ladies walked in and stared at him and that’s when he realised he WAS in the girls’ toilets, and that he must have read the sign wrong. So he ran out as fast as he could, and he almost fell over, and I couldn’t stop laughing all the way through the film.

  So anyway, I said to Miss Jones that it MIGHT be spelled wrong and then she said, “OK, hold on,” and she started looking on her computer.

  Miss Jones is very good on her computer. And she always finds the answers to all our questions really quickly when we have questions like, “What is the hairiest animal alive?” and “Where did the first hamster come from?” and “In Turkey, how many ACTUAL turkeys are there?”

  And then Miss Jones said, “Ah-HA!” and she wrote down a French word on the bit of paper and asked Zach if THIS was the word he meant to write.

  And Zach looked at the word and said, “Oh. Yes.” And the word was:

  L’ECOLE

  Then Miss Jones told us that the word meant “SCHOOL”. And then she reminded us to get on with our posters, so we did. But first we wrote out the new translation, which said:

  And Jodi said, “She’s got a secret plan about OUR school! That’s why she’s here!”

  And that’s when we all knew that this was going to get SERIOUS.

  And then Maisie said, “Please don’t let it be aliens. Please, please, PLEASE!” Because Maisie still has nightmares about aliens, even when she’s awake.

  But I said that I didn’t think it was about aliens, and that I thought it was about SPIES instead, because spies have notebooks, and secret plans, and are probably always French.

  And then I took a deep breath and said, “I think the new girl is a SPY!”

  After lunch we decided to watch Mathilde carefully one hundred per cent of the time. Because, like Jodi said, if Mathilde really WAS a spy and she was spying on our school then we needed to find out why. Because it was OUR school so it was up to us.

  So Jodi said we needed to do

  And that meant that I had to watch Mathilde for the first ten minutes and write down everything she did, and then Jodi would do the next ten minutes, and then Maisie, and then Zach.

  So I watched Mathilde while everyone else did their posters and this is what I wrote down:

  So we had to stop doing the surveillance and think of something else instead. Zach said that maybe we could try to peek at Mathilde’s book again. But I said that it would take too long to look up all the words, one by one, in the French dictionary.

  And then Maisie said we needed to find out why Mathilde was spying on us URGENTLY so that we could stop her. And then she looked a bit sick. So we decided we needed to have an URGENT MEETING to make all the plans.

  We usually have our secret meetings in The Den. But Jodi said that The Den was now “COMPROMISED”, which meant that it was no longer safe to do secret meetings in because Mathilde knew where it was.

  Jodi knows lots of good words that have got to do with secret missions and the police, because Jodi’s mum’s old boyfriend was a policeman. But Jodi’s mum’s new boyfriend drives an ice-cream van, and he’s Jodi’s favourite now.

  We all think that Jodi should be a police officer when she grows up, because she’s probably better than the police at investigations and she’s only eight. But when the police came to our school to do a talk and asked us who wanted to join the police, Jodi never put her hand up. Then when I asked her why she didn’t, she said it was because she was going to be a Ghost Hunter.

  Anyway, that’s when Maisie said, “We can have the meeting at my house if you want?” And we were all a bit shocked because we’d never been to Maisie’s house before. So we said yes and that m
ade Maisie really happy, and I was really excited.

  Jodi’s mum drove us all to Maisie’s house after we’d had our tea, because Maisie lives really far away from us. And she has to get up earlier than we do in the morning, because it takes her longer to get to school, and she can’t just walk like me and Zach do.

  So anyway, I got really excited when we got to Maisie’s because Jodi’s mum said, “Wow! Check out the MANSION!”

  And I looked out of the window and saw that Maisie’s house was basically a PALACE! And then we saw Maisie standing outside with her mum and she was waving at us really fast.

  Then when we got out, Maisie squealed, “Come in! Come in! I’ll do a tour!” And I had never seen Maisie so hyper before, and usually it’s me or Jodi or Zach that gets all hyper, so it was funny to see Maisie like that.

  And then Maisie’s mum said, “How wonderful!” And then Jodi’s mum asked if she could come too, because looking at other people’s houses is Jodi’s mum’s favourite thing to do. So we all went inside.

  We just left Jodi’s mum to look at all the boring stuff downstairs, like the kitchen and the washing machine, and we ran upstairs as fast as we could.

  I couldn’t believe how many rooms were upstairs. And how high the roof was! And how big the doors were! You could fit my whole house into just one tiny bit of Maisie’s house!

  Then Zach said, “Is this where your upstairs neighbours live?”

  And Maisie giggled and said, “No, well, my gran used to. But then she died.”

  And then she looked a bit sad. And I felt bad because I didn’t even know that Maisie had a gran, or that she had died.

  Then Maisie said, “Come on!” and ran down to the end of the hall, which was really far away. And then she said, “This is my room,” and she opened the door. And we couldn’t believe it. Maisie had

  Maisie had a huge bed with curtains around it, and a big fluffy couch, and loads of cool beanbag chairs. And there were loads and loads of books everywhere!

  And then Zach said, “STAIRS!” and I turned around and saw there was a little staircase that went up to another floor. MAISIE HAD HER OWN LITTLE STAIRS!

  So we ran up the little stairs, and Maisie giggled and ran after us. And then Maisie said that her room used to be the library, and that she would sometimes fall asleep in the library when she was reading all the books. And that her gran said that the library should be Maisie’s bedroom since she loved all the books so much.

  And I thought that Maisie’s gran sounded really nice. And I felt sorry that she had died.

  After we’d looked at everything, and asked all our questions, and fed Maisie’s tiny fish, we sat at the big reading table, up the little stairs, and started the secret meeting.

  Jodi said she thought we should have ALL the secret meetings at Maisie’s from now on because it was great. And also because there were lots of books and encyclopaedias in case we wanted to find out something. And we all agreed. And Maisie just kept giggling.

  I’d never seen Maisie giggle so much before, and that was when I realised that Maisie must really like us being at her house.

  So anyway, we were just about to discuss Mathilde being a spy when there was a knock on the bedroom door.

  And a voice said, “COO-EE? Can I come in, please, my darling?”

  And it was Maisie’s mum and she had a little trolley like you get on the train, and it had LOADS of cakes and biscuits and cups of juice on it, and that’s when I realised Maisie must have some sort of lift or escalator in her house somewhere, because I don’t think Maisie’s mum would have been able to get the trolley up the stairs by herself.

  And then Maisie’s mum said, “It’s so WONDERFUL to have you all here! I can’t tell you how THRILLED I am you’ve come to spend time with my little angel!”

  That’s what Maisie’s mum always calls Maisie. Except when she calls her “My little darling,” and sometimes “My little cherub,” and one time “My little butterfly wings”.

  Maisie’s mum started asking us loads of questions like, “Are you too hot?” and “Are you too cold?” and “Would you like to call your mum?” and “Do you need a blanket?” and “Is the juice too strong?” and “Would you like to use the bathroom?”

  And then Jodi said yes, she would like to use the bathroom actually, and that’s when I screamed!

  I didn’t scream because Jodi needed to go to the toilet (that would just be weird). I screamed because Maisie opened her cupboard door and I saw that it WASN’T a cupboard door, it was a bathroom door, and that Maisie had her own bathroom!

  I would LOVE my own bathroom, because then I could keep the bath filled all the time, and use all the bath-bombs Zach’s mum got me from the shop that Mum can’t go into because the smell gives her a headache. And also because I wouldn’t have to hold my nose and go to the toilet as fast as I can EVERY night after Dad comes out.

  Sometimes I even have to go down to Zach’s to use the toilet because Dad goes in there for AGES and then every time I knock on the door, he just says,

  “GO AWAY!”

  or

  “I’LL BE AT LEAST

  ANOTHER TWENTY!”

  And one time Zach’s mum took AGES to answer the door because she was in bed, and I almost had an accident right there on Zach’s doormat like our cat once did.

  So anyway, then we all said we needed to use the bathroom. And Maisie’s mum said to use the one along the hall, but we just said we’d wait because we all wanted to use Maisie’s bathroom. And that made Maisie’s mum laugh, and then she said, “Would anyone like anything else, anything at all? Anything?” and we said, “No, thank you,” and then Maisie’s mum eventually went away.

  After we’d all been to the toilet, we got back to work. And Jodi said the first thing we needed to do was find out WHY Mathilde would want to spy on OUR school. So we called it the “WHY SPY?” investigation.

  Zach said that he knew more about spies than Jodi, because spies were one of his favourite things. So we all said Zach should be in charge, and that made him look a bit shocked, because he’s not usually put in charge.

  Zach said that the first thing we had to do was to write down everything we knew about Mathilde because he said,

  “YOU NEED TO

  KNOW YOUR ENEMY

  INSIDE OUT!”

  So we did. And this is what it said:

  SPY DETAILS

  NAME: Mathilde

  AGE: 8

  HEIGHT: Giant

  HAIR: Yes

  FAVOURITE COLOUR: Don’t know (probably green, because of the frogs’ legs)

  OTHER STUFF: She is French and comes from France.

  She doesn’t speak EVER.

  She has been in our school for three days.

  She doesn’t want to be friends with us.

  She’s always writing in her little book.

  She knows where The Den is.

  Then Zach said that we had to think of all the reasons why Mathilde would want to spy on our school. And I couldn’t really think of any reasons. But then I remembered about how Mathilde was always staring at us, especially when we were doing our Antarctica Animal posters and so I said, “Maybe she wants to steal our poster ideas! And take them to her old school in France and pretend they’re hers!”

  Just like Lynsey Perry did when I made a poster about healthy eating. My poster was UNIQUE, because I hadn’t used pens, or pencils, or even paint; I had used real food. I used mustard for yellow, mushed peas for green and salmon for orange. But then Lynsey Perry COPIED me, only she used boring food that didn’t smell, like pasta, and raisins, and a Ryvita.

  And then the Head Teacher came in to do the judging and said that Lynsey Perry’s poster was VERY CREATIVE and gave it first place. And then he said that my poster was a HEALTH AND HYGIENE CONCERN and put it in the bin. So that’s when I fell out with the Head Teacher and I’m still not really speaking to him.

  So anyway, Zach said that we needed more ideas. And Jodi said that she had loads. And the
y were:

  IDEA 1: Mathilde wants to steal our brilliant Antarctica project and take it to her old school (which was the same as my idea).

  IDEA 2: Mathilde wants to steal Miss Jones and take her to France because she’s really good at doing projects.

  IDEA 3: Mathilde wants to steal our whole school because her old school is probably crumbling to the ground and they need a school is the best.

  And then Zach said that Jodi wasn’t allowed to give any more ideas because HE was in charge now, and she was just trying to TAKE OVER as usual. And we all knew it was true because Jodi doesn’t really like it when anyone is in charge that isn’t her.

  Like the time Zach’s mum said we could paint Zach’s room. And Zach was in charge because it was his room. So Jodi was only allowed to paint the door, and I was allowed to paint the small wall, and Maisie was just going to watch and wear Zach’s Darth Vader mask because she was scared of the smell. And Zach was going to paint the rest.

  But then when Zach went to the toilet, Jodi finished painting the door really fast and just started painting the big wall too! And then she said she wanted to do the ceiling, and also that she wanted to change the colour. And by the time Zach came back, Jodi had COMPLETELY TAKEN OVER!