The Spy Who Loved School Dinners

by Pamela Butchart

  So we sat down and watched her. And that’s when we COULDN’T BELIEVE OUR EYES AGAIN! And Jodi make a sick sound, and Zach said, “What’s WRONG with her?!” And Maisie said, “What? What’s HAPPENING?” because she couldn’t see, because she’s too small, and also because she had her eyes closed.

  So I said, “She FINISHED IT… and she’s going up for SECONDS!”

  For the first time in our lives, we ate ALL of our shepherd’s pie, just so Mrs Kidd would let us leave the table quickly. Then we all ran back to the classroom to find Miss Jones.

  We told Miss Jones all about Mathilde. About how she wasn’t even French. And about her face mask. And about how she was an Undercover School Inspector Spy. And that she was probably a hundred years old or something.

  But Miss Jones just STARED at us and didn’t say anything. And I thought it was because she was just as shocked as we were that our school was going to get shut down, and that she would probably have to go and teach at the Big School, which she once said she’d rather swim with sharks than do.

  But then Miss Jones said that she had no idea what we were talking about, and that we were talking too fast. And then she said, “I’ve asked you all just to be PATIENT with Mathilde.”

  And that’s when Maisie screamed at the top of her lungs, “Miss Jones, don’t you understand?! SHE’S A SHEPHERD’S PIE SPY!”

  Maisie had to have a little lie-down beside Miss Jones’s desk after she screamed. And I thought Miss Jones was going to need a lie-down too, because she was SHOCKED at how loud Maisie had screamed. And so were we! But at least Miss Jones was taking us seriously now because she said, “Right. You three, sit down. What’s all this about shepherd’s pie? And why is Maisie screaming? And who’s a SPY?!”

  So we explained everything. But we did it a bit slower this time, because sometimes it takes grown-ups ages to understand simple things like Undercover School Inspector Shepherd’s Pie Spies. Because their brains are not as fresh as our brains, just like Granddad’s brain.

  And when we were finished Miss Jones said, “OK. I’m going to show you something. Something that is VERY important. Something that you can’t EVER tell another living person about.”

  And we didn’t know WHAT Miss Jones was about to show us, but we knew that it was something

  And then Miss Jones said, “Do you promise not to tell ANYONE what I’m about to show you?” And we said yes. And Jodi took my hand and she squeezed it really tight. And then Miss Jones showed us.

  Miss Jones picked up the bin next to her desk and lifted the lid. And there it was. A lump of disgusting shepherd’s pie.

  And that’s when Miss Jones told us that none of the teachers liked the shepherd’s pie either! And that the only reason they always took their trays back to their classrooms was so they could put it in the bin without the dinner ladies seeing. And then Miss Jones said she was a bit scared of the dinner ladies.

  Then Miss Jones said that Mathilde must just LIKE the shepherd’s pie, and that that wasn’t suspicious. And that it certainly didn’t mean she was a grown-up or a spy.

  Miss Jones said that there was

  Mathilde was actually a grown-up School Inspector Spy, because she had actually met Mathilde’s mum and dad, and she had even visited her house with Mr Murphy before Mathilde came to the school. Then she told us that she had just found out that the school inspection had been CANCELLED until next year, and that Mr Murphy was ECSTATIC and that there were definitely no Inspector Spies in the school. And then she made us promise that we would stop doing the investigation about Mathilde, so we said we would.

  So we all just tried to forget about Mathilde being a spy. Because now that the school inspection was cancelled, it didn’t make any sense that Mathilde would be a grown-up Undercover School Inspector Spy. But forgetting about it was a very difficult thing to do, because Mathilde STILL hadn’t said a word to anyone, and she was STILL looking suspicious and writing in her little book all the time. But we’d promised Miss Jones we wouldn’t do the spy investigation any more, so we couldn’t really do anything about it.

  But then that afternoon something happened that we just COULDN’T ignore.

  It happened when we were watching a film about the Antarctic explorers. The film was great because it was all about Captain Scott and how he sailed the Discovery ship all the way to Antarctica over a hundred years ago when he was trying to be the first person in the world to discover Antarctica and reach the South Pole. But then just when Captain Scott got there, he found out that someone had beaten him! And that an explorer from Norway had got there first.

  I felt really sorry for Captain Scott because what happened to him was EXACTLY the same as when Mum said that if I ate my broccoli I could have the last bit of chocolate trifle that was in the fridge. So I ate my broccoli as fast as I could, even the stems, but then when I got to the fridge and opened it I found that someone had already beaten me to it. The trifle was gone! But it had not been a man from Norway who had beaten me to the trifle; it had been Dad (even though he said it wasn’t when I questioned him about it. But I know that it was because he had chocolate on his chin).

  So anyway, we were all watching the film, and it was dark because the curtains were closed and the lights were off. And I don’t know what made me do it, because we weren’t even supposed to be investigating Mathilde any more, but I looked over my shoulder to see what Mathilde was doing. And I couldn’t believe it. Mathilde was GLOWING!

  I stared at Mathilde for ages. Her face was glowing! And she was staring at something on her desk.

  It took my brain AGES to understand what was going on, but then I realised that Mathilde had some sort of torch pen!

  So I nudged Maisie and told her to look. But that was a bad idea, because the second Maisie saw that Mathilde was glowing, she fainted on me. And for such a small person, it sometimes hurts when Maisie faints on you.

  So anyway, I DESPERATELY needed to get Zach’s and Jodi’s attention so they could see that Mathilde was up to something, but I couldn’t really move because Maisie was in my way. So I looked to see what Miss Jones was doing, and she was busy watching the film and hadn’t noticed anything about the glowing or the fainting. So I took off one of Maisie’s shoes and threw it over to beside where Zach and Jodi were sitting, and it hit Zach on the back. But then Zach shouted, “Ow!” really loud, and that made Miss Jones press pause and put the lights on. And that’s when Zach and Jodi saw that it was Maisie’s shoe that had hit Zach, and also that I was pretending that Maisie hadn’t fainted by putting my arm around her and putting her head on my shoulder. So they knew that something serious was going on.

  Miss Jones asked Zach what was wrong and he just kind of stared at her, because Zach is not very good at coming up with lies on the spot.

  So that’s when Jodi said, “Sorry, miss. I sat on Zach’s hand by mistake. That’s all.” And Zach nodded and pretended that his hand was a bit sore. And then Miss Jones was just about to put the lights off again when she noticed that Maisie had her head on my shoulder, and also that I had covered all of Maisie’s face with her hair.

  “Is Maisie OK?” asked Miss Jones. So I said that Maisie was fine, and that she was just hiding until the humpback whales came on, because she was a bit scared of ships. And Miss Jones just said OK and put the film back on, because she knows that Maisie is scared of most things and there’s not much you can do about that.

  So once the lights were off again, Jodi and Zach looked over, and I nodded over to where Mathilde was sitting. But they just kept looking over and then looking back at me. And Jodi kept shrugging her shoulders and saying, “What?” with her mouth, but not making any sound. So I put Maisie’s head on my lap and turned around. And Mathilde was just sitting there pretending to watch the film! And she wasn’t even glowing any more!

  Once the film was finished I managed to wake Maisie up and we all went back to our tables. Miss Jones said that we should all discuss the film in our groups for five minutes and that after that
she had some BIG NEWS she wanted to share with us.

  Zach said he thought that the BIG NEWS Miss Jones wanted to share with us was that she was pregnant and that she was going to be having a baby. Because he said that he saw a big share-size bag of Maltesers sticking out of her bag this morning and that now the empty packet was in the bin. And then he said that only a pregnant lady could eat that many Maltesers so quickly.

  But I couldn’t really think about Miss Jones having a baby just now because I was too worried about what Mathilde was up to. So that’s when me and Maisie told Jodi and Zach about Mathilde glowing. And about how she had a SPY TORCH PEN.

  And Jodi said, “I knew it! So she is a spy, after all.” And we all agreed, because Mathilde was still watching everybody all the time, and refusing to speak, and writing things down in her little book, and now she even had a SPY PEN, so she could spy in the dark!

  But we had a big problem; we knew that Mathilde wasn’t an Undercover School Inspector Spy because the school inspection was cancelled. But we knew that Mathilde was still a spy on some sort of secret mission. So we knew there was DEFINITELY a spy at our school, but we had NO IDEA why. And that meant we were in

  But then we couldn’t talk about it any more because Miss Jones said it was time to tell us her big news. And Zach was wrong; Miss Jones’s big news wasn’t about babies and being pregnant, it was much better!

  Miss Jones said that we couldn’t visit Antarctica for our project because it was really far away and also because of the DANGEROUS WEATHER CONDITIONS there. And then she said that there was no way she was filling out all those “Antarctica Explorer Risk Assessment Forms”. And then she had a little giggle to herself. But none of us could really see why that was funny. And then when she was finished laughing she said that because we were doing such a good job on our Antarctica project she had arranged a surprise for us. And that the surprise was that she was going to be taking us aboard the real Discovery ship! And as soon as she said that, Mathilde almost jumped out of her seat!

  Jodi said, “Look!”

  And I said, “I know!”

  And Zach said, “She must love ships or something!”

  And then Miss Jones started telling us all about the Discovery, and that someone would be showing us above deck, and below deck, and that we’d get to see where Captain Scott and his crew lived. And then she said, “And we’ll get to see where they plotted their journey into the unknown!”

  And then Mathilde turned and smiled RIGHT AT US!

  And Maisie fainted and slipped under the desk.

  That night we HAD to break our promise to Miss Jones and start the spy investigation again. So we went to Jodi’s house after our tea.

  Jodi had everything ready for the meeting, and she’d already spread the duvets on the floor when we got there. And her mum had put out the really good snacks that you only get at Jodi’s house on the floor. Like strawberries dipped in chocolate, and curry crisps, and mini cheeses on toasts, and the really good strawberry milkshake that only Jodi’s mum can make.

  Then Jodi’s mum asked if she could join the secret meeting. And we felt a bit bad saying no, but we had to.

  Zach said that the first thing we should do was make Miss Jones a nice card to say sorry for investigating Mathilde again after we said we wouldn’t. But then Jodi said that we didn’t need to, because when we proved that Mathilde really WAS a spy and stopped her before she did whatever she was planning to do, Miss Jones would be so pleased with us that she would probably want to make US a card. And that made sense, so we all got back to the meeting.

  Jodi said that the first thing we needed to discuss was “THE SMILE”. But then Maisie said that she didn’t really want to talk about “THE SMILE” because it was creepy, and because it had “SCARED THE LIFE OUT OF HER!”

  But then Jodi said we HAD to discuss it, because we couldn’t ignore “IMPORTANT EVIDENCE”. But that maybe we didn’t need to actually say the word “SMILE” and that maybe we could replace “SMILE” with another word.

  So Maisie said to replace “SMILE” with “MARSHMALLOW,” because she loves marshmallows. And then she said to also replace the word “MATHILDE” with “HUMPBACK WHALE,” because she likes them too.

  But then the meeting started to get really confusing, because I said, “Humpback whale marshmallowed right at us.”

  And Jodi said, “That marshmallow freaked me out!”

  And I said, “Do you think humpback whale marshmallowed at us because humpback whale’s got a plan that has to do with ships?”

  And then Zach said that he was really confused, and also that he was hungry for marshmallows now. And then he went to see if Jodi’s mum had any.

  Then Jodi said that she was ninety-eight per cent sure that Mathilde’s secret spy mission was about the Discovery, and I agreed, only I was more like ninety-nine point nine per cent sure at this point because of how excited Mathilde got when Miss Jones had said we were going aboard the ship.

  Then Zach came in with loads of marshmallows and Maisie grabbed five and shoved them in her mouth to calm herself down.

  And then she said, “MAFILE OA ISHON OO EELA IP ACHE USH OA URNY IOOOEEE UNOOOO!”

  And we said, “What?!”

  And Maisie chewed, and swallowed really fast, and then she said, “MATHILDE’S ON A MISSION TO STEAL THE SHIP AND TAKE US ON A JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN!”

  The next morning in class a new office lady that we’d never seen before came to the door and asked to see Mathilde.

  We all watched as Mathilde stood in the doorway with the new office lady. The lady whispered something really quietly to Mathilde, and Mathilde nodded. Then the office lady handed Mathilde a piece of paper, and Mathilde took it, looked at it, nodded again, and then put it in her cardigan pocket and went back to her seat.

  As soon as Mathilde sat back down, Jodi grabbed my hand under the table and said, “Do you know what we have to do?” And I did. So I nodded. And I knew that things were about to get OUT OF CONTROL because Jodi had THAT LOOK in her eye.

  I knew without even talking to Jodi about it that she wanted us to get the note out of Mathilde’s pocket and read what it said. But before I had time to guess what Jodi’s plan was, Jodi got up and walked over to Mathilde and starting pulling at her cardigan!

  “IT’S A WASP, MATHILDE! A WASP!” she shouted. “IT FLEW RIGHT INTO YOUR CARDI! TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF!”

  And then Jodi started shaking Mathilde’s cardigan all over the place.

  Mathilde looked really shocked! And then she screamed! Then Jodi looked a bit shocked. And then she said, “Oh good. It’s gone now.” And then she ran back over to her seat.

  Miss Jones had to spend ages calming Mathilde down, and explain to her that Jodi wasn’t crazy and that she had just been trying to protect her from a wasp. But I don’t think Mathilde believed Miss Jones, because she kept staring over at us and giving us looks.

  And then when everything had calmed down, and we’d eventually convinced Maisie that the wasp was a hundred per cent imaginary, Jodi dropped something on our table. And it was MATHILDE’S NOTE! And this is what it said:

  And Zach said, “Do you think she’s meeting that new office lady?”

  And Maisie put her hand on Zach’s hand and said, “Zach. I don’t think you understand.” And her voice was shaking. And I just KNEW what she was about to say.

  “That wasn’t a new office lady. That was another spy!”

  When the bell went at the end of the day, we rushed to The Den. Jodi said that we were either going to have to discuss everything in code words, or write it down instead of speaking, because now that there were two spies in the school, The Den was probably bugged (which meant that the spies had put secret microphones and cameras in it to see what we were doing).

  So we decided to write everything down in tiny writing so the cameras couldn’t see it, because it was going to take too long to come up with loads of new code words.

  Jodi said that she would write down wh
at she knew about “YOU-KNOW-WHO” and what we were going to do about the “YOU-KNOW-WHAT” and then pass it around. And that we could add to it. But that we had to do it fast because we only had twenty-five minutes before “YOU-KNOW-WHAT”. So we did.

  I was last to get the paper and by the time it reached me, this is what it said:

  So there was nothing else for me to add to the note except:

  WE HAVE TO GET TO THE CAR PARK NOW!

  We made sure that we got to the car park early, so that Mathilde and the other spy lady she was meeting wouldn’t be there yet.

  Jodi made us all hide in the bushes in the car park and wait. But it was really cramped in the bushes, and itchy, and Maisie kept whimpering about beetles and stick insects and I was getting really scared that she was going to blow our cover and that the spies would find us and WHO KNOWS what they would do to us. So I did something that was maybe a bit mean, but ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY in order to protect us all.

  I told Maisie there was a beetle in her hair. And she went out like a light.

  And then Zach said that I shouldn’t have done that, and it really upset me when he said that because Maisie is one of my best friends, and the only reason I made her faint was to protect us all from being captured by French spies.