Labradoodle on the Loose

by T. M. Alexander

  I got on with my lines and boxes. Miss Walsh got on with clearing up the mess. I showed her my sketch – not because I’m a keener, but because that’s what she said to do.

  ‘Good,’ she said, without looking. That meant it was painting time. We were using A3 white paper, but I decided my Mondrian was going to be square, mostly because I like using the guillotine. It was a good move because it gave me the best view of the fight that was about to erupt between Jamie and Alice.

  Alice had chosen some orange paper halfway down the paper pile. She was holding the corner trying to edge it out without upsetting all the other pieces on top. Jamie came over and got hold of another corner of the same piece of paper. Odd, as we were meant to be using white.

  ‘That’s mine,’ said Alice. ‘Mi-iss!’

  Miss Walsh took no notice.

  Jamie gave the paper a tug. Alice tugged too. It was going to tear, obviously. It was just a question of when. The paper pile started to lean. Alice tried to stop it with her free hand. Jamie didn’t seem to care about the pile. He was fighting to the death. Multi-coloured pieces of paper floated to the floor and spread out like a rainbow, leaving the orange paper at the top of the pile. Jamie ripped it away from Alice, all except her corner. She looked at it as though her pet budgie had been torn in half and started wailing.

  I’d like to repeat everything Miss Walsh said to Jamie but there was too much of it to remember. The basic message was: You are a complete and utter idiot and I wish you would go away and I never knew teaching would mean I had to deal with kids like you and I should have got a job in the Build-a-Bear Workshop.

  It was one of her genuine hissy fits, last seen on bring-in-your-pets day.

  THE HAMSTER HISSY FIT

  Fifty tripped carrying Lily’s hamster and catapult-ed it into the bin. He tipped the bin upside down to save the creature from the pencil shavings and tissues (which it probably quite liked) and it fell out and landed on Miss Walsh’s shoe and she panicked and kicked it. (Don’t worry, it survived.) Lily was livid and threatened to kick Miss Walsh. Miss Walsh lost the plot. It was excellent.

  The Mondrians were finished in complete silence. I liked the quiet and got very involved in my coloured boxes. When the bell went I jumped a mile. Jamie jumped too, right out of his seat, and headed for the door. That’s not allowed. We’re meant to wait for Miss Walsh to give us permission to pack up. He slammed the door, mega hard. Jamie was in a right temper and heading for trouble.

  Oh well, nothing to do with us, I thought. As usual, I was wrong.

  What Was That All About?

  ‘Do you want to come to the café?’ asked Bee after school.

  ‘No,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Jonno.

  ‘What about you, Keener?’ said Bee.

  I weighed it up – a hot chocolate with Bee and Jonno or a snack at home, probably with Flo. Weirdly, home won.

  ‘I’ll pass,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got something for Toni to say thanks for letting Doodle sleepover.’ Bee reached into her bag and brought out a photo of Doodle in a frame. Not most people’s idea of a gift.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Jonno. We all walked down the alley together.

  ‘What was that about with Jamie?’ said Fifty.

  ‘No idea,’ said Bee. ‘But it wasn’t about the paint.’

  ‘It was,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘It was, but it wasn’t,’ said Jonno.

  ‘That’s clear,’ said Fifty, meaning the opposite.

  ‘The paint started it, but Jamie must have been upset about something else. He’s always getting told off but he doesn’t normally storm out,’ said Bee.

  ‘Maybe he’s fallen out with Callum,’ Fifty said.

  ‘That would be too good to be true,’ said Bee.

  She went off to the café with Jonno. Copper Pie branched off to his house and Fifty and I were left on our own.

  ‘Do you want to come to mine?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thanks.’ I wanted to go home and swing in my hammock.

  Or did I? Amy was wailing in the kitchen. Mum shooed me away. Something was up – big time. I waited in my room for the sobbing to stop, which took a while.

  ‘Does anyone want some cheese biscuits?’ Mum shouted up the stairs a bit later.

  ‘I’m on my way!’ I ran downstairs two steps at a time and nearly (note the ‘nearly’) crashed into Flo at the bottom. She’d been watching telly.

  ‘Mu-um, Keener hurt me,’ she winged.

  ‘Did not.’

  ‘Did.’

  ‘Did not.’

  Mum came to the kitchen door and gave us a look that stopped what she calls ‘the panto’.

  PANTOMIME ARGUING

  You know the whole ‘Behind you!’ ‘Where?’ Behind you!’ Where?’ stuff that you get at the Christmas panto? Well Mum says that’s what we sound like when we do the ‘You did’, ‘I didn’t’ arguing, so in our house it’s called ‘the panto’.

  We had the biscuits washed down with blackcurrant. Mum made a grave face. ‘I want you to be nice to Amy,’ she said.

  Pigs might fly, I thought. Fish might climb palm trees.

  ‘Because he dumped her, didn’t he, Mummy?’ said listen-at-doors Flo.

  ‘Dumped isn’t a nice word to use, Flo, but yes, they’ve split up.’

  My grin started at one ear lobe and finished at the other. No more spotty boyfriend, no more snogging in the front room, no more Friday night suppers with the love-birds cooing at each other.

  And if Jamie had split up with Callum too, then things couldn’t get much better.

  Breaking News

  I met Fifty on the way to school as normal. We got there before Bee but after Copper Pie and Jonno, as normal. We hung around on our patch, as normal. I like normal – it means we’re not in trouble.

  Normal didn’t last long, however. There were two odd things in our classroom, completely unrelated. The fancy new whiteboard had turned smeary pink, and Callum wasn’t at school. Miss Walsh didn’t read out his name so she must have known already. Mums are meant to call in if you’re off sick, so the school doesn’t send the truancy officer round. I looked round at Jamie. He looked just as angry as the last time I saw him, marching out of the art room. Something was definitely up.

  Alice asked why the board was pink.

  ‘There was an accident,’ said Miss Walsh.

  ‘Is it ruined?’ said Alice. ‘It looks ruined.’

  ‘Geography books out, please, and turn to the maps we drew last week.’ Miss Walsh didn’t want to discuss the board. Pity. It was hard to imagine what made it prawn colour.

  At break our patch got a bit crowded. Lily, Ed and Marco came over and joined the Tribers to deliver the breaking news, CNN-style. Lily was the newsreader with the dynamite headline.

  ‘Callum’s been suspended.’ She paused for maximum dramatic effect. ‘He insulted Miss Walsh.’

  It was a short news bulletin, with nowhere near enough information. The news team were bombarded with questions: What did he say? When did he say it? How do you know? The answers were: Don’t know. Don’t know. Jamie told Ed.

  ‘Go and find out more,’ said Bee to Ed. Bee is used to being obeyed, but not this time.

  ‘Jamie won’t say anything else. He’s being really strange about it all. It’s like he’s been suspended, not Callum.’ The news team disappeared to tell the rest of the playground.

  Break was too short. Getting rid of Callum was like a Tribe birthday present, and we couldn’t stop talking about it. Copper Pie was made up. They’re in the football team together. C.P. calls him Hog.

  LIFE WITHOUT CALLUM

  No one would hog the ball in football, except Copper Pie, but he is captain.

  No one would spy on Tribe.

  No one would pelt us with rubbers in the classroom.

  No one would tease Fifty for being small, Keener for being wimpy, Bee for being bossy or C
opper Pie for being ginger. (No one teases Jonno.)

  Tribe wouldn’t have any enemies, except Jamie, who’d be useless on his own.

  As we filed back into class, the main topic was the chance of suspension becoming exclusion.

  ‘Depends what he said to her,’ said Bee.

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  When I walked in I heard Alice say, ‘I can’t bear the smell, miss.’ She wasn’t wrong. It smelt like it came from one of those cans which has a big black cross on the back and a massive warning saying, Only use in well ventilated areas and gives you an instant headache. The caretaker, who is whiskery like a walrus, snarled at Alice and shuffled off.

  ‘It’ll be gone in no time,’ said Miss Walsh. ‘Would you please open that window, Jonno.’ The smell was coming from the whiteboard, which was white again.

  ‘What was the accident that made the board pink, Miss?’ said Alice.

  ‘Oh Alice!’ She smiled. ‘If only you were as interested in your work as you are in all the other aspects of what goes on in the school.’ But the smile was pure venom. Jamie and Alice are the two kids in our class that drive Miss Walsh mad (followed by the Tribers).

  No one played up for the whole of the rest of the morning because Miss Walsh was giving out don’t-mess-with-me vibes. Callum was well out of it.

  Lunchtime Update

  We had sausages – everyone’s favourite (except Bee’s – she had a jacket potato). Jamie sat at the next table with some kids from Year 5. I almost (only almost) felt sorry for him. Having no friends is pretty grim. We cleared our table and went outside to find Lily waiting on our patch.

  ‘Callum didn’t say anything to Miss Walsh,’ she said. ‘He wrote something. On the whiteboard. With red paint.’ She paused a few times to make the point. ‘That’s why it was pink. That’s why Walrus was cleaning it.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Fifty.

  ‘Walrus told Miss Maggs, and she told me.’ Miss Maggs is the playground monitor. She used to like us until Copper Pie got Jonno in a headlock. Jonno’s forgiven him, but Miss Maggs doesn’t believe in forgiveness.

  Lily went off to tell more people. She was obviously enjoying herself. Bee disappeared after her.

  ‘Those whiteboards are really expensive,’ said Fifty. ‘He was lucky Walrus got it off.’

  ‘Why would Callum write something about Miss Walsh on the board in red paint?’ said Jonno.

  DIFFERENT REDS

  Redhead (Copper Pie)

  Red herring (a false clue)

  Reds (Liverpool F.C.)

  Red planet (Mars)

  Red-letter day (a special day)

  Blood red

  Red Adair (famous firefighter)

  Red Arrows (aerobatic team)

  Red-handed (caught in the act)

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t care,’ said Copper Pie. I agreed.

  ‘It’s all quite odd,’ said Jonno. ‘I know Callum’s got it in for us, but he doesn’t go looking for trouble with teachers, or, in fact, the other kids.’

  Fifty had a lightbulb moment. ‘Maybe it was because of Jamie. Maybe he couldn’t bear Miss Walsh being so nasty to Jamie in art yesterday and so he took revenge.’

  Unlikely, I thought.

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Jonno. ‘They’re mates but that would be weird.’

  ‘That would be like they were in love,’ said Fifty. He started singing: ‘Jamie and Callum sitting in the tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love —’

  ‘Shut it,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘I wonder what Callum wrote,’ I said. The four of us spent the rest of lunch break making suggestions. Copper Pie’s were rude. Mine were dull. Jonno hardly thought of any (I don’t think he likes being mean) and Fifty’s sounded like advertising slogans: Miss Walsh, stress in a dress. My hair’s in a bun, and I’m no fun.

  The bell went so we lined up. Bee came out of the door we were about to go through.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Jonno as she slipped in behind us.

  ‘Interrogating Walrus.’

  ‘And?’ said four voices at the same time.

  ‘Tell you later,’ she said in a very serious voice with a very serious face to match. Even though I didn’t really care what was going on with Callum I couldn’t help being curious.

  Curiouser and Curiouser

  After school Bee said, ‘I’ll see you at the Tribehouse,’ and dashed out of the classroom door before any of us had a chance to say anything. What was she up to?

  ‘What’s Bee up to?’ said Fifty.

  ‘No idea,’ I said. I looked at Jonno – he spends more time with her than we do because he sort of shares her dog. He shook his head. It was a mystery.

  We turned into the alley just in time to see two figures reach the other end and vanish from view. It looked like Bee and Jamie, but I figured I needed my eyes testing because that was about as likely as me going off with Callum.

  OTHER UNLIKELY EVENTS

  COPPER PIE eating a green vegetable.

  FIFTY deciding to swim the Channel.

  JONNO killing the stag beetle that lives in our tree stump.

  BEE eating beef-flavour crisps and dropping the packet.

  KEENER picking a fight.

  ‘Was that Jamie?’ said Fifty.

  ‘I think it was,’ said Jonno.

  I did a ‘maybe’ nod, which is like a nod with a wobble halfway down.

  ‘With Bee?’ added Fifty.

  ‘Traitor,’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Fifty. ‘It must be something to do with Callum. And Walrus. And maybe Jamie. And . . .’

  ‘And we’ll find out at six o’clock,’ I said. ‘Tribe meeting.’

  ‘Same,’ said Fifty.

  I got to the Tribehouse early because I wanted to know why Bee went to talk to Walrus, and what she’d found out from him, and why she’d walked home with Jamie, second-worst person in our class, school, world, universe, etc. The others had the same idea. We were all ready and waiting ten minutes before the meeting was due to start.

  ‘Maybe Jamie’s kidnapped Bee and is torturing her to find out all the Tribe secrets,’ said Fifty.

  We all ignored him. He didn’t shut up.

  ‘Maybe Bee has been sprayed with a chemical, the chemical Walrus used on the whiteboard, and the side-effect is that you fall in love with your enemy’s deputy.’

  ‘I like walruses,’ said Jonno, He gave us a lecture on them while we waited for Bee. It was better than listening to Fifty.

  WHY WALRUSES ARE GREAT

  Their tusks, which are their canine teeth, grow a metre long. They use them to haul themselves out of the water and to break holes in the ice from underneath and to fight. They’re hugely fat, because they need all the blubber to keep warm, and their heart rate is mega-slow which helps them survive the icy water. Their whiskers are really clever detection devices to find their favourite dinner – shellfish. Their suction is so strong – better than a Dyson – that they can suck a baby seal’s brain out through its nose. They live about forty years, weigh as much as 1.5 tons and make lots of noise – mainly snorts and bellows. The scientific name for walrus is Odobenus Rosmarus, which means tooth-walking sea-horse.

  We heard Doodle bark and Bee’s head poked in the door.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Go on,’ said Fifty. ‘Spill.’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘You know Lily told us that Callum had painted on the board.’ We all nodded. ‘Well that made me remember something I’d sort of forgotten, something I noticed, but didn’t know was going to be important.’ She lowered her voice. ‘When Jamie stormed out of art, I saw him shove the red paint up his sweatshirt.’ She stopped, moved aside her great big fringe, and looked around, making sure we all understood the point. ‘And that made me wonder how they knew it was Callum, and not Jamie, who wrote on the board.’ She had her hands on her hips – it makes her look like she’s boss.

  ‘Jamie could have given it to Callum,’ I said. />
  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But that’s why I went to talk to Walrus. I wanted to know how they knew it was Callum.’

  ‘And?’ I said. It was like a murder mystery. Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the lead piping.

  ‘Callum was caught in the classroom by Walrus. He’d come to mend that window that gets stuck. Callum was standing there on his own and he had red paint on his sweatshirt.’

  ‘So Jamie gave Callum the paint,’ said Jonno.

  ‘There wasn’t any bottle of paint,’ said Bee. ‘Not anywhere. I asked him that.’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Copper Pie.

  ‘I care,’ said Bee. ‘Because it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t believe Callum would write something about Miss Walsh on the whiteboard with red paint.’

  ‘I think the police would disagree. The guilty party was caught red-handed, red-sweatshirted, in fact. Case closed,’ said Fifty.

  ‘Red-sweatshirted but no paint bottle anywhere,’ said Bee.

  ‘Bee’s thinking more Sherlock Holmes than local cop, aren’t you, Bee?’ Jonno grinned at her. Sometimes I think they have a mini club of their own with a language we don’t understand. I had no idea what he meant but I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to look stupid. Luckily Copper Pie didn’t mind looking stupid.

  ‘What you on about?’

  Jonno sighed as though it was hard explaining things to idiots like us. ‘Sherlock Holmes didn’t go looking for obvious clues like blood, or a bullet, or red paint, he sort of studied people’s behaviour and knew all sorts of random facts and totally odd things that helped him solve crimes.’ Jonno moved his glasses up his nose and actually looked through them for once. ‘Like he could tell from the mud on a shoe where in London that shoe had walked – with a leg in it, of course.’

  I was following the Sherlock thing but didn’t see what it had to do with Bee’s idea that Callum was innocent. Fifty did though.

  ‘So you think a normal sort of detective would accuse Callum because of the paint on his sweatshirt and because he was in the classroom, but a Sherlock-type of detective would think about the fact that Callum had no reason to be cross with Miss Walsh and would look for another explanation for the fact he was covered with red paint and standing by the board with something rude written in red paint.’