Loudmouth Louis

by Anne Fine

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Sticky tape.” She held it up. “Just a few inches over your mouth. Trust me, it’ll work a treat.”

  And so it did, till Dad came home, and Gran explained.

  Dad peeled the tape off.

  “Don’t think that poor Miss Sparkes hasn’t dreamed of doing this,” he said. “She’d probably even be happy to pay for the sticky tape out of the money she’d save on her aspirins. But I’m afraid it’s not allowed.”

  “But if I’ve agreed …”

  Dad shook his head sadly. “Just forget it, son. I am a teacher and I know. Leave her to dream.”

  And he slid in his video.

  6 A New Manager

  WHEN MUM CAME home, she found me crying at the bottom of the stairs.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Nothing,” I snivelled.

  “Come off it, Louis. Something’s wrong. Tell me.”

  She pulled me on her knee, and I explained about the sponsored silence, and the sticky tape Gran put on my mouth, and not being able to keep quiet without it.

  Mum patted me gently. “What you need,” she said, “is a new manager.”

  I wiped away my tears. “What, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But, who? ”

  “Who do you think?” Mum said, grinning. “Me, of course.”

  7 Sponsorship

  THE FIRST THING we did was go after sponsorship. I made out the form.

  NAME

  AMOUNT

  PER

  HOUR

  MAXIMUM

  May Todd

  20p

  £1.50

  Brian Todd

  20p

  £1.50

  Mrs Havergill

  20p

  £1.00

  In the first column, you put your name. In the next, you wrote how much you wanted to pay for each hour I kept quiet. And at the end you had to write the most you would give, even if I never spoke again.

  “That’s only fair,” said Mum. “After all, you might have a terrible fright, and be struck dumb for ever.”

  (”No such luck!” Dad said.)

  First, I went round to Mrs Havergill next door, just for the practice.

  “Please, Mrs Havergill, will you sponsor me to keep quiet all Friday?”

  “How much is it?” she asked me.

  “You get to choose,” I said.

  She looked me up and down. “Ten pence an hour? And a pound maximum? What a pity you’re not doing a Saturday!”

  She wrote her name down. I rushed back to Mum.

  “It works! It works!”

  “Only if you keep quiet,” she reminded me. “But we’ll leave that problem for now. One step at a time.”

  Next day, I took my form into school. Everyone was thrilled.

  Miss Sparkes put herself down for fifty pence an hour.

  “Cheap at double the price!” she told me. Her eyes gleamed. “And if it works, we’ll do it again. Over and over! Why stop at a new library? We could have a new music centre. And a new sports stadium. You could be quiet every day, all term, until you’re out of my class!”

  I gave her my hurt look.

  “Oh, all right,” she said. “We’ll just see how it goes on Friday, shall we?”

  Snatching the form from me, she signed her name.

  All of my friends signed up. And lots of other people I hadn’t realized I’d been bothering.

  “Does this mean you’ll be quiet all through Reading Time? If you will, I’ll pay. When you keep interrupting in Reading, we never get to the end of the story, and I hate that.”

  “Is there any chance you’ll be able to stay quiet all through Maths Workbook? Then I might get to understand subtraction, and that would be brilliant.”

  “How much is it to sponsor you all through Gym Class? Then we might get to use the ropes for once. I love it when everyone’s quiet, and we get to use the ropes.”

  “I’ll pay if you promise to try extra hard all through Pictures from History on the telly. I love Pictures from History, but when you’re talking, I can’t hear.”

  The dinner ladies laughed and laughed.

  “You? Loudmouth Louis Todd? Stay quiet for even one hour? One whole hour?”

  “I’m aiming for the whole day.”

  “Oh, yes?” Both of them laughed some more.

  “I should warn you,” I said, “I’m under new management, so it could happen.”

  “And Leighton Buzzard Wanderers could win the Cup!”

  They fell about laughing some more.

  Then Mrs James put out her hand. “Give me your form, and I’ll sign up.”

  She did. And so did Mrs Patel. I looked to see what they’d written.

  £1,000,000 an hour, Mrs James had put. Maximum £5,000,000.

  And Mrs Patel had written Ditto underneath.

  Off they went, laughing.

  Then I went after Mrs Heap, who was striding down the corridor. “Please will you sponsor me for the new library?”

  “Sponsor you to do what, Louis?”

  “Keep quiet.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “What? Not talk? For a whole hour?”

  “For a whole day, if I can.”

  “You? Louis Todd?” She laid a hand over my forehead. “Are you feverish?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m determined. I’m under new management, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers. And I shall do it.”

  She seized my form. “Louis,” she said, writing busily. “If you can keep quiet for a whole school day, I shall be very tempted to put up a plaque to commemorate the occasion.”

  “A real plaque? Oh, excellent! What would it say?”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Well, if you’re going to make a lot of money, how about: Silence was Golden?”

  I whistled through my teeth. “Magic!”

  Mrs Heap gave me a beady look.

  “Yes,” she said. “Magic. And that’s what you’re going to need to get you through the first five minutes.”

  She handed the form back, and away she went.

  Next stop, Mr Hambleton.

  “Sponsor me, please, for shutting up?”

  “Shutting up?” The same light gleamed in his eyes as in Miss Sparkes’.

  “What? All through Percussion Band?”

  “I would,” I said. “Except that Percussion Band isn’t till next Monday, and I’m doing this Friday.”

  “I’ll get the timetable changed,” he cried. “I’ll go after Mrs Heap right now, and make her do it. This is an opportunity not to be missed!”

  He snatched the form, and scribbled on it madly.

  “A whole Percussion Band practice without you talking! Oh, it’s too good to be true! I can hardly wait! Roll on, Friday! And I’ll tape-record it, so I know how it sounds, and can listen to it over and over in all my darkest hours. Oh, wonderful! Amazing! I never thought I’d see the day!” He spun me around in the corridor. “Oh, what joy!”

  I had a sudden moment of doubt. Maybe he wouldn’t hear it. Maybe I couldn’t do it.

  “No!” I told myself sternly. “Don’t even think about failure. Like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers, it’s onwards and upwards!”

  And I strolled off, whistling.

  When I got home, I added up.

  “If I do a quarter past eight till a quarter past three, that will be seven hours.”

  Mum checked my working.

  “And if everyone pays me everything they’ve promised, I’ll have ten million –’

  “Let’s leave the dinner ladies out of this,” said Mum. “Just for the moment.”

  “All right then.” I added up without them. “Now I’ll multiply by seven.”

  Mum checked my working again.

  And there it was. The answer.

  “That’s amazing. With that much, Mrs Heap could buy a whole new floor-to-ceiling bookcase and Jill it with books. Couldn’t she?”

&n
bsp; Mum tapped her pencil on her teeth.

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “If you can manage seven whole hours …”

  8 Fresh Start, Fresh Colours

  WHEN FRIDAY CAME, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers when they made their fresh start, I wore fresh colours. Gran found me a bright yellow shirt to remind me that Silence is Golden. And round the cuffs she embroidered “Sssssssh! Sssssssh!” in little letters so thick and black they looked just like stripes.

  “They’re to remind you, too.”

  And then I got the pep talk.

  “Listen!” said Mum.

  “I am listening.”

  “No,” Mum explained. “That is our strategy for the day. For you to listen.”

  “Listen?”

  “Yes,” Mum said. “It’s a defensive tack. You see, if you’re busy listening, then you won’t get bored and start talking. And you’ll find out what goes on when you’re not interrupting all the time. It’ll be interesting.”

  “Interesting?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “Think about it. You’ll be like a fly on the wall, and get to see what things are like without you.”

  The more I thought about it, the stranger it sounded.

  “Fly on the wall?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Weird!”

  Mum put her finger on her lips. “Remember, if you talk, then it won’t work. Things will just go back to being how they are usually.”

  “Like when Leighton Buzzard Wanderers ended up back in the fourth division?”

  “That’s right. Like that.”

  “Right,” I said. “Match tactic. Fly on the wall. Not talking. Listening.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Mum told me. She made the Leighton Buzzard Wanderers Victory Salute. “Now go out there, Louis, and win, win, win.”

  9 Interesting…

  FIRST STOP, THE lollipop crossing. As I walked closer, Mrs Frier was reaching out to pull Bernie Henderson back from the kerb, as usual. On any other morning I would have begun to chat to her about something. But instead I lagged behind, in case she’d forgotten it was a special day, and asked if the cat had got my tongue.

  So she had time, for once, to speak to Bernie.

  “Young man, you practically hurl yourself off that kerb every morning. Did you know that, for every girl your age who has a road accident, seven boys get run over?”

  “Seven?”

  Bernie looked really shocked, and stepped right back.

  “That’s right,” said Mrs Frier. “And doesn’t that show that charging off the kerb isn’t a smart idea?”

  She stepped out in the next gap to stop all the traffic. And this time Bernie waited until she gave him the wink before he moved.

  Mrs Frier said, as I walked past her: “Hello, Louis. I didn’t notice you there, even in that nice bright shirt.”

  Fly on the wall, see? I gave her the thumbs-up, to show that, although I wasn’t speaking, I was still friendly.

  “Oh, right!” she said, remembering. “Your sponsored silence! Well, best of luck!”

  I nearly said “thank you” and ruined it.

  But Bernie interrupted just in time.

  “Seven boys! For every girl! It makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  So that was my first few minutes. I’d heard something interesting from Mrs Frier (and probably saved Bernie Henderson’s life).

  It was the same in the playground. I kept hearing fascinating things.

  “So Moira’s mother has to go and meet the Queen, and wear a fancy hat.”

  “And when my brother looked at the apple, he saw half a maggot, waving.”

  “Oh, yes. Each year the top class go to Alton Towers.”

  “Mrs Prenderghast saw a ghost in her closet.”

  I wandered round, listening. Behind the shed, I saw Dora curtsying beautifully to one of the dustbins, but since she wasn’t saying anything, I drifted back to the playground and heard Roberta saying to Amelia, “My dance teacher says if I can’t learn to curtsy properly, I can’t be one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses in our show.”

  “Is curtsying hard?” asked Amelia.

  “I think so,” said Roberta. “I get my feet all mixed up. And I can never remember how to start.”

  I grabbed her hand and tugged. She gave me a funny look and said, “What’s the matter, Louis?”

  I put my fingers on my lips and shook my head, but kept on tugging.

  “He can’t talk,” Amelia reminded Roberta. “He’s on his sponsored silence.”

  So Roberta let me drag her round behind the shed, and Amelia followed us. And there they saw Dora, curtsying beautifully to the dustbins. Roberta rushed up to copy how she put her feet. Amelia joined in as well. And when I walked away, the three of them were busy making arrangements to meet in break-time for another practice.

  And then the bell rang. While we were trooping in for Assembly, Roberta gave my hand a secret squeeze.

  “Louis,” she whispered. “If I get to be one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, I’m going to give you my granny’s old Read-Easy Magnifying Glass, and that’s a promise.”

  A Read-Easy Magnifying Glass. It sounded good.

  Usually, I hate Assembly. The hall’s cold, I hate sitting still in boring lines, and it seems to go on for ever. The only part I like is the singing, and by the time we get to that, it’s all dragged on so long, we only have time to sing one or two verses.

  This time, it was over too soon. I don’t know what happened. One minute, Mrs Heap was nattering on as usual about not dropping litter, and noise in the corridors. But because I couldn’t just turn to the person next to me and whisper, as usual, I had to stare round quietly.

  And that’s how I came to notice the second hand on the clock.

  I watched it sweep round. When it reached the exact top, I shut my eyes and tried to guess how long a minute was. When I opened my eyes again, thinking I’d see the second hand swooping past the top again, it was still only halfway round.

  I tried again.

  This time, I was better at guessing. Only twenty seconds out.

  The next guess was even closer. I missed by just five seconds.

  Then I tried counting. First, I did a minute’s test run, watching the clock and getting the rhythm right. (After all, being able to count to a minute without a watch might come in useful if I ever join the army or a television company.)

  Then, after my test run, I had another go with my eyes closed.

  And I was spot on. Perfect.

  So I did it again, to prove it wasn’t just a fluke. And this time I was only one second out, so I counted that as well.

  And then, even though I wasn’t listening, I heard my name called out by Mrs Heap.

  “Louis Todd –

  I looked up, furious. I hadn’t said a single word.

  But then I heard the rest.

  “– can sing the song along with all the rest of us without spoiling his big silence.”

  Mrs Heap waved at Mr Hambleton at the piano.

  “And since I haven’t had to keep stopping this Assembly to tell people off for talking –” (was she looking at me?)

  “– today we have time to sing every verse!”

  Excellent. And Mr Hambleton picked the song that he knows is my favourite.

  Curious …

  I’m not used to sitting quietly through work-time. I kept on nearly cracking. In the end I pretended I’d forgotten what Dad said, and borrowed Bethany’s sticky tape. Miss Sparkes pretended not to see me sticking it over my mouth. And we got on with Maths Workbook.

  I couldn’t talk, so I was forced to listen.

  “I can’t do subtraction,” Bethany was wailing.

  “Easy-peasy,” said Lyle.

  “I’m stuck”

  Lyle leaned over Bethany’s workbook. “You’re not stuck. You just have to borrow”

  “I hate borrowing,” Bethany grumbled.

  “I always get it wrong when I pay back.”

/>   I was about to tell Bethany all about the time I got all twenty wrong. But the sticky tape stopped me. So I just had to listen to Lyle explain things to Bethany.

  “Have you got it now?”

  “Nearly. Just tell me one more time.”

  So he explained it again, and I still had to listen.

  “Now do you understand?”

  “Yes,” said Bethany. “But just tell me the bit about paying back one more time.”

  So Lyle said it again. I nearly peeled off my sticky tape to tell him to shut up. But I didn’t. And then Miss Sparkes came and stood over us for ten whole minutes while we got on with it.

  And Bethany got every single one of them right.

  And so did I.

  Interesting…

  After that, it was Reading Time. Miss Sparkes picked a story about a ghost. Usually, we read in groups. (I’m on the blue table.) But on the day of my big silence, she brought in a big pile of books, and said we’d be reading in turns round the whole class.

  “Except for Louis,” she said. “Because he can’t talk. So he’s going to have the ghost’s part because going ‘ Whooo’ doesn’t count.”

  It made a nice rest from the silence, going “Whooo”.

  “Whooo!” I went.

  And then, when my next bit came:

  “Whoooooo!”

  And then, in the really scary bit:

  “That was very good,” Miss Sparkes said at the end. “Everyone read beautifully, and Louis’s wailing was excellent.”

  I didn’t say, “You’re welcome.” I just grinned. And then, before I could even believe we’d got through a whole story before the bell, it rang for lunch-time.

  Interesting…

  This listening business is even cleverer than you think. While we were standing in the queue for lunch, I was the only one who wasn’t talking, so I was the only one who got to hear that funny sizzling noise.

  I turned around.

  It was a new tray of macaroni cheese, fresh from the oven. Brown, bubbling and hot.