Loudmouth Louis

by Anne Fine

  Suzie pushed me forward. (She was busy chattering to Frances.)

  I looked at the cold, claggy yellow sludge on the tray in front of Mrs Patel. There were only two squares left.

  I nearly made the mistake of saying, “After you,” but stopped just in time. Instead, I bent down and pretended to fiddle with my shoe lace.

  “Keep the queue moving, girls!” called Mrs Patel. “Walk round Louis and I’ll serve you.”

  They didn’t realize. They just hurried round, and took the last two claggy squares. I came up after them, and she gave me the first serving out of the sizzling hot brown tray.

  “I’m giving you a big one,” Mrs Patel said, “because you’re doing so well, and everyone’s so pleased with you.”

  (And that’s another thing I wouldn’t have heard if I had been talking, as usual.)

  After lunch, it was Mr Hambleton and Percussion Band. He came in with the tape recorder, looking horribly worried.

  Nodding at me, he asked the others, “So how’s he doing?”

  “Brilliantly!” Caleb said loyally. “He hasn’t said a word.”

  Mr Hambleton beamed. “Oh, joy! I never thought he’d get this far through the day. I’ve been chewing my nails all morning. I even tried to get Mrs Heap to let me have you all straight after Assembly. But she said not one of you could afford to miss Maths Workbook.”

  “I could next week,” said Bethany. “Now that I understand borrowing and paying back.”

  But Mr Hambleton wasn’t listening. He was diving into the boxes.

  “Quick! Before Louis cracks!” He handed out triangles and woodblocks and castanets. Then he turned to me.

  “Don’t speakl” he warned. “Just point to what you’d like to play today while you keep quiet.”

  I couldn’t believe it. No one in the whole history of Percussion Band has ever got to choose.

  I stared at all the things I love the best.

  The glockenspiel.

  The chiming bells.

  The marimbas.

  The cymbals.

  The timpani drum.

  I picked the chiming bells.

  When we were all set up, Mr Hambleton stood by the tape recorder and made a speech.

  “This is a very special day for me,” he said. “As you all know, I love music. It is my greatest joy. So it has been a great strain and a misery to have it ruined every single week by constant chattering and interrupting.”

  (If I hadn’t been on a sponsored silence, I’d have spoken up then, and said that it wasn’t all me. But I was, so I didn’t.)

  “But today –”

  Mr Hambleton’s eyes shone and his voice wobbled. He couldn’t carry on. He was too moved. I felt a little nervous. I’d had a lot more practice interrupting than playing on the chiming bells. But, when we started, it was really very easy. If you’re not talking, you have time to watch. And then you see him pointing your way when it’s time to get ready. And when it’s time to go, he sweeps you in.

  You’d have to be an idiot to get it wrong.

  (Or not really listening.)

  We played Surf Song and Bell-Time and Ghost Walk Rock. Then we swapped instruments (I chose the cymbals this time) and carried on. We did Circus and Twilight Time.

  “Oh, this is wonderful!” Mr Hambleton said when the tape clicked at the end. “We have time to record on the other side.”

  So we did Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Punch and Judy and Lullaby before the tape ran out and the bell rang.

  “Oh, thank you!” cried Mr Hambleton. “Thank you all!” He clutched the cassette tape to his heart. “I shall treasure this,” he told us. “Treasure it! Thank you to everyone. Thank you, Louis! Thank you! Thank you!”

  He was still saying it as we trooped out.

  “Thank you! Oh, thank you!”

  Caleb poked me in the ribs and whispered, “That’s interesting. Today Mr Hambleton is finding it even harder to keep quiet than you are!”

  Then it was time to go and watch Pictures from History. I sat next to Geoff (since he was sponsoring me particularly to shut up through that). We chose chairs in the middle of the front row, and I was really glad, because it was amazing.

  First, they explained about what people did in the days before toilets were invented.

  Then they showed a film about a pretty girl who emptied her slops out of her attic window on to the Lord Mayor, and ended up marrying him.

  Then they showed us a Potty Museum. (Honestly!) And the curator showed us all his favourites.

  And then it ended with some splunky music, and pictures of loos through the ages.

  I turned to Geoff and nearly told him, “That was amazing” But he clapped his hand over my mouth and stopped me just in time.

  On the way down to the gym, I had a think. I’ll tell you what was on my mind.

  I knew that, if anyone else had been trying to be quiet for a whole day, everyone would have been trying to trick them into forgetting.

  Not spitefully. Just for fun.

  But no one was doing that to me. In fact, they were trying to help me. If they came up, they kept their fingers on their lips, to remind me. And if they passed me notes in class, they wrote Ssshf on the top, in case I forgot. And, the whole day, not one single person had come up behind me in the playground and called out, “Hey Louis!” hoping I’d swing round and say, “What?” without thinking.

  And I thought I knew why.

  It was because they wanted me to do it. They wanted me to get through the day without talking as much as I did.

  And not just because they’re my friends, but because they were enjoying it. It made a nice change to get through lessons without having to stop all the time for, “Someone is talking. Is it you, Louis?” and, “I’m not carrying on until Louis stops talking.”

  And that was interesting. It made me think.

  We didn’t get to climb the ropes in gym. But it wasn’t my fault. Miss Hunter wasn’t in the mood. She’d planned a ball game, and wasn’t going to change it. Not for anyone.

  Not even for someone so quiet they heard every whisper. “Louis, quick! No one’s marking me. Throw the ball this way!”

  So quiet, they heard Wayne say, “This is brilliant! Today Louis is gaining us more points than he’s losing from talking, so our team’s going to win.”

  So quiet that, when the bell rang, they heard Miss Hunter promise: “If you’re all this good next week, we’ll have the ropes out. That’s a promise.”

  Back in the classroom, before going-home time, we did a bit more work, but then Miss Sparkes stopped us early. “See this?” she said, rooting in her bag. “Usually by now, I’m looking For aspirins, but today I’m digging for my peppermints.”

  Everyone got one. Not just me.

  “Don’t say ‘thank you’,'’ she warned me. “Just keep on going till a quarter past three, and that will make seven whole hours.”

  I could hardly believe it.

  They clapped me out, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers the day they went up in the League.

  Dora and Roberta and Amelia all curtsied to me beautifully as I walked by.

  The dinner ladies banged their saucepan lids as I went past the kitchens.

  Mrs Heap was standing on the steps, browsing through library-plaque catalogues. “We must do this again very soon,” she said to me hopefully.

  At the kerb, Bernie Henderson stood well back while Mrs Frier stopped the traffic. She raised her lollipop sign in a salute as I walked past.

  Mrs Havergill handed a rose to me over the garden wall as I walked up the path. “You might think of keeping going through the weekend,” she suggested.

  And Gran was waiting at the door.

  “Well,” she said. “That golden yellow hasn’t stood up very well to a long day in school. It looks quite grubby. I think I’m going to have to whip it off you, and put it in the wash, and –”

  I wasn’t even listening. I was counting the second hand round to the end of the very last minute. (I coul
d have done it with my eyes closed, but it was important to be sure.)

  Three. Two. One.

  YES!!!

  And then I spoke.

  “I did it! It was brilliant! I had a great day! It was wonderful. I got to play the chiming bells, and I understood borrowing properly, and we read a ghost story all the way through, and I saw an amazing film about potties, and –”

  The phone rang. It was Mum.

  “How did it go?”

  “Amazing! I saved Bernie Henderson’s life, and fixed things so that Roberta got a part in her dancing show, and we sang my favourite song in Assembly, and I learned to count to a minute without a watch, and –”

  The door flew open. It was Dad, home early from school.

  “How did it go?”

  “Superb! I found out that next year we get to go to Alton Towers, and lunch was the best ever, and our team won the ball game, and Miss Sparkes gave me a peppermint, and I’ve made millions for the new library. Millions.”

  Dad looked a bit wistful. “We need a new library too,” he said. “You wouldn’t think of coming over to be quiet at our school?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I wouldn’t. But I did think I might spend a bit more time being quiet in my own.”

  10 Fly on the Wall

  AND SO I have. Not terribly quiet, and not all the time. But just enough.

  Everyone’s happier. They all paid up (except for the dinner ladies, who tried to pretend that their noughts were just fancy decoration. But, to make up, they have lent Mr Hambleton a bit of serving counter for tapes of The Percussion Band Medley. And sales of that are going really well, so we’ll probably get to ten million without them.)

  And the new library’s open. People still go round boasting about how they raised money for it. How they washed cars, or made biscuits, or had wet sponges thrown at them, or sold raffle tickets. Even Miss Sparkes is still bragging about making five whole pounds by auctioning the timer that never worked on me.

  “What made you change, anyway?” she keeps on asking.

  But I won’t say. I won’t give any clues. (”That’s the spirit!” says Mum. “Be like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers and keep your secrets.”) But sometimes, just sometimes, I see Miss Sparkes watching me grinning at some fly on the wall, and I wonder if she guesses.

  Nobody calls me Mr Loudmouth any more. Not that I’m totally silent. I still talk a little more than most.

  But hardly ever in class, when we’re trying to get work done.

  And never in Percussion Band, except between pieces.

  And never, ever when I’m in the library, sitting next to Bernie Henderson (who, thanks to me, is still alive) and reading through Roberta’s granny’s old Read-Easy Magnifying Glass.

  In my favourite place. Under the plaque that says Silence was Golden.