Class Act

by Debbie Thomas

  ‘You’re as loopy as a Hula Hoop!’ screeched Florrie. ‘As nutty as Nutella!’

  Oh no. Brian sank to the floor. She’s lost it. We’re lost.

  ‘That’s not friendship!’ She cackled like a chicken. ‘It’s bribery.’

  Quincy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Bribery?’ He licked his lips, as if exploring a new and intriguing taste. ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘No!’ cried Brian, and ‘I know so!’ yelled the teacher.

  Quincy hugged the honey to his chest. ‘But I thought they were my friends,’ he said, all round-eyed innocence. He gazed down at the three children, shoving and smacking and trying to grasp the pot. ‘You’re right, though.’ He tutted. ‘It really does look like it’s the honey they’re friends with, not me.’

  ‘Ten out of ten!’ Florrie laughed hysterically. ‘For once!’

  Quincy kicked out with his foot, hitting Alec in the face. ‘Well, forget it, you fakes! I’m saving it for my real friend.’ He jumped off the desk and strode towards Brian, holding the honey jar above the others’ clawing reach.

  ‘No!’ Brian covered his mouth with his hand and squashed against the door. ‘If you give me that honey, I won’t be your friend. I’ll just be your slave, like the rest of them.’

  Quincy stopped. ‘You will? Oh!’ He blinked uncertainly. ‘I … I see what you mean.’

  As he hesitated, Tracy leapt for the honey pot. But again he was too quick, dodging and jumping onto a chair. Alec grabbed his knees. Tracy wobbled the back of the chair. Pete kicked the legs. Quincy came clattering down – but not before he’d hurled the honey pot at one of the windows. The glass cracked, scattering stars as the jar and spoon smashed through. There was a thud on the ground outside.

  With a cry, Pete dragged a chair across to the wall. Alec and Tracy followed.

  ‘Who needs honey?’ Quincy danced to the front desk. ‘Now I’ve got a proper friend!’

  From the door, Brian watched Pete climb onto the chair and reach up to the broken window. But it was too high to stick his hand through.

  There was a shriek from Florrie. Quincy had unlocked the lid of the front desk and taken out a matchbox. He struck a match and dropped it into her lap.

  Brian’s brain froze. But his body thought for him. He flew across to her.

  Quincy darted past, sweeping up the anorak he’d thrown on the floor. ‘Time to replace the queen bee,’ he sang, skipping to the back of the room. ‘Come on, Brian, let’s smoke her and her little workers out!’

  Reaching the front desk, Brian flicked the match from the screaming Florrie’s lap. Too late. A flame had caught the bottom of her blouse. He grabbed it, smacking and squeezing the burning cotton. Pain ripped across his palms. Tears stung his eyes. At last the flame died, leaving the end of her blouse in tatters and his hands in roaring agony.

  At the back of the room Quincy was crouched at the foot of the bookshelf. He’d thrown down the anorak and was dropping burning matches on top. Flames rose, timidly at first, then thickening as they ate through the lining to the padding. As Brian rushed back between the desks, Quincy turned to the nature table. He scooped everything off the top – bark, moss, dried flowers – and threw it on the flames.

  Brian reached out and tried to snatch the matchbox. ‘Owww!’ Pain tore his hands.

  Quincy wheeled round and gripped his wrists. His eyes were wild with joy. ‘Let’s make ’em sizzle!’ Dropping Brian’s wrists, he struck another match. Brian charged again but Quincy flicked him away like a fly. He tumbled onto the floor. Quincy seized a book from the shelf, ripped out a handful of pages and threw them on the anorak. The flames crackled and danced, orange as egg yolk.

  Brian clutched at Quincy’s trouser leg. But his throbbing fingers had no strength. Quincy skipped off and pulled more books from the shelf. He threw them onto the fire, cackling.

  ‘Help!’ Brian yelled pointlessly. The other children were still trying to retrieve the honey. They’d dragged a desk to the wall. Pete stood on top, reaching for the window. Florrie was sobbing in her chair.

  Brian struggled to his feet. It was hopeless tackling Quincy alone; he was far too strong and quick. As he capered towards the door, Brian focused instead on the fire. He grasped the bottom of his jersey. Aaaah! His fingers felt shrunken and tight, as if he’d dipped them in molten wax. Dizzy with pain, he wrenched the jersey over his head. Then he whacked it at the flames. Ash flew up and stung him like ants. Smoke rose and spread across the ceiling, then curled down and out through the broken window.

  Pete coughed in the fumes. He gave up, sank down and slid off the desk. The three children turned. They looked at Brian with bleak, defeated eyes. But seeing Quincy at the door, their daze turned to desperation.

  ‘Honey!’ wailed Alec. They stumbled towards him between the desks.

  Quincy was dropping burning matches into the bin by the door. As the contents caught fire, he threw flaming balls of scrunched-up paper at the children. Then he caught sight of Brian still hitting the flames. ‘What are you doing?’ he cried, as if understanding only now that Brian was fighting, not helping, him. ‘Leave those losers and save yourself.’ He opened the door. ‘Come with your real friend, Brian.’

  Brian came … not with but at him. He rushed towards the open door and hurled himself against Quincy, knocking him sideways. ‘Now!’ he yelled to Alec, Tracy and Pete. ‘Get out of here!’

  But as they reached the door, Quincy regained his balance. He threw Brian towards the children, sending them all sprawling backwards. ‘You traitor!’ he screamed. ‘You had your chance! You can fry with the rest of ’em.’ And with that, the grey-trousered, blue-jerseyed, school-mottoed maniac was gone. The door slammed. The key creakety-squeaked in the lock.

  CHAPTER 23

  HOTTING UP

  Alec, Tracy and Pete stared in horror at the door. Then they sank to the ground, their last hope of honey in tatters. Brian looked round wildly. The fire at the bookshelf was gaining strength. Smoke was thickening quickly below the ceiling. They had minutes left to act before it sank and filled their lungs.

  Or rather he did. The honey-starved children were no use at all. ‘Get back to the window!’ he ordered. ‘And keep low.’ At least that would buy them more air and time while he thought of something.

  But what? If I smash the other window, more smoke can escape. But the extra air will feed the flames. Panic clouded his brain. He couldn’t think straight. He needed help.

  ‘Dulcie!’ He raised his left arm, brought his shirt sleeve to his ear and rubbed like he’d never rubbed before.

  ‘Stop the fire first!’ she shrieked. ‘Use the trousers!’

  Brian seized the gardening trousers still lying by the door and rushed back to the bookshelf.

  Over and over he smacked at the flames, trousers in one hand, jersey in the other, his eyes stinging from the heat, his hands from the pain and his throat from the smoke that scratched with vicious fingernails. He kicked books away from the edge of the pile, coughing and spluttering.

  ‘That’s it!’ squealed Dulcie. The flames shrank under the heavy fabric of the trousers as he pounded with a strength scooped from nowhere. ‘You’ve done it!’ The last flame flickered and died. ‘Now smash the other window! You have to get rid of the smoke.’

  She was right. But there was something else he had to do first. The children were lying on the floor by the window where the last clean air lingered. But Florrie was higher, still sat in her chair, her head shrouded in smoke. If Brian didn’t get to her, the fumes would.

  ‘I said the window!’ peeped Dulcie as instead he snatched up an unburned book from the floor and crouch-ran to the front desk. He lay on his back, raised his legs and pushed the chair over with his feet. The gasping Florrie toppled onto her side.

  Wriggling on his bottom and still clutching the book he elbowed and shouldered a desk to the wall below the other window. He took a deep gulp of precious air and hauled himself onto the desk. He staggered to his feet. Smoke stuff
ed his nose like boiling carpet. He raised his arm and flung the book at the window. It smashed through the glass and thudded outside.

  Shot, he thought vaguely as his brain began to melt.

  Good, he thought dimly as smoke billowed through the hole.

  Nothing, he thought blankly as he crashed to the ground.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE FLIGHT

  When you haven’t stretched your legs for a while, they can feel a little stiff. And when your wings have been clipped and your living room cramped for a good few million years, it takes time to adjust to freedom.

  But time was something Dulcie didn’t have. And freedom was proving scary. It wasn’t just the jolting shock as Brian’s head hit the floor ear-first. Or the heat that struck as the amber cracked around her. It was more than the sour stench, coiling smoke and wicked fumes that made her antennae flinch. It was Brian.

  Or rather the lack of him. Taking her deepest breath for twenty million years, she yelled, ‘Wake up!’

  No response.

  Standing on the amber shards, she stuck a feeler into his ear.

  Not a twitch.

  She lifted a front leg, greeting each muscle as it rippled into life. When all six legs had rehearsed, they performed together, a tiny orchestra of movement that carried her over the shattered amber. She crawled round the rim of Brian’s ear and across his cheek. Reaching an eye, she wedged her antennae underneath the wiry lashes.

  His lid didn’t budge.

  She stopped to catch her breath. My breath! I’m alive! All that fear of freedom – all that refusing to let Brian crack the amber – what a waste. Because here she was, alive and almost kicking, while the children gasped for breath and Brian lay there unconscious or …

  No! She crawled down the scorched red ridge of his nose. Perching on his upper lip, she stuck a feeler up each nostril. Thank goodness. Her antennae swayed gently in the darkness between crusty, singed hairs. He was still breathing. But for how long?

  She pulled out her feelers and fluttered her wings. Come on, Dulcie! She tensed her shoulders and fluttered again. The hairs on her abdomen trembled in the draught. You can do it. She flapped her forewings and twisted her hind wings. Harder. Flap and twist. Again. Flap-twist. That’s it. Flap-twist and … lift off! With a mighty gasp she was flying through the stinking smoke, up the wall and out through the window hole. She collapsed on the ground, trembling from head to sting. I haven’t got the puff. I can’t do this.

  Can’t wasn’t an option. Brian was dying. Time for some flying.

  Where to? The police – then what? A buzz round their heads, a squeak in their ears? Even if she had the breath, they’d swat her before she could open her mouth – and so would everyone else in Tullybun.

  Hang on. Not everyone.

  She sniffed. They’d never be up to the job.

  But if not them, who?

  Wiggling her wings, Dulcie eased herself into the air.

  Oh, thank you, breeze! Like a breathy hand it scooped her up and along.

  Oh, thank you, trees! They rustled their leaves, cheering her on like a crowd at a race.

  Oh, thank you, sun! The evening light slanted into her, a solar sat nav that bypassed her mind and led her muscles out of the woods, across the field and back to Tullybun.

  *

  Jan looked up from her sweeping. There was someone at the door. She could smell it: a musty, dusty, unfamiliar scent. She froze. Who could it be? She crept towards the entrance, the hairs on the back of her neck stiffening. The smell grew stronger. She peeked through the doorway. Phew. The guards were there, weapons aimed, interrogating the stranger.

  And what a stranger she was! A jumble of contradictions: fully formed but tiny; laden with food but underfed. Not a wasp, not a hornet, definitely not bumbly, but hardly a honey bee either.

  Claire and Louisa joined her at the door. Sue and Beyoncé followed. Her sisters were abandoning their work, buzzing to the entrance to see the action, nudging their wings and wiggling their feelers for a better view.

  The tension in the air turned to excitement. The weary visitor didn’t look much of a threat. And her hind leg bulged with the biggest bag of pollen Jan had ever seen.

  The guards lowered their bottoms. Turning round, they aimed their stings inside the hive, telling the crowd to make way.

  The sisters bowed their heads and cleared a path for the guest who’d come to guide them to a feast. Leonora pointed her feelers towards a cell full of honey, inviting the visitor to feed. But the tiny bee shook her head and crawled into the clearing, desperate to start her dance.

  Left and up at fifty degrees, wiggled Dulcie’s bottom. Left and up at forty degrees. Right and across at thirty degrees. She shimmied as if there was no tomorrow – which for Brian there might not be. Down at a hundred and eighty degrees. Her mind might be fuzzy but her butt was as clear as a summer’s day. Left and up again, fifty degrees. She poured herself into the dance of a very long lifetime.

  But it wasn’t the dance she’d dreamed of for twenty million years. Instead of flowers and food, it spoke of fire and fumes and trapped bodies. A horrified buzz ran through the audience as they learned how life was slipping from their master’s beloved friend. They had to help Cap’n O’Bunion. But how?

  As Dulcie waggled the answer, a ripple ran through the crowd. It was bold. It was brilliant. But it needed a leader.

  Not this strange little bee from the blue. Finishing her desperate dance, her legs gave way and she collapsed on the comb.

  Leonora rushed to the honey-filled cell. She scooped the sticky paste onto her tongue and scurried back. While Sue and Sadie pried the stranger’s jaws apart, Leonora pushed the honey into her mouth. There was a twitch of legs and a flutter of wings. Then the little bee went still again.

  Maybe I was wrong, thought Dulcie faintly. Maybe, just maybe, they can do the job.

  In the crowd Jan sniffed. A new smell crept into the air: heavy and rich, noble and kind. The queen was agreeing to share her food.

  A lady-in-waiting bustled through. Lowering her head, Nurse Nessa thrust her proboscis into the guest’s tiny mouth. On the tip was a blob of royal jelly. If that vitamin-stuffed, energy-boosting, royal supersnack couldn’t revive her, then …

  All heads turned. The queen herself was arriving. Not in her usual stately procession, flanked by bodyguards and cleaners, hairdressers and leg waxers, but alone. Her Royal Humness Queen Beatrice had accepted the mission.

  Crawling to the entrance and spreading her wings, Queen Bea led her girls from the hive.

  *

  Alf shuffled into the kitchen, his slippers smacking on the tiles. Yawning, he crossed to the fridge. Time for his night-cap, the hot milk and honey that always helped him sleep.

  His hand paused on the door. Funny. The dear old fridge he’d refused to change since Elsie died was buzzing more loudly than usual. He peered inside. Nothing. And come to think of it, the buzzing was coming from behind. Taking out the milk bottle, he turned round.

  And dropped it.

  ‘Alice?’ he gasped. ‘Katie? Gladys, Sadie … Charlotte, Jan … Queen Bea?’ His hands flew to his cheeks as they swarmed through the window faster than he could name them. ‘What is it?’ They buzzed and flurried, haloed his head, tickled his ears, mumbled and muttered, crowded and clouded. ‘Calm down, girls. Tell me what you want.’

  They did. Forming an arrow-shape, with the queen at the tip, they flew down the hall. Alf tied the belt of his dressing gown and hurried after them. ‘Come on then,’ he said, opening the front door. ‘Where are we going?’ The bees hung in a dark cloud while about thirty broke off and buzzed back inside. They landed on his mobile on the hall table. ‘All right, all right.’ Alf picked it up and slipped it into his dressing-gown pocket. ‘Happy now? Lead on, Queen Bea.’

  *

  Mrs Fripp squealed. It wasn’t at the blob of chewing gum that she’d just spotted on the lamp-post during her evening patrol. It wasn’t at the Wrigley’s wrapper
that had missed the dustbin and was shimmering on the pavement in the dying light. It wasn’t even at Anemia Pickles who, on her way home from work, was pressing – yes, pressing – a piece of gum onto a fence post. In fact she was squealing too. ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell is that?’

  ‘Keep back.’ Mrs Fripp grabbed Anemia’s arm and pulled her behind the lamp-post. ‘Alf’s bees are swarming. They must be looking for a new home. Leave them to him. He’ll catch them when they land.’

  But they didn’t. In a rare moment of harmony, the founder of the ‘Tullybun Says No to Gum’ campaign stood arm in arm with the village’s greatest gum-chewer, gawping at the little old man who’d turned right off High Street in pursuit of the buzzing cloud.

  ‘Slow down,’ he panted. But they were already at the far end of Gandhi Way.

  ‘Give us a sec,’ he puffed as they veered left into Joan of Arc Street, then right down Spartacus Lane.

  But as they buzzed across the field and into the woods, he began to understand that there wasn’t a sec to be had. And when they led him through the gate in the wall, which some hasty person had forgotten to padlock, he started to think it was a matter of life and death.

  And as he rushed to the side of the house, where smoke was curling from two holes at the bottom, and shone the light of his mobile through, he began to doubt the life bit.

  ‘Fire,’ sobbed Alf into his phone. ‘Tullybough Woods, cottage by the path. Kids here. Quick.’

  CHAPTER 25

  NO !

  Everything was one big ouch. His arm when he tried to lift it. His toes when he ventured a wiggle. His nose, his shoulders, his elbows – even his eyelashes. Can eyelashes hurt?

  Oh boy and how! They scraped like scouring pads as he blinked awake. His eyes smarted in the clean white light.

  Smarted. What a word. At last I’m smart. Brian tried to smile. It felt as if his cheeks were cracking.