Cartoon Kid--Emergency!

by Jeremy Strong

  I draw pictures of her too, as you can see.

  At school I sit next to my best friend, Pete. He’s tall and he’s got feet the size of skateboards. I call him Big Feet Pete. That’s his superhero name.

  He has a big nose too. Anyhow, not only does Pete sit next to me, he lives right next door to me too.

  I don’t know why Pete bothers to live next door because he spends most of his time in MY house. That’s because Pete’s dad left three years back and now his mum has got a boyfriend called Uncle Boring. That’s not his real name, though it should be. He’s always telling you incredibly DULL things that you don’t want to know. Uncle Boring’s real name is Derek and he looks like this.

  Uncle Boring isn’t even an uncle either. It’s what Pete’s mum says he should call him. Pete says Uncle Boring is even less interesting than a fly having a sleep, so he comes round to my house instead.

  ‘Because your house is exciting,’ he told me.

  ‘Really? How come?’

  ‘Because you’ve got the most incredibly knobbly knees I have ever seen AND a pet chameleon with a ginormous tongue. Plus, your mum makes great cakes. My mum’s cakes are like rocks. You could sink a ship with my mum’s cakes.’

  It’s true. My mum makes brilliant cakes. It’s her business. She makes them for loads of people – for birthdays and special occasions and so on.

  Anyhow, Pete and I always walk home together – because, like I said, we live next door, so we have to. Sometimes we are dreadfully unlucky and find ourselves walking home at the same time as Abbie and her best friend, Shashi. Shashi has got very long, straight black hair that’s always glossy and looks as if she polishes it every night with hair polish. (Unlike Abbie’s hair, which is blonde and looks like custard dribbling down her face.)

  So Pete and I were walking home and I was telling him about my nightmare and who did we see up ahead of us? Abbie. She was walking with someone, and guess what? It wasn’t Shashi.

  IT WAS A BOY!

  I almost died laughing, and Pete looked like a sour lemon. His face was all scrunched up and his eyes were bulging fit to go POP! right out of his face.

  ‘Urrrggghhh!’ moaned Pete. ‘They’re holding hands! Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck!’

  ‘I bet that’s the new boy in her class,’ I said. ‘She keeps going on about him at home. Ha ha, Abbie’s got a BOYFRIEND!’

  ‘Let’s follow them!’ whispered Pete.

  ‘We are following them,’ I said. ‘They’re going the same way as us.’

  We hung back a bit while Abbie and the new boy went into my house. We didn’t want to be spotted. I felt as if I was a private detective investigating a deeply disturbing mystery – ‘The Extraordinary Case of the Boy who Actually Liked Grotty-Botty-Potty-Face’.

  I gave Pete a big grin. ‘I think we had better go in and see what’s going on.’

  ‘Gotta change out of this pesky uniform first,’ muttered Pete, nipping up to his front door. ‘Otherwise Uncle Boring will go on at me for entire centuries. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAAAARGH! See you in two seconds. Don’t want to miss anything!’

  ‘I’m going to change too,’ I told him.

  I went indoors and there was Mum talking to Abbie and the new boy from her school. (Abbie’s fourteen and goes to the Even Bigger School, for Even Bigger Twits.) It turned out he was called Charlie. He was speaking to Mum while Abbie gazed at him with adoring eyes.

  Me? A doctor?! I was still trying to recover from Mum’s bombshell when Pete slipped through the front door. I hurriedly dragged him up to my room while I changed clothes.

  ‘Pete, big problemo! Mum says she wants me to be an important doctor!’

  ‘Good idea.’ The idiot was actually grinning. He obviously didn’t understand.

  ‘But you have to look in people’s ears and examine pimples on their bottoms,’ I complained. ‘It’s not nice.’

  ‘Just keep your eyes closed,’ suggested Pete.

  That friend of mine is a complete noodle brain, if you ask me. I was just about to suggest he went to hospital for a brain scan because he obviously didn’t have one in his head and maybe it was in his little toe when we heard footsteps on the stairs.

  ‘Abbie and Charlie are coming!’ he whispered, eyes bulging.

  ‘I bet they’re going to have a snog,’ I sniggered. ‘Let’s go and spy on them.’

  We crept out of my room and crawled along the hall on our bellies until we were lying right outside Abbie’s door.

  The door suddenly opened and Abbie was there, very annoyed, as usual.

  ‘Are you spying on us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why were you staring into my keyhole?’

  ‘Because I saw a spider run in there and I didn’t want you to get scared because I know you’re frightened of very small creatures.’

  Abbie folded her arms across her chest and looked at me stonily for a few seconds before shouting downstairs.

  ‘MUM! Casper and Pete are spying on me and Charlie!’

  Mum’s voice came floating back up the stairs.

  ‘Casper! Pete! Leave them alone. Come downstairs and go and play outside.’

  So that smashed up our little bit of fun. Huh! Some people just want to spoil everything. Pete and I went trailing out into the back garden. And guess what I saw!

  Abbie and Shashi must have been playing fairies on the trampoline. They’re always dressing up as fairies. Dad says they’re going through a ‘Fairy Phase’. I think they’re going through a ‘Stupid Phase’ and it’s lasted ever since they were born. I turned to my best friend.

  ‘Pete,’ I began, because that’s his name. ‘You see that window up there? That’s Abbie’s bedroom.’

  ‘Gosh. That is so exciting, my little ginger twiglet.’

  ‘You don’t sound very excited,’ I told him.

  ‘Because I’m not,’ he answered. ‘Why are you telling me boring stuff about the windows in your house? I’m not the window cleaner.’

  ‘Because, Very Annoying Person With Feet The Size Of Australia, if we jump high enough on the trampoline, we might be able to see through her window and catch them snogging!’

  ‘Aha – good one, Little Knobbly Knees!’ Pete’s eyes lit up. ‘And if we put on these fairy wings, we can bounce even higher!’

  We clambered on to the trampoline and slipped the fairy wings on to our backs. We looked at each other and collapsed in giggles.

  ‘Hello, Very Tall Fairy,’ I piped. ‘My name is Plinky-Plonk. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Winky-Wonk,’ squeaked Pete. ‘Shall we go bouncy-wouncy, Plinky-Plonk?’

  ‘Ooh, yes, let’s!’ And we did.

  Higher and higher we went. I had to twist round to get a glimpse inside Abbie’s room. And that’s when the two fairies collided at high altitude. Our heads came crashing together.

  It was REALLY REALLY PAINFUL! We plunged back on to the trampoline, clutching our foreheads and moaning. I took my hand away from my head and looked at it.

  BLOOD!

  Pete was bleeding too.

  ‘Mum! Dad!’

  Dad came rushing out and found us sitting in the middle of the trampoline, holding our heads and with blood on our faces.

  ‘Let me see those cuts,’ said Dad. He took one look and uttered the fatal word: ‘Hospital. Come on, into the car, both of you.’ He clapped a hand to his own forehead. ‘You would do this when your mother’s just gone out, wouldn’t you? I can’t leave Abbie and Charlie in the house on their own. They’ll have to come with us.’

  Abbie and Charlie were not at all pleased about that, and Dad soon had a car full of grumpy people and we went whizzing off to hospital.

  Pete and I were silent. I couldn’t tell Dad we were trying to catch Abbie and Charlie snogging, could I? My head was throbbing like a road drill.

  We pulled up outside the hospital and Dad marched us to the desk. Two nurses looked at our flappy wings and began to giggle.

  ‘I’ve brought a couple of damaged fai
ries for you to mend,’ Dad announced in an icy voice.

  ‘Let’s start with your names,’ giggled Nurse One.

  ‘Real names, please,’ demanded Nurse Two. ‘Then you can go through to that cubicle and wait there. Sister will see to you in a few minutes.’

  ‘Whose sister?’ I asked, looking round. The nurses burst out laughing.

  ‘She’s not anyone’s sister. She’s called Sister because she’s in charge of the nurses,’ explained Nurse Two. ‘You are funny.’

  ‘I don’t feel funny,’ I mumbled.

  Those nurses were a right pair, if you ask me. I mean, what a stupid name for a nurse. Why call her Sister? You might as well call her Auntie.

  We went and sat in the cubicle, clutching tissues to our heads. Dad broke the gloomy silence by talking with lover-boy. ‘I understand you want to be a doctor, Charlie. This will be very good experience for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Charlie, looking rather pale, not to mention worried.

  Abbie was trying to hold Charlie’s hand without anyone noticing. I nudged Pete and pointed silently. He began spluttering madly and Abbie quickly cottoned on that we’d seen. She snatched her hand away, but you should have seen how red she went! Like a fire engine, ON FIRE!

  And that was when Sister appeared.

  Eek! and Help! A battleship came steaming into the room and stood there with her hands stuck on her hips. Her eyes scoured us like a pair of scrubbing brushes.

  Pete shrank back against the wall. ‘Are you going to stitch us?’ he croaked.

  A smile creased Sister’s face. She rubbed her hands together and aimed her pointy nose at us like some kind of missile. ‘Oh, yes,’ she answered brightly. ‘I’m just going to get my sewing machine!’

  SEWING MACHINE??

  Pete and I looked at each other. This was absolutely desperate! It was definitely time for

  It wasn’t like that at all, of course. Sister wasn’t a monster. In fact she was mega super brilliantissimo.

  ‘I was only teasing about the sewing machine,’ she laughed. ‘Those cuts don’t need stitches – I can superglue the pair of you.’

  SUPERGLUE US?????

  Dad was amazed. ‘You can superglue them back together again?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a lot quicker. We use special medical superglue.’

  ‘Can you superglue their mouths shut while you’re at it?’ asked Abbie, which I don’t think was very kind at all. That sister of mine should keep her mouth shut, if you ask me. Sister just smiled and said she’d better take a look at the damage, and she carefully lifted off the tissues.

  That was the noise Charlie made when he fainted at the sight of blood and slumped to the floor! You should have heard the fuss Abbie made. She was on her knees in an instant, wringing her hands.

  ‘Charlie! Charlie! Don’t die, Charlie! I love you, Charlie!!’

  Abbie bent over and began snogging him! She did! Of course, she said afterwards that it was definitely NOT snogging, it was the Kiss of Life. But I know a snog when I see one, and in any case Charlie wasn’t dying at all, unless it was from being smothered. Sister had to pull Abbie off the poor boy. (I was beginning to feel quite sorry for him. I mean, fancy having THAT CREATURE all over you.)

  The other nurses sorted Charlie out while Sister got to work on my head. In no time at all, she’d finished.

  ‘There, that’s got Plinky-Plonk sorted out. You can go back to your fairy toadstool now.’ And she chuckled, but I thought she was being JOLLY RUDE! Fairy toadstool? Huh!

  Pete’s split forehead seemed to be taking her much longer than my cut had. Sister stopped and pulled a face.

  ‘Oh dear, I seem to have got my fingers stuck to Winky-Wonk’s head.’

  And she had! Her fingers were superglued to Pete’s forehead.

  ‘Is it a big problem?’ asked Dad.

  ‘No, not really,’ said Sister. ‘See? I’m wearing a rubber glove so I can just wriggle my fingers out, like so. There!’ And she pulled her hand away at last.

  The three of us stared at Pete. He looked like a very sad fairy. A very, VERY sad fairy with a large rubber glove stuck to the front of his face.

  Dad and I couldn’t help it. Poor Pete looked so miserable, with his half-broken wings and the rubber glove flopping down over his big nose. We creased up and Sister was having hysterics too. She laughed like a tickled horse.

  ‘I think Winky-Wonk’s got a flinky-flonk on his face,’ she neighed, before going off to find some special stuff you can use to get rid of superglue.

  It was quite a while before we left the hospital. Pete went back to his house and we went back to ours. Charlie had gone home too, and Abbie was being a grump in the front room.

  ‘I bet you were trying to see into my room,’ she said to me.

  Mum smiled. ‘Casper’s right, Abbie. He’s been hurt. Go and get him a drink – and you can make your father and me some coffee while you’re in the kitchen.’

  Abbie’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits, which meant she was thinking about all the horrible things she would like to do to us, especially me. But she couldn’t because they were all AGAINST THE LAW! So she slunk off to the kitchen and brought me back a drink.

  Sometimes I love my big sister!

  That’s the noise the cows in the playground made at school the other day. I know! Cows in the playground! Big problemo! How did that happen? I will tell you.

  It began on Monday with Assembly. Miss Scratchitt, our head teacher, was giving us news about a school like ours. ‘Only it’s in Malawi. Does anyone know where Malawi is?’

  Miss Scratchitt pointed at one of the youngest children. ‘Thomas, where do you think Malawi is?’

  The four-year-old pointed towards the windows. ‘Over there,’ he squeaked, and the older children laughed, especially Masher McNee, who snorted so hard some stuff came out of his nose.

  ‘Perhaps you can tell us, Michael,’ Miss Scratchitt suggested, looking pointedly at him. (Masher is his nickname because he’s always mashing people.) Masher stopped snorting, frowned hard and finally said he didn’t know.

  Miss Scratchitt smiled triumphantly. ‘Neither did Thomas,’ she told him. ‘Malawi is in Africa. It is a poor country. There are few schools there.’

  ‘Hooray!’ muttered Masher under his breath.

  ‘Few children can read because they don’t have books and there aren’t enough teachers to teach them to read,’ Miss Scratchitt told us. ‘We are going to be twinned with a Malawian school. Their school is just like ours, and so are the children. They learn in classrooms and they like to play football and run around in the playground just like you, but they need our help. They need books, paper and pens, and money to pay for teachers. We can help them. Can any of you think of a way to help?’

  Masher’s hand waved furiously. Miss Scratchitt sighed, but she asked him anyway.

  ‘Why don’t we send our teachers to their school?!’ Masher obviously thought this was his best idea ever.

  Miss Scratchitt’s eyes turned into slitty daggers. ‘Michael, I know you want to help by getting rid of all our teachers here, but I can tell you now that if – IF – our teachers went to Malawi, they would instantly – INSTANTLY – be replaced by new teachers. Life here would carry on just as before.’

  Masher and his gang gave a loud groan. I noticed Mr Butternut laughing into his hand. Sometimes I have no idea what my teacher is thinking about. He is a Man of Mystery.

  I put up my hand. Miss Scratchitt nodded at me. ‘Yes, Casper?’

  ‘My great-gran used to live in Africa. She knows loads about it. She’s always telling me stories.’

  Miss Scratchitt perked up. ‘Indeed? Perhaps your great-grandmother would like to come to our assembly one morning and talk to all of us. That would be splendid. What is your great-grandmother’s name?’

  ‘Gee-Gee.’

  Everyone fell about laughing. ‘What’s so funny? She LIKES being called that. It’s double G, for great-gran.’

  More laughter.
Pete was sitting next to me, and now he was waving his hand in the air.

  ‘It’s true, Miss Scratchitt. They shouldn’t laugh, because Casper’s great-gran is amazing and she’s ninety years old, and she’s fought with lions and stuff, and she got swept over a waterfall, and she’s amazing, and her lunch was stolen by an amazing monkey, and there was a snake in her bed, and she went on a train for thousands of miles just to go to school, and she’s amazing and –’

  ‘Peter! Peter, please! You can stop now. We get the idea. We must certainly ask Casper’s great-gran – Gee-Gee – to come to an assembly this week. I shall see to it.’

  So that was what our assembly was all about. We are going to send our twin school in Malawi lots of books and paper, pencils and crayons, and stuff like that. We have been packing them into boxes, decorating them and writing letters. Mr Butternut said the children in Malawi will be very excited to get our letters.

  I said they would be extra-excited to get mine because I had drawn a picture of Pete being squeezed by a python and his tongue sticking out.

  ‘That’s not very kind, Casper,’ said Mr Butternut. ‘I thought you two were friends.’

  Pete shrugged. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ve drawn a picture of Casper being sat on by an elephant.’

  Before school finished, Miss Scratchitt sent a note to all the classes saying that Gee-Gee had agreed to come into school at the end of the week to talk about her childhood in Africa.

  Mr Butternut beamed at me. ‘You must be very proud of your great-grandmother,’ he said.