The Wrong Night

by Katrine Robinson

  “Still no fitter but fatter, I see, Pauline,” said Smelly, and made him run five times right round the football pitch.

  On Tuesday he arrived to find a big coloured picture of the rear of a huge pig grubbing in the mud pinned to the blackboard. Underneath it said “Pauline the Prize Porker hunts for truffles”.

  On Wednesday Miss Carbuncle sat down on her chair and let out a squeal of anguish. Standing upright again very rapidly, she addressed the class:

  “Which of you revoltingly horrible, repulsive, odious, disgusting, ignorant and obnoxious children was responsible for putting drawing pins on my chair?” she enunciated through thinly drawn lips in her most menacing tone.

  “It was Pauline, Miss,” chorused the class gleefully.

  Percy spent his lunchtime writing out “I must refrain from the misuse of school property, untidiness and all behaviour calculated to cause injury or extreme annoyance to others,” sixty times in his best handwriting without spelling mistakes.

  On Thursday Damien knocked a jug of custard over Percy’s beefburger and chips.

  On Friday afternoon it was Art with Hairy Mary. Hairy Mary wore a lot of floaty scarves and lumpy strings of necklaces with jangly bits. The scarves were usually shades of orange which clashed with Hairy Mary’s bright pink face, especially her nose. She had long grey candyfloss hair. Bits of it tangled in her dangly ear rings and the rest hung untidily around her back like a loosely knitted blanket that has started to become unravelled. Percy thought she was a bit peculiar, but she wasn’t as frightening as Miss Carbuncle.

  Hairy Mary

  They were supposed to be painting a cheerful market scene. Percy’s people and his fruit and vegetables seemed to have become quite mixed up. The brown blobs that were supposed to be people’s heads had green blobs for cabbages next to them so that it looked as though the market had been invaded by little green men. Percy decided to put some oranges in as well to make it better and reached across for the other paint.

  “Percy, what have you done now?” enquired Hairy Mary’s voice from across the room as with a crash, the green pot of paint fell over and dripped steadily down the table leg and onto Percy’s trousers.

  “It just fell, Mrs Mair,” answered Percy in a puzzled voice, looking at the mess on the floor.

  He didn’t understand it. Every time he looked to his left it seemed the paint pot on his right tipped up, and every time he looked right, the one on his left fell over. There was no one close enough to push them over. His socks were quite saturated- one red and one blue with green streaks.

  ”Well, Percy, your socks are quite an artistic achievement!” remarked Hairy Mary as she reached his desk and looked down. “Those flowing colours! Such life! Such vibrance! - Such a pity they’re on your feet,” she added thoughtfully. “We really ought to preserve this effort. Take your shoes off.”

  Getting a large sheet of paper, Hairy Mary made him first walk over it several times and then take his socks off and press them onto the paper round the edge to make patterns. Percy decided she was even more peculiar than most grown-ups, possibly even mad. When he’d finished she sent him to put the socks on the radiator to dry while she hung up the paper. As he padded barefoot back to the desk, past Sarah and Becky, both holding their noses, Percy spotted a length of black cotton hanging over the edge. It was fastened to the bottom of the red paint pot. There was another sellotaped to the underneath of blue pot. Percy studied them silently. It was easy to see now why the paint had spilled, but who had been pulling the cotton? He sighed. It could have been almost anyone in the class! He hoped his mother would manage to wash it out of his trousers. She wasn’t very good at washing. Mrs Doggett had always done it before.

  Each day Percy debated with himself the best way of getting home. He could get ready as early as possible and run out first to try and avoid the rest of the class. Or he might stay behind as long as the caretaker or Miss Carbuncle would let him so that the others would have all gone home before he emerged. He‘d tried both ways before. Neither worked very well. For one thing, he was so often in trouble at school that he was normally kept behind. That meant he couldn’t usually use the first plan, and when he did, he sometimes Damien or one of the others would catch him up before he was out of the school gates. Lingering back was easier, especially when he had been kept in, but all too often there was a gang waiting for him once he did come out.

  There weren’t many different routes he could take home either. Only three really, and they all began the same way which was down Slime Street and across the main road to Dark Hollow Lane. He rarely reached home unscathed. The only good thing about it was that his clothes no longer appeared quite so conspicuous. They had so often been rolled in mud that they were worn and old looking now, and not nearly so noticeable.

  Unfortunately, Percy’s mother had managed to shrink his trousers in the wash, so that they were now a rather a strange shape with too much foot and leg showing at the end. His jumper had got very tight too, and one of his white shirts had turned pink in patches. The shirt didn’t matter because it meant Percy could stop wearing it -even Percy’s mother realised that sending him to school in a spotted pink shirt might not be a good idea - and he had successfully managed to lose all his ties. He’d pushed one into the letter box on the way home, thrown one over a wall and the very last one he cut into bits and dropped down a grid in the road.

  Poor Percy. He was very miserable. If school was bad, home was boring. There wasn’t much to do, not much room to do it in, and no one to do it with. Quite often he helped his mother with the housework. Not that he liked housework. It was just that his mother didn’t seem to be very good at it, so Percy thought he’d better help her. He didn’t turn out to be very good at it either. Things didn’t seem to stay tidy and clean like they used to.

  One weekend when Percy’s parents were out, he wiped up some tomato ketchup that he’d spilt on the floor. It seemed to spread rather a lot as he wiped. He stood up and stared at it, critically. Instead of being a little red blob, it was now a great big patch of pink. Percy rubbed some more. The pink patch grew even larger. ‘I know,’ thought Percy, and he fetched the bottle of bleach from under the sink. He put on a good squirt and rubbed it well in. The carpet changed from pink to dirty beige. Percy looked at it. The rest of the carpet was a quite different colour. He’d just have to re-colour it. He went and got his old paint box and some water. After mixing for quite a while, he finally created a shade not much different from the original colour. He dabbed it on carefully. It didn’t look right. ‘Perhaps it needs to dry,’ thought Percy. Colours look different when they’re wet. He got his mother’s hairdryer and switched it on. It took a long time. When he had finished the carpet looked like a frightened cat’s fur in a cartoon – the hairs stood up, stiff and spiky, and they were still the wrong shade. Percy moved a chair over it and hoped his father wouldn’t notice.

  Then he thought he’d polish the dining table and make it nice and shiny like Mrs Doggett used to do. He thought that might please his mother and cheer her up. He couldn’t find any polish at first, but then he remembered that there was some brown shoe polish in the kitchen which was the same colour as the table. He found an old rag and began. It was hard work, but the table began to look quite bright in patches, though it was just a bit smeary if you looked at it from the window side. Percy thought it was a great improvement. He was very proud of himself. The next day his father sat in his usual place in his shirt sleeves reading the newspaper with his elbows on the table. When he’d finished he folded the paper and stood up. As Mr Proudworthy’s back disappeared through the door, Percy looked at him. Percy’s mother looked at him.Then they both looked at each other. Mrs Proudworthy put one finger up to her mouth. Neither said anything. – Mr Proudworthy’s shirt sleeves had 2 round patches of brown, one at the back of each elbow.

  Percy decided that was probably why he’d always be
en told at his last school to take his elbows off the table. Manners had nothing to do with it – it was to stop you getting polish on them.

  *****

  Percy’s mother’s cooking was the worst thing. Mr Proudworthy had ordered a special cookery book for her. It was called ‘The Win the War Cookbook’ and was full of very economical recipes, that people used to eat years ago, like potato pie or spotted dick without currants. Tonight they were having toad in the hole. It had grey lumps slithering in some wet soggy yellow stuff with rubbery bits. Percy wondered if the toad was one of the big fat ones that lived behind the dustbins in Slime Street. It tasted like something that lived behind the dustbins. Only it was difficult to imagine his mother going out to catch toads. Percy wondered how she’d done it. He decided not to ask her just now as his father might get cross if it turned out she hadn’t caught them herself. He’d ask her later. It was probably very hard work. Toads could jump quite fast. His mother was probably rather proud of having caught them. It was a pity they tasted so horrible, but it would be better not to tell her that. As he slowly chewed on a gristly bit, Percy visualised his mother in her flowery pink hat pursuing toads round the bins with a butterfly net and a colander. It didn’t seem quite right, somehow.

  Percy didn’t know much about making dinners either. As they were now too poor to buy many nice things to eat, like chocolate biscuits and crisps, he got quite good at cooking baked beans on toast. He could even bake potatoes, but puddings were the thing he craved. Sometimes he dreamed of Mrs Doggett’s treacle pudding and custard, or jam tarts oozing with luscious rich red strawberry jam, hot from the oven. It was a disappointment to wake up to lumpy grey porridge.

  Percy’s mother was unhappy too. She’d got a lot thinner since Mrs Doggett left because of having to do all the cooking and cleaning herself instead of watching television, but bits of her still wobbled when she walked. She couldn’t afford to buy cream cakes any longer to cheer herself up, and Mr Proudworthy, Percy’s father, was always cross. Not that that was a change – he always had been cross, as long as Percy could remember – but now he was cross in the same room as Mrs Proudworthy because he hadn’t got a study any longer. That made it much harder. Percy wondered if they would have room for a garden shed in the yard. He was sure he could find some newspapers from somewhere and then his father could go in there to enjoy himself being angry properly. Only he didn’t know what he could do about the phones. Mr Proudworthy had always had at least two telephones to be cross and shout down before. Phones were more difficult to find than old newspapers.

  Percy wasn’t getting any thinner though. Percy was getting podgier – much podgier. School dinners were about the only thing he looked forward to each day, so he made the most of them. They weren’t nearly as good as Mrs Doggett’s dinners, but they were better than his mother’s cooking, and Percy was very fond of chips. He had chips nearly every day. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had plenty of exercise, but that didn’t happen. As he had no friends, he didn’t go out. He just stayed in his room or helped his mother. At break in school he spent most of his time hiding from Damien and the others, so he didn’t get much exercise then either. Old Smelly did his best to make up for this deficiency by making him run round the playground or do press-ups whenever he saw him, so Percy kept out of his way too. As Miss Carbuncle liked to make him stay in and write lines or spellings most days, this wasn’t difficult. On the few occasions when he was allowed out, he usually hid in the boiler room as it was rather dark and the entrance was next to the staffroom which meant Damien avoided it, and he could lurk there in peace. He had got quite adept at slipping in unseen when the teachers were having their coffee.

  Percy didn’t see what he could do about being bullied. It was no use talking to his mother. She would only come down to the school and make a fuss and that would be worse. His father wasn’t interested and Miss Carbuncle seemed to think everything that happened to him was his fault anyway. Perhaps it was, thought Percy, though he didn’t see why. He simply had to put up with it. It couldn’t last for ever, Percy told himself, but, secretly, he was afraid it might.

  Christmas was coming. Once upon a time Percy would have been very excited and looked forward to lots of presents. This year he wondered if he would get any at all! It had always been a happy time before, but this year nothing seemed to change as the time got nearer. Everything in the house was as grim and gloomy as ever. No-one had made a Christmas pudding or a cake. There were no decorations. Mr Proudworthy said they were a waste of money and they couldn’t afford them. Percy suggested he could make some paper ones and put them up, but his mother looked so depressed at the idea that he didn’t say any more. There was no Christmas tree. “Trees belong in forests,” declared Mr Proudworthy, pompously, “not in houses”. There were no exciting looking parcels hidden in corners and cupboards. Each day as Christmas approached, there was just the everlasting smell of boiled cod and cabbage, cold rooms and brown paintwork and a grey damp mist in the back yard. Percy remembered the bowls of bright oranges, the spicy baking smell, the silver shiny chocolates and the sparkling Christmas tree of life before, and that night, for the first time, he cried himself to sleep.

  Chapter 3- Grumbo

  At school the end of term was approaching. At least here there were some decorations and a more cheerful atmosphere. Sadly, the excitement of the rest of the class only made Percy feel more left out than ever. They did a class play. Percy was given the part of the donkey because no-one else wanted it. He didn’t mind. It suited how miserable he felt. Still, there was the school Christmas dinner. He might as well try and enjoy that because it was probably the only Christmas dinner he would get, he thought, unhappily.

  Despite everything, Percy did enjoy his school Christmas dinner. He managed to make sure that he was on a table as far away from Damien as possible and ate lots of turkey and roast potatoes. Then there was the Christmas pudding, one for each table. Percy eyed it appreciatively. It was a bit pale, but it was fat and round and it was pudding! Percy was very partial to pudding. He had two helpings. Half way through the second portion, Percy’s tooth hit on something hard. He stopped chewing and rubbed at it with his tongue. It definitely wasn’t pudding. It didn’t seem to be anything edible at all. It felt thin and round and metallic. He took it out of his mouth very carefully- there wrapped in silver paper was a five pence piece.

  “Hey- Pauline’s got the lucky five pence!” cried Natalie who was sitting next to him.

  “He would!” remarked Sarah, jealously.

  “Trust greedy guts!” added an envious voice. George, a thin ragged, dark haired boy, was watching him carefully, narrow-eyed. Percy quickly closed his hand over the coin. He wasn’t going to let the only good thing that had happened to him for ages and ages escape into the hands of George, or anyone else! It was his, even if it was only five pence, and he was keeping it.

  Percy kept tight hold of the five pence all through the rest of school. He was debating with himself about how he should spend it. He hadn’t had any pocket money for months, not even a penny. This five pence was really special. He could spend it on sweets – his mouth watered at the idea- but there was something more important in his mind. He hadn’t bought any presents yet. Well, he couldn’t as he hadn’t any money, but now he had. OK, it wasn’t much. It wasn’t much at all, but he might be able to buy one present with it. His mother was really sad. No-one was going to give her any Christmas presents either, but maybe he could. That might cheer her up, even if it was only a very tiny present – a very very tiny present. By bedtime he still hadn’t decided what he could possibly get with only 5p that she might like, so he stuck the coin under his pillow and went to sleep thinking about it.

  *****

  Percy was having a dream, or rather, a nightmare. He was dreaming that Miss Carbuncle had decided to come and live with them and had moved in to live in Percy’s wardrobe. At the
moment in his dream, Percy was inside the wardrobe, which seemed suddenly to have become very large indeed. He had a huge can of orange paint in front of him, a fat dictionary and a very tiny brush. His arms were aching and he was covered with white and orange splashes.

  Painting the Wardrobe

  Already he had painted the entire inside of the wardrobe in white at Miss Carbuncle’s insistence, and now he was having to decorate it for her. Miss Carbuncle had decreed that on top of the white, all the walls were to be inscribed with adjectives, all of at least eight letters or more, spelt correctly and in alphabetical order! Percy had got as far as “carboniferous” on the first wall and there were three and half more to go and pages and pages of the dictionary. He looked again – he had missed the “o” near the end out. Picking up an old pair of socks that he was using as a rag, he wiped off the “u” and the “s”. Somehow the “s” stopped being paint and fell off and bounced onto the floor. It made a surprisingly loud bump for something so small. “Drat!” said a voice, that didn’t seem to be quite Percy’s nor, yet again, quite Miss Carbuncle’s. “Drat!” said the voice again, angrily.

  Cautiously, Percy opened first one eye, and then the other eye. At least he wasn’t in the wardrobe any more and the paint had vanished. Even better, so had Miss Carbuncle and the dictionary! He breathed sigh of relief. But what had thudded on the floor, and who had said “drat”? Had it all been part of his dream? He rubbed his eyes and sat up, chiefly to check that Miss Carbuncle wasn’t actually lurking in some hidden corner. As he did so there was a slithering, rustling sound. It was quite faint. Percy wasn’t quite sure if he had imagined it or not. He looked around the room carefully, a little anxious, and still not quite certain what was real and what had been a dream. Everything looked normal, or at least, as normal as things do look in the dark of the night when you can only see them by the street light filtering through the curtains. The furniture loomed black with long shadows and the tumbled bedcovers and Percy’s clothes on the back of the chair had new half alive shapes all of their own. Percy shivered a little, even though he knew perfectly well that it was really only his jumper hanging on the chair and his duvet bunched up at the end of the bed. …. But there was something different by the fireplace! There was something on the floor that hadn’t been there when he went to bed.