Читать книгу How to Write Really Badly - Anne Fine - Страница 8

You wouldn’t believe the playground. Half of these goofballs were wandering round offering their last crisp to anyone who looked in the slightest bit peaky, and the rest were all skipping.

No kidding. They were skipping. Two rosy-cheeked milkmaids in pigtails were swinging this great long rope, and everyone else was jumping up and down, all thrilled to bits, waiting their turn.

Then, each time someone rushed in under the rope, everyone burst into song.

I stood on the steps and listened. First I heard:

Miss Tate bent down to pick a rose.

A rose so sweet and tender.

Alas! Alack! She bent too far,

And bang! went her suspender.

And then I heard:

Mandy Frost was a very good girl;

She went to church on Sunday

To pray to God to give her strength

To kiss the boys on Monday.

I turned to Joe. ‘Is this some kind of special day?’

He trotted out his puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’

I didn’t quite know how to put it. ‘What I mean is, are you all pretending to be sweet little orphans, or something? Is this some sort of History Day?’

I wasn’t ringing his doorbell, you could tell.

‘History Day?’

‘You know. Like when all the girls dress up in pinafores, and everyone sits with their arms folded neatly on their desks, and the teacher pretends that it’s a hundred years ago.’

A light came on in his attic at last.

‘Oh! Like when we did our Victorian School Day?’

I shrugged.

‘Whatever. Something all goody-goody and old-fashioned, anyhow.’

He stared round the playground. In one corner, two of the bigger boys were putting their arms round a sobbing toddler who’d lost his pet marble, or something. By the porch, boys and girls were practising a hornpipe. (I am serious.) Next to the gates, a gaggle of merrymakers were doing a complicated clapping game. And all the rest were ambling around, smiling and waving to one another, or loyally waiting for friends outside the lavatories.

‘What I mean is,’ I said, ‘where are we? On the planet Zog?’

Joe’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, yes! That would be fun. Let’s both be visitors to the planet Zog, and you –’

I gave him my hardest killer stare. Who did this blintz-brain think I was? Some bedwetter, keen to play his Betsy-wetsy games?

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I think maybe it’s time that I explained something to you.’

But he’d clapped his hand to his mouth.

‘Oh, Howard,’ he told me. ‘It’ll have to wait till after break. Because I’ve just remembered I promised Miss Tate I’d help her cut the covers for our new How-to books.’

And just at that moment, the lady herself appeared on the steps.

‘Jo-ey!’ she warbled. ‘Jo-ey Gardener!’

‘Coming, Miss Tate!’ he trilled.

And he was off.

I slid my back down against the nearest wall and sank my head in my arms. Oh, just my luck. I’ve made my way in schools where the uniform is so itchy it brings you out in hives, and schools where you have to stand and pray five times a day, and schools where they make you do your work over and over again, until it’s right.

But never had I fetched up somewhere like this. Already I could hear the scuffling of anxious little feet. Nervously I looked up, and found myself encircled by worried faces.

‘Howard?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s difficult for anyone on their first day.’

‘You’ll soon get used to us, honestly.’

‘Do you want to come and skip?’

I opened my mouth. I was about to speak. The first words were just rising to my lips when the bell rang.

Just as well . . .