Читать книгу On Planet Fruitcake - Anne Fine - Страница 7

‘Is something wrong with your brains?’

That day it was really, really hot – far too hot to work. Miss Dove was starting a new project, all about travel. First, they made a list on the whiteboard of all the different ways there were of getting to other places. They’d called out all the easy ones like planes and cars and trains and feet and bicycles and buses, but Miss Dove was still standing waiting.

She tried encouraging them. ‘I know you can come up with a few more! Let’s all try to think a bit more and a little harder. Come on, now. Who’s going to be the first to think of another one?’

Still nobody spoke. A bee buzzed in the window and then buzzed out again. Sarah flopped on her desk and spread her arms to try to cool herself. Paul picked up his workbook and used it as a fan.

Miss Dove sighed. ‘What is the matter with you all?’ she said. ‘Is something wrong with your brains today? Why aren’t they working properly?’

‘It’s too hot,’ Amari moaned.

‘And too stuffy,’ wailed Connor.

Astrid hated hot weather. It made her hands go sticky and her plaits feel heavy. So when Miss Dove told Connor and Amari, ‘I don’t see why the weather makes a difference. I don’t see why you can’t just think ’, Astrid said grumpily, ‘You probably wouldn’t like it if we did.’

Miss Dove turned from the whiteboard. Gently she smiled. ‘Now you don’t really believe that, do you, Astrid?’

‘Maybe,’ said Astrid. (She was in the mood to quarrel with anyone, even Miss Dove.) ‘Maybe if we began to use our brains a lot, we would start arguing with you. I don’t think you’d like that.’

Miss Dove beamed. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind! It is my job to teach you how to think. So if you all began to think really hard about everything, I’d be delighted.’ Miss Dove let out one of her merry, tinkling laughs. ‘Why, Astrid, did you think I might get cross Or lose my temper?’

‘You might,’ said Astrid.

‘Only if we lived on Planet Fruitcake!’

‘Perhaps we do,’ said Astrid stubbornly.