Читать книгу Head Kid - David Baddiel - Страница 16

“What you gonna do, Ryan? What?” said Stirling.

“Yes, what, Ryan, what?” said Scarlet.

Stirling and Scarlet were brother and sister. They were not in Year Six. They were in Years Three and Two. Most of their time was spent bothering Fred and Ellie Stone about computers and video games, but they bumped into Ryan coming out of assembly and couldn’t contain their curiosity.

“What do you mean, iBabies?” Which was their nickname because they were young and obsessed with technology.

“Well,” said Scarlet, “you’re the naughtiest boy in the school!” She said it without any sense that this was a bad thing, more with a great sense of awe.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Ryan, smiling bashfully.

“You are,” said Stirling. “We had a poll on BuzzyBee.”

“That would be some obscure website that no one else has ever heard of?”

“Yes!” said Scarlet.

“So not a very big poll, then?”

“Oh,” said Stirling. “I suppose not. Just me and Scarlet and our mum voted. But you won, anyway. You were voted Naughtiest Boy in Bracket Wood History.”

“And Best Prankster too!” said Scarlet.

“So …” said Dionna, appearing in the corridor behind them, “if that’s the case, Ryan, the new head’s thrown you down a challenge and a half, I’d say.”

“OK, OK. Well, don’t worry …” He bent his head down. The others bent theirs too. Ryan lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do—”

“I’m going to tell you what you’re not going to do, Ryan!” said Mr Barrington. “You’re not going to be stopping to have a chat in school corridors any more!”

He raised a piece of paper, which he began to stick to the school notice board with drawing pins. He was doing it with an air of triumph, of “This’ll teach you, boy-who-wrote-about-how-I-don’t-have-a-brain-on-my-forehead!”

“Because talking in the corridors is banned from now on. By order of the new head. All children will move silently from one lesson to the next in a straight line. Failure to do so will lead to immediate detention! As will …”

The children gathered round Mr Barrington as he continued to read out the list of new rules, pointing at the piece of paper as he went.

“… not wearing proper school uniform, so you’d better learn to do up your tie, Ryan.”

Ryan glanced down at his tie and shrugged.

“Also,” continued Mr Barrington, “arriving one minute late for school, not having a pen or a ruler to hand at all times, persistently turning round in class, persistently making any unnecessary or stupid noise in class and—”

“Thank you for learning all those new rules by heart, Mr Barrington,” said Ryan, “as the list is very hard to read upside down.”

Ryan walked on.

Mr Barrington turned to the notice board, took his enormous glasses off and then put them back on again …

And then pinned the piece of paper the right way up.