Читать книгу Casper Candlewacks in Attack of the Brainiacs! - Ivan Brett - Страница 9

The country lanes trawled by slower than a lazy snail. Casper smudged his nose on the window of the train and sighed. Summer was over and school was ready to take its place, filling his days with boredom and sums.

Casper and Lamp sat at one of those four-seat tables opposite Milly and Milly Mollyband, the identical twins (who’d been given the same name to save time and name-badges). They’d obviously heard about the alligators too because they both trembled so hard that Lamp thought there was an earthquake going on.

Eventually, Lamp decided he liked earthquakes, so Casper had some more time to look out of the window. When he looked back, Lamp was scratching his oily black hair and then sniffing his finger. “Strawberry,” he said. “Must be Monday.”

Casper frowned. “What?”

“I invented a shampoo that knows what day it is. It changes flavour to match. Monday means strawberry.”

“Oh…” Casper frowned.

“And you know I smelt of eggs yesterday?”

“Was that the shampoo too?”

“Nope, I’d just been eating them. Got my last three here. Want one?” He pulled three boiled eggs from an inner pocket of his blazer.

Casper took an egg to keep Lamp happy and placed it carefully in his backpack.

Lamp licked his lips and saved his two for later.

“OY! WOSSAT?” A shriek tore from the back of the carriage.

“It’s Anemonie!” whispered Casper. “What does she want?”

“I want that! It’s mine!” A small, pointy-nosed girl with squinty eyes and dark hair stomped up the aisle, pointing straight at Lamp with her sharpened pink fingernails. Her sickly sweet perfume made Casper gag.

Lamp plunged his eggs into his pocket and pretended to be asleep.

“What were you holding? Give it.”

“Zzzzzz,” snored Lamp. Then he opened one eye and whispered, “Has she gone yet, Casper?”

Anemonie Blight jabbed a few fingernails into Lamp’s side.

“Ouch! I mean… zzz. Oh, bother.” The game was up.

“Give it.” Anemonie reached for a sharp-tipped pencil that she kept behind her ear. “Last warning, Flannigan. This pencil is leaded.”

“Fine. Didn’t want it, anyway.” Lamp withdrew his trembling hand from the pocket clutching one of the boiled eggs.

“An egg?” Anemonie’s face wrinkled with disgust. She swatted the egg at Milly Mollyband, but it missed and struck Milly Mollyband.

Anemonie snarled. “Now, gimme your lunch money.”

“That was my lunch,” said Lamp, staring hungrily at Milly Mollyband’s blazer.

“How ’bout yours, then, Candlewacks?” Anemonie swung the pencil towards Casper.

Casper considered giving Anemonie his egg as well, but he valued not having a pencil sticking out of his face a bit too much for that. The two one-pound coins that he’d brought for lunch weighed heavily in his pocket. Begrudgingly, he handed them over.

“There. Not so hard, was it?” Anemonie smiled her sickly smile and skipped away back down the carriage to play ‘Ding Dong Bell’ on Teresa Louncher’s pigtails.

Casper sighed. Anemonie had been stealing his lunch money for as long as he could remember, but for some reason he thought going to senior school would change things.

One of Teresa’s pigtails landed on his table with a plap. Evidently things hadn’t changed.

“I miss my egg,” moaned Lamp.

“Here. Have mine.” Giving Lamp his egg back cheered him hugely. He sang some jolly songs until he ran out of breath, and then he went blue because he forgot to breathe in again, so Casper had to remind him.

The road bent round and Casper caught his first sight of High Kobb – an ugly mass of grey towers and belching chimneys scarring the beautiful landscape like a scab on a princess.

As the country roads became paved streets, Casper longed to be home again. The endless dusty concrete and nose-to-tail traffic made his heart sink. Luckily he saw no alligators in the gutters and the people walking the streets looked like businessmen, not murderers. But their business might have been murdering people, so Casper didn’t fully relax.

The tractor turned a corner and rolled up through a pair of massive wrought-iron gates, grinding to a halt inside a drab concrete playground full of pupils dressed in black blazers and yellow ties.

“My new kingdom!” screeched Anemonie. “Move outta the way, I’m getting off first.” She barged Ted Treadington aside with a well-placed elbow, and the rest of the kids scurried out of the aisle to let her pass.

Anemonie jumped down the steps and landed with her arms outstretched on the tarmac. “All right, boys and girls, listen up or I’ll spread you on my toast. The name’s Anemonie Blight and I’m in charge here.”

The High Kobb kids ran about, skipping and jumping and paying absolutely no attention.

“I SAID LISTEN!” Anemonie’s face swelled redder.

Casper, Lamp and the bolder Corne-on-the-Kobb kids tiptoed off the carriage and stood behind Anemonie.

Sixteen older kids whooshed past after a football, creating a small hurricane that blew over Milly and Milly Mollyband.

“YOU BOYS. STOP IT! I’M ANEMONIE BLIGHT! I’M ANEMONIE BLIGHT! LISTEN TO ME!”

A scruffy little boy came flying through the air and crunched to the ground at Anemonie’s feet.

Anemonie screamed.

Casper dashed forward and shoved Anemonie out of the way. The boy looked pretty dazed. “Are you OK?”

“Casper,” gasped Lamp, “did you see that? They can fly in big boys’ school!”

The boy had short, shaven hair and a bony little face. His uniform was made of faded baggy hand-me-downs and there was a cut on his lip. He blinked a few times and then his eyes focused on Casper. “I’m f-f-fine. Just playing r-rugby.”

Casper frowned. “Then why were you—”

“I was the b-ball.”

“Oh.”

“Not my f-f-favourite position,” the boy said. “The B-brewster b-brothers chose it.”

“The Brewster brothers?”

“You’re n-not from r-round here, are you?” Wincing, the boy made his way to a standing position. “My name’s S-snivel. I know what you’re finking. S-stupid name.”

“It’s not that stupid,” said Casper. “He’s called Lamp.”

Lamp waved.

“And I’m Casper.” Casper went to shake Snivel’s hand, but he jumped back, terrified. “Don’t worry, I only wanted to shake hands.”

Snivel stared at Casper’s hand. “Yeah, s-s-sorry. I’m n-not used to…”

There was an awkward shuffling while everyone worked out where to put their hands. Casper put his in his pockets and Lamp put his in Casper’s bag, but then Lamp wanted them back and couldn’t remember where he’d left them, so Casper had to take off his bag to find them for him.

All the while at the side of the group, Anemonie was desperately screeching commands at three girls and a skipping rope. The three girls and the skipping rope just laughed and carried on skipping.

“W-what’s wrong with her?” Snivel pointed at Anemonie.

“She’s used to being in charge,” sighed Casper.

“Y-yeah, sh-she’s not got a chance here. Not with the B-b-brewster b-brothers around.”

“But who are the Brewster brothers?”

A look of fear sketched itself across Snivel’s face. “Well, they’re b-big, and they r-run the place…”

“Like Mayor Rattsbulge,” said Lamp.

“…and they’ll t-take your l-lunch money…”

“So will Mayor Rattsbulge,” said Lamp.

“…and there’s f-f-four of them.”

“Like Mayor Rattsbulge,” said Lamp. “Except there’s only one of him.”

“THERE ’E IS!” Four enormous brutes with shaved heads and tiny foreheads, their sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy, tree-trunk arms, shoved through the crowd straight towards Snivel.

Anemonie spun round, opened her mouth, realised they were twice her size and closed it again.

“Brewster brothers?” whispered Casper.

“Yep.” Snivel was trembling. “And… erm… unless you want to b-be a r-rugby ball, you should r-really r-r-r—”

Casper guessed the rest of the word and dashed off across the playground, followed by Snivel and the rest of the terrified class, some screaming, some whimpering, one sneezing. (Ted Treadington was allergic to playgrounds.) Lamp considered becoming a rugby ball for a second, but then decided he preferred football, so he galumphed along behind.

“They’re huge!” shouted Casper as he ran down a plasticky-smelling corridor beside Snivel. “What have they got against you?”

“Erm…” Snivel had quite small legs so he had to run twice as fast. “You all f-first years?”

“Yeah. But what about—”

“M-me too. We’ve got geography.”

Casper groaned.

Teresa Louncher tripped over a Mind the Step sign and clattered to the floor. Casper picked her up, but she was crying too hard to carry on, so he hid her in a locker and promised to find her at break.

“It’s j-just up here.” Snivel guided them to the left into an identical corridor, up some stairs, through a heavy door and into a dull classroom with maps plastered all over the walls and ceiling.

The children collapsed into seats and caught their breath. It looked like the Brewster brothers hadn’t followed. In fact, given that there were quite a few children flying past their window and that they were on the second floor, Casper felt quite sure they were still outside.

“I don’t like big boys’ school any more,” huffed Lamp. “Can we go home now?”

Snivel was nervously watching through the glass of the classroom door.

“They knew you, Snivel,” said Casper, clutching the stitch in his side.

“Y-yeah…” muttered Snivel.

“But it’s only the first day. How did that happen so fast?”

Nervously, Snivel stuck out his pale little hand. “N-name’s S-s-snivel. S-snivel B-brewster. I’ve n-never shaken h-hands before.”