Читать книгу A Thousand Water Bombs - T. M. Alexander - Страница 15

five days to prepare the arsenal

My lips were bleeding. So were Fifty’s. They looked dark red, like we’d been kissing vampires – Callum’s description.

The water bombs arrived before I left for school, so we had five days to prepare a thousand. Fifty and me spent morning break and lunch break (apart from the eating part) filling them in the art room. We found a good way to tie the neck of the balloons but it involved forcing the end through the knot and then grabbing it with our teeth and yanking. The combination of the rubber and the water had, after a hundred bombs or more, made our lips raw. By afternoon break we’d had enough. When we got to our patch under the trees, Jonno was on the floor studying the creepy crawlies that he thinks are his friends, Bee was standing cross-armed and Copper Pie (who should have been helping) was messing about with a football.

‘Get in here, Copper Pie,’ Bee yelled, so loudly that the teachers in the staff room probably dropped their coffee cups.

‘Right, Tribers. Today’s Monday. The summer fair’s on Saturday. I asked the Head if we could make posters and she said, “We can’t have everyone plastering the walls of the school in posters, can we?” Is she mad? The Give and Take’ (Bee had adopted my dad’s suggestion) ‘is the only environmentally responsible stall at the whole fair. Exactly how committed is she to the planet?’

Phew! Bee was in motormode.

‘But it won’t work if we don’t let everyone know in advance – they won’t bring anything to swap,’ said Jonno.

‘Exactly,’ said Bee. ‘So what do we do?’

‘Spread the word in the playground,’ said Jonno.

‘Too random,’ said Bee. ‘It’ll be like Chinese Whispers.’

I wasn’t that interested. (And talking hurt my lips too much anyway.) Neither were Copper Pie and Fifty. We let Bee and Jonno rabbit on about how to advertise the swap stall.

‘I’ve got to find someone with slimy lip stuff,’ said Fifty. ‘Any ideas?’

‘You can ask Flo,’ I said. ‘She brings all sorts of pink pots to school.’

Fifty went off, and Copper Pie sloped away too. It wasn’t like him to be so quiet but I wasn’t worried about it. I should have been, but I wasn’t.