A Thousand Water Bombs (14 page)

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Jack will be pleased. Where were they?’

‘Under where the coats are,’ said Fifty. ‘We decided to search the school really well in case the medals were lost, rather than taken. We started by the Year 3 classes and
there they were!’

‘Strange,’ said Mr Dukes. ‘We searched thoroughly ourselves.’

‘Not thoroughly enough,’ said Bee, with a cheeky little smile that made me want to puke, but made Mr Dukes smile.

‘Well, thank you very much.’He disappeared back into the classroom. We disappeared back to our patch for the rest of break. Job done.

the ballerina’s head

At lunch, Jack came to see us on our patch. It was totally embarrassing. He thanked us five hundred times and wouldn’t go away. It felt so fake, pretending we were heroes
when in fact we were accomplices of Flo the thief. He asked loads of questions about Tribe that we tried not to answer. (And he had his sweatshirt on back to front – always does according to
Bee.) Eventually he got bored, and went off to muck about with his cronies.

‘ We
so
don’t need Jack thinking we’re his best friends,’ said Bee.

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I mean, if he hadn’t been mean to Flo she wouldn’t have been mean back.’

‘If that’s what you think, how come it took you a whole weekend to decide whether or not to cover up for Flo?’ Fifty asked me.
Good question.
But I had the answer.

‘It didn’t,’ I said. ‘I decided right away. But I wanted to make sure she was properly sorry so I made her wait.’

‘You’re evil,’ said Copper Pie, but he was laughing. Bee and Jonno weren’t. I could see they thought I was a monster.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I said. ‘I told her last night. After I’d made her do all the vegetables for Sunday lunch, and the washing up, and the drying. Amy
tried to help but I explained that Flo had been nasty and she wanted to make it up to me by working hard. I waited until Mum had put her to bed and then told her I’d decided to go along with
the plan to return the medals. Simple.’
(No way was I ever going to tell on Flo. Far too risky. She’d be poisoning my blackcurrant and cutting holes in the bum of my trousers forever
more.)

‘Keener, you are one mean brother,’ said Bee.

‘No, I’m not. Flo’s one mean sister. And if you’re interested, what I spent most of the weekend doing was investigating how it was that my metal detector could find three
little medals in a box of woolly pom-poms when it couldn’t spot a 50p buried in sand even when it was right over it.’

‘Who cares. We found the medals. That’s all that counts,’ said Bee. ‘Let’s forget it. I mean Show and Tell is really Show Off and Tell. Do you remember that pottery
ballerina that Annabel Ellis brought in and said she’d
made
?’

‘How
could
we forget?’ said Fifty. ‘You nearly broke the ballerina’s head off trying to wrestle it out of Annabel’s hands to see if it had a
Made in
England
stamp on the bottom.’

‘Which it did,’ said Bee. ‘And I remember being desperate the next week to find something amazing to take in to
really
annoy her.’

‘That’s what
we
should do,’ said Jonno.

‘What?’ said Bee.

‘We should help Flo find something amazing to take for Show and Tell. Something Mr Dukes would be interested in. It would make her feel good. And show Jack that she’s not afraid to
try again, even though he was mean about Fat Cat.’ We were all silent. ‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘Let’s do it,’ said Bee.

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

‘I’m in,’ said Copper Pie.

There was only me left. I hadn’t decided what I thought so I had to do the thinking bit out loud, because they were all waiting for me.

‘Part of me doesn’t see why we should help Flo, because
she
was the one who did the stealing. But another bit of me thinks Jack didn’t have to be so horrible about Fat
Cat – even though it’s rubbish. And the other thing is, Flo never gets picked. You know what teachers are like. They always pick the same kids.’

‘They pick kids like you, Keener,’ said Fifty.
He’s right. They do.

‘I think it would be nice if she could be picked just once.’

‘That sounds like a yes to me, Keener,’ said Jonno. I rewound the scene in my head and listened to what I’d said. Jonno was right. It was a yes.
Show and Tell, here we
come,
I thought.

‘I know!’ I said. ‘My swimming medals. They’re bigger and shinier than Jack’s medals, and there are more of them. And there’s a silver cup too. Flo could take
them.’

Bee sighed. ‘That wouldn’t work, would it? They’re not hers.
She
didn’t win them. You did.’

‘But Jack doesn’t know that,’ I said.

‘Keener, for someone who’s clever, you’re quite thick. Flo needs to take something
she’s
proud of. Taking
your
medals would be another lie. How is your
little sister meant to work out right from wrong if her big brother can’t?’

Good job my mum and dad didn’t hear that,
I thought.

‘Good point,’ said Jonno. ‘We need Flo. Only she can decide what she’s proud of.’

‘That won’t work,’ I said. ‘She was
proud
of Fat Cat.’

‘We’re back where we started then,’ said Fifty.

‘Exactly right,’ said Jonno. He stood up, wiped the bits of bark and general woody stuff off his shorts and disappeared out of our shady patch into the sunny playground. He headed
straight for Flo.

show and tell

Miss Walsh congratulated us in class. She made us all stand at the front. It was even more embarrassing than when Jack did it, knowing we were actually in league with the other
side. I went pink, as usual.

‘Some of you may know that Jack, in Year 3, lost the medals that he brought in to school last week for Show and Tell. I’m pleased to say Mr Dukes tells me that five members of 6W
found the medals by searching the school at break time when they could have been out playing. Children’ (she looked at us) ‘or should I say “Tribers”,’ (she winked
– how embarrassing!) ‘I think it’s wonderful that you tried to help, and I’m sure the rest of the class would like to join me in a round of applause.’

There was some unenthusiastic clapping. We sat down as quickly as we could. Being Tribe is great, but everyone knowing we’re Tribe is not so great. (It’s the attention, I could do
without it.) Evaporation, condensation, freezing and melting came next. But Jonno wasn’t taking any notice. He spent the whole lesson drawing on a piece of paper stuffed inside his science
book. I asked him about it at lunch.

‘I’m going to help Flo make Fat Cat better.’

‘He’s not ill,’ I said. (That’s about as funny as I get.)

‘No, but he’s ugly,’ said Jonno. He took a piece of folded-up paper out of his pocket and flattened it on the lunch table. It was a drawing with labels showing what each bit
was made of. Fat Cat’s head and body were still pom-poms, and the ears were still cardboard, but the whiskers were now matchsticks and there were twig legs, buttons for eyes and a tail made
of a bit of coat hanger (so it could stick up in the air) with wool wound round it.

‘It looks brilliant,’ I said. ‘But it needs a collar.’

‘Good idea.’ Jonno drew a collar and wrote
ribbon
, on the label. He held it up so the others could see. ‘What’s the idea?’ said Fifty.

‘I told Flo I’d show her how to make Fat Cat even nicer. Good enough to be picked for Show and Tell. This is the plan for her to follow. I want her to make it and tell the class how
she did it all on her own. Do you think she’ll be able to do it?’

‘I’ll help her,’ I said. (I’m good at modelling. My secret weapon is a glue gun.)

‘Not too much, though,’ said Bee. ‘She needs to do it herself.’

‘Tell you what, Keener,’ said Jonno. ‘I’ll give her the plan, but I won’t tell her you’ve seen it. You can accidentally-on-purpose spot her trying to make Fat
Cat beautiful and help her if she needs it. OK?’

‘Message received and understood,’ I said.

‘If it’s any good, she can make me a pom-pom elephant,’ said Copper Pie. He looked deadly serious, so we all wet ourselves laughing. (Quite why he loves elephants I don’t
know, but he does.) It was one of those great lunchtimes when everything seems funny and we’re not bored and we all know exactly what the others are thinking.

Before we dumped the trays and headed out to the playground, Fifty decided to make an announcement. ‘Tribers, the mystery of the missing medals has been successfully solved, without anyone
being found guilty, which was clever of us. But not only has Tribe forgiven the thief, we are now helping her to see right from wrong, by making delightful toy animals for Show and Tell.
Let’s hear it for Tribe.’

We did a handshake in the middle of the hall.
Who cares?
Everyone knows we’re Tribe.

‘I’m off to see Flo,’ said Jonno. ‘See you later.’

That night I lurked around Flo’s room, but I didn’t see any evidence of plastic surgery on Fat Cat. She seemed to be playing ‘Grown-up Barbies have a Spelling
Test’. So I went and got this old book Dad lent me about someone who’s nice half the time and evil the other half, bit like Flo, and settled into my hammock. I meant to go and check
again after she’d had her bath but I forgot. By the time I thought about it again she was in bed, lights off. I felt guilty. I knew Jonno would be disappointed that Flo hadn’t followed
his plan.
I’ll get up early, there’ll be time to do it before school if we bolt breakfast,
I thought.

deluxe fat cat

Flo was ready for school. Completely ready – dressed, fed, hair combed, teeth cleaned (ish). I hadn’t even had my cereal.

‘You’re ahead of yourself this morning,’ said Mum.

‘I want to be early. Can we go early, Mum?’

‘We might manage it, but I’ve got a few things to do before we leave, like eat.’

‘Can I go with you, Keener?’

My normal response would be ‘No’, but I thought about it for a second before I said, ‘No’.

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ I whispered back.

‘It’s called Luxury Fat Cat.’

She’d got me interested. I skipped cereal, grabbed a banana and left with Flo.

‘Show,’ I said as soon as we were out of sight of the house.

‘Jonno drew me a picture showing me what to do,’ said Flo. ‘I like Jonno.’

She reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic wallet. In it there were four sheets of paper all with really careful drawings of pom-pom animals, with labels, just like Jonno had done. The
first one was Fat Cat. The rest were Fat Guinea Pig, Fat Elephant and Fat Hippo. All done by Flo.

‘They’re brilliant,’ I said.

‘I’m going to make a pom-pom zoo. Do you want to see Luxury Fat Cat?’

‘I do,’ I said. And I really did.

She pulled out a red velvet bag with a tie-top. (It came with her magic set.)

‘Ready?’ I nodded. Out came Luxury Fat Cat. And he was excellent. Flo had, somehow, done everything Jonno said, but better. Fat Cat’s face (blue button eyes, a sewn-on mouth
and nose and plaited grass for whiskers) was brilliant. The fluff of the pom-pom covered all the joins so the legs (she’d used lolly-sticks) and tail looked great as well. And the collar was
silver with some writing on it in black. I had a closer look. DELUXE, it said.

‘It means luxury in France,’ said Flo, beaming at me.

I was impressed. I couldn’t wait for the Tribers to see. It was like one of those programmes Mum won’t let us watch where they completely change what someone looks like. Fat Cat was
now Deluxe Fat Cat. ‘How did you do it?’ I asked.

‘I showed Jonno’s drawing to Mr Morris and he gave me some stuff from the art room. I needed Dad to help’ (Mum doesn’t do craft) ‘so after Mum put me to bed I
stayed awake and waited and waited till he came home and then we did it, in my pyjamas, and I didn’t go to sleep until it was the day after.’

‘Wow!’ I was a bit jealous. Dad’s never done modelling with me in the dead of night.