Attack of the Cupids (11 page)

Sally was watching the sunlit world outside, where Billie had coaxed Tony into lying on the grass and letting her feed him a sausage.

‘This,' she murmured, ‘means war.'

Windleberry glanced sourly down at his ankle. ‘You think you've got problems?' he said.

Viola got the call from Imogen. She listened. She rang off. Pale and hard-eyed, she stared into the mirror for a long thirty seconds. Then she rang Tony's mobile.

‘Huh?' said Tony.

The next thing was that everyone had to go to school on Monday morning. Except for Annie, who somehow managed to persuade her parents that she really did have flu.

As luck would have it, Sally and Billie passed Viola and Cassie and Tara at the school gates. The three stopped talking as they approached. Their eyes followed Billie. Billie walked past with her nose in the air.

‘Hi,' said Sally, as cheerfully as she could.

None of them answered.

There was an envelope stuck with Blu-Tack to the door of Billie's locker.

‘Don't open that,' said Sally.

Billie scowled. She opened it. She read it. She went pink.

‘Who's it from?' asked Annie, looking over her shoulder.

‘Typed,' hissed Billie. ‘And unsigned.'

Holly read some of it. ‘Ouch,' she said. ‘You should show that to Mr Singh.'

‘They'll expect that,' said Billie. Deliberately she tore the letter to small shreds. ‘Right. If that's the way they want it . . .'

‘Stay out of trouble,' said Sally.

‘I don't care about trouble,' said Billie.

‘No,' said Sally. ‘You don't, do you?'

In English Sally shared a table with Rich and Charlie B. She had been put with them at the start of the spring term to reduce the number of riots in that
corner of the room. Of course, anyone sitting anywhere close to Rich was likely to get caught in the unending crossfire of flying Blu-Tack, pencil sharpeners, erasers, gumballs and rolled-up paper pellets that he inhabited as a fish inhabits water. Also, somebody had once left a drawing pin on her chair rather than his by mistake. This was the sort of thing that happened to Sally.

Just for today, however, being with the boys did mean that she was safe from some other things. It was as if the UN had flown in a separation force of foreign peacekeepers just for her. They were chaotic and unruly but mostly well-meaning. And they kept the war at a distance.

Others weren't so lucky. Holly was sharing a table with Imogen. Holly had always been Billie's staunchest supporter. No matter what Billie did or said, Holly would find a word to say in her favour. Life, she said, was never dull when Billie was around. (Which was what had made it so awkward when Billie hadn't wanted to invite her to the rec.)

There was no question where Imogen's loyalties were going to lie.

So here were two ordinary and perfectly likeable girls having trouble breathing the same air. Neither spoke to the other. They worked head-down in white,
tight-lipped silence. The temperature on that table must have been a good ten degrees lower than the rest of the room. And sitting between them was little Minnie Stubbs. She looked from one to the other with a face that said
What's got into you?

Stay out of it, Minnie, thought Sally. For your own sake.

Then it got worse. Mr Kingsley handed out copies of a poem called
The Hound of Heaven
and asked them to read it through.

I fled Him down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him down the arches of the years;

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Sally scanned to the bottom of the first page. She turned over. Her hand went up. So did half a dozen others. Eventually Mr Kingsley noticed.

‘What
is
it?' he said (in the voice of a querulous parrot).

‘The second page is blank.'

‘Oh!' said Mr Kingsley, as if this were the class's fault. He checked Eva's paper, and then Lolo's. Then he had to admit defeat. ‘It must be the photocopier,' he said. ‘It's done them one-sided.'

Everyone looked at him.

‘I'll have to copy them again. Just read the first page over and think about what it means. I won't be a moment.'

. . . All things betray thee,
said the poem, who
betrayest Me.

He wouldn't be a moment.

He said.

There were several photocopiers in the school. They had been bought at different times and sat in different places, but they had three things in common:

a. They were all old.

b. They always had at least one person ahead of you when you arrived with your photocopying.

c. They always knew when you were in a hurry.

They liked people who were in a hurry. They saved their worst faults and paper jams just for the poor woman who had to get her copying done
now
, so they could bask in the flow of abuse and cries of pain that followed. It did something for them. Heaven knew what. Maybe they were secretly hoping that whoever it was would turn into a crazed axe-murderer and
would end their miserable existences with a few deranged chops. Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate suicide pact among photocopiers. Whatever the reason, they certainly worked at it.

Maybe they knew there was a war on in 9c.

Mr Kingsley didn't.

The minutes ticked past. The buzz of an unsupervised class rose. The boys started taking pot shots at each other. A rubber band flew past Sally's ear.

‘What a lovely day it is,' said Minnie brightly. ‘Smile, everybody . . .'

Minnie! thought Sally desperately. Just stay
out
!

‘I'm building a wall,' chirrupped Minnie. She began to make bricklaying motions in the air between Holly and Imogen. ‘I'm Build-ing a Wa-all . . .'

Whatever Imogen said to Minnie it was short with about three ‘S's in it. Sally heard them hiss across the room. She saw Minnie go still for a moment. Her shoulders seemed to shrink. She looked down.

Holly said something to Imogen across her. Imogen ignored it.

All three of them were quiet for the rest of the lesson.

When it ended (about six minutes after Mr Kingsley
finally returned with the photocopying) and everyone rose to go, Sally saw that Minnie was crying.

At break Holly met them in the corridor. ‘Have you checked your games bag?' she asked.

‘No, why?'

‘Someone's taken my shin pads.'

‘Mine too,' said Eva.

Sally and Lolo checked their bags. Their shin pads were also missing.

‘It's hockey this afternoon. With Miss Tackle.'

Sally thought about it. Just standing there, it felt as if her shins were already beginning to throb. ‘Ow,' she said.

‘It's mean!' Holly was almost spitting. ‘It's so . . .
bitchy
!'

‘Why us?' wailed Eva. ‘We didn't invite him.'

‘Guilt by association,' said Sally.

‘What does that mean?'

‘It means that Viola wants as many victims as she can get.'

‘But it's not as if we've done anything to
her
 . . .'

Viola screamed.

She was about ten metres away down the corridor, standing at her locker with Imogen and Cassie. All
three of them jumped back shrieking. Viola's bag tumbled to the floor, spilling books, water bottles, deodorants, comb, make-up, calculators and pins across the linoleum. Viola's face was green.

Just at that moment Billie walked by. Viola turned on her.

‘A mouse!' she hissed. ‘A
mouse
!'

‘They get everywhere, don't they?' said Billie innocently. She kept walking. As she passed Sally and the others she clenched her fists and whispered a fierce, ‘Yes!'

‘You idiot,' Sally said. Billie ignored her.

A small crowd had gathered around the fallen bag. Viola was trembling. Cassie and Imogen had their arms around her. Sally swallowed hard and went over.

There it was, lying in the middle of the things that Viola had spilled on the floor: a poor brown fleck of fluff with a pale belly, a tail, claws and little yellow teeth. It was quite dead. Viola must have been looking for something in her bag (which was like a smart leather handbag, only sized up so that it was big enough to carry books and stuff) and her fingers would have closed on it, and she would have pulled it out to see what it was. Ouch.

‘I'll deal with it,' sighed Sally. She took a tissue
from her pocket, dropped it over the dead thing and picked it up. Cassie and Imogen just glared at her. She felt their eyes on her back as she carried it away.

‘What's the matter?' said Mr Singh, emerging from his office.

‘A dead mouse,' said Sally.

Mr Singh, who was Head of Year, frowned. He had a turban, a big black beard and big bushy eyebrows. If frowning had been a sport he could have competed at national level.

‘Where did you find it?'

Sally knew a moment of inner struggle. It went like this.

‘Lying on the floor in the corridor,' said Sally.

‘We shouldn't have those in the building,' said Mr Singh. ‘Take it to the janitors and tell them where it was. They'll know what to do.'

He was right, Sally thought. There shouldn't be any mice in the school. There
weren't
any mice in the school. Janitors and cooks and cleaning staff and whole legions of exterminators leaped into action at the first sign of a whisker. The Food Tech Block was regularly closed for checks. The fastest way to make a deputy head faint was to utter the word ‘infestation'. The PTA was said to be funding ultrasonic vermin repellents at strategic points around the building.

So how had Billie got hold of one?

Fug was lurking in the cover of a loo-roll tube.
‘Boss?'
he said.
‘Hello, boss?'

‘
Hey, Fu-u-ug!
' drawled the honey-thick voice from on high, via the golden trumpet that sat on top of Fug's communication kit. ‘
How a-a-are you, my lovely?
'

Fug winced. It sounded like the boss was having one of her moods again.

‘Mission accomplished. Results Positive. Awaiting Recall.'

‘
You made the hit?
'

‘Sure we did. The Jones Kid is down.'

There was a short pause at the far end, during which Fug scowled warningly at his troops.
I said ‘The Jones Kid'
, his eyebrows semaphored.
I didn't say
which
Jones Kid. And if any of you want to go back and have Mr Windleberry reshape your faces with his fists, all you have to do is speak up now.

None of the cupids spoke.

The Angel of Love let out her breath. ‘
That's go-o-o-od
,' she said. ‘
You're such a sweetie, Fug. You did everything I meant for her?
'