Class Act (4 page)

C
HAPTER
6

DON'T TRY THIS ON YOUR SISTER

Dad tried to patch things up at dinner. He kept glancing at Brian with twitchy smiles. ‘More potato?'

‘No thanks.' Brian fixed him with cold, polite eyes.

Dad pushed a pea round his plate with a knife. On good days Brian thought of peas as little green moons, cratered and calm. But this one looked shrivelled and mean, like a mouldy belly button.

‘Shall we watch
Celebrity Bathrooms
?' Dad's voice was bright and thin.

‘OK.' Brian collected the plates, binned the broccoli that Dad hadn't dared make him eat and stacked the dishwasher, like the kind, helpful boy he was. He even insisted on sweeping the floor, brushing the dirt into tight piles while Dad went to the lounge and switched on the TV.

Watching Tilly Capilly pull the ruby-tipped toilet chain that played her number one hit ‘U Bend My Heart', Brian slipped his hand into his trouser pocket. His fingers closed round the ring.

I can't
, he thought.
Dad'll be gutted. Florrie'll be livid
.
And Mum would be
…
delighted.
‘It was only gathering dust,' she'd say. Then, frowning at Dad, ‘At last
someone's
standing up to that wicked old wasp.' They were the only insects she disliked. Bullybugs, she called them. ‘Did you know,' she'd once told Brian, ‘that bees put guards at the hive door to beat up any wasps that come looking for honey?' Then she'd shaken her head. ‘It's so unfair that bees die when they sting you, while Bullybugs buzz off without a care in the world.' Brian could almost hear her adding, ‘Just like certain teachers.'

When Abs Abercrunch had finished weightlifting his solid gold towel rack, Brian stood up. ‘I'm going to bed.'

Dad got up too. Brian stepped back.
Don't you dare kiss the top of my head.
Dad sat down again. Rubbing his palms on his thighs, he murmured, ‘'Night then. Sleep well.'

But he didn't. After a few hours of restless, shimmering half-dreams in which lemon-shaped wasps chased him through a Curly Wurly maze, his alarm went off. He'd been careful to set it loudly enough to wake him, softly enough not to disturb Dad, who was the lightest sleeper.

Three o'clock. Slipping out of bed, Brian put on his dressing gown. From his desk he took the Internet instructions he'd printed out and the sponge bag he'd packed in the bathroom before going to bed. He put them in his pocket and crept through the door he'd left carefully ajar. He tiptoed downstairs and along the hall. Thank goodness the kitchen door was open; the whisper of a creak might wake Dad. Not daring to switch on the light, Brian felt his way through the darkness, his hands stretched out in front of him. At last they met the smooth edge of the fridge door. His fingertips crept round, easing it open with a sticky sigh. He held his breath. But the only sounds were the hum of the fridge and the drum of his heart. He opened the freezer section and took out the ice tray he'd filled when sweeping the floor after dinner.
Good.
The cubes had frozen. By the light of the fridge, he found the keys on the kitchen counter. He unlocked the back door, closed the fridge softly and went out.

Leaving the door open to stop the latch clicking, he stood for a moment. His lungs filled with cool, still night.

The difficult part was over. The impossible lay ahead.

When the kickboxing had stopped in his chest, he ran across the lawn, holding the ice tray in one hand and the keys in the other. Clouds stained the sky like milk on black paper. The workshop loomed from the night. Fumbling with the keys, Brian unlocked the door and climbed in. As he turned on the light, a ghostly alchemy transformed the room. Everything in it – the pine walls, the steel machines and shiny clutter on the workbench – turned to gold.

He crept across the floor. A board creaked. He froze. Why? Dad would never hear him here. It was as if the workshop itself was watching him – the tools and trinkets, bowls and machines – with glinty, probing eyes.

Brian had never been in here on his own, let alone at night. He'd always come with Dad, perching on a stool to watch him at work, heating and moulding, bending wires and twisting sheets into brooches and earrings. Dad and his tools were a magical team, conjuring beauty and order from glittering bric-a-brac. And now he was intruding on that team. He knew what to do – he'd watched Dad enough times – but would the tools cooperate with his rebellion?

Brian put the ice tray on the table. He took the ring and sponge bag from his dressing-gown pocket. Putting them on the workbench, he switched on a desk lamp and held up the ring. The amber glowed around the dark knot of the bee. From the sponge bag he removed what he'd borrowed from the bathroom: a little mirror, a bottle of surgical spirit, some balls of cotton wool and a safety pin. He stood them by the lamp.

‘Stop it,' he told his shaking fingers. He held the ring between his left index finger and thumb. He slid his right thumbnail under one of the silver clasps that held the amber. ‘Ow!' His nail bent uselessly. He rummaged on the desk. Finding a Stanley knife, he slid the sharp blade under the clasp. It bent back.
Yes!
He unhooked the other three. Then he slid the knife under the amber itself, easing it off the silver base. Time must have weakened the glue that held it there.

Brian sat back.
So far so good
. He held the amber up to the light, admiring the golden sheen. Inside the air bubble the bee's wings stuck out at right angles to its hunched body. Its front legs were tiny scribbles, its antennae frail threads. You couldn't have designed a more delicate jewel. Apart from that bulging back leg. It looked like the bicep of a teeny bodybuilder.

A miniature chest of drawers, like a stack of matchboxes, stood on the desk. Brian opened the drawer marked ‘stems and backs' and took out a little silver circle on a stalk. Attached to the bottom of the stalk was a butterfly clasp. He held the circle against the amber. Not a perfect fit but it would do. In another drawer he found a tube of glue. He unscrewed it. His hands were steady now, intent on the task. He squeezed a bubble of glue onto the silver disc.
Perfect.
He pressed the amber against it. Glue oozed round the rim. He circled the amber with a fingertip, like a snowplough clearing a road. Then he pressed the amber to the disc until his fingertip ached.
Forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one
… when he'd reached a hundred, Brian let go. He gave the amber a little tug. It didn't budge.
Result.

He leaned back in the chair.
Now for the fun.
He bit his thumb.
I can do this.

Leaning forward, he unscrewed the lid of the surgical spirit bottle. The stern, cold smell was strangely reassuring. He'd like to see any germ make it past this bossy boots of a cleanser. He pressed a ball of cotton wool against the top and tipped the bottle up. Tucking his hair behind his left ear, he rubbed his lobe with the cotton wool. He took the safety pin from the desk, unhooked it and rubbed the pointed wire. He did the same for the stem of the new earring. Then he pulled off the butterfly clasp and laid them all on the spirit-soaked cotton wool.
All clean.

The ice in the tray was beginning to melt, each cube shrinking in a rim of water. Brian popped one out easily. With his right hand he held the cube behind his left earlobe. The ice was so cold it felt hot.
Good.
Maybe this pain would drown out the next. Water dripped onto the table.

Just a quick jab.
He bit his cheek. Leaning forward, he took the safety pin in his right hand, looked in the mirror and …

‘Aaaaghh!' A scalding sting. The pain seemed to suck his whole body into his ear. Tears rushed to his eyes. He remembered to breathe in short gulps, trying not to move his head. Fumbling for the earring, he pushed it through the hole. Oh the throbbing weight on his lobe! He put his right elbow on the table and laid his head sideways on his palm, waiting for the pain to settle.

Surprisingly quickly it did. As he held still, it sank to an ache. He breathed more deeply. The flow of air relaxed his chest. He looked in the mirror and forced a smile.
Done it
. The earring looked as if it had always been there and the skin around it was remarkably calm, with only a slight red shine to show for the violence.

Gingerly Brian touched the back of his ear. ‘Ow!' A nip of pain as the stem moved in the hole. Taking the cotton wool, he dabbed behind his ear – ‘Tssss' – to clear the bits of blood and skin. Then he took the butterfly clasp and, looking in the mirror, clipped it gently and wincingly onto the back of the earring.

He soaked more cotton wool in spirit and cleaned behind his ear. Taking another clean, dry ball, he wiped the amber as vigorously as he dared. He mustn't take any chances; the smallest germ could cause infection. The amber squeaked with cleanliness. Brian rubbed again then dropped the cotton wool. There was another squeak.

He frowned.

And another. He stared in the mirror.

‘YAAAAAAH!' He shot backwards in the chair.

The bee's antennae were wiggling.

C
HAPTER
7

THE AWAKENING

‘Well hello there.'

‘Eeeeaah!' Brian's left hand flew to his cheek.
What the …?
Had the pain of piercing messed with his hearing?

‘A pleasure to meet you too.'

It must have messed with his sight as well. In the mirror he saw the antennae wiggle again. He touched his earlobe.
Aaah!
Pain scorched through. His fingers were shaking too much to grasp the earring, let alone pull it out.

‘Though strictly speaking, it's you meeting me. I've known about
you
for ages.'

‘Uuuhhhh.' Brian's hand dropped uselessly.

‘Yaaaaaaah. Eeeeaah. Uuuhhhh. You do have a way with words.' The voice was high and sharp, a needle of sound in his ear. ‘Still, better than nothing after all this time.' The bee's head rose in the air bubble. Was it really, actually
talking
?

Apparently so. ‘And by the way, thanks for waking me up.'

‘I –' Brian swallowed. ‘I didn't. I mean – did I? I mean – how?'

‘With the cotton wool. Rubbing the amber makes it go all tingly.'

‘It does?' Brian stared in the mirror.

‘And that makes me tingle too.'

‘It does?'

‘Which gives me energy to talk.'

‘It does?' Brian's eyes were huge and still, as if blinking might shatter the dream.

‘Blessed honeysuckle!' The bee tutted tinily. ‘At last someone to talk to and this is what I get. Do you think you could try a bit harder?'

Brian was struggling to think at all. Questions whizzed round his head like socks in a washing machine. ‘How … who … what are you?' he managed.

‘You tell me!' peeped the bee. ‘Last time I looked I was a ring. Now it appears I'm a stud in your ear. What the poppy poop have you done? Your mum'll be furious.'

‘No.' Despite the craziness of the conversation, Brian's breath caught in his throat. ‘She won't.'

‘Why ever not? You've ruined her engagement ring, for sunflower's sake!'

Quickly and haltingly he explained.

The bee was silent. Then, ‘Oh. I'm sorry. Very sorry indeed.' The squeak had softened. ‘So that's why I've been in the dark all this time. I thought she was bored of wearing me.' There was a sigh. ‘I'll miss sitting on that lovely finger.'

Brian swallowed. So much of Mum was fading these days. The more he tried to summon her eyes, her smile, her voice, the more they blurred into a gentle mist. Now he sensed rather than saw the slender fingers that ran through his hair as she cuddled him on the sofa. That folded his pyjamas into perfect squares and peeled neat spirals of skin from potatoes. He'd always known those fingers held magic. But he'd never guessed how much.

‘Why …' he caught his top lip in his teeth, ‘why didn't Mum tell me about you?'

‘Because she didn't know. I could hear
her
all the time. That's how I learned to speak. But she never quite heard me.'

‘Why not?'

‘Do you remember her ever polishing her ring?'

Brian frowned.

‘Exactly. She hardly ever took it off – only when it might get damaged – so she never had to clean it. Soap, Fairy Liquid, they did the job for her. She only ever wiped it by chance – the odd quick brush on a towel. I hardly had the breath for a “Hi”. And I was a long way off, remember, stuck on her finger not plugging her lughole. Talking of which, why
did
you turn me into an earring?'

Why indeed? Brian wound the belt of his dressing gown round his finger. He suddenly felt small and stupid. ‘To get back at my dad.'

‘Oh, I
seee
,' said the bee in a voice that clearly didn't. ‘And how exactly does punching a hole in your ear do that?'

Brian chewed his cheek. It had made perfect sense in the heat of his rage. But now, in the cold light of almost-day, his courage leaked away. ‘I guess I wasn't thinking,' he mumbled. ‘I was so angry.' He told her about the prize-giving and how Dad was too chicken to go in and complain. ‘Even he's scared of my teacher. She's such a bully.'

‘You call that bullying?' There was a teeny snort. ‘Don't make me laugh.
I'll
tell you about bull–'

But it didn't. The voice stopped.

‘Hello?' Brian peered in the mirror. ‘Hey!' Nothing. The bee was completely still. ‘Come back!' He tapped the amber with a fingernail. ‘Owww!' In his excitement he'd forgotten how sore it was. But without the distraction of a talking bug, the pain clomped back on hobnail boots. He slumped back in the chair, exhaustion flooding his mind. His brain throbbed.
I was dreaming.
He circled his forehead with his fingertips.
I must've dozed off without knowing it.

From outside came a trickle of birdsong. A dusty grey dawn was leaking through the shed windows. Brian stood up and stretched. An ache flowed out of his shoulders. He'd better clear up and get out of here. Dad always got up early.

Dad.
Shame spilled inside him.
What have I done?
He'd be devastated by the destruction of this precious reminder of Mum.
I'll take out the earring, remake the ring
. But how? The amber was glued to its new silver setting. The day was rushing to meet him. And he was so, so … tired. A yawn tumbled out.

He stuffed the remnants of the ring and the equipment from the house into his pocket. Then he replaced the tools and left the workshop just as he'd found it, switching off the light and locking the door.

The sky was the soft grey of pigeon wings. The grass nuzzled his feet, cold and wet as a dog's nose, shocking him wide awake.
Hang on.
He stopped on the lawn.
What did the bee say? Rubbing the amber gives it energy.

What if he hadn't been dreaming? What if the bee had just run out of steam?

The sky was lightening, unwrapping the gift of the day. A distant car sounded like tearing paper. Brian felt a glittering in his stomach, as if he'd swallowed tinsel. The air smelt sharp and promising. Anything was possible.

Even the impossible.

He ran into the house. Locking the door softly, he crept back upstairs. He sat on his bed, took the mirror from his pocket and stood it on his bedside table. He held his left earlobe gently between his trembling finger and thumb. Grabbing a corner of the duvet, he pulled it up to his ear.

And froze. There was the click of Dad's bedroom door.

‘Brian?' he called from the landing. ‘Was that you? I heard a noise downstairs.'

‘Uh, yeah. I woke up early. I got a glass of milk.'

‘Oh, OK.'

Brian waited to hear the creak of the bottom stair and the clap of Dad's slippers on the hall tiles. Then he rubbed the amber with the corner of the duvet. ‘Ow! Wake up.'

Dad clattered faintly in the kitchen.

‘Come on,' Brian whispered. Something wonderful had happened. Something crazy and huge that would make him special, set him apart – if only it were true. ‘Please,' he rubbed again, wincing, ‘you've got to.'

‘I haven't
got
to do anything.'

‘Yesss!' Brian felt like kissing his ear. But as that would require some tricky gymnastics, he settled for a grin in the mirror. ‘I wasn't dreaming. You
are
alive!'

The bee yawned. ‘I thought we'd settled that.'

‘Um … not entirely.' Brian twisted the duvet in his hand. If the bee was trapped in amber twenty million years ago, as Mum had said, how could it
possibly
have survived?

The shriek, when he asked, went right through his head. ‘Twenty million? You're pulling my foreleg! All I remember is that one minute I was there, alive and kicking, and the next I was here, trapped in this permanent sunset.'

‘What happened?'

‘Sticky situation on a tree trunk. Oh!' There was a little moan. ‘If only I hadn't stopped to rest.' The bee's antennae drooped. ‘I felt a trickle of goo on my leg. And next thing I knew, I was drowning. That's it, girl, I thought, you're a goner. Then everything stopped.'

‘What do you mean?'

The tiny wings rose, as if in a shrug. ‘Went blank. Faded out. Ended … or so I thought.'

‘Until?'

‘Well, according to you, twenty million years later, I was woken by an almighty jolt. The prison around me had hardened. But through it I saw something rubbing it, whizzing and pounding and polishing. I tingled all over.'

‘You mean like when I rubbed your amber?'

‘A thousand times harder, a thousand shocks stronger. When it stopped I saw through my golden glass that I was stuck on a silver ring. Where I've been ever since, able to see and hear but not much else without an extra rub.'

Brian frowned. How could making the ring have brought her back to life?

‘Twenty million years, eh?' The pointy head lifted towards the mirror. ‘Looking good, if I do say so myself. Except for that leg.' Brian guessed she meant the fat back limb. ‘But what's a girl to do, glued in gum with no chance of a workout to empty her pollen sac?'

He grinned at the thought of a bee doing leg lifts.

‘It's no joke,' she snapped. ‘Do you know the last thing Nora said to me? “Stick around, Pie Thigh.”'

Brian turned his giggle into a cough.

‘Our Nora had more sting in her tongue than her tail. Same with my other sisters, all thirty-five thousand, four hundred and twenty-six of them. And Mama Humsa was the worst of the lot.' The bee sniffed. ‘Never knew my dad. I must get my gentle ways from him.'

Gentle wasn't the first word that sprang to mind. But Brian managed not to say so.

‘Sweet in nature, sweet in name,' she piped. ‘Which, by the way, is Dulcie.'

‘Dulcie.' Brian liked the way it rolled round his mouth. ‘Hi, Dulcie. I'm Brian.'

‘I know that!' squeaked the bee. ‘And your dad's Bernard, and you have no sisters or brothers, and there are seven pebbles on your bathroom shelf that you collected from the beach when you were five, and your mum sometimes mistakes –
used
to mistake – the white one for soap, and you prefer crunchy peanut butter to smooth, and your mum dries –
dried
– cups by stuffing the whole tea towel inside and twisting it round.'

Brian bit his lip. He'd forgotten how Mum did that.

‘Not bad, eh?' Dulcie clapped her antennae. ‘
And
I was only half-awake. Amazing what you notice with a nimble mind like mine.' She sighed. ‘The only nimble part of me since I was trapped in this–'

‘Shhh!' Brian clapped a hand to his ear. There were footsteps on the landing and a knock at the door.
Oh no
. What was Dad doing? He never came up here in the mornings. Brian slipped into bed, raking hair forward over his ear. Thank goodness Dad kept forgetting to take him to the barber. ‘Yeah?' He pulled the duvet up to his chin.

The door opened. Dad came in with a tray. On it was a glass of orange juice and a plate of toast. ‘I made you breakfast in bed.'

Brian frowned. When had Dad last made him breakfast, let alone in bed?
Of course. This is a sorry for not going into school to complain. Pathetic.

But useful too. It saved him eating with Dad and risking the discovery of his earring, at least for now. ‘Thanks,' he said, taking the tray. ‘Oh, and Dad?'

‘Yes?' He turned eagerly in the doorway, as if hoping for a word or look of forgiveness.

‘Can I borrow your phone? I need to check something for homework.'

‘Of course.' Dad brought it over with a sheepish smile. He'd been promising to buy Brian a mobile for the last three months but hadn't quite got round to it.

‘Thanks.'

When Dad had gone and the door was closed, Brian went on to Google.

‘What are you doing?' peeped Dulcie.

‘Wait.' Slowly and carefully he typed:

What happens when you rub amber?

He scrolled through the results. Next to the heading
HowStuffWorks
, a word caught his eye:

Electricity

Ignoring Dulcie's ‘What?' and ‘I never learned to read, you know,' he went onto the site. There were lots of complicated words like ‘Van de Graaff generator', ‘protons' and ‘triboelectric'. But halfway down the screen, a sentence jumped out.

If you rub a piece of amber with soft cloth, the amber will develop a static charge.

Brian wasn't sure what ‘static' meant, but he knew that ‘charge' had something to do with electricity. Could the buffing and buffeting by the polishing machine when she was made into a ring have electrified her teeny heart into beating again?

‘Wow,' she squeaked when he told her his hunch. ‘Clever thinking. I like your style, Brian O'Bunion. I could get used to living with you.'

Clever?
He couldn't remember the last time that word had come his way. His own heart raced. Never mind Dad, never mind Florrie. He could face anything with this tiny, tetchy miracle in his ear. Excitement sat like an egg in his stomach, smooth and glowing and ready to crack.