Class Act (5 page)

C
HAPTER
8

VICTORY

‘What. On earth. Is
that
?' Florrie's face was a Kit Kat length away. ‘I can't. Believe. My
eyes
.' They were gleaming like glaciers. ‘You will. Remove it.
Immediately
.'

What Brian didn't say:

‘Yes, of course, Mrs Florris. What was I thinking? I'm so very sorry. I'll take it out at once.'

What (very quietly) he did say:

‘Only if the girls remove theirs.'

Florrie gasped. The class gasped. The cactus on the front desk gasped.

‘I
beg
your pardon?' Florrie's knuckles went white, pressing into Brian's desk.

‘I said.' He blew upwards, sending his fringe flying. ‘Only if–'

‘I HEARD YOU!'

And then he was squashing against the back of his chair, blinking at her reddening face and wondering how her mouth could move so fast while her eyes stayed so still, and noticing that each hair on her chin wore a little trembling jacket of powder, and finding that by staring at those jackets he could ignore the words that were spilling from her mouth like pins from a box, and imagining what Dulcie, uncharged but conscious in his ear, must be making of all this hullabaloo.

Florrie paused for breath.

‘He's right.' Broadbean Barry, whose dad was a lawyer, didn't even put up his hand. ‘If the girls are allowed to wear them, so's he. Otherwise it's discrimination.'

There were murmurs. Most of the girls had pierced ears.

When wise people like you, and occasionally me, are annoyed by something that's not dangerous or cruel or in need of a good scratch, they do the wise thing and ignore it. But despite her sensible heels and the rain hat she carried whatever the forecast, Mrs Florris was not a wise person. She stood by Brian's desk and shrieked about the nerve, the mouth, the cheek, the lip, until she'd almost described a whole face. Then she moved down the body to screech about the kick in the pants of decency, the shot in the foot of order and the slippery slope from earring today to hooligan tomorrow to prison next Thursday blahdy-blahdy-blah.

At last she ran out of words.

Now what? Broadbean was right. And everyone knew it. There was nothing she could do except stand there, stiff and silent with rage.

After eight seconds she sniffed. After twelve she wiggled her shoulders. After twenty-three she wheeled round and strode to the front.

She sat behind her desk. ‘Homework.' She spread her palms on top. ‘Geography.' She licked her teeth. ‘On page forty-eight of
Don't You Know Where That Is?
you'll find a map of Europe. For every country I want you to learn,' she took a deep breath, ‘the mountains the lakes the inlets the outlets the imports the exports the main sports the highways the holidays the rainfall the snowfall the crops the shops and the,' she smiled, ‘favourite. Types. Of cheese. Got that?'

Only Alec nodded. He alone had written it all down.

‘Because if you haven't, too bad.' Her eyes were ice pops. ‘There will be a test tomorrow. And your mark will go on your final report.'

Brian's heart punched like a fist.
Victory!
His plan had worked: the girls-wear-earrings argument had stumped her. She was powerless, helpless, piling on homework because that was all she could do. His report would be rubbish anyway. He had nowhere to fall. A chain snapped inside him – of fear and control. He was free to soar into the limitless sky of rebellion, to fly where he liked, do what he wanted – eat chips off page forty-eight, or fold it into a paper crab, or use it as loo roll. He didn't care how she punished him. He'd beaten her in front of the class and that was all that mattered. He knew it, she knew it and so did they.

In the silence of Maths, he drew Florrie's face as a pie chart and cut her into twenty-five slices, one for each pupil. Reading
Peter Pan
in English, he made her walk the plank and jump to the mercy of twenty-four crocodiles. And in history he could almost hear the classroom court crying, ‘Bravo!' as he sentenced Witch Florribus to fifty years tied to the back end of a cow.

So when Clodna Cloot said, ‘Well done, Braino,' on the way out to break, it took him a moment to work out that she didn't mean it. And when Broadbean added, ‘Yeah, thanks for ruining my TV tonight,' Brian thought for a second that he was truly grateful.

But when a football slammed into his back and Kevin Catwind yelled, ‘That's for the map, Brainless,' Brian began to suspect that the class wasn't wholly on his side. And when Skinny Ginny shouted across the playground, ‘How d'you spell nightmare? B–r–i–a–n,' he finally understood that he had twenty-four fewer school friends than the none he'd had before. Or, to put it more positively, twenty-four devoted enemies. Dodging the tennis ball that was rushing to greet his shoulder, he ran across the yard to the lawn. He sat down behind the rockery.

Twenty-four enemies. And one new friend.

Grabbing the edge of his sleeve, Brian brought it to his ear and rubbed the amber. The sting-ache made him hiss. He rubbed again.

‘Of all the –!' A voice exploded minutely in his ear. ‘How dare she speak to you like that!'

‘I told you she hates me,' said Brian with a grim kind of triumph.

‘What about me?' piped Dulcie. ‘A kick in the pants of decency, am I? A shooter in order's foot? A hooligan-maker, a prison-pusher? Why the dandelion didn't you charge me up? I'd have given her a taste of my tongue. She's an insult to bee-manity … to humanity … to me-and-you-manity! Ooh, if only my butt was free, I'd sting her where the sun don't shine.'

Brian couldn't help smiling. He didn't doubt it for a minute.

‘Oh no.' His smile vanished. Three figures had appeared on the left. He hunched against the rockery wall as Alec, Tracy and Pete crossed the lawn in front of him. He could do without more sarcastic comments.

He needn't have worried. They didn't notice him as they headed towards the row of cypresses that marked the end of the school grounds.

The trees were where you went to share gossip or homework: a dark, private borderland, officially out of bounds. But if you managed to creep in without being spotted by the teacher on yard duty, you were safe. On the far side of the trees a narrow path ran along the school fence. Anything messy or broken was dumped there, out of Florrie's failure-hating sight: the school dustbins, the gardener's tumbledown shed, old benches and broken desks. Brian had only once plucked up the courage to creep through. He'd stood on the path and gazed into Finn McCool Lane, where graffiti and dog poop reminded him that there was life outside school, even at one o'clock on a Wednesday.

Brian watched the trio disappear into the trees. Pete and Tracy must be going to copy down the geography homework from Alec, and probably pay him for the favour. Teachers' pets couldn't afford bad marks.

‘They've gone,' he whispered, dropping his hand from his ear.

‘You know, you've got more guts than the rest of that class put together,' Dulcie squeaked.

‘I have?' Apart from the ones that sometimes twisted inside him, he wasn't aware of any.

‘And brains.'

‘Really?' He'd often doubted he had any of those at all.

‘Making a fool of her without breaking the rules. “Only if the girls do” – brilliant!' Dulcie cleared her tiny throat. ‘I must say, it's an honour to be your earring.'

Brian tried to smile. But he was so unaccustomed to compliments, it got tangled up and came out as a kind of wriggle across his face. ‘Thanks. And it's an honour to be your ear, I mean your home, I mean–'

‘What you mean, young bud, is my friend.'

Brian nodded so hard his wriggle untangled. ‘Yes.' He grinned. ‘I do.'

‘You do what?'

Brian jumped up. He hadn't noticed Mrs Muttock creeping across the lawn from the trees. Smoking was banned in school, of course. But Brian had often seen the cleaning lady sneaking off with a hand in her pocket or caught the bitter whiff as she slunk down the corridor.

Now she smiled. ‘Talking to yerself, eh? First sign of madness.' She gave a wet cackle. ‘Still, I s'pose there's no choice, if no one else will.' The cackle turned into a rattling cough. Pressing a fist to her mouth, she slithered away.

Brian cupped a hand to his ear. ‘You couldn't be more wrong,' he thought, ‘you slimy old stink bomb.'

C
HAPTER
9

GETTING AN EARFUL

The next two days were brilliant, or as brilliant as anything at school could be, which on a scale of one to dazzling was somewhere around dim. But that was good enough for Brian because Florrie didn't know what to do with him. She was stumped. So, in a surprisingly wise move for someone without any wisdom, she left him alone.

Which meant he could sit at the back of the class and cheer silently as his favourite ant outran its neighbour down the leg of his desk. He could wink at the notches in the floorboards, imagining they were the eyes of a pine monster that one day would rise up and swallow the teacher. When she came in wearing a bright red jacket, he pictured her as a strawberry flan and drowned her in a mind-jug of custard.

By the third day he felt so invisible that he was tempted to recharge Dulcie for a chat during class. But he stopped himself. Her voice may be tiny but it was piercing too. What if it reached the huge ears of Broadbean at the desk on his left? Or Kevin in front, who was training for the All-Ireland Nose-Picking Championship? And even if it didn't, what was the point? Brian could hardly chat back. It might expose her or, at the very least, prove to the class that he was bonkers as well as brainless. And that was the last thing he needed, because now they hated him more than ever.

It wasn't just because of the Geography test, in which even Alec's top score was only 54 out of 200. Now that Florrie was ignoring him, her cruelty was finding new targets, some of them surprising.

‘Tracy Bricket, take those fingers out of your mouth!'

Everyone looked up. The winner of the Popularity, Pleasantness and Charming the Pants off Everyone prize was always biting her nails, but Florrie had never told her off before. Tracy's hands dropped to her lap.

Two minutes later they were back at her mouth.

‘I said
stop
it!'

The PPACTPOE prize-winner was staring out the window. Mrs Florris marched over. Her neck shot forward like a desk lamp.

‘What?' Tracy's eyes were as round as paddling pools. ‘Oh. Sorry.' Then she did the worst thing possible. She yawned.

To Mrs Florris, a yawn wasn't just a stretch of the mouth. It wasn't an extra gulp of oxygen or a friendly sort of moo. It was a failure. A failure to listen, a failure to hear. A failure to grovel, a failure to fear. A failure to worship, respect or revere.

‘Tracy Bricket, I will
not
be yawned at. Go and stand in the corridor.'

The only sound was the screech of Tracy's chair pushing backwards. Brian smiled as she passed his desk, forgetting all her unkindness in a rush of sympathy.
Boy, do I know how you feel
, said the smile. But her eyes were fixed on the door.

He tried again at break. Finding her alone, for once, at the edge of the playground, he summoned his courage and said, ‘Don't worry. Florrie'll get over it.'

She glared at him. ‘Bog off.' Tucking a silky strand of hair behind her ear she marched away.

Anger blazed through Brian.
Bog off yourself. I was only trying to help
.

The anger flickered and died. What did he expect? He should've known his pity would be as welcome as a wart. In its place rose triumph, creamy and sharp like sour milk.
Now you know how it feels
, he thought as she joined Skinny Ginny and Clodna who were whispering together on the lawn.

He had the same feeling next morning when Florrie handed back their essays on ‘The Sweetness of Neatness'. Brian's page, normally a bloody battlefield of corrections, had no red marks at all, as if she hadn't even bothered to look at it.

She prowled up to Smart Alec's desk. ‘Disappointing,' she slammed his book down, ‘is
not
the word. Especially in light of the title. Smudges everywhere, and pages two and three were stuck together. No, Alec, the word is
dismayed
. What
were
you thinking of?'

There was a long silence while Alec stared straight ahead. It was strange. For once the boy who knew most of the words in the dictionary seemed unable to find a single one.

For the rest of the day, while she barked and bellowed at everyone else, Brian had a busy and fruitful time. By three o'clock he'd:

1. drawn a picture on his desk of a charging beast with white bubbly hair and labelled it ‘The Florribull';
   
2. noticed clouds in the shape of a poodle, South America and Broadbean's right ear;
   
3. helped two spiders out the window;
   
4. watched Mr Pottigrew mow the lawn, make three trips into the trees to empty the wheelbarrow, pat the rockery gnome twice and scratch his beard four times.
   

Walking home, Brian realised it had been his best day for ages. Not a single telling off. And so what if no one had talked to him since Tracy? It was better than being insulted. A smile spread inside. The sun on his face, the tickling breeze, the thrill of his new secret: rebellion had brought nothing but good. It had silenced his enemies and woken a friend. He couldn't wait to charge her for a chat in the safety of his bedroom.

He unlocked the front door.

‘That you, Brian?' Dad called from the kitchen.

Duh. Who else has a key?
‘Yep.'

‘Want some tea? I'm just boiling the kettle.'

‘No thanks.'

‘How was your day?' Since when had Dad cared? All this sudden effort – the timing couldn't be worse. Sighing, Brian dragged himself to the kitchen. Better stick his head in and say hello to ward off more visits to his bedroom.

Dad's smile was carefully bright. ‘School OK?' The kettle shuddered to a boil.

‘Yep.'

‘Got much homework?'

‘A bit.'

‘Sure you don't want tea?' Dad lifted the kettle.

‘No, I'm fine.' Brian raked his fingers impatiently through his hair. ‘I'm just going up to my …
Dad!
' Boiling water was pouring onto the floor.

Staring at Brian, Dad righted the kettle and replaced it on the counter.

Oh no.
Brian clutched his ear. He'd been so careful to cover it until now.

‘Her ring.' Dad's face was all trembly, like its reflection in a pool.

Brian turned and fled upstairs. Sitting on the floor of his bedroom with his back against the bed, he grabbed the mirror from his bedside table. Then he pulled the corner of his duvet and rubbed his ear.

‘Well, what did you expect?' squeaked Dulcie. ‘Cheering and clapping? Dancing in the dahlias?'

‘Thanks,' Brian snapped. ‘That really helps.' He rubbed his temples furiously.

‘Look,' she peeped more gently. ‘He's bound to be upset. He'll get over it. And it serves him right for not standing up for you.'

‘You think so?' Brian looked in the mirror.

‘Of course.' Dulcie tutted. ‘Shame on him. But I'm glad he didn't go in and complain. If he had, you'd never have met me.'

Brian couldn't help but smile. He knew that this was the proud little bug's way of saying
she
was glad she'd met
him
.

‘Now.' She wiggled a front leg. ‘Buzz off downstairs. You two need to talk. This is the perfect time.'

She was right. The earring could lead to only one subject. Brian stood up slowly. He straightened the duvet, replaced the mirror on the bedside table and walked to the door. It was time to speak about the Great Unspeakable.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, staring into his cup.

‘I'm sorry,' said Brian, standing in the doorway. ‘I was just really mad.'

Dad put up his hand as if stopping traffic. ‘We'll say no more.'

‘Please, Dad. We need to talk about–'

Dad smacked the table. ‘It's done, Brian. You can't undo it.' From the look in his eyes, Brian knew he didn't mean the earring. Dad could easily turn that back into a ring. Mum's death crashed over him again.
It was my fault. That's what he's saying.
Brian felt as if he couldn't breathe, trapped under a familiar tower block of guilt over what had happened. He found his usual escape route: anger. ‘Fine.' He spun round. Dad didn't want to talk, so they wouldn't – ever again.

At least, not properly. The odd word was unavoidable. But apart from that, Brian did pretty well over the weekend. Their longest conversation was:

‘Chips or spaghetti for dinner?' (Dad.)

‘Don't mind.' (Brian.)

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yep.'

‘OK.'

Thank goodness for Dulcie. In between bossing and fussing, she proved to be a surprisingly good listener. Over the next two days Brian found himself talking about his dreadful mixture of guilt over Mum's death and anger at Dad for not forgiving him. He told her all sorts of things about Mum that he'd never dared bring up with Dad. And as he did, fading memories returned. Mum pinning flowers to her hat so that butterflies would come to feed. Mum making a ladybird climbing-frame from toothpicks. Playing Frisbee with a pizza. Wearing bubble beards when she did the washing up.

By Sunday evening Brian felt better than he had for months. Talking about Mum had melted the edge of his pain. And now that he'd stood up to Florrie, there was no one to fear.

Walking into school on Monday, he found himself whistling. Sitting at his desk, he found himself sucking a peppermint. Watching Florrie peck to the front like a constipated hen, he found himself sniggering. All of which were normally unimaginable offences.

But today, it turned out, wasn't normal.

The teacher reached her desk and turned round. ‘Did anyone see Alec over the weekend?' Heads shook, brows wrinkled.

‘Why?' asked Kevin.

‘Because,' she said slowly, placing her palms on the desk, ‘his parents just phoned. They haven't seen him since Saturday.'