Monkey Bars and Rubber Ducks (3 page)

‘Keener, Fifty, we need to decide who’s going to go over to Big Jim’s today. Copper Pie’s told him to expect one of us. And he’s explained why.’

Copper Pie stopped eating his crisps (which are meant for break) and spoke,’ Jim gave me some tips for losing our tail.’

‘What tail?’ said Fifty, looking over his shoulder for his imaginary tail.

‘He means Callum,’ said Bee. ‘Jim reckons if Copper Pie looks suspicious – you know, keeps looking around and acting weird – then Callum will concentrate on him, leaving one of us free to —’

It was too much. I had to try and put a stop to it.

‘Fifty and I have got another idea.’ Everyone looked at me, except Fifty who looked at the floor. That was so typical. I was fed up with being labelled as the wimp so I nudged him. ‘Don’t try and pretend you don’t agree.’

‘Sorry,’ he said.

Agree with what?’ asked Jonno.’ Sorry for what?’

I was about to explain but Fifty did it instead.
Makes a change.

‘Keener and I were talking on the way home last night and we decided it was risky to leave Big Jim all day with only a quick check on him at lunchtime. We decided that if something happened to him it would be our fault for not telling an adult. So we think we should abandon the plan for Tribe to look after him and tell someone who we can trust not to tell anyone else. That would be more responsible.’

‘Find me a bucket, someone. You two make me sick. What you mean is, you and Keener are too chicken to bunk off, even to help an old man who’ll die if he’s sent to a home where they drug you to make you sleep all day and don’t feed you.’ Copper Pie was hopping mad. And worse, he was right.

Bee’s reaction was just as bad. ‘We’re not doing it for a laugh. We’re doing it because he
needs
us.’

Jonno joined in. ‘Listen, Copper Pie didn’t get caught yesterday, did he? We won’t get caught either, because we’ll all look out for each other, because we’re Tribe.’

‘And he’s expecting someone,’ said Copper Pie. ‘So someone’s got to go.’ Copper Pie stared at me.

I looked away. If I had to play truant I was going to need a few days (at least) to summon up the courage. If I went last it wouldn’t be me till Monday, five days. Maybe by Monday, Big Jim would be better. I decided to ask Mum how long broken ribs and sprained arms, or whatever it was, took to heal.

‘Shall we toss a coin to decide who’s going today?’ said Bee.

‘No need. I’ll go,’ said Jonno.
Hurrah for Jonno!

‘OK. I’ll go tomorrow then,’ said Bee.
Hurrah for Bee!
‘So, Keener, you’re Friday, we can share the weekend, and Fifty, you’re Monday.’

‘OK,’ said Fifty.

No! Not OK!
I opened my mouth to say something . . . but Bee swung her fringe out of her eyes and gave me a killer look. I closed it again.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘So this is the plan. Jonno, you’ll need to eat your lunch really fast, otherwise you won’t get there and back before afternoon lessons.’

‘Can do,’ said Jonno.’ I’m sure no one’ll see me leaving, there’s so many people going in and out for lunch, but coming back when everyone’s in the playground might be more tricky.’

‘Exactly,’ said Bee. The bell went but she ignored it. ‘So, we need to create a diversion. If we assume you’ll be back . . . about ten minutes before end of break?’ She looked at Copper Pie. He nodded. ‘We’ll make sure Callum is concentrating on us.’

‘And Jamie,’ added Fifty.

All the other kids were lining up, but Bee was running the show and she hadn’t finished yet.

‘Yes, and Jamie. So, the main thing is to keep an eye on Callum
and
Jamie, and they’ll both probably be keeping an eye on us so that should be easy.’

I thought she was done so I moved my left foot forwards, but then Jonno started speaking, so I hovered on one foot for a bit trying to work out if it was a short speech or a long one.

‘I think you should all go in different directions after lunch,’ he said. I put my foot back down. It was going to be a long speech. ‘More chance of keeping Callum and Jamie busy, less chance of them working out I’m missing.’

‘Good idea,’ said Bee. She looked over her shoulder. The whole school was lined up except us. ‘Time to go, then, Tribers.’ I picked my foot back up. Copper Pie pushed past me (accidently . . . I think, although he was pretty cross about us trying to get out of helping) and I nearly fell.

I was right at the back of the line. I watched the little kids parade past, while I waited for it to be Year 6’s turn. I already had a lump in my throat the size of Sweden. By the time it got to lunchtime it would be the whole of Scandinavia.
If I was this nervous about Jonno bunking off, how was I going make myself do it?

Operation Jonno Feeds Big Jim didn’t start off very well.

Last lesson before lunch was deadly dull. I wasn’t really listening. I kept looking across at Jonno, wondering if he was nervous. He never looks nervous or worried. In fact he always looks the same – calm, the opposite of me. He doesn’t go pink when he’s embarrassed, or stop breathing when there’s a crisis.

Miss Walsh was explaining the homework that she wanted us to do, which meant it was nearly the end at last. She looked up and said, ‘That reminds me. We need two people from this class to join representatives from the other Year 6 class to discuss events for the Year 6 Leavers’ Week. Let me see, what about Lily and . . . let’s have Jonno. Stay behind for a minute will you? Everyone else, skedaddle.’ She grinned. Her attempts at sounding jokey are lame.

We all made the usual racket, dragging our chair legs back at speed to get out of our seats and into the lunch queue before getting caught in the classroom door bottleneck. I shrugged at Jonno as I went past. He did an eye-roll. Bee, Fifty and Copper Pie were ahead of me.

‘Typical,’ said Bee. ‘The one day—’

She stopped. Callum was right behind us.

‘What was that?’ he said.

‘I wasn’t talking to you and you know it,’ said Bee.

Callum smiled. ‘Where are you lot off to today then? The arcade? Or the café?’

‘We thought, perhaps, the museum,’ said Jonno, appearing from nowhere. He’d escaped from Miss Walsh pretty quickly.’ Do you want to come?’ I love the way Jonno does that (not the appearing from nowhere, the sounding like he’s being polite when he isn’t).

‘Ha ha,’ said Callum.

Callum stayed in the line, sandwiched between Jonno and the rest of us, so we couldn’t talk. It was pasta with a lumpy, runny sauce. I opted for a jacket potato. Finally, we managed to get to a table away from our stalker.

‘Scoff, Jonno,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Jim’ll be waiting.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Jonno, between mouthfuls. ‘Tell me again what I have to do when I’m there, while I finish this.’

‘He can talk, you know,’ said Copper Pie.

‘I know, but —’

Maybe Jonno was nervous,
I thought. The rest of us know Big Jim, because he’s always lived by Copper Pie, but Jonno’s never met him.

‘OK. Go through the gate into the back garden and in the back door. He’ll be sitting in the chair. Make him a hot drink and something to eat, and ask if there’s anything else he wants. Get back here, swifto.’

It sounded straightforward. Jonno put in his last forkful.

‘But what if your mum sees him?’ said Fifty to Copper Pie. I hadn’t thought of that. She’s next door looking after the nursery kids all day.

Copper Pie shrugged. ‘She never leaves the house in the day. Ever. ‘

Jonno stood up.

‘I’ll take your tray,’ I said. He nodded, and scarpered, still chewing. And that was the beginning of half an hour of torture. Until Jonno was safely back in the school playground, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything. The others chatted as normal, and I just sat. So did Callum, watching us from his table. I couldn’t eat all my lunch – swallowing was like squeezing a brick down a straw, so Copper Pie helped out.

‘Right, then,’ said Bee. ‘Shall we go and make ourselves hard to keep track of?’

We all followed Bee’s instructions. Copper Pie went to kick a ball about by the goal. Fifty and I went to our patch – the smelly, damp triangle with the rotting tree stump between the netball courts and the tree, aka Tribe territory. Bee went to chat to Lily in the playground. I could see Callum – he was standing by the doors, watching. His eyes were flicking between our three locations. But I couldn’t see Jamie.

‘There’s Jamie,’ said Fifty, reading my mind. He appeared out of the door, and took a position by Callum’s side.

‘Do you think they’ll notice Jonno’s not here?’ I said.

‘Not if we follow Bee’s plan,’ said Fifty. At that exact moment Bee made the agreed signal – shouting my name. ‘Keener!’ Everyone in the whole school must have heard.

‘OK, off I go,’ I said. I went over to where Bee and Lily were. Copper Pie went to the loo, which meant he had to go through the door Callum was guarding. Fifty stayed on our patch. The idea was that if we kept moving, and disappearing indoors, Callum and Jamie would be so busy keeping tabs on us they wouldn’t think to check the school gates, which are over the other side of the school, and they wouldn’t realise Jonno was missing.

So far so good. The next change of location was planned for when Copper Pie came out of the door. We waited. And waited. Callum was waiting too. You could tell by the way he was fidgeting. He kept pushing the arms of his sweatshirt up and then rolling them down again. I was trying not to stare, but my eyes kept being drawn to the spot. Where was Copper Pie?

‘What do you think Copper Pie’s doing?’ I asked Bee.

‘No idea.’

The waiting went on and on. Eventually, after what seemed like ten minutes, Callum spoke to Jamie who then disappeared back through the door.

‘Jamie’s gone to find Copper Pie, I reckon,’ I said to Bee.

‘What shall we do?’ That was strange coming from Bee. She’s the one who always tells us what to do.

‘Nothing?’ I said.

‘We can’t do nothing, idiot. If Jamie goes wandering round the school looking for Copper Pie he might spot Jonno coming back. We need to keep them focused on the playground.’ She was almost shouting at me.

I put my head in my hands. He was going to be caught. I knew it.

‘Thank goodness.’

I took my head out of my hands to see why Bee was thanking goodness. Jamie was back. Good! But there was still no Copper Pie.

I looked over to the netball court where Fifty was standing all on his own under the trees, the only Triber on the Tribe patch. He made ‘come here’ movements with his hands. It looked like he was rolling pastry, but luckily I know him well enough to decipher his mimes.

‘Let’s go and see what Fifty thinks,’ I said to Bee.

‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking.’

I looked at my watch on the way across the playground – seven minutes until the bell. All I wanted was for my four friends to be hanging about on our patch with me, doing nothing more interesting than watching the tree stump for signs of Jonno’s friend, the stag beetle who lives there. Why we were always about to get in trouble, in trouble already, or trying to get out of trouble, I didn’t know. Before Tribe, I was never in a scrape, ever.

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘You wait for a bus and then two come at once’? Well that’s what happened next. A red double-decker came careering into the playground, followed by a green double-decker. Only joking. This is what really happened.

Jonno strolled out of the door, smiled at Callum and Jamie and carried on over to where Fifty and I were waiting, both grinning our heads off that he was back. Jamie and Callum didn’t seem to take much notice which showed they hadn’t realised he was missing. They were still on the hunt for Copper Pie, for definite. And two seconds later, that’s who came out of the door – Copper Pie, heading straight for us. As soon as Bee saw him she legged it over. At last, we were all where we should be, on the Tribe patch, with three minutes to go before the bell and a whole bunch of questions.

‘Did it go OK?’ I asked Jonno.

‘Really good,’ he said. ‘Big Jim is really interesting to talk to. I’d like to go there every day.’

‘Did he call you names?’ asked Copper Pie.

‘No, of course not.’ Jonno gave Copper Pie a why-would-he? look.

‘And no one saw you?’ said Bee.

‘No. Actually I had a good idea on my way out. I grabbed a football from a Year 3 and kicked it on to the road so I had an excuse for being there. Then I picked it up and dashed round the corner to the alley. I hid it in a bush at the other end (where the Alley Cats hang out) and did the same on the way back, kicked the ball into the road in case someone was about.’

‘We should all do that,’ said Bee. ‘The ball would be a sort of alibi.’

I knew what she meant, but the ball couldn’t actually give evidence to a judge and jury. Although a talking ball defending Tribe would be cool.

‘What about you?’ said Jonno.’ Did you keep Callum busy?’

‘We did,’ said Bee. ‘But not exactly the way we planned.’ She put her hands on her hips and faced Copper Pie. ‘So
where
did you disappear to?’

Copper Pie held his hands out as if to say,’ I’ve done nothing wrong.’

a‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We saw you go to the loos, and when you came out we were all going to swap places, but you never came back out.’

‘Did you go and check out the gates?’ asked Fifty, suspiciously.

‘Please don’t say you went
outside
the gates looking for Jonno,’ said Bee, accusingly.’ Plans are meant to be stuck to.’

Copper Pie sighed. ‘I was in the loo,
all right’

OK, I got it. He hadn’t been anywhere else. He’d been in the loo all the time, doing you-know-what. He wouldn’t be any good as a spy or a special agent or whatever if he had to spend ten minutes in the bogs in the middle of a covert operation. I winked at Bee. She got it too. I know because she made a ‘yuck’ shape with her mouth.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Bee. ‘What matters is that Jonno helped Big Jim, without getting caught. My turn tomorrow.’

Something about the way Bee said it made me wonder if she was looking forward to bunking off. Weird girl.