How to Write Really Badly (9 page)

This is what comes of doing homework at home.

‘And the last prize.’

Miss Tate was beaming at Beth now. Beth beamed back at her.

‘Best Num–’

I coughed.

She tried again.

‘Best Number –’

I coughed again, even louder. She glanced down at the list.

‘Good heavens!’ she said. ‘I knew there was going to be an
extra
prize this year. But I never realised that there’d been a
change
.’

She read aloud from the list.

‘Best Home-made Model!’

And all hell let loose.

‘The spider’s web!’ shrieked Beth.

‘No! No! The mastodon!’

‘How can you
say
that?’ Ben cried. ‘That baby elephant is better than any of the others.’

‘I’d swap everything I own for that lovely Wheel of Fortune,’ Flora said wistfully.

‘I’ve become rather fond of the
octopus,’ I admitted.

‘Does that lampshade made of dried bread count?’

‘The spaghetti tower!’

‘It’s not spagh–’

Miss Tate cut me off, frowning at everybody.

‘I do think that, after all the work we did on Egypt last year, a few more of you might appreciate this beautiful papier-mâché scale model of the Valley of The Kings.’

My big mistake, of course, was writing ‘Best Home-made Model’ instead of ‘Best Home-made Model Maker’. So the wrangling went on for hours, while Joe sat in a daze.

And, in the end, we took a vote. The disposable coffee cup spaceman won by miles. And Joe stepped up to take his medal with a grin as wide as the mastodon’s.

‘Congratulations, Joe!’

Miss Tate pressed the dingy old medal into his hand. He gazed at it as if it were some twinkling jewel. Then, closing his fingers round it and shutting his eyes from sheer rapture, he threw his arms around Miss Tate, and hugged her.

‘Joe! You old silly-billy!’ she said. But you could tell that she was thrilled to bits. ‘I
knew
you had hidden talents. And now I know what they are, I’ll be coming to you whenever I need models to explain the maths.’

I nudged him as he sat down.

‘See?’ I crowed. ‘Things are looking up already. If you’re busy making pyramids and cones and tetrahedrons for her all the time, she won’t be able to spend so much time torturing you into understanding them.’

His grin got even wider.

Now Miss Tate was patting the moths back into her bun.

‘It must be time to welcome our Open Day visitors.’

Her hand was on the doorknob before Joe reminded her.

‘But, Miss Tate! What about the extra prize?’

She turned back.

‘Whoops! Nearly forgot!’

She took another medal from her drawer.

‘And now!’ she said. ‘By popular request, and secret vote, the extra prize! For the Most Helpful Member of the Class!’

And she looked straight at me.

I went for Beth on this one, so I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And finally, Miss Tate said:

‘Well, aren’t you going to come up and get it?’

‘
Me?
’

‘Who else am I looking at?’

Stupidly (considering that Joe and I sit in the back row), I glanced behind me.

‘I mean you,’ she said.

‘
Me?
’ I said again. ‘Most helpful person in the class?
Me?
’

‘I was a little surprised myself,’ she admitted. ‘But this was a free vote, and all the
papers except one had your name on them.’

I looked around at them. They were all sitting, good as gold, looking at me with innocent, glowing faces. I felt a bit suspicious as I went up to the front. But the medal Miss Tate pressed in my hand didn’t explode, or blow a raspberry at me, or shoot a jet of water in my face.

It was a real prize. No kidding. A real prize.

Don’t think I’m not used to getting them, because I am. In his time, Chester
Howard has won prizes all over the world for reading, writing, spelling and, once, for the most beautifully spoken Armenian nursery rhyme. (That was a fluke.) But I’ve never won a prize for any of those other things: Most Popular Member of the Class, Best Team-worker, Most Cheerful Pupil, or any of that ‘Nice Personality’ stuff.

I stared at the medal. ‘Most Helpful Person in the Class’. Frankly, I’ve been in schools where the most helpful person could mean the one who didn’t spit on your homework every day, or set fire to your tennis shoes, or beat you up. In Spike City Juniors, it would probably mean the one who threw your crutches
to
you, not
at
you, or helped you bury most bodies.

But here!

Here in Walbottle Manor (Mixed), it was like winning an Olympic Gold. These people weren’t sinners. They were
good
. And
nice
. And
kind
. And pretty helpful
themselves
.

I couldn’t help it. I knew that I was doing a bit of a Beth act, but the words popped out.

‘I’m going to treasure this.’

Miss Tate gave me a little affectionate push, and I went back to my seat. As I threaded my way between the desks, I noticed that on every one there was a tiny home-made model, Joey-style. Robots and scarecrows and rockets – that sort of thing.

‘Have you been buying me votes?’ I asked suspiciously when I got back.

‘Why should I buy you votes? I didn’t know that you were making me that brilliant How-to-Survive-to-the-Very-End-of-School chart.’

I was pretty put out.

‘How did you work out what it was? I was keeping it so secret I haven’t even put it in the display.’

He tapped his nose. Then he reached in his desk, took out the security screen and set it up on the desk. Just as I thought he’d finished, he lifted a hidden flap set on his side, and then another, and then slid a panel round.

‘Mirrors!’

‘Sideways periscope action.’

‘Cunning!’

‘Worked a treat.’

(If I were broke, I’d sell this boy to Secret Services.)

I drew the How-to book out of my desk.

‘So there’s no point in hiding it any longer?’

‘Not really, no.’

I handed it over.

‘I hope it helps, Joe.’

He took it and stared at it the same way he’d stared at the medal in his hand. Opening it, he turned the pages, one by
one. I had a sudden vision of all the squares I’d spent so much time counting and measuring and setting out, gradually being filled with bright brilliant colours that steadily and cheerfully spread across each page, from start to end.

On the back cover, I’d written in block capitals:

AND NOW FEEL FREE TO GET ON WITH WHAT YOU’RE REALLY GOOD AT ALL DAY!

(I’d been determined to get those magic ‘You’re really good at –’ words into the book somewhere.)

He looked so happy.

‘I don’t even have to use felt pen to fill it in,’ he mused. ‘I could glue a square and sprinkle it with glitter or dried leaves or –’

‘I see it’s going to be Mess-As-Usual around here.’

But he wasn’t listening. He’d looked up to see the parents pouring in.

‘Mum! Dad! Quick! Over here!’

They hadn’t got halfway across the room before he was bragging. ‘Mum! I won a prize! A
real
prize! Look, it’s a medal!’

I thought his mother was going to burst with pride. And Mr Gardener took the medal from his son’s hand and inspected it reverently.

‘Your great-great-granny won one just the same!’

How long has Miss Tate been
teaching
? A thousand
years
?

Now Joe was thrusting the How-to book under his parents’ noses.

‘And look what Howard’s given me, to keep me going!’

I crept away, before the Gardeners kissed me. I wasn’t expecting my parents because, a whole lot earlier in the term, I’d noticed all the notes from school were clearly addressed to Mr and Mrs Chester (who are
they
?) and I’d felt justified in dropping them straight in the bin.

And I was halfway right. My dad did hear a rumour of the Open Day while he was in Harvey’s delicatessen, but he couldn’t leave his
milles feuilles
unattended any longer in the oven, so he couldn’t make it. And Mum was slipped the wink by the
van driver, who wanted an excuse to come back earlier. But when she told someone at the door her name was Mrs Howard, she was sent off to quite another room, and was delighted with the work she saw.

Later, I asked her, ‘Didn’t you notice that I wasn’t there?’

‘Of course I noticed. It’s just I thought that you were embarrassed because of that beautiful essay that you wrote.’

‘What beautiful essay?’

‘
My favourite book ever: Six Little Peppers and How They Grew
.’

I didn’t get off scot-free, though. The van driver found his way back to our room, and he took a great interest in my work.

‘Excellent, Chester,’ he kept saying, as he leafed through my books. ‘You’ve tried really hard here, I can tell. And this piece is good, too. Yes, I can see you’ve made considerable effort.’

He went up to Miss Tate then, to tell her all he’d been doing for the last hundred years, and that, even though I could clearly do with a little more practice with division, on the whole he thought I was doing really well.

‘Oh, yes,’ Miss Tate said. ‘Though I admit his How-to book was quite a disappointment.’

‘Yes, I agree. I do think he took a bit of a liberty with the spirit of the project.’

‘Quite
naughty
, in fact.’

‘Well, never mind. Most of the rest of his work is up to scratch.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Tate. ‘We’re all very proud of Howard.’

The van driver looked a bit baffled.

‘I was talking about Chester, here.’

‘Chester?’

Miss Tate looked thoroughly confused. But, rather than worry the lady who had
given him the happiest days of his life, the van driver moved away. I could have stayed to explain things, but Flora needed a spot of help carrying her new Wheel of Fortune out to the van. On the way down the steps, I asked about something that had been preying on my mind.

‘Did Joe give you a model to vote for me?’

She looked me calmly in the eye over the Arrow of Opportunity.

‘No.’

‘He did give you a model, though, didn’t he?’