Labradoodle on the Loose (8 page)

‘But it was chosen, wasn't it?' said Fifty.

Bee did a slow nod.

‘How come?' I said.

‘She bribed them,' said Copper Pie.

‘With ice creams,' said Jonno.

‘Glacier mints,' said Fifty, getting the joke before I did.

‘Penguins,' said Copper Pie. ‘The chocolate ones.'

I tried to think of an Antarctic connection too – complete blank.

‘I didn't bribe anyone,' said Bee. ‘I told Amir the facts and he persuaded the council. So there.'

Amir is Bee's buddy from Year 5. She's trained him so that he's even more of an eco-freak than she is.

‘I've got to go,' said Copper Pie. He put out his hand ready for a Tribe handshake. We all slapped ours down on top. One, two three . . . our hands shot up in the air.

‘Get lots of sponsors, everyone,' said Bee.

On Friday, the day of the sponsored silence, registration didn't go that well. The first Triber's name Miss Walsh called out was Fifty's.

‘Good morning, Fifty.'

‘Good morning, Miss Walsh.'

The list went on and the next Triber she got to was Jonno.

‘Good morning, Jonno,' she said.

Jonno nodded. Miss Walsh didn't see so she said ‘Good morning' a bit louder. Jonno nodded again, but when she looked up he'd finished. She stared at him. He nodded some more. Even though she could see him nodding, she waited for him to speak. We all knew that wasn't going to happen.

Fifty tried to answer for him. ‘Jonno's —'

‘Jonno can speak for himself, thank you,' said our frosty teacher. I took the Tribe sponsor form out of my pocket. If I showed her she'd understand, but not before she'd shouted at me. I put it back and left it to our interpreter.

Fifty tried again. ‘Actually, he —'

‘What part of “Jonno can speak for himself” did you not understand?' Miss Walsh retied her twisty bun. She does that when she's cross. Someone needed to explain, and quickly. But only Fifty was allowed to speak. And he wasn't allowed to speak because Miss Walsh wouldn't let him.

Eventually she moved on to the next name on the register.

‘An especially good morning to you, Bee.'

There was no way out of this mess. Miss Walsh stared at Bee. Bee nodded. I turned and looked at Fifty. He shrugged. Shrugging was no use. He was meant to be doing the talking. Copper Pie obviously thought the same. He reached over to Fifty's desk, yanked him out of his chair and pushed him forwards. Fifty looked down at the floor and spoke at five times normal speed.

‘We're-having-a-sponsored-silence-to-raise-money-for-the-charity-with-all-the-numbers-and-I-can-speak-but-the-other-Tribers-can't-so-they-can't-say-“Good-morning”.' He looked up. ‘Sorry.'

Miss Walsh put her head in her hands for a second – I think she was taking a few deep breaths – and carried on without bothering to say my name or Copper Pie's. At
the end she shut the register and said, ‘Charity day is an important day each term when we think about helping others. It would have helped me if the children involved in the sponsored silence had informed me rather than arriving at school already mute. And as the silence is taking place in school time, it should be agreed with the school.' She turned to look at Fifty. ‘I'd like you, as the token talker, to go to the Head's office and ask permission for the sponsored silence to take place.' Miss Walsh is no fun.

Fifty stood up and headed for the door. Since we stopped being Keener, Bee, Fifty, Copper Pie and Jonno and became Tribe we'd been in trouble for loads of stuff, mostly not our fault. I thought about the other times we'd been sent to the Head.

The list would have been longer but Fifty came back. ‘The Head said “a Tribe that is silent would be a welcome change from a Tribe that makes more than its share of noise”.' He smiled at Miss Walsh. ‘She sponsored us five pounds if we go all day without a squeak.'

Miss Walsh looked like she wanted to go home and cry on her pillow. I don't think she should be a teacher. She should be a Samaritan who answers the phone to people who are upset or someone who stuffs red shiny hearts into the teddies at the Build-a-Bear Workshop.

Fifty sat down. Miss Walsh told us to get out our maths books.

‘OK, class. As you know, we're spending the last half term of Year 6 going over the topics we've covered this year, so today it's perimeters and areas.' There was groaning. ‘We're going to calculate the areas and perimeters of five things in the room, being careful to use the appropriate units.'

Alice's hand shot up, as usual.

Miss Walsh sighed. ‘What is it, Alice?'

‘Can I measure the door?'

‘Yes, Alice.'

‘Can I do the bin?' shouted out Jamie. Jamie has never learnt to put his hand up. He just shouts out.

‘No, you can't,' said Miss Walsh.

‘That's not fair. If she can do the door, why can't I do the bin?'

Miss Walsh spoke through gritted teeth. ‘You can't do the bin because we haven't learnt the formula for calculating the area of circles. We've done squares and rectangles and they've all had straight edges and right angles.'

‘Can I do the window?' shouted Jamie. You could tell Miss Walsh had given up because she said ‘All right' without even looking at him.

There were a few more minutes of instructions, like ‘record all the dimensions' and ‘draw a sketch before you do the sum', and finally we were ready to pick our five objects. I chose things I could reach without getting up. Callum, also known as the evil Hog, decided to irritate me by measuring my desk, which is the same size as his.

He whispered, ‘If you say nothing it means you wet the bed.' I ignored him. He moved over to Bee's desk and tried the same thing. She stamped on his foot. Miss Walsh saw.

‘Why did you do that, Bee?'

Bee picked up her pencil and wrote something on her maths book.

‘Didn't,' said Callum.

Didn't what?
I thought. Bee held up her book and
shoved the writing towards Callum's face, which meant I could see it too.

He tried to make me talk to stop me raising money to save the PLANET
.

‘Callum, why don't you find something to measure
away
from Bee?' said Miss Walsh.

‘OK.' Callum picked up his book and went over to where Jonno was measuring the whiteboard. He whispered something. Jonno picked up the whiteboard rubber and turned round to face Callum. He smiled, and started to rub Callum out, starting with his face. He didn't actually touch him, he just mimed rubbing out as though Callum was a drawing we didn't need any more. Callum stormed off to measure the window with his only friend, Jamie.

Callum was determined to spoil the sponsored silence, but it would take more than him to trip up Tribe. If we say we're doing something, we're doing it.

At break we hung around on our patch under the trees, apart from Copper Pie who was kicking a football against the wall. Jonno studied the tree stump – he's always on the lookout for weevils. Bee stared at the rest of the kids mucking about in the playground while Fifty talked to himself. I got the sponsor form out to convince myself that a day of zipped-up mouths was worth the effort. Including the Head's contribution we'd got forty-three pounds.

Lily came over and brought out a present from behind her back. ‘Happy Birthday, Bee.' It was about the size of an apple, wrapped in silver paper.

I almost spoke, but stopped myself just in time.
Why hadn't Bee reminded us it was her birthday?

Bee mouthed ‘Thank you' and took the silver apple.

Jonno stood up and made a no-one-mentioned-a-birth-day face. (I realised that someone else had remembered – Miss Walsh gave Bee a special ‘Good morning' but I was too busy being silent to notice.) Inside the silver paper was a lime-green rubber ball with a hole with jagged edges attached to a keyring. Bee held it up and made what-is-it? signs.

Lily laughed. ‘It's for storing your dog-poo bags when you take Doodle for a walk. And it's Fairtrade.' Bee laughed, but without the sound, and clipped the keyring on to her watch-strap and gave Lily a thumbs up. Lily went back to the world where people actually speak, leaving us back in the world of nothing. We had a conversation about Bee's birthday by writing messages on our phones. After loads of tapping it turned out that Bee hadn't mentioned her birthday because she wasn't having a party, and she wasn't having a party because her parents couldn't afford go-karting or laser quest or whatever. Jonno suggested she had a tea party. Bee thought for a bit, then asked if he meant it, and we all wrote
yes
. So Fifty got the job of calling Bee's mum and asking if we could all come over for a last-minute birthday tea.

‘OK,' said Fifty after he ended the call. ‘Bee's mum and dad are going to the opening of some new Italian restaurant at seven-thirty but her brothers will come over and look after us – not that we need babysitting!' Fifty grinned. ‘We can watch a film afterwards.' There was clapping. Fifty carried on.
‘And Bee's mum said,' (out came his Italian accent) ‘“Thank you for persuading Beatrice to celebrate her birthday”.'

Bee stuck her tongue out. She doesn't like being teased about her Italian family.

‘And she said to invite Lily, as well as all the Tribers.'

The four of us trooped over to where Copper Pie was kicking the ball repeatedly against the same spot on the wall, like a machine. Fifty filled him in. He grinned and stuck out his fist for the fist of friendship. Fifty went off to tell Lily. All we had left to do was text our mums we wouldn't be in for tea.