Pencil of Doom! (3 page)

Jack opened his eyes wide in alarm. ‘NO!' he said.

‘So you want me to punch you?' said Fred.

‘No!' said Jack.

‘No means yes and yes means no,' Fred reminded him, ‘so what I'm hearing is that you want me to punch you!'

Clive sniggered.

‘No!' said Jack. ‘. . . I mean yes!'

‘Yes you
do
want me to punch you or yes you
don't
want me to punch you?' asked Fred. ‘Remember, no means yes and yes means no!'

‘Yes!' said Jack. ‘
Yes!
'

Fred looked triumphantly at the group of kids who had formed around us. ‘Did everybody hear that?' he said, clenching his fist and drawing it back. ‘I asked Jack if he wanted me to punch him and he said
yes
!'

‘I said
yes
,' said Jack, ‘but yes means no!'

‘What are you talking about?' Fred frowned for everyone to see.

‘The game!' said Jack. ‘We're playing the game, remember?'

‘I thought you said you didn't want to play,' said Fred.

‘I did,' said Jack, ‘but . . . I thought you were playing anyway.'

Fred smiled. ‘I
was
playing, but I stopped.'

‘Then my answer is
no
!' said Jack quickly.

‘No, what?'

‘No, I don't want you to punch me!'

‘No?' said Fred.

‘No!' said Jack.

Fred slammed his fist into Jack's arm.

Jack grabbed his arm and fell to the ground. ‘What did you do that for?'

Fred shrugged innocently. ‘No means yes and yes means no!'

‘But you said you weren't playing that anymore,' said Jack.

‘I started again,' said Fred.

‘That's not fair!' said Jack.

‘I can't help it if you can't keep up,' said Fred.

‘It's not fair and you know it,' said Jack.

‘Are you calling me a cheat?' said Fred.

‘No.'

‘You
are
calling me a cheat?'

‘I said
no
.'

‘Yes means no and no means yes,' said Fred.

‘Then I mean
yes
!' said Jack.

By this time even more kids had gathered around to watch Fred play Yes Means No and No Means Yes with Jack.

Fred turned to them now. ‘You heard that, didn't you?' he said. ‘He just called me a cheat!'

Some said yes. Some said no. Others just looked confused.

Fred turned to Clive. ‘I don't believe it!' he said. ‘He just called me a cheat!'

‘That's what I heard,' said Clive.

‘No, I didn't,' said Jack. ‘Yes means no and no means yes, remember?'

‘I'm not playing that anymore,' said Fred. ‘But would you like to play again tomorrow?'

Jack was so confused that he said no, but nodded at the same time.

The crowd laughed.

Poor Jack. I really did feel sorry for him. But, at the same time, I was glad it was him Fred was picking on and not me.

‘I'll take that as a yes,' said Fred. ‘See you tomorrow, Japes.'

He acted as if he was about to walk off, then turned back and punched Jack on the arm again. ‘That's for calling me a cheat.'

Jack doubled over in pain, clutching his arm.

Fred looked at him scornfully. ‘Gee, I hate to think how you'd carry on if I hit you
really
hard.'

The bell for the end of lunch rang and the crowd dispersed. Fred and Clive walked away laughing.

Jack stood up, still rubbing his arm. ‘Those
Durkin brothers are going to be sorry they messed with me,' he said.

‘What are you going to do?' said Gretel, chuckling at Jack's bravado. ‘Let Fred punch you again?'

Jack scowled at her. ‘You'll see,' he said.

Jack stomped up the steps and down the corridor towards our classroom.

He was mad. Madder than I'd ever seen him.

He went straight to his desk, took out a piece of paper and started drawing. I knew what this meant. Jack was going to draw one of his ‘Fred and Clive' cartoons. Whenever the Durkin brothers annoyed him, he always drew a cartoon of something bad happening to them.

He divided the page into a strip of eight squares and began attacking it with the pencil. He wasn't so much drawing as slashing and stabbing the page. In fact, he was being so violent that he broke his pencil in half.

‘Can I borrow your pencil, Henry?' he asked.

Normally I would have said yes. But I only had one pencil on me . . . and the last time I had lent it to someone, Mr Brainfright had ended
up flying out the window.

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘I don't think it's a good idea. You seem, well, a little
agitated
.'

‘I'll get a little more agitated if you don't lend me your pencil,' said Jack, his eyes flashing angrily. ‘I share all my stuff with you, don't I?'

‘Yeah, I guess so,' I said, reluctantly getting the pencil out of my pencil case and giving it to Jack. ‘Just . . . you know . . . be careful.'

Jack nodded. ‘Okay, Henry,' he said. ‘I won't break this one, I promise.'

‘That's not what I meant,' I said.

‘What did you mean?'

‘I don't really know.'

Jack shrugged and went back to his cartoon.

The skull eraser seemed to grin wider than ever as he worked.

Clive entered the classroom. ‘Who's the dumb one now then, Jack?' he said as he passed our desks. ‘You don't even know the difference between no and yes.'

Jack ignored Clive and kept drawing.

Clive stopped. ‘I thought your arm would have been too sore to draw!'

‘No, it's fine,' said Jack, hunching over his drawing so Clive couldn't see it. ‘Takes more than a girl's punch to hurt me.'

‘Hey!' yelled Gretel. ‘I heard that.'

‘So did I,' said Clive. ‘And I'm going to tell my brother.'

‘Don't you ever get sick of running to your brother and telling him what everybody said?'

‘No,' said Clive. ‘And I'm going to tell him you said that too!'

Jack didn't say anything.

He didn't say anything for the rest of the afternoon.

Not even when Clive started flicking chewed-up bits of paper at the back of his neck.

Not even when Penny and Gina, the horse-mad twins in our class, went for a canter around the room on their imaginary horses and bumped into his desk, knocking his cartoon to the floor.

Instead of getting mad, Jack just picked up his paper, placed it back on his desk and kept drawing.

I'd never seen him so engrossed.

He drew all through our free reading period and it was only when the bell rang that he looked up, blinking.

He picked up his cartoon, stood up and walked over to my desk.

‘Wow!' he said. ‘That's some pencil, Henry!'

‘Really?' I said. ‘Why?'

‘Well, it's going to sound a bit weird,' said Jack,
‘but it was like the pencil was doing all the work. Check it out!' Jack passed the cartoon to me. It was called ‘Flying with Fred and Clive'.

 

Frame 1:
Fred and Clive flying in a plane.

Frame 2:
Smoke coming out of the back of the plane.

Frame 3:
Fred and Clive jumping out of the plane.

Frame 4:
Fred and Clive trying to open their parachutes.

Frame 5:
Fred and Clive panicking as their parachutes fail to open.

Frame 6:
Fred hitting the ground.

Frame 7:
Clive landing on top of Fred.

Frame 8:
The plane crashing on top of Fred and Clive.

‘It's incredible, Jack!' I said. ‘It's the best drawing you've ever done!' I wasn't just saying it to be nice, either. I meant it. It was really good. Something about the detail made the pictures look almost real.

‘Thanks,' said Jack. ‘But I can't take all the credit. This pencil is great!'

‘That's a cool cartoon, Jack,' said Gretel, who, along with Jenny and Newton, had come up behind us. ‘Serves them both right! And Jack?'

‘Yes?'

‘I'm sorry for teasing you at lunch.'

‘Are you really sorry or are you just scared that Jack will draw a cartoon of you?' I said.

‘Both!' said Gretel, laughing.

‘It's
really
good, Jack,' said Jenny, ‘but I can't help feeling a little bit sorry for Fred and Clive.'

‘You feel sorry for them?' said Jack. ‘How about
feeling sorry for me? I'm the one who got punched in the arm—twice!'

‘I know,' said Jenny, ‘but all the same . . .' She pointed at the final frame of the cartoon. ‘. . . that must hurt!'

‘So did getting punched in the arm!' said Jack.

‘What's wrong, Newton?' asked Gretel.

We looked at Newton. His face was white.

He was trying to talk, but no words were coming out.

‘Is it the cartoon?' Jenny asked gently. ‘Are you scared of Jack's cartoon?'

Newton shook his head. ‘What if . . .' he said, taking a deep breath, ‘what if Fred and Clive see it?'

‘That won't happen,' said Jack.

‘Won't it?'

We turned around.

Clive was standing right behind Jack. He was shaking his head. ‘My brother's definitely not going to like this,' he said. ‘He's not going to like this at all!'

‘He doesn't have to know,' said Jack.

‘Oh yes he does,' said Clive, turning and heading off down the corridor. ‘As soon as possible!'

‘You know what your problem is, Clive?' Jack shouted after him. ‘You need to get a life!'

Clive turned back and smiled. ‘I've got one,' he
said. ‘It's you who's going to need a life when Fred finds out about this!'

Jack gulped. He looked even more frightened than Newton, and that's not easy to do.

Suddenly, ‘Flying with Clive and Fred' didn't seem quite as funny as it had a few minutes earlier. And it was about to get even unfunnier. In fact, none of us had any idea just
how
unfunny things were about to get.