Labradoodle on the Loose (13 page)

‘My turn, I think,' said Bee. We all stood in a ring and watched. Bee copied the Copper Pie method of piñata assassination. She swivelled round a couple of times like a hammer thrower and then let rip. It was very effective. She smashed the piñata into a zillion pieces. Sweets showered the garden
like the best rainstorm ever. We all dived, and only just avoided crushing Probably Rose, who could suddenly walk much more quickly.

‘Don't panic. There is cake,' said Fifty's mum. She looked a bit appalled at the headless-chicken chasing of the last few toffees.

‘Give me a second.' Dad disappeared into the Tribehouse to light the candles. We could see the flickering lights through the plastic windows.

‘In you come,' he shouted. Bee went first and sat on the bench. The other Tribers followed, except Fifty whose seat is the safe. The twins stood hunched over in the corner, because they're taller than the hut. Dad and Fifty's mum did the same in another corner and Bee's mum and dad filled the other two corners. Probably Rose sat down in the middle of everyone. We started singing and Bee puffed out the candles. There was a big
Hurrah!

‘Make a wish,' said Bee's dad. She shut her eyes. As soon as they opened again, Dad let the net go and balloons floated about, sinking and rising and hovering around our heads. It was brilliant. There's something about balloons that makes everyone want to bat them about. So that's what we did until it got too hot. We spilled out of the hut, red and sweaty, and let the balloons come with us and fly up in the air. We ate the fancy cake and drank the jelly Mum made because there were no spoons.

‘OK,' said Dad. I thought he was going to say we should
be going but he said, ‘Let's all say something we like about Bee. I'll start.' Dad looked around at the ten faces. ‘I like Bee because she has definite views about all sorts of important issues, like organic farming and endangered animals.'

There was clapping.

Fifty's mum went next. ‘I like the fact that she doesn't just have strong views, she acts on them, like picking up rubbish wherever she goes.'

The next few were cringe-worthy. Bee put her head down. I didn't blame her. Patrick and Louis stood up together and said how cute she was when she was little. Bee's dad told a great long story about how she behaved really badly at dinner in a restaurant one evening and in the end the waiter served her food to her under the table.

Fifty copped out and said, ‘She's our mate.' (That's when I realised I was going to have to say something too. Everything I thought of sounded lame.)

Bee's mum said something in Italian and her eyes went all teary. When she'd finished they had a family hug, which was excruciatingly embarrassing. I'm so glad we're not a family-hug family.

Jonno went next. ‘I like Bee loads because she lets me share her dog.' Everyone laughed. Much better than hugging.

Only Copper Pie, me . . . and Rose left.
Help!

Copper Pie did a little cough. ‘Bee's no use at football.' (Quiet laughter.) ‘She eats rabbit food.' (More laughing.) ‘She's mum to a Black Rhino. Doesn't like guns.' (Copper
Pie stopped for a second, then shrugged his shoulders.) ‘I don't know why I like her.'

Everyone loved it. Bee did a fist of friendship in mid-air.

Rose obviously wasn't about to string together the few words she knew, so it was me next. I couldn't decide whether to try and be funny like C.P., or quick like Fifty, or say something I really meant. So I just opened my mouth . . . ‘Well . . . we're a team, and we've all got jobs. Fifty is smooth-talker, Copper Pie is secret weapon, I'm the sensible one, Jonno has the most ideas, and Bee . . .' I shrugged. ‘She's the boss.' I was going to say something else but there was clapping so I shut up. Bee flicked her fringe sideways and gave me a wink. Guess she liked what I said.

Fifty's mum picked up Rose, whose face was smeared with a selection of brown party foods. ‘Do you want to give Bee a kiss?'
Yuck! A Rose special
. (Rose's idea of a kiss is to open her mouth and press her wet tongue against your skin. I had one once. Never again.)

I thought it was all over, but Bee wasn't ready for the party to end.

‘My turn now,' she said. Not surprising – after all, Bee
is
boss. ‘I've forgiven the Tribers for not answering my texts and I've forgiven my brothers for having awful friends who ruin everything, because if I hadn't been on my own all day I wouldn't have the exciting news that I've got.' All eyes were on Bee. ‘With my birthday money from Nonna I've adopted a Bactrian, called Nonna.' When Bee said that I
didn't think
You're a nutter, I'd have bought a mountainboard
, I thought,
That's why Tribe is the best
. We're all completely different, but together we make something better than when we're on our own. It's like we fit.

‘Come on,' said Dad. ‘Time to go. Thanks, everyone.' Dad came through the Tribe flap with me. On the other side of the fence he stood up, brushed the dirt off his knees, and said, ‘I wish I was a Triber.'

Dream on, Dad!
No one can leave and no one can join.

Last lesson on Tuesday was art. We were meant to be planning a Mondrian-type painting. (Mondrian was a famous Dutch artist.) Miss Walsh tried to explain how he used a white background, and then painted black lines down and across to make boxes and filled some of them in using three primary colours. I couldn't work out what was so clever about that. Probably Rose could manage a Mondrian if you gave her a ruler and a few crayons. Miss Walsh asked us to do a rough drawing on scrap paper before we did the real thing. Simple. Anything to do with straight lines is my kind of art!

As soon as she finished talking we all got paper and
pencils and started designing our Mondrian copies. But Jamie headed straight for the paint. He picked up the red, shook it to see if it was full and accidentally sprayed it all over the counter where Year 4's Egyptian masks were waiting to be taken home. They looked blood-spattered. (I remember when we did our Egyptian mask project. It took weeks to design and mould out of clay and fire and paint and lacquer and blah and blah and still mine turned out like a grey and brown tortoise.)

‘Jamie, what on earth are you doing with that?' Miss Walsh stormed over to where he was standing holding the bottle of paint, looking dim – his usual face.

‘It came out,' he said.

She undid the messy ponytail thing on her head and retied it – she was stressy. ‘You shouldn't have even had your hands
on
the paint.'

‘It's art. And we're painting, aren't we?' Jamie used a sarcastic voice. Not a great idea. And not quite like Jamie. He may shout out, never put up his hand, and generally be a bit of a pain, but he's not usually rude to a teacher. Even Callum, his best buddy, looked shocked.

‘No, Jamie, we're not. Look around you. What is everyone else doing?' He didn't look around. He looked straight at Miss Walsh. She didn't like that.

‘Sit down!' she shouted. He plonked the bottle down on the edge, knocking one of the masks, and stomped over to his desk. He folded his arms – no pencil, no paper, no Mondrian.
Art was turning out a bit more exciting than normal.

I got on with my lines and boxes. Miss Walsh got on with clearing up the mess. I showed her my sketch – not because I'm a keener, but because that's what she said to do.

‘Good,' she said, without looking. That meant it was painting time. We were using A3 white paper, but I decided my Mondrian was going to be square, mostly because I like using the guillotine. It was a good move because it gave me the best view of the fight that was about to erupt between Jamie and Alice.

Alice had chosen some orange paper halfway down the paper pile. She was holding the corner trying to edge it out without upsetting all the other pieces on top. Jamie came over and got hold of another corner of the same piece of paper. Odd, as we were meant to be using white.

‘That's mine,' said Alice. ‘Mi-iss!'

Miss Walsh took no notice.

Jamie gave the paper a tug. Alice tugged too. It was going to tear, obviously. It was just a question of when. The paper pile started to lean. Alice tried to stop it with her free hand. Jamie didn't seem to care about the pile. He was fighting to the death. Multi-coloured pieces of paper floated to the floor and spread out like a rainbow, leaving the orange paper at the top of the pile. Jamie ripped it away from Alice, all except her corner. She looked at it as though her pet budgie had been torn in half and started wailing.

I'd like to repeat everything Miss Walsh said to Jamie
but there was too much of it to remember. The basic message was:
You are a complete and utter idiot and I wish you would go away and I never knew teaching would mean I had to deal with kids like you and I should have got a job in the Build-a-Bear Workshop
.

It was one of her genuine hissy fits, last seen on bring-in-your-pets day.

The Mondrians were finished in complete silence. I liked the quiet and got very involved in my coloured boxes. When the bell went I jumped a mile. Jamie jumped too, right out of his seat, and headed for the door. That's not allowed. We're meant to wait for Miss Walsh to give us permission to pack up. He slammed the door, mega hard. Jamie was in a right temper and heading for trouble.

Oh well, nothing to do with us
, I thought. As usual, I was wrong.

‘Do you want to come to the café?' asked Bee after school.

‘No,' said Copper Pie.

‘Same,' said Fifty.

‘I'll come,' said Jonno.

‘What about you, Keener?' said Bee.

I weighed it up – a hot chocolate with Bee and Jonno or a snack at home, probably with Flo. Weirdly, home won.

‘I'll pass,' I said.

‘I've got something for Toni to say thanks for letting Doodle sleepover.' Bee reached into her bag and brought out a photo of Doodle in a frame. Not most people's idea of a gift.

‘Come on, let's go,' said Jonno. We all walked down the alley together.

‘What was that about with Jamie?' said Fifty.

‘No idea,' said Bee. ‘But it wasn't about the paint.'

‘It was,' said Copper Pie.

‘It was, but it wasn't,' said Jonno.

‘That's clear,' said Fifty, meaning the opposite.

‘The paint started it, but Jamie must have been upset about something else. He's always getting told off but he doesn't normally storm out,' said Bee.

‘Maybe he's fallen out with Callum,' Fifty said.

‘That would be too good to be true,' said Bee.

She went off to the café with Jonno. Copper Pie branched off to his house and Fifty and I were left on our own.

‘Do you want to come to mine?' he asked.

‘No, thanks.' I wanted to go home and swing in my hammock.

Or did I? Amy was wailing in the kitchen. Mum shooed me away. Something was up – big time. I waited in my room for the sobbing to stop, which took a while.

‘Does anyone want some cheese biscuits?' Mum shouted up the stairs a bit later.

‘I'm on my way!' I ran downstairs two steps at a time and nearly (note the ‘nearly') crashed into Flo at the bottom. She'd been watching telly.

‘Mu-um, Keener hurt me,' she winged.

‘Did not.'

‘Did.'

‘Did not.'

Mum came to the kitchen door and gave us a look that stopped what she calls ‘the panto'.

We had the biscuits washed down with blackcurrant. Mum made a grave face. ‘I want you to be nice to Amy,' she said.

Pigs might fly
, I thought.
Fish might climb palm trees
.