Ratburger Salad, Page 2

Out in the playground, they retreated to their favourite corner to gaze forlornly at the ground, to reflect on the lesson they had just been taught, and in more ways than one. They had taken care over its planning, had gone on to carry it off to perfection and had even managed to raise a few smiles in the rest of the class. And what did they have to show for their efforts? Another sense of failure and a sorry excuse for a cake. The one they could just throw away. The other they would have to live with.

  ‘Well, that went well, didn’t it?’ Al sighed at length.

  ‘Yeah, just like last time,’ Jon mumbled, ‘and the time before that and the time before that.’

  ‘It never works,’ said Tony miserably, ‘even when we go out of our way to muck it up.’

  ‘I reckon she’s onto us, meself,’ said Eddie. ‘We can’t get nothing past her. Maybe we should think about giving up.’

  Jon and Tony murmured faint agreement. Al didn’t. He gaped disbelief at them, at each of them in turn. This was not what he wanted to hear.

  ‘What!’ he said. ‘Come on, you guys, it ain’t that bad.’

  ‘It is, Al,’ said Jon. ‘Face it. We’ve tried everything under the sun and a bit more. There’s nothing left.’

  ‘Look,’ he said patiently, ‘she can’t make us learn if we don’t want to. All we’ve got to do is keep on making a complete foul-up of everything she gives us to do and she’ll chuck us out for sure. She’ll have to!’

  ‘What, you mean like she did just then? Forget it, Al. Like she said, it’s part of the curriculum so we’ve got to do it.’

  ‘Stuff that!’ said Al. ‘If I want a cake, I’ll leave it to me mum to make it.’

  They laughed, but grimly, even Al, despite what he was feeling just then. This was dangerous thinking and he knew he would have to pull something really special out of the hat to get them back on track. But what to do, that was the question. They were running out of ideas, it was simple as that.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ he said, ‘we can’t give up now. We’ve come too far.’

  ‘Yeah and what have we got out of it?’ said Jon. ‘Four detentions and a letter home to our parents, that’s what.’

  ‘An’ a lot of food thrown straight in the bin,’ Eddie added miserably. ‘My mum’s getting fed up with forking out good money for ingredients and seeing nothing come back.’

  ‘Then that’s gotta say something, hasn’t it?’ said Al.

  ‘Yeah but to the wrong people,’ said Jon. ‘It’s old Palm Trees we’ve gotta convince, not Eddie’s mum.’

  ‘An’ I still think we can do it. So come on, suggestions as to what we’re gonna do next. I need some help here, guys.’

  They shuffled uneasily. Ideas were not things that came easily to them: they preferred to just go with the flow, take advantage of whatever the day brought them. Actual planning was something they tried to avoid. And they could. Usually. But not this time.

  ‘We could try putting in things that shouldn’t be there,’ said Jon.

  ‘It’s a start,’ said Al. ‘What have you got in mind?’

  ‘Well, there’s this stuff called Anchovy Essence. Me mum was telling me about it. Seems if you put more than a couple of drops in anything you make, what you make tastes terrible.’

  ‘Nice idea but I think she might rumble that one,’ said Al dubiously. ‘You know what she’s like for trying everything at the end of each lesson.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Tony, ‘too much sugar, too much salt.’

  ‘Even better,’ said Eddie, ‘how about sugar instead of salt and salt instead of sugar.’

  ‘You mean mix them up?’

  ‘Worth thinking about,’ said Jon. ‘And that is something we haven’t tried yet.’

  Al shook his head. ‘Won’t work. Let’s face it, if you put salt in your tea instead of sugar, you’d know it pretty quick. No, we’ve got to find some other way, something she won’t rumble but that’s really gonna be sure-fire.’

  But in the silence that followed, he knew he was asking the impossible. Hadn’t they been trying to find that very same sure-fire something for what?—two whole terms now? And for those same two whole terms, they’d gone into every lesson with the latest sure-fire something tucked up their sleeves, only to have a sure-fire failure dog their steps as they left. It was, he had to admit, almost enough to make him want to give up, too. Almost…

  A voice cut across his thoughts.

  ‘Look out!’ Jon was saying. ‘Mad Max!’

  Al looked up. Mad Max. Great! Just what he needed right now. More properly known as Kevin Nigel Maxwell, it was not a name anyone called him to his face. Then, a simple Max would suffice, and with good reason: the word “bully” had long since been consigned to the sanitised glow of political correctness so the worst that could then be said of him was that he had a tendency to use his size to get his own way. As usual, he looked as though he wanted to have words with someone. And as usual, he looked as though he’d chosen their little group to have them with.

  ‘Oi, Bristow!’ he was yelling. ‘You done me that cake yet?’

  ‘What cake was that, Max?’ Al replied innocently.

  ‘You know what cake! The one for me birffday.’

  ‘Oh, that cake. Well, it’s like this, Max. I did make you one, the best cake Miss had ever seen, so she told me. Trouble was, when she came to taste it, it was awful. So she said, anyway. Said it tasted so bad, she’d have to take it home and throw it in her own personal dustbin, make sure nobody else got to it. It was that bad! Honest!’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jon, catching on. ‘An’ she must have been really worried about someone else getting their hands on it ’cos I saw her eating a bit more when she got in her car to go home. Two whole slices, no less!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tony, ‘it was so bad that Miss said we wasn’t even to think about making cakes again until we’d got a bit more practice in.’

  ‘A lot more practice in,’ Al finished. ‘Another few weeks at least, she reckoned. Think you can wait that long?’

  Max looked round at them all. It was said of him that the only way you could get his IQ into double figures was to add his shoe size to it. Knowing that could be useful, sometimes. Even so, they also knew they were taking a chance. One day, they’d go too far and he’d twig, and it would take some quick thinking or fast running to escape the consequences. But not today, it seemed.

  ‘All right, all right!’ he said. ‘Stuff the cake. You seen that new kid?’

  Four faces gazed blankly at him in reply.

  ‘What new kid?’ said Al.

  ‘Don’t tell me you ain’t heard! Franklinstein was on about ’im this mornin’ in assembly.’

  ‘Ah, well, that explains it. We wasn’t in assembly this morning.’

  ‘Oh yeah! Skived off again, did yer?’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you?’

  Mad Max said nothing. He would skive off if he had the intelligence needed to keep himself one step ahead of the patrolling staff, but he wasn’t about to admit as much and Al knew it.

  ‘So who is he?’ he went on.

  ‘Just some kid. Come ’ere from that posh school just outside town.’

  ‘Chapworthy College!’ said Al, more than a little surprised. The place was known to him, was known to them all, if only by reputation, the exclusive private school that provided so much material for jokes against the upper crust. But— ‘What would some Chapworthy College kid be doing coming here?’

  ‘You don’t know nuffin’, do you?’ said Max. ‘It’s part of some exchange scheme. One o’ their kids comes ’ere an’ one of ours goes there.’

  ‘Right!’ Much was now explained. ‘And you want to welcome him to his new school, I suppose.’

  ‘Got it in one. So if you see ’im, you bring ’im to me. You got that?’

  ‘And how are we gonna do that, Max? How are we gonna bring him to you?’

  ‘Just tell ’im I wanna talk to ’im. S’easy!’

  And with that, Mad Max turned and sw
aggered off, sure in the knowledge that they would do his bidding to the letter, because if they didn’t…

  ‘An’ don’t forget that cake!’ he yelled back over his shoulder.

  ‘Him an’ his cake,’ Jon muttered darkly as they watched his receding bulk shove a First Year out of the way. ‘I’d like to make him one an’ shove it right up—’

  ‘Why can’t he make his own?’ Eddie said quickly.

  ‘’Cos he’s too dumb to know one end of a spoon from the other,’ said Al. ‘An’ that’s means he don’t have to do Cookery.’

  ‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Jon. ‘Maybe what we have to do is act thick. That’ll get us kicked out.’

  ‘Yeah, out of Cookery an’ in with Mad Max an’ his mates,’ said Tony. ‘An’ if you think he’s trouble, you should see them.’

  ‘An’ is there really a new kid?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Suppose there must be,’ said Al. ‘Max may be thick but he ain’t stupid.’

  ‘An’ he did say he wanted to talk to him,’ Jon added.

  ‘I bet he does,’ murmured Tony. ‘I don’t think it’s gonna be just talk, though.’

  ‘Nah, he’s looking for what he can get out of him,’ said Jon. ‘You know how it is: kid from a posh school, lots of pocket money—he’ll be good for a few quid.’

  ‘Yeah an’ he knows just how to get it,’ said Al. He glanced round at his friends, sudden mischief sparking inside. ‘What do you say we get to this new kid first?’

  There were murmurs of assent, murmurs and a single ‘Why?’ from Eddie who sometimes had difficulty understanding what was going on at any one time.

  ‘Why else? See if we can have some fun of our own before Mad Max gets to him.’

  It seemed a good idea, if only because it gave them some distraction from having to think about how to get out of cookery lessons.

  ‘So where is he?’ said Jon, already scanning the playground. ‘I don’t see anyone I ain’t seen here before.’

  ‘Think!’ said Al. ‘Where would you go on your first day if you didn’t know anyone?’

  Understanding dawned. ‘Right!’

  They surged towards the main building. They knew the place inside-out, back-to-front and probably upside-down, knew every nook and cranny, every hiding place where they could escape prowling teachers or, as they suspected just then, someone wanted to be inconspicuous.

  ‘What does he look like?’ was the first question as they burst through the swing-doors and into the corridor.

  ‘Just look for a uniform,’ said Al. ‘Chapworthy College kids always wear a uniform.’

  ‘Yeah, like we do!’ said Jon, and they laughed. No one at their school wore a uniform, would dare to wear a uniform.

  ‘So what’s he doing here?’ said Tony. ‘I mean, what was it? Exchange visit or something?’

  ‘It’s one of them arty-farty ideas,’ said Jon, who knew about these things, ‘cooked up by a bunch of arty-farty teaching consultants after a boozy dinner. Like Max said, one kid from our school goes there and one of their kids comes here.’

  ‘You mean a sort of swap.’

  ‘That’s what an exchange is, yer berk—a swap.’

  ‘Yeah but why?’

  ‘It’s like when our French twin town sends someone over here for a few weeks an’ we send someone back over there,’ said Al, ‘so people get to learn how other people live an’…an’ stuff like that.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Tony doubtfully. ‘So what can a Chapworthy College kid learn from coming to a dump like this?’

  ‘Maybe he wants to know what it’s like having to slum it for a bit.’

  ‘Come to the right place, then, ain’t he? So who do you suppose went there from here?’

  ‘Not us, that’s for sure,’ said Al. ‘Ain’t no way they’re gonna let one of us anywhere near a posh joint like Chapworthy College. Hang about, I think that’s him.’

  They were right about the uniform. It was wearing a worried-looking individual shuffling his feet disconsolately outside a classroom. He wasn’t tall, his build was slight, and his hair was unusually tidy for someone purporting to belong to this school, if only temporarily. Al found himself thinking it was probably just as well that they had got to him first: Mad Max would have had him for breakfast.

  He seemed to notice them approaching, looked strangely relieved about something, as though he had just spotted friends in the middle of enemy territory.

  ‘Good morning!’ he said brightly. ‘I wonder if you might help me. I seem to have lost the lavatories around here. You wouldn’t perchance happen to know where one might find them?’

  Al looked at the others. They all looked at him, each expression saying the same thing. Good morning? Lavatories? PERCHANCE? What have we got here? Then he was putting on his best yob face, adopting his best yob voice.

  ‘I fink ’e wants da bogs, lads,’ he said gruffly.

  They all replied: ‘Yerrr.’

  ‘Shall we ’elp ’im find ’em, lads?’

  They all replied: ‘Yerrr.’

  —and they stepped forward, hands raised menacingly. Suddenly, this new boy was looking a little less happy about seeing them. He backed away but there was only so far he could go before hitting solid school wall.

  They ignored his protests, just picked him up, one to each arm, one to each leg. Then Al was nodding in the general direction of the toilets and they carted him off, down the corridor, round the corner, this new boy shouting things all along the way. Things like ‘Unhand me, do you hear?’ and ‘Put me down this instant!’ and ‘Your headmistress shall hear of this!’ They were scared. Really scared.

  They rounded another corner, stopped dead in their tracks. There stood a teacher, there stood Lockyer. Lockyer who stood five feet nothing in his trendy sandals. Lockyer who had caught a bad case of religion and did not look like he wanted to be cured. That was Lockyer. Not someone to worry about.

  ‘What are you doing with that boy?’ he demanded in his usual squeaky voice.

  ‘We’re taking him to the bogs,’ said Al menacingly. ‘WHY?’

  ‘Oh…well…just be a little quieter about it, that’s all.’

  They went on, carted their strange load past him, the new boy shouting ‘Sir!…Sir!’ as they went.

  But Sir wasn’t listening. Sir was scurrying off rather quickly down the corridor towards the staff-room.

  ‘Better get a move on,’ said Al.

  ‘Why, is he gonna wet himself?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Not him! Lockyer!’

  ‘Lockyer’s gonna wet himself?’

  ‘No, he’s gone to get someone!’

  ‘Probably Crawford,’ said Jon, and they groaned. Deputy headmaster with a temper to match, Crawford was someone to worry about.

  But they had arrived. They stopped, kicked open a chipped and battered blue door. They entered, passed the yellowing urinals, the cracked sinks, and headed for the cubicles at the end. One was missing a door. They chose that one. Tony and Eddie dropped his feet, Al and Jon hauled him upright. He was protesting again, was asking something about maybe the joke having gone far enough?—but they weren’t listening. Instead, Al and Jon were hauling him into the cubicle. It was a squeeze but they managed it, the protests giving way to a manic pleading as he realised what they were about to do. They ignored him as before, lifted the seat and thrust his backside down into the bowl, holding him there while they debated what to do next.

  ‘Let’s pull the flush!’ said Jon.

  ‘Ain’t that a bit childish?’ said Al.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jon uncertainly, ‘probably…’

  ‘Especially for a member of this gang, in fact,’ said Al.

  ‘Er...I guess so.’

  ‘So you ain’t gonna do it.’

  ‘Uh…no, I guess not.’

  ‘Right, I’ll do it instead!’

  He twisted the handle and they bolted, all four of them, laughing and shouting, back past the sinks and the urinals, out the door and straight into
—

  ‘WHAT’S GOING ON HERE!’

  —Crawford, standing in front of them and blocking their escape. Silence. Sudden, total silence. Then, from somewhere behind, a refined, disgruntled murmur.

  ‘Hooligans! I’m all wet now.’

  THREE