Stars

Stars

  by

  David McRobbie

  Stars

  David McRobbie

  Copyright 2014 David McRobbie

  All rights reserved in all media.

  Cover image: Alice-Anne Boylan

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Writer

  More books by David McRobbie

  Chapter One

  It happened like this: Our Year Six teacher, Mr Sandilands, unhooked the art room key from the peg inside the book cupboard. With a little smile on his lips he looked around the classroom and asked, ‘Where’s Sean Dingwall?’

  Rosa Thurwell stood up and answered, ‘Gone to collect another gold star from the principal, sir.’ She spoke proudly, as if it she were getting the gold star, although she already had six of her own.

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember.’ Mr Sandilands nodded approvingly. ‘For winning the State Spelling Challenge. Smart lad, Sean Dingwall. Smart lad. He’ll go far.’ Then our teacher’s expression changed. The sunlight glinted off his steely glasses and his twin eyes swerved around to focus on me. ‘Thomson,’ he went on, ‘I suppose you can manage to open the art room door for Ms Carter. I usually trust Sean with it, but he already has a — a starring role.’ My teacher smiled at his joke.

  No one else did. Except Rosa Thurwell.

  Isobel Simms, who sat in the desk next to mine, rolled her eyes, then put a finger in her mouth and pretended to be sick.

  I took the key from Mr Sandilands and went to the classroom door, but he stopped me even before I got my hand on the knob.

  ‘And Thomson, turn on the fans and open all the windows. Make the art room cool. The rest of the class will be along soon.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ I answered and headed off down the corridor. I noticed he didn’t call me ‘smart lad’. But that’s how it was between Charlie Thomson and Mr Sandilands. Not exactly war. Just a little battle now and then. With my teacher on the winning side for ever and ever.

  Our art lesson was nearly the best time of the week. Not as good as lunch time, morning break or going home time, but good all the same. Ms Carter was our teacher who only came in to teach art. The rest of the time I don’t know what she did and it’s none of my business anyway.

  Click-clock, that was me unlocking the art room door, then as soon as I stepped in, it was horror time!

  The fans on the ceiling were already running at full speed. The control knobs were on position five and there came a thrum-thrum-thrum sound from the whirring blades up on the ceiling. But it wasn’t the noise that worried me. It was the mess the wind had made. Papers were scattered everywhere. It looked like a snowstorm had hit the art room all of a sudden. The fans went on spinning. Thrum-thrum-thrum. My heart went thump-thump-thump. Knees went knock-knock-knock.

  The worst thing of all was the damage to one of the works of art. It was Tim Wong-Smith’s horse sculpture, which only yesterday had stood proudly on the front desk. Now it lay on the art room floor, crushed and broken. Tim had made his horse out of chicken wire, then covered it with wet newspaper, let it dry and painted it. Everyone had admired Tim’s horse, from its flowing mane to its black painted hooves.

  Ms Carter said it was good enough to win the art prize in the local competition, which was coming up soon. Now it was only fit for the rubbish dump. I picked up the broken horse and shook my head sadly.

  I turned the fan knobs back to position two where they should be, then started to go back to tell Mr Sandilands what I’d discovered. But I needn’t have bothered. The whole class was already marching towards me with Mr Sandilands goose-stepping along behind. And there I was, standing outside the art room door with Tim Wong-Smith’s artistic horse sculpture in my hand and behind me, a whirlwind of papers all over the art room floor.

  Everyone stopped. Their mouths dropped open, then dozens of pointing fingers aimed at me. Just at that terrible moment, the front leg fell off Tim’s horse.

  ‘Now you’re for it,’ Rosa Thurwell said in a sniffy sort of voice. She could be my best friend, if only she’d let me.

  Sean Dingwall had returned from scoring his new gold star. ‘Look, everybody!’ he shouted. ‘Charlie Thomson broke Tim’s pony.’

  ‘Horse!’ Tim Wong-Smith corrected. ‘But now it looks like an ex-horse?’

  ‘But, but, but, I didn’t do this,’ I protested. If you say a lot of ‘buts’ quickly, people sometimes believe you. But, but, but, not this time.

  Mr Sandilands barged forward, frown first. ‘Thomson,’ he snapped. ‘I only asked you to open the art room, not demolish it.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, sir,’ I said again, trying not to sound feeble and guilty at the same time, but I was never good at acting. No starring role for Charlie Thomson.

  My whole world caved in. Ms Carter arrived and she too didn’t believe that I’d found the art room with papers scattered everywhere.

  Tim Wong-Smith took his three-legged ex-horse from me, then without a word, gathered up the bit that fell off. He gave a deep sniff, then his shoulders slumped and he went into the art room to sit down. Everyone knew there wasn’t time for Tim to make another horse sculpture before the competition.

  Mr Sandilands was already angry with the whole class because they were milling about in the doorway. He said, ‘Get yourselves inside and sort out this mess. And you, Thomson, to the principal.’ He pointed the direction for me to go, but I already knew that, having trudged the same path many times before.

  So, it was no art lesson for Charlie Thomson. With a sigh and my head down, I made my way to the office and sat on the special chair reserved for the criminal element. No one ever sat in this chair if they were to receive a gold star or a special mention at assembly. It was only for bad guys. Like me.

  Caught red-handed doing nothing.

  The woman in the school office peered over the frosted glass screen at me, shook her head and made a tch-tch sort of noise with her tongue. Her face said: Kids today. What are they coming to? I blame mobile phones and computer games. Fry their brains, fuddle their fingers, that’s what they do.

  My meeting with the principal didn’t go well. He did most of the talking while all I managed to repeat was, ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Mm-m.’ The principal scratched his chin. ‘You were first in the art room, Thomson. So what happened? Did you accidentally turn the fans too high, then the horse thing got blown over in the wind? Was that it?’

  It was like he was asking me to say, yes sir, that’s what happened. I made a mistake, I’m sorry, sir. He only wanted me to tell the world I was guilty. Then I’d get forgiven and told not to be silly, take more care in future, watch what I’m doing. Fans are not toys for playing with, etc, etc. Lecture, lecture.

  But I wasn’t guilty, so I stuck out my chin, folded my arms and said, ‘No way, José.’

  All right, I shouldn’t have added the José bit. The principal took it the wrong way.

  ‘Defiant, eh?’ he said. ‘Very well, this sort of behaviour requires a letter home to your parents, young man.’

  When they call you ‘young man’, you know you’re sunk. (If you’re a girl it’s ‘young lady’.)

  At home, Mum read the principal’s letter and shook her head. But at least she listened to my side of the story: the fans were already switched on to position five, I explained. The mess had been made before I opened the art room door.

  ‘So you’ll just have to clear you name,’ Mum said.

  ‘But you believe me, Mum?’

  ‘It’s fish fingers for tea tonight,’ was all my mother said.

  As I sat down to eat
, Mum had arranged the fish fingers into an artistic little hand with one fish finger pointing at me in an accusing sort of way. So I squirted on tomato sauce and ate that one first.

  In bed that night it was hard to sleep. Normally I’d go out with the light, but not this time. I kept seeing things in the art room over and over — fans on high, mess, papers everywhere, damaged horse.

  I turned and tossed, then tossed and turned. Mum’s words came back to me: You’ll just have to clear your name.

  It was like a flash of light. That’s what I’d do. I’d find out who turned on the fans, then I’d be free of blame.

  I’d become a schoolboy detective, and if I got really good, it could be my new ambition for when I grow up.

  In my sleep there came a dream. Sherlock Bones, the famous Scotch Terrier dog detective took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at me through his magnifying glass. ‘You? A detective?’ he sneered. ‘Laddie, it takes brains to be a detective. If your brains were gunpowder, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off.’

  ‘We’ll see about that, Sherlock Bones,’ I shouted into the night air.