The Wavyside Beetle, Page 2

well there’s several pages on beetles,” she said. “No shape-shifting ones, though. How are you getting on, Henrietta?”

  “I can’t find anything at all about Wavyways Wood or its creatures,” Henrietta answered. “Is that because computers don’t work there, Miss?”

  “I don’t think so,” Miss Danger replied. “Class, what do we do when don’t understand something and we can’t find out about it from books or the Internet?”

  “Ask and observe,” everyone answered together.

  Miss Danger looked down at the beetle on her desk. It seemed to be looking back at her, but it couldn’t speak.

  “Um, Miss,” Mortimer asked, “would you like me to..?”

  “No wavy gifts in school,” Miss Danger said, sharply, without looking up.

  “But the beetle...”

  “Is a beetle. You are not, Mortimer Darkling. The wood is the place for wavy ways. When you leave the wood, you must leave wavy ways behind, or terrible things can happen. The beetle is a good example of that.”

  Miss Danger stood up and went to the corner of the room where the class bin was kept. It was overflowing with paper scraps, pencil sharpenings, empty food wrappers, broken pens, apple cores, blackened banana skins, chewed and spat-out sweets and even a sock with a hole in it. Mortimer avoided that corner of the room unless he had to put something in the bin, because he hated the smell of it. Miss Danger picked up the class bin and set it down on the floor, near her desk.

  “I wonder,” she said, “what dead and rotting wood smells like to a beetle. I wonder if the big rubbish bin outside is so smelly that this beetle got a bit confused. I wonder if it followed the smell in search of food.”

  “Ah, I see,” cried Cuthbert, excitedly, “but when it got here it didn’t find any dead trees, only rotting rubbish, so it ate the cupboard full of paper because that was closer to what it was used to.”

  Mortimer was disappointed. He had thought that perhaps the beetle might have come out of the wood to learn about the rest of the world, just like he had.

  “Ruby, Felix and Indigo, please come here,” instructed Miss Danger.

  The three town children went to stand by the teacher’s desk. Ruby held her nose.

  “Now,” said Miss Danger, “I want you to sort this rubbish into three piles. Ruby, you collect all the paper, wood and cardboard, including the pencil sharpenings. Felix, you find anything not paper that can be recycled, like plastic bottles and drinks cans. Ask Henrietta for help if you’re not sure. Indigo, get a paper towel and use it to put everything else on. When you’ve all finished, Indigo’s pile can go back in the bin.”

  Mortimer smiled to himself. Indigo was going to have to pick up all the half-chewed sweets and banana skins.

  The three rubbish-sorters moaned and complained, but eventually they did as they had been asked.

  “Thank you,” said Miss Danger. “From now on, class, we will have three bins, one for paper, card and wood, one for recycling, and one for everything else.”

  “We could do compost with the banana skins and the apple cores, Miss,” said Henrietta, “and paper can be recycled.”

  “Compost is a good idea, Henrietta, but I have another idea for the paper.”

  Very gently, Miss Danger reached out her hands and picked up the beetle. It didn’t try to fly away this time. She lifted the beetle down onto the rubbish pile that Ruby had made of pencil sharpenings and waste paper and cardboard.

  The beetle waved its antennae for a moment or two. Then, whumph. There was a smaller cloud of dust this time. When it cleared, the beetle was sitting on the floor, and all the paper, card and wood rubbish was gone.

  Miss Danger smiled. “I think someone should take our paper bin outdoors once a day and leave it right at the edge of the playground, close to Wavyways Wood,” she said.

  “Please may I do that, Miss?” Henrietta called out.

  “No, me! I did the sorting,” cried Ruby.

  “Me, please, me!” called someone else.

  “You can all take turns,” Miss Danger promised. “Now, this beetle should be returned to the wood.”

  “Please Miss,” Cuthbert burst out, “My wavy gift is shape-shifting, too. I could turn myself into another beetle and fly to the wood and it would follow me. I wouldn’t be breaking the rules, because I’d fly out of the school straight away. The window’s open already.”

  “Certainly not,” she replied. “For one thing, I think this beetle is now too full to fly. For another, you definitely would be breaking the rules. I think the beetle will ride quite happily on your finger, Cuthbert, if you want to be the one to take it out. Mortimer can go with you to open the doors.”

  “Miss, can I go too, to make sure they’re all right?” asked Herbert Weatherbutt, waving his hand in the air.

  Mortimer thought he knew why Herbert wanted to go outside. Herbert also lived in Wavyways Wood, and his wavy gift was flying. Once they had taken the beetle outside, Mortimer was certain that Cuthbert was going to try and shape-shift, and Herbert would try and fly. The three of them had been talking for ages about how unfair it was that they were only allowed to practise their wavy gifts in the wood, so none of the town pupils had ever seen what they could do. But Cuthbert had been boasting when he said he could shape-shift into a beetle. The wavy gifts took time to develop, and he wasn’t anywhere near as good at shape-shifting as the real beetle was. Herbert’s flying ability was even worse than Cuthbert’s shape-shifting.

  “Maybe everyone should share looking after the beetle,” Mortimer said, hoping to stop his friends getting into trouble.

  “That’s a very nice idea, Mortimer,” said Miss Danger, thoughtfully. “Yes, I think we should all go with Cuthbert, to take the beetle back to the wood.”

  Mortimer knew that Cuthbert and Herbert were furious with him. Cuthbert carried the beetle out into the playground, with Mortimer opening the doors, and the whole class following. Then Cuthbert reached his hand through the railings at the far side of the playground to let the beetle crawl off his finger and away into the mysterious darkness of Wavyways Wood.

  Everyone watched the beetle disappear amongst the fallen leaves and moss covering the woodland floor. Miss Danger put her hand on Mortimer’s shoulder.

  “I sometimes wonder how carefully you avoid using your own wavy gift at school, Mortimer,” she said, quietly.

  When Mortimer looked at her, Miss Danger stared right into his eyes.

  “You see,” his teacher went on, “the thing about the wavy gift of mind-reading is that nobody can tell you’re doing it. Well, nobody except another mind-reader, that is.”

  Mortimer gasped.

  “Um, Miss,” he asked, “is it true that you were born in Wavyways Wood?”

  “Yes it is,” she admitted.

  “But now you live in the town.”

  She smiled. “Yes, with a television and a computer and a mobile phone. And if you ever want to live outside the wood, Mortimer, you need to be careful with your wavy gift. You know the school rules.”

  “I didn’t mind-read properly,” Mortimer explained. “But I couldn’t help doing it a little bit, when Cuthbert wanted to shape-shift. I didn’t want him to get into trouble.”

  “Was that the only time?” asked Miss Danger.

  Mortimer blushed.

  “Some of the town children wanted me to squash that beetle, remember?” she went on. “They wanted to hurt it because it was something they didn’t understand. You and Cuthbert and Herbert were not scared of it, because you are used to the creatures in the wood. But now the beetle has given us a way to solve part of our rubbish problem and all the children want to be the one to feed it. It’s like that in the world outside the wood for those of us with wavy gifts. We need to be able to not use them, so that we don’t frighten people. That is why we don’t allow you to use the gifts at school.”

  “But we can be helpful with our gifts, like the beetle, can’t we?” asked Mortimer.

  “Yes we can, but mind-reading
can be the hardest gift of all. Go back to your friends and apologise. You did spoil their fun, even though it was the right thing to do.”

  Mortimer wondered if the beetle had enjoyed its morning at Wavyside School, and whether it would come back to eat the paper rubbish. He wondered whether he would leave the wood when he was old enough, like Miss Danger.

  “Miss,” he whispered, “are you allowed to use your wavy gift outside the wood?” Miss Danger didn’t answer. She gave no sign that she had heard him.

  ABOUT SALLY STARTUP

  Sally Startup lives in the south of England. She likes people, plants, creatures, rocks , the sea and sunsets. If she had a wavy gift it would probably be mind-reading like Mortimer, although she would enjoy being able to shape-shift like Cuthbert or fly like Herbert. Sally writes stories for children and teenagers and runs Bees’ Nest Books.