First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019

Published in this ebook edition in 2019

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HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

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Text copyright © Adam Baron 2019

Illustrations copyright © Benji Davies 2019

Cover design copyright © HarperCollins Children’s Books 2019

All rights reserved.

Adam Baron and Benji Davies assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780008267049

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008267056

Version: 2019-05-09

For Rachel, Frances, Betty and Marjorie – the grandmothers

Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Book Report

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

Books by Adam Baron

About the Publisher

Here’s something you won’t believe.

Veronique Chang did NOT get a Distinction in her Grade 5 piano. In fact, she only just passed! Why should you be surprised? Well. This is Veronique we’re talking about – our class genius. Answers LOVE her! They seem to float down to her from the ceiling before they get to anyone else (Marcus Breen calls her Siri). It was her birthday last month and I asked her what she wanted.

‘War and Peace,’ she said, and I frowned at her.

‘Greedy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you can’t have both,’ I said. ‘And anyway, I’m not the prime minister, how am I supposed to organise either?’

Veronique looked at me. ‘It’s a book. By Tolstoy?’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Bet it’s not as good as Mr Gum, though.’

And when I found a copy later in the Blackheath Bookshop I realised that it certainly wasn’t.

As for music, Veronique is INCREDIBLE. When she did her Grade 4, Mrs Johnson (our last head teacher) made her stand up in assembly. Veronique, she announced, had got the highest mark in the whole COUNTRY. Veronique wasn’t even surprised.

‘I was lucky,’ she said, looking down at me with a shrug. ‘My glissando was off.’

I was about to ask what she meant but Mrs Johnson made her go up to play one of her pieces. Wolfman Amadeus … Gocart (I think). And wow! The only time I’ve seen fingers move as fast was when Lance brought in a bag of Haribos on his birthday.

Marcus Breen started clapping at one point, but that was actually a quiet bit and Veronique went on some more. When she did finish, I stared at her.

‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘If also quite boring.’

Lance agreed. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he said. ‘Does that mean you can play … um …?’

‘What?’

He was so in awe he could hardly say it. ‘Star Wars?’

‘I don’t know,’ Veronique answered. ‘Who’s it by?’

Lance had to think about it. ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi.’

‘Is he Renaissance or baroque?’

‘Jedi,’ Lance said.

That was six months ago. She got the Grade 5 back last week. I was at her house. Veronique’s mum came into the kitchen waving an envelope. She had a smile on her face – but it faded. Her mum had the envelope in one hand and the results in the other and she just stared at them, amazement about to turn to disbelief, when she sighed – and picked up her phone.

‘I think there might have been a mistake,’ she said. ‘It’s Veronique Chang. C. H. A. N. G.’

But there wasn’t. The woman on the phone was sure of it. Veronique hadn’t got a Distinction and she hadn’t even got a Merit.

‘Well done anyway,’ her mum said (because she’s really nice). But then she got on the phone again, this time to Veronique’s piano teacher, and walked off into the living room to talk to him. I don’t think Veronique wanted to be there when she came back so we went outside, then down to the little wooden house at the bottom of their garden where her granny used to live (who she calls Nanai). It was quiet in there. And dusty. We stood for a minute, not speaking, just looking at all the old photographs that lined the walls, and then down at Nanai’s chair. It was even emptier than the rest of the place. There was a hollowed-out bit, likethe empty spaces we’d seen at the Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum. On top of it was a photograph. Old. Black and white, no glass left in the frame. I picked it up and we both stared at it until Veronique did something that scared me.

She began to cry.

Eeek! I watched her, with no idea WHAT to do until my hand went out, hovering over her shoulder like an X-wing starfighter, just about to land. It stayed there until her dad came in.

‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said, setting a spade down against the wall. ‘It’s just a grade exam.’

‘What?’

‘It’s okay to be disappointed. But you can do better next time, can’t you?’

Veronique didn’t answer. Instead she just stared at her dad and shook her head, tears tumbling out of her eyes like kids from a school bus. Then she did something that amazed him. She stopped crying – and began to laugh! She laughed and laughed and didn’t stop and her dad was confused. He didn’t know why she was laughing, though I did – I knew perfectly well. Of course I did! It was her NOT getting a Distinction! For the first time EVER! It wasn’t a bad thing. It wasn’t something to make her cry.

In fact, believe it or not, getting just a pass on her Grade 5 piano was one of the best things to happen to Veronique Chang in her WHOLE LIFE.

And this book is all about why.

(See you in the next chapter, then.)

TWO-AND-A-HALF WEEKS EARLIER

It began on a Wednesday. Though not any old Wednesday. A Wednesday when someone did something.

And it was BAD.

And they did it to Mrs Martin.

I am going to repeat that.

They did it to Mrs Martin, who is, in my opinion, the best teacher ever to exist apart perhaps from Socrates, who our teacher, Miss Phillips, told us about last week. Socrates was really clever and taught this other guy, Plato, in ancient Greece. He’s a teacher legend, though Miss Phillips also told us that he drank poison and died, which must really have upset Plato’s learning pathway. Plato would also have got a supply teacher, wouldn’t he, and if he was an old horror like Mr Gorton (who we get) Plato would have been IN for it.

It happened after PE. We were up on the heath doing athletics (even though it was fr-e-e-e-e-zing). Mrs Martin does it with us because long before she was an AMAZING teacher she ran for Botswana. She even went to the Olympics, which Lance did too when they were in London (though he was only five). His dad took him but he got so excited he wet himself. By the time they got back from the loos, Usain Bolt had already finished.

‘Two hundred pounds,’ his dad says, nearly every time I go round. ‘Each, Cymbeline. To see a man jogging round a track with a flag round his shoulders.’

I’d laugh but I can’t talk, actually, because when my Uncle Bill took me to the fair once I wet myself on the Ferris wheel. It went down on the man below, who shouted up that he was going to punch Uncle Bill’s lights out. When we got off, we had to leg it (as fast as Usain Bolt, actually).

Anyway, our class was up on the heath doing running trials with Mrs Martin to pick who would be on the athletics team. I came third, after Billy Lee and Daisy Blake, though she’s so tall I really don’t think it’s fair. Each one of her legs contains about five of mine. Afterwards, we came back down to school and followed Mrs Martin towards our classroom.

We were just approaching the stairs, and Marcus Breen was doing these incredibly realistic sounds with his armpits (you know what I mean). Mrs Martin wasn’t telling Marcus off – she was trying to do even better ones. THAT’s how cool she is. She was still trying when we all got to the stairs, where she’d left her normal shoes next to one of the drip buckets which catch leaks. Our school’s really old and these buckets are dotted about here and there, and now every class has a Drip Monitor who rushes out when it starts raining and makes sure the buckets are in place. There used only to be one or two leaks, but it’s been getting worse and there are about ten buckets now.

Anyway, Mrs Martin’s shoes were open-top ones, with no straps. We all stopped as she did this little hop thing to get out of her trainers. We watched as she reached out her big toe, using it to slide her right shoe towards her. And it happened, something I need to prepare you for in case you faint, or scream, or simply drop down DEAD when you find out what someone had done.

So here goes—

Brace yourself …

I’m going to say it.

No, I really am this time …

Actually, I don’t think I can say it.

Okay, here goes, really—

They’d put jelly in her shoes.

Actually, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Jelly, in her shoes? Even BLUE jelly?

It was almost funny.

The problem was, this was Mrs Martin, the most totally superb teacher in the WHOLE world, and she didn’t seem to see it as funny – and neither did some of the other kids. Vi Delap gasped. Elizabeth Fisher’s mouth shot open in amazement, though probably just because she’s never done ANYTHING bad in her WHOLE life. Other kids were shocked too – because of WHO this had been done to. You see, it’s not just me who thinks Mrs Martin is AMAZING. On our first day in Year 3 she told us all to line up. We were nervous and didn’t know what she wanted. Vi was first, all shy and worried, until Mrs Martin grinned at her.

‘What’s your favourite hobby?’ she asked, her voice all soft.

‘Football,’ Vi said, because she’s really good (and no, not just for a girl – sexist!).

Without even thinking, Mrs Martin sang:

When you’re in goal and the ball flies by,

Who d’you think kicked it? Must be Vi!

Then she did a double high-five with Vi followed by a toe touch and then another toe touch. Vi went bright red and beamed, and then it was Lance’s turn. He said cycling, of course (that’s his thing), and in a flash Mrs Martin sang:

In front of me is my main man Lance.

He’s going to win the Tour de France –

Legally.

She gave Lance a low-five followed by a high-five and then they both pretended they were cycling really fast. Lance grinned like a two-year-old in Santa’s grotto, and then it was Marcus Breen. He said sleeping, because, well, he’s Marcus Breen. We all groaned but Mrs Martin laughed.

Think you’re good at snoozing, meet Mr Breen.

This boy’s gonna show you how to dream.

She gave Marcus a double cross high-ten and then pretended to sleep. And she did this with everyone. EVERY person in our class got their own instant song and their own greeting, though some were harder than others.

‘Cymbeline Igloo,’ I said.

Mrs Martin drew her hand across her forehead. ‘Phew.’

‘And I like football but I also like art.’

‘DOUBLE phew. But here goes.’ And she sang:

If you need to get a penalty, don’t throw in the towel –

Cymbeline Igloo can draw a foul.

I got a double high fist bump after which I got a double toe touch like Vi, but with Mrs Martin and me both doing air drawing at the same time. And I felt this warmth beginning to grow in the middle of my chest, like there was a radiator in there, until it had reached all the way to my ears. It made me feel special, it made us all feel special – and every single morning began like that! This sunny sort of warmth came to us from Mrs Martin and stayed for the whole day. She gave us our own individual greeting with our own rhyme and she NEVER got anyone’s wrong. It was amazing, and I can tell you this: nowhere on the entire Internet does it say that Socrates did the same thing.

And he only had Plato.

So, to see someone play any kind of trick on Mrs Martin was probably too much for some of us. Everyone stopped as Mrs Martin gasped and looked down. We all did the same. The jelly (the BLUE jelly) oozed up between her toes like something you might see on Doctor Who, though I wouldn’t know because my mum says I’m too young to watch it (even if Lance does and he’s THREE DAYS younger than me).

Mrs Martin looked confused at first, not quite able to understand what she was seeing. Then her expression changed. And I expected her to be angry. Miss Phillips would have set her face, hands flying out to her hips. Mr Gorton would have gone VESUVIUS. But what Mrs Martin did was worse somehow.

This brilliant teacher we all love did not frown. Or shout. Or get mad. Instead, she just went still and said, ‘Oh …’, like you might if someone you REALLY like was saying you weren’t invited to their birthday party, and you’d already bought their present.

And that’s when I did something I couldn’t quite believe. Mrs Martin stepped back a little. She looked down at us, a sort of not-quite-able-to-believe-it look on her open, worn-in face. Everyone looked away from her, unable to meet her gaze – except for me. When her eyes fell on mine I was suddenly nervous, and unable even to move, because the weirdness of it had crept up on me. Someone putting jelly in her shoes? WHAT? It suddenly seemed so bizarre that instead of a radiator in me there were these weird, frothy bubbles.

And I giggled.

I don’t know why – honestly! It just came out. A stupid, childish, RIDICULOUS giggle that was SO loud! It stopped Mrs Martin. It stopped me. Mrs Martin looked even more upset – and surprised – and I could see her mind ticking over, and the completely WRONG conclusion about to make itself inside her head.

‘No,’ I said, as fast as I possibly could. ‘That doesn’t mean—’

But before I could go on I was interrupted. It was Mr Baker (our new head teacher). He was showing some men round our school, but he turned to Mrs Martin, a curiosity on his face that seemed to snap her away from me. And she turned, bent down and picked up her shoe, along with the other one, which had also been filled with jelly. Then she edged through us all, glancing quickly at me with my face burning, before hurrying off towards the staff room, one hand dangling her shoes, the other held up to her face.

Halfway there she broke into a run.

We were quiet that afternoon. We got on with our work. Or tried to. I couldn’t: the word IDIOT was trampolining in my brain. At last play I didn’t even join in when Billy Lee got his football out, or give my expert opinion on how many goals Jacky Chapman was going to score for Charlton on Saturday. I just looked round the playground as some kids in our class went on as normal while others talked about what had happened.

Lance and Vi Delap were saying how stupid it was, Marcus Breen wondering why anyone would want to waste perfectly good jelly. You should have seen Daisy Blake, though. She LOVES Mrs Martin. When Daisy’s grandpa died last year, Mrs Martin was epic, telling her that crying was fine if she wanted to cry, and not if she didn’t, changing her morning greeting to add a really long hug at the end, holding Daisy’s hand at home time until her mum or dad came. So Daisy was one hundred per cent ANGRY.

‘Oh, come on!’ I said, when I realised that she was glaring at me. ‘I’d never! I wouldn’t!’

Daisy studied me, then put her hands on her hips as she turned to look round the playground.

‘Then who was it?’ she said. ‘Who did it, Cymbeline?’

And she wasn’t the only one who wanted to know that.

Mr Baker held a SPECIAL ASSEMBLY before home time. After we’d all trooped in, he stared down at us from the stage. He went on about respect, and behaviour, and asked for the culprit to come forward. Elizabeth Fisher glanced at me, which made me go bright red again even though I was really trying not to. Did Mrs Martin notice? I kept my head down, hoping she wasn’t looking at me.

‘Well,’ Mr Baker said, when no one owned up. ‘I was told that this school was full of kind, considerate pupils. And honest ones too. It seems that this might not be true.’

We were all given an envelope which we were told to take home to our parents. We filed out, my neck and face burning YET AGAIN when I had to walk past Mrs Martin. She was standing next to the wall bars and I could finally sort of understand how Daisy felt. Mrs Martin was trying to look cheerful, as if it was all just some stupid thing.

But she couldn’t really manage it.

I kept my head down and followed Vi into the playground, where Daisy was sucking on a new stick of rock (which she must have snuck into her schoolbag because there was NO WAY her parents could have allowed her to bring it in). She was glaring at the passing kids.

‘What are you looking at?’ said Billy Lee, when it was his turn.

‘You tell me,’ said Daisy, pointing the stick of rock at him. I thought they might get into an argument actually, but his mum was there to pick him up so he walked off.

There was no one there to pick me up – not yet anyway. I do ICT club after school on Wednesdays because Mum works. I’d rather do football but that costs more and, anyway, Mum says I can use the time to catch up on my homework.

‘Spellings especially,’ she says.

I want to argue – but I can’t really. Spellings! There are just so many letters! And the way they join together, the Is and Es always swapping places like Year 1 kids trying to wind up Mrs Mason. We’ve also started doing these things called apostrophes, which at first I didn’t understand.

‘They show you own something,’ Miss Phillips said. ‘Like “Cymbeline’s football”.’

I nodded but I still didn’t get it. Everyone knows that it’s Billy’s football. As for where you put the apostrophes in the actual words, that’s just not possible to know. You may as well be playing pin the tail on the donkey. I can’t wait until I can use a computer to do my writing because of the wavy red lines that help you out, and it makes me wonder: why has no one invented a pencil which does that?

‘Hi, Cym,’ Mum said later that day, putting her head round the door of the ICT suite. ‘Ready?’

I said I was and when she’d signed me out I put my coat on. I followed her into the playground and through the gate on to the road. There were some men out there with clipboards, staring at the school and making notes. One was even on the roof. The police …? Mr Baker really was taking this jelly thing seriously. I grabbed Mum’s hand and pulled her up the steps towards Blackheath.

Now, if I’ve done something at school which perhaps I shouldn’t have, I would NOT normally want to tell my mum. This time, though, I did want to tell her, because Mum knows Mrs Martin. They’re both in the Friends’ Forum, which raises money for St Saviour’s. They do things like getting everyone to bake cakes to sell to themselves at the school fair and they ask parents to donate back the same bottles of cheap wine they won at the last fair and didn’t drink. Toys as well. In Year 2, Lance’s mum donated his old Buzz Lightyear for the Christmas Fair without telling him. Darren Cross won it in the tombola. Neither of them knew until Darren’s mum donated it back for the Easter Fair without telling him, and who should pull it out of the lucky dip? Lance!

‘Buzz!’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought you’d gone back to Gamma 4!’

When his mum saw it at home later, she said she thought she was going crazy.

The reason I wanted to tell Mum was simple – I had to explain my giggle. I wanted her to tell Mrs Martin that it was just a giggle and that I DID NOT PUT JELLY IN HER SHOES. The idea that she might think it was me was terrible, not least because she’d have to tell Mr Baker, wouldn’t she? So I started to tell Mum – but she wasn’t listening. First she had to find her car keys, which always takes ages because her bag’s like the TARDIS (well, probably – ask Lance, why don’t you?). Then, when we were finally in the car, she just said things like ‘Oh dear’ and ‘What a shame’, before coming out with something totally and utterly RANDOM.

‘Cym,’ she said, putting her hand on my arm, ‘you do want me to be happy, don’t you?’

Now that was a weird question, and not only because it had nothing at ALL to do with Mrs Martin (or jelly). Before Christmas, Mum had been totally not happy, and that had been horrible. Had she asked me then if I wanted her to be happy, I’d have said yes, of course – but she seemed happy enough now. And why wouldn’t she be – Charlton were up to third! Also, my last school report was, and I quote, ‘not quite as bad as the last one’.

She’d also got a new job teaching art, which meant we could afford a car now, and she’d started going out to the cinema on Friday nights with this new friend of hers called Stephan.

‘You mean even happier?’ I asked.

‘Maybe.’

‘Like in The Sound of Music?’

‘Why not?’

‘We’d better hope Charlton beat Wigan, then. Though no singing in front of my friends. Why are you asking?’

Mum went red. ‘Something happened today.’

‘What?’

‘Just … something I need to think about.’

‘But it’s a good thing?’

‘I hope so. But I have to think first. Actually, forget I said anything, okay?’

Mum put the key in and I shrugged, happy to forget it because I wanted to go back to the subject of Mrs Martin. Even now, my favourite teacher could be asking herself what she’d done to turn me against her. When I got back to telling Mum, though, she got distracted again. I was just getting to the bit where we came down from the heath, when Mum’s phone rang.

‘Hello?’ she said, sounding a little surprised by who was calling. I tried to carry on talking, but Mum put her hand up. Her face went serious and she said, ‘Of course,’ and ‘Right away,’ before hanging up. She started the car, did a three-point turn, and thirty seconds later we were shooting across the little roundabout as I asked her what was going on.

‘Is it Mrs Martin?’ I said, my voice a bit wobbly. ‘Does she want to see you?’

The answer was no, because Mrs Martin lives in Westcombe Park, and three minutes later we were pulling up outside a house on the other side of Blackheath Village.

Veronique’s house.

And in the driveway was an ambulance.

The first time I met Veronique’s granny she was asleep in her chair. Veronique took me down to her little wooden house. We’d brought her tea, but instead of watching her drink it I looked at all the photos on the wall showing her with Veronique when Veronique was little, and even older ones when she herself had been a child, standing with her mum, dad and sister with some boats behind them.

I would have liked to ask her about that time, and just talk to her generally, because I don’t have any grandparents, and people say they’re fun. Apparently they give you sweets and pound coins AND they fall asleep when you’re watching telly (which means you don’t have to stop). Veronique’s granny didn’t do any of these things that first time I saw her because she didn’t wake up, making me wonder what the point of her was.

But the next time was different.

‘So,’ she said, squinting at me through these MASSIVE glasses. ‘You’re the famous Cymbeline. What sort of a name is that, might I ask?’

‘Nanai!’ Veronique said.

‘I don’t mind. It’s Shakespeare, Veronique’s granny.’

‘I know that! I’m not completely gaga, you know. And call me Nanai. But Shakespeare used normal names as well, didn’t he? Duncan, Richard, Henry …’

‘But I could have been called Hamlet,’ I said. ‘Or Romeo.’

‘Well, let’s agree that it could have been worse, then.’ Nanai crossed her feet over on this little footstool she had. ‘But what have you got to say for yourself, young man?’

It was a surprising question and I didn’t know how to answer it at first. But I talked about Saturday football, which we do on the heath, and then Charlton, and how I hoped they’d be up in the Premier League by the time I started playing for them.

‘You want to be a footballer, then?’

‘Of course. Jacky Chapman’s even got his own helicopter! He’s got a pilot’s licence and he flies himself around.’

‘Jacky …?’

‘Chapman. He’s the captain. I’m doing my Person Project on him.’

‘Your …?’

‘You have to find out about someone amazing,’ interrupted Veronique. (She does that. I mean, a lot.) ‘And do a presentation. I’m doing a scientist.’

‘Einstein?’

‘No. Niels Bohr.’

‘Niels Boring,’ I said. ‘Jacky Chapman’s going to fly me to a match and he’s going to fly me home.’

‘Is he?’

‘Well, I’ve written to him. I asked if he’d fly his helicopter to school and pick me up. Haven’t heard back yet.’

‘Seems you really like football, Cymbeline.’

‘Course. Did you ever play?’

Nanai said no, and when I told her how Daisy and Vi, and Vi’s sister Frieda, were all really good, she pushed herself up from her chair. I fetched the ball I’d given Veronique for Christmas (which looked suspiciously clean) and we played in their garden. Nanai hopped about like crazy. Defensively she was very strong (her walking stick helped). As an attacking midfielder she was also impressive. She might not have got round Jacky Chapman, but she nutmegged Veronique no bother and scored a goal between two flowerpots. She was tired then, so I only added two minutes on for stoppages. We helped her back to her chair and she beamed at both of us. Veronique especially.

Veronique sat on the edge of her chair and Nanai took her hand before doing something a bit weird. She pushed Veronique’s index finger into a triangle and gave it a little nibble! Veronique rolled her eyes.

‘She says it’s because I’m so delicious,’ she explained. ‘When I was a baby she wanted to eat me.’

Nanai giggled, and Veronique rolled her eyes again (though I could tell she secretly loved it). And then Veronique brought Nanai up to date on her French and Chinese classes, fencing competitions, violin, clarinet, ukulele and piano lessons, and how she’d recently got into Tolstoy.

‘At your age! Do you like Tolstoy, Cymbeline?’

‘I like Toy Story. Lance has got a Buzz Lightyear.’

‘Your brother, is he, this Lance?’

‘Friend. I don’t have a brother – or a sister,’ I added, which seemed to be a mistake because Nanai stared at me before getting a little panicked, until she turned to the photos on the table by her chair. There was one of a big ship, another of people who looked like they were probably her parents. She grabbed the third one, though – just her as a young woman with another young woman who looked just like her.

Nanai clung to the picture, tight, mumbling to herself as she drifted off to sleep.

Veronique reached forward and pulled Nanai’s rug up over her knees. ‘She holds on to it all night,’ she said, meaning the photograph.

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s a photo of her and Thu,’ said Veronique.

‘Thu?’

‘Her twin sister. You know I told you Nanai was a refugee?’

I did know. It was one of the things that made Veronique and her family SO interesting. Nanai had been one of what British people called the Vietnamese boat people – refugees, like the people fleeing horrible things now are. They were Hoa, Chinese people living in Vietnam, and they had to escape from Vietnam because the government was burning their houses.

‘Well, their ship sank,’ said Veronique. ‘Or something like that. I’m not too sure. Nanai was rescued. Her sister wasn’t.’

Oh NO.

I looked down at Nanai, that second time I met her, and felt like such an IDIOT. Talking about not having a sister! I couldn’t believe I’d done it.

‘Not your fault,’ said Veronique, guessing what I was thinking. ‘Come on.’

She pulled me into the garden.

‘I should have told you,’ she said, ‘about Thu. It’s why Nanai hates being asked about being a refugee. She won’t talk about it.’

‘Blimey. And they were twins? Were they identical?’

‘No. Nanai was a tomboy, she says.’

‘You can tell that by the football.’

‘But Thu was quiet and arty. Musical. And really beautiful. Nanai says that’s where I …’

‘What?’

Veronique blushed. ‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway, I wish I had a sister, don’t you?’

I blinked at Veronique, not knowing how to answer. For some reason I thought about Stephan’s two little girls, who he brings over at the weekend sometimes. They’re okay and the little one’s cute, actually. She climbs on my knee and calls me Thimbeline. She draws pictures of me that are hilarious.

But I just shrugged.

I couldn’t get the image out of my head, of Nanai clutching that photo like it was a swimming float. Something to keep her safe.

It made me feel close to her and for a second I didn’t know why. But then I did. You see, I’ve lost someone too. It happened when I was tiny, though, and I never knew them. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Nanai to lose her twin the way she did.

I shivered, and then Veronique’s dad called us in for supper. All through it I thought of that photo in Nanai’s hands, and how frail and tired she looked as she clung on to it.

So when Mum drove me round after school and I saw the ambulance in the driveway I was really scared – for Nanai.

And, sure enough, when Mum and I walked into their kitchen, Veronique’s dad told us that Nanai was ‘having a little trouble with her breathing’.

I swallowed. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘They’re not sure, Cymbeline,’ he said, trying too hard to sound cheerful. ‘They’re taking her into hospital. Just a precaution,’ he added, putting his hand on Veronique’s shoulder. ‘The medics are just having a little look at her before they go.’

‘Can I go down and see her?’

Veronique’s dad said better not, which was a shame. He was going to go with her to the hospital and Veronique’s mum was away playing music concerts, so Veronique was coming home with us.

‘For a sleepover?’

‘Yes,’ Mum said. ‘And she’s very welcome, isn’t she, Cymbeline?’

Welcome? A sleepover – ON A WEDNESDAY? And with Veronique, who I used to like so much I couldn’t even talk to her?

‘Suppose,’ I said.

‘Can I bring Kit-Kat?’

‘PLEASE!’ I bellowed, knowing I shouldn’t be too excited, because Nanai was ill. But I couldn’t help it.

‘Course,’ Mum said, ‘though I think we’ve got some Mars bars at home somewhere, so …’

Mum didn’t get to finish because Veronique ran off up the stairs, while we went out to the car with the bag her dad had packed for her.

Mum got in the car while I climbed in the back. Mum and Mr Chang chatted quietly through the window until Veronique came out. She was carrying a big plastic box, covered in a cloth, which she set on the seat between us. Mum was already getting the car started so she didn’t see it – not until we got back to our house. We parked opposite and Veronique lifted the box out.

‘Oh …’ Mum said, ‘Kit-Kat. Silly of me. I thought you meant … But what is that?’

‘He’s a—’

‘HAMSTER!’ I shouted, as we started to cross the road.

‘How sweet,’ Mum said, and then spent five minutes hunting in her bag for the house keys.

Now, what I’d just done is BAD, and I certainly don’t want you to think that fibbing to my mum is something I do very often. I was only trying to protect her, though, because Mum is afraid of EVERYTHING. Daddy-long-legs make her scream like that kid in Home Alone. If a wasp flies in the kitchen window, she makes me hide under the table with her until it’s gone. She asked Uncle Bill round for lunch last Sunday and I swear it was only because she’d seen a spider on the bathroom ceiling the night before. When he arrived, she shoved the sweeping brush in his hand and pushed him up the stairs.

‘And hurry up!’ she shouted. ‘I really need a wee!’

So, I did fib, but fibbing about Kit-Kat’s true identity was not as bad as you might think. Because he is not, as I told Mum, a hamster.

He’s a RAT.

And he is epic.

Kit-Kat can shake hands with you. He can fetch things. He loves the piano, climbing up on to Veronique’s shoulder whenever she practises. He’s a great tightrope walker, and can do the high jump, put a ring on your finger, recognise people, and even untie your shoelaces! He can’t tie them yet (but Lance can barely do that) and Veronique’s training him – and I know who I’d bet on to get there first. Veronique’s trained Kit-Kat a lot in fact, but he was like that even before, because Veronique’s dad’s a scientist and Kit-Kat came from his lab. He is in fact the Veronique of the rat world.

I have another confession too. Kit-Kat being there made me forget about Mrs Martin. I’d planned on spending the whole night thinking about what had happened, but once we were in the house I pulled Veronique up the stairs.

‘Supper in an hour,’ Mum said. ‘What would you like to do, Veronique?’

‘Don’t worry, Mum, we’re going to play Subbuteo.’

Mum wondered whether that was something Veronique would really like to do, but I didn’t listen. I dragged Veronique up to my room and pulled the Subbuteo box out from under my bed.

Now Subbuteo, which is a game with little plastic footballers that you flick at a ball, is excellent normally, and I knew Veronique would have enjoyed it – but teaching Kit-Kat to play was going to be even better! And, as expected, he was ACE. His dribbling was as good as Mo Salah’s and somehow he knew to stay on the pitch (though he trod on the players’ heads until I gave him a yellow card). Soon he was taking the ball round the players instead of over them and then slipping it past the keeper, all for the reward of a dried pea, which Veronique had brought and which he’s obsessed with. It was great, but at 5–0 to Kit-Kat I put the pitch away. Mum had been right: Veronique didn’t seem to be into it. I turned to her.

‘Is it Mrs Martin? That was totally weird, wasn’t it? But you shouldn’t be upset about it. No one thinks it was you, do they?’

‘It isn’t that,’ Veronique said.

I slapped my forehead. I’d got carried away with the Subbuteo – it was Nanai of course.

‘But it’s just a precaution,’ I said. ‘Your dad did say that, didn’t he?’

Veronique looked down at her lap. ‘Yes, but …’

‘What?’

‘He’s an adult.’

‘So?’

‘You can’t believe them when they talk about things like this.’

‘Can’t you?’

‘No,’ Veronique said, and I realised that she was right. There are pointless things that adults insist you DO know about (apostrophes, hello?) and then some really important stuff they keep from you, like news stories that make them dive forward and turn off the radio. Nanai was as bad. She refused to tell Veronique much about being on the boat from Vietnam. All Veronique knew was that Nanai’s family had been part of the Chinese Hoa people in Vietnam. When they had to leave Vietnam by boat, some of them ended up here. There had to be more to know than that, though. And now – was her dad doing the same thing? Was Nanai really ill?

I swallowed. I had an empty feeling in my stomach until I heard Mum climbing up the stairs. I got Kit-Kat back in his box in time but Mum still crouched down to him.

‘Let’s have a look, then,’ she said.

‘Sorry. It’s his bedtime.’

Mum frowned. ‘I thought gerbils slept in the daytime.’

‘Oh,’ said Veronique, ‘he’s not a gerbil. He’s a—’

‘HAMSTER!’ I shouted. ‘But he’s tired now, so …’

‘Oh, come on,’ Mum insisted. ‘Just a little peek.’ And I couldn’t stop her. She lifted the lid and I got my hands near my ears ready for the scream, shuffling aside so I didn’t get trampled on when Mum ran to the door. Fortunately, though, Kit-Kat was tucked up in his straw with just his little face poking out.

‘Sweet!’ Mum said as Kit-Kat gave her a nose twitch. And we went downstairs for supper.

Mum had made bacony pasta. I love it, and Veronique said she did too, though she didn’t eat much. If I left mine, Mum would have made me finish it, but she just smiled at Veronique and squeezed her elbow. Back upstairs we took it in turns getting ready for bed and when Veronique came out of the bathroom I blinked. I’d never seen her in pyjamas. These were Chinese ones that folded over in the middle. She looked really different and it made me think of the photos of Nanai, how she’d been rescued, how she’d come from another place, somewhere Veronique was linked to, though she’s so part of our school and Blackheath. It made me wonder if anyone in my past had run away from somewhere, though I didn’t get long to think about it. Veronique was pale. She was quiet as we blew her bed up, and through part of Narnia, which Mum read us. I don’t think it was because of the White Witch either because she was still like that as she climbed into her sleeping bag.

Mum kissed me goodnight and gave Veronique a hug. She put the light out and when we were on our own I stared down at Veronique through the faint blue glow from my ghostie light.

‘Is it still Nanai? Is that why you’re upset?’

Veronique didn’t answer.

I remembered what Mr Prentice said, the art therapy man I went to after Mum got ill before Christmas. You have to let it out. The thing you’re scared of. So I said, ‘Did something happen? Before the ambulance came, I mean?’

There was silence again but somehow I knew the answer was yes.

‘Did Nanai fall over?’

‘No.’

‘Or be sick?’

‘No,’ Veronique said, again.

‘Then what? What?’

‘I went down to see her. Earlier.’

‘To play football?’

‘Just see her.’

‘And?’

‘She was sitting there, in her chair. She didn’t even …’

‘What?’

‘She didn’t even want to nibble my finger. She just looked weird. So I asked her what the matter was.’

‘And?’

‘She told me not to worry.’

‘Well, then. Phew.’

‘She was really definite about that. It was all very normal, she said. And natural.’

‘What was?’

Veronique was about to answer but she hesitated, fiddling with the sleeve of her pyjamas. I looked down at her but she wouldn’t look at me, just lay there in the faint blue light. There was silence until Mum started banging pots around in the kitchen, after which the silence came back again. It grew bigger, sort of heavy, and dark-seeming, so that for a second it was like everything in the whole world had stopped.

‘What was?’ I insisted, and Veronique stopped fiddling with her sleeve.

‘She said she was going to die, Cymbeline.’

I had bad dreams. They seemed to last all night, though when I woke up they ran off like kids playing Grandmother’s Footsteps. Their place was taken by Veronique and I blinked at her. She was kneeling by my bed. With her face washed. And she was dressed. She even had her hair tied up.

‘Where’s your piano?’ she asked.

I groaned and pulled the duvet over my head. ‘You can’t miss it. It’s next to the Ferrari.’

‘Where’s that, then?’

‘It was a joke,’ I said, which made Veronique sigh because jokes are the ONE thing she’s not good at. They’re like apostrophes are to me. Marcus Breen is always getting her. We were in the lunch queue on Friday and he poked her in the ribs.

‘Look under there,’ he told her. Veronique frowned.

‘Under where?’

‘There!’

‘Under where?’ Veronique asked again, and Marcus sniggered.

‘You said “underwear”!’ he said.

‘I know, and you won’t tell me. Under WHERE?’

Marcus really burst it and Veronique asked why he was laughing.

‘No reason. What does a dog do when it’s hot?’

‘Pants.’

Marcus nearly went blue. I thought he was going to choke to death. When he’d recovered, he said that a teacher has five boys in her class, all named Will.

‘To tell them apart she calls the first one Will A, the second one Will B, and so on. So what’s the fifth one called?’

Veronique was about to answer, but luckily we got to the front of the queue and Mrs Stebbings dolloped out the curry.

Anyway, when I explained that we didn’t have a piano, Veronique stared like I’d said we didn’t have a sofa.

‘But my exam’s a week on Saturday! I didn’t get to practise last night because of Nanai. And I always practise on Thursday mornings because it’s fencing after school so I can’t play tonight. Or I can, but I’ll stay up late so I won’t be able to get up early the next morning. And that means—’

‘Calm down,’ I said, shoving the duvet aside and reaching for the art box.

After what Veronique had told me last night, I wanted to do all I could for her. I was upset about Nanai myself but she wasn’t my grandmother, was she? It was bound to be worse for Veronique and I couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. So, downstairs, I got some sheets of paper and Sellotaped them to the kitchen table. Veronique told me where the keys all went and I drew a piano. Veronique said there should be pedal things underneath, so I got my wellies. She told me she was going to play a piece called the ‘Four Seasons’, which I was excited about – but it turned out it had nothing to do with pizza. It was still good, though – better than her piece in assembly, actually, because it was quiet and I could listen to it and Harry Potter on Mum’s phone at the same time. I recommend this kind of piano and would like to suggest to all classical musicians that they think a bit more about the people who may have to be sitting close to them when they’re playing.

I hoped that getting to practise would cheer Veronique up. But it didn’t, much, so I had another idea – I gave her the phone to call her dad.

‘So?’ I asked, after she’d hung up.

‘The doctors can’t find anything wrong with her.’

‘Brilliant!’

‘I suppose.’

‘What do you mean? Nanai’s not a doctor, is she? They’re bound to know better than her, aren’t they?’

‘I suppose,’ said Veronique again, and then Mum appeared, her eyes going wide as Frisbees to see me standing there.

The reason for Mum’s reaction was that I am normally just a tiny bit reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. Schooldays especially. Mum says it was the same when I was being born, only getting me out of bed is even more painful than getting me out of her.

‘Gas and air!’ she shouts, yanking at my duvet. ‘Get me the gas and air!’

It’s not my fault, though. It’s bed. At night you complain about having to get into it, but – magically – by the morning it’s become this perfect thing you don’t want to get out of. A quick splash of the face followed by a bowl of Weetabix are NOTHING compared to it.

‘Veronique,’ Mum said, ‘can you come over every night?’

I soon wished the same thing, because it wasn’t Weetabix for breakfast that morning like I normally have: Mum made scrambled eggs. On a Thursday! Then Veronique fed Kit-Kat and, because we hadn’t really thought what we’d do with him that day, Mum called Veronique’s dad and asked him to take Kit-Kat back to their house again.

He met us at the top of the school steps and told us again about Nanai. They’d done this test and that test, but they couldn’t find anything wrong.

‘That’s great,’ Mum said. ‘Such a relief. Though Veronique’s welcome any time. With Kit-Kat of course. What a sweet hamster.’

‘Oh, he’s not a hamster,’ Veronique’s dad said with a frown. ‘He’s a—’

‘GERBIL!’ I shouted.

‘Really?’ Mum said. ‘I could have sworn you said … Anyway, he’s adorable.’

‘And very good at Subbuteo,’ I added.

Now, after what happened yesterday, I’m sure you were expecting me to have been VERY nervous about going into school. And I was – to start with. But then I saw the van, which I’d completely forgotten about.

It was big and red and right outside the gates.

‘Yes!’ I said, and even Veronique hurried up when she saw it.

We joined the kids crowding round the van, until Miss Phillips shooed us towards the door where Frieda Delap, in Reception, was standing with this big medal round her neck. She was the one we had to thank. She’d been to the Science Museum before Christmas with her family – and seen a competition. You had to write a science-based story right there and then, which your mum or dad typed into a screen. She entered her story and a month later Mrs Johnson (our last head teacher) read it out in assembly.

And it was hilarious. A creature called a Pigglyboo saved the world from climate change by replacing coal and gas with energy from people’s lost odd socks. Veronique objected that that wasn’t very scientific but no one else cared: Frieda won! And she got not only loads of science books and posters for our classrooms but some science experiments here in our OWN SCHOOL!

‘I still don’t think the sock supply would be reliable,’ grumbled Veronique as we walked into the hall.

‘It would in our house,’ said Mrs Martin. ‘We’ve got thousands of them.’

It stopped me in my tracks to see Mrs Martin, but then I was SO relieved. She smiled at me with her big, gappy-toothed face – JUST LIKE SHE NORMALLY DID.

Pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww.

Panic over.

Five minutes later, after calming down the BUZZING hall, Mr Baker told us what was going to happen. Each class was getting its own genuine Science Museum scientist – for the WHOLE day. We’d do experiments in our classroom before we all met up later for a finale. I was psyched, and then even more so when we got back to our class. I’d been expecting a wacky old man with fuzzy hair, but instead we got Jen, who had tattoos up her arms and hair that wasn’t fuzzy but short – and bright pink.

‘Okay, everyone,’ she said, ‘sit down.’

We did that, and Daisy put her hand up. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

Jen studied us. ‘I’m going to show you something that you’ve clearly never seen before.’

‘What?’

‘Soap,’ Jen said.

Now, at first, I was a bit disappointed: what could be fun about soap? It certainly isn’t fun in our house. Mum makes me use it, which I can mostly understand, though not when she insists on me washing underneath some places and behind others WHICH NO ONE IS GOING TO SEE.

But Jen showed us that soap could be fun. First we made soap-powered boats and raced them in trays. Mine came third, after Billy Lee’s and Daisy Blake’s. (How weird is that?) Next we put washing-up liquid and food dye into milk and made these incredible patterns. Then we made bubbles that filled the whole classroom. We chased those, before making some that were so big we got to go inside them, peering out through the weird colours. It was SO great and, let me tell you, it is such a waste of soap that we use it to wash with.

That took us to lunch. After eating I discussed the Wigan game with Mrs Stebbings, our head dinner lady, who is even madder about Charlton than I am. Get this – her sister knows Jacky Chapman’s dad’s brother’s postman’s daughter! Outside I stood with the others, wondering what we were going to do later, watching the scientists setting up the last experiment of the day on the AstroTurf.

Back in class we started to learn about forces, Jen explaining what made the soap boats move. I asked about helicopters because of Jacky Chapman having his own and she told me all about this thing called ‘lift’. Then we made more boats using other things for power, like birthday candles and rubber bands, and then Jen put some cups and plates from the canteen on a tablecloth. I thought she was going to have her lunch, but as fast as she could she pulled the cloth off, leaving all the cups right there on the table!

‘I am so trying that at home,’ said Marcus Breen.

That took us up to two o’clock. We did a demonstration of our boats to the other kids and then went into their classes to see what they’d been doing. Year 3 had made rockets with balloons. I liked that, but what I was really interested in was Mrs Martin. But again she treated me normally and seemed normal herself. Double phew. After that we went into Year 2, where they’d balanced huge weights on eggs. Year 5 was next. They’d turned their whole classroom into a space station, which was wicked – but you should have SEEN the Year 6 thing.

They’d been working in the hall. After seeing all the other classes, everyone trooped in there. We sat down and looked at Mr Ashe (their teacher). He was sitting on a chair, which was on this circle of wood with red canisters on either side. No one had any idea what it was until the Year 6 scientist stepped forward and pressed a button.

And Mr Ashe lifted off.

A hovercraft! They’d made a real hovercraft! Mr Ashe shot across the hall, spinning round and round, and was about to crash into us when the scientist grabbed him. He spun a few times more and then all the Year 6 kids had a go. Some just lifted off a bit, squealing in excitement and fright before letting themselves down. But Vi and Frieda’s brother Franklin went mad, knocking over two drip buckets and nearly whacking into Mrs Martin, who only escaped by leaping up the wall bars. She wasn’t cross, though. She was really laughing, which made me feel even more relieved.

I looked around at all the kids, whooping and screaming with Mrs Martin, when Franklin whizzed to the other side of the hall. And I asked myself, did it really happen? Did someone really play that trick on her? Everyone looked so happy that I couldn’t believe it. Or if they had then they hadn’t meant anything bad by it. Or – DOH – they couldn’t have known they were Mrs Martin’s shoes! They just saw random shoes.

That was it, of course!

But it wasn’t long before I realised that I was

If the hovercraft had been the last thing we saw, the day would have been excellent. But once all the Year 6es had had a go we went out to the playground. In front of us was a table. It was covered now with a sheet, though at lunchtime we’d seen what was underneath – a thick plastic chimney with a rocket peeking out. On top was a toy frog called Phil, who was, as Jen now explained, going to fly up to the stars.

‘And he’s really nervous, so can we all give a cheer to encourage him?’

After the yelling had died down, the teachers told us to sit on the AstroTurf. Jen told us all about the chemicals in the bucket that were going to cause the explosion that would launch the rocket, though if you want to know what they were you’d better ask Veronique – the rest of us were arguing about how high Phil the frog would go. Up to the side wall? The back wall? As high as the heath? Maybe we’d lose sight of him and Major Tim Peake would be blinking in amazement to see a stuffed frog go flying past his window. We were still arguing when Jen asked us all for a countdown.

The scientists put plastic glasses on and stood next to the table, facing us.

The teachers stepped to the side and the Reception kids at the front squeezed back.

Jen moved to the side of the playground, where she picked up a little blowtorch and turned it on.

She knelt down and pointed the flame at some powder piled up on a metal tray.

The powder lit up, fizzing and crackling until, like a red mouse, it began to scurry along an open metal pipe towards the table.

When the red mouse was nearly at the table, Jen leapt up, ran towards the table and grabbed hold of the sheet.

The mouse flame climbed up the pipe, spluttering for a second then stopping and making us all think it would go out.

It managed to stay lit, though, going up again as Jen pulled off the sheet to reveal Phil the frog, on his rocket, just about to head up to the …

No—

Not Phil.

Not Phil at all.

WHERE WAS PHIL?

We all stared. The scientists, including Jen, were all looking at us – they weren’t looking behind them at the table. And it was weird, really weird, because Phil the frog certainly wasn’t there. Someone must have taken him off. The rocket was there, and something ELSE was on it.

That was the scientists. They’d shouted it, not us, or not many of us, just a few of the smaller kids. Because we were staring, hardly able to believe what we were seeing, the scientists looking confused too – by our reaction – until one by one they turned their heads, to see what we were looking at. And what we were looking at was their experiment – the bucket, the rocket, and the thing tied to it – though instead of what they thought was tied to it there was something else.

Not a frog.

A bag.

A blue, rectangular sports bag, pretty old, with a black stripe across the middle, a bag that was familiar to every single person in our school because of what was on the side of it. Five rings. In different colours. Three on top and two below.

Olympic rings, all linked together with a date above and a word underneath in bold.

BOTSWANA.

Everyone stared. And then everyone’s head swivelled left to where Mrs Martin was standing, her hands still held up in little fists with what had been excitement but which had now been replaced by shock. And surprise. And disbelief. She shook herself together and looked around, at her feet, as if to find her bag there, as if it couldn’t possibly be where it actually was – ON TOP OF THAT ROCKET.

There wasn’t a ‘ONE!’ We just watched, no one able to move as the snapping red flame reached the bottom of the bucket. And it shook, with a really loud BANG. And the rocket took off, though it didn’t go as far as we’d expected. Not to the side wall. Not up to the heath. Just half a metre, before it nosedived on to the table where it rested, as Mrs Martin’s bag slid down on to the ground.

Silence. It struck the teachers and the scientists and all of us sitting on the AstroTurf. No one said a word. Not even Marcus Breen. We all just watched as the bag Mrs Martin had got at the Olympics fizzled and gurgled and spluttered.

And

then

it

I think I need to tell you a bit more about Mrs Martin. She’s got this gappy smile, like I’ve said, that is impossible not to smile back at. You can hear her laugh ALL around the school. She teaches Year 3 but does dance routines at lunchtimes with the Year 5 and 6 girls (but only if they play Abba songs). She begs you not to tell Mr Martin about her mid-morning Twix or how she really wishes she’d married someone called Mr Kipling instead of him. She cheers all the teams on at Saturday football.

She works on the Friends’ Forum, like I said, but I didn’t tell you she was in charge of it, sending out all the letters and emails and organising the fairs and coffee mornings and cake sales and sponsored walks and the carol singing round Blackheath every year. I didn’t tell you that she stays late to clear up after all the evening events because the parents have to get their kids to bed (hers are grown up).

And I didn’t tell you something I learned from Mum, about when all the windows were being replaced in our school. Mrs Martin was the one who found out that the builders were putting in cheaper ones than the ones they’d promised, which wouldn’t have been so soundproof. She forced the council to get them done properly, which means we can all learn in peace. The most important thing, though, is how she makes us feel: good, and safe. Like we’re at home and not at school. Absolutely everyone has called her Mum by mistake at some point – SO embarrassing – and when she tells you that you can do something, you believe her. You can’t help it – and then it turns out to be true.

We have four different houses in our school. They’re named after inspiring people like Nelson and Rosa Parks (which I’m in). When I was on the school council I started a petition to get one of the houses renamed and I’m sure you can guess whose name I wanted. Yes – Jacky Chapman, the best captain Charlton have ever had. I’m still waiting to hear about that, but if they say no I’ll definitely suggest Mrs Martin instead because she’s AMAZING.

So how could anyone DO that to her?

Auntie Mill picked me up that day. Her and Mum, which was weird. Why were they both there? I didn’t really think about it, though, because the Mrs Martin thing was too huge.

Jelly – so what? But THIS …?

As I climbed into Auntie Mill’s car I kept seeing Mrs Martin’s bag before it was blown up, and then again twenty seconds later, after Jen had put it out with a fire extinguisher. It was all blackened and melted, with a gaping hole in the side. And I saw Mrs Martin walking forward and picking it up off the ground, staring at it in total shock before using the same expression as she turned around.

And stared at US.

We’d all stared back, in SILENCE, until Mr Baker towered over us.

‘Classrooms!’

We’d marched off and I felt SO terrible that I got this feeling you might recognise from your own school, when someone’s done something bad. It really did feel like it was me who’d actually done it. And when I passed Mrs Martin it got worse. I didn’t giggle. Not this time. But instead my face went red. And Mrs Martin had been looking at me. I didn’t actually see her because I was keeping my eyes on Daisy right ahead of me, but I could FEEL it, her eyes following me all the way into school and up the stairs, the tops of my ears prickling with heat when I got there.

‘Had a good day?’ Mum asked as Auntie Mill pulled away, barging in front of Lance’s mum’s Fiesta. I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to get home so I could talk to her on her own about what had happened.

AND GET HER TO CALL MRS MARTIN.

But again I didn’t get a chance to.

I expected Auntie Mill to turn right at the little roundabout – towards our house. Instead she went up through Blackheath to her house, which is next door to Veronique’s, actually (Billy Lee lives on the other side of the road). We weren’t giving Veronique a lift because she was doing fencing, which my cousin Juni does as well, though it’s at Juni’s school so no one needs to take her. Why we were going to Auntie Mill’s I didn’t know and I intended to ask, waiting while Auntie Mill’s new electronic gate opened and then as she turned her burglar alarm off. We went inside, where I expected to see Clay (my other cousin), but he was at rugby practice. That just left us three, which seemed a bit weird.

‘What’s going on?’ I said, feeling small in their huge living room.

Auntie Mill held her hands up at that and walked through to their kitchen, as if to say to my mum that it was her job to answer me. Mum took a breath. She walked over to one of the sofas, sat down and took my hand.

‘It’s Stephan,’ she said.

I frowned. ‘Are you going to the pictures tonight? It’s only Thursday.’

‘I know.’ Mum shook her head. ‘And no. I’m staying here.’

‘Good. But what, then?’

She took a breath. ‘Well, Stephan wants to spend more time with me.’

I took that in. ‘Like, maybe, Tuesdays too?’

‘A lot more, actually.’

‘Oh.’

‘And I said I wasn’t sure about that.’

‘There are only so many films you can see, aren’t there?’

‘Right. So I suggested that, before we commit to spending a lot more time together, we get to know him a bit better. And he gets to know my family properly, too.’

‘So?’

‘He’s coming round here.’

‘Couldn’t everyone have come to our house?’

‘That’s what I said. But Mill needs the Internet for some reason and our connection’s not that good.’

‘Oh. But shouldn’t Dad be here too, if Stephan’s getting to know us?’

‘Ah,’ Mum said. ‘No, I … I think your dad’s working.’

That was a shame, but they’d already met, actually. When Dad brought me home after the weekend once, Stephan was already there. He was all friendly, but Dad sort of pretended he was invisible.

‘So just Stephan tonight. He’s staying for supper.’

‘Fine. Though … what is for supper?’

The reason I was asking was simple. When Mum was not well before Christmas, I stayed with Auntie Mill for a while and was exposed to certain foodstuffs. The worst were called artichokes, which take my favourite food (pizza) and make it taste REVOLTING. Auntie Mill also served me fish that was actually RAW, though the people at the takeaway place had tried to disguise that by chopping it small and wrapping it in rice. How lazy can you get?

This time, Mum answered, she would be cooking. She was making something special for Stephan because he’s a vegetarian. That seemed okay, but when I said that I’d got something to tell her, Mum told me to save it for later because she had to ‘get on’. I sighed and asked if I could watch TV. Mum agreed and I grabbed the remote control. I turned on Auntie Mill’s MASSIVE screen and went into iPlayer. Whoever had used the TV last had set the volume too high, though, and Mum came rushing back through.

‘Nice try,’ she said, whisking the remote away.

The TARDIS whirled off without me.

I gave up on TV and went outside, where Clay’s World Cup 2018 ball was on the grass. I tried to beat my solo header record (four) but gave up because I couldn’t concentrate. The plastic, all mangled. That look on Mrs Martin’s face. Me, going RED … With a sigh I went back in where I did Minecraft on Mum’s phone until the battery died. I rooted in her bag for her charger, understanding why she can never find her keys when I saw the lipsticks and sketchpads and her bamboo coffee cup and all the other stuff in there.

And then my eyes fell on a box. Small. Hard and square. It had a little gold star stuck on, the sight of which made me feel a lot better. What had Mum bought me? The box really was tiny – a new Subbuteo man? A Jacky Chapman one? And why had she bought it? Was it because I was upset over Mrs Martin? Maybe she had been listening after all. Knowing that I shouldn’t look inside – but that I definitely was going to look inside – I began to open it. The doorbell made me jump, though, and Mum shouted out for me to answer it.

I shoved the little box back inside her bag.

It was Stephan at the door, though it took me a second to recognise him. For one thing, it was a bit odd to see him at Auntie Mill’s and for another he normally wears jeans and a hoody. He had a jacket on for some reason and he’d flattened his hair down. And he looked nervous – had he heard about Auntie Mill’s cooking? I was going to reassure him that Mum was doing it tonight but I didn’t get a chance – Auntie Mill came bustling through.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how lovely!’

Auntie Mill held her hands out for the bunch of flowers that Stephan was holding, which was a bit awkward as he explained that they were actually for Mum. Auntie Mill said what a shame, they were lovely flowers, and she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had bought her any. Stephan said he found that hard to believe and Auntie Mill blushed. She said he was a real charmer and touched his arm, before pushing her hair behind her ear. Mum came out of the kitchen and glared. Mum and Auntie Mill sometimes argue and I thought they might then, actually, but the doorbell went again. This time it was Juni (my cousin).

Juni’s a year older than me. That means that she calls most people ‘SUCH morons’, completely ignores me, and walks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame because someone seems to have Velcro-ed her eyes to her mobile phone. She’d been fencing. Apart from her phone this is her thing and if she’d been at our school Mrs Martin would have made a great song for her. When she wins it’s good, because she breaks her ignoring-me rule to tell me about it. She describes how she lunged forward to stab an opponent or lunged back to stop a different opponent stabbing her. I don’t think she’d won that day, though. Without a word she stomped in, kicked open the cellar door and bunged her mask down the stairs. She followed that by chucking her sword down after it, and then she announced that there was only one thing in the ENTIRE world that she hated more than fencing.

‘And that’s my ENTIRELY STUPID mum for making me DO IT!’

Then she noticed Stephan.

‘DO I know you?’ she said.

Stephan smiled, and held his hand out for a shake. ‘Stephan,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve …’

‘Not helpful.’ Juni sighed. ‘Why would I care about your name? Who are you?’

‘Oh.’ Stephan looked round, but Mum and Auntie Mill were back in the kitchen. ‘I’m a friend of Janet’s, Cym’s mum? I’ve …’

‘Well, if you are her friend,’ Juni said, holding up a hand to stop him, ‘then why aren’t you at her house?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘If you are her friend, what are you doing here? MUM!’ Juni bellowed. ‘What’s this friend of Cym’s mum doing in OUR house?!’

Auntie Mill came back then – and explained. Stephan was staying for supper. She smiled at Juni in a wiry sort of way, and asked if she’d kindly go upstairs to change. She turned back into the kitchen while Juni hissed, shaking her head until she finally noticed me. Her hands went to her hips as she pinned me with her eyes.

‘À point,’ she said.

‘Sorry? “Ah …”?’ I stared. Juni goes to a posh school and I wondered if this was something you got taught there.

Juni closed her eyes, then opened them again. ‘À point. Please tell me you know what that means.’

I thought hard but had to shrug.

‘Unbelievable! It’s a way to cook steak.’

‘Cool. Thanks for telling me that.’

‘Wait. I am not just telling you – what am I, your teacher?’

‘Then …?’

‘Listen. Thursday is steak night. Tell Mum I want mine à point and that she MUST NOT overdo it. Your limited brain can remember that?’

I was about to say yes, or at least I thought so, but Juni swivelled, marched through the living room and banged off up the stairs.

Stephan had his mouth open. ‘She always like that?’

‘She’s nicer when she wins.’

‘Right,’ Stephan said, noticing that his hand was still held out and putting it down by his side.

‘I mean, a bit nicer.’

I tried to tell Auntie Mill about Juni’s steak. I really did, though pretty soon she was busy making ‘drinkies’ and talking to Stephan in the kitchen, and while she did say, ‘Yes, Cym, darling,’ I’m not sure she was really listening. I tried waiting for the conversation to finish but when it did I still didn’t get a chance – because of Stephan.

Now, I do like him. As I’ve mentioned, he’s Mum’s new friend. They go to the pictures on Fridays and he comes over at the weekends sometimes too, with his girls. He fixed my bike tyre that’s been flat FOREVER and he’s good enough at Subbuteo to be worth playing, but not so good that he ever wins. It can be odd, though. In Greenwich Park you can tell that people think we’re all together! One woman told Mum how lovely her daughters were! Mum went red. And, right then, in Auntie Mill’s kitchen, Stephan made a catastrophic grown-up error.

‘So,’ he said, holding his hand over the top of his wine glass when Auntie Mill tried to pour more in, ‘how was school today?’

Adults! TELL me why you ask this question! Isn’t the answer obvious? IT WAS SCHOOL! Unless it has turned into a giant theme park (unlikely), what else is there to say? The only thing that stops me totally bugging out when I’m asked how school was today is that there is, as I’m sure you know, one question that is even MORE pointless. And that is: What did you do at school today? What did I do? Not only do I NOT CARE, but HOW WOULD I KNOW? I’m no longer AT SCHOOL! School has vanished into thin air, it does not exist and will not exist until I have to walk through the door next day. The only thing worse than asking us what we did at school is what Mum does: asks me what I did at school that day WHILE I AM WATCHING THE SIMPSONS.

Sorry, I got a bit cross there and, actually, I shouldn’t have, because when Stephan asked me that day it meant I finally got a chance to talk about Mrs Martin. I told him about the science. I went back and told him about the JE (jelly event). And I told him about my giggle. I ended with the explosion and he was amazed. I hadn’t told him the importance of her bag – her most prized possession – and when I did, his mouth dropped open.

‘And it wasn’t you?’

‘NO!!!’

‘Then who was it?’ he asked, and I sighed. Daisy had asked the same question and it really rang through my head now. I was baffled, though a face did come into my mind that so would have been there before Christmas. It belonged to the kid who used to be the class horror, kicking you from behind on school trips, hiding your pencil case, putting old chewing gum in your coat pocket.

Billy Lee.

But Billy and I had become friends before Christmas so it couldn’t be him. Could it? It must have been someone in Year 6. I started to go through the names but Mum said it was suppertime.

‘Juniper!’ Auntie Mill called. ‘Can you come and set the table, please!’

While we waited for Juni to come and help (never going to happen) Mum went into a faff wondering where everyone should sit. Auntie Mill set the table herself, telling us that Clay was going to a friend’s house. She still set six places, however, doing most of them normally, though at the head of the table she stacked up lots of glossy magazines where the plate was supposed to go. Stephan looked at me and I looked at Stephan but neither of us knew why. Then Juni came down, bumping into a chair and then a floor lamp as she walked across the living room.

‘Where’s my stinky brother?’ she said, texting.

‘Friend’s house.’

‘Great.’ TEXT. TEXT. ‘I’ll get his steak, then.’ PING!

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I don’t think there’s going to be—’

PING! Juni wasn’t listening. ‘Where’s Dad?’ she said, pulling her chair out with one hand. TEXT. TEXT. TEXT. TEXT. PING! TEXT. Stephan and I didn’t know so couldn’t answer, so she shouted, ‘MUM? Where’s DAD?’ TEXT. PING!

There was quite a lot of crossness in Juni’s voice and I thought I knew why. My Uncle Chris used to work all the time in this big glass building (not a greenhouse, one with computers in). He was never home for anything. He’d promised to change, though, so where was he?

‘Well?’ Juni demanded, as Auntie Mill came through. TEXT. TEXT. PING! PING! PING!

‘Look, love—’ Auntie Mill winced, and stared at the side of Juni’s bowed head. ‘Daddy had to take a little trip.’

TEXT. ‘Typical.’ TEXT. PING! ‘And he’s not my “daddy”, he’s my dad.’ TEXT. PING! TEXT. ‘How little?’

‘Well …’

TEXT. ‘I mean, is he getting back soon?’ TEXT. TEXT. TEXT. TEXT. ‘Or not till after supper?’

‘Neither. He’s in …’

‘His –’ TEXT – ‘office?’

‘No. America.’

‘What?’ Finally, and with great effort, Juni did rip her eyes from her phone.

‘New York, to be absolutely precise.’

‘But he doesn’t do that any more!’ PING!

‘I know, love. But some investors got in touch. Look, he’s just not here. But it’s only one night.’

‘That’s not the point!’ PING! PING! ‘My maths is due tomorrow!’

‘I can help you with that.’

‘You? I might as well ask the goldfish.’

‘I beg your par—’

‘Or Cymbeline.’

‘Hey!’

‘Well, maybe you won’t have to.’ Auntie Mill sighed, turning to the magazines. I noticed then that she had an iPad in her hand, which she put on top of the stack.

‘Your dad said he’d be here,’ she muttered. ‘And he’s going to be. Sort of.’

PING!

Auntie Mill started fiddling with the iPad. Juni started arguing with her again but then stopped – but not to answer any of the pings. Mum had come in with a tray. On it were three serving bowls, which Juni and I stared at as Mum set them down on the table.

‘What,’ Juni said, ‘is that?’

Now, I don’t often side with Juni, but I have to admit that I too wanted to know the answer to this question. You see, in the bowl that was nearest to me was what I can only describe as shiny brown sludge. The next bowl was pretty similar except that the sludge in that one was yellow. The third bowl also had sludge in, though that was green.

With bits in.

‘Supper,’ Mum said.

Juni shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It. Is. Not.’

‘It is! Dhal! Sort of curry. First time I’ve made it. That’s split pea dhal with ginger, and that’s lentil dhal, and that’s paneer.’

‘Pan—?’

‘Cheese. Indian cheese.’

‘That is not cheese.’

‘Then what is it?’ asked Mum.

‘That,’ Juni insisted, ‘is vomit.’

‘What?’

‘From three different people by the looks of it, because vomit from only one person looks the same. Why are you putting vomit on the table, Auntie Janet? And, Mum?!’ She turned to Auntie Mill, who was now waving at the iPad. ‘Why can’t I smell steak cooking?’

PING!!!

‘!!MUM!!’

The volume of that shout from Juni finally got Auntie Mill’s attention and she turned to her daughter. ‘Steak?’ she said.

‘It’s Thursday.’

‘But Stephan’s a vegetarian.’

‘Why do I care what Stephan is?!’

‘Because he is our guest, darling.’

‘So? And why is he, anyway?’

‘Auntie Janet wanted us to meet him properly. We’ll do steak another—’

‘Are you a complete imbecile?’ Juni hissed. ‘Or just a partial one? Steak has to be on Thursday to replenish my depleted protein stocks after fencing! And anyway, I’m not putting something in my body that looks like it just came out of someone else’s!!’

‘Juniper,’ Mum hissed. ‘Don’t be so rude!’

‘What? You can’t tell me off.’ PING!

‘Well, someone should,’ said Mum.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Auntie Mill, flashing round to Mum. ‘It’s up to me to discipline her.’

‘Then why don’t you?’ Mum said. (PING! PING!) ‘The way she speaks to people! If she ever does actually speak to people, instead of just spending all day –’ PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! PING! – ‘OH! If she were my daughter I’d—’

‘Hello, everyone!’ came a cheerful voice from the head of the table.

That stopped Mum and Auntie Mill. We all looked round but there was no explanation – until Auntie Mill’s iPad came alive.

‘Uncle Chris!’ I shouted.

My Uncle Chris was on the screen, squinting into the camera. (It explained why Auntie Mill needed the Internet.) He had a napkin tucked in his shirt and behind him I could just make out tables and chairs with people at them. Wherever he was, it was noisy.

‘Cymbo!’ he answered, before looking round. ‘Are you there? Groovy. Oh, there’s lot’s of you.’

‘This is Stephan,’ I said. ‘Though normally only on Fridays.’

‘Right. Welcome, Stephan. I think we’ve actually met, haven’t we? Sorry I can’t be there.’ Uncle Chris held out his hand. Stephan did the same and they did a mid-air virtual shake. Then Uncle Chris turned to Juni.

‘Pickle!’

‘I’VE TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT!’

‘Sorry. And sorry not to be there. But this’ll do, won’t it?’

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