A Thousand Water Bombs (18 page)

‘Why did you tell him about Tribe?’ said Fifty. ‘Why didn’t you talk about . . . ?’

‘The weather?’ I said. That’s what we’re famous for in this country.

Copper Pie wasn’t happy either. ‘Babysitting doesn’t mean blabbing.’

‘He’s a stranger and he usually speaks Portuguese. What was there to chat about?’ Jonno was getting it in the neck and he didn’t like it. His voice wasn’t
apologetic any more. It was miffed. He stared at Copper Pie. ‘What would you have done?’

It was a pointless question. Copper Pie wouldn’t have tried to be friendly in the first place.

‘OK. OK,’ said Bee. ‘But I bet you made Tribe sound really fantastic, didn’t you?’

‘I might have,’ said Jonno, squirming a bit.

‘How fantastic?’ I asked.

‘I can guess,’ said Fifty. ‘Initiations, tackling gangs, standing up to the Head in assembly – that sort of thing.’

Jonno nodded. ‘That’s about it.’

I could see the others thought it made things worse, but I could see a way to use what Jonno had said to put Marco off.

‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘we should make Tribe sound so dangerous, so wild, so . . . scary, that he’s too chicken to join. That could work.’

I looked round at the faces of my friends. Copper Pie smiled – an evil smile.

‘I like it.’

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

‘Superb idea, Keener,’ said Bee. ‘What d’you think, Jonno?’

‘I’ll do whatever I have to.’

‘Good,’ said Fifty.

‘Marco can’t be a Triber,’ I said. ‘He might be all right. But so are Ed and Lily and they don’t get to join. I don’t want to be nasty but —’

‘We get the idea, Keener,’ said Bee.

‘So, what’s the plan?’ said Fifty. ‘We go surfing tomorrow and spend all day putting him off with tales of how fabulously daring we are? Like the Three
Musketeers.’

He pretended to swipe Copper Pie with an imaginary sword. It was hard, because he’s so small and cute-looking, to imagine he could be part of a Tribe too frightening to belong to.
Oh
well!

‘It won’t be that easy to do with Keener’s dad’s there,’ said Bee.

Good point,
I thought.

‘But the longer we let him think he’s one of us, the harder it’ll be to shake him off,’ said Fifty.

‘So let’s do it now,’ said Copper Pie.

‘He’s not here, duh!’ said Bee.

‘But we could get him here, duh!’ said Copper Pie. ‘Jonno’s his best buddy – he could ring him.’

‘I could . . .’ Jonno looked around to see whether it was a ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decision.

‘Do it,’ said Bee. ‘If we get rid of him today, he won’t come with us tomorrow, will he?’ She clapped her hands together as though it was all sorted.

Jonno got his phone out and made the call.

‘He’s coming.’

It was almost too easy. We waited in the Tribehouse. I hoped the others had some ideas for scary stories because I had none, zilch, zero.

I had a question though. ‘Jonno, why did you ask my dad if Marco could come? Why didn’t you ask me?’

‘Keener, think about it. Do you think I would ring you or your dad?’

Me,
I thought. ‘Me,’ I said.

‘So do you think I asked Flo for you or your dad?’

Me,
I thought. ‘Me,’ I said.

‘Exactly. It was Flo who decided to give me to your dad.’

‘Figures,’ I said. It made me feel better, knowing Jonno didn’t go behind my back on purpose, but not better enough to stop worrying about what we could say to scare off
Marked-man-maniac-mountain-boarder Marco. We were quiet for a bit. We heard the doorbell. And then we were quiet for a bit longer, waiting for the doorbell-ringer to arrive in the hut, but it
can’t have been Marco who did the ringing, because no one came.

Except it
was
Marco, and the reason he was so long was because he was chatting to Fifty’s mum.

‘Hello Tribers,’ she said as she came to the door holding Probably Rose’s hand. ‘I understand there’s one more of you now.’ She gave Marco a terrific smile
and he gave her one back.
Help!

‘Hi,’ said Jonno.

‘
Olá!
’ said Marco, beaming at us all.

‘I’ll leave you to it then.’ Fifty’s mum disappeared back up to the house.

‘You’re just in time, Marco,’ said Fifty. ‘We’ve got some trouble and we need muscle.’

Trust Fifty to try and sound like some thug from the underworld. ‘Muscle’ wasn’t likely to be a word Marco knew. We needed to use normal ones.

‘
Que?
’ said Marco. That means ‘what?’ Bee used to say it – no idea why.

‘Trouble,’ said Copper Pie. ‘Fight.’ He put his fists up to demonstrate.

That worked better. Or did it?

Marco stepped back and put his fists up. Fifty quickly waved his hands about and did the talking-to-foreigners voice. ‘No. No. Not with us.’

The fists went down.

‘With bad guys,’ said Bee.

‘And weapons,’ added Copper Pie. This time the demo consisted of cocking an imaginary gun, aiming through an imaginary sniper scope, and firing, complete with recoil. There really is
no hope for that boy.

‘Why fight?’ said Marco. He was already looking a bit worried. Time for me to join in.

‘Because other tribes have been threatening us.’ I made a serious face.

‘With voodoo,’ said Copper Pie.

‘Idiot,’ said Bee, under her breath. ‘We fight, Marco, because we own this area.’ She drew a massive circle with her arm. ‘Understand?’

He nodded.

‘And if you want to join us, you must lead the battle,’ said Fifty. He was really enjoying it – you could tell.

‘Go in front,’ said Bee. ‘On your own.’

‘At midnight,’ said Fifty. ‘Twelve o’clock. Dark time.’ He’d clearly forgotten how to say ‘night’.

‘With a hood. A black hood.’ Copper Pie was trying not to grin as he spoke. ‘And a weapon.’ He did the cock, target, fire, recoil thing again.

It was all going really well, except I was beginning to feel a bit scared. All alone at night in a black hood with a weapon is the stuff of nightmares. Marco looked round at the five of us. We
all stared back.

Jonno, who’d been really quiet, stepped into the middle and adjusted his glasses so he could see over the top of them.

‘Will you, Marco, lead the fight for Tribe?’

Marco’s eyes were massive and maybe a bit watery.

‘No! NO! NO!’

‘Then you can’t join us,’ said Bee, shaking her head and pretending to be sad. ‘We will have to fight alone.’

‘You,’ said Copper Pie, pointing at Marco’s T-shirt. ‘Not Tribe.’ I think he wanted to make it crystal clear.

‘Me. Not Tribe,’ Marco repeated.

I felt loads of different things at the same time: sorry for Marco, but pleased that he was scared, guilty because we’d been mean, but relieved that it was over. He’d got the
message, for sure.

‘Let’s go and see if Mum’ll let us have some biscuits,’ said Fifty, all cheerily.

We piled off after him, with Marco at the back. He didn’t seem so keen on us now he knew we were warriors of the street. Excellent plan of mine. Probably Rose was already tucking in to a
snack. I think it was raisins and apple but she’d obviously spat some of it out so there was a slimy look to it.

‘That looks yummy, Rose,’ said Bee.

‘A-pull.’

‘That’s right – apple.’

Rose stuck out her tongue to show Bee. Hideous. Fifty did the proud-parent face.

‘Can we have something, Mum?’

Fifty’s mum pointed at the worktop – there was a bowl of fruit. Fifty made a face. Fifty’s mum smiled, opened the cupboard door and brought out some rice cakes. Great! I
don’t know why she buys them. I don’t know why we eat them. They’re like cardboard with air holes. Bee tried to give Rose one but she pushed it away and found a soggy raisin
instead.

‘So what have you done with your new recruit?’ said Fifty’s mum.

What had we done with our new recruit?
He wasn’t anywhere obvious. Bee put her head out of the back door.

‘Errr . . . he . . .’ Fifty was struggling for words. An unusual sight.

‘He had to go,’ said Jonno.

Fifty’s mum is not stupid, not where people are concerned anyway. She knew something was up.
Time for a quick exit,
I thought.

‘Thanks for the rice cake. Got to go. See you tomorrow, Fifty.’

‘What time does the torture start?’

‘We’ll be here to pick you up at seven-thirty. Don’t forget your trunks.’

‘I’ve got a feeling you’ll get me in the water whether I’ve got trunks or not, you mer-freak.’

‘Bye Rose.’ I was off. Feeling much better than when I arrived. The Marco problem was solved. All I had to think about was paddling out on my board, waiting for
the
wave and
having the ride of my life.

(I was quite looking forward to having an audience too. Everyone likes showing off something they’re good at, don’t they?)

a sticky situation and not from surf wax

Me and Dad were in the car. We had bacon sarnies in our tummies, two boards on the roof and two wetsuits in the boot. We went to Fifty’s first, then Bee’s, Copper
Pie’s and lastly Jonno’s.

‘One more stop and we’re off,’ said Dad.

‘Why? Do we need diesel?’ I said.

‘No, we’re full,’ said Dad. ‘But we need Marco, don’t we?’

No we don’t,
I thought. We’d forgotten to tell Dad he didn’t want to come any more.

‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ said Fifty, in an utterly unconvincing voice.

‘I think he is,’ said Dad, suspiciously. ‘I spoke to his dad yesterday. No thanks to you.’ Dad looked at me. I’d forgotten all about the text I was meant to send.
‘Took me a while to go through the parents on the class list but eventually I found someone who knew the family.’

I was in the front seat, and I wished I wasn’t. I also wished someone would say something. No one did. Dad drew up outside an ordinary-looking house and as I didn’t jump out to ring
the bell, he did.

I turned round to eyeball the Tribers. Trouble. Dad obviously thought we were trying to leave Marco out. What he didn’t realise was that Marco wanted to be left out.

The conversation at the door went on for a long time. I couldn’t see who Dad was talking to because the porch was casting a shadow. A couple of times Dad turned round and pointed towards
the car. It was excruciating not knowing what was going on. Eventually, Dad shook hands with the hand of the person and came back to the car . . . with Marco and what had to be Marco’s board
in a flash board bag.
So he’s a surfer,
I thought.

‘You! In the back.’ Dad pointed at me. Cross wasn’t the word. He was livid. I got out and climbed in the spare seat in the middle row. Marco took my seat. Dad turned round to
look at us.

‘We are all going to have a nice day. But before we have a nice day, we’re going to have a chat. And then there’ll be some apologies. So enjoy the ride, Tribers, but before we
get in the sea, we’ll run through the conversation you had with Marco yesterday. I’m most interested to hear the details. And after that I’ll tell you how hard I had to work to
make Marco’s dad believe you five are not the most evil children that ever lived.’

Dad talked to Marco all the way to Woolacombe. We were silent, except for a few whispers. I don’t know how the others felt, but I felt ashamed. And frightened. My dad hardly ever gets
angry. And he never shouts even if he is. I’d rather he did. The calm way he deals with things makes it worse. I wanted it to be over and done with. If I’d had the choice I’d have
bent over and had twenty strokes of the cane (like Roald Dahl got from the Headmaster) in preference to two hours waiting for a telling off.

We parked. The sea was looking good. Plenty of nice straight rollers breaking one after the other. Dad got out and we all followed.

‘First things first,’ said Dad and headed for the beach café.

At the food counter Jonno tried to give Dad a note, I think it was a tenner. ‘This is towards the wetsuit and everything.’

‘Thank you, Jonno, but you can keep it,’ said Dad. He turned to the rest of us. ‘I’ve said I’ll catch up with all your parents in the week. They were all so keen to
get you off their hands they were offering me money left, right and centre.’

‘Err . . . thanks,’ said Jonno.

We had more bacon sarnies (Bee asked if they were organic!) and hot chocolate. Jonno sat next to Marco.

‘Can you surf?’

Marco nodded.

‘I can’t.’

‘Nor me,’ said Bee.

‘Same,’ said Fifty.

‘I can’t swim,’ said Copper Pie.

Dad nearly choked on his coffee. ‘You must be able to.’

‘Don’t worry, I can float.’

Bee laughed. It was the first normal thing that had happened since we’d picked up Marco.

‘So, who’s going to fill me in on the meeting you had yesterday in the Tribehouse? The meeting where you told a pack of lies.’

Not me. Especially not with Marco listening.

‘I will,’ said Jonno. ‘I sort of started it.’

That’s the amazing thing about Jonno – he’s brave. Not brave like a knight charging at the enemy, but brave at facing up to things.

‘Go on,’ said Dad.

Jonno explained how he was chatting to Marco and accidentally made him think he could be a Triber, but he can’t, because no one can join – that’s the rule.

‘So we had to put him off,’ said Jonno. He looked over at Marco. ‘Sorry.’ Marco smiled as though everything was fine. That’s when Jonno ran out of words. So Bee
stepped in and finished it off, in a less than honest way.

‘We thought it was kinder to let
Marco
decide not to join Tribe, than for us to say he couldn’t. We thought if Tribe seemed dangerous he wouldn’t want to be part of
it.’

Dad didn’t seem to see it the way we did. ‘So you invented a gang war? And told him he had to lead the Tribe . . . at midnight? Frightening him half to death with talk of
weapons.’ Dad looked straight at Copper Pie.

‘It might seem mean,’ said Bee, not giving up as usual, ‘but we were worried about what to do, because we’d already upset him over the piri-piri.’

It must have been because we were so tense, because it wasn’t
that
funny, but Fifty and Copper Pie started laughing. Dad had no idea why – you could tell from his face.