Agatha Parrot and the Floating Head (4 page)

‘But I must take him to the office to be checked,' said Miss Barking. ‘He'll need an accident report, and then he'll have to go home.'

‘No way,' said Ivy shaking her head. ‘He just needs a quick run round the playground to loosen up, don't you Rory?'

Rory was shaking his head stupidly.

‘Oh, so you
don't
need a run?' said Ivy. ‘That's good, isn't it Miss Barking? He must be better already.'

Good one Ivy!
The two of us dragged Rory away from Miss Barking. He was pretending to limp because he thought we'd feel sorry for him. He thought wrong.

‘Walk properly,' hissed Ivy. ‘She's watching, and if she sends you home, we won't get to see the mummies.'

‘You're lucky Martha's not here,' I said. ‘She'd have made you run round the playground.'

Rory shook us off him and stomped away. He was sulking so much he forgot to limp
ha ha big loser!

But then we realised, where was Martha? She had never missed lunchtime before. We asked around and in the end it was Bianca Bayuss who told us with a very serious face:

‘She was toiling to the runnets.'

We love Bianca. Don't always
understand her, but love her. Try again Bianca . . .

‘She was tunning to the roylets.'

Eh? Yikes!
No wonder Bianca was serious. She was trying to tell us Martha was
running to the toilets
. Ivy and me went to check and there was Martha leaning her face over a washbasin. She wasn't looking well, so we were hoping that nobody else had seen her, but we were too late. There was somebody else already
in there. Gwendoline Tutt.

Gwendoline lives on Odd Street too, but she's in one of the big houses up at the far end. It should be number 59 but that's not posh enough for the Tutt family. They had to give their house a name instead. Are you ready for this?
Tomen Sbwriel
. Apparently her mum saw it on a sign in Wales and liked the sound of it which is a bit weird because the rest of us can't even say it.

Gwendoline is in the other class from us so she wasn't getting to see the mummies and so she had been in a real mood all week. Typical Gwendoline, it was her fault anyway because she had been the one to miss a week off school when she went skiing while we were stuck in lessons. All the same, Gwendoline was the one who moaned the most because she was like that.

Gwendoline was staring at Martha. ‘What's up with her?' she demanded.

‘Nothing,' I said. I couldn't let Gwendoline know Martha was sick! I had to think of a good excuse. ‘She just likes looking down plugholes, don't you Martha? In fact so do I.' I shoved my face in the next basin. ‘Oooh, that's a nice one.'

Ivy stuck her head in a basin too. ‘Mine's even better!' she said, but then being Ivy she had to go a bit mad. ‘Oh wow that's soooo cool, love it love it love it.'

‘You weirdos,' said Gwendoline but then she pulled a face and left thank goodness.

We got Martha standing up straight but her face was looking a bit green which wasn't good. If anyone found out she was ill then she'd be sent home and we'd miss our day out.

‘I bet I know why you're woozy Martha,' said Ivy. ‘It's that octopus paste isn't it? Go on, admit it. Octopus octopus octopus . . .'
Martha was looking even greener but Ivy wouldn't shut up. ‘Just imagine having a lot of chopped up octopus arms inside you!'

Martha's Insides

Martha's eyes were rolling and I was having to hold her up which was hard work because Martha's quite a healthy size if you know what I mean. ‘Stop it Ivy!' I said, but she started waving her arms around excitedly.

‘Hey, what if they all came alive at once? Blodge bubble blop blop blop . . .'

Whooops!
Martha stuck her head straight back into the basin.

‘Brilliant,' said Ivy. ‘If she's sick
then I won't owe her a million billion pounds any more.'

‘You big ninny,' I said. ‘If a teacher sees her, they'll send her home. Quick, watch the door.'

Ivy whizzed off to keep a lookout while I splashed a bit of cold water in Martha's face. Eventually she straightened up again and took a few deep breaths.

‘That was close!' she gasped. ‘Sorry.'

‘Don't worry about it,' I told her. ‘We just need to get you through the afternoon. I've got an idea but we'll need help.'

B
y the time lessons had started, Ivy had got round all the other girls and told them what was going on and what they had to do. I helped Martha into class and sat her in Ellie Slippin's seat by the window but Miss Pingle didn't notice.
She's a new teacher and she's really good because her hair changes colour every week, and she can never work the computer. She was busy having a panic because the electronic white board was showing a poem about acorns when she needed to do times tables. She didn't notice that Martha was going green again.

‘Please can we open the window?' I asked.

‘What for?' she asked. (This week's
hair colour = deep orange by the way. Very nice too.)

‘We're so hot,' I said.

‘Hot? Really?' Miss P looked up and saw all the girls mopping their foreheads and gasping for air. Ivy was leaning right back in her chair fanning herself with her spelling book which was taking it a bit far, but that's Ivy for you. Anyway Miss P has only been out of college a year so she's still bright-eyed and
trusting bless her.

‘All this hotness must be that global warming you were teaching us about,' I said. ‘And you were absolutely right. You're such a good teacher.'

‘Am I?' asked Miss Pingle looking very pleased.

‘You must be, because we're boiling, aren't we?' said Ivy. All the girls nodded, but the boys just looked shocked.

‘I'm cold,' said Matty.

‘Me too,' said Liam and the other boys.

‘Then you should cuddle up to keep warm,' said Ivy and the girls all laughed.

‘URGHHHHH!' said all the boys. ‘We're not that cold.'

‘So can we have the window open a bit?' I asked.

‘I suppose so,' said Miss Pingle and that's when she noticed Martha
in Ellie's seat. ‘Why have you two swapped?'