Agatha Parrot and the Floating Head (9 page)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

‘Yes Miss, it's your boyfriend Dave wearing funny shorts and eating an ice cream.'

‘Eeeek!' said Miss Pingle blushing bright red. She wiggled the mouse around and clicked it a few times. We got a green triangle
that said it measured 5cm along the bottom BORING then we got a map of Birmingham followed by a nice one of Dave and Miss P doing some
LONG KISSING.

Wa-hoo!
Suddenly the white board went black because Miss P freaked out and pushed all the buttons on the keyboard at once. ‘Oh dear what a pity it's broken,' she said. ‘Never mind, we'll just try to act it out instead.'

Acting out the Tudors? Brilliant.
Miss P had found this old play about
Henry the Eighth
. It was called
Henry the Tudor Dude
. Matty got to be King Henry and Liam was the funny executioner.

‘Who wants to be one of Henry's wives?' asked Miss Pingle. Ivy always wants to do acting parts, so her hand shot up in the air.

‘Oh yeah wow me please wow yeah please me yeah wow please can I please please please . . .?'

‘YES IVY YOU CAN!' said Miss Pingle otherwise Ivy would never have shut up. ‘You can be Catherine of Aragon. And Martha, you can be Anne Boleyn.'

It was only then that we realised that Ivy had been holding the Other Martha's arm to keep her steady, and when she'd put her hand up it looked like Martha had put her hand up too. This was going to make things a bit awkward!

I
f you know the story of
Henry VIII
then you'll know that he had Anne Boleyn's head chopped off. (If there's any space left at the end of the book, I'll tell you about Henry and
his wives because it's dead interesting and he chops his wife's head off twice. That's not the same wife by the way
ha ha!
The second one was a different one but they both turned into ghosts. How cool is that? You'll love it.)

Liam had got all excited about this head chopping business because he was the executioner. ‘I can't wait!' he said. ‘But how do I chop Anne Boleyn's head off in the play?'

‘With this!' Miss Pingle held up something she'd found in the store room.
Ta-dah
. . . you should have seen Liam's face! He was expecting a whopping great metal axe, but it turned out to be about the size of a spoon, made of soft gold plastic and had
Pirate Pete
written on it. If Henry's axe had been like that, they wouldn't have needed to chop Anne's head off because she would have died laughing.

Miss Pingle passed the axe over
to Liam so he could have a practice swinging it round. Everybody was watching him, apart from me and Ivy. We were wondering what was going to happen when he had a go at the Other Martha? All we could do was play along and hope for the best.

While the others weren't looking, we bent the Other Martha over the table so the hood with the balloon in it was sticking over the edge. It looked exactly like Anne Boleyn would
have looked on the chopping block, especially if Anne had been wearing a blue coat with yellow spots. Maybe she was? I don't know, they never tell you things like that.

‘Anne Boleyn's all ready,' said Ivy.

‘Thank you Catherine of Aragon,' said Miss Pingle and we all laughed a bit even though it wasn't all that funny.

The blinds were still down so I took the chance to pretend that it really was Martha for Miss Pingle's sake.

I bent down and said to the hood, ‘Don't worry, we'll make sure Liam doesn't really chop your head off. You just make sure you lie perfectly still.'

At least that was the one thing that the Other Martha could do!

Everybody cleared a space as Liam came over with his axe. He raised it up ready to chop off Anne Boleyn's head. Miss Pingle passed Matty a piece of paper with a line for him to read out.

‘Anne Boleyn, you have been
found GUILTY,' said Matty in a big king-ish voice. Everybody cheered
HOORAY
SUPER BRILLIANT GET ON WITH IT. ‘Executioner, do your duty!'

‘STOP!' came a voice from the doorway.

Oh potties. Not HER. It was just starting to be fun.

‘Miss Barking?' said Miss Pingle. ‘What can I do for you?'

Miss Barking walked straight up
to Liam and took the plastic axe from him. She held it very carefully at arm's length as if it was an old smelly football sock.

‘I was just coming to tell you that I'll be your second member of staff on the museum trip tomorrow. But there won't be any museum trip if this is what you're going to teach them, Miss Pingle.'

How BORING was that?
The trip wouldn't be any fun at all if Miss Barking was coming.

‘But it's only a plastic toy,' protested Miss Pingle.

‘It shouldn't even be in the
classroom,' said Miss Barking passing it over to Miss Pingle. ‘See it goes back to the store room now. While you're out I'll make something more suitable for you to use.'

Miss Pingle wasn't pleased at all, but Miss Barking was the deputy headteacher, so she had to do what she said. Once Miss Pingle had gone, Miss Barking made everybody stand back out of the way as she found two thin sheets of cardboard. She rolled
one up into a tube and wrapped some tape around to hold it. Then she cut a blade shape out of the other piece and stuck it on the end. She held it up.

‘There, children! It's completely harmless, but it looks just like the real thing.' Then the cardboard tube bent and the whole thing flopped over like a dead daffodil.
Ha ha ha ha ha!

‘How can I use that?' asked Liam.

‘You just need to hold it properly,' said Miss Barking. ‘I'll show you.'

Miss Barking came walking over to where me and Ivy were standing
next to the the Other Martha who was still bending over the table.
Oh no panic panic!
If Miss Pingle had found out about the Other Martha then maybe it wouldn't have been too bad . . . but what if Miss Barking found out? Eeeek! Ivy had her eyes clenched tight shut and all her fingers crossed and was muttering away in fear.

‘Is she all right?' asked Miss Barking, pointing at Ivy with her
floppy axe.