Just Tricking! (17 page)

‘Where are you?'

‘I'm right here!'

‘No you're not. Not as far as I can see. Your chair is empty.'

‘Can you still hear me?'

‘Yes. Now go outside! Remember our deal?'

‘Okay,' says Danny. ‘I'm out a here.'

Danny gets up out of his seat and walks off.

Mrs Wharton is coming slowly towards me.

I go back to my assignment and do my best imitation of a serious student.

Just as she's walking past my desk I hear the most enormous belch.

It's so loud it practically rocks the foundations of the library.

For a moment I think it was Mrs Wharton. But that – of course – is ridiculous. Only Danny can do them that loud.

I look around. Sure enough, Danny is killing himself laughing in the aisle.

Mrs Wharton stops.

‘Excuse me!' she says. ‘Was that you?'

‘No, Mrs Wharton,' I say.

‘Then who was it, pray tell? A ghost?'

‘I don't know, Mrs Wharton. But it wasn't me.'

‘I don't believe you. What are those?' she says, pointing at the lollies, which Danny has thoughtfully left sitting on my desk in full view.

‘Um . . . lollies, Mrs Wharton.'

‘I presume you know the rule about eating in the library.'

‘Yes, Mrs Wharton.'

‘And you know that it specifically excludes chewing gum, bubble gum
and
lollies?'

‘Yes, Mrs Wharton. I'll get rid of them.'

‘No you won't,' she says, ‘I will.'

She holds out her hand. I pick up the tube and give it to her. Little does she realise she's doing me a big favour.

She walks on up the aisle without another word.

That was close. I'm going to kill Danny after school. With any luck, he's kept his promise and is outside by now.

Thump!

A book lands on the carpet next to my desk. It's
The Wonderful World of Freshwater Fish,
and I have no doubt who threw it.

Another book sails over the top of the shelves and lands on my desk. Whack! Another hits the top edge of the desk and bounces off onto the student in front of me.

‘Ouch!' he yells, turning to me. ‘Quit it!'

I shrug.

‘It wasn't me,' I say.

The books keep coming. And so does Mrs Wharton.

‘Stand up!' she says. ‘Would you mind telling me what's going on here?'

‘Somebody is throwing books over the tops of the shelves,' I say.

‘Who?'

‘I don't know.'

She strides off and checks each of the aisles. Any moment now she's going to see Danny and chuck him out. Good riddance I reckon.

‘I can't see anybody,' she says. ‘Perhaps you'd better tell me how these books really ended up on the floor.'

I don't know what to say.

Over Mrs Wharton's shoulder I can see the A–G fiction shelf rocking back and forth. Danny's gone crazy. The excitement of thinking he's invisible has gone to his head. I've got to stop him before he goes too far.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Wharton,' I say. ‘Back in a minute.'

‘Where do you think you're going?'

I dash to the seriously rocking shelf to try to pull Danny away and bring him to his senses, but it's already too late. The shelf tilts too far to the right. All the books fall onto the carpet. The force of the bookshelf striking the next shelf pushes it over and the combined weight of these two pushes the third shelf over. Just like a row of dominoes. Except heavier. And louder.

There is silence. Nobody can believe what they've just seen.

I turn around. Mrs Wharton is speechless. She is opening and closing her mouth like a fish.

But Danny hasn't finished yet.

He's approaching Mrs Wharton from behind, one of her prized hanging-basket ferns in his hand. The ferns that she waters so lovingly every morning before school. The ferns that if anyone so much as looks at them – let alone touches them – they cop one of Mrs Wharton's famous glares.

Danny's staring straight ahead and carrying the pot plant in his raised outstretched arms, like it's the AFL Premiership Cup.

‘No!' I yell, but it's like he's possessed.

He tips it upside down over Mrs Wharton's head. Fern fronds and clumps of dirt and little white fertiliser pellets spill all over her hair, down her face and onto her yellow dress. They collect in a pile at her feet.