Longest Whale Song (24 page)

‘You're a matching pair. What kind of animals are you? Are you . . . little monkeys?'

Lily and Meggie shake their heads, giggling.

‘Are you . . . great big hippopotamuses?'

They start squealing with laughter as he runs through all the animals he can think of. I watch a little sourly, still worrying about Martha.

‘Hey there, chickie,' says Auntie Mavis. She sits down on the sofa beside me and then reaches out and pulls me onto her lap. I know I'm much too old for this sort of cuddle, but it feels so
good
to snuggle against her warm cardigan and have her arms go round me tight.

‘How's my special big girl?' she says.

I don't want to be big at all. I want to be as little as the twins and Samson, and then I could stay with Aunty Mavis and I wouldn't have to go to school, let alone after-school club.

The next day I tell myself that Miss Anderson might have forgotten all about fixing it up. She doesn't
always
remember things. She doesn't mention it all the way through school and I think it's fine. Jack isn't going to be picking me up until five o'clock but I don't care. I'll hide in the girls' toilets so people won't see I'm waiting. I've got my whale book and I've even got provisions. Toby secretly shared his bumper chocolate bar with Joseph and me while we were working on our Tudor project. He said all that thinking about food was making him feel starving. I ate one square to show I was
very grateful, but hid the rest in my school bag. I was so worried about after-school club I didn't have much appetite, even for chocolate.

The bell goes for the end of school, and Miss Anderson stands up and says goodbye to us, and then she starts packing her bag up, goes out of the door – oh glory, she really
has
forgotten! I rush out of the room – but, oh no, she's standing in the corridor, waiting for me.

‘I thought I'd take you over to after-school club, Ella. I've fixed it all up with Mrs Matthews and Miss Herbert.'

My heart is thudding. I feel sick. ‘Thanks, Miss Anderson, but it's OK, I know where it is. I'll go by myself,' I gabble, thinking,
Oh no I won't
.

Maybe she can see inside my head.

‘I'll take you,' she repeats, smiling at me.

So she walks me round to the hall as if I'm one of the infants. She even stops on the way and asks me if I need to go to the toilet. This gives me an idea. I spend a very long time in the toilet, until Miss Anderson comes into the room, calling me.

‘Are you all right in there, Ella?'

‘No, Miss Anderson,' I say, flushing the lavatory and coming out. I try to look as weak and white as possible. ‘I've just been sick,' I announce.

‘Oh dear,' says Miss Anderson. ‘Perhaps it was
the chocolate you ate while you were doing your Tudor project.'

How did she
know
? Toby passed the chocolate bar under the desk ever so discreetly. Teachers can be so spooky at times, the way they know stuff.

‘Perhaps I'd better go and lie down on that couch in Mrs Andrews's office until my stepdad comes for me,' I say.

‘No, if you don't feel well you need someone keeping an eye on you, and Mrs Andrews will be going home soon. Come on.'

‘But I can't go to after-school club – I might be sick again. And I might infect all the others with my sick bug. Imagine if we all started vomiting simultaneously.'

‘I think your imagination is a little too much in evidence at times, Ella,' says Miss Anderson. She takes me by the shoulder and steers me out of the girls' toilets. There's nothing I can do. We go plod plod plod down the corridors to the hall.

Miss Anderson takes me right up to Mrs Matthews. ‘This is Ella, Mrs Matthews,' she says.

‘Ah yes, the little girl you told me about. Yes, I remember you, Ella. You came for a few days last term, didn't you?'

I remember Mrs Matthews too. She's got very bright blonde hair even though she's an old lady,
and she puts her face very close to yours when she talks, and sometimes little bits of her spit spray your face.

‘I'll look after you, Ella, don't worry,' she says. She puts her finger under my chin and taps. ‘Chin up, that's my motto. Now, come and have something to eat.'

‘Ella feels a bit sick, Mrs Matthews,' says Miss Anderson. ‘She might not want anything right now.'

‘Oh dear, have you got the collywobbles, Ella?' says Mrs Matthews loudly, like I'm three – and deaf.

I put my head down and pretend I'm not there.

‘Bye, Ella,' says Miss Anderson.

I'm not even going to reply. It's all her fault I'm here. She pats my shoulder and then goes. And I'm left there, with spraying Mrs Matthews, a whole load of little kids I don't know, some of the big kids I'm not keen on – and Martha.

She comes swaggering up, her chin jutting.

‘Ah, Martha, you're in the same class as Ella, aren't you, darling?' says Mrs Matthews. ‘Can you show her the routine, see if she wants anything to eat? She might not be very hungry because she's feeling a little bit sick.'

Martha's eyes gleam. ‘Yes, I'll look after Ella,
Mrs Matthews,' she says ominously. Then she hisses at me, ‘Oh, poor little baby Ella has to have all the teachers fuss-fuss-fussing. And you suck up to them so, going all dopey and big-eyed and telling tales. No wonder you feel sick. You make
me
feel sick just looking at you. Right, here's the food. Get a plate. You're allowed two sandwiches, egg or Marmite, and a glass of orange squash.'

I help myself and go to sit at a table. Martha follows me, and stands watching while I nibble and sip. She pulls a disgusted face.

‘Yuck! I can't believe you've just eaten that. It's not
really
egg, it's cold sick, and they never use real Marmite, they just smear bread with dog's muck. And fancy drinking that squash! Any fool can see it's wee-wee.'

She's just being stupid. Of course I know she's not serious – and yet I want to spit out my Marmite sandwich right this minute, and the squash in my mug looks horribly convincingly like wee. I heave and Martha laughs.

‘You are
such
a baby,' she says. ‘No wonder Sally can't stick going round with you any more. It's all dribble moan whine, poor little me, boo-hoo. It's
your
fault Dory's gone off with Sally and left me without my best friend.'

‘That's rubbish. Dory doesn't want to be your
friend any more. It's
your
fault,' I hiss back at her.

‘You are
so
pathetic, Ella-Smella. Yeah, you
do
smell, yuck yuck yuck,' she says, holding her horrible little snub nose.

I'm immediately stricken, wondering if I
do
smell. Life is such a rush now I don't always have time for baths – and I know my hair needs washing very badly, especially since it got all sticky with chlorine in the swimming pool. I think Martha's just being hateful. After all, I
know
the sandwiches aren't made with sick and dog's muck. But I'm not
sure
.

Mrs Matthews puts on a cartoon for us on the big screen at the end of the hall, and we all sit cross-legged and watch. Martha sits beside me, and hidden in the crush of children she reaches out with her hands and gives me a horrible Chinese burn on my wrist. I try to give her one back, but the other lady, Miss Herbert, is behind us and sees.

‘What are you up to, Ella? Don't do that, dear. You come and sit over here.' She makes me go and sit with some of the kids in Mr Hawkins's class. I'm glad to get away from Martha, but I hate it that Miss Herbert thinks
I'm
the one who likes to torture people.

I hunch up small, breathing in deeply and anxiously to see if I
do
smell. I can't get interested in the silly cartoon. It seems to be about pirate mice.
One of them is forced to walk the plank and falls into the sea, and then a huge whale comes swimming along and swallows him whole, and I start to get interested – but the whale is drawn all wrong, and inside him he has a whole suite of rooms where the pirate mouse sets up residence. Then the mouse discovers that the whale can sing, and I get hopeful that I might hear what a real whale sounds like – but this cartoon whale throws back his great head and sings Italian opera, which I suppose is quite amusing, but very silly too. Everyone else is laughing but I don't find anything really funny nowadays.

The cartoon finishes and Mrs Matthews snaps on the light and produces six bouncy balls. She announces that we're all going to play team games so we can let off steam. Oh no, I hate team games at the best of times – and this is the
worst
.

Martha is one of the team leaders and she hurls the ball at me. I put my hands up but can't catch it in time. It bangs my head so hard I feel it's going to snap straight off my neck.

‘Whoops! Sorry, Ella, that was an accident,' Martha calls cheerily for Mrs Matthews's benefit.

It was accidentally
on purpose
. I've gone all shivery wondering what she's going to do next. We have to stand with our legs wide apart while the
head of the line throws the ball down, and Martha manages to make it bounce painfully onto my kneecap. When
I'm
at the head of the line, I try to throw it to hurt her, but I've always been a bit rubbish at ball games and can't throw hard enough.

We have to suffer these team games for
ages
– and then at last we're allowed to stop and sit down properly at tables. The little ones are given paper and crayons. The older ones are allowed to get on with their homework or read a book.

I've got some spellings to learn but I can't be bothered with them. I get out my latest whale book and my whale project. It's fatter than ever, fifty-eight pages now. I've never written anything as long. I start flicking through, watching the whales swim quietly through my own hand-coloured turquoise and cobalt seas – and then a hand stabs at the page like a giant squid on the attack.

‘Push
off
, Martha,' I say through clenched teeth.

‘No, let me see. I want to look. Oh God, it's so
boring
, whale after whale. Can't you do anything
else
?'

‘I like whales,' I say.

‘Yes, but what's it all for? It's not like it's a school project.'

‘It's just for me, though I've shown it to Joseph and he likes it.'

Martha snorts derisively. ‘That sad geek!'

‘He's not the slightest bit sad or geeky. He happens to be the most interesting, intelligent boy – but you wouldn't appreciate that, seeing as you're not interesting
or
intelligent. Now shove off, and leave my project
alone
.'

But her hateful fingers still scrabble at my book, and she turns over more of the pages, practically tearing them. She gets to the title page, where I've drawn the word WHALES with a big illuminated letter W, with tiny whales swimming up and down in this enclosed ocean. She pretends to read: ‘
Whales, by Ella Very Babyish and Boring Lakeland.
'

She flicks the page over. ‘What's this?' She pauses at my dedication page. ‘
To my dear mother Sue with all my love
,' she reads out.

‘Shut up! That's private.'

‘You've dedicated your book to your
mother
? Well, that's plain stupid. How can she read it if she's stuck in this coma?'

‘She won't always be in a coma.'

‘Yeah, but even if she comes
out
of this coma, she won't be able to read your silly whale book.'

‘Yes she will!'

‘No, Sally's mum told Dory's mum.
Your
mum's never going to be able to do anything. She won't be able to walk or talk. She'll just be a vegetable.'

‘Shut
up
!'

‘She'll be Poor Mummy Parsnip. Or Sad Mummy Sprout. Or Batty Mummy Broccoli.'

I snatch my project, lift it high, and hit Martha hard with it on the top of her head.

She stares at me, stunned. Then she snatches it back from me, her face flooding crimson. She takes hold of the pages and rips and rips and rips. I scream and wrestle with her. She scratches me down my face, I punch her right on the nose – and then we're torn apart. Mrs Matthews hauls me away, her arms round my waist. Miss Herbert has hold of Martha. All the other children are on their feet, staring and squealing excitedly.

‘Now, settle
down
, children! Get on with your homework!' Mrs Matthews shouts, showering the top of my head with spit.

Then she staggers with me to the top of the hall while Miss Herbert drags Martha there too.

‘How
dare
you two behave like animals!' says Mrs Matthews. ‘I
won't
have that kind of violent behaviour at after-school club. Hitting and scratching each other like hooligans! Just look at you!'

Martha's cut my cheek and I've made her nose bleed. We stand there, hot and panting, glaring at each other. I see the crumpled page in Martha's
clenched fist. I see the other pages strewn in her wake and I burst into floods of tears.

‘Now then, Ella, I don't think you're hurt
that
badly,' says Mrs Matthews. ‘Look at Martha's poor nose – and
she's
not crying.'

‘Yes, because Ella's a baby, and she thinks she won't get told off if she goes boo-hoo-hoo,' says Martha, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and smearing blood across her mouth.

‘Here, here!' Miss Herbert comes running with tissues for both of us.

‘Now tell me
why
you started this ridiculous fight,' Mrs Matthews demands.

‘
I
didn't start it,' says Martha.

‘Ella hit her right on the head with her book –
bonk
!' says one of the little boys, sounding awed.