The Trouble with Sauce (4 page)

Boris didn’t come back to class at all that day. The entire class was itching to find out what had happened to him, but they were stuck in English with Ms Brown.

‘Nothing special has happened,’ Ms Brown said. ‘There’s no need to get excited.’

They ignored her. Anastasia tossed her hair back, thinking how stupid Ms Brown was for not knowing that this was the most exciting thing to have happened in weeks. She decided to risk texting Miranda on the other side of the room, to check whether she could look out the window and see anything happening at the principal’s office. Miranda had forgotten to switch her phone to silent and so a Britney Spears message alert rang out.

Ms Brown glowered at Miranda and then looked straight over to Anastasia.

‘Wasn’t me!’ Anastasia tried to look innocent.

Ms Brown was sure she was the one who had sent a text.

‘Go to the principal’s office!’ she snapped.

‘What?’ the entire class said in shock. There was no way Ms Brown could tell that Anastasia had sent the text.

Jonty couldn’t believe it. ‘You can’t!’ he said out loud. ‘How do you know it was her?’

‘Miranda, your phone please!’

Miranda handed the phone over.

‘There’s nothing from Anastasia since lunchtime, Miss,’ she said. As soon as Ms Brown accused Anastasia she had deleted the text.

‘I don’t care. I
know
it was you, Anastasia. Now go to the principal’s office!’

‘But that’s so unfair — you’ve got no evidence, Ms Brown,’ she protested. ‘I could sue.’

‘I said go and see the principal!’ Ms Brown stood on her toes as she jabbed her finger in the direction of the door.

Anastasia took a deep breath and made a show of not caring. ‘Whatever!’ she said and began to walk out slowly. Halfway there she burst into a run so no one could see that she was about to cry.

When the bell went for the end of the period, everyone jumped up.

‘The class ends when I say —’ Ms Brown tried to get them to sit down again, but it didn’t work. There
was way too much to talk about for them to bother paying attention to her.

On the bus home Jonty texted Boris. ‘U OK wht hapned? Call me.’

He didn’t get an answer all evening. He even tried calling, but the phone was switched off.

‘You can talk to him tomorrow,’ Jonty’s mum said. They had a soccer match the following day.

In the morning Jonty’s dad drove him there and, as usual, started to give him a pep talk in the car. He tried to make out that he was an expert on soccer, but in fact he’d never played. When he was at school he’d played rugby. Mr Townsend looked over at his son. Jonty was so big and strong, playing soccer was such a complete waste! He could demolish a whole forward pack singlehanded.

‘Make sure their flankers don’t come in and cut you off,’ he said.

‘What are flankers?’ said Jonty.

‘Don’t you have them in soccer?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, well then, don’t let Boris get all the best shots. I know he’s your friend, but he never passes the ball. You do call it “passing", don’t you?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ sighed Jonty, ‘we do, and Boris is a really good striker. He scores all the time.’

‘But even I can tell that you set the tries up for him half the time.’

‘They’re goals, Dad. We score goals.’ Jonty shook his head and looked out the car window.

When they finally arrived, the Sports teacher, Mr Gosney approached them straightaway.

‘Right — Boris’s off today,’ he announced.

Jonty frowned. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘He’s — err, well — he’s not playing.’

‘But why? He wasn’t that bad,’ Jonty argued, getting frustrated that no one was telling him what had happened.

‘Jonty!’ his father said. ‘A bit of respect for your teacher, please. Boris is not playing and that’s all we need to know.’ Secretly Mr Townsend was pleased that Boris wasn’t playing. It would give Jonty a chance to shine.

And he was right. Jonty scored two brilliant goals. As he charged down the pitch with the ball, the other players jumped out of the way rather than trying to tackle someone as big as him. It made scoring much easier.

In the car on the way home he talked through several action replays, so his dad understood fully how well he had played. Mr Townsend looked across at him. He would be happy if that best friend of his never turned up to another match.

On Monday morning Jonty saw Boris in the playground. ‘Why didn’t you answer any of my texts?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were in real trouble.’

Boris shrugged.

‘Did you get banned from soccer? How long will you be out? What happened in the principal’s office?’ All Jonty’s questions flew out at once.

‘I wasn’t banned from soccer,’ Boris said. ‘I think it’s a waste of time.’ He walked off, leaving Jonty even more puzzled. Boris
never
thought soccer was a waste of time.

When it was time for Maths, the entire class stood at the back, waiting for Mr Croxall to arrive and tell them where to sit.

‘Have you spoken to Boris?’ Jonty asked Mike.

‘I tried, but he just walked away.’

‘Look at him.’ Jonty pointed. Boris stood still, holding his backpack in his arms and staring ahead. His hair had been cut short. It was combed down with a parting so straight you could draw lines with it. His tie was done up properly. He looked neat — disgustingly neat.

Mr Croxall swept in, looked at Boris and smirked. That would not be the only surprise for the class.

‘Right, Cunningham — chalk!’

One of the boys got down on his hands and knees and drew the chalk circles.

After he was satisfied the desks were all neat, Mr Croxall plugged his USB stick into the laptop and the names began to appear. Nathaniel, as usual, was first.

‘Maria Topou, excellent work, second spot. Hurry up, girl!’ Mr Croxall was eager to continue. ‘Now, here’s a surprise for everyone.’

The name
Boris Brockman
appeared on the screen. He was in third place.

Jonty’s mouth dropped open. On Friday Boris had been sent to the principal and now he was suddenly the third best student in Maths. What had happened?

The only person who wasn’t surprised was Boris. He walked forward, sat at his desk, then turned to Nathaniel and looked right into his eyes. Nathaniel
gulped and decided he better do some extra homework that week.

‘Seems like the trip to the principal’s office was just what Brockman needed,’ Mr Croxall said. ‘He spent the whole of Saturday catching up on his work.

‘Next, Anastasia Micklethwaite — also doing very well.’

Anastasia didn’t smile; she just walked forward and took her spot. Normally when her name was called, she was busy texting. But today her phone was nowhere in sight.

All through Maths, Jonty and Mike tried to get Boris’s attention. They were sitting opposite him, but he looked at the teacher the whole time and wrote tonnes of notes.

‘Right, someone tell the class what the hypotenuse of a triangle is.’

Nathaniel’s hand shot up, but before he could say anything, another voice spoke calmly.

It was Boris.

‘It’s the longest side of the triangle, opposite the right angle. I would estimate the one on the screen is around 8.6 centimetres long, based on the Pythagorean theorem, which states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides. I can only estimate their length, given this is a projected image, but if we
assume the horizontal line is 5 centimetres and the vertical 7 centimetres, then the hypotenuse would be 8.6. Do you concur, Nathaniel?’

Nathaniel stared at him. He had absolutely no idea what a Pythagorean theorem was.

‘I — I —’ he stammered and then gave up. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Even Mr Croxall was stunned. He checked Boris’s calculation on his laptop. ‘You’re right, Boris. Very good.’

Jonty stared at the boy who looked liked Boris sitting opposite him. There was no way his mate Boris could have given that answer. This had to be an evil robot that looked like him.

Mr Croxall continued with the class.

‘Pssst!’
Mike tried to attract Boris’s attention. Unsuccessfully.

Jonty chewed up a bit of paper and flicked it at Boris with his ruler. He missed completely and hit Nathaniel, who looked up sharply.

‘Sorry,’ mouthed Jonty and pointed at Boris.

Nathaniel shrugged. He was as shocked as anyone at Boris’s answer, but he was determined to work out the answer for himself. He would be looking up ‘Pythagorean theorem’ the minute he got home.

Jonty and Mike grew frustrated at being ignored by their friend and eventually Mike snapped.

‘That’s it, I’ve had enough!’

He sneaked a tennis ball out of his backpack and hurled it at Boris, while Mr Croxall was writing on the whiteboard.

‘Ow!’ Boris jumped up glowering at Mike. ‘I was trying to concentrate on my work!’ he shouted.

Mr Croxall whipped round and looked at Boris, who was staring so furiously it seemed like he might explode. ‘Brockman, calm down,’ he said slowly.

The tennis ball bounced around the floor between the desks, but Mike just stood there, stunned at Boris’s anger.

‘Sorry, sir.’ Boris sat down quickly.

‘Did you throw that ball?’

Mike didn’t answer.

‘Answer me!’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Go to the principal’s office immediately!’

‘That’s so unfair. You never used to send anyone to the principal’s office! Why now?’ Mike smarted.

‘You heard me!’ Mr Croxall pointed to the door. If Brockman was an example of what happened in the principal’s office, he would happily send everyone there.

‘But, sir —’ Jonty tried to defend him.

‘NOW!’

Just as Mike started to move, a voice came over the school loudspeaker system. ‘Michelle Moore, Adam Bayes, Meena Shah report to the principal’s
office.’ It seemed that Mike was not the only student behaving badly.

At break the whole school was talking about the number of students who had been sent to the principal’s office. The three from Jonty’s class were nothing; Mr Needham had sent his entire Year 10 Physics class.

‘Something’s definitely up,’ said Jonty. ‘Boris has been taken over by aliens or something.’

‘And Anastasia hasn’t texted anyone all morning,’ Miranda added. ‘That’s seriously weird.’

‘Nelson Barrow, Michael McDougall, Lynn Anderson, report to the principal’s office.’ The loud speaker again.

Lynn Anderson was in the group talking to Jonty. She looked up in alarm. ‘I’ve haven’t done anything,’ she said. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’

‘Don’t go,’ said Jonty suddenly. ‘It’s not right. You shouldn’t have to go just because some official voice tells you to.’

‘I’ll be in even more trouble, if I don’t. Besides, it could because I did really well at something,’ she said. No one believed her.

‘You don’t have to go,’ Jonty argued.

‘I do,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. She swallowed hard, waved goodbye and headed for the principal’s office.

Everyone in the schoolyard stared at the speakers, waiting to see who would be called next — terrified that it would be them. The speakers crackled again. ‘Adam Rubner, John Dyason, Elizabeth Hall report to the principal’s office.’

Prune was sitting on the steps by the library, near where the other students were talking. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said out loud. Everyone turned round.

‘Who cares if you’re sorry?’ Miranda said.

‘It’s my fault. I was using my fortune-telling cards to predict when Croxall was coming back and I kept doing them over. You’re not supposed to do that, see — the cards get angry. And then The Tower came up, which is the worst possible card. It means disaster and that’s exactly what’s happened.’

‘What — you played a game of cards and now the world’s ending?’ Miranda said.

‘Honestly, Prune, this is serious. Go back to your crystals or whatever,’ someone sneered.

Over the next few days, one student after another was sent to the principal’s office. Jonty kept waiting for his name to be called. As each day passed and he hadn’t heard it, he dreaded going to school even more. His name was sure to come up next.

Everyone who went to see the principal came back different. One by one, nearly all of Year 7 paid attention, answered questions brilliantly and behaved perfectly.

Jonty arrived at school one morning, sure that he would be called today. He found a row of students sitting on the library steps, which was now the hot place to be. They were from Year 10 and they all had the same book resting on their knees. They read at exactly the same pace, turned over the same page at the same time. He watched them for a moment and walked off to find Boris and Mike, hoping that perhaps they might be normal again. It wasn’t much
of a hope. Neither of them had responded to a text for days and their MySpace profiles had disappeared.

Across the schoolyard, neat students were sitting quietly, learning. He heard two girls and turned suddenly, recognising the voices of Anastasia and Miranda, but he couldn’t work out what they were saying:

‘Oui, puisque je retrouve un ami si fidèle, Ma fortune va prendre une face nouvelle.’
Anastasia was reciting the lines of an ancient French play.

‘Ca c’est
Andromaque
de Racine
!’ replied Miranda, identifying the source of the lines.

‘Hi!’ Jonty held up his hand to say hello. They walked right past him, testing each other with further lines in French. Their phones were nowhere in sight.

Finally Jonty saw Mike and Boris sitting on a bench under one of the shadecloths. They looked extremely neat. A perfect small knot in Mike’s school tie was pushed right up to the collar. It was spotless. He used to be proud of the stain collection on his tie. He would hide it every weekend so his mum couldn’t wash them out.

‘Hey, Mike,’ Jonty said. ‘What’s going on?’

Mike finished the page he was reading and then looked up slowly. ‘I’m busy,’ he said. He was reading
Physics in Context: the Forces of Life.
It was a Year 12 textbook and hundreds of pages thick. Mike had
always struggled with science. He could barely say what an atom was and now he was reading this massive textbook.

‘Have we got a test?’ Jonty was worried he had missed an announcement about first period, which was Science.

Boris snorted and rolled his eyes at him. ‘We don’t need a test to make us learn,’ he said, actually looking at Jonty for the first time in days. ‘We don’t need anything — especially not you.’

He had muttered the last words so Jonty wasn’t sure if he had heard properly, but he tried to be friendly. ‘What are you studying?’ he asked brightly.

Boris looked up from his book with a hard smile. ‘Townsend, don’t tell me you’re actually interested in quantum physics?’ he sneered.

‘Actually,
Brockman,
I never thought that you’d be interested in quantity physics,’ Jonty retorted.

‘Thinking never was your strong point, was it? And it’s quantum, not quantity, from the Latin for “how much".’

Jonty took a step back and shook his head. ‘Why are you being so mean?’ he asked quietly.

Boris laughed and Mike looked up from his book with a grin. Boris stood up and took a step forward so that his face was right in Jonty’s. ‘Because you make it so easy. You’re like a mouse running around on the wheel in its cage. It thinks it’s having a good time,
when all the creatures with real brains are pointing and laughing at how dumb it is. And the best part is, you don’t even know how stupid you are.’

Jonty pushed him away. ‘We’re meant to be mates!’ he shouted.

‘Mates?’ spat Boris. ‘What a primitive concept! We don’t have
mates.
We have study colleagues.’

‘What do you mean
we
. Who’s
we
?’

‘Everyone — except you. Now, get out of our way.
We
have a class to go to.’ He stepped around Jonty like he was a pile of dog dirt.

‘Come on, Mike,’ Boris said. ‘I can feel my intelligence drop, just standing next to him.’ He and Mike tried to walk off.

‘What’s happened to you?’ Jonty grabbed Boris’s shoulder and looked into his eyes, trying to find a sign of his old mate. He couldn’t see anything he recognised.

Boris held his gaze and then glanced down at Jonty’s hand. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he growled and walked away.

‘You’re not my friend,’ Jonty muttered quietly to himself, as he watched Boris go off. The bully that looked like his mate was someone else. He wasn’t the same person.

When Jonty got to Science, there was only one seat left — in the back row, next to Prune. Boris was
already in the front row, impatient for the start of the lesson. As he walked to the back, Jonty saw Nathaniel sitting in the second back row. Normally he would be up the front. Jonty shrugged. ‘Welcome to the back!’ he said.

Nathaniel turned away. He was tired. He had spent most of the night studying Pythagoras. It had taken him days, but he had finally got his head around it all at two in the morning.

Jonty sat down next to Prune. ‘Do you know if we’re having a test?’ he asked.

‘Are we having a test?’ She jumped and shouted.

Nathaniel turned around and shook his head. If there was a test, he’d have known about it.

Jonty breathed a sigh of relief.

Mr Needham entered, wearing a fresh lab coat and a smile. Normally he was really grumpy, but today he grinned as if he were really looking forward to the class.

‘As some of you may know, we’re having a Physics Pop Quiz today.’

‘What?’ Nathaniel’s hand shot up, but Mr Needham ignored it.

‘It’s just a bit fun, but to make it interesting you can earn up to five points towards your end-of-year mark.’

Boris turned round and smirked at the panicked faces up the back.

‘Right,’ said Mr Needham, sweeping onto the first question. ‘Question one — who can define “kinematics” for me?’

Jonty blinked. He had never even heard of kinematics. Last week in Science they had named the parts of a worm. Now they were talking forms of energy he’d never heard of.

‘Do you have any clue what’s going on?’ he asked Prune.

She looked out from her long hair. ‘Perhaps we’ve been sucked into a time warp,’ she suggested. ‘We are now several weeks into the future. It can happen, you know. Just enjoy it; we’ll probably travel back to our regular time soon. It happens to me all the time.’

‘This is not a time warp.’ Jonty groaned and put his head on the bench.

‘So what’s your explanation?’ she said.

This could not be right. Jonty’s best friend had dumped him and was joyfully answering Physics questions and here he was, stuck listening to Prune de Luca bang on about time warps. The world had gone mad.

At the end of class Nathaniel tried to speak to the teacher. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I was unaware of any test. When was it decided?’

‘The Advanced Physics Study Group decided last night that they wanted one,’ said Mr Needham.

‘There really is an Advanced Physics Study Group?’ Nathaniel thought it had just been a trick to get him to the Misery Mall café.

‘Aren’t you a member, Nathaniel?’ Mr Needham looked puzzled for a moment. Then his face changed as if he had realised something. ‘Oh — of course. Well, never mind.’

‘Mr Needham, how do I join the Advanced Physics Study Group?’

The teacher smiled and tilted his head as if he almost felt sorry for Nathaniel. ‘You’ve got a bit of competition now, haven’t you! Look — ah — I’m sure you’ll catch up soon and then one of your fellow students will invite you to join.’

‘But how can I catch up if I don’t join the group?’

‘Indeed!’ Mr Needham laughed and walked off, leaving Nathaniel even more puzzled. He couldn’t believe that suddenly everyone was more intelligent than him.

The school loudspeakers crackled again. ‘David Coyne, Barbara Chmielewski, Lucy Coulter, report to the principal’s office!’

Nathaniel sighed. If seeing the principal made your intelligence skyrocket, he wished they’d call his name too.