The Trouble with Sauce (7 page)

Jonty found Nathaniel and Prune sitting side by side and staring straight ahead. He wondered if they would even notice him. Slowly they turned their heads to look. Nathaniel stood up first, then Prune did. Without saying a thing, they walked out of reception and towards the playground. Jonty followed them. His mind raced at the thought of the pill that Mr Foster had made him take and the effect it might already be having.

Outside, Prune and Nathaniel looked around to check that no one was watching, especially from the windows in the principal’s office. Then they opened their hands slowly. Each of them was holding a little green pill. Nathaniel had chosen not to take his and Prune had spat hers out the second she had left the office. They were waiting for Jonty to do the same.

He opened his hands, but there was no pill in either of them.

Nathaniel looked into Jonty’s eyes, horrified at what he had done.

‘No!’ gasped Prune.

Jonty was shocked about what had happened to him. His cheeks were still wet from his tears and he hoped they hadn’t noticed that he’d been crying. He felt terrible. Prune and Nathaniel had both resisted; neither of them had taken the pill. He was weak and pathetic.

‘Jonty, you didn’t, you couldn’t — not you!’ Nathaniel was scared. It was bad enough facing a whole school that had fallen for it, but if Jonty was one of them too, he didn’t know what they would do. Prune had both hands clasped over her mouth. Of all of them, Jonty was the last one she had expected to take it.

Jonty stared at them for a second, summoning the courage to be the big strong friend they thought he was. He took in a deep breath through his nose, filled his mouth with saliva, lifted his head up and spat his pill out as far as he could.

‘Got you!’ he said, but he couldn’t laugh. He wanted to make a joke of it, to hide how scared he had been, but it didn’t work. ‘He was so foul,’ he said. ‘He shouted and screamed and prodded …’ He swallowed hard. He didn’t want to cry again.

‘Oh, Jonty!’ Prune said and burst into tears.

Nathaniel recounted what had happened to him and then Prune told her story.

‘It was like he knew exactly what to do to make us take it,’ said Prune. ‘I used a psychic force field to protect myself. You two probably did, too, without realising it. Something stopped us all from taking the pills.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Jonty. ‘Anyway, we didn’t take them and that’s what matters. And now, thanks to you two, we’ve got evidence to prove what he’s doing!’

He pointed to their pills.

‘I came so close to taking mine,’ Nathaniel admitted. ‘But my mind posed the question — what is the point of being brilliant if the whole world is the same?’

‘You wouldn’t be the same,’ Prune said. ‘If the pills make someone like Boris Brockman megaintelligent, just think what they’d do to
your
brain!’

‘His brain’d probably start controlling time or something!’ said Jonty.

‘Don’t tempt me!’ Nathaniel grinned, holding the pill to his lips.

The lunchtime bell went. Soon the students were all lining up neatly at the canteen. Each one of them bought an item of food, squeezed their sauce onto it and moved on. Jonty shuddered. It was all too creepy and there was way too much tomato
sauce. He hated tomato sauce — always had, always would.

He didn’t remember people eating so much of it before. They were always too busy throwing it at each other to be bothered with eating it.

‘We need to get out of here,’ Jonty said, ‘and we need to tell our parents what’s happened. Whose place will we go to?’

Nathaniel and Jonty’s parents were all at work. Prune’s didn’t work anymore.

‘I suspect my parents would not believe the principal tried to force mind-altering drugs on us,’ Nathaniel said. Jonty agreed. His dad would probably think he was trying to get out of doing his homework. Prune smiled. She had no doubt that her parents would believe her.

‘Is this your place? It’s massive!’ Jonty couldn’t believe that Prune lived in such a huge house. He had thought they were taking a short cut through a really posh street, when Prune suddenly walked up the driveway of the biggest, most expensive house there. He’d reckoned she would live in an old rundown cottage with organic vegetables growing in the front yard.

‘My parents used to own alternative healing centres — yoga, herbal medicine, aura reading — the usual stuff.’

‘Yeah, really usual.’ Jonty hadn’t even heard of them.

‘Then they sold them all and now they meditate up there.’ Prune pointed to the top of the house.
There was a huge room with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view across the whole area.

Nathaniel nodded. ‘It’s quite splendid and somehow … peaceful.’

Prune let them in the front door. ‘We have to take our shoes off. The house was blessed by a yoga master and it would be an insult to tread dirt into it.’

Inside the hall they could hear a chiming sound, like lots of tiny bells tinkling in the distance. It was followed by the thump of a wave crashing on the shore and a whale singing. Prune stood with her eyes closed as she listened. Then she opened her eyes.

‘That’s the centring sound!’ she said. ‘It reminds us of the peace and harmony in the world and in our house.’

‘Should we find your parents?’ said Nathaniel.

‘Yes, but I should warn you first —’ Prune was interrupted.

‘Hello, Prune. School must be over. Welcome, Prune’s friends!’ At the top of the stairs stood Mrs de Luca. Her arms were spread out and she had a blissful smile on her face. Nathaniel and Jonty saw immediately what Prune had been going to warn them about. Mrs de Luca was completely naked.

They stared at the floor, their faces bright red.

‘Come, don’t be shy. I’m delighted Prune’s
brought some friends home.’ Mrs de Luca walked down the stairs.

‘Verity and Vernon haven’t worn any clothes at home since they sold the business.’

‘Who?’ asked Jonty.

‘My parents don’t like the words “mum” and “dad". I have to use their first names. You will too.’

Verity de Luca arrived at the bottom of the stairs.

‘This is Nathaniel and this is Jonty,’ Prune introduced them.

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs — Verity.’ Nathaniel held his hand out, but turned his head away.

‘Nice to meet you, too. Vernon is meditating. Is it time for food? Is that why you’re here? Do we have food, Prune?’

‘We need to talk to you, Verity. It’s important. Our principal has been using pills to turn everyone into learning zombies,’ Prune said.

‘The principal? Is he an alien?’ Verity wasn’t joking.

‘No, it’s worse. Perhaps we should go into the kitchen.’ Prune figured if she could get her mother to sit down at the table, that would cover half her body and the boys might not be so embarrassed. Jonty was screwing his eyes up. His face was so red it looked like it was about to explode.

In the kitchen Prune persuaded her mother to sit at the table. There was a vase that she moved right
in front of her, so only Verity’s head stood out above the yellow and red flowers. Jonty and Nathaniel were relieved. With parents like this, no wonder Prune was so loopy! In this house she was the most sensible person around.

They told Mrs de Luca what had been going on at their school. She gasped repeatedly as they went on.

‘And you think Mr Foster is the alien?’ she asked.

‘No, Mrs de Luca,’ Nathaniel explained. ‘Sorry —
Verity.
There is no alien.’

‘But you don’t know that for sure,’ she countered.

‘The situation’s bad enough without aliens! He’s turned everyone into obsessed learning machines with these!’ Prune held out one of the pills.

Verity picked it up and sniffed.

‘Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,’ she said. ‘I’m getting a terrible energy from it. Take it away from me!’

She handed the pill back to Prune, who had to place it at the far end of the table, where its energy was beyond Verity’s reach.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Verity said.

‘We were hoping you’d help us,’ Jonty said.

‘How?’ Verity looked puzzled.

‘Call the police, talk to the other parents or something.’ Jonty shrugged.

Verity was shocked. ‘I couldn’t possibly do that!’

‘Why not?’ said Prune.

‘This is
your
journey. This is the challenge that fate has placed in
your
path. For me to push my way in would have all sorts of terrible outcomes for the universe. This is a wonderful opportunity for you children, but it is for you children alone.’

‘But, Mum — Verity —
please!’
She was stunned that her mother appeared to think it was all great.

‘I know it’s scary, but all true adventures are.’ She smiled and patted Prune’s hand.

‘But your daughter’s in danger at school!’ Jonty was amazed that she was going to do nothing.

‘My daughter, as you call Prune, is very powerful. I always hoped she would have a test like this in her life. Now I’m going to meditate on why that pill had such a terrible effect on me.’ And she stood up quickly.

Jonty was looking at her face. He didn’t dare shift his gaze in case he saw something that he didn’t want to.

‘You must tell me all about what happens!’ Verity said as she drifted out of the room.

Once she had gone, the two boys didn’t know what to say. Mrs de Luca made Prune look ultranormal.

‘It looks like it’s down to us,’ Jonty said. ‘We’ll have to work out what to do ourselves.’

‘Yes!’ Prune almost shouted. She was relieved that Jonty had not said anything about her mother. She knew exactly what the boys were thinking, but it was nice not to have to hear it.

‘Should we contact the police?’ Nathaniel asked, but he knew immediately that it wasn’t a great idea. They’d never believe three children saying that their principal was turning students into zombies.

They thought hard, staring at the kitchen table and pulling all sorts of thinking-hard faces. Nathaniel took his glasses off and wiped them on his shirt. Normally, that helped him.

‘TV!’ Jonty announced suddenly.

‘Who watches TV?’ Prune said.

‘Grown-ups!’ said Nathaniel, realising exactly what Jonty meant.

Jonty grinned. ‘We need to contact
24/7.’

24/7
was the top rating news TV show. They exposed dodgy builders and plumbers. The reporters on
24/7
loved running down the road after plumbers who had ripped off old ladies. They loved being outraged at shops that were overcharging. Anyone who was making money from or harming children was their favourite target.

‘That’s perfect!’ said Nathaniel. As soon as they find out that Mr Foster’s giving everyone mindaltering drugs, they’ll do a story on it.’

‘We’ve even got some of the pills as evidence.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Prune. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘Have you got a TV in this house?’ Nathaniel asked.

‘No.’

‘Have you heard of
Australian Idol?’
asked Jonty.

‘What’s that?’ said Prune.

‘I think Jonty and I know more about television than you do, Prune.’

‘But my parents don’t trust the TV. They say TV twists people’s lives and poisons their minds.’

‘Trust us, we need to go on
24/7 ‘
said Jonty.

They looked up the program’s website and saw a special number to call if you knew anything that would make a good news story. Nathaniel made the call because he could use long words.

He was put through to Joycasta Lovelock, one of the program’s best-known reporters. Jonty was very excited. Joycasta was his mother’s favourite.

‘Her hair’s so lovely,’ she used to say. ‘It doesn’t matter how fast she runs down the road after those bad plumbers, it’s always perfect.’

Nathaniel explained to Joycasta what had been going on at school.

‘Your principal is handing out mind-altering drugs to your fellow students? Like steroids for the brain?’ she quizzed him.

‘Precisely. We have the proof. We have the pills.’ Nathaniel said.

‘Just pills. He’s not injecting you, is he?’ Joycasta sounded almost hopeful.

‘No!’ He was shocked. ‘But the effect is profound. It’s unnatural.’

Jonty held his thumbs up. Nathaniel was doing a great job.

‘Mmm,’ Joycasta mused, ‘Mannington High … Wasn’t there some trouble in the local shopping mall with students from that school?’

Nathaniel thought for a moment. The kids were always getting into minor sorts of mischief at the mall. ‘Yes, but that was nothing to do with us,’ he said.

‘This needs further investigation,’ said Joycasta over the phone. ‘I think I could create a really interesting news story here. Let’s meet up.’

When Nathaniel hung up, his eyes were wide with excitement.

‘She wants to meet us in Misery Mall after school tomorrow to get more information. I think she’s going to do a story on us!’

The meeting with Joycasta Lovelock went exceptionally well. She was waiting for them in the café after school and had even brought a camera operator with her. Nathaniel and Jonty thought she was far more beautiful in real life than she was on TV. Her fair brown hair hung round her face in long curls and her small button nose wrinkled when she smiled. She smiled at them a lot. Prune wasn’t sure about her aura, but had to admit that she did seem quite nice.

‘I think we need to get this story out as quickly as possible,’ Joycasta said. Leaning on the café table, she wrote lots of notes and seemed very excited by what they had said.

‘We’ll have a camera crew film the school secretly and we’ll interview you all. In the interests of fairness, I will have to interview Mr Foster. I’m sure he’ll have some terrible excuse, but don’t worry, I’ve got a good nose for liars.’

‘Will you chase him down the street?’ asked Jonty.

Joycasta laughed. It was a lovely laugh, like the sound of bells ringing. Her nose wrinkled even more.

‘Only if I have to,’ she said. ‘We should start straightaway. I’m going to interview all three of you. It’s best if we do it separately. That way the public can judge if you’re telling the truth.’

She interviewed each of them in turn on camera, asking them about school. She asked Jonty about Boris.

‘Sounds like you got up to all sorts of fun.’ She grinned. ‘I know I did at school. What was your favourite prank?’

Jonty told her about a few of them, but then remembered how upset Prune and Nathaniel had been about the tricks played on them.

‘We went a bit too far,’ he said. ‘Playing jokes is one thing, but no one wants to be a bully. I’ve learnt that much.’

‘Well,’ said Joycasta, patting his arm, ‘at least some good has come out of this.’

After their interviews, she asked them to take her to school. The school gate was still open, but there was no one around.

‘He tried to give all of you a pill. Is that right?’ she asked.

‘Yes. He pushed one into my mouth and one into Jonty’s,’ said Prune.

‘And what did you do?’

‘We both had to spit it out,’ she said.

‘Good. I think we should recreate that scene. People need to see how disgusting these pills are.’

Jonty and Prune didn’t like the idea of putting the pills into their mouths again.

‘What if we swallow it by accident?’ asked Jonty.

‘We’ll use these.’ Joycasta pulled out a pack of mints.

‘Okay, the camera’s rolling. Spit them out!’ Joycasta said.

They put their hands to their mouths and spat the mint into them.

‘No!’ said Joycasta. ‘That won’t show on TV. We just need to exaggerate it a bit for everyone.’

She made them take more mints and spit them out. ‘See who can spit it the furthest,’ she said.

Prune and Jonty took turns and spat as far as they could.

Joycasta decided that they had filmed enough for one day, so they headed back to the gate.

‘It’s locked!’ said Nathaniel. While they were spitting, the caretaker had been round to lock up the school.

‘Come on!’ Jonty urged them. ‘I’ll help everyone over.’ He was tall enough to climb the gate on his own, but the others needed help.

First he helped Nathaniel climb over. It was quite a drop for him, but he landed just fine.

Then he held his hands out for Prune. She climbed up, but when Jonty pushed, her hands slipped and she landed right on top of the gate: arms on one side; legs on the other. Her bum stuck in the air and the wind blew her skirt up. She wanted to hold it down, but was too afraid to move her arms. ‘Help me!’ she shrieked.

Jonty pushed again, while Nathaniel reached up to pull her forward. Jonty’s strong arms shoved hard and she lunged over the gate, landed right on top of Nathaniel and knocked them both to the ground.

‘Get off!’ he shouted.

‘I’m trying!’ she said and then yelped. Her hair was caught in Nathaniel’s glasses and hurt as she tried to pull away.

Jonty jumped over the gate to untangle them. The second Prune’s hair was free they leapt up off the ground.

Joycasta tried not to laugh. She still had to climb the gate herself.

‘Oi! What you doing?’ A voice shouted from across the field. It was the caretaker and he wasn’t happy about people climbing his gate.

Quick as a flash Joycasta and her camera operator climbed over. ‘Run for it!’ she shouted to the kids. ‘We’ll follow you.’

They set off as fast as they could. Jonty looked round. Joycasta and the camera operator were running right behind them. Once they were all round the corner, they stopped.

They were out of breath, but were grinning from ear to ear.

‘Why do I always end up running down the street?’ Joycasta laughed.

The kids thought she led such an exciting life.

‘I had no idea it would be this much fun!’ said Nathaniel.

‘The fun’s only just started.’ Joycasta winked. ‘I promise you that.’