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Special Delivery

On Thursday morning Mum dropped us off at school. I’d brought everything we needed for the stall. Food bags, money for change, a huge banner to stick on the wall behind us and some Blu Tak. We’d decided to call our stall ‘Sweet Treats’. Fyi, the name was Kara’s idea. But it was a good one, so I wasn’t going to let that get in the way. I’d spent hours on the computer making flyers to pin round the school, and I’d printed off loads, which The Brothers had promised to help stick up. By break-time the whole school was going to be plastered with them! I’d made the banner on the back of a couple of old posters I’d begged off Dan. It was pretty impressive, if I say so myself. Well, it was massive. And that was the main thing.

I suddenly realised I’d left Nadima to cope with lugging all the Turkish Delight in on her own. So I went to look for her at the school gates … and there she was, dragging a large holdall on wheels behind her.

She grinned and waved. ‘Delivery!’ she cried. ‘Special delivery!’

Honestly, how does she even pick up English just like that? It’s like she only has to hear something once and she can remember it.

By the time we’d hauled the bag into our form room, the others had arrived. Kara had a cake tin full of Rocky Road and Ryan had a tub of his nan’s Peppermint Creams. They took one look at the enormous holdall and their chins hit the floor!

‘Whoooa!’ exclaimed Ryan. ‘How much have you brought?!’

‘Is lots!’ laughed Nadima, unzipping the bag. It was crammed full.

‘Oh, that’s ridiculous!’ Kara snapped. ‘We’ll never sell all that!’

‘Wanna bet?’ I replied.

‘There’s tons of it!’ said Lily.

‘Let’s try some?’ begged Liam, coming over.

Nadima took out a bag, tore it open, and offered everyone in our team a chunk.

Ryan bit into his and rolled his eyes in pleasure.

‘Mmmm! MORE!’ he cried.

So then everyone in 7R swooped in like greedy seagulls.

‘No chance! You’ll have to buy it – after lunch. 50p a bag!’ I laughed, zipping up the holdall.

‘Still think we won’t sell it all?’ I asked Kara.

She didn’t reply.

Straight after lunch on Thursday we all shot into the hall to grab a good table and set up the stall.

I got out the banner, unrolled it and went to stick it to the wall behind our table when Kara suddenly exploded at me.

‘What’s that supposed to say!’ she screeched, flicking her hair.

‘Sweet Treats!’ I replied. ‘That’s what we decided to call it – remember?’ I added witheringly.

‘That’s not how you spell “treats”!’ she cried. ‘You’ve put two “e”s instead of “e-a”! You’ve spelt it wrong!’

I looked at the banner and my heart sank. She was right. I’d put ‘SWEET TREETS’.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Lily was saying. But I hardly heard her. My face and ears were burning so hot.

I was gutted. Why hadn’t I got one of The Brothers to check my spelling? WHY?!? I know I can’t spell to save my life. IDIOT!!! I wanted the ground to swallow me up there and then. And even worse, The Brothers had plastered my flyers everywhere – and they were all spelt wrong too! So the entire school would know I couldn’t spell.

I wanted to die.

‘You can’t put it up,’ announced Kara. ‘I’m not having everyone think we can’t even spell the name of our own stall!’

But Nadima suddenly said, ‘Kara! Is not mistake! Is Jaz make joke. Is funny, like “Toys ‘R’ Us”!’

‘Oh, yeah! It’s neat!’ said Lily. Then she and Nadima helped me stick the banner up. I could have hugged both of them.

I left the others piling sweets onto paper plates and wandered round the hall to check out the opposition from the other stalls.

Not everyone in our year had a stall, of course. Lots of the groups were raising money doing other things. But even so, it was pretty rubbish. There were only about ten of them. They mostly fell into two types:

a) geeky boys running cringingly lame ‘fantasy’ games for 50p a go, and

b) girls’ stalls.

Chloe and Elly’s group were doing French plaits and fishtail braids and stuff for £1. I watched Chloe doing a waterfall braid on Elly. It was very complicated – so they weren’t going to do that many in the two hours we’d been given, were they?

Some of the girls from 7T were selling handmade jewellery. But it was mostly just friendship bracelets and beaded stuff. And there were three (three!) stalls selling cupcakes.

So it didn’t look like competition was very fierce. We just had to hope Nad’s killer combo of chocolate and Turkish delight would be a massive hit.

It was.

OMG.

We were mobbed.

The sweets literally flew off the stall – it was way more popular than Kara’s Rocky Road. Some of the kids even came back for another bag and lots of them asked where we’d got it.

‘Nadima and I made it!’ I told them proudly, flinging my arm around Nadima.

They were well impressed. Nad tried to look modest, but I could see she was really thrilled.

So I added, ‘It was Nadima’s idea – and her mum’s recipe.’

It was the chocolate that did it. Nobody seemed to care what was inside. In fact hardly anyone even bothered to ask. It was crazy – especially when you think about the time we tried selling ordinary Turkish Delight, when everyone behaved like we were trying to flog them sugared slugs or something.

By the end of our session, there was nothing left except a few of Ryan’s nan’s Peppermint Creams.

‘Should have got your nan to cover them in chocolate,’ said Lily drily, and we all laughed – even Kara.