Because of the awful blue paint incident I was not allowed out to the yard at lunchtime. Instead, I had to put away all the art stuff that was used during class. There was so much of it.

‘All right there, Cass?’ Mr Freebs said as he sat writing as his desk.

‘Yes, Mr Freebs.’

‘Good. Don’t forget the glue on Carol’s desk, will you?’

Carol hadn’t even bothered to put the lid back on the glue. Some people are so lazy.

I suppose it was fair enough that I be punished for splatting Archie Quinn with paint mostly-by-accident, so I decided I’d make the best of it and think of other things while I slaved away for the whole of lunchtime.

Since my solo investigation, Operation Invisible Boy, was not going very well, I decided it was about time the Bubble Street Gang had another real adventure together. Me, Lex and Nicholas started this secret club for a reason – to investigate mystery, solve crime, start small businesses and generally do exciting stuff – and recently we hadn’t been doing any exciting stuff.

While watching the rest of the class leave to go outside and play (urgh, and I was dying for a good game of space invaders!), I had noticed that Nicholas was still looking down in the dumps. Why he would want to go to another outside-of-school class is beyond me, but like my granny always says, each to their own – which means, other people are weird and you’ve just got to live with it. Besides, Rule No. 10 of the Bubble Street Gang’s clubhouse rules is as follows:

10. Any member can demand help from other members in matters of life or death (or if it’s just really, really important).

This was not a matter of life or death, but it probably felt like it to Nicholas, so the gang would do its duty and help. But how?

How could we convince his parents to fork out more money? And was that even possible? I mean, parents have only got so much money, right? How can they give out more money than they’ve got?

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. We’d make the money to get Nicholas to his masterclass! The Bubble Street Gang was about to have its very first business adventure. We would set up a company, we would have invoices and paperwork and deadlines, we’d yell at people down phone lines and draw big graphs on the walls. And we’d make a pile of cash; we’d be rich, we’d be rolling in it, we’d be …

‘Millionaires!’

‘Sorry, Cass?’ Mr Freebs glanced up from his desk with a strange look on his face.

‘Nothing, Mr Freebs,’ I said, pushing the art drawer closed.

I was smiling. I couldn’t help it. The others were going to love this plan.

‘But what is the plan?’ Nicholas, as always, started with a question.

‘To become millionaires,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but how?’

‘We set up a company.’

‘What kind of company?’

‘A money-making one.’

‘Yeah, but what will the company do?’

‘Stop getting hung up on the details, Nicholas, it’ll all get worked out.’

‘By who?’

‘Urgh! By me, okay? I’ll sort it.’

This was not the madly excited reaction I’d been hoping for when I announced:

That’s not a very catchy mission title, I know. I’m going to work on that one.

At least Lex was excited about it.

‘That sounds brilliant!’ she said. ‘We can use the laptop my gran got me for my birthday, and have our company meetings in the clubhouse. It’ll be so much fun!’

 

That Saturday afternoon I headed to the clubhouse with my dad’s old mobile (the screen was smashed and the phone wouldn’t stay switched on for very long, but really it was just a prop. I wanted to make the right entrance). I walked down the lane by Mr McCall’s field (there were two horses in it at the moment and neither of them were very friendly), turned right at the end and crossed the plank bridge over the stream to the clubhouse.

Our clubhouse is brilliant. No, it’s better than brilliant, it’s awesome! We built it ourselves, in a tree in the hedge at the end of Mr McCall’s field, and it’s the greatest thing we’ve ever done. No one knows it’s there. Well, except for Lex’s granny, but she won’t tell. She’s cool, like us.

I crept up to the door and I could hear Lex and Nicholas inside. Perfect. I put the phone to my ear, marched through the door and yelled, ‘I don’t care if the president’s having a giant birthday party and he’s bought up all the jellies in the country, I want twenty boxes delivered here by five o’clock tomorrow. Your finest jellies only. Raid the president’s stash if you have to. Capiche?’

Definition of capiche (pronounced ‘capeesh’): not really sure, but they say it a lot in old gangster films, usually after they’ve demanded something, and I think it makes me sound like a boss.

 

I slammed the phone down on the table like I was hanging up, even though it was a mobile and I should have just pressed the screen. Then I stood and smiled at Lex and Nicholas, waiting for a reaction.

‘What was that?’ said Nicholas.

‘Oh, just me being the boss. That’s how bosses order things. They don’t ask, they just give orders.’

‘Uh-huh.’ He didn’t look very impressed.

‘Anyway,’ I said, sitting down, ‘I think I should be the CEO of our new company because I’m good at giving orders over the phone and things like that.’

‘You can be the CEO,’ Nicholas said, ‘if you can tell me what CEO means.’

‘It’s means the boss.’

‘Yeah, I know it means the boss, but what do the letters stand for?’

I only paused for a second. ‘Chief of Everything … in the Office.’

I wasn’t entirely sure that was right, but I could tell Nicholas didn’t know either because he just grumbled and said, ‘Fine.’

‘Can we start the meeting then?’ said Lex.

She was sitting up very straight in front of the mini laptop her granny had given her. It’s a second-hand one and the last owner put silvery princess stickers all over it (not really Lex’s thing), but it’s purple underneath the silver stickers, which is quite cool.

‘You guys can decide on all the company stuff,’ she said, ‘and I’ll take the minutes of the meeting.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘You’re going to time us?’

‘No, the minutes. That’s what you call it when you take notes of what everybody says in a meeting. The minutes.’

‘Oh. Okay then, will we start?’

‘Go for it,’ said Nicholas.

‘Okay then, let’s start. As CEO I hereby declare this meeting … started.’

There was silence for a while.

‘Well?’ said Nicholas.

‘Well what?’ I said.

‘Aren’t you going to start?’

‘Yeah, but … what do we talk about?’

‘About the company we’re setting up. How we’re going to make enough money for my masterclass.’

‘Sure, okay.’ I paused again. ‘Anybody got any ideas?’

Nicholas sighed. ‘I thought you would.’

‘I do … I will, but let’s hear any other ones first. Lex, what do you think our company should do to make money?’

Lex went bright red. ‘I’m just taking the minutes.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, ‘all right then, I’ll go. We could make something and sell it.’

‘Okay,’ said Nicholas, ‘like what?’

I couldn’t think of anything we could make that people would buy, so then I said,

‘Or we could provide some service or something, like babysitting.’

‘Who’s going to let a bunch of ten-year-olds babysit their babies?’ Nicholas said. ‘We’re too young for that.’

‘Dog-walking!’ I said. ‘We’re not too young for that. Anyone can walk a dog.’

‘Bianca’s got that covered, you know she has. She already walks every dog on the street.’

‘So? We could be the rival company.’

‘She’s in big school, Cass. People won’t trust us with their dogs when they can get a thirteen-year-old to do it. She’s practically a grown-up.’

I frowned, but I knew he was right. Bianca owned the dog-walking market.

‘Any other ideas?’ I said.

There weren’t any. We sat in silence for ages, ate some cookies, and went home.

Lex’s minutes of our first ever company meeting were really, really short.