The time: 2.59 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon (i.e. one minute till all the wrong-ness started).
‘Dear me, Ruby!’ Miss Wilson gasped. ‘Your cheeks are like two tomatoes, they’re so red!’
My cheeks actually felt like two tomatoes that were on fire.
In fact, my whole body felt like a radiator that had been turned up full blast.
I remember a newsreader once talking about holidaymakers in Spain or Greece or somewhere collapsing ’cause of a heatwave. I felt like I was about to pass out through heat exhaustion in the third row of the ICT room.
‘Ruby, you’ve had that fleece on all day,’ said Miss Wilson. ‘But you can’t possibly need it on now – not with the hot air these computers generate! Please take it off …’
‘Yes, Miss Wilson,’ I muttered weakly, glad to finally escape from what was beginning to feel like a zip-up duvet.
There was only about quarter of an hour to go before the end-of-day bell, and Thing would be safe enough dangling from the back of my chair for a few (deliciously cool) minutes.
Like Jackson said, what could possibly go wrong …?
Miss Wilson watched, puzzled, as I wriggled out of my sleeves in slow motion, and hung the fleecy evvvvvver-sooooo-gennnnntly on the back of my chair.
‘You can have a drink, if you’d like,’ she said, pointing to the bulge on the drooping left-hand side of the fleece.
She’d noticed the Thing-shaped lump for the first time after lunch (I’d forgotten to keep my arms across my chest to cover it up). When she asked me what was in there, Jackson had a brainwave and shouted ‘A WATER BOTTLE!’, which was pretty quick thinking, even if it was a bit loud.
‘In a little while,’ I replied, hoping Miss Wilson didn’t insist.
I know Thing could be mistaken for a comfy cat cushion, but I didn’t suppose anyone would believe it was a novelty water bottle. They don’t often come with fur. Or eyes. Or twitchy, squirrelly ears.
‘It’ll be OK,’ Jackson leant over and muttered to me now, which made me want to punch the big baboon in the arm.
That’s ’cause he was pointing at the Thing-shaped lump as he spoke.How much of a giveaway was that?!?
‘Quiet, everyone!’ Miss Wilson said to, well, everyone, even though she was particularly looking at Jackson. ‘I want your projects finished by the end of the lesson. So let’s have ABSOLUTE silence and your best concentration, please!’
Doing as I was told, I stared at my computer screen and carried on with the coastal erosion diagrams we were all supposed to be designing for our geography project.
Actually, I got quite into it. All that coastal erosion was very soothing. For the first time all day, it was as if I’d finally forgotten to be nervous or scared or stressed about the stowaway in my fleece.
That feeling lasted for … oooh, about three whole minutes, till the funny snoring started.
Somebody somewhere in the ICT room sniggered. Which was followed by a few titters, and a smattering of giggles.
I flipped my head round to face Jackson, and Jackson flipped his head around to face me.
Then we both dropped our gaze down towards the gently vibrating fleece on the back of my chair.
‘Who is making that silly noise?’ Miss Wilson suddenly announced.
EEK!!
What were we going to do?
Luckily, Jackson had a plan.
Unluckily, it was going to make our teacher pretty angry with him.
‘It was me, Miss Wilson!’ my dumb but brave friend announced, shooting his hand straight up.
‘Well, Jackson, I know you like to play the clown, but—’
Straightaway, I saw that this was my chance to smuggle the real snorer out.
‘Er, Miss Wilson!’ I interrupted, jumping up from my seat and grabbing my heavy fleece. ‘I feel like I might be sick again … can I be excused, please?’
Miss Wilson waved me away, before turning back to Jackson with a face as grumpy as a wasp in a jar.
‘Peh! Oof! Eeep!’ came several tiny muffled noises as I bundled the fleece in my arms and bolted for the girls’ loos.
Once I was safely locked in a cubicle and sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat, I loosened my grip, and unrolled a fuzzily crumpled Thing out on to my lap.
‘Rubby!?’ it squeaked. ‘We in flushy-flush box! Why is here?’
‘You fell asleep in the last lesson, and started snoring,’ I told it. ‘I had to get you out of class quick!’
Thing’s humongous eyes widened.
‘Peh! I hear teacher yak-yakking at you, Rubby,’ Thing bumbled. ‘But then room very, very hot. I very, very, very, very, very tired and—’
‘Look, I understand why you fell asleep, Thing. But you’ve got Jackson into a lot of trouble! He took the blame when you started snoring, and Miss Wilson has probably sent him to the Head’s office!!’
Thing sat hunched apologetically on my knees, blinking madly.
‘Is that a kind of wood, Rubby?’
‘No! The Head’s office is not a kind of wood, Thing!’ I snapped. ‘The Head Teacher is the most important person in the school. And I bet he’s shouting at poor Jackson right now!’
Thing’s eyes grew even wider, even though I didn’t think that was physically possible.
‘But Rubby … boy my friend!’ Thing purred, anxiously rocking from side to side. ‘I bad thing. I very, very bad thing. I very, very, very, very, very bad thing!’
It was on the fourth or fifth ‘very’ that I felt a familiar tremble.
A tremble happened whenever Thing was feeling angry or upset or generally ARRGHH!
And once Thing felt ARRGHH! strange stuff always happened.
Strange magical stuff.
(Magical stuff that is a bit strange, actually.)
‘Hey, you know something? Now I think about it, I’m sure Jackson will be fine!’ I said hurriedly, wishing I hadn’t made it all sound so terrible and important.
But Thing kept right on trembling. I crossed my fingers and made a quick swish that it would stop.
‘Honestly! I mean, I bet you he hasn’t been sent to the Head after all!’ I babbled on. ‘I bet Miss Wilson thought the snoring was really cute and funny, and the whole class is laughing about it!’
Nice try, but it was too late. The seriously spectacular weirdness was already starting …
Flickers of light danced around the toilet cubicle.
Sparkles cartwheeled around my head.
And then just as soon as the mini fireworks show started, it stopped.
‘Thing – what did you do?’ I asked, uncrossing my useless fingers and glancing around the small space. All I could see was the same cream plastic walls, the same white cubicle door, the same square grey floor tiles.
‘Not know, Rubby!’ it mumbled sheepishly, twisting its tiny hands together.
Doof!
I jumped. There’d been the softest little thump under my bottom, as if someone had knocked on the underside of the toilet lid I was sitting on.
Gulp.
I stood up, scooping Thing into my arms, and stared down at the closed toilet seat.
Did I dare flip up the lid to see what had doof-ed?
Before I could get myself in a tangle of ‘Will I? Won’t I?’s, I shot my arm out.
And with a flick of the wrist, I discovered … that the loo was filled to the brim with cherry tomatoes!
‘Thing!!’ I gasped. ‘Why are there so many tomatoes in the toilet?’
As soon as I said that I remembered Miss Wilson talking about my cheeks being tomato-red. Had Thing heard that just before it fell asleep?
‘I get in big muddle, Rubby!’ it said all alarmed, clinging onto me like a strange hairy baby.
‘All right, but how are we going to get rid of them?’ I fretted, aware that the bell would be ringing soon and I needed to get back to class.
Thing blinked fast before suggesting something.
‘Flushy-flush?’
I gazed down at the mounds of cherry tomatoes, and knew that wasn’t going to work.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I said, picking up my fleece with one hand and nudging Thing to clamber back into the hideaway pocket. ‘We’ll run away and pretend it’s got nothing to do with us!’
Pulling on the lop-sided fleece, I hurried out of the girls’ toilets and back along the corridor.
The poor school cleaner – she’d be the one who’d have to sort out the great tomato mystery.
What would she think had happened?
Maybe she’d suspect that all the tomato-haters at school had got extra helpings from meanie Sweeney and dumped them in the loo together.
Hey, it wasn’t such a mad idea.
It once took me six or seven flushes to get rid of all the lettuce leaves …
