In preparation for the school fair, tonnes of items had poured in for the huge white elephant stall. The flotsam and jetsam of households throughout the school’s catchment area. It was like a gigantic garage sale.
I passed piles of the stuff heaped up on the netball court on Monday morning, and on Monday afternoon kids were asked to volunteer to help sort and price it.
Ben automatically volunteered. Part of his duty as a student councillor, I suppose. I stuck my hand up, too, although I had reasons of my own.
Big things like lawnmowers and bicycles, bed frames and old washing machines were being moved around.
As far as I could tell, they were just taking stuff from one pile and putting it in another, without improving things at all. But I suppose they had a plan.
Blocker and Phil were both helping. I suspect all the rugby teams had been drafted in to help with the heavier items. I noticed that Phil had a black eye and a sliver of sticking plaster across his lip. He didn’t talk to Blocker at all, and the silence was returned tenfold.
I had to get closer to Blocker than I would have liked when one of the parent helpers asked the two of us to pick up each end of a rusty barbecue. I kept my face blank, but Blocker was not so circumspect. He scowled at me, and his eyes were black with malice.
Something was brewing inside him, and I was afraid of what would happen when it finally boiled over. Emilio had changed schools and Blocker didn’t really have any other friends, apart from Phil. I knew what that was like and I could almost feel sorry for him.
Blocker and I placed the barbecue where we were told and, with a small sigh of relief, I went to look for something else to do.
Ben was trying to lift an old toilet pan but it was a bit too heavy for him, so I went to give him a hand. I hoped it was clean!
We shoved a few things here and there under the directions of the parent helpers, and, the whole time, my mind was on my special power. On what Saltham had said.
How many people have you told?
We stopped for a drink of water after about an hour, and that was when I finally told my best friend in the world, my biggest secret in the world.
‘Have you ever tried to control someone’s mind?’ I asked him.
‘What do you mean?’ Ben asked, with a slightly worried expression.
‘Like, tried to make someone think certain thoughts, just by focusing your own thoughts on their brain.’
‘No.’
‘Do you think you would be able to?’
‘No.’
‘I can.’
There was silence while he thought about it for a while.
I said, ‘Do you remember when Frau Blüchner wrote “knickers” on the blackboard? I made her do that.’
‘No way!’ Ben exclaimed.
‘Yep. I’ll prove it if you want.’
‘OK, make me think of something.’
‘OK then.’
He looked at me and I focused myself on his brain and thought.
Chocolate ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream, chocolate ice-cream.
‘Are you doing it?’ he asked.
‘Yes, what are you thinking about at the moment?’ I asked confidently.
He shook his head. ‘About how stupid you look when you frown like that.’
I was a bit surprised. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
I thought for a moment. ‘OK, I’ll try again.’
Scratch your nose, scratch your nose, scratch your nose.
Ben blinked a couple of times but that was it. ‘You’re having me on about this aren’t you?’
‘No!’ I insisted. ‘Look, let me try it on someone else.’ I looked around and saw Jordan Hoffman-Herbert treading his way carefully amongst an old china tea set spread out on a tartan picnic rug.
‘See Jordan over there. I’ll make him pick up the cup with the broken handle, then put it back down again.’
Ben watched. I concentrated.
Pick up the broken cup.
After a second Jordan bent down and picked up the cup with the broken handle.
It’s no good, put it back down.
He placed it back on the rug.
‘And again,’ I said.
Pick it up again, put it down again.
Jordan picked the cup up, as if noticing it for the first time, then replaced it.
‘Wow,’ Ben said.
Pick it up, put it down.
I tried to make him do it a third time, but he turned away.
‘Believe me now?’ I asked.
Ben stared at me, not sure what to think. One thought was troubling me though. My power hadn’t worked on Ben at all. Maybe he had been concentrating too hard. It seemed to work best when people weren’t concentrating. As if, somehow, I could slip thoughts into absent minds.
But then again I suppose you wouldn’t expect it to work on a robot, would you?
Smaller or more valuable items, like crockery and cutlery, clocks and old jewellery were taken to the staffroom to sort out. I put a few such things into a cardboard carton and headed in that direction.
I went via the entrance from the foyer. It took longer, but I did it deliberately.
I walked through the doors into the admin block. On Fair Day there would be a security guard of some sort here. But that was part of my plan, and I knew how I would deal with it.
I passed Curtis’s office where the money would be stored for safekeeping and barely glanced at the records room, where the counting would be done. Through the window I saw Mr Saltham walk into the staffroom, and I cringed inside and half-ducked, but he didn’t see me.
My plan was beautiful in its simplicity. It was elegant, ingenious, and almost foolproof.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t totally convinced now that I actually wanted to go through with it. I was feeling troubled as I took my box into the staffroom and placed it on a table with a bunch of other boxes filled with similar bric-a-brac.
Through the window I saw Erica in the distance, walking with Stacey Anderson and Chelsie Burnett. She was relaxed and happy, and I felt an incredible warmth just watching her. She was talking with her hands. It was a habit of hers, I had discovered, once she felt comfortable with you. While she was nervous and shy her hands stayed by her side but, once she relaxed, then those hands started flying around.
I liked it. It made her seem lively and animated. And it was good to see her getting on so well with Stacey and Chelsie. I had whispered in a few ears about how shy Erica was and that she was really nice once you got to know her.
A few weeks ago, nobody would have listened to Jacob the Freak. But Jacob the Hero was a different story.
Watching Erica walk by with her new friends gave me a good feeling inside. A big, warm, fuzzy emotion that I didn’t know the name for.