I waited till the last minute before pulling out of the trip. There was a very good reason for this caution: my mother.
My mother is a woman of many principles. If I’d given her the slightest hint that any bullying was going on, she’d have been up at the school faster than an electron. And that was the last thing I wanted. What you want when somebody is pushing you around is to turn into a superhero, not have your mother intervening. It only makes things worse. Archie Spongo’s aunt had been to see the head three times since Archie started at Campton, but instead of chilling Eddie and Mark out, it had only made them more determined.
I was drawn and quiet when I got home from school the afternoon before the trip, but nobody noticed, of course. My mother was out spreading cow dung round someone’s garden, my dad was working on one of his fountains and my grandparents had my baby sister Gertie with them in their studio because they were giving their Latin dance lesson and Gertie loves to salsa.
Nobody noticed how drawn and quiet I was later, when we were getting supper ready. They were all talking and laughing while I sat at the table, tearing lettuce like someone whose bones have dissolved. The only person who said anything to me was my Uncle Cal.
“Shake a leg there, Elmo,” said Cal. “Your mother can grow lettuce faster than you shred it.”
Nobody noticed how drawn and quiet I was at supper either. Normal families eat their meals in front of the telly and only speak if they want the salt or something, but my family sit at a table and everyone competes for air space all the time. It wasn’t until I’d spilled half my water on my pasta that anyone even remembered I was there. Some of the water splashed on my mother. She removed Gertie’s fist from her salad and looked over at me at last.
“Are you all right, Elmo?” asked my mother. She was studying me as if I might have leaf mould. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”
Trembling slightly, I put the glass back on the table and slowly lifted my head.
“Yeah…” My voice was weak and low. “No … I’m sorry…” My eyes narrowed with pain. “I’m not feeling very well.”
My grandmother broke off the argument she was having with my grandfather to clap a palm to my forehead. Breadcrumbs trickled down my face.
“He hasn’t got a temperature,” she informed my mother.
I moaned feebly. “I must have. I’m burning up inside.” I gazed at her with the dazed expression of someone whose temperature is high enough to cook an egg. “The hand method isn’t exactly scientific, is it?” I suggested gently.
My mother removed Gertie’s fist from her potatoes.
“No, but it works,” said my mother. She doesn’t care about things being scientific, and she hasn’t trusted thermometers since she realized they can be heated on a light bulb.
“Maybe it’s that flu that’s going around,” suggested my grandfather, joint owner of Blues’ School of International Dance. “Half the Latin class were away.”
My grandmother was peering into my face. “You do look a bit peaky. Maybe you need more exercise.”
My grandmother thinks everybody needs more exercise – preferably ballroom dancing.
“I don’t think I can even walk,” I whispered. “I actually feel a little faint.”
My Uncle Cal and my Aunt Lucy, who describe themselves as “wall artists” (which means they never paint a picture smaller than the size of a lorry), interrupted the conversation they were having on whether or not Cal should get his lip pierced to say in horrified unison, “Paint? It can’t be our paint. Our paint is non-toxic.”
“Not paint,” I croaked. “Faint. I feel like I’m going to faint.”
“Tell me exactly where it hurts, Elmo,” said my mother. “Your head? Your throat? Your stomach?”
“Everywhere,” I whispered. “Even my hair hurts.” I pushed my plate away. “Maybe I’d better just go to bed. I don’t think I’ve even got the strength to get undressed.”
My father, as usual, had been doodling fountain designs on a piece of paper, but now he joined the conversation too.
“What about the class trip?” asked my father. “Isn’t that soon?”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “Tomorrow. Eight a.m. sharp.” I groaned in misery. “I feel so awful, I completely forgot about the trip.” I took a deep breath and tried to sit up straight. I winced in agony.
My mother was disentangling Gertie’s hand from her hair and didn’t say anything, but my grandmother gallantly filled in for her.
“Oh, there’s no way you can go when you feel like this.” I assumed she was speaking to me, but she was looking at my grandfather. “Remember that time in Venice, Monrose? When you insisted on dancing even though you had that bug?”
My grandfather smiled fondly at the memory. “Brought down two waiters, four tables and the dessert trolley.”
My mother looked as concerned as a woman with a two-year-old attached to her head can look, which isn’t that concerned.
“Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning,” she said. “After you’ve had a good night’s sleep.” She can have a very sly smile when she wants, Grace Blue. “After all, I know how much you’ve been looking forward to the trip.”
She was being sarcastic. My mother thought the idea of roughing it in Wales was brilliant because there was plenty of vegetation and no modern conveniences or souvenirs, but she knew I would have preferred Disneyland.
“I was…” I lied. “I am.” I flinched with the effort of trying to speak. “I’ve got to go on the trip.” I winced again, for effect. “Maybe I will feel better in the morning.” To prove how much better I was going to feel in the morning, I tried to get to my feet. But I was too weak and unwell; I collapsed back in my chair.
My mother gave me a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry. If you do miss the trip, I’ll take you to see that battery farm I was telling you about when you’re feeling better. Make it up to you.”
At this rate I could be sick for a really long time.
My room’s right at the top of the house. It’s the smallest room, but it’s also the most private. Once I got to the first floor and couldn’t be heard in the kitchen, I took the stairs two at a time, humming a happy song under my breath. I’d done it! I opened the door to my room.
I froze. All was not as it should have been in the room of Elmo Blue. Everything looked the way it had earlier – my shelves of books, my bed and bedside table, my desk and my computer, the newspaper photograph of Bill Gates, my hero and role model, that I’d taped to the wall – but there was one significant change.
Kuba Bamber was sitting at my desk with her back to me, blasting blue monsters into oblivion on my computer. She didn’t turn round.