Thistlebloom staggered in halfway through lunchtime, dishevelled and moustachioed. Her head was throbbing, her mind puzzling over how she had come to be on the library floor with a hermit crab wedged in each ear. She felt perturbed, perplexed, pooped and peevish. A dangerous combination, albeit a charming example of alliteration.
Thistlebloom tucked a stray hair into her bun and expelled Peter for painting on the walls. Some people have no sense of creativity when it comes to lightning bolts and bottoms. She straightened her pinafore and expelled Cracker the parrot for squawking, ‘Botty-botty-boom-boom!’ once too often. And when Diana the lion tamer protested that Cracker was a Purple Peruvian Parrot and could not help being rude, she expelled Diana for impertinence.
‘What’s impertinence?’ whispered Tiny Tim.
‘Impertinence,’ explained Frank the liar, ‘is a place in South America where the piranhas gather for their Annual Hopscotch Tournament.’
‘I love hopscotch!’ cried Anastasia.
‘I love butterscotch!’ said Fumble. ‘And toffee apples.’
‘Impertinence,’ said Wordsworth, rolling his eyes, ‘is being cheeky, lacking respect, putting oneself forward when not asked.’
Thistlebloom pulled herself up to her full height. Her hawk-like gaze scanned the tables. Her eyes widened. Her moustache twitched. Her voice screeched, ‘PIG McKENZIE!!’
‘Oh, goody,’ whispered Olive. ‘Here we go. Now the pig will be expelled and all our troubles will be over . . . Well, maybe not all our troubles . . . but our pinkest, fattest, most disturbing one will be gone.’
‘Francine!’ Pig McKenzie crooned. ‘How wonderful to see you.’ He stood and sauntered towards her. His vest twinkled and glimmered with every step, for it was covered in gold star stickers.
Thistlebloom frowned. Her mouth grew tight and narrow. Red blotches broke out on her neck and travelled up to her cheeks.
‘Dear Francine,’ Pig McKenzie grunted. ‘I have spent the entire morning sitting by your side, wiping your unconscious brow with a damp flannel.’ He fluttered his eyelashes.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ mumbled Olive.
‘You see,’ confessed the pig, ‘it was my fault that you fainted. I announced that I had just finished building my one thousandth shelter for the homeless, and you insisted on rewarding me with gold stars. “A thousand gold stars for a thousand good deeds!” you proclaimed and began sticking. It was a big job, and I begged you from the bottom of my humble heart not to do it, but you insisted. One thousand gold stars! When the last star was finally stuck, you collapsed with exhaustion.’ He pressed his trotter to his heart and purred, ‘I do hope you have now recovered, dear, sweet Francine.’
Thistlebloom blinked. Confused, stunned, she nodded.
The pig nodded in return, then smirked sideways at Olive.
What a Conniving Pig!
What a Hideous Lie!
‘Well,’ drawled the pig, ‘I’d love to stay here all day, chatting, but I love good works even more. Francine, may I be excused? I have a twelve-hour shift at the soup kitchen tonight and have offered to make all the soup myself.’
‘Absolutely!’ agreed Thistlebloom. ‘You are free to go. The Queen will be impressed. Shelters and soup for the homeless. What next?’
‘Oh, I shall probably start a medical facility of some sort, I expect.’ Pig McKenzie bowed, grunted, ‘Arrivederci!’ and departed.
‘An Italian farewell!’ gasped Thistlebloom. ‘Why, that pig is graceful, charitable and multilingual! The Royal Award for Best Student in the Whole Wide World is definitely within our reach!’ And she marched off to the office to fetch her thirty-page manual for the afternoon’s lesson.
Olive slouched at the table, pushing her steamed celery from one side of the plate to the other.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Wordsworth. ‘Cat got your tongue?’
‘That pig,’ she sighed. ‘He’s such a liar!’
‘Go and tell on him!’ hooted Valerie. ‘Nobody should be able to steal all those gold stars and get away with it.’
Elizabeth-Jane and Anastasia nodded in agreement.
‘I can’t,’ Olive muttered. ‘If I contradict his tale, then the truth will need to be told. The whole truth . . . including the bit about me and the trombone and the nasty blow to Thistlebloom’s head.’
‘Oh,’ sighed Valerie. She puffed out her neck feathers, then flew up into the rafters to sulk.
Wordsworth tapped his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings. ‘It would appear that Olive is caught between a rock and a hard place.’
‘Oh no!’ shrieked Blimp. ‘Not a rock and a hard place! That’s horrendous!’ He scuttled onto Olive’s plate, stood on his hind legs and clasped his front paws together. ‘I do hope you get out soon, dear, sweet Olive.’
Lifting her plate, Olive leaned forward and kissed his pink ratty nose. ‘I’ll be alright,’ she whispered. ‘As long as I have you, and all of my special friends, everything will be just fine.’
She looked around the table, lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. ‘Pig McKenzie might be Up to No Good. Thistlebloom might be demanding and deranged. The Inspector might be threatening to close our school. But we must not despair!’
‘What about Star and Beauty?’ asked Anastasia. ‘It’s too late for them.’
‘And Tommy, Pewy Hughie and Peter!’ called Doug from the next table.
‘And Cracker and Diana!’ sobbed Boffo from the far side of the dining room.
‘Yes. That’s jolly awful,’ Olive admitted. ‘But I’m brave and clever and so is each and every one of you! When all of this is over, we will find them and bring them home to Groves. Don’t think of our dear friends as lost, just misplaced for a little bit of time. Like a button that has slipped down the back of a sofa.’
‘Which sofa?!’ squeaked Chester. His eyes grew wide, his whiskers stood on end and he quivered from head to tail.
‘A hypothetical sofa,’ explained Wordsworth.
‘Oh, mercy!’ cried Glenda. ‘Not a hypothetical sofa!’ Her beak clacked and her eyes started to roll back into her head.
‘It’s okay,’ said Olive, placing a soothing hand on Glenda’s wing. ‘The sofa isn’t real.’
‘Absolutely not!’ declared Wordsworth. ‘It’s hypothetical – pretend, theoretical, abstract, a figment of Olive’s imagination.’
‘But if the sofa is a figment of Olive’s imagination,’ squeaked Chester, ‘where’s the button?’
‘Sorry, little brown rat,’ said Olive. ‘There is no button. I was just painting a picture with my words.’
Poor Chester. ‘No button,’ he whimpered, and his whiskers drooped like overcooked noodles hanging off the edge of a bowl.
Olive whispered something to Reuben. The rabbit smiled, hopped across the table and sang, ‘Hidey ho, Chester! What’s that behind your ear?’ Drawing out a tiny brown button, he held it forth in his paw. It was wooden, exquisitely carved, an absolute treasure.
‘For me?’ gasped Chester.
‘Well, it was behind your ear,’ said Reuben. ‘We just didn’t notice it because it was so well-camouflaged, being brown and all.’
Chester grabbed the button, clutched it to his chest and beamed from Reuben to Olive, then back again.
Eduardo nudged Olive in the side. ‘Good one. You always know the right thing to do.’
‘It’s true,’ said Doug. ‘And you’re right about everyone who’s been expelled. We will find them.’
‘Of course we will,’ agreed Anastasia.
Boffo nodded and blew his nose on a handkerchief the size of a bedspread.
‘Good,’ said Olive, now standing and addressing the entire room. ‘In the meantime, we must make the best of a tricky situation. Wash behind your ears, eat your vegetables, say “please” and “thank you”, and try ever so hard not to annoy Thistlebloom.’ She stared pointedly at Carlos, who was building a tower from sticks of celery and sticks of dynamite in the middle of the next table. ‘And no matter how tough things get . . .’ Olive gulped and tried desperately to make her eyes smile along with her mouth. ‘Regardless of what happens, I want you to remember that you are all special and beautiful and precious. If it was up to me, I would be giving each and every one of you a blue satin sash with gold embroidered letters saying “WINNER”.’
‘Aw, nice.’
‘Well said.’
‘Olive’s right! We’re all winners!’
‘Three cheers for Olive!’
And they managed to make it halfway through the second ‘hip hip hooray’ before Thistlebloom burst out of the office, stormed across the entrance hall, banged a metre ruler down on the table and hissed, ‘Hush!’