‘How simply wonderful!’ Olive cried as she finished her dinner of vegetarian spaghetti with falafel balls. ‘Mrs Groves now has so many things to remember that she is bound to forget the unfortunate incident with the stick of dynamite.’
‘The black and white piano keys stuck in the ceiling might jolt her memory,’ said Wordsworth.
‘And the gaping hole in her office wall,’ added Chester.
‘And the expensive crystal chandelier that now looks like a space ship that has flown through a meteorite shower then crashed on a landmine,’ said Blimp.
‘You’re right,’ moaned Olive. ‘It’s a mess. She’ll never forget.’
‘You worry too much,’ said Scruffy the dog, chasing a runaway falafel ball across the tabletop. ‘Stuff like that is always happening at Groves. Just look around you!’
Olive leaned back on the bench and was, oddly enough, relieved by what she saw: Jabber apologising profusely to Ginger the cat for cutting the end off her tail; Fumble’s antlers sweeping a whole row of soup tureens off the top shelf of the buffet as he walked by, leaving a trail of smashed china in his wake; Splash Gordon diving from the rafters into a large vat of pasta sauce; falafel balls flying out of the vat of pasta sauce and through the windowpane; the tall, thin waiter slipping on Reginald’s carpet of butter and disappearing down the gaping hole in the floor, together with a trolley full of fruit salad; Bozo and Boffo tossing cream pies at the Inspector of Schools, who had called in for a surprise visit; and, just visible through the smashed window, Doug digging a brand-new hole out on the lawn.
‘He’s tunnelling through to the pet shop,’ whispered Glenda the goose. ‘He wants to liberate some hermit crabs.’
‘The point is,’ said Frank the liar, in a rare burst of honesty, ‘that your mistakes are hardly going to stand out because none of us is perfect.’
A sudden waft from Tiny Tim’s socks – like curried eggs wrapped in a sweaty singlet – drove home the point.
‘Mrs Groves just wants us all to belong,’ explained Frank. ‘Not to be the same. That would be as dull as dishwater. But to feel like we have a place and a purpose here at Groves.’
A place and a purpose.
Like being a decent acrobat.
‘Oh dear,’ sighed Olive. Her heart sank. She excused herself and dragged her feet listlessly up the stairs towards her room.
‘I’m really not much of an acrobat at all,’ she said, mulling over her predicament. ‘I can’t flip or fly, I can’t somersault straight, I can’t keep still and sturdy at the base of a pyramid, and I am scared of heights.’ She frowned. ‘No, that’s a lie. I am not scared of heights. I am absolutely terrified of heights.’
The mere thought of lofty places set her head spinning. Unfortunately, it also set her spaghetti and falafel balls spinning. She closed her eyes, clutched her tummy and staggered along the third-floor corridor in the wrong direction.
‘Look out!’ grumbled Eduardo. ‘You almost ran into me!’
Eduardo was carrying the biggest, most delicious-looking cake that Olive had ever seen. It was deep and luscious with the words ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDUARDO’ looped in chocolate letters across the creamy white icing. Ten thick blue candles were flickering on top.
‘Wow!’ Olive gasped. ‘That is one beautiful cake!’
It is remarkable how one’s woozy tummy and spinning head can suddenly feel fine at the sight of something sweet.
‘It’s triple-layered chocolate with chocolate mousse filling and white chocolate frosting,’ Eduardo whispered, wiping a tear from his eye with his shoulder.
‘What’s wrong?’ Olive asked. She placed a hand on his arm. ‘Aren’t you excited that it’s your birthday?’
Eduardo laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. It was one of those bitter, nasty kind of affairs.
‘Happy?’ he sneered. ‘Why would I be happy? Pig McKenzie stole my train set before I had even finished unwrapping it and now I have to give him the birthday cake my mum and dad ordered from the bakery.’
‘That’s . . . that’s . . . that’s really bad,’ huffed Olive, in a sudden display of fury and poor vocabulary.
‘It’s not just bad,’ said Eduardo, getting red in the face. ‘It stinks. It’s rotten and dastardly and downright horrid.’
‘Yes! That too!’ agreed Olive. ‘I just lost my words for a second – in the heat of the moment.’
Eduardo nodded sadly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘time to deliver the cake. The candles are burning down.’
And before Olive could stop him, he stepped through Pig McKenzie’s doorway and wished him a very happy birthday . . . or at least some very snuffly words to that effect.
‘Happy – sniff, sniff – birthday, Pig McSniff! I hope you – sniff – have a fun time and –’
‘Stop!’ cried Olive, flinging the door wide open. She gasped and lost her words for the second time in three minutes.
Behind Pig McKenzie’s shiny black door was not a scruffy student’s room, but a large and luxurious apartment. Dark timber panelling surrounded a crowded collection of antique furniture and rugs made from the skins of tigers and snow leopards. Elizabeth-Jane the giraffe, dressed in a frilly white apron and maid’s cap, was dusting gilt picture frames and fine china vases. Valerie the owl was plumping cushions and straightening piles of comic books. Pig McKenzie lounged back on a rhinoceros-skin sofa, resting his hind trotters on a stuffed koala.
‘Despicable!’ thought Olive. ‘And in a school full of talking animals! Why, it is as bad as having a rug made from the skin of a librarian, a footrest made from a dentist.’
Peppered amongst the antique furniture were wind-up robots, model trucks, teddy bears, jigsaw puzzles and unopened packets of crayons, pencils and Plasticine. Eduardo, obviously, was not the first to have had his birthday present stolen.
A wide archway led to a candlelit bedchamber, the mahogany four-poster bed piled high with puffy eiderdowns and pillows, the dressing table laden with perfume bottles, crystal vases and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Beyond lay a marble bathroom with racks full of fluffy white towels and a deep claw-foot bath filled with chocolate ice-cream, fudge sauce, whipped cream and crushed nuts. A pair of purple silk pyjamas with shiny brass buttons was draped over a chair and on the toilet . . .
Olive rubbed her eyes to make certain that she was not seeing things.
‘Why is there a wombat sitting on the toilet?!’ she cried, suddenly finding her voice.
The wombat, round and grey, looked bored. The bathroom floor was littered with origami cranes made from squares of toilet paper. He had obviously been at work for an awfully long time.
‘Oh, that’s Wally,’ explained Valerie. ‘He sits there while he does the origami. Pig McKenzie likes his toilet paper to be folded into interesting shapes. Yesterday he insisted on water lilies. Today it’s cranes. Poor pig gets upset if he has to use plain toilet paper.’
‘Poor pig?!’ gasped Olive. ‘What about poor Wally the wombat?’
Wally shrugged his shoulders, sighed heavily and swung his stubby little legs back and forth from his perch on the toilet seat.
‘What a Despicable Pig!’ Olive shouted.
But nobody heard, for Eduardo was now blubbering his way through a second round of birthday wishes as the pig smirked and scratched behind his ear with a piece of model railway track. ‘O-on this m-most joyous of occasions . . . Sniff! Sniff! . . . I wish you many h-happy –’
‘Stop!’ cried Olive again. ‘That’s enough!’ She glared at Pig McKenzie.
The pig grunted. He took his hind trotters off the stuffed koala and planted them on the floor. He leaned forward menacingly, his slimy snout twitching with fury. ‘You’re ruining my birthday, Octagon!’
‘My name is not Octagon! It’s Olive! And I am not ruining your birthday.’
The pig narrowed his eyes. He flared his nostrils. He dived for the cake, but Olive grabbed it from Eduardo’s hands.
‘Enough!’ she snapped. ‘Enough stealing! Enough lying! Enough bullying!’
Eduardo’s eyes boggled with fear.
The pig’s eyes boggled with rage.
Olive stamped her foot. ‘It is not your birthday!’ She blew out the candles before they burnt down to the frosting. ‘This is not your cake!’ She handed the beautiful triple-layered chocolate cake back to Eduardo and pushed him towards the door. ‘And this,’ she shouted, gathering train carriages, engines, tiny signal-posts and bits of track from around the room, ‘is not your train set!’ She snatched the last piece of train track from Pig McKenzie’s trotter and stormed out into the corridor, slamming the door.
Eduardo stared at her. He opened and closed his mouth four times before he could finally speak. ‘That was magnificent!’ he gasped.
A china vase smashed against the door. Pig McKenzie’s furious squeal cut through the air. ‘I’ll get you for this, Octagon!’
Olive and Eduardo ran.
Although not so fast as to damage the cake. That would be silly.
They ran, side by side, fearful and silent as they bolted along the corridor, then giggling and bumping shoulders as they climbed the spiral staircase to the safety of Olive’s room. Pausing at the green door, they stared at each other over the top of the cake.
I would like to say that Olive and Eduardo both used this moment to reflect upon the ordeal they had just survived. That they looked deeply and meaningfully into each other’s eyes and thought, ‘This person is alright. From now on we shall be friends rather than adversaries. We shall support each other through thick and thin. We shall conquer the world together. United we will stand and nothing – absolutely nothing – can destroy these newly forged bonds of friendship.’
But I can’t.
Olive and Eduardo were, after all, only ten years old.
Olive stared at Eduardo.
Eduardo stared back.
‘I love cake!’ said Olive.
‘Me too,’ said Eduardo.
And there might have followed a deeper reflection upon the significance of this evening’s events, except that Blimp interrupted, his voice shouting gleefully from the other side of the door, ‘I love cake too!’