met Fifty on the corner, as usual, to walk to school. Mum takes Flo in the car but I never have a lift even if it’s raining. Walking’s better.
‘Guess what?’ said Fifty.
Guesswhats are always to do with Probably Rose. I didn’t really want to guess but he gets stressy if you don’t pretend to be as excited as he is about his baby sister.
‘Probably Rose can do a roly-poly?’
‘No. Be serious.’
‘OK. Well, we know she can say “yoghurt”, so my guess is she’s learnt another word.’ If every word Probably Rose said was going to have its own story, conversations with Fifty were going to get very dull.
‘Exactly right, my clever friend. Do you want to know what it is?’
‘Of course,’ I said. Of course not, I thought.
‘Star.’ Fifty looked at me with a beaming smile.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘She looked up at the light and just said it.’ I didn’t bother pointing out that a star is not the same as a light bulb. Copper Pie and Jonno were by the school gate, but no Bee.
‘Is Bee’s dad at yours?’ Fifty asked Copper Pie.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t see him last night but the trainers were there again this morning.’
‘You must know who’s staying with you. Didn’t you eat dinner with him? Didn’t your mum say you had a guest?’ said Jonno, a bit puzzled.
Copper Pie didn’t answer so I helped out. ‘He eats tea with the nursery kids.’
And so did Fifty. ‘And his mum isn’t that chatty. She tends to work on a need-to-know basis.’
‘Not all parents are quite like yours, Jonno,’ I said. I don’t think he realised dinner with place settings and proper food only went on at his.
‘Copper Pie, are you sure they’re Bee’s dad’s trainers?’ I asked. Footwear didn’t seem to be the most reliable way of identifying someone.
‘Good point, Keener,’ Fifty said. ‘Did you look for a name, Copper Pie?’
I laughed and so did Jonno, but Copper Pie didn’t join in.
‘The shoes weren’t named. I looked underneath and inside.’
‘Grown-ups don’t have labels. Divvy!’ said Fifty. ‘Unless . . . does your mum label you, Copper Pie?’
Fifty grabbed C.P.’s arms and turned them over looking for a label. He tried to look down the back of his T-shirt but he wasn’t tall enough to see so I did.
‘There it is,’ I shouted. I pretended to read the label. ‘A ginger nut with fast legs and a permanently empty stomach. Feed several pork pies daily, wash once a month and dry flat.’
Copper Pie pushed me away and ran round to the Tribe patch, also known as the scrubby, damp, dark bit between the netball courts and the tree. We followed, laughing because Fifty’d pretended to spot C.P.’s barcode.
As Bee wasn’t there it seemed a good time to get on with the list. (We didn’t need her anyway because she was swap stall.) I got it out but . . .
‘I rang Bee last night,’ said Fifty. ‘She said her mum says her dad can’t come back ever.’
‘Why not?’ said Jonno.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Fifty. ‘Bee wasn’t making much sense.’
‘Is she coming to school?’ asked Copper Pie.
Fifty nodded. But she didn’t come. So at lunch I finally got to go through the list.
WATER BOMBS STALL
Decide where to order the bombs from – Tribe
Order the water bombs - Keener
Pay for them somehow? – Ask Keener’s dad to use his card
Make a sign for the stall - Tribe
Ask Flo if we can borrow her shop till - Keener
Get something to put the water bombs in?
It all seemed straightforward until Copper Pie said, ‘How are we gonna fill the balloons?’
I looked at Fifty and said, ‘How are we going to fill the balloons?’
Fifty looked at Jonno. ‘How —?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jonno.
Copper Pie made a smug face. Fair enough. It’s not often he spots something we’ve all missed.
If you’ve never filled a water bomb, you’ve obviously been living in Darkest Peru like that marmalade bear, but I’ll tell you anyway. It’s not that easy. You have to stretch the top of the mini-balloon over the tap and make it full enough to be round but not so full that you can’t tie the knot. Filling a thousand water bombs was not going to be a small job.
‘We can’t do it on the day,’ said Fifty. ‘No tap. Not enough time.’
‘Well we’ll have to do it at home . . . I suppose,’ I said.
More problems were occurring to me. A thousand full-to-bursting water bombs would be heavy and take up a lot of room.
‘Could we do it at school?’ said Fifty.
‘We could . . . but where? The water fountain’s no good and I don’t fancy doing it in the loo.’ I made a face designed to mimic the idea of spending an hour in the not-that-clean bogs.
‘We could use the art room – that’s got a tap. Let’s ask Mr Morris,’ said Jonno.
Mr Morris likes us because Jonno showed him the stag beetle that lives under the trees where we hang out.
‘Off you go then, Jonno,’ said Fifty.
‘OK.’
Jonno went, leaving us to discuss targets. Top of the list were: Callum (number one enemy of Tribe), Jamie (Callum’s shadow), Miss Walsh and Flo (she got my vote).
‘Somebody absolutely has to bomb the Head,’ said Fifty.
Well, it won’t be me, I thought. I’d get caught (or miss completely more like). As usual, Copper Pie thought differently. ‘Sounds like a job for me. I could use my catapult to lob the bomb. More speed, better aim and I could be further away – less chance of getting caught.’
I could see there was going to be trouble at the fair.
‘Do you think we should go over to Bee’s after school?’ said Fifty.
‘I
