mind dressing up for a laugh, but she wouldn’t want to be a bridesmaid. Personally, I wouldn’t mind, if I could choose what I wore. I’m really into silver. I’ve got a pair of silver shoes and occasionally, at weekends, I’m allowed to wear silver nail varnish. The others sometimes call me Spaceman. But I couldn’t see Brown Owl wanting bridesmaids dressed in silver.
I said, “Knowing Brown Owl, she’d probably make us wear our Brownie uniforms.”
“But we’d still get to go to her wedding,” said Fliss.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Lyndz. “It’d be nice for both of them.”
“Come on, let’s make a plan,” said Felicity.
“I think we’d better find out if he’s already got a girlfriend first,” I said.
“How will we do that?” said Rosie.
“We’ll ask him,” said Kenny.
“When?”
“On Monday,” I said. “The sooner the better.”
We all go to the same school. It’s called Cuddington County Primary and it’s a great school. Our teacher’s called Mrs Weaver and she’s great too, so’s the Head, Mrs Poole. She never shouts, she just looks disappointed with you, if you get sent to her. It’s not so bad, as long as you keep looking at your feet.
There’s only one thing wrong with our school and that’s Mrs Pickett; she’s one of the dinner ladies. Mrs Pickernose, we call her. She does nothing but tell people off. She is bad news. But apart from her, we all like our school.
Dishy Dave is what we call Mr Driver. That’s because he’s dead tall and good-looking, a bit like Brad Pitt. And he’s a good laugh. He calls us ‘guys’ and the boys ‘girls’. He kicks a football around with them sometimes and he plays the piano for us to dance to; he knows all sorts of tunes.
Practising our dance routines is one of our best skives. We go into the studio and turn all the lights off, apart from one or two spots, and pretend we’re dancers with Oasis. Or sometimes we go in the hall to dance and Mr Driver plays the piano. If the M&Ms haven’t got there first, that is. The M&Ms are our biggest enemies – Emma Hughes and Emily Berryman, yuk! – but I’ll tell you about them another time.
Mr Driver lives just down the road from school and he’s always in and out. The only time he’s too busy to talk to you is at home time, when he has to get on with the cleaning, but apart from that he never minds a good old chat.
So, on Monday, we went looking for him at break time. We found him cleaning some graffiti off the side of one of the mobile classrooms. We sidled up to him and then hung around waiting for the right moment.
“Uh-oh,” he said, “here comes trouble.” But he smiled and went on scrubbing. “This wasn’t your handiwork, I suppose?”
“Nooo!” we said. “Certainly not!” And we all looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths, as my grandma says.
After a bit I said, “Dave…” He doesn’t mind us calling him Dave.
“Have you got a girlfriend?”
He stopped scrubbing and started to grin. “No. But I think I’m a bit old for you, don’t you?”
I went bright red. The others started to laugh as if it was so funny.
“She didn’t mean that,” said Fliss. “We were just interested. Have you really not got a girlfriend?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Would you like one?” said Lyndz.
“Nope,” he said. “Too much trouble.”
“No, seriously,” said Kenny.
Mr Driver sort of narrowed his eyes at us. “Why are you asking?”
“We could find you one, if you like,” I said.
“What’s the catch?”
We all said, “There is no catch.”
“In that case I’d like Pamela Anderson.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Fliss. “We don’t know Pamela Anderson.”
“Sorry, not interested, then,” he said. “I’m saving myself for Pamela.”
And he went back to scrubbing Wiggie woz here off the back of the mobile. Then the whistle went for the end of break. We shrugged and sort of drifted off.
“Do you think he was serious?” said Felicity.
“Oh, get a life,” I said.
“Course he wasn’t serious,” said Lyndz.
“Where’s he ever going to meet Pamela Anderson?” said Kenny.
“Even so,” I said, not feeling very hopeful, “I doubt if he’s going to settle for Brown Owl.”
I wasn’t being horrible about Brown Owl. She’s very nice. She’s quite pretty, with dark eyes and shoulder-length brown hair, and she looks really smart in her uniform. But Pamela Anderson she is not. She works in Barclays Bank and sometimes when I go in with my mum she’s behind the counter and she smiles at us. She wears glasses at work and they really suit her but she doesn’t wear them all the time. She’s got a nice smile and a good sense of humour. Or she had. But she looks like a real wet weekend these days. It wasn’t only Lyndsey who felt sorry for her, we all did.
But feeling sorry wasn’t enough. We needed action, and action was our speciality! We decided to call it Operation Blind Date, or OBD for short. That was Felicity’s idea! She even wanted us to write to Cilla Black to get Dave and Brown Owl on the show, but fortunately that was one of Fliss’s bright ideas we decided against.
Hang on a minute. Was that the phone? Quick, let’s go and listen at the top of the stairs. Careful, my door squeaks. If my mum hears us, I’m in real doom.
“Hello… No, Felicity, you can’t talk to Francesca… no, I’m sorry, she can’t call you back… because Francesca is grounded… I haven’t decided how long for. Possibly for ever…
“Yes, I’ll tell her you rang…”
Uh-oh. If my mum’s calling me Francesca, it must be serious. I wish I knew what Brown Owl’s been saying. Do you
