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Lottie saw Wilf rolling his eyes, and she smiled at him. He winked back, and a girl on the other side of Lottie stifled a giggle.
Aggie took no notice. ‘So where do you live, Lottie?’ I live in the new house up on the hill, near that awful Dracon Castle. My father says it should be pulled down. He says it’s an eyesore!’
Jaws, sitting on Lottie’s shoulder, gave a protesting squeak. Lottie, making sure no one could see her, put her finger to her lips to silence him.
‘Thank you, Aggie.’ Mrs Wilkolak’s tone was firm. ‘That’s quite enough.’ She turned back to Lottie. ‘Now, Lottie, I should let you know about a competition that’s running here at school at the moment – a competition to transform the wasteland at the back of the academy.’
Aha! Lottie thought. So that’s what the notice in the corridorwas about!
‘This land has been allowed to grow wild,’ Mrs Wilkolak went on. ‘A businessman wants to buy it, but the owner says that if we can make it beautiful she’ll give it to us instead. It would be wonderful to have that extra bit of space at the back of the school. So every pupil is going to draw their dream design, and the head teacher, Mrs Grubeloff, is going to choose the best one. Do you like gardens and flowers?’
Lottie nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes, I do! I had my own garden at our last house, and I loved it! Ma and I arranged little white pebbles all round the edge, and they shone white in the moonlight…’
A wave of homesickness for her old house suddenly swept over her, and she stopped.
Mrs Wilkolak gave her a sympathetic look. ‘That sounds delightful. Why don’t you take a piece of paper from my table and see what you can do.’
As Lottie sat back down at her table, Aggie smiled a superior kind of smile. ‘I don’t expect you know much about gardens, but I do. We’ve got three gardeners, and we grow simply marvellous flowers.’
A small boy with strange green eyes leaned forward from the table behind. ‘Aggie’s sure to win,’ he said. ‘She’s very clever.’
Aggie nodded. ‘I am.’
Lottie wasn’t sure what to say, but the girl who had giggled earlier gave a loud sigh. ‘You don’t need to tell us, Aggie!’
‘Actually, Marjory, I was trying to be helpful to Lottie,’ Aggie said, ‘and so was Bruno.’ She gave the boy with green eyes a little nod. ‘Weren’t you, Bruno?’
Bruno didn’t answer, but Lottie thought he looked pleased. She remembered the name from earlier – so this was the deputy head’s son.
Mrs Wilkolak clapped her hands. ‘Class W! If all you’re going to do is chat, we’ll never find a winner for the competition. I’d like you to work for another thirty minutes, and then we’ll go outside and show Lottie the garden and the lake.’
A lake? Lottie’s eyes shone, and she put her hand up. ‘Please, Mrs Wilkolak – can we swim? Is it allowed?’
‘We do allow swimming on hot days,’ Mrs Wilkolak told her, ‘but you have to be careful. The lake’s small, but it’s very deep. Can you swim, Lottie?’
‘I absolutely LOVE swimming!’ Lottie beamed at her, and Jaws squeaked in agreement. ‘I was—’ She stopped dead as she remembered she’d decided to be ordinary Lottie Luna. At her last school she’d been the year’s swimming champion. She’d have to remember to swim slowly. And splash a lot, she told herself. All the same, she was thrilled, and as she picked up her pencil case she was smiling happily.
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