You Won't Believe This Read online

  When the red mouse was nearly at the table, Jen leapt up, ran towards the table and grabbed hold of the sheet.

  The mouse flame climbed up the pipe, spluttering for a second then stopping and making us all think it would go out.

  It managed to stay lit, though, going up again as Jen pulled off the sheet to reveal Phil the frog, on his rocket, just about to head up to the …

  No—

  Not Phil.

  Not Phil at all.

  WHERE WAS PHIL?

  We all stared. The scientists, including Jen, were all looking at us – they weren’t looking behind them at the table. And it was weird, really weird, because Phil the frog certainly wasn’t there. Someone must have taken him off. The rocket was there, and something ELSE was on it.

  That was the scientists. They’d shouted it, not us, or not many of us, just a few of the smaller kids. Because we were staring, hardly able to believe what we were seeing, the scientists looking confused too – by our reaction – until one by one they turned their heads, to see what we were looking at. And what we were looking at was their experiment – the bucket, the rocket, and the thing tied to it – though instead of what they thought was tied to it there was something else.

  Not a frog.

  A bag.

  A blue, rectangular sports bag, pretty old, with a black stripe across the middle, a bag that was familiar to every single person in our school because of what was on the side of it. Five rings. In different colours. Three on top and two below.

  Olympic rings, all linked together with a date above and a word underneath in bold.

  BOTSWANA.

  Everyone stared. And then everyone’s head swivelled left to where Mrs Martin was standing, her hands still held up in little fists with what had been excitement but which had now been replaced by shock. And surprise. And disbelief. She shook herself together and looked around, at her feet, as if to find her bag there, as if it couldn’t possibly be where it actually was – ON TOP OF THAT ROCKET.

  There wasn’t a ‘ONE!’ We just watched, no one able to move as the snapping red flame reached the bottom of the bucket. And it shook, with a really loud BANG. And the rocket took off, though it didn’t go as far as we’d expected. Not to the side wall. Not up to the heath. Just half a metre, before it nosedived on to the table where it rested, as Mrs Martin’s bag slid down on to the ground.

  Silence. It struck the teachers and the scientists and all of us sitting on the AstroTurf. No one said a word. Not even Marcus Breen. We all just watched as the bag Mrs Martin had got at the Olympics fizzled and gurgled and spluttered.

  And

  then

  it

  I think I need to tell you a bit more about Mrs Martin. She’s got this gappy smile, like I’ve said, that is impossible not to smile back at. You can hear her laugh ALL around the school. She teaches Year 3 but does dance routines at lunchtimes with the Year 5 and 6 girls (but only if they play Abba songs). She begs you not to tell Mr Martin about her mid-morning Twix or how she really wishes she’d married someone called Mr Kipling instead of him. She cheers all the teams on at Saturday football.

  She works on the Friends’ Forum, like I said, but I didn’t tell you she was in charge of it, sending out all the letters and emails and organising the fairs and coffee mornings and cake sales and sponsored walks and the carol singing round Blackheath every year. I didn’t tell you that she stays late to clear up after all the evening events because the parents have to get their kids to bed (hers are grown up).

  And I didn’t tell you something I learned from Mum, about when all the windows were being replaced in our school. Mrs Martin was the one who found out that the builders were putting in cheaper ones than the ones they’d promised, which wouldn’t have been so soundproof. She forced the council to get them done properly, which means we can all learn in peace. The most important thing, though, is how she makes us feel: good, and safe. Like we’re at home and not at school. Absolutely everyone has called her Mum by mistake at some point – SO embarrassing – and when she tells you that you can do something, you believe her. You can’t help it – and then it turns out to be true.

  We have four different houses in our school. They’re named after inspiring people like Nelson and Rosa Parks (which I’m in). When I was on the school council I started a petition to get one of the houses renamed and I’m sure you can guess whose name I wanted. Yes – Jacky Chapman, the best captain Charlton have ever had. I’m still waiting to hear about that, but if they say no I’ll definitely suggest Mrs Martin instead because she’s AMAZING.

  So how could anyone DO that to her?

  Auntie Mill picked me up that day. Her and Mum, which was weird. Why were they both there? I didn’t really think about it, though, because the Mrs Martin thing was too huge.

  Jelly – so what? But THIS …?

  As I climbed into Auntie Mill’s car I kept seeing Mrs Martin’s bag before it was blown up, and then again twenty seconds later, after Jen had put it out with a fire extinguisher. It was all blackened and melted, with a gaping hole in the side. And I saw Mrs Martin walking forward and picking it up off the ground, staring at it in total shock before using the same expression as she turned around.

  And stared at US.

  We’d all stared back, in SILENCE, until Mr Baker towered over us.

  ‘Classrooms!’

  We’d marched off and I felt SO terrible that I got this feeling you might recognise from your own school, when someone’s done something bad. It really did feel like it was me who’d actually done it. And when I passed Mrs Martin it got worse. I didn’t giggle. Not this time. But instead my face went red. And Mrs Martin had been looking at me. I didn’t actually see her because I was keeping my eyes on Daisy right ahead of me, but I could FEEL it, her eyes following me all the way into school and up the stairs, the tops of my ears prickling with heat when I got there.

  ‘Had a good day?’ Mum asked as Auntie Mill pulled away, barging in front of Lance’s mum’s Fiesta. I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to get home so I could talk to her on her own about what had happened.

  AND GET HER TO CALL MRS MARTIN.

  But again I didn’t get a chance to.

  I expected Auntie Mill to turn right at the little roundabout – towards our house. Instead she went up through Blackheath to her house, which is next door to Veronique’s, actually (Billy Lee lives on the other side of the road). We weren’t giving Veronique a lift because she was doing fencing, which my cousin Juni does as well, though it’s at Juni’s school so no one needs to take her. Why we were going to Auntie Mill’s I didn’t know and I intended to ask, waiting while Auntie Mill’s new electronic gate opened and then as she turned her burglar alarm off. We went inside, where I expected to see Clay (my other cousin), but he was at rugby practice. That just left us three, which seemed a bit weird.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said, feeling small in their huge living room.

  Auntie Mill held her hands up at that and walked through to their kitchen, as if to say to my mum that it was her job to answer me. Mum took a breath. She walked over to one of the sofas, sat down and took my hand.

  ‘It’s Stephan,’ she said.

  I frowned. ‘Are you going to the pictures tonight? It’s only Thursday.’

  ‘I know.’ Mum shook her head. ‘And no. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Good. But what, then?’

  She took a breath. ‘Well, Stephan wants to spend more time with me.’

  I took that in. ‘Like, maybe, Tuesdays too?’

  ‘A lot more, actually.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And I said I wasn’t sure about that.’

  ‘There are only so many films you can see, aren’t there?’

  ‘Right. So I suggested that, before we commit to spending a lot more time together, we get to know him a bit better. And he gets to know my family properly, too.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He’s coming round here.’

  ‘Couldn’t everyone have come to our house?’

  ‘That’s what I said. But Mill needs the Internet for some reason and our connection’s not that good.’

  ‘Oh. But shouldn’t Dad be here too, if Stephan’s getting to know us?’

  ‘Ah,’ Mum said. ‘No, I … I think your dad’s working.’

  That was a shame, but they’d already met, actually. When Dad brought me home after the weekend once, Stephan was already there. He was all friendly, but Dad sort of pretended he was invisible.

  ‘So just Stephan tonight. He’s staying for supper.’

  ‘Fine. Though … what is for supper?’

  The reason I was asking was simple. When Mum was not well before Christmas, I stayed with Auntie Mill for a while and was exposed to certain foodstuffs. The worst were called artichokes, which take my favourite food (pizza) and make it taste REVOLTING. Auntie Mill also served me fish that was actually RAW, though the people at the takeaway place had tried to disguise that by chopping it small and wrapping it in rice. How lazy can you get?

  This time, Mum answered, she would be cooking. She was making something special for Stephan because he’s a vegetarian. That seemed okay, but when I said that I’d got something to tell her, Mum told me to save it for later because she had to ‘get on’. I sighed and asked if I could watch TV. Mum agreed and I grabbed the remote control. I turned on Auntie Mill’s MASSIVE screen and went into iPlayer. Whoever had used the TV last had set the volume too high, though, and Mum came rushing back through.

  ‘Nice try,’ she said, whisking the remote away.

  The TARDIS whirled off without me.

  I gave up on TV and went outside, where Clay’s World Cup 2018 ball was on the grass. I tried to beat my solo header record (four) but gave up because I couldn’t concentrate. The plastic, all mangled. That look on Mrs Martin’s face. Me, going RED … With a sigh I went back in where I did Minecraft on Mum’s phone until the battery died. I rooted in her bag for her charger, understanding why she can never find her keys when I saw the lipsticks and sketchpads and her bamboo coffee cup and all the other stuff in there.

  And then my eyes fell on a box. Small. Hard and square. It had a little gold star stuck on, the sight of which made me feel a lot better. What had Mum bought me? The box really was tiny – a new Subbuteo man? A Jacky Chapman one? And why had she bought it? Was it because I was upset over Mrs Martin? Maybe she had been listening after all. Knowing that I shouldn’t look inside – but that I definitely was going to look inside – I began to open it. The doorbell made me jump, though, and Mum shouted out for me to answer it.

  I shoved the little box back inside her bag.

  It was Stephan at the door, though it took me a second to recognise him. For one thing, it was a bit odd to see him at Auntie Mill’s and for another he normally wears jeans and a hoody. He had a jacket on for some reason and he’d flattened his hair down. And he looked nervous – had he heard about Auntie Mill’s cooking? I was going to reassure him that Mum was doing it tonight but I didn’t get a chance – Auntie Mill came bustling through.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘how lovely!’

  Auntie Mill held her hands out for the bunch of flowers that Stephan was holding, which was a bit awkward as he explained that they were actually for Mum. Auntie Mill said what a shame, they were lovely flowers, and she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had bought her any. Stephan said he found that hard to believe and Auntie Mill blushed. She said he was a real charmer and touched his arm, before pushing her hair behind her ear. Mum came out of the kitchen and glared. Mum and Auntie Mill sometimes argue and I thought they might then, actually, but the doorbell went again. This time it was Juni (my cousin).

  Juni’s a year older than me. That means that she calls most people ‘SUCH morons’, completely ignores me, and walks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame because someone seems to have Velcro-ed her eyes to her mobile phone. She’d been fencing. Apart from her phone this is her thing and if she’d been at our school Mrs Martin would have made a great song for her. When she wins it’s good, because she breaks her ignoring-me rule to tell me about it. She describes how she lunged forward to stab an opponent or lunged back to stop a different opponent stabbing her. I don’t think she’d won that day, though. Without a word she stomped in, kicked open the cellar door and bunged her mask down the stairs. She followed that by chucking her sword down after it, and then she announced that there was only one thing in the ENTIRE world that she hated more than fencing.

  ‘And that’s my ENTIRELY STUPID mum for making me DO IT!’

  Then she noticed Stephan.

  ‘DO I know you?’ she said.

  Stephan smiled, and held his hand out for a shake. ‘Stephan,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve …’

  ‘Not helpful.’ Juni sighed. ‘Why would I care about your name? Who are you?’

  ‘Oh.’ Stephan looked round, but Mum and Auntie Mill were back in the kitchen. ‘I’m a friend of Janet’s, Cym’s mum? I’ve …’

  ‘Well, if you are her friend,’ Juni said, holding up a hand to stop him, ‘then why aren’t you at her house?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘If you are her friend, what are you doing here? MUM!’ Juni bellowed. ‘What’s this friend of Cym’s mum doing in OUR house?!’

  Auntie Mill came back then – and explained. Stephan was staying for supper. She smiled at Juni in a wiry sort of way, and asked if she’d kindly go upstairs to change. She turned back into the kitchen while Juni hissed, shaking her head until she finally noticed me. Her hands went to her hips as she pinned me with her eyes.

  ‘À point,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry? “Ah …”?’ I stared. Juni goes to a posh school and I wondered if this was something you got taught there.

  Juni closed her eyes, then opened them again. ‘À point. Please tell me you know what that means.’

  I thought hard but had to shrug.

  ‘Unbelievable! It’s a way to cook steak.’

  ‘Cool. Thanks for telling me that.’

  ‘Wait. I am not just telling you – what am I, your teacher?’

  ‘Then …?’

  ‘Listen. Thursday is steak night. Tell Mum I want mine à point and that she MUST NOT overdo it. Your limited brain can remember that?’

  I was about to say yes, or at least I thought so, but Juni swivelled, marched through the living room and banged off up the stairs.

  Stephan had his mouth open. ‘She always like that?’

  ‘She’s nicer when she wins.’

  ‘Right,’ Stephan said, noticing that his hand was still held out and putting it down by his side.

  ‘I mean, a bit nicer.’

  I tried to tell Auntie Mill about Juni’s steak. I really did, though pretty soon she was busy making ‘drinkies’ and talking to Stephan in the kitchen, and while she did say, ‘Yes, Cym, darling,’ I’m not sure she was really listening. I tried waiting for the conversation to finish but when it did I still didn’t get a chance – because of Stephan.

  Now, I do like him. As I’ve mentioned, he’s Mum’s new friend. They go to the pictures on Fridays and he comes over at the weekends sometimes too, with his girls. He fixed my bike tyre that’s been flat FOREVER and he’s good enough at Subbuteo to be worth playing, but not so good that he ever wins. It can be odd, though. In Greenwich Park you can tell that people think we’re all together! One woman told Mum how lovely her daughters were! Mum went red. And, right then, in Auntie Mill’s kitchen, Stephan made a catastrophic grown-up error.

  ‘So,’ he said, holding his hand over the top of his wine glass when Auntie Mill tried to pour more in, ‘how was school today?’

  Adults! TELL me why you ask this question! Isn’t the answer obvious? IT WAS SCHOOL! Unless it has turned into a giant theme park (unlikely), what else is there to say? The only thing that stops me totally bugging out when I’m asked how school was today is that there is, as I’m sure you know, one question that is even MORE pointless. And that is: What did you do at school today? What did I do? Not only do I NOT CARE, but HOW WOULD I KNOW? I’m no longer AT SCHOOL! School has vanished into thin air, it does not exist and will not exist until I have to walk through the door next day. The only thing worse than asking us what we did at school is what Mum does: asks me what I did at school that day WHILE I AM WATCHING THE SIMPSONS.

  Sorry, I got a bit cross there and, actually, I shouldn’t have, because when Stephan asked me that day it meant I finally got a chance to talk about Mrs Martin. I told him about the science. I went back and told him about the JE (jelly event). And I told him about my giggle. I ended with the explosion and he was amazed. I hadn’t told him the importance of her bag – her most prized possession – and when I did, his mouth dropped open.

  ‘And it wasn’t you?’

  ‘NO!!!’

  ‘Then who was it?’ he asked, and I sighed. Daisy had asked the same question and it really rang through my head now. I was baffled, though a face did come into my mind that so would have been there before Christmas. It belonged to the kid who used to be the class horror, kicking you from behind on school trips, hiding your pencil case, putting old chewing gum in your coat pocket.

  Billy Lee.

  But Billy and I had become friends before Christmas so it couldn’t be him. Could it? It must have been someone in Year 6. I started to go through the names but Mum said it was suppertime.

  ‘Juniper!’ Auntie Mill called. ‘Can you come and set the table, please!’

  While we waited for Juni to come and help (never going to happen) Mum went into a faff wondering where everyone should sit. Auntie Mill set the table herself, telling us that Clay was going to a friend’s house. She still set six places, however, doing most of them normally, though at the head of the table she stacked up lots of glossy magazines where the plate was supposed to go. Stephan looked at me and I looked at Stephan but neither of us knew why. Then Juni came down, bumping into a chair and then a floor lamp as she walked across the living room.