yelled at the staffroom window at the top of his voice, ‘AND I’LL TELL THE PIGS WHY I DONE IT!’
Loads of people say ‘I don’t give a toss’. But for Pluto Noak, not giving a toss’s a religion.
So anyway, Mr Blake’d taken a cautious step or two back before Pluto Noak reached his gate. ‘Talk about someone’s father like that, yer’ve gotta see it through, Roger. So let’s sort this out like men. You and me. Right now. You ain’t scared, right? Martin said you’ve got quite a talent for smashin’ up disobedient teenagers.’
‘You,’ when Mr Blake found his voice it’d gone crackly and sort of hysterical, ‘you don’t know what you’re damn well talking about.’
‘Martin knew well enough, though, didn’t he?’
‘I never laid a finger on that boy!’
‘Not a finger.’ It took me a moment to realize the next voice belonged to Dean Moran. ‘Pokers wrapped in pillowcases’s more your style, weren’t it?’ You never know with Dean Moran. ‘So it didn’t leave any marks.’
Pluto Noak pushed his advantage. ‘Glory days, eh? Rog?’
‘Poisonous little crappers!’ Mr Blake marched back to his house. ‘All of you! The police’ll mop you up quickly enough…’
‘My old man’s got his faults and I ain’t sayin’ he ain’t,’ Pluto Noak called out, ‘but he never done nothin’ to me like what you done to Martin!’
Mr Blake’s door slammed loud as a shotgun.
Wished I’d never opened my stupid gob about the cotton now.
Pluto Noak strolled back, all perky. ‘Nice shot, Moran. Fancy a zap on the old Asteroids up the Swan, me. Comin’?’
The invitation was for Redmarley and Swinyard only. Both answered, ‘Okay, Ploot.’ As they left, Pluto Noak nodded me a Well done.
‘But,’ Ross Wilcox had to say, ‘Blake’ll find the cotton in the morning.’
Pluto Noak spits at the polished June moon. ‘Good.’
Breaks at school’re normally pretty grim. Spend your break alone, you’re a No-friends Loser. Try to enter a ring of high-rank kids like Gary Drake or David Ockeridge, you risk a withering ‘What d’you want?’ Hang out with low-rank kids like Floyd Chaceley and Nicholas Briar, that means you’re one of them. Girls, like Avril Bredon’s cloakroom huddle, aren’t much of a solution. True, you don’t have to prove yourself so much with girls, and they definitely smell better. But pretty soon someone’ll start a rumour that you fancy one of them. Hearts and initials’ll appear on blackboards.
I try to spend my breaks on journeys between changing destinations, so at least I always look like I’ve got somewhere to be.
But today was different. Kids came seeking me out. They wanted to know if I’d really tied cotton to the Roger Blake’s front door. A certain reputation as a bit of a hard-knock’s useful, but not if teachers notice. So I told each kid, ‘Ah, you can’t believe everything you hear, you know.’ A skill answer, that. It meant, Of course it’s true as well as Why would I want to talk to you about it?
‘Far out,’ they told me. Saying that’s a craze right now.
At the tuck shop Neal Brose was with the sixth-form prefects behind the counter. (Neal Brose managed to get special permission by persuading Mr Kempsey he wanted to learn about the business world.) Neal Brose’s been giving me the cold shoulder this term, but today he called out, ‘What’ll it be, Jace?’
His friendliness made my mind go blank. ‘Double Decker?’
A Double Decker flew at my face. I raised a hand to stop it. The chocolate bar landed there, moulded to my hand, perfectly.
Loads of kids saw it.
Neal Brose jerked his thumb to tell me to pay round the side. But when I held out my 15p he just did this sly grin and closed my fingers round my coins so it looked like he’d taken them. He shut the door before I could argue. No Double Decker ever tasted so good. No nougat ever so snowy. No curranty clag ever so crumbly and sweet.
Then Duncan Priest and Mark Badbury appeared with a tennis ball. Mark Badbury asked, ‘Game of slam?’ Like we’d been best mates for years.
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Okay!’ said Duncan Priest. ‘Slam’s better with three.’
Art was with the same Mr Dunwoody whose car Pluto Noak’d turtled over last year. Mr Nixon’d stepped in to save his bacon, to avoid a scandal, so Julia reckons. Nothing happened to Pluto Noak and Mr Dunwoody came to school with Miss Gilver until his Citroën was repaired. They’d make a good husband and wife, we reckon. They both hate humans.