Darcy Burdock, Book 2 Page 3

  ‘Maybe he didn’t see you?’ Toad suggested, which he knew was stupid as Toad was about the same size as the Dompy’s ankle. ‘OK, maybe he did, he was probably just tired. Look, let’s find somebody else to say good afternoon to instead, somebody who isn’t Bully Cat or Panda Paw.’

  ‘I don’t think I can take any more hurt today.’ The Dompy kicked the grit on the floor below and it hit him back in the face. ‘I’m so useless and rubbish and ugly, it’s not a surprise nobody wants to be my friend.’

  ‘Don’t say that, cheer up. Look, there’s Parrot – she’s a flirt, she likes everybody, she will say good afternoon.’

  The Dompy didn’t seem hopeful but it wasn’t like his day could get any worse.

  Parrot was in the coconut tree, combing her rainbow feathers and humming a love song.

  ‘Good afternoon, Parrot,’ greeted Toad, ‘you look nice today.’

  ‘Toad, you gentleman, it’s so lovely to see such a handsome face on such a beautiful day!’ she sang and carried on combing her feathers, trying to look as pretty as possible. The Dompy was so nervous; his big legs went all fizzy and liquidy like they were full of lemonade. Toad cocked his head at him.

  ‘Good afternoon, Parrot, you look like a vision of summer,’ the Dompy managed to squeeze out, before blushing a violent violet and turning away, trembling, waiting for it all to be over. Toad seemed impressed but the Dompy wasn’t so sure – maybe the summer line was too forward, too keen? He was embarrassed of himself.

  Parrot said nothing and continued grooming herself. The Dompy’s hunch grew another bunch.

  ‘Very weird,’ Toad said as they walked away.

  ‘Oh well,’ the Dompy sulked. ‘Thank you for trying.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dompy, it seems nobody hears you. I did try to help you.’ And Toad hung his head low too: he felt like he had failed the Dompy.

  And then they heard Parrot say, ‘Good afternoon, Parrot, you look like a vision of summer.’ She was repeating it, over and over again.

  Toad hopped back to the coconut tree. ‘So you did hear him?’ He leaped with happiness over to Parrot.

  ‘Hear who?’ Parrot chirped.

  ‘The Dompy, you heard him say good afternoon to you. You must have because you’re a parrot and you repeat what you hear!’

  ‘Oh, I must have done, but I don’t remember seeing him!’ Parrot held a wing over her eyes to block the sunshine out so she could have a good look.

  ‘You know him, he’s kind and gentle and sweet and silly, you must know the Dompy.’ Toad looked around. He could see the Dompy all right, in the shade trying to seem invisible. Toad beckoned him forward. ‘She heard you, Parrot heard you, come on . . .’

  And the Dompy stepped forward into the light, his sad eyes wary.

  Parrot looked him up and down and then clapped her wings in delight. ‘Ah yes, there he is, the Dompy, and he’s your friend, is he, Toad?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he is.’ Toad smiled, and then said proudly: ‘He definitely is.’

  ‘Well, any friend of yours, Toad, is a friend of mine.’ Parrot screeched, ‘Hellllllllllllooooooo, Dompy, what cute little ears you’ve got.’ She giggled and the Dompy blushed and said hello back. His hunchback shrank – he couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Toad has been a very good friend to me,’ the Dompy laughed. ‘He has made me happier with myself, he makes me feel good.’ The words tumbled out and they felt alien to him, he had never said anything so positive before. His hunch shrank some more.

  ‘We should throw a party in the Dompy’s honour! Let’s invite Panda Paw and Bully Cat and all the others. I want them all to meet the Dompy, I know they will love him just as much as us!’ said Dompy’s new friend Toad, and Parrot agreed in delight.

  Panda Paw and Bully Cat came to the coconut tree with lots of others, where they ate warm golden sponge cake with rose-petal crystals on top, satsuma-ade, palm sugar and maple syrup pie, cauliflower and strawberry cookies and tomato heart tarts and plenty of homemade honey beer. The Dompy was known for a sweet tooth, and as his belly got fatter, his hunch got smaller and the more friends he made.

  The moral to the story – if you don’t love and respect yourself, how will anybody else learn to love and respect you either? The same applies to shoes.

  I try the Dompy shoes on again. I still hate them, but it looks like I’m going to have to start accepting them if I want others to accept me too.

  Chapter Six

  The time has come. The one I putted to the back of my mind for approximately one billion years: the night before BIG School. Duh. I know you don’t call it that in real life, I know it’s fine to call it secondary school, or even work if you feel like it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is big, very big, and that means one giant big scary headache that makes me as tiny as the rainbow-coloured paracetamol trying to conquer it.

  For my last supper Mum is making chilli; she is using a garlic crusher. The garlic goes in whole and comes out in smushed-up bits. It’s good. I think it’s my favourite kitchen appliance. I think about staining the wretched uniform in the chilli or at least with the garlic and then not having to wear it; although luckily I think before I act and realize this will most likely end badly for me.

  Dad comes home with swooping arms and love, picking me up and cuddling me and letting me tug his beard, but no intense amount of tugging is going to drag me out of this worry well.

  All that night, my throat is like glue and my new school is like a tall shadow that I tried to ignore for so long, but it’s there all grey and brown like an abandoned factory. I have seen the big kids coming out of there too; linking arms and wearing high shoes and saying swear words even if they want. And then I push it all to the back of my head like a feeling I don’t want to deal with.

  How am I ever going to fit in? I think.

  ‘You just need to walk in that place with your head held high,’ Dad says.

  BUT I CAN’T!

  There is so much to think about, so many things: what about the class plant Tina who lives at my old school? Who will water her now without me keeping a watchful eye? Who will know that the tap in the girls’ toilet gets really hot and you have to fill the sink one part cold to three parts hot to properly wash your hands? And that the hopscotch mat is missing the letter 3 in the playground outside so you have to improvise? Who will ring the bell at lunch time to let everybody know it’s time to eat? Aargggggghhhhh! My old school will not possibly cope without me.

  How will all the new stuff at this new school possibly squeeze into my head . . . what if I pop? What if all my ideas add up so much they just edge nicely out of any open hole they can? My nose? My eyeballs? My ears? I look over the mile-long list of things I need to bring with me. Stupid things that I never imagined even owning myself, like AN ACTUAL personal calculator, indoor and outdoor trainers, and textbooks. My rucksack looks even more biggerer than when I run away from home, it’s like I’m leaving for ever. Darcy on a train to Big School, never to return again.

  On the first day of the end of my life (school) it wouldn’t be too much to ask to expect a boily egg and soldiers, would it? Pah! But obviously Mum has had her head in the clouds because I’m having to eat a breakfast of muesli (hamster bedding) that gets swallowed in huge lumps that don’t settle in my tummy in no way whatsoever. I cut my gum whilst I brushed my teeth and keep looking at myself in the mirror a trillion times and not feeling one bit like me. I feel like a fraud. Like an actor. I feel small and old at the same time. Like an . . . ancient Chihuahua.

  I want to cry the whole way there and even when Mum wants to take photographs of me I am feeling stupid about my frilly socks and insecurely want to fold the frills into the socks themselves so nobody can see. The sleeves of my jacket are too long – I could possibly never have arms like this – and the skirt is even longer, like a proper hippy length. The only way I am going to get through these school years is to pretend the uniform is more colourful. A nice purple blazer instead of this wretche
d thing, and maybe even stripey socks. But no amount of make-believe is going to make these Dompies anything other than . . . well, pretty . . . dompy. Leaving my house I wonder will I ever see it again? Will I make it through the day? I go to close the front door and that’s when I see Lamb-Beth sitting outside on the step with her ‘going to the park lead’ in her mouth.

  ‘No, Lamb-Beth, you can’t come. I’m sorry.’ I pick her up and breathe in her fluff and ripple her ear in between my fingers and we snuggle. I wish I could spend the day with her. I let her back into the house but she keeps wanting to come out again. That’s the trouble with the six-week holidays: you almost forget you have to do anything with your life ever again, and she’s got too used to having me around.

  We drive past my old school on the way to my new one. Poppy and Hector get out of the car, running towards the tiny familiar gate. I draw an invisible star on the car window with my finger and say goodbye. When we reach the driveway of my new school I am met by absolute ridiculous madness. Everybody seems so growed up, it’s like walking into a nightclub. Nobody has these long sleeves or hippy long skirts or dompy bench shoes that I have. Nobody has frilly socks on either, or rucksacks like they are leaving the country. Everybody seems to know each other. I try to look as though I am not looking for Will, or Caroline from the Magical Land of China, who is also coming to this school. I’d even like to see hateful Clementine, as at least she is familiar. It feels like that bit in the penguin nature programme when all the mum penguins come home from food catching and come to meet their husbands and eggs and it’s complete major chaos. It’s all beaks and wings.

  ‘Hiya, Darcy, and everything.’

  Will. Thank goodness. I look at him in his uniform. It’s way too big, his sleeves are nearly brushing the pavement and he’s gone for a new hairstyle.

  ‘Is that gel in your hair?’ I ask. He goes to pat it and then remembers he must not want it to be one bit ruined.

  ‘I’m not sure, Annie did it.’ Annie is Will’s big sister who has already even finished big school and knows about everything cool so I nod in approval.

  ‘It looks nice.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Will is the most frightened I have ever seen him. I want to hold his hand but I just don’t know if this is allowed at Big School.

  The building is even greyer and more boring when we get closer up.

  The kids are even biggerer and the feeling is even scarier. You can recognize all the new ones like us from miles away. We are all the ones that are too small, waiting to get stepped on like ants.

  ‘What if people hate us?’ Will suddenly says to me. He’s not allowed to do this fear business, he is supposed to be the brave one, the one that knows what’s going on . . . but he does have a point. What if people hate us? What will we do then? How will we make sure we look cool? What if we get tied up to the front gates and get force-fed dog poo and nits? What if we get stapled to the notice board? What if we . . . get made deaded? What then, eh?

  I grab Will firmly by the wrist and bring him round to face me. He panics and flinches as if I am about to either snog him or punch him, but I don’t do either as obviously I am not a maniac.

  ‘William Hopper, we can do this because when it comes to being a human being we are the very best, we are superheroes at being human beings and nothing is going to bring us down or ruin our chances at making this school work for us because . . . well, because this school needs us far more than we need it. In fact, this school is begging for cool kids like us to come and electrify its corridors and classrooms, so what you saying, bruv? Get your bag on your back, straighten that tie, do up your flies and come on!’

  I really was fired up and I feel so strong and powerful and relieved and brilliant, exactly like if I was a Prime Minister-ess for my actual paid job. There is a moment’s silence and that is when everybody begins to laugh, hard. I’ve not only given this speech to Will, I’ve given it to the whole playground. I melt. I am a puddle.

  Will reaches round in the awkwardness and slowly does up his flies; the zipping sound pierces the air like a horn on a clown’s bicycle whilst the dreaded one and only Clementine claps her hands slowly in mocking meanness. What a wicked way to start secondary school, I think. Well done, Darcy, well done.

  Chapter Seven

  Will and I have been putted on different sides of the room to force us to make ‘new’ friends. I knew we should have lied and said that Will was Australian – we could have made a whole storyline up that he was raised in the Outback by hunters and has only just moved over here to start school. Then we could have pretended we never met before and could actually secretly stick together. But great: too late.

  I am sitting next to a girl called Sasha whose nose is constantly running into her lip and that is a no-go for Big School. I am also sitting next to a boy with an amazing afro but every time his head turns to the side his hair brushes past my face. UUUUGGGGGHHH! Annoying! But at least Will’s in my class.

  Of all the teachers I’ve seen walking around this ghastly factory building, trust us to get Mrs Ixy. Her hair is black and long and tangly and her skin is pale and her voice is croaky and her ideas are all annoying and weird, like, ‘Let’s play a name game’ and I know she only wants to play a ‘name game’ so that she can learn our names to ensure she gets them correct on the menu when she serves us up at a feast for witches. She starts by handing us out lined paper, which she serves up like bad news with long spiky nails, flicking her eyes at us, which are dark and demonic and scary. I am so livid I never sawed this before. Of course a teacher could be a witch, it is the best chance to get as close up and personal to a child as you could possibly be to ensure perfect snatching distance.

  This annoying girl called Bella takes a little comb out of her pencil case and without ASKING me begins brushing my hair. I don’t want to be rude so I don’t do anything. Then Mrs Ixy says she wants ‘Complete silence’ but obviously didn’t hear the scrapes and scratches of my hair being detangled. It is really a bit pulling and then Bella begins separating my hair to probably do bunches and I just turn round and say, ‘Stop it!’ and she doesn’t stop so I push her hand off mine and she says, ‘OUCH! You didn’t need to HIT me!’ really loud, and Mrs Ixy looks up and says, ‘Who’s hitting who?’

  And Bella says, ‘SHE’ – meaning me – ‘hit me.’ She says it a bit shyly because she knows it was provoked. She isn’t a bully girl or anything, just a wanting-to-work-in-a-hairdresser’s type who wants to practise.

  Mrs Ixy says, ‘Is this true, Darcy?’

  And I say, ‘No, she was playing with my hair.’

  Some people in the class do that horrible laugh like a sneeze and Mrs Ixy says, ‘I didn’t ask why you hit her, I asked you if you hit her.’ And I have no choice but to nod. Mrs Ixy addresses us all like this: ‘You are Year Sevens now, this is NOT primary school, there will be NO excuses for CHILDISH behaviour.’ And then moves on to our writing exercise.

  Will looks down at his page pretending not to know me a bit and Bella whispers ‘Sorry’ in my ear and I feel so embarrassed and like I take up all the space in the classroom. I want to go home already. I HATE Mrs Ixy.

  We have to write on the page ‘about ourselves’. We have to say who we are, our age, who we live with, what we like . . . Well, I do not trust this sheet of evidence one bit. I mouth-sign-whisper to Will, ‘Do NOT fill this in,’ and point at the sheet, but he is on the other side of the room and cannot hear and mouths back ‘WHAT?’ and so I point back at the sheet and then shake my hands over it and then he shakes his head and looks at Mrs Ixy. Whatever, Will, suit yourself, you will be sorry when you get stolen and turned into stew.

  ABOUT ME

  My name is Caterpillar Louise Porridge and I am 22, so really old to be honest and I wouldn’t taste yummy at all if anybody ever wanted to eat me, I am very out of date. I came to school because living in the jungle was just too hot and I had outgrown all the animals and tropical exotic plants with my wisdom and excellenc
e and also I wanted to get betterer at adding and dividing. I don’t really need to be here because I am really already clever at everything. I am a black belt in karate. I once sawed a man’s head off with my armpit and can speak every language that exists, even alien. I know all the words to every film and song. I am also doubling up as a spy and television reporter. My favourite colour is blood. I have bodyguards hidden in nooks and crannies at all times so there is not one point in trying to steal me because you will instantly be gobbled up by my 1000 rattlesnakes and bears or, if you are lucky, put into a boring prison with nothing fun to do, not even drawing. My mum is a millionaire Oscar award-winning actress but you’ve never heard of her because only selected viewers who are mostly the winning members of society can watch her films and my dad lives in a Greek Myth, inventing a way of bringing unicorns over here to England. In my spare time I rehearse new kung fu moves and create odourless poisons. If I like I can hop in my private jet and visit my cowboy relatives in Montana. As I say I am just here to revise and further my interest in sums and then I will be nothing but dust on your desk . . . I am immortal . . . which means I will never be dying so don’t even try . . . or else.

  P.S. I do not know who Darcy Burdock is, and in fact am sure she does not exist.

  P.P.S. I have got a garlic crusher that is made actually for you to put your nose in and get broken and force-fed the eternal smell of garlic, and I carry that with me at all hours.

  Well, if that doesn’t do the trick then I’ll be damned (I don’t know what this means but I heard it said in a film).