How to Write Really Badly Read Free Page B

scuttled back with Flora’s tape in hand. I used a lot. (No point in messing about.) I stuck that special sheet of paper on the desk so well it won’t go walkabout again. And I took a look at it.
    once knew called guess
    ready caught night garden
    school hospital break doing
    That sort of thing. And maybe I was in amood because I hadn’t had time to get started on my own work.
    ‘Oh, right,’ I muttered. ‘All the really
hard
words.’
    Joe lifted his face.
    ‘That’s right,’ he said gratefully. ‘All the words where it’s easy to make mistakes.’
    So I admit it. Though I didn’t smirk, I was still feeling pretty superior as we ploughed through the silt at the bottom of his desk.
    ‘Trash or treasure?’
    ‘Trash.’
    ‘Into the bin. And this?’
    He reached for it in relief.
    ‘My dictionary!’
    ‘Just try to keep it near the top in future.’ (Miss Tate could take lessons from me.) ‘Is that the lot?’
    He took the last thing I was holding up.
    ‘Trash.’
    He dropped it in the bin, and was about to put his foot on it when I reached down and snatched it.
    ‘What is this?’
    ‘It’s just a photograph.’
    ‘I know it’s a photograph, Bean-brain,’ I told him sharply. ‘But what
is
it?’
    He shrugged.
    ‘It’s just a model that I made last year.’
    ‘Just a model?’ I inspected it. Then I inspected him.
    ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘But may I ask you a very personal question? If you can make a three-metre model of the Eiffel Tower out of macaroni, why can’t you keep your desk tidy?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Well, I’m sure I don’t.’
    I was still staring at him when the bell rang. I hadn’t got any work done. But I’d achieved something. I’d shifted a majorhealth hazard in the next desk. I’d got to know the worst writer in the world. And I’d worked out he wasn’t daft.
    Not bad for my first morning, you’ll admit.

5
Quieter around here
    I soon found out why he’d been sitting alone before I showed up to take the last desk. Come silent-reading time, my hand spent more time flapping in the air than turning pages.
    ‘Miss Tate. Joe’s sound-it-outs are getting on my nerves.’
    ‘He’s driving me
mad
, Miss Tate. No one could read against his mutterings.’
    ‘I’ve read exactly four pages. Exactly four. Each time he starts up, I have to go back to the top of the page.’
    Miss Tate laid down her marking pen.
    ‘Joe. Please try and do your sound-it-outs more quietly.’
    He went even redder than he was before.
    ‘I
am
. You’d practically need anear-trumpet to hear me, Miss Tate.’
    ‘Howard can hear you well enough.’
    ‘I most certainly can,’ I burst out. ‘C-a-t, cat. D-o-g, dog.’
    ‘That isn’t fair,’ said Joe. ‘I’m reading about camels.’
    When I got home that night, I asked my dad:
    ‘What’s
wrong
with him, anyway? How can he have enough of a headful of brains to walk and talk, and not be able to write “would” and “could” without making eighty mistakes?’
    ‘Wiring,’ my dad said darkly. ‘Faulty wiring. A bit like that flat we rented in Rio.’
    I nearly died in a fire in that flat. So next day, back in school, I made an effort to be more sympathetic.
    ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Either you get your act together a bit, or I will murder you. Which is it to be?’
    ‘I
try
,’ he said. ‘I really
try
. It’s just that some things don’t
stick
.’
    ‘It’s not as if you’re
stupid
,’ I complained. ‘If you were
stupid
, we’d know where we stand.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
    I got the feeling he’d been saying it since he was born.
    ‘Oh, never mind,’ I snapped. ‘I’ll work something out.’
    And some of the things I worked out went quite well. That afternoon I tackled
should
(along with
would
and
could
).
    ‘Start it with one of your ghastly little sound-it-outs, and then remember “Oh, you little darling” for the end.’
    ‘Oh, you little darling?’
    ‘O-U-L-D.’
    ‘Brilliant!’
    Then his face