The Day the Ear Fell Off Read Free

was
sitting perfectly still on all four legs, like he had been all morning.
    ‘Jonno, chairs are made with four legs for a reason,’ she said, far too nicely. She was still being soft on him.
    ( Jonno – what sort of name is that? I thought.)
    I didn’t dare look at him. I looked at Copper Pie instead. He was leaning back on two legs, almost overbalancing, with a grin so wide it squashed his freckles together. I saw Fifty do a
quick thumbs up.
    But me, I was getting a bad feeling about it all. I kept my head down until break, trying to finish my story about an incredibly powerful sea creature wrecking all the fishing boats and
poisoning the waters with its toxic waste.
    We’d agreed to sprint straight outside to our territory as soon as the bell went. I was there second, behind Copper Pie. No one ever gets anywhere before him unless he’s not going
that way. He’s the fastest in the school.
    Between panting, I tried to abort the mission. ‘How about we let him hang out with us for a bit? He’ll soon see we’re no fun.’
    ‘Keener!’ Copper Pie gave me the look he’s used many times before. I’m always the one trying to stop the others from doing risky things. Most of the time Fifty
feels the same but he relies on me to be the wimp. That’s how it works in groups. You all have a job, like leader, ideas person, dangerman, Mr Responsible (that’s me), funny one . . .
Fifty’s job is smooth talker. Bee is boss. Copper Pie is secret weapon.
    ‘Take your positions,’ Copper Pie shouted. He stood bang in the middle of the way in, with the wire fence of the netball court one side and the trees the other. I went to the right,
blocking the gap that side. Fifty and Bee took care of the rest. We fidgeted a bit to get a tight fit and linked arms. Wedged into the space, we waited. I kept swallowing something that
wasn’t there.
    I glanced behind at the tiny triangle of land with the rotten tree stump that we call our patch. It’s always dark and often damp and even more often smelly. Why did it matter so
much? I asked myself.
    ‘He’s coming,’ said Bee.
    ‘Time, my noble friends, to defend our homeland from the wretched Gauls,’ said Fifty.
    ‘Someone will lock you up one day, freak,’ said C.P.
    Fifty lives half in the real world and half in some other made-up universe but at least he’d answered my question: it mattered because to us it was a kind of home.
    We all grew a bit taller as the enemy drew nearer. I stuck my chest out, but it made the butterflies in my stomach seem worse, so I tucked it in again.
    What do you think Newboy did?
    Ran at us like a snorting bull? No.
    Karate-chopped our arms to break up the line? No.
    Walked off? That would have been ideal but . . . No.
    He strolled up to us with his hands in his pockets, a half-smile on his face, his glasses slightly too low down his nose so he looked like a professor.
    ‘Is it the beginning of a dance? he said, making a puzzled crease down the middle of his forehead. ‘Do you join arms and waltz round the playground?’
    Nobody tells Copper Pie he’s doing the waltz. Before any of us had a chance to think of a clever reply (not that I can ever think of one until I’m in the bath three
days later), Copper Pie’s arm disengaged from Fifty’s, shot out and wrapped itself round Jonno’s neck forcing his head down, ready for —
    Sheesh! I had to do something.
    Copper Pie tried to free his other arm – the hand was already shaped into a fist – but I held it firmly, squeezed between my elbow and my body. Getting another kid in a headlock was
one thing but a full-blown assault was a whole lot worse. Copper Pie tried to shake me off but I wasn’t going to let go. He’d have to punch me first. (That would NEVER happen.
He’s been my protector since nursery when Annabel Ellis used to bite me.) I held on long enough for Fifty and Bee to peel his other arm from around Jonno’s neck and for Bee to whisper
the magic word ‘detention’,