The Day the Ear Fell Off Read Free Page A

followed by the other magic word ‘suspension’. Copper Pie doesn’t need any more trouble. He let Newboy go.
    You’ve got to respect Jonno: he didn’t hit Copper Pie, he didn’t say something mean, he didn’t cry or even do the wobbly bottom lip. I don’t think he did anyway. I
didn’t look too closely – I was too ashamed. But not ashamed enough to actually help. Help came quickly enough from another direction.
    ‘Are you all right? It’s Jonno, isn’t it?’ Miss Maggs, the playground monitor, was by his side in a flash. Any hopes the attack hadn’t been witnessed vanished. I
let Copper Pie have his arm back and watched him head for the back entrance, because we all knew what was coming next.
    Miss Maggs shouted after him, ‘Wait outside the Head’s office.’
    Bee rolled her eyes. ‘Another fine mess. Copper Pie will end up Prisoner Pie if he carries on like this.’
    She’s right. The last thing Copper Pie needs is another roasting from the Head. Why did Newboy have to get in the way?

Copper Pie cops it
    The thing about Copper Pie is that he’s the best friend you could ever have in some ways, and a total disaster in others. He’ll always stand up for you, lend you
money, borrow money to lend you, eat your unwanted lunch, lie for you and would even lend you his brother, Charlie, to torture – not that anyone wants to. The trouble comes when
someone annoys him. He doesn’t seem to understand that other people think differently. No, that’s not it. He doesn’t understand that other people are allowed to think
something different. But he is getting better . . . slowly.
    The three of us discussed what we thought his punishment would be. He’s had an essay on ‘Using words to resolve issues’ – I did that for him. And loads of lunchtime
detentions for: being rough, unsportsmanlike behaviour (he kicked his goalie for letting in a pathetic shot), not sitting still in class (he was jumping on his desk because it wouldn’t shut)
and bringing a weapon to school (a catapult isn’t really a weapon, is it? It’s practical exploration of the basic mechanism of the Roman ballista).
    COPPER PIE’S FACT FILE
    • Bright ginger hair
    • Very freckly
    • Awful at anything to do with dividing, timesing, spelpng or school
    • Good at everything sporty
    • Loves football and food
    • pkes war and weapons
    • Very loyal
    FAMILY STUFF
    Mum – runs a nursery
    Dad – lazy, according to his mum
    Brother – Charlie, aged 3, snotty, stinky, sticky, stupid, absolutely not allowed in Copper Pie’s room
    Bee said, ‘This time it’ll be exclusion. A Year 6 getting a new kid in a headlock for no reason. Exclusion, for definite.’
    ‘It was hardly no reason. He accused us of waltzing.’ I sounded ridiculous. Bee started jogging on the spot (none of us know how to waltz) and giggling, and then me and Fifty joined
in (the laughing, not the dancing).
    I was last in the line-up for lunch, and still chuckling, when Jonno came along with an ice pack pressed against his neck. I shut up and turned to study the back of Bee’s
head, praying he wouldn’t speak to me, or worse, punch me.
    He didn’t.
    Copper Pie’s punishments were: a talking to from the Head and Miss Walsh, an apology to Jonno, to stay in every lunch break this week and, worst of all, a letter home.
    ‘It could have been worse,’ said Bee.
    ‘Could it? Mum’s gonna hit the roof.’ Even Copper Pie’s freckles looked pale. His mum is quite shouty.
    ‘You could have been suspended.’ Bee shook her head and tutted.
    We were eating slowly for a change, so that Copper Pie had less time sitting outside the Head’s office on the naughty chair. I had plain pasta (no sauce), cheese, sweet-corn and a muffin:
one of my favourite lunches.
    ‘At least your mum won’t start wailing, “Where did I go wrong?” like mine does and suggest we schedule in more “quality time”,’ said Fifty.
    ‘Your mum’s nice – well, apart from all the