Flour Babies - Anne Fine [24]
No. Your whole life could go down the drain that way if you didn’t keep a look-out. You had to be very much on your guard.
Miss Arnott was still gazing at him hopefully. And Simon had always been very fond of Miss Arnott. He didn’t want to be the one to crush her starry-eyed teacher’s dream.
Shuffling his feet, he made a real effort to be diplomatic.
‘Possibly,’ he said. And then again, with a little more firmness: ‘Possibly.’
And to keep her from harrying him further, he made for the door as quickly as possible.
Outside in the corridor, Simon found himself pinned against the wall by what he at first took to be a miniature armoured car.
Over the top of it, Sajid was grinning like a fool.
‘What’s this, then?’ Simon demanded.
Sajid pulled back a few inches so Simon could free himself and take a better look.
‘Isn’t it obvious? It’s a pram.’
‘So why’s it got eight wheels?’
Sajid rolled his eyes.
‘Because it’s actually two prams lashed together with some fusewire Tullis nicked for me, that’s why.’
‘But what’s it for?’
‘Flour babies.’ Sajid’s eyes shone. ‘Look, Sime. How many flour babies do you reckon you could shove in this front pram without any falling out?’
Simon tugged his flour baby out of his book bag, and sat her at one end, like a queen.
‘About ten,’ he said, after a moment’s reflection. ‘They’d be a bit squashed, but they wouldn’t fall out.’
‘Exactly!’ crowed Sajid. ‘Ten in this one at the front and nine in this one at the back. All nineteen flour babies fit in these two prams tied together.’
‘So?’
Sajid was getting impatient.
‘Don’t be such a dim bulb, Sime! It’s a little travelling nursery. A crèche!’
‘Crush more like,’ Simon said.
Sajid started pushing. Rigidly lashed together as they were, the prams were impossible to manoeuvre round the corner, and Sajid was reduced to doing a seven-point-turn under Simon’s strident but unsystematic instruction.
‘But that’s the whole point,’ he insisted, as the two of them finally took off at last down the straight. ‘The more flour babies I can cram in, the more money I make.’
Simon was mystified.
‘Money?’
Sajid turned to stare.
‘This isn’t going to be a charity crèche,’ he told Simon sternly. ‘If I’m taking responsibility, I’m taking money. That’s business.’
Simon said disparagingly:
‘Come off it, Sajid. No one will sign on for this. No one.’
‘Oh yes, they will,’ Sajid informed him cheerily. ‘I’ve got ten names down already, and three more going home tonight to sift through their money bags and see if they can afford –’
Whoooomph!
He’d run into Dr Feltham, who was rounding the next turn in the corridor at such a speed he couldn’t stop in time. Simon expected the worst. A giant ticking off. Another detention. Fifty lines. But Dr Feltham, when he caught his wind, simply prowled round the strange eight-wheeled vehicle, eyeing its visible features and weighing up its attributes.
‘Extraordinary!’
He spun round to address the little crowd of acolytes trailing behind him with their arms full of laboratory equipment.
‘Extraordinary! Most fortuitous! Here we were only this morning discussing articulation in vehicles, and here in the corridor is a perfect example of exactly what I was trying to explain. Note that, with a rigid rectangular structure of these proportions and –’
Here, he broke off to peer briefly under the prams.
‘Eight wheels –’
Distracted, he stopped again.
‘What is this?’ he asked, pointing. ‘Is this thirty-amp fuse wire? I certainly hope it didn’t come from any of Mr Higham’s workshops!’
Then, without even waiting for an answer, he ushered his little group on, still lecturing them mightily about such mysteries as angles of approach, and separate speeds and velocities.
Simon and Sajid lounged against the