Flour Babies - Anne Fine [25]
They watched in silence for a few more seconds. Then Sajid nudged Simon as the last of Dr Feltham’s retinue disappeared round the bend in the corridor.
‘Sad lives…’ he said, shaking his head.
Simon echoed,
‘Sad lives…’
Forcibly they shook themselves out of the mournful mood into which what little they understood of the impromptu lesson on articulation had unaccountably thrown them.
Together they pushed the pram off down the corridor to find somewhere with a steep slope, and cheer themselves up with a good laugh.
6
On Day 11, Robin Foster lost his temper and kicked his flour baby in the canal. It sank almost at once. Three days before, at the twice-weekly weigh-in, things had been going well enough. His flour baby hadn’t lost any weight from ill-treatment. Nor had it gained any from added damp. But on the way home from school on the eleventh day, something in Robin snapped, and the result was a few rising bubbles, and a line of curious faces peering into the filthy black water of the canal.
‘Death-blow!’
‘Seriously sunk, Foster!’
‘You and the baby…’
‘Why did you do that?’
But Robin seemed reluctant to explain.
‘I just couldn’t help it, see?’
‘No,’ Simon said, pulling his own flour baby’s bonnet straight. ‘I don’t see. I don’t see at all.’
Robin scowled at him horribly.
‘Well, maybe your flour baby is a whole lot easier to look after than mine.’
‘Rubbish!’ scoffed Simon, though secretly he did think that it might be true. His own flour baby had a way of watching with those big round eyes that made her easy to look after. He often found himself chatting to her companionably. ‘Comfy?’ he’d ask, as he propped her on top of the rest of the stuff in his book bag. ‘Happy?’ as he lifted her to the top of the wardrobe (the only place Macpherson couldn’t get at her). Using his flour baby to join in a Glorious Explosion was going to be difficult enough. But at the very least it would be something extraordinary, something quite awesome. He couldn’t imagine just booting her in the canal.
‘What made you do it?’ he asked again.
If it had been only Simon who was curious, Robin would have ignored the question. After all, everyone in the whole school knew by now that Simon Martin had gone quite daffy over his bag of flour. But the other three were watching him as well. Gwyn Phillips had even got off his bike. Everyone was standing waiting for his answer. They were, he thought, like a pack of jackals closing in on some poor wounded fawn.
‘I don’t know why I did it,’ he snapped. ‘I just lost my temper, didn’t I? I just got sick of the stupid thing staring at me day after day.’
‘Yours didn’t stare,’ Simon couldn’t help pointing out. ‘Yours didn’t have any eyes.’
Robin turned on him.
‘Oh, go walk the plank, Sime! It’s all right for you. You don’t mind going around acting like a major wally. Nobody’s going to laugh at you, are they? Nobody’s going to tease someone the size of a gorilla for strolling about chucking a six-pound bag of flour under the chin, and singing it lullabies –’
‘Now look here, Foster –’
But Robin was too annoyed to stop.
‘It’s all right for you, you great big-fisted ape. Nobody tangles with you. But what about the rest of us?’
‘Yeh!’
Too true!’
‘Foster’s right.’
Simon spun round to face the gang of traitors behind him.
‘You’re not taking his side?’
But it seemed they were.
Wayne Driscoll was the first to testify.
‘Robin’s right. I’m sick of mine, too. I’m sick of carrying it about everywhere I go, and trying to keep it dry and clean. I’m sick of the way it gets dirtier and dirtier without me even looking at it! I’m sick of putting it down somewhere perfectly all right for half an hour, and then, when I pick it up again, it’s practically gone black. I tell you, I’m just about ready to boot mine in the