Flour Babies - Anne Fine [47]
‘Thought you could get away with it, did you, Sime?’
‘Leading us on like that!’
“ ‘Best science I’ve ever heard”, you told us. “Dead brilliant”, you said.’
Once again, Simon unconsciously leaned forward and gripped his desk. No one believed the gesture stemmed from fear, and so for the second time that morning it proved his undoing.
‘What have you got in there?’
‘Open up, Sime!’
‘Let’s see!’
They were too many for him. Their combined weight, and the enthusiastic charge, toppled the desk and sent the lid flying open.
The flour baby shot out and sailed over the energetically fighting scrum. She flew high over the abandoned desks. Simon skidded beneath, tracking her flight, and managed to catch her, puffing flour from every pore, just as Mr Cartright came back to fetch his cigarettes.
Striding to his desk, Mr Cartright took a brief, irritable look at the disorder and the small cloud of flour settling on the far side of the room. After wasting time retracing his steps, he wasn’t in the mood to fritter away more of his precious break pursuing either truth or justice.
It was Simon he blamed.
‘Monday detention!’ he boomed. ‘For starting an unruly ball game in my classroom.’
Lifting the desk lid a few inches, he surreptitiously drew the tell-tale cigarette packet out from its hiding place under some papers in the corner. Then, seeing they were all trying to work out why he’d come back, he made a show of grasping the bin bag of flour babies, and dragging it out of the door behind him.
Simon stood staring at his departing back, outraged by the sheer injustice of the punishment. Sensing his temporary loss of concentration, Wayne dived for the flour baby. Without thinking twice, Simon spun round and hurled her in the air, giving himself enough time to leap on the seat of a chair, catch her safely, and hold her out of Wayne’s reach.
Hearing the scuffle from halfway down the corridor,
Mr Cartright strode back and caught Simon standing on the chair.
‘Tuesday detention!’ he bellowed. ‘For climbing on school property.’
Again, he turned to go.
Simon stood, encircled and besieged, as the rest of 4C crept closer, bent on the capture of his flour baby. Should he leap for the door now, before they expected him to make a move? They knew as well as he did that Mr Cartright would hear him pounding the other way down the corridor, whip round, and give him yet another detention for running within the school building.
But so what? Marooned on his chair, holding the flour baby high, Simon couldn’t help thinking it. So what? There were worse things in life than getting three detentions in a row. Why, even added up, they wouldn’t last longer than one of Hyacinth Spicer’s grisly birthday parties, and he’d survived seven of those.
So maybe he should just go for it. Give it a whirl. What had Old Carthorse said? ‘Aren’t you supposed to be one of the school’s sporting heroes?’
Yes, go for it!
In a rush of exhilaration, Simon suddenly astonished everyone around him by leaping for the door. The noise was tremendous. From desk to desk he leaped, leaving wobbly wooden legs rattling frantically, and chairs keeling over backwards. He held the flour baby high, and, as he jumped, what Mr Cartright said rang in his ears. ‘Do you want to know your problem, Simon Martin? You sell yourself too short.’ He sprang from Wayne’s desk to Russ’s in a clatter of flying pens and rulers. He sent Philip Brewster’s calculator flying. He vaulted over Luis’s desk entirely. And with one last tremendous bound, he made it to safety. He was through the door, punching the air with a fist. He felt as powerful as when, all those years ago, Miss Ness pinned the wonderful scarlet cloak around him for the nativity play, and he could practically hear trumpets. Who’d make a bad father? Not him, for sure. Maybe people like Robin Foster couldn’t stand the pace, and ended up putting an early end to their responsibilities. And people like Sue never even dared risk it. But as for him, Simon Martin, he wouldn’t be bad at all. In fact, he’d be better