Flour Babies - Anne Fine [48]
The foot stuck out to trip him brought him down. He landed with a thud and a grunt, and lay, spreadeagled and winded, as the flour baby shot out of his hands, and slid twenty feet along the corridor.
The real voice put instant flight to the echo.
‘Ah! Simon Martin! Just the boy I need. Wednesday detention, of course, for running in the corridor. But, since you’re here, would you be so good as to drag this bag along to Dr Feltham’s Science Fair? There’s a good lad.’
And, patting the comforting little packet in his jacket pocket, Mr Cartright hurried off for his coffee and a quick smoke.
Simon had just hauled himself painfully into a sitting position when Dr Feltham spun around the corner with a bevy of helpers in tow, carrying the various parts of the Hughes twins’ hydro-electric power station.
‘Back! Back, back, back!’ Like a lion tamer, Dr Feltham snarled at the bulk of 4C who were fighting their way through the doorway after Simon. ‘Get back, boys! Back at once! Can’t you see this is expensive equipment?’
No sooner had he said the words ‘expensive equipment’ than he noticed Wishart’s Digital Sine-Wave Generator on the floor where, on Mr Cartright’s orders, Simon had abandoned it earlier.
‘What on earth?’
Then he saw the oscilloscope lying beside the radiator.
“This is outrageous!’
Then he saw Simon.
‘You! You there, boy! Lounging about on the floor! You!’
Aware of the crippling limitations of speech, Simon simply hung his head.
‘Monday detention!’ Dr Feltham ordered.
‘I’m booked up till Wednesday,’ Simon told him sourly.
‘Thursday, then!’ snapped Dr Feltham. ‘Now look sharp! That equipment should have been taken through to the laboratories well over an hour ago.’
Sighing, Simon scrambled to his feet, and looked round for someone to help him. But everyone in 4C had disappeared. Simon presumed, bitterly and rightly, that they had prudently begun to melt away the instant Dr Feltham started firing on all cylinders and dishing out punishment detentions. So, taking off only a moment to make a horrible face at his tormentor’s back, Simon thrust his own flour baby safely back up his jumper, and gathered up Wishart’s Digital Sine-Wave Generator and the oscilloscope. After shifting them about a bit, he managed to find a way of carrying both that left a few fingers free. With these, he grasped the neck of the heavy-duty bin bag, and slowly, slowly, stumbled backwards along the corridor, still balancing the equipment in his arms.
He found Mr Higham standing in wait behind the third set of swing doors in the science block.
‘About time!’ He snatched the oscilloscope from Simon. ‘This should have been here well over an hour ago!’
He consulted the massive Science Fair display plan Dr Feltham had pinned to the wall.
‘That thing of Wishart’s goes in here as well.’
As he lifted the Digital Sine-Wave Generator out of Simon’s arms, he noticed the third and last burden.
‘What’s in that bin bag?’
‘Flour babies.’
Mr Higham took another look at the master plan.
‘Flour babies… flour babies… Ah! Here we are!’ His face crumpled into a frown. ‘Bit early, aren’t they? Oh, never mind. Display on Table 18,’
In vain he waited for Simon to make a move.
‘Go on, then,’ he repeated impatiently. ‘Go and display them.’
Simon scowled. He was sick of people snapping at him.
‘How?’ he asked sullenly.
But Mr Higham had a bigger fish to fry. Pitkin’s Electronic Window Burglar Alarm was just being carried through the door.
‘For heaven’s sake, boy!’ he scolded Simon. ‘Do you have to be spoonfed? Just set the things out to look interesting, and write a label explaining what they are.’
So Simon grudgingly dragged the bin bag over to Table 18, which, he couldn’t help noticing with a flicker of resentment, was the one hidden away furthest in the corner. He pulled out the flour babies one by one,