Loudmouth Louis - Anne Fine [4]
I wiped away my tears. “What, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers?”
“That’s right.”
“But, who? ”
“Who do you think?” Mum said, grinning. “Me, of course.”
7 Sponsorship
THE FIRST THING we did was go after sponsorship. I made out the form.
NAME
AMOUNT
PER
HOUR
MAXIMUM
May Todd
20p
£1.50
Brian Todd
20p
£1.50
Mrs Havergill
20p
£1.00
In the first column, you put your name. In the next, you wrote how much you wanted to pay for each hour I kept quiet. And at the end you had to write the most you would give, even if I never spoke again.
“That’s only fair,” said Mum. “After all, you might have a terrible fright, and be struck dumb for ever.”
(”No such luck!” Dad said.)
First, I went round to Mrs Havergill next door, just for the practice.
“Please, Mrs Havergill, will you sponsor me to keep quiet all Friday?”
“How much is it?” she asked me.
“You get to choose,” I said.
She looked me up and down. “Ten pence an hour? And a pound maximum? What a pity you’re not doing a Saturday!”
She wrote her name down. I rushed back to Mum.
“It works! It works!”
“Only if you keep quiet,” she reminded me. “But we’ll leave that problem for now. One step at a time.”
Next day, I took my form into school. Everyone was thrilled.
Miss Sparkes put herself down for fifty pence an hour.
“Cheap at double the price!” she told me. Her eyes gleamed. “And if it works, we’ll do it again. Over and over! Why stop at a new library? We could have a new music centre. And a new sports stadium. You could be quiet every day, all term, until you’re out of my class!”
I gave her my hurt look.
“Oh, all right,” she said. “We’ll just see how it goes on Friday, shall we?”
Snatching the form from me, she signed her name.
All of my friends signed up. And lots of other people I hadn’t realized I’d been bothering.
“Does this mean you’ll be quiet all through Reading Time? If you will, I’ll pay. When you keep interrupting in Reading, we never get to the end of the story, and I hate that.”
“Is there any chance you’ll be able to stay quiet all through Maths Workbook? Then I might get to understand subtraction, and that would be brilliant.”
“How much is it to sponsor you all through Gym Class? Then we might get to use the ropes for once. I love it when everyone’s quiet, and we get to use the ropes.”
“I’ll pay if you promise to try extra hard all through Pictures from History on the telly. I love Pictures from History, but when you’re talking, I can’t hear.”
The dinner ladies laughed and laughed.
“You? Loudmouth Louis Todd? Stay quiet for even one hour? One whole hour?”
“I’m aiming for the whole day.”
“Oh, yes?” Both of them laughed some more.
“I should warn you,” I said, “I’m under new management, so it could happen.”
“And Leighton Buzzard Wanderers could win the Cup!”
They fell about laughing some more.
Then Mrs James put out her hand. “Give me your form, and I’ll sign up.”
She did. And so did Mrs Patel. I looked to see what they’d written.
£1,000,000 an hour, Mrs James had put. Maximum £5,000,000.
And Mrs Patel had written Ditto underneath.
Off they went, laughing.
Then I went after Mrs Heap, who was striding down the corridor. “Please will you sponsor me for the new library?”
“Sponsor you to do what, Louis?”
“Keep quiet.”
She stopped in her tracks. “What? Not talk? For a whole hour?”
“For a whole day, if I can.”
“You? Louis Todd?” She laid a hand over my forehead. “Are you feverish?”
“No,” I said. “I’m determined. I’m under new management, like Leighton Buzzard Wanderers. And I shall do it.”
She seized my form. “Louis,” she said, writing busily. “If you can keep quiet for a whole school day, I shall be very tempted to put up a plaque to commemorate the occasion.”
“A real plaque? Oh, excellent! What would it say?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Well, if you’re going to make a lot of money, how about: Silence was Golden?”
I whistled through my teeth. “Magic!”
Mrs Heap gave me a beady look.
“Yes,” she said. “Magic. And that’s what you’re going to need to