their noise is crashing over my head like rough, grey waves and there’s nothing to hold on to. Then suddenly there’s a huge uproar and the world’s most massive food fight breaks out. Chips and sausages and lumps of fish and tomatoes and great blobs of lasagne are being flung from every corner of the room. Most of the kids are shrieking and shouting and going crazy. Everyone seems to have forgotten about me, they’re too busy with their own food wars. Cali’s eyes glitter at me and a daring smile tugs on her lips. My fingers dance around the edge of my plate, longing to join in. Nothing so outrageous as this ever happened atmy old school and I’m caught in the middle of excitement and fear. Cali smiles and throws a chip at me and I can’t resist it any more. I grab a handful and throw them back at her and then some fish and custard and pudding and we’re all getting covered in food. Custard is sliming its way down my new blazer and Cali has fish batter stuck in her hair.
We’re all laughing and screaming and then the big boy shoots an evil glare at me across the table. I quickly swallow my laugh and freeze and then stare right back at him. A blob of cold custard drips on to my cheek wiping the smile from my face. Alice wouldn’t believe this if she were here; she wouldn’t know what to do. She’d probably say, “Take responsibility, Libby” But I don’t care about what Alice thinks any more and I don’t care what the stupid big boy thinks of me. He’s not going to get away with bullying me, I’ve had enough of that from my dad. I pick up a big chunk of sticky sponge pudding and fling it through the air towards him. The only trouble is that Mrs Cobb, our head teacher, bursts into the room and gets in the way. The sticky sponge splats on her glasses and slides slowly down her face before it plops to the floor. Everyone is silent and my sponge-throwing arm iscompletely frozen in midair. Mrs Cobb grabs the back of my blazer and pulls me towards the door.
Inside her office I suddenly don’t feel so brave.
“Explain yourself, Liberty,” she says, rubbing cake crumbs off her jumper with one hand and leafing her way through a file, which I suspect is all about me, with the other. “There’s nothing in your notes here to suggest that you’re a troublemaker. Now tell me what happened?”
“Well,” I say, my voice wobbling, and wishing I were back, safe and well behaved, at my old school, “everyone was laughing about my accent and they were calling me ‘rich girl’ and I said that accents don’t mean anything about who you are, because they don’t, and anyway I’m not even rich any more, and then the whole dinner hall went crazy. I’m sorry Mrs Cobb, for causing any trouble.”
“Yes, well,” she says, “I might expect that kind of behaviour from some of the others in this school, Liberty, but not from you. I understand from your father that you’re experiencing a rather dramatic change in circumstance. So in this instance, I suggest you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up and we’ll put itdown to that and forget about the whole thing. I will, of course, expect you to join in the dining hall clean-up detention after school and then I don’t expect to see you back in this office for anything of this nature again. Do I make myself clear?”
Chapter 10
err, sorry, daddy…
I ’m drowning in a hot puddle of detention shame, which is melting me into a jelly of badness. I am now officially a bad person and although Mrs Cobb is putting all this down to my change of circumstances, I am not so sure. Maybe my dad is right; maybe I’ve been a bad person all along. I don’t want to look at anyone so I try to stick my eyes to the floor, but they keep disobeying me and following the very big boy who started all the shouting. I can see him over the other side of the hall scraping lasagne off the wall and he can see me. His shiny black eyes meet mine and he mouths the words “You’re dead” at
We’re all laughing and screaming and then the big boy shoots an evil glare at me across the table. I quickly swallow my laugh and freeze and then stare right back at him. A blob of cold custard drips on to my cheek wiping the smile from my face. Alice wouldn’t believe this if she were here; she wouldn’t know what to do. She’d probably say, “Take responsibility, Libby” But I don’t care about what Alice thinks any more and I don’t care what the stupid big boy thinks of me. He’s not going to get away with bullying me, I’ve had enough of that from my dad. I pick up a big chunk of sticky sponge pudding and fling it through the air towards him. The only trouble is that Mrs Cobb, our head teacher, bursts into the room and gets in the way. The sticky sponge splats on her glasses and slides slowly down her face before it plops to the floor. Everyone is silent and my sponge-throwing arm iscompletely frozen in midair. Mrs Cobb grabs the back of my blazer and pulls me towards the door.
Inside her office I suddenly don’t feel so brave.
“Explain yourself, Liberty,” she says, rubbing cake crumbs off her jumper with one hand and leafing her way through a file, which I suspect is all about me, with the other. “There’s nothing in your notes here to suggest that you’re a troublemaker. Now tell me what happened?”
“Well,” I say, my voice wobbling, and wishing I were back, safe and well behaved, at my old school, “everyone was laughing about my accent and they were calling me ‘rich girl’ and I said that accents don’t mean anything about who you are, because they don’t, and anyway I’m not even rich any more, and then the whole dinner hall went crazy. I’m sorry Mrs Cobb, for causing any trouble.”
“Yes, well,” she says, “I might expect that kind of behaviour from some of the others in this school, Liberty, but not from you. I understand from your father that you’re experiencing a rather dramatic change in circumstance. So in this instance, I suggest you go to the bathroom and clean yourself up and we’ll put itdown to that and forget about the whole thing. I will, of course, expect you to join in the dining hall clean-up detention after school and then I don’t expect to see you back in this office for anything of this nature again. Do I make myself clear?”
Chapter 10
err, sorry, daddy…
I ’m drowning in a hot puddle of detention shame, which is melting me into a jelly of badness. I am now officially a bad person and although Mrs Cobb is putting all this down to my change of circumstances, I am not so sure. Maybe my dad is right; maybe I’ve been a bad person all along. I don’t want to look at anyone so I try to stick my eyes to the floor, but they keep disobeying me and following the very big boy who started all the shouting. I can see him over the other side of the hall scraping lasagne off the wall and he can see me. His shiny black eyes meet mine and he mouths the words “You’re dead” at
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